this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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Last I saw something like 55% of the populace looks like it voted for trump. In these crazy pants times I do not see bernie winning.
55% of the vote, 20% of the population. Democrats stayed home.
55% of the electorate who care which is sorta more sad sounding.
...rather presumptuous that non-voters were democrats...
Compared to last election, several million were people who recently voted Democrat, yes.
About 16 million, I believe.
Stayed home, or had their votes discarded because of hanging chads? We'll never know because there was no challenge issued.
Confront reality, please. Harris couldn't replicate past voter turnout because she made no wide, progressive promises like Medicare for All, which the working class loves.
Many who voted democrat in 2020 voted republican in 2024 because the billionaire class convinced them democrats caused inflation when democrats said they would tax billionaires.
Imagine what they would do to Bernie.
No, blue voters didn't vote for Republicans. This is the second thread I see you posting this misinformation when it's not remotely true outside of ONE demographic (Latino men). Left of centre democrats just didn't show up to the polls (and they had no reason to, tbh).
You can look up the turnout numbers yourself, it's literally headline news.
Edit: nvm, you seem to have it out for Bernie and think Biden/Harris was a fine ticket even when Dems were asking Biden to step down. I see your game.
I understand your point, but preventing another 4 years under the walking orange disaster is a pretty good reason.
I agree with you (hence why I finally got my dual citizenship and voted) but a lot of people can't see beyond their own needs. An existential reason was never going to be enough to galvanize them.
You are right of course. It doesn't make it any easier to stomach.
Congratulations on your citizenship, for whatever that's worth these days. Honestly, I'm emotionally affected by this election, and I'm going to say a lot of things that aren't necessarily indicative of my overall feelings about this country. For all of our faults, it's still a country of amazing opportunity and privilege compared to a lot of other countries on this planet. I still love it here, despite being at odds with over half of my fellow citizens on a regular basis. So really, and genuinely, congratulations on becoming a citizen, and welcome to the fold.
Thank you! I'm very lucky in that I was claiming what was already a birth right through my parents, so my citizenship was really not as tough as people actually immigrating and going through the whole intrusive process.
I still don't consider the US my "home" per se, not like my birth country, but I've met some wonderful people, and my state is pretty blue, so I have no doubt my governor will be fighting the orange clown tooth and nail for four years. That being said, man the political atmosphere here can be...well, let's just say I'm getting used to the "American exceptionalism" aspects of the culture.
Idk how long you've been here, but this is not normal. This is very wrong, and it's disturbing how many people don't see how far we've fallen. Politics has been an ever-present and disturbing part of our lives since 2016. It wasn't like this before. But when an attention seeking narcissist entered the race, the media outlets decided to pounce upon his every worthless word, rather than ignoring him like the incompetent joke that he is. They gave him an outsized voice when he should have none, and he's caused nothing but harm ever since.
I don't know what the future looks like from this day forward. It could end up being nothing more than a 4 year grift (or however many years clown show lives if less than 4), or it could end up being a serious challenge to our democracy. I'm not looking forward to it, but it is decided, so here we go.
That said, I know a lot of refugees who came to this country 45-50 years ago and their lives & kid's lives are immeasurably better than they would be in their home country. For reasons like that, I'll always fight for what America represents. I'm hoping some day soon Americans remember our real ideals and start living them more truly.
Politics was ever-present before that, it's ever present in human society, it's just that some privileged middle class people choose to ignore it and largely succeed when their NPR ASMR isn't blasting them with "ORANG MAN BAD" every hour of the day to brow beat them into caring.
It was not, but I'm not going to sit here and argue with a kid about things I lived through. And no, I wasn't middle-class, I was deeply poor.
Perhaps you're conflating "the electoral dog and pony show" for "politics" then, because if you were "deeply poor," it's hard to imagine not dealing with politics. Easy example, the cops are a pretty political institution, acting as the agents of establishment powers. Hell, the enclosure of the commons and the resultant practically monopolistic effect that landlording has is also pretty political, liberals just don't talk about it (other than Adam Smith).
It wasn't shoved in our faces 24 hours per day. Of course we were affected by the laws which govern us, but outside of much shorter election cycles, the government wasn't something that normal people discussed every day, all day. The politicians did their things in the background and we lived our lives. You cannot understand how exhausting this new reality is unless you've experienced what it was like before what you referred to as "the dog and pony show".
What you're describing is a low consciousness of politics, whether due to desperation, poor education, or whatever else, since those moment-to-moment experiences generally could productively be described as political.
My argument, and you might actually sympathize with it, is that the only fundamental difference here is the media screaming at people about this nonstop. Seriously, lineral people who like to fancy themselves as "staying up to date" with political goings-on are basically in an abusive relationship with the media that complete contorts their ideas of the past and future to promote the "this is the most important election of our livetimes" bullshit that they've done three elections in a row now. It's not what the politicians are doing, it's this screaming from the media that is frankly wrecking the mental health of the people who listen to it regularly.
I actually do remember what it was like before then and a few months into it starting, whatever you might say of my decision making, I just disconnected for two years because I already hate Trump and don't need a thousand headlines a day that ORANGMANBADORANGMANBADORANGMANBAD. It ended up being a good opportunity to learn about politics from a historical perspective and get some distance from this shit (and ultimately, that was a major factor in my becoming a communist, but we aren't here for that).
Right on, yes we can call it that. So the average person existed in more of a low consciousness state back then. And why wouldn't they? The government systems operated as they do, and there wasn't much an average person could do to change those things in-between election cycles.
You're right that most of this is the media's doing, and then the rest is having attention whores as leaders. Notice that Biden wasn't clamoring for headlines every day of his four years in office.
Now with social media people equate complaining online with activism and believe they're somehow helping by yelling into the void non-stop. Or they're just overwhelmed with the constant bombardment from the 24 hour news cycle, and constant interaction with people across the globe, and need to yell into the void for sanity, or companionship, or whatever. I'd put myself into that latter category these days, or at least these last few days.
I tuned out a few years ago myself. I was sick and tired of seeing Trump's face and hearing his name all the time. I got off all of social media, bought some magazine subscriptions, and spent more time outdoors. It was wonderful. But I don't know many other people doing that these days. It's not like the old days where you can just be offline and have a vibrant social circle, and do your thing. A significant portion of the average person's life -or at least the average person around me- is spent online. So eventually I came back online. I do actively avoid politics outside of elections though, and I have a pretty healthy block list going.
Thanks for engaging. I think we understand each other and aren't quite as different as I thought from your original response.
Do you think that privilege comes from the enlightenment of our politicians? From the population as a whole just working harder than in other places? Is it perhaps conjured from magic? Or would you consider that it was privilege derived from the well-documented and brutal exploitation of the global south?
According to the numbers: independents who voted democrat in 2020 voted for Trump this time. A major reason for this was who they felt was responsible for inflation.
Ok bro, and what about the DEMOCRATS that didn't vote this time around??
How did Harris lose 10-15 million votes + Trump lost 2 million votes from 2020 if EVERY INDEPENDENT from 2020 voted Trump?
All anyone has regarding that is annecdotal. But in my experience many friends, family, coworkers who voted democrat in 2020 were convinced by republican ads that democrats were to blame for the inflation caused by Covid and price gouging.
We literally have the numbers, it's called "counting the ballots". What in the post-fact world?
This has to be a troll.
Voter turnout was a record high never before seen in 2020 because of the pandemic.
Less people voted overall in 2024 because no pandemic.
Not rocket science.
What no political theory does to a mfer
Trump offers a fake anti-establishment for people who are rightfully mad at the state. Only a working class party can direct that towards actual improvement.
Problem is obviously that a working class party wouldn't be funded and backed by billionaire capitalists the way the duopoly is; that's the point of liberal "democracies" — keeping capitalist parties in power.
This is why citizens united is basically the worst thing to come out of the millenia. So far. In the US at least.
I’m not impressed by this analysis.
I really cannot see how anyone who would vote for trump would vote for sanders. its like apples and poison ivy. I don't get those who don't vote in a democracy either. I hate living in this eroding time period but way the hell glad to be living when democracy is considered the standard form of government. On tope of it we get to vote for the office, and get to vote for people to run for the office, and can sign signatures to get people on the ballot to run for office. I feel like people really don't have a good sense of human history.
We literally saw it happen. It is well documented. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanders%E2%80%93Trump_voters
Yeah I just don't see it. They could not be more different to me. I have no idea what measure these people are using that they would flip between those two. so I get they exist but its so outside my perspective I can't grok the individual who is like that. Its like flat earthers for me.
They couldn’t be more different to me, either, but what we think is irrelevant. Whatever their reasons, and no matter how alien those reasons might be to you and me, significant numbers of people really did flip.
That's how the petty bourgeoisie rolls.
Bernie would raise wages, Trump will give tax cuts. The promise is that people will have more than the minimum. Biden/Harris were telling everyone the economy is great when we all knew it wasn't and we're all worse off than we were 4 yeats ago.
Look at the material circumstances.
(Just... set aside that Trump's tax cuts mostly go to the rich. It's the narrative that sways voters more than the reality.)
I mean it was doing well vs what was given to them. Its still flabbergasts me the comments of trump for the economy and that biden caused inflation. Inflation started being unusually high in april 2021 and biden took office in january. He did not cause the inflation from 3 months as president. I mean if our system of government needs to run on narratives and not actual truth then I guess trump is the least of our problems.
The inflation stemmed from pandemic-justified price gouging on groceries and private equity purchases of rental properties. Government absolutely could have addressed this- even just continuing pandemic level food stamps would have helped immensely, but Biden ended it.
Biden pushed to take money and support away from people so he could declare the pandemic was over.
That's truth. Recognize it.
No its not. Interest rates do effect inflation and they are supposed to be lowered due to economic pressures but trump brought them to zero after obama got them back to 3 or 4 percent and he did this before covid. Thus when covid hit lowering rates was not something else they could do. continuing food stamps would help people but would certainly have increased inflation. Now given that interest rates are not the only reason and price gouging was certainly part of it and possibly the major part. They did take action on that though by going after the gouging which is action that tames inflation rather than exacerbates it. He could not have made better moves in realtion to inflation while trump could not have made worse ones.
That's the common narrative around inflation. It's wrong.
The pentagon lost (not spent, just straight up had go missing) 21 trillion dollars. Inflation didn't spike.
I've studied college-level economics. I've worked in a shop that dealt in gold and silver. I've been looking into interest and monetary policy since the 2008 crash. What I've learned: day-to-day costs of fundamentals of living is not directly connected to interest rates. It is directly connected to what capitalists charge for them.
The CEO of Kroger admitted to price gouging. Yieldstar has been fucking up the rental market for years. Gas spikes in price during elections where a Democrat is the incumbent.
You can follow the standard explanation if you want, but don't act like it's a mystery how a lot of people weren't happy.
Despite your credentials I highly disagree about supply and demand. That 21 trillions was not folks buying bread and eggs. It won't explode inflation as production will increase but its going to effect it.
Ok, keep feigning ignorance, I guess.
You speak like economics is a science with agreement across the board instead of a collection of different philosophies with limited enough evidence that at best there are more accepted and less accepted ones that change during different time periods.
Oh, that wasn't my intention. I disagree with Chicago School supply-side economics. I also think it's fucking dumb that DNC leadership pointed at economic indicators that left out cost of food and rent and said "things are great!" Economics in the west has been seen as fairly monolithic so I am pretty strident in my refutation of that view. I'm also certain about the real-world pressures that lower class Americans have to face- rent and food are more expensive than ever, while wages are stagnant and benefits are slashed.
In a roundabout way, I'm trying to speak to your original comment: what voters see as similar between Trump and Sanders is that they want to change the economic policies that have left average Americans with less money.
Im certainly not chicago and view myself as keynesian but I take it a bit further and believe currency has no value except when used in a transaction. One thing that annoys me is repbulicans love to say how tax cuts will stimulate the economy and raising them will slow it down but when we have an overheated economy and inflation they don't propose raising taxes as a solution or reducing debt and going further and making rainy day funds. Democrats to really they just don't push the stimulus side os much either.
Um. I have seen it and they are just antiestablishment. Period. No other guiding light than that.