US Politics, September 2024 -- “I’m Not Going to Apologize For Posting a Joke”

Aimless vmic being loudly, authoritatively and condescendingly wrong ITT while being obtuse about how elections work.

tbf lots of general elections feature candidates who did not even get 80% of the votes in their primaries.

I think undecided voters are largely a myth, and to the extent they do exist it's not really worth deciphering their politics. I do think however you have a lot of people who are mostly unplugged leaning one way or the other, who don't really care to take the time now to request a mail-in, who might show up on election day but they might not. They know along with the rest of us that their individual vote isn't really worth much. In order to vote you're taking an hour out of your day most likely, also it's a work day, people have kids and soccer practices and all sorts of shit to do, so when it comes down to it if one side is very motivated and the other is saying stuff like "well, granted he is a lunatic...", I do think that makes a difference, and hopefully a difference that isn't accurately captured in the polls

I think there are plenty of Haley voters who will vote for Trump bc at the end of the day they are Republicans and voted for her not out of some principled Never Trump stand but simply because they preferred her to him (while preferring both of them to a Democrat).

As far as I know (because we don't discuss it anymore) my parents despise Trump but will vote for him because he's not a Communist.

otoh, Alberto Gonzales (!) just endorsed Kamala: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/09/12/alberto-gonzales-kamala-harris-endorsement-00178746

We spend a lot of time on this thread speculating about what most voters in particular groups will do when elections are decided at the margins rather than by most voters. A handful of states matter and to win them you either turn out more of your base, flip people who aren’t strongly committed, or both. That’s it. It makes zero difference if die hard Trump supporters will ever change, because there aren’t enough die hard Trump supporters to win swing states alone.

Yes, but as polarization continues, the uncommitted voters become fewer and fewer and turning out your base becomes the whole ball of wax.

a sticky problem

One reason for optimism beyond the polls: trump is relying on people who don’t usually vote and their field office situation seems like a shambles.

its interesting re polarization how its driven by the gop theyre very extreme where the dems are always trying to depolarize via centrism but the people dont care they want that sweet polarization baby

otm

the quirks of the electoral college makes polarization more favorable to the republican candidate

Aimless vmic being loudly, authoritatively and condescendingly wrong ITT while being obtuse about how elections work.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive)

thank you for saying this, I'm so sick of it

still a lot of voters out there to get if you can get them...

"About two-thirds (66%) of the voting-eligible population turned out for the 2020 presidential election – the highest rate for any national election since 1900."

xp nah i'm still a fan. i think aimless values clarity in a way that may come across as condescension but is not that. but this is more my feeling than an analysis of posts.

if Harris has really activated the Democratic ground game and Trump's campaign is still focused on vacuuming up as much money as possible, I'm not sure how Trump wins this one? Haven't seen many stories on the subject. Are the dark money PACs picking up the slack for the GOP with voter registration and the like?

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/trump-campain-election-2024-susie-wiles-chris-lacivita/678806/ covers their (pre-biden) GOTV plan this year. not clear they have the capacity or money to change the plan given biden dropped out and a trump blowout now seems out of the question.

I feel good about Harris's chances of winning the popular vote, it's the electoral college math I worry about

There were a LOT of moments during the debate — esp in the back half when he knew he was beaten and he was just making that toddler-grinding-out-a-crap face — when Trump was nodding at statements Harris made, even ones directly attacking him. A 60-second super cut of those would make a wonderful campaign ad.

I mean yes if she started speaking the way Trump does it would be very worrying

if Harris has really activated the Democratic ground game and Trump's campaign is still focused on vacuuming up as much money as possible, I'm not sure how Trump wins this one? Haven't seen many stories on the subject. Are the dark money PACs picking up the slack for the GOP with voter registration and the like?

I think undecided voters are largely a myth, and to the extent they do exist it's not really worth deciphering their politics

I don't think they're a myth at all! People say "oh who is still undecided at this point?" But an undecided voter may have only become undecided 8 weeks ago, or this morning. And one of the candidates has only been in the race for a few weeks, which changes the landscape for a lot of people (particularly the I hate them both camp)

We always come back to this point. Of course undecided voters exist! They may preen for the NYT reporters who call the same ones ten times i three months but they're the ones who don't engage with politics while still voting for the candidate who most aligns with their "views."

there are not many undecided voters who will actually vote, and it's not clear how to win them over (probably something different for each one), but the election is decided by 20,000 votes in 3 states, so there are enough to matter.

imo there arent many truly undecided voters, there prob arent even that many fakly undecided voters, theyre also by definition people who are hard to convince to vote for you, more reason to rile up the base

presumably riling up the base doesn't increase turnout among the base (they're the base), but it does result in 1) positive media 2) a sense of optimisim/viability that causes low propensity voters to turn out.

Also: media use "undecided" and "unaffiliated" and "independent" indiscriminately. If an "undecided" voter has voted for Republicans for 20 years, it might be time for Curious NYT Reporter to wonder if he should take her word for granted.

pure speculation here but undecided voters might find base riling interesting too, might want to ride the wave

presumably riling up the base doesn't increase turnout among the base (they're the base), but it does result in 1) positive media 2) a sense of optimisim/viability that causes low propensity voters to turn out.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, September 12, 2024 10:18 AM (eighteen seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

this might just be a semantic difference but riling up the base does increase turnout people are more likely to act when theyre riled up

makes sense. also in the case of the democrats in particular, riling up the base is difficult to do without also advancing policies that are especially popular with (otherwise low propensity) young voters.

hence their dilemma!

I heard an “undecided” college student on NPR yesterday who was disappointed that the debate didn’t focus enough on her #1 issue, global warming. Which, with Kamala waffling on fracking, fair enough. But which of the two parties is more vocally calling any attempts to mitigate it a scam? She could vote for Jill Stein, I guess.

dems prob could be propagating a wave election and bolstering their base with new young voters here if they cared to, oh well

The younger voters I know are way more excited about Harris than the fossil but they're not stupid: they know the DNC has rebranded Joe Biden into a younger, female-er candidate. And if they vote for her -- most say they will, whereas they certainly were not voting for Biden in May -- they know they're voting for youth and vibes. It's not that Harris has a better affordable housing policy than Biden, it's that her freshness makes them think she does -- and they go along with it.

(That was my impression after a chat last week).

lagoon consistently otm about the pathetic center-right Harris platform. i found it hard to fully get on board with the debate afterglow. great to see anybody get under Trump's skin that way, and I'm definitely happy that it seems more likely now that he'll lose. but half the time i was yelling out at the tv in vain hopes of hearing a policy idea i could actually get excited about (beyond abortion rights obviously). minimum wages? M4A? union rights? a serious climate agenda? she might as well have been John Kerry up there, versus where the party and the country are today.

would have also been nice to hear a full-throated condemnation of the hateful anti-immigration and anti-trans rhetoric for what it actually is (beyond "divisive" etc.). the Israel and "border" answers were depressing in more predictable ways.

basically: can we skip ahead to her winning this year, and then further ahead to her getting primaried from the left in 2028?

But which of the two parties is more vocally calling any attempts to mitigate it a scam?

‘Neither of them is going to do anything about but the Democrats will look sadder while they boil the seas, isn’t that enough?’

And then we nominate Pete Buttigieg, America's mayor

In 2028 we'll all have to rally behind Harris again as she fights off some MMA fighter or ICE agent turned politician.

a serious climate agenda?

*Sigh* this is the absolute dumbest shit. Combined the IIJA and the IRA are the most comprehensive, massively funded climate change legislation package ever - certainly the best American legislation I've ever seen passed in my lifetime, and by far the best deal that was ever going to make it out of congress - the amount of activity it is driving is off the charts in terms of tax credits, grants, permitting, manufacturing, incentives. People don't understand this stuff because it's really in the weeds/difficult to soundbite but as someone who works in this industry and is seeing billions and billions of federal dollars directly driving the construction of clean energy and EV infrastructure, so much that we can barely keep up, I'm like "bitch please" when I hear this complaint.

is it like uh stopping the globe warming

In 2028 we'll all have to rally behind Harris again as she fights off some MMA fighter or ICE agent turned politician.

― There’s a Monster in my Vance (President Keyes), Thursday, September 12, 2024 10:41 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

unfortunately true, i think really the partys electeds as a whole need to be replaced with better people, like if bernie had won last cycle the party wouldve been undermining him at every turn, they wouldve fought him harder than they do republicans

is it like uh stopping the globe warming

is your dumb posting stopping global warming

wow calm down bitch

even the fracking thing is a stupid red herring. The point of fracking is that it's replacing coal (which is horrible in terms of emissions, local environmental impacts etc.) with natural gas, but even there it's primarily a transitional fuel because renewables + batteries are loading up on the grid and are becoming cheaper and cheaper every day. 80% of the grid generation capacity waiting to come on-line at the moment is renewables + batteries. That is an asbsolutely insane figure compared to just a few years ago, and that is all down to market shifts and smart policy from the Biden/Harris admin.

so is it going to stop global warming or not

I'm not voting for Harris unless she vows to invade every country on Earth and forces them to stop all their carbon emissions

I didn't know this was your line of work, Shakes. Cool stuff.

not giving a shit is in some way a rational response to a huge problem that no in power is trying to solve xp

there are powers trying to solve it, stop saying this crap

it helps no one