U.S. Politics, November 2024: GARBAGE DAY!!

"while the dems refuse to promise anything"

"just dems alienating their own base"

"you guys need to get this exasperated thinking out of your head"

"harris should have focused on those policies and portrayed them as a clear break from biden"

yeah yeah yeah

this is good

The Democrat and former Trump administration official Eugene Vindman has won his House race against the Republican and former army green beret Derrick Anderson in Virginia’s seventh congressional district, representing a key victory for Democrats as they cling to the last glimmers of hope of regaining a majority in the lower chamber.

I’m glad to hear that about Col. Vindman.

Oregon's 5th District looks like it will flip from R to D. That's a +1 in the right direction.

Sure, politicians are notorious for being shameless liars. But obv Trump is in a category all by himself. You’d think the felonies alone would be enough to put ppl off of him. I’m not sure it matters how brilliant a campaign anyone runs against him when there is a huge percentage of ppl who look at him, his whole presentation, and are like “Yes. That guy. I want him to be our ‘leader’”. Again, I don’t know how one even begins to fix that. There’s a sickness that is too deeply ingrained in the American psyche at this point.

I keep thinking about how empathy is getting programmed out of young men from a very early age these days and a politician who shamelessly runs on a platform without a shred of empathy is going to appeal far more to a lot of people than a more empathetic approach. A friend of mine who went to the far right, when I found his Reddit profile, it was like I was reading anonymous mocking letters from a cold gleeful serial killer.

I have to say - this election coinciding with the end of daylight savings is a real fucking bummer, it's already dark outside at 530PM PST

This feels like a revamp of 2016 debate.

Whatever Dems faults are, there's a big difference between voting for him in 2016 when he was a wild card and after four years of him in office.

Some voted because they think he'll fix the economy.

But people also voted for the guy who wouldn't let trans people "groom" their children. They voted for the guy who said he'd deport everybody (and immigration was one of the most cited concerns pre-election).

They voted for the guy who will own the libs. They voted for the guy who will give them a Federal abortion ban.

These voters weren't enough to win by themselves but they're enough that any victories are going to come by narrow margins. They aren't gettable.

Polarization of the voting populacw has been a thing for decades, but the number of voters who literally couldn't be moved on the right was smaller.

Like for the many, many flaws of the Democratic party, I feel like even the most exciting platform on the planet would have struggled based on these results. (Doesn’t mean we shouldn't try it, but I think we're giving most of the voting public too much credit. 75% of adults are irredeemable pieces of shit.)

Whatever Dems faults are, there's a big difference between voting for him in 2016 when he was a wild card and after four years of him in office.

he wasn't in office for the last four years and that makes all the difference.

I think everyone is going to be too exhausted to do the resistance lib Trump-all-day-everyday thing this time. “Oh, someone’s keeping a list of all of Trump’s lies? That’s nice. Oh, Melania looks angry in this video? Huh. Oh, some Trump staffer posted on a Nazi forum? Big surprise.”

Not me. I will only keep his cholesterol labs

Hopefully we have an emerging generation of libs to do this. (I feel like I’ve been doing this shit, with very brief interruptions, for nine years. Probably because I have. I don’t know if I can do it again.)

I feel like even the most exciting platform on the planet would have struggled based on these results.

The platform doesn’t matter when you’re the incumbent. You’ve been in power four years and now you’re promising me milkshakes and handjobs?

Even in terms of Dobbs there are diminishing returns to an issue when there’s no progress. Telling people there are structural reasons the President can’t fix abortion rights goes in one ear and out the other.

You’d think the felonies alone would be enough to put ppl off of him.

i see this sentiment brought up a lot and i don't understand what it is about history that would lead anyone to believe that people, in either party, are troubled by the idea of voting for a criminal

Or I guess more accurately becomes background noise like “Trump’s a fascist” and “actually the economy is good look at this line”

The platform doesn’t matter when you’re the incumbent. You’ve been in power four years and now you’re promising me milkshakes and handjobs?

Except many itt has been blaming her platform.

I am truly not trying to be smug but a lot of yall are making points that I was making for the past year or so and getting torn apart for.

*have

Also if we're gonna say she's the incumbent because Biden is, and therefore platform doesn't matter, while simultaneously saying she didn't do enough to distance herself from Biden...

Huh?

Xpost

We go around and around and around, we always have. And of course, we always have different opinions and point of view.

I have no way of proving this but feel convinced that the only way Harris/Walz could’ve won is if they had the power to cause the clouds to part and money to fall from them.

And even then, maybe not.

The economy sucks and the Democratic Party was the problem and people were mad.

We were probably always gonna lose this, even if we wouldn’t have believed it.

Anyway I can't really do this debate rn but I'm not gonna storm off, I'll let yall do it

Ignore me, I need to tap out of all this and go to bed.

Also if we're gonna say she's the incumbent because Biden is, and therefore platform doesn't matter, while simultaneously saying she didn't do enough to distance herself from Biden...

Those aren’t contradictory? Democrats were the incumbent, underlined by Harris’s inability/refusal to break with Biden.

She came out for legal weed, how much impact does that have with four years of the Presidency already and two with unified government?

my argument is that because biden was such an unpopular incumbent, her only path to overcoming that was presenting herself as a clear break from biden and offering meaningful change. she failed to do that despite even biden reportedly backing the idea and instead doubled down on being four more years of biden and the failed clinton strategy of winning over imaginary moderate republicans.

maybe biden's failings were just too much and there was absolutely no way she could have won, but that's impossible to know - she certainly didn't run the best campaign possible though

as Jon Stewart said last night...whatever you think is gonna happen after this, it probably won't. nobody could've predicted Obama in 2004. after Romney lost, Republicans said they needed to start appealing to Hispanics, and they got a guy who started his campaign by saying Mexicans were criminal rapists. and he won! once Hillary lost, Dems needed to go younger and less establishment...and they got Biden. and *he* won! after Jan 6 we thought it was the end of Trump for good! the next four years are gonna be nuts. almost certainly not in a good way. but you never know.

She came out for legal weed

my impression is she barely even gave this any attention which kinda baffles me - am i right on this?

I am truly not trying to be smug but a lot of yall are making points that I was making for the past year or so and getting torn apart for.

i think we generally agree on most things but i don't post in these threads much normally

one thing I do kinda object to (and maybe nobody is actually saying this) is the absolving of Trump voters in a way, arguing that it was Harris's job to win them over and she failed. this is true, obviously, but Trump is not like other Republicans. he is a rapist, he is cruel, he is vengeful, he is racist, he is a criminal, he openly fantasizes about violence against his enemies, he has no plans for anything other than "Trump will fix it"...the hell you will. this is well beyond the banal evils of a normal Republican. I think that is what is making this so hard to swallow. voting for him the first time, I get, kinda. he was still more Celebrity Apprentice than Hitler. but now? did people not see what went on with January 6th? or did the fact that he never suffered any consequences for it absolve him?

I guess that's Trump's superpower. nobody takes him seriously, even though it's abundantly clear that we should. it makes it really hard to communicate the threat he poses. like the comment he made about Liz Cheney having guns pointed in her face - I didn't really think that was a direct threat, nor was the "shoot through the reporters to get to me" thing, that's just the way he talks, the argument is a guy running for President *shouldn't* talk that way, especially when it's a guy who wanted to send the National Guard to rough up citizens and directed a mob into the US Capitol. but people don't see it that way, because our politics have been devalued so much. it's all a fucking reality show now. I blame the media.

Republicans said they needed to start appealing to Hispanics, and they got a guy who started his campaign by saying Mexicans were criminal rapists

Paid off eventually

and I'm not kidding about that, the way the media has framed every single thing through Trump's POV is, I think, a real disservice to the American people. we talk so fucking much about Trump and what he really means. reporters have written thousands of columns finding Trump supporters to figure out what makes them tick. and the result is always incomprehensible nonsense. why not do one fucking story about the people whose lives have been negatively affected by Trump? why do they never interview people like me to figure out why I voted for Harris? why is it not front page news that women are dying horrible deaths as a direct result of something Trump said "everybody wanted"? they've done this for 9 years and now the entire country revolves around these freaks. the media is so obsessed with figuring out why they're so racist that they don't bother to write about who that racism is actually affecting.

frogbs, i agree with you. i voted for Harris despite my utter loathing for her politics because i loathe Trump more. did she run a bad campaign? yes, imo. did Trump run a more repulsive one? absolutely, but this country is full of repulsive people.

We go around and around and around, we always have. And of course, we always have different opinions and point of view.

I have no way of proving this but feel convinced that the only way Harris/Walz could’ve won is if they had the power to cause the clouds to part and money to fall from them

Raymond, she had a billion dollars.

She was too timid. Had she said something like, "I will force Bibi Netanhayu to the negotiating table and stop him firing on terrorists!" she would have provoked "Bibi" into responding and gained Dearborn and probably pissed off the Dem establishment; but if she had any interest in gaining the cohort that didn't vote for her en masse, then an answer like that would've helped.

But again she seemed groomed by the Dem donor class, who, I'm sure, didn't devise "weird" in the early July/August days as a strategy; it's so simple and effective it was beyond them.

We gotta go more reactionary!!!!

Here’s my pitch, one iPhone screenshot’s worth of principles for Common Sense Democrats to reform governance in the blue zones and be competitive in the red zones — delivering a coalition that can win on health care, reproductive rights, the safety net, and quality for all. pic.twitter.com/uCXUC4Jr8L

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) November 7, 2024

"Climate change is a reality to manage" wtf does that even mean. That's what we're already doing, managing the reality, it's not going great.

Amazing to look at the Harris campaign and conclude that the problem was its wokeness.

They would win the votes of the Atlantic Monthly staff at least

Democrats running on a warmed over Paul Ryan economic plan isn't going to get the job done even if the other side is running a racist and fascist.

Start running people who can empathize with the anger in the electorate and transform that into a plan.

Start running people who encourages people to beat Nazis until the Nazis are too afraid to vote

they pretty much ran that campaign except for i guess 9 but knowing yglesias he probably means something really stupid and awful by it

9 also being the only one where i don't immediately know what awful thing he's trying to dogwhistle

I think 9 is a shot at teachers unions

Teachers unions among others, fuck that slimy piece of shit yglesias

Damn you’re right, I honestly thought that maybe he meant utility providers on that one but I was being way too generous

Also such weird language, "unique position of virtue" what?

The perennial anger that somebody somewhere might be looking down on you is such a right-wing thing, a real tell for Matty.

1. OK, fine, start with wage increases directly indexed to corporate profits
2. OK, fine, nationalize the insurance industry
3. "Normal people" engage in "antisocial conduct" all day every day, you're just pissed at people who yell at you in restaurants
4. Cool, could you let the cops know?
5. What does the phrase "bodily autonomy" mean to you?
6. What do you do for a living again?
7. You're just pissed off that it's not illegal to say "Palestine" (yet)
8. There is no god
9. OK, fine, nationalize the internet and install fiber broadband everywhere there are paved roads

Once a week a university professor must wash the feet of a drywall guy

yeah the whole thing is bad but #6 is one where it's like "not sure if every single one of your personal hang-ups should be a foundational principle of a political party"

Obviously it's not the worst thing on that bullshit list, it just struck me as the oddest one