🦄 The Casual 2024 Presidential Election

[NovoRei]

The denial, blaming and dooming from democrats seems fitting to their snob stereotype. Just like some prior discussion in this topic about "LatinX", traditional labelling disguised as inclusion for political benefits.

As much as Trump gained rejection in 2020 and lost because of COVID stressing the popularity of whoever was in charge, the dems comparably lost much worse now because there was no real governmental challenge. In fact there were opportunities like the conflict in Europe/ME and the immigration issue itself. This loss represents (even if it's just to a few dozen thousands votes in some select states) a loss of faith in the current democrat government and candidate more than whatever "you chose it wrong" blaming and "its going to be a bad choice" dooming.

 

[zenparadox]

What were Harris's economic policies? I recall her mentioning grants to various groups, small business startup loans...or some bullshit. Nothing about addressing inflation.

Please stop peddling nonsensical ideas that people care enough about that to go out and vote. Most of the people moaning about inflation as reasons for voting Trump or not voting Harris, wouldn't even understand a good policy to address it.

They just demonstrated conclusively that policy means sweet fuck all.

Harris was an overwhelmingly better candidate than Trump.
Yet she'll fall well short of Bidens vote.

The USA is sexist above all else, it seems.

Can't have a woman running the place, can we. Better to lose democracy than let a woman run it.

News at 11.

 

[Daedalus213]

Yeah. I'm guessing that 80% of people who just voted couldn't explain what's happening in Gaza and Israel with any accuracy, and of the remaining 20%,, most just don't care that much.

My general sense is that people were voting on... I hate saying vibes. But they will not commit to critically thinking about policy. Various exit interviews focused on stuff about how Trump seemed authoritative, ready to protect the country, and Harris was "too nice". That's probably mostly sexism, conscious or subconscious. But it's also about marketing and branding. People want to be told that they just need to pick the no-nonsense guy who says it like it is, and he'll magically figure stuff out.
Nuance is the enemy.

Also, in conversations with people: people hate the concept of government. This might just be here in New Hampshire- Live Free or Die- but there's a knee-jerk reaction against the government doing anything, and especially taxes. This is not even a partisan thing, IMO, for low info voters. It is axiomatic that taxes are bad and government is bad.

Which is incredibly frustrating, because these people I'm talking to have no idea all the things that government is actually doing for them (and if you mention, say, roads, they'll say "but the roads are terrible!" assuming that, somehow, without a government, you'd get good roads, not no roads).

Someone who promises the world while also promising that without all that icky "government" stuff is obviously selling a load of horseshit, but again: critical thinking skills are not there.

And finally, the media, particularly the right wing media, are still exceptional at whipping up fury over non-issues, especially non-issues that involve minorities, like trans people. Because, again, that's easy to grasp: those liberals want perverts you don't understand in your bathrooms.

 

[gabemaroz]

Also, in conversations with people: people hate the concept of government.

You can thank Ronald Reagan for that one.

 

[Stern]

I would say most of the commentators on here performed far worse than the polls.

That's hardly a surprise. We're almost all very anti-Trump, so there's been huge amounts of wishful thinking and highly motivated reasoning going around.

 

[Spunjji]

I think this is really where any energy should be focused now. The Trump true believers never wavered. What happened to the other side? I highly doubt Israel even factors in.

I have a strong suspicion that an element of it is fatigue. I got a lot of shit last time I shared this perspective on Ars, but the fact is that I keep hearing from people who are just dog-tired of voting Democratic and then having the Dems half-measure and high-road their way to the same set of problems. Meanwhile the ratchet pulls inexorably rightward every time Republicans get even a sniff of power.

These are not always stupid people. Many of them know the detailed technicals reasons for why this happens, and they know that Republicans cheat and lie and steal this into being. But whether they do or not, they're tired of being asked to forsake chunks of their own principles to vote for people they don't really like and then having this be the outcome anyway, seemingly because some other nebulous group of voters didn't like the candidate being a woman, or couldn't be fucked to inform themselves about her policies, or some other dumb reason. The burnout is real and it's hitting hard.

I should note that of the people I personally know holding this opinion, all voted Kamala anyway. They're just left now wondering what else they're supposed to do, because they're not getting what they want and they're not even getting harm reduction either.

Whatever turns out to be the case, while I agree that Trump voters are to blame for electing Trump, the DNC still has to answer for why so many of its potential voters stayed home instead of electing Kamala. My personal take is the problem started a long time back, but Biden trying to go for a second term is probably where things started to go wrong for this specific election. (Again, I know the stats are bad on challenging the incumbent, but what we ended up with was the worst of both worlds).

Anyway. Long post. My sincere commiserations to my US friends and to anyone else who's going to be directly affected by this nightmare. Case in point - I'm UK based, but a friend of mine is housing two queer refugees (one Ukrainian, one Russian) who are terrified by this.

 

[zenparadox]

If Republicans get the trinity that's it for democracy in the USA.
My only hope for tomorrow is the Dems win the house, else it's all over.

 

[arcite]

The hug emoji is getting a lot of use today.

 

[poochyena]

Yea yea....I know that. But stuff that matters to middle class voters, mortgage payments, healthcare/education costs, car payments, insurance, credit card interest rates....all of those things are WAY up.

Ok and when has it not been way up? When did it last go down?

 

[blindbear]

I am thinking I should just go to the office early today to avoid the traffic. Fairly sure I am going to crash mid-day…..

 

[gabemaroz]

he DNC still has to answer for why so many of its potential voters stayed home instead of electing Kamala. My personal take is the problem started a long time back, but Biden trying to go for a second term is probably where things started to go wrong for this specific election.

My theory would be the super delegate system that sidelined the Bernie Sanders populist wing. The DNC has a history of trying to satisfy one internal faction calling for 'pizza' and another calling for 'burgers' by offering pizzaburgers to the dissatisfaction of everyone.

Kamala Harris was a pizzaburger, I'm sorry to say. She failed to get traction during the 2020 primary and won the Vice Presidency off of Biden's strength as a candidate (and Trumps then abject failure). Obviously she didn't fire up people to the tune of 15 million stay at home voters.

 

[denemo]

Right now Trump is sitting at 71 million votes out of about 334 million people. So let's be honest with the numbers. About 21.2% of Americans wanted this. 19.7% didn't. And ~60% either had no choice or refused to make one (and therefore defaulted to the desires of the people who could and did choose).

There are around 231 million eligible voters. Not 334 million.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/eligible-voters-by-state

 

[herko]

/// OFFICIAL MODERATION NOTICE ///

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The election is over and everyone’s had their say. Emotions are running high. Thread over.