Part I: Democrats' risk-aversion helped to re-elect Trump
Part I: Democrats' risk-aversion helped to re-elect Trump
Part 1 of a 3-part autopsy on the Harris campaign. Plus, a GiveDirectly fundraiser!
I tried to make an AI summary of the article but it somehow thought that Biden beat Trump in 2024 so I'm throwing that away.
This is part 1 of a ongoing 3 part series looking at the Harris campaign. Mostly based on her campaign management's recent podcast appearance(s) and statistics from the election results.
Know what helped to re-elect Trump?
American's inability to responsibly inform and engage themselves in our political affairs.
Talk to an average American. They're clueless. The vast majority couldn't give a factual 2 minute speech regarding their party/candidate preferences without regressing to emotional outbursts not based in fact.
We can keep analyzing what the Democrats did wrong or we can accept that Americans are what's wrong, because they don't care to inform themselves responsibly and are easily influenced by pretty blatant fear-based propaganda.
Yes. Voter intimidation, fraud, help from foreign entities, lies, and subterfuge.
Also any attempts to limit those things are met with bad faith "freedom of speech" arguments.
I don’t disagree but this conclusion doesn’t seem very actionable. What can be done to solve this problem? Is it more useful to try to equip Americans with a better understanding of these issues or simply navigate around their ignorance better?
Fight propaganda with propaganda. Dems need a “talking point memo” each week and everyone needs to drive home that simple weekly message across all media. They also need to send out direct mail during elections with SIMPLE scary messages. Things like “Trump wants to take away your Medicaid” and “Average grocery bill goes up $65 under Trump”.
American's inability to responsibly inform and engage themselves in our political affairs.
I don't agree, I still put the majority of the blame at the feet of the DNC. They wouldn't run on progressive policies, but also refused to compromise with the electorate on anything.
Almost 66 million people voted for Hillary in 2016. Over 81 million voted for Biden in 2020, the campaign where Biden's team worked with Bernie's team to bring some progressive-policy to his platform. Yes, four years of Trump and the pandemic helped that voter turnout, but I'd argue it was more the progressive platform.
And in 2024, just under 75 million voted for Harris, who ran a centrist, status quo campaign, and thought "We're not Trump" was enough to engage voters. Bernie was right, Americans want change, and being promised nothing more than a continuation of the status quo, people stayed home.
And before anyone says "The voters knew the price and their hubris cost all of us, I hope they're happy!" Why couldn't the DNC compromise? Harris lost Michigan by less numbers than protest voted in the primaries, so why couldn't the DNC change course on Gaza? They were the ones telling us the threat that Trump is, they were the ones urging us to give them money to fight (and as soon as they lost, stopped fighting), they were the ones telling us they know best and that they're going to shift right when we were asking them to move left.
I get it, 77 million people voted for Trump, and that is a problem. But, roughly 90 million Americans didn't vote, so instead of pushing the party right and parading around with Cheney in an attempt to win over Republicans, then demanding our vote anyway (I voted Harris, fyi) because "Trump fascist, Harris not fascist", maybe they could try... Popular, progressive policies that will resonate with all Americans? Policies that may actually make those in the "both sides are the same" camp to say, "Y'know what, they're actually not the same!"
It's a crazy thought, but it could work.
Idiots inhale lies like they're free ice cream and can never be dissuaded from believing in the most insane horseshit.
The only thing that can change in this equation is the Democrats. A third party won’t happen. Republicans won’t change because they’re winning.
So unless the Democrats figure out how to jangle keys in front of people to get them to pay attention long enough to vote we’re fucked.
Talk to an average American. They’re clueless.
You're blaming the victims when you should be blaming the indoctrination system, capitalist media, nationalist ideology, etc. These people (including myself) are literally born into a brainwashed cult. Blaming them only reinforces it. We need to break them out of it instead.
Agreed. People keep blaming Democrats and Kamala and Biden for all kinds of things, but they are up against a tidal wave of bullshit and dark money and foreign interference.
Yes, we had inflation, but there were all kinds of indicators that things were going well as far as the economy. But if the "liberal media" keeps saying how absolutely terrible everything is, some people fall for that. And they sure did a lot of that, probably to be "objective" and report "both sides", but really to run their horse race, and, most likely, do everything possible to tip things in favor of the qons.
Nate Silver is trash.
He's not just trash, he's a degenerate gambler who doesn't even understand gambling as well as he thinks he does.
"Risk-aversion"? It's cowardice or complicity or both.
"there was also an unwillingness to ruffle feathers with other progressive constituencies who might have gotten upset by a bolder approach."
"bolder" than the strategy of campaigning with Liz cheney and telling progressives "Im talking"? And losing ground with every single group except college educated whites? She was too nice to progressives and thats why she lost, huh Nate.
Go eff yourself Nate Silver. what an utterly Idiotic analysis. I think we need to be done taking Nate Silver seriously.
Pretty sure Tim is not going to like the use of this image, and there will be a takedown request.