2024 U.S. Elections | Trump wins

Redplane said:
It's sad to say almost but the Dems need their own Tea Party like movement or some serious efforts need to take place to gather some of the most powerful voices in business and politics to come together and say: look, we are done with the extremes of both parties and we are going to stop at nothing to create a third party. Yes I know it's been tried before but I'd argue most half arsed, and yes I know this may very well hurt the Dems even more than the Rs at least initially - but honestly - what is the alternative now?

Just look on this forum, or listen to the pundits who lay blame with the Dems themselves for contrasting things; too pro Israel, too pro Palestine, not enough of either, too focused on climate, not enough focus on climate, too much in the pocket of the wealthy, not enough aligned with big capital, too much gender politics, not enough of it, too lenient at the border, too harsh at the border, and the list goes on and on. Very few on the right ever have to deal with that level of scrutiny.
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If you asked me about a future path in 2016 or 2020, the answer was easy. Bernie and his politics. Economic populism, social liberalism (with an old white man to hide it). Under the surface, try to make a long-term majority with the generational gift of the post-2008 left-wing youth vote, by marrying them to new social spending programs. Social security and the NHS showed you can create a generation of loyal voters if you give them something very big and tangible.

It's gone now. Those young voters now either have wealth, or have seen disappointing economic results from 12 years of democratic presidents (so will no longer believe in democratic policies). First-time voters now are not as left-wing as millennials were. Latinos, the other demographic group he had appeal with, have broken with the Democratic party too. The man himself is very old and is now tainted by association as a part of the unpopular party, no longer an independent - his mistake, but also part of an impossible balancing act to win a primary where the party base is partisan.


The alternative to Bernie was what was eventually tried: Chuck Schumer - "For every blue collar voter we lose in western PA, we will gain two moderate Republicans in the Philly suburbs." This strategy won in 2020. Even this time, the suburban vote was the part that held up best. In 2022, it was educated and suburban whites, angry about abortion, that prevented a red wave. But it seems there is a ceiling to Democratic potential among those suburban voters. And that campaign has an explicit cost - the "blue collar voter". It turns out, this doesn't just mean rural whites, it also means Latinos...


It doesn't mean all elections are lost. Trump isn't some overwhelmingly popular guy. If he does high tariffs, he is doomed. If the raids and camps are violent and deadly enough, people might dislike his immigration policy too. If voters still have to see homeless people on the street and the bus, his tough-on-crime perception will suffer. So Dems can win again.

But to create a durable long-term electoral coalition? That I don't know. And with social media stratification, and the total dominance of the right online, they have the chance to build a permanent coalition like a Berniecrat party would have, 8 years ago.
 
DM07 said:
Wow. This has been a real eye opening result. I have been a liberal for years and often ostracised in my friends and family groups in a deeply conservative Indian society, and this election result has finally made me realise, that liberalism will only work if people are well off. Do not expect the majority of people to be empathetic, good hearted, willing to pay higher taxes for the improvement of society if they themselves are in a bad position. Liberalism has grown in the western world post world war 2 because of a high standard of living. It was easier for politicians with better policies to win earlier because the media and the opponents played fair. But now in the post truth world where there are no restrictions on spreading baseless propaganda, liberalism will not work if people are going through economic hardship. I feel America is socially and culturally left enough, they dont want more DEI, pronouns, or open immigration. They want their economic problems fixed first. They want strong immigration laws, safer streets, and no trans-women in the women’ restroom. And while I agree that these might not be Kamala’s policy but they were still used by republicans to attack her. So yeah drop the liberalism.

Someone wrote a big post about how electing the Rock would have made the dems win the election. And while I agree with the fact that a lot of Americans are dumb enough to treat the presidential election as some sort of WWE contest I think that it doesn’t would hold true next time. It doesn’t explain how Biden an old white man with ordinary oratory skill won 2020. The elections come down to driving turnout, and 80% of the electorate doesn’t read long form articles on economist or FT. They dont read policy documents by candidates, they dont listen to the experts. The left needs to up their media game, target youtube and tik tok, build their own media chamber and go to right leaning podcasts and news channels and hold their grounds. Prepare more people like Pete and Newsom who can hold their own on Fox and counter right wing propaganda.

I dont think Harris ran a bad campaign, she was simply a bad candidate who was dealt and even worse hand. She did the best she could, but the dems now need to wake up and smell the coffee. Running centrist politicians with economic policies similar to Tories in Britain isn’t going to energise your base. If people want right wing economics they will vote republican. What they need is someone who can deliver for the working class people, and have good oratory skills to actual make people trust him. They had the perfect candidate in Bernie but decided to feck him for pro establishment candidates, which allowed Trump to get in and start the MAGA movement. The Dems need to be the working class party and work for the poor. Get rid of identity politics which gave them terrible candidates like Hillary and Kamala. The Latinos or the blacks or the LGBT people arent going to vote for some token candidate above their own financial well being.

The dems need a new Bernie. While AOC has a lot of potential I dont think Americans will vote in a woman especially a minority. But overall they have to allow the leftists a greater say in policy making, support an increase in minimum wages, provide free health care and education, and work for the betterment of the working class. Ofcourse they need to figure out how to do that without sounding communist. The next election will be easier to win anyway with Trump and Vance being extremely incompetent people making lives harder for everyone but the billionaires.

One for thing that they need to do when they eventually have power again is actually implement changes which helps them to hold onto power. They have ruled for 12 of the last 16 years and have done nothing to increase their grip on power while two trump presidencies probably end with a 7-2 supreme court. They need to expand the court, give state hood to DC and Puerto Rico, and get rid of the filibuster. They should have gone after Trump much earlier, immediately after J6, and made it impossible for him to run. They should have replaced RBG and Sotomayor when they had the chance. The base feels that despite voting for the Dems, the dems never end up using the power to make long term significant reforms and then after every four years they come back and cry saying how this election is the most important even and how democracy is in danger. They need to stop being the bigger party and give up on going high when the republicans go low. Punish the corrupt republicans, make fun of people like MTG and Bobo, call out the Russian stooges in the republican party and make the American people realise that stupidity and a lack of scientific temper doesn’t have a place in the US politics.

I feel a lot less depressed this time than I did in 2016. The dems can either use this chance for a complete reset and become the party of the working class. Or they can continue being the party of the liberal elite, Hollywood, and the billionaires, but that only works if first the economic condition of your citizens is in a good place.
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First they need to admit they're wrong. That's the hardest part
 
Raoul said:
All true, except that Harris wouldn't have won even if she had the benefit of a full campaign. She was simply a low quality candidate who was unable to garner sufficient votes. Not only did she face demographic challenges (mainly related to gender), she also wasn't able to adequately communicate a vision that resonates with a majority of the voting public.
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Raoul, I've been following your posts on politics for a while and you have a great handle IMO on the insanity that American politics has become. I've met both of these people, Donald and Kamala and although everyone here agrees that Donald is a clown you are correct that Kamala was a low quality candidate. But in fairness she did answered the challenge very well considering all things, but she couldn't overcome the fact that she is a black female and in this culture that's two strikes against you starting out of the gate. She also never developed an economic message that resonated with middle America to overcome the resistance from white middled men who abhorred the idea of a black woman having that much power over them.

It's going to be a while, at least a decade I would think, before the Dems nominate another woman.

And for what little it's worth, Walz proved to be a useless pick as veep.
 
lex talionis said:
Raoul, I've been following your posts on politics for a while and you have a great handle IMO on the insanity that American politics has become. I've met both of these people, Donald and Kamala and although everyone here agrees that Donald is a clown you are correct that Kamala was a low quality candidate. But in fairness she did answered the challenge very well considering all things, but she couldn't overcome the fact that she is a black female and in this culture that's two strikes against you starting out of the gate. She also never developed an economic message that resonated with middle America to overcome the resistance from white middled men who abhorred the idea of a black woman having that much power over them.

It's going to be a while, at least a decade I would think, before the Dems nominate another woman.

And for what little it's worth, Walz proved to be a useless pick as veep.
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I think Harris did as well as she could have given her skillset and the condensced timeline. The entire national Dem apparatus rallied to support her and she did raise a billion dollars, only to get trounced by Trump by nearly 100EVs. If anyone watched her campaign performance and results in 2019, what transpired this past week wouldn't have come as a particularly big shock.

As for Walz. Great guy, but clearly in over his head at the national level. Shapiro wouldn't have helped Harris either, since her loss was strictly down to her own lack of effectiveness as a communicator.
 
berbatrick said:
If you asked me about a future path in 2016 or 2020, the answer was easy. Bernie and his politics. Economic populism, social liberalism (with an old white man to hide it). Under the surface, try to make a long-term majority with the generational gift of the post-2008 left-wing youth vote, by marrying them to new social spending programs. Social security and the NHS showed you can create a generation of loyal voters if you give them something very big and tangible.

It's gone now. Those young voters now either have wealth, or have seen disappointing economic results from 12 years of democratic presidents (so will no longer believe in democratic policies). First-time voters now are not as left-wing as millennials were. Latinos, the other demographic group he had appeal with, have broken with the Democratic party too. The man himself is very old and is now tainted by association as a part of the unpopular party, no longer an independent - his mistake, but also part of an impossible balancing act to win a primary where the party base is partisan.


The alternative to Bernie was what was eventually tried: Chuck Schumer - "For every blue collar voter we lose in western PA, we will gain two moderate Republicans in the Philly suburbs." This strategy won in 2020. Even this time, the suburban vote was the part that held up best. In 2022, it was educated and suburban whites, angry about abortion, that prevented a red wave. But it seems there is a ceiling to Democratic potential among those suburban voters. And that campaign has an explicit cost - the "blue collar voter". It turns out, this doesn't just mean rural whites, it also means Latinos...


It doesn't mean all elections are lost. Trump isn't some overwhelmingly popular guy. If he does high tariffs, he is doomed. If the raids and camps are violent and deadly enough, people might dislike his immigration policy too. If voters still have to see homeless people on the street and the bus, his tough-on-crime perception will suffer. So Dems can win again.

But to create a durable long-term electoral coalition? That I don't know. And with social media stratification, and the total dominance of the right online, they have the chance to build a permanent coalition like a Berniecrat party would have, 8 years ago.
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Perhaps the time of running "Politicians" is over. Maybe the Dems need to look outside the party. Said it before, but Mark Cuban checks every box. Or my boss, Jamie Dimon.

JD Vance will be anointed successor for 2028. We all know he is a career politician. Give the GOP a taste of their own medicine and run a celebrity businessman - but without the history of bankruptcy and sexual abuse.
 
Mike Smalling said:


Thought this was pretty enlightening and also a bit frustrating.
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Thanks for sharing. I respect her choice, and so should the democratic party and its voters. Come back down to the real world and find your platform and be consistent about it. The holier than thou attitude does not attract exactly attract voters either. Put the suit to the side a bit and throw some blue collar on for a minute.
 
gaffs said:
No, my argument isn't "well we see how bad the fascism get" because i really dont think Trump is going to enact a fascist agenda. He really doesn't care how he governs. He is a simple person really. He wants the status and attention, he wants people kissing his ass and he wants to go play golf.

My concern wouldn't be around Trump - it would be by those around him who are far smarter and wish to enact their Project 2025 agenda to give far more power to their next, much smarter and engaged leader. Replacing long term bipartisan workers in government agencies with MAGA loyalists is a major concern.

Plus, we have seen it before. Trump made a mess of his first term and he got the boot - when COVID came he was shown to be totally incompetent. There are signs that the economy could be an issue given the last jobs report showed only 12k new jobs were created. If he starts rounding up immigrants, it will play horribly - remember Elian Gonzalez?

Conservative priorities will always be around funneling more money to those at the top. He did very little in his first term. He cut medicare and medicaid and signed a tax bill that did nothing for his core voter. Oh, and he achieved 2% of his signature policy to build a wall on the southern border. He and his administration were shown to be innept and that was when he staffed up with career professionals.

If he doesn't deliver, which he wont, the Republicans wont get back in. I dont think the Dems need a seismic shift to to regain power. We will see what happens.
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Even if Trump makes an almighty mess of his second term - and it's very much on the table, no doubt -, the reasons people flocked to him will not magically disappear into thin air. Trump is a symptom and as long as the underlying problems aren't addressed, trumpism will return in one form or another, despite the occasional temporary reprieve.
 
gaffs said:
Perhaps the time of running "Politicians" is over. Maybe the Dems need to look outside the party. Said it before, but Mark Cuban checks every box. Or my boss, Jamie Dimon.

JD Vance will be anointed successor for 2028. We all know he is a career politician. Give the GOP a taste of their own medicine and run a celebrity businessman - but without the history of bankruptcy and sexual abuse.
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Trump has an everyman appeal most of the other billionaires lack. You are in on the joke, he tells you how it really is, etc. And the Dem base is simply different than the GOP, even if both are chasing the same swing voters (suburban whites and Latinos, now).

Dems pushed Mark Cuban hard this time. Didn't work. In focus groups, their most popular economic policy was the (probably unworkable) grocery price controls and punishment of grocery CEOs. Which she spoke about for a month, and then stopped, because she was chasing CEO cash.




Also - I do hope this is the end of the Cheney-fication of Democrats. There's no constituency for it. The moderate Republicans that wanted to leave after Trump, left in 2020. There's nothing more to mine there, at least, nothing that responds to Dick and Liz Cheney.
 
Mockney said:
This is folly IMO. This is a global thing that’s been building since 2008. It’s happening in every country. The Fukuyama end of history neoliberalism didn’t work. It ran out of things to deregulate and sell off, and now 2 going on 3 whole generations are going to be poorer than their parents. You can’t just keep trying to force that back onto people constantly rebelling against it without some major rejigging of how everything works. And if your argument is “well we see how bad the fascism gets, then they’ll come crawling back” then that’s exactly the kind of accelerationist attitude leftists would be crucified for FFS. Why not just wait till we have another really big war so you can do the whole reconstruction/New Deal thing again?
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Unfortunately something like that will need to happen for any major change. Throughout history big course corrections haven't happened without some big event (often catastrophic) preceding it. Humans don't really like to move too much away from the status quo. Neo-liberalism over the past 5 decades or so has given too much power to a handful of people and they are not going to let it go.

It's funny how this discussion about the Democrats need to change or move rightwards have started since the result. Not too long ago people/pundits/analysts thought that we were living in some progressive renaissance and the GOP would need to change their ways or become irrelevant. How the demographic changes will make even states like Texas move towards the Democrats, forget the purple states. Now the opposite is being said.

I guess over-analysis and over thinking is part when an event like this unfolds. Although, Trump winning is a not that huge a surprise it is still a shock to the system. I bet you the Dems won't do as much soul-searching as they need do (or people want them to) and will still win or come close to winning the house in 2 years time. That's how democracies works. People get fed-up with one party, anti-incumbency sets in and other set of crooks get power. Rinse and repeat.
 
Self-interest has always been driving humanity, but egoism has gone into overdrive in recent decades, the common good has become less and less important for people.

Now, the US was never much of a social democracy, but more so pre-Reagan, in Europe it took longer to unravel, but right-wing ideology is taking over everywhere, and i don't see a way back.

As long as something doesn't affect people personally, they don't care anymore, if people could opt out of the healthcare systems to save themselves on taxes, most would these days.
 
I've probably made the mistake too, and it's easy to do it because of the red swings everywhere...
but the vote totals show this was more of a failure of base turnout than of defections. that needs to be remembered first and foremost. trump kept his 70m, she dropped 10m from biden's 80. it's possible that many of the swings we see in the data (youth and latino) are just the blue parts of those bases staying home, so making the overall group red.

...

Siorac said:
I wonder how much of that is because of Trump cultists whose sole aim was to go and vote for Trump, and couldn't give a rat's arse about anything else on the ballot?
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it's 50-50 between that and people angry at biden (and, so, his VP). want to underline, biden has 38% approval. the lowest ever was bush leaving office, who had 30ish. and knowing that the country is 50-50 permanently, that tells you how many of his own voters were sick of it.
 
Siorac said:
Even if Trump makes an almighty mess of his second term - and it's very much on the table, no doubt -, the reasons people flocked to him will not magically disappear into thin air. Trump is a symptom and as long as the underlying problems aren't addressed, trumpism will return in one form or another, despite the occasional temporary reprieve.
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I agree, the reasons people have flocked to him wont disappear, so those concerts need to be addressed. But them major reason they did was because of inflation and in four years time, they shouldn't be a concern. Had there been no post COVID inflation, Harris would have won, im convinced of that.

As long as there isn't a constitutional change, then Trump cant run again. Can anyone else replicate what he has? Or will they look like a crappy covers band, in comparison? De Santis tried it and failed.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Despite being a similar age to you and both of us dads (I think?) I guess I’ll go in to bat for the middle aged men you want to distance yourself from. I’m almost certain that not one redcafe member has tried to claim those factors are anything other than low down the list of reasons for the Dems failing. But it is ok to discuss all the possible reasons, right?

The “woke fatigue” tangent only started as a spin off discussion from a couple of words in a list of reasons for the Trump victory, almost all of which are obviously more relevant to the result. And all of which have already been discussed at length in this thread.
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Yeah it's one discussion point in the context of a culture war that clearly helps define the republican tribe. There are lots of other factors in it too. I'm, not overplaying it but I can see how it useful it might be if you want to detach a traditional group of supporters from their base.
 
berbatrick said:
Trump has an everyman appeal most of the other billionaires lack. You are in on the joke, he tells you how it really is, etc. And the Dem base is simply different than the GOP, even if both are chasing the same swing voters (suburban whites and Latinos, now).

Dems pushed Mark Cuban hard this time. Didn't work. In focus groups, their most popular economic policy was the (probably unworkable) grocery price controls and punishment of grocery CEOs. Which she spoke about for a month, and then stopped, because she was chasing CEO cash.




Also - I do hope this is the end of the Cheney-fication of Democrats. There's no constituency for it. The moderate Republicans that wanted to leave after Trump, left in 2020. There's nothing more to mine there, at least, nothing that responds to Dick and Liz Cheney.
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Yeah Harris' campaign stopped doing what gave them the surge and tried to chase the disaffected Republican who instead just voted Trump or not at all. Neutered Walz and went back to Hillary 2016.
 
berbatrick said:
I've probably made the mistake too, and it's easy to do it because of the red swings everywhere...
but the vote totals show this was more of a failure of base turnout than of defections. that needs to be remembered first and foremost. trump kept his 70m, she dropped 10m from biden's 80. it's possible that many of the swings we see in the data (youth and latino) are just the blue parts of those bases staying home, so making the overall group red.
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This isn't to pick on you specifically berba, and your posts today have been really good. It's just a though I had earlier when reading something similar: is it really a 'base' if you have to work on turnout? Or is it just turning out and swinging any part of the mass of undecideds and not-so-engaged that exist, regardless of demographics (but obviously their location will always matter somewhat)?
 
berbatrick said:
Trump has an everyman appeal most of the other billionaires lack. You are in on the joke, he tells you how it really is, etc. And the Dem base is simply different than the GOP, even if both are chasing the same swing voters (suburban whites and Latinos, now).

Dems pushed Mark Cuban hard this time. Didn't work. In focus groups, their most popular economic policy was the (probably unworkable) grocery price controls and punishment of grocery CEOs. Which she spoke about for a month, and then stopped, because she was chasing CEO cash.




Also - I do hope this is the end of the Cheney-fication of Democrats. There's no constituency for it. The moderate Republicans that wanted to leave after Trump, left in 2020. There's nothing more to mine there, at least, nothing that responds to Dick and Liz Cheney.
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I agree, Trump has got the appeal, but he cant run in 2028. He may even be brown bread by then.

Agree, those policies may have been popular, but not possible. Cuban wans never going to trot out lies about that.

Cuban being a surrogate is very different from him being candidate. I think he did a great job for her, but a surrogate is never going to win an election for a candidate, so you cant say "it didnt work".

Agree - the Cheney partnership was very much Trump specific. That has gone now, unless Trump really does rip up the fabric of democracy.
 
gaffs said:
Perhaps the time of running "Politicians" is over. Maybe the Dems need to look outside the party. Said it before, but Mark Cuban checks every box. Or my boss, Jamie Dimon.

JD Vance will be anointed successor for 2028. We all know he is a career politician. Give the GOP a taste of their own medicine and run a celebrity businessman - but without the history of bankruptcy and sexual abuse.
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A banker will never be US President
 
berbatrick said:
I've probably made the mistake too, and it's easy to do it because of the red swings everywhere...
but the vote totals show this was more of a failure of base turnout than of defections. that needs to be remembered first and foremost. trump kept his 70m, she dropped 10m from biden's 80. it's possible that many of the swings we see in the data (youth and latino) are just the blue parts of those bases staying home, so making the overall group red.
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We will have to wait a couple of months for that data - Pew Research will publish a post election report.
 
Alemar said:
And how many votes would it require?
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50, if/when republicans abolish the filibuster.

Mitch says it won't happen, but it's not his party anymore, his influence is pretty much gone.
 
gaffs said:
Perhaps the time of running "Politicians" is over. Maybe the Dems need to look outside the party. Said it before, but Mark Cuban checks every box. Or my boss, Jamie Dimon.

JD Vance will be anointed successor for 2028. We all know he is a career politician. Give the GOP a taste of their own medicine and run a celebrity businessman - but without the history of bankruptcy and sexual abuse.
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Jamie Dimon will lose New York and Illinois, and it's not a joke. Wall Street is toxic both on the left and right. I don't think Cuban works either, he had his stint with Shark Tank but as a celebrity businessman he's not on Trump level. Gen Xers, the strongest group for him, grew up with him being ubiquitous in TV and magazines, the personification of wealth and success. He was on front pages of tabloids. he was on the talk shows, he was in Home Alone, his name plastered on grand buildings. He wasn't just any successful businessman, he was a staple in American popular culture.

And I would also refrain from making any sweeping statement about 28. In 04 Dems were similarly broken after Kerry's loss and they were all saying they needed to ape the strong man patriotic rhetorics of the GOP with a salt of the earth folksy candidate to win back the heartland, then 2 years later they won back Congress for the first time in more than a decade and 2 years after that won a landslide with a black Chicago lawyer whose middle name is Hussein. It's far more likely that the menagerie of clown posse that is Trump's circle will overreach and torch the country to the ground with their free hand. What they need to do now is start canvassing for candidates at all level, trying to figure out how to make inroads into the podcast/streamer/influencers world, and developing their own media ecosystem, and trying to safeguard whatever they have left at state and federal level so elections still mean something, Trump world is already talking about federal mandated election processes.
 
Mike Smalling said:


Thought this was pretty enlightening and also a bit frustrating.
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It's an understandable human perspective in that it wasn't working for her and she wanted a change that Kamala Harris didn't represent or offer, and for better or worse, Trump did. Incredibly frustrating that Harris and her team completely missed all of this.

Now I wouldn't have the faith that Trump wouldn't do stupid shit, and downplay Jan 6th, but I can understand and relate to the feeling of a wider economy calming down, but not feeling that it's necessarily helping me personally and struggling more on a day to day basis than I was before.
 
MTF said:
This isn't to pick on you specifically berba, and your posts today have been really good. It's just a though I had earlier when reading something similar: is it really a 'base' if you have to work on turnout? Or is it just turning out and swinging any part of the mass of undecideds and not-so-engaged that exist, regardless of demographics (but obviously their location will always matter somewhat)?
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Thanks and yeah, no idea really.
I guess, a lot of people fired up against trump, during his presidency, didn't have the motivation once he was gone. Don't know if they count as ... al-Qaeda (the literal translation!)
 
Morty_ said:
50, if/when republicans abolish the filibuster.

Mitch says it won't happen, but it's not his party anymore, his influence is pretty much gone.
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I think Murkowski Romney and Collins are decently sure bet for no votes, which means you need another one, maybe someone like Thom Tillis who is up for reelection in 26?

And even if they torch the filibuster, will it be the worst thing in the world? The blowback might be enough to win back the House, and if Dems get back to power they won't have to deal with it anymore.
 
surf said:
The republican view of life in America is uncomplicated - sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-illegal-immigrant, isolationist, low taxes, maximum freedoms (with some exceptions like abortion and contraception), self-sufficiency, private enterprise, etc. The message is straightforward and it resonates.
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This is perhaps the long term worry for democrats; from the voting data it appears to be winning over certain groups i.e. young Latino and Black men, to this view. These are the danger signals going forward for the Democrats.
 
gaffs said:
No one would have said a "TV businessman" that had filed chapter 7 bankruptcy, 6 times would have been the US President.

Dimon doesn't talk like a banker. He is a no filter, straight shooter.
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I dunno about that. Trump appeal was cultural. He feed into a lot of the cultural grievances of white America. That's the whole point of MAGA movement. Without that cultural appeal he's just another rich white dude. Dems have to be wary going with the Dimon, Mark Cuban route unless they can show they can resonate with voters the same way Trump did.
 
Morty_ said:
Self-interest has always been driving humanity, but egoism has gone into overdrive in recent decades, the common good has become less and less important for people.

Now, the US was never much of a social democracy, but more so pre-Reagan, in Europe it took longer to unravel, but right-wing ideology is taking over everywhere, and i don't see a way back.

As long as something doesn't affect people personally, they don't care anymore, if people could opt out of the healthcare systems to save themselves on taxes, most would these days.
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With Neo-Liberalism and Objectivism being the guiding principles what else can we expect?
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
Jamie Dimon will lose New York and Illinois, and it's not a joke. Wall Street is toxic both on the left and right. I don't think Cuban works either, he had his stint with Shark Tank but as a celebrity businessman he's not on Trump level. Gen Xers, the strongest group for him, grew up with him being ubiquitous in TV and magazines, the personification of wealth and success. He was on front pages of tabloids. he was on the talk shows, he was in Home Alone, his name plastered on grand buildings. He wasn't just any successful businessman, he was a staple in American popular culture.

And I would also refrain from making any sweeping statement about 28. In 04 Dems were similarly broken after Kerry's loss and they were all saying they needed to ape the strong man patriotic rhetorics of the GOP with a salt of the earth folksy candidate to win back the heartland, then 2 years later they won back Congress for the first time in more than a decade and 2 years after that won a landslide with a black Chicago lawyer whose middle name is Hussein. It's far more likely that the menagerie of clown posse that is Trump's circle will overreach and torch the country to the ground with their free hand. What they need to do now is start canvassing for candidates at all level, trying to figure out how to make inroads into the podcast/streamer/influencers world, and developing their own media ecosystem, and trying to safeguard whatever they have left at state and federal level so elections still mean something, Trump world is already talking about federal mandated election processes.
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Agree, the candidate often comes from nowhere. Obama and Trump are the best examples of that.

Hopefully the primary process will select a candidate that fits the moment, whatever that may be. This year, the number one issue was the economy, where Harris was never on terra ferma.

I disagree with you on Trump. Yes, very much part of the culture, but he was always seen as a bit of a joke businessman. He wasn't even taken completely seriously on The Apprentice. Maybe impressions of those in red states were different back then.

I do like Cuban on the face of it. There is no BS from him and if youre talking about Dems getting into the podcast space, he was everywhere stumping for Harris. Came across very well with Andrew Schulz - he can go into those spaces as he can talk with authority on any topic.
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
I think Murkowski Romney and Collins are decently sure bet for no votes, which means you need another one, maybe someone like Thom Tillis who is up for reelection in 26?

And even if they torch the filibuster, will it be the worst thing in the world? The blowback might be enough to win back the House, and if Dems get back to power they won't have to deal with it anymore.
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Romney is retiring, so we will see how it goes.

I don't see much blowback happening if they do it.
 
oreon said:
I dunno about that. Trump appeal was cultural. He feed into a lot of the cultural grievances of white America. That's the whole point of MAGA movement. Without that cultural appeal he's just another rich white dude. Dems have to be wary going with the Dimon, Mark Cuban route unless they can show they can resonate with voters the same way Trump did.
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No Dem candidate is every going to tap into cultural grievances of white America because one of the biggest grievances is that the white American is being replaced by immigrants. Trump even managed to tell black people that immigrants are now coming for "black jobs".

You know a topic that didn't come up once in either campaign? AI and Automation. A bigger threat to workers in all industries than immigrants will ever be.
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
I think Murkowski Romney and Collins are decently sure bet for no votes, which means you need another one, maybe someone like Thom Tillis who is up for reelection in 26?

And even if they torch the filibuster, will it be the worst thing in the world? The blowback might be enough to win back the House, and if Dems get back to power they won't have to deal with it anymore.
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They'll gut social security, obama care, medicare and welfare. And maybe this is what is needed for voters to realize Republicans don't care about poor or working class people
 
gaffs said:
I think she was a good candidate. Her favorability numbers showed that. She was able to connect with people on many topics, especially abortion, but her weakness was her lack of authority on the economy and her connection to Biden and the unwillingness to show voters any substantial points of difference. WIth such a short campaign, it is very hard to iron those things out on the fly.



Totally agree. Exit polling showed that 70% of people said the country is going in the wrong direction and 45% of people had experienced recent financial hardships.

The economy is great in many respect, peoples 401k's are booming. The problem is, they can't tap into that money so month to month, when wages dont keep up with costs, people start feeling.

You will feel inflation differently depending on whether you are a homeowner or renter. Many people (me included) are on a sub 3% mortgage rate over 15 or 30 years. Everyone remortgaged during COVID when rates were at an all time low. If you are renting, you are not seeing that benefit because rent prices have risen.

It is a weird time as people are impacted very differently at the moment and there doesn't seem to be a broad brush solution to fixing it.

The only solution is for wages to rise or for tax cuts that are targeted at those who need them most. Trump say his next tax cut will allow for that, but we all know Republican trickle down economics doesn't work.



Agree. We voted for a bridge president in Biden. But post the midterms and averting the red wave, he didn't want to go.



Said it before, but Harris' message should have been to say that the Biden administration was all about post COVID recovery after Trumps mismanagement. Her objective was then to build on that and focus in on wage increases, tax cuts and lowering costs.

What i did like about Newsom, was that when Biden was still running, and maybe even when he was advocating for Harris, he wasn't afraid of thumping his chest and telling voters how much has been achieved under the Biden administration. Harris didn't want to do that - you were probably right in saying they were bad advocates for the legislative wins.

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Yeah there's just no one better than Gavin when it comes to brazenly going on the attack on enemy territory.

 
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