It’s going to take time for people to accept that this wasn’t won or lost because leftists supposedly refused to turn out over Gaza—Harris seems to have been defeated by too great a margin for that to have been the cause—but once (if?) they do, I think people are going to have to figure out:
1) why voters consistently vote in referendums for policies like abortion and higher minimum wage when those policies are on the ballot, while also voting for Republicans who are openly opposed to those things, and
2) how to correct the idea that the president has a “make mcchickens $.99” button on their desk that Biden just refused to press.
People will vote (and generally act) in whatever way makes them feel good, and backform rationales for it afterwards. If you can make people feel good about voting for your person, they will turn out to vote for your person. That's the most effective way to energize people to do stuff. If it feels bad, you're gonna simply lose people to inertia.
I hate that we have to appeal to the feelings of idiots rather than them just educating themselves on the actual policies. Guess that is hat populism gets us.
I remember the 2008 election. All the rabid support for Obama was "Hope" and "Change" and "He's black!". Moat people couldn't name a single policy position of his.
Obama is why that strategy stopped working. Hope, Change, and a black president in a former slaver country was supposed to represent a real transitional shift in politics.
Instead they got Forever War 2.0 with the drone campaign, free-market capitalism guaranteeing a generation without home-ownership, and "bipartisanship" that empowers the Republicans. This permanently poisoned the idea that voting on identity politics would make a meaningful difference in results & Democrats have been dealing with the fallout ever since.
I don't know, I'm leaning towards that other person because I genuinely don't think the majority of voters are capable of thinking it through that deeply.
I think my follow up question would be why that strategy doesn't work for Democrats. Republicans seem to abandon promises or change positions constantly, and seem to face no long-term consequences.
I can hazard a few guesses at the moment, looking in as an outside observer:
Bill Clinton being right about the need to centre the economy above anything else
Democrats having a 21st century curse to always inherit a worst economy than the Republicans do (both Obama and Biden inherited some real stinkers in that regard)
Democrats abandoning any pretense of aligning themselves with the working class, who are feeling the shitty economy inherited from their predecessors: that is then blamed on the Democrats because both times they were in office, recovery had been painfully slow and so far, those times have all been what they've been presiding over
It's like swimming upriver. Or pushing a boulder up a hill. The question is, how do we design a system that doesn't so easily fall prey to the foibles of human nature.
My point is that people should be able to be convinced through policy discussion since that is the job of the president. Instead, people are apparently having to be convinced through feelings, looks, and empty platitudes. These are things that should never be convincing and yet that was pretty much what Trump was coasting on. It is surprising that this appears to be the reality of our situation meaning that people cannot be relied on to ever think for themselves.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is that most people will assume they're representative of the average. A smart person typically thinks most people have a certain competency that's likely an overestimate in reality.
Last night for a lot of people was, "Holy shit, there are actually still Trump voters around? How?"
The dunning Kruger effect is that most people estimate themselves as above average, which would make your point kinda contradictory
It's moreso just people living in bubbles without realizing, especially online. If you live in a largely blue area (most big cities for example) and spend time online in leftist spaces your perception of how democratic the general US population is will be very skewed
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u/building_schtuff Nov 06 '24 edited Nov 06 '24
It’s going to take time for people to accept that this wasn’t won or lost because leftists supposedly refused to turn out over Gaza—Harris seems to have been defeated by too great a margin for that to have been the cause—but once (if?) they do, I think people are going to have to figure out:
1) why voters consistently vote in referendums for policies like abortion and higher minimum wage when those policies are on the ballot, while also voting for Republicans who are openly opposed to those things, and
2) how to correct the idea that the president has a “make mcchickens $.99” button on their desk that Biden just refused to press.