I’ve often assumed Harris didn’t want to insult her boss by going against him, because I got the impression she was planning to give Netanyahu what for once she took over - especially with him escalating things further and further. Did anyone else get that vibe, or was it just wishful thinking on my part?
I see a lot of comments that basically summarize the constituent feedback as “well I guess they’re just stupid then, can’t wait til the leopards eat your face.”
First, keep alienating these voters, sure. See how far that gets you in the next election. We need to be listening to and understanding these voters now more than ever if we are ever going to get out of this. Whether you like it or not, their vote carries as much weight as yours (maybe more depending on what state you’re in).
Second, responding to economy concerns with “well actshually, the economy is amazing. What you mean is inflation” is about the worst response you can give. It’s incredibly dismissive. When someone is scared that they can’t afford a house, can’t see retirement, can’t buy groceries, they don’t care about GDP or stock market numbers. Whatever Biden tried to do to alleviate their concerns wasn’t enough. Inflation stopped but wages didn’t catch up enough. Trump promised to fix it. He is a charlatan but desperate people will cling to anyone who gives them hope. What they experience is a system so incredibly slow to respond to their needs that the "Fight for $15“ really should be the Fight for $30 at this point.
The reason Trump and AOC are popular is that they directly speak to these concerns, whether they have a plan to fix it or not. Both speak of systemic change to make it happen. Establishment candidates don’t.
What this election has taught me is that until the Dems learn to actually prioritize working class needs over identity politics they will lose. Every time. Look at how even women’s reproductive rights was not enough to get them to vote Harris, and yet on states Trump won where there were proposals to protect abortion access, those efforts were successful.
Yelling at voters doesn’t help, neither does educating them.
These things only affect individuals, and there’s hundred of millions of voters out there, in a constantly shifting cohort.
You may as well try to bail out the rising tide with a teacup. You can expend unlimited resources on the task, and you’ll achieve precisely dick.
It doesn’t matter how wrong people are, how stupid people are, or how fucked-up their reactions to things are. You cannot effectively change that at scale, except via constant, persistent social engineering over years or even decades.
If the opposition is offering free pizza, then it doesn’t matter how much healthier and better your free salad really is. Don’t waste your time on trying to convince people, don’t waste your energy on it, don’t waste your emotions on it. People are going to choose the pizza, and you damn well know it.
If you want them to take your offering instead, you need to come up with something that hundreds of millions of people will think is tastier than pizza.
Now sure, you can try and sell people the idea that the pizza guy doesn’t wash his hands after taking a shit. You can put up giant posters of the cockroaches crawling all over the stall, and sure you might make a dent.
But when the alternative looks like a bunch of dry bitter rabbit food to them, no matter how tasty it actually is, you’re fucked.
You need to address the actual concerns of the voters (no matter how stupid), and you need to show them that you’re addressing them, in a way they’ll actually notice and appreciate.
Not ‘ought to’. Will.
What it needs is some angry people who will get up on their hind legs and fight for the working classes. It needs people who are loudly and visibly sick of the status quo, tired of the bullshit and ready to rip the face off anyone who gets in their way.
Not the fucking charity-auction Moira Schitt ghouls schmoozing up to $LARGE_CORPORATION while laughing about the dirty poors, or smirking about how bombing Palestinian children is the only moral choice.
(Seriously, Trump ought to hire Matt Miller and Vedant Patel - they did more to undermine the Dem campaign than anyone else. The optics were an unmitigated disaster.)
Those voters are a lost cause.
Anyone who votes Trump is too stupid and brainwashed to ever be fixed.
Yes, amen, thank you. Abortion beat Harris by 20 points in my state! Clearly there are a lot of Trump voters who are with us on some things and we need to find to common ground to build a bridge and connect us so we can fix this. That common ground is pretty freaking obvious since 99% of us have one thing in common. But Nancy Pelosi has already said no so you need to fall in line and do what she tells you.
Fuck 'em. What are they gonna do, elect a dictator?
Being the loudest dickheads in the room has been the maga brand since at least 2017 if not slightly earlier. The fuck your feelings party. The party full of the folks no one wants to spend a family get together with or talk to about anything of substance because of their unmitigated ignorant racist and bigoted bullshit.
I’m getting a little sick of being told we need to mollycoddle them while they continue jamming their fingers in everyone’s eye at every opportunity.
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