I agree that there would not be a landslide if a progressive such as Bernie was running. In fact he might very well have run worse than Biden. However, if we want a decent modern country we and the Dems will have to actually clearly offer the roughly 50% who can't afford $400 or whatever to pay for a major repair or emergency. There are another say 20% who have a fear of landing in that lower 50%. Many of these folks of course do not vote, or are subject to one or two propaganda sources funded by cranky libertarian billionaires. Does the current electoral mess or complex welfare like schemes we are experiencing really encourage them to overcome various methods making it hard to register and vote or seek out more diverse info? They are are so stressed by their economic concerns and the social ills: drug abuse, spouse abuse, broken families, mental illness, crime in their neighborhoods etc. etc. that without exception social science shows virtually unanimously result from such economic stress. I strongly agree, garbage in garbage out wrt to propaganda. Too bad the few allegedly liberal billionaires do not invest in media to directly take on Fox and friends or right wing talk radio. We also cannot count on the slowly growing black and Latino wealthy elites or more rapidly growing gay/queer and woman elites, to keep vote primarily on identity and not their tax rate.
Agreed on Fox News and right wing talk radio. I listened to Hannity for 5 minutes yesterday afternoon in my car and his red meat rousing rally the troops rant seemed more effective to me than virtually anything I heard from the Democrats.
I remember a couple of years ago John Dingell of Michigan who iirc retired with the most years in the House of Representatives, 50 plus, wrote a parting editorial virtually on his death bed saying that his conclusion about American politics is that we need to abolish the Senate. I was shocked when I read it.
I just don't get why you guys think that moving further to the left is what will happen for dems and moving further to the right or to Trump is best for reps? Get a younger more charismatic version of Biden with a better running mate. Don't underestimate how much people do not like Kamala Harris. It is a very underrated issue with this election. She is not likeable in the least and given Biden's age it is an extremely important issue not to mention she seems to be next in line for the dems if Biden is elected which is troublesome for reps. A lot of Republicans are tired of Trump. He is not a spring chicken either. Just like the far left socialists on social media, you hear the most from the far right Trump supporters but I think you will see some distancing from Trump in the Republican party. There are some candidates that could make a run in 2024 that may have similar views to Trump but way more empathy when it comes to social issues. I think both parties need to start touting their next candidate soon (not Trump or Harris). Get away from far-left/socialism and nationalism. Focus on economy and some social issues that are deemed most important by a majority of Americans.
Well it did seem that the Covid Virus played precisely to Biden's limitations. In the end I think it hurt. At first Biden could limit himself for months to an occasional short appearance and use safety concerns to justify it. Meanwhile Trump with his crazy energy (adderall?)and obvious love of campaigning and showmanship as well as unconcern about illness for his followers engaged in huge rallies, up to 5 a day something that the impaired Biden was physically incapable of.
I listen to Thom Hartman sometimes on Sirius and he had Tom Steyer on the other day, and Thom asked him if there's plans to invest in Progressive media, and he said no... and Thom pretty much lost it because it's just insane that the Tom Steyer's don't see that everything they care about simply cannot happen with such intense propaganda on the other side that liberals cannot compete with.. as noted by yesterday.
I was thinking about this ALOT last night. It's so obvious when you think about it rationally to talk about Covid in the way that Biden and responsible leaders do. However.... the reality is in my world, and what I assume is through most of America, even liberal leaning folks I know were just sort of sick of dealing with Covid, or think it is the government or the Chinese who created it, or believe Herd Immunity actually is the only solution, etc. etc. and Trump's response to Covid actually helped him on election night as so many warmed to his worldview on the virus. It's not right, and my friends are not thinking rationally but I think it is a reality that showed up as a shocker surprise last night. The truth is Covid is an economic issue, and they are married together, but the sad reality is alot of voters Biden needed to get don't think that way, and think Biden might be too intense on Covid, and they don't want to deal with it anymore, or deal with a shutdown. I don't think ANYTHING about Trump's closing helped him though so I do slightly disagree there, but I do think there was a baked in (Im done with Covid, and with Trump on just moving on and dealing with it) vote there with men especially (some black, and brown) that just didn't want to take the responsible Biden route.
Clinton would be considered a Republican by the current left and Reagan would be considered a libtard by current Republicans..
I have spoken to some political scientists with actual experience running campaigns at the state of higher level. They all say that the problem is finding these candidates is very hard. The most popular president since Washington is Eisenhower. Quite a few democrats voted for him and don't really view him as a Republican. Cory Booker is a p***y, and people could smell it on him......... he isn't a serious candidate. A candidate needs to be charismatic, but they also have to have an edge to them, and Booker lacks that.
I acknowledge all of that, and even kind of agree with what we would like to see. I'm just making a prediction based on historical examples and on the energy I detect in the left, being immersed in it as I am.
This will likely be the highest turnout election in generations - if people didn't vote in this election, they aren't likely to ever be interested in voting. Do you think anyone who dislikes Kamala Harris instead liked Trump and voted for him? Biden/Harris were a nonissue with this campaign - they didn't turn any potential voters away. Every possible person who was going to come out and vote against Trump did so, and that was the design of the campaign and the strength of the ticket. The reality that Dems have to contend with is that their argument that higher turnout = better for Dems is not always true. Low propensity voters include minorities and young voters - but they also include white, non-college voters which are Trump's base. It seems this election activated those people in huge numbers unseen before. It remains to be seen if either or both of those groups of people are Trump-specific phenomenons, or if they've been converted to future voters.
I am speaking of turning moderate individuals with some conservative values to vote Democrat. There are many conservative leaning individuals that hate Trump more than anyone and likely voted for Biden/Harris. There are also many conservative leaning individuals that hate Trump but voted for him due to the mehness of Biden or their dislike or unknown quality of Harris. In other words, many conservative individuals wanted to vote against Trump but just couldn't get behind the Biden/Harris combination.
That seems like a small category of people - "I'm conservative and absolutely loathe Trump, but I'll take him over a non-exciting and super-moderate Biden" or "I'm conservative and hate Trump, but that other's guy VP is sketchy, so i'm cool with voting Trump." Those are people who don't actually hate Trump, and going forward, if they are willing to vote Trump, those people will almost always vote for a relatively sane GOP candidate. Dems can't make those people their target focus - they have to win over true moderates and liberal-leaning moderates to expand their tent.
Where have you been all my life. Welcome to the discussion. I hope there will be a new party that is not so pandering, I think Democrats did to much of that during Bush/Obama, creating several new underclasses and taking their eye off the real issues of middle america.
