news 2024 US Election Megathread 🇺🇸🏛️

[Smarticle]

Oh it was this dude

 

[Devin]

i dont see trump lasting 4 years. with all the scandals & lawsuits he will pass the torch to jd vance. thats when it will go to sh-

[Bamboo]

2 minutes ago, woohoo said:

I just realized we have a major problem in 4 years if there's even an election…JD Vance and a Republican senate will be certifying it. This is it girls. We messed up. 

Who's "we"?

 

[nooniebao]

 

 

[Wicked]

1 minute ago, Harrier said:

 

The shift of Joe Rogan himself is a microcosm of the shift of independent men more broadly. This clip was a sobering reminder. The right wing spent time capturing these guys and they did it. Now we have to do the hard work of somehow getting some of them back

Well, you can't do that by talking to them from outside the club.

 

Time to start integrating yourself into sports, streamers & video game online hubs.

 

But also, I think this is become too big of a focus cause ignoring working people was their downfall for real lol.

[shelven]

Been taking some time to reflect and this is mostly just a cathartic brain dump instead of some big unifying thesis of where we are, but anyways:

 

I think both sides of the "does the big national rightward shift mean that progressive policy is dead" vs. "the embracing of Trump actually proves that progressive policy that speaks to voters' core needs would have worked" debate are both kind of missing the mark.

 

The flaw with the "America is clearly right-wing, look at all those red rightward arrows on the NYT map" argument is that this election wasn't decided by people who place themselves on the left-right spectrum. It was decided by people who don't consider themselves on that spectrum at all - not because they actively reject the idea of that spectrum, but because they don't pay enough attention to the meta of politics to even think about where they align on the spectrum (and may not even know what "left" and "right" even is). I usually find the accusations of Internet politics followers living in a bubble to be condescending, but the one place where it's correct is that I think we all really underestimate just how little information the "low information voter" has. They don't make decisions based on what's a left-wing policy vs. a right-wing policy. They make gut emotional decisions based on the micro problems they're facing and who's giving off better vibes that they'll solve those problems. Again, I'm not talking about the core MAGA base here (obviously they're very proudly and strongly right wing), but if only the core MAGA base voted in this election, Harris would have won. Trump is clearly appealing to people who don't think about the political spectrum at all. So in that sense, I reject the idea that the shift to Trump equates to a rejection of leftist/progressive policy by the American electorate because I don't think that's how the key part of the electorate thinks about issues at all.

 

But then on the other hand, I think the Bernie Sanders-esque idea that the Democrats suddenly solve all their problems by adopting a true working class agenda and more economically progressive policies is naive and increasingly hard to defend. It's becoming clearer and clearer that there's a disconnect between the policies that voters support in abstract and the policies that they support when the policy is tied to "the left." We can debate and speculate the reasons for this, but the fact is that the current Republicans have been very successful at painting leftist/socialist policies as inherently scary and bad for the economy; way more successful than Democrats have been at painting right-wing policies as regressive and fascist. It doesn't matter that something like Medicare For All polls at 80% approval when it's described in abstract terms divorced from party identity because that's not how voters ultimately get exposed to that policy idea in the real world. It's a really frustrating and difficult scenario for the Democrats to now be stuck in because the "D" next to their name is now soiling what would otherwise be popular positions in the minds of a lot of low information voters who are nervous about the economy.

 

So how do the Dems fix this? I'm honestly not sure. Like others have been saying in here, maybe they focus more on re-branding by meeting these voters where they are, like in the podcasting world, but it might be too little too late for that now that Republicans dominate that space so clearly. Or maybe they look at Dan Osborn's race in Nebraska and slowly but surely start to actively distance themselves from the D label, but that has its own challenges because the party elites will never let go of that branding easily. 

 

The most likely outcome is they don't do much to change and they eventually go back to winning anyways when the pendulum inevitably swings back to them. The electorate will get frustrated with the Republicans soon enough because the electorate loves to ping pong between the parties. But waiting it out until the pendulum swings doesn't solve the huge problem that Democrats couldn't stop the pendulum from swinging away from them even when it was moving towards someone who was openly bragging about wanting to be a dictator, had basically zero ground game, and touts policy ideas that experts everywhere near-unanimously agree would harm the country. The Dems will get power back when the country gets tired of crazy wannabe autocrats, but they should be able to defeat the crazy wannabe autocrats, not let them win and try to ride it out.

 

Anyways, I'm not offering a solution and there isn't really a point to this post. Just wanted to ramble about the weird state of the country where the way out doesn't seem clear right now.

[Redstreak]

49 minutes ago, BOOMBAYAH said:

If we are being honest with ourselves, the Democrats are very clearly saying that they want young and handsome men to be propaganda machines, much like how right-wing influencers serve as propaganda machines for the GOP. Hasan fits every criterion the Democratic party is looking for to appeal to men, except for the fact that he openly criticizes both America and the Democrats.

 

Hasan's right wing counterparts possess everything he does—charisma, beauty, physique, intelligence (or perceived intelligence)—but they are also loyalists to religion, the GOP, and Trump, which is what makes them such an incredible asset to America's Republican Party. If we are being honest, Democrats and American leftists who vote Democrat will, in the coming years, have to decide whether they will adopt this propaganda model or remain honest and call out the Democratic Party when necessary.

Can't one lead to the other? Republicans can propagandize because they give into their base, not the other way around. They don't have to be criticized because they're giving what's being asked for, crazy right wing ****. The vast dem electorate want higher wages and free healthcare, and instead we're told no that's too radical. If you don't take the criticisms and fix the problem, what do you as a party propagandize with? That it's actually great to be beholden to insurance companies?

Edited November 7 by Redstreak

[teresaguidice]

7 minutes ago, Elusive Chanteuse said:

At  least he can communicate democratic policies effectively. 

 

that's not nearly enough to repair the damage and reassemble a new democratic coalition that could even have a fighting chance. the sooner democrats come to grips with this and shake off their fantasies of buttigieg or newsom or shapiro or any other interchangeable careerist politician, the better they'll be prepared for 2028. 

[KylieistBoi]

7 hours ago, MP3 said:

Biden, Kamala and Walz are the PERFECT exemple of democratic socialist, they are on the left/far left spectrum and it will never works in the US, the average American is centre-right

Imagine thinking Biden is a far left candidate   Americans are DOOMED with this level of stupidity. 

[anti-bitch]

7 minutes ago, woohoo said:

I swear to God every election comes down to gas prices and groceries. It's almost too simple. Voters literally care about nothing else . We have to accept the average voter cannot process seven letter words much less detailed policy. 

The average male voter, let's be real. I know white women vote for Trump quite a lot, but it's because they are perhaps the most controlled by their husband.

[HausOfPunk]

In a lot of ways this is far worse than if Trump had just won in 2020. He would have finished his second term and we would have been done with him by now. Trump will have directly shaped American politics for almost 15 years by the end of this.

[Mellark]

We had a Zoom call at work today about the election, and it was nice to debrief a bit. Since one of our programs is federally funded, we have a contract for at least 2027 so he can't do **** until then once it is up. I think the average voter isn't gonna react until it personally affects them, we are such an individualistic country which leads to these outcomes and Democrats need to step it up towards that and it shows that they haven't.

 

Despite the result, we got a new councilmember elected and the racist incumbent out so I am looking forward to what she does. 

[Bears01]

Merrick Garland has to be the most useless AG ever. Just think if he went after Trump in 2021, he very well could be in prison by now instead of getting ready to be president. 
 

So many preventable mistakes that could have stopped all of this so long ago. Including NY elites letting trumps corruption run rampant long before he ran for president, and only doing something about it when he became a dominant figure in American politics. 

[BOOMBAYAH]

12 minutes ago, woohoo said:

I swear to God every election comes down to gas prices and groceries. It's almost too simple. Voters literally care about nothing else . We have to accept the average voter cannot process seven letter words much less detailed policy. 

Lol, my friend told me he bets that if everything were affordable and cheap as f*ck, most Americans wouldn't mind living in an authoritarian state.  Maybe China had the tea after all.

[teresaguidice]

6 minutes ago, Devin said:

i dont see trump lasting 4 years. with all the scandals & lawsuits he will pass the torch to jd vance. thats when it will go to sh-

mama there are no lawsuits. his criminal cases are as good as vanished. 

[harwee]

Trump's win falls somewhere in between Bush Sr and Dubya and far from a Reagan. Dukakis did much worse.

It should be mentioned that the media is exaggerating a bit with this realignment narrative. All things considered, Kamala did really well and ran a solid campaign. Towards the end her popularity was up significantly. Just a few more weeks and she would have won I think.

[LittleStarmen]

1 minute ago, anti-***** said:

The average male voter, let's be real. I know white women vote for Trump quite a lot, but it's because they are perhaps the most controlled by their husband.

Why would any women vote kamala besides that she is a women? Its mysoginy to think they are controlled...

The economy is tanking , people are struggling, the dems offered nothing but memes... all other causes are secondarybto that includding abortion

[woohoo]

1 minute ago, BOOMBAYAH said:

Lol, my friend told me he bets that if everything were affordable and cheap as f*ck, most Americans wouldn't mind living in an authoritarian state.  Maybe China had the tea after all.

I think we are about to find out really quick. I do think once the tariffs kick in and the Medicare and SSI cuts hit and gas isn't .99 a gallon there's gonna be a lot of buyers remorse. 

[Redstreak]

19 minutes ago, Elusive Chanteuse said:

At  least he can communicate democratic policies effectively. 

Which economic populist policies do you envision Pete buttigieg championing believably. Cause if it's focus tested "opportunity economy" lib style buzz words and "here's why the repubs are so bad" and "unity and kindness" then we're just back at square one

Edited November 7 by Redstreak

[Wicked]

2 minutes ago, anti-***** said:

The average male voter, let's be real. I know white women vote for Trump quite a lot, but it's because they are perhaps the most controlled by their husband.

Y'all gotta stop infantilizing white women. They voted for Trump cause they wanted to.

 

They know how to mobilize with their male counterparts when push comes to shove. All of them aren't even married.

 

 

[Communion]

Hasan pleading for Democratic officials to please not spend more time looking for hot leftist himbos than just supporting policies like Medicare For All lol

 

"THIS IS NOT A CULTURE WAR THAT YOU CAN WIN JUST BY DOING PODCASTS!!"

 

 

 

[teresaguidice]

19 minutes ago, Devin said:

interesting.

 

 

this grifter kick starting blue maga conspiracies on day one  

 

[fallen alien]

Sad day, extremely disappointed in this country

[Mellark]

At least Kari Lake Minaj Petty lost AZ Senate  It's no longer MAGAG City, it's RUBEN City Arizona said NO to crazy lunatic journalists!

 

[Lightbringer007]