Nate, do you think the immediate Democrat reaction of blaming others (sexism, racism, Latinos, Black men) instead of their own people or policy positions is emblematic of the party as a whole? They seem to be incapable of accepting that there are rational people who don’t vote the way they do, and that prevents them from reaching those people effectively.
I've said for years that Clinton lost in 2016 because her message boiled down to "why won't you stupid cousin humping rednecks vote for me?" to a lot of people, and because Trump told them he would fix their problems even though the cause of many of them was that the world had changed.
They basically ran against Trump again in 2024, instead of *for* anything. That was enough to get my vote, but obviously not enough. Hopefully they learn from it this time, but I'm not optimistic.
It's moments like this that Parties begin larger shifts,
like the Democrats in the fallout of the post Woodrow Wilson administration
or the Republicans in the fallout of the Nixon Administration,
or the Democrats following the Carter administration,
or the Republicans following the Bush Administration.
When the people in the party stop reaching to Anger and Bargaining and start moving to Depression and Acceptance, it comes with the realization that something needs to change. And per Nate's point, the 'need to change' is that the democrats need to be more responsive to the population of America.
In many ways I have told my Democratic friends that while I would prefer that they have won this election, that was not something that was actually good for them in the long run. Whoever won this election would be entering into a very rough spot with several unwinnable problems and probably be eating a shit sandwich in the next three elections. I just preferred the Democrat's mediocre solutions to the Republicans complete lack of plan and avoidance of responsibility.
I see throughout these threads many people who are saying that the Democrats will be out of power 'For Decades', and that there is no coming back. But the reality is there are two forces that are in play that will likely change everyone's tone in 26, 28, and 30:
1. The Democrats will change. Forcing Biden off the ticket may have been too late to save the election, but it started the process of addressing the electorate's concerns and starts the process of revaluation they need to do. And given how their policies are popular, it's clear that they need to bury the elitism and adopt a little populism of their own.
2. A large percentage of the vote has, for years, been a rejection of the system in place. The Democrats will have little role in the system after last night, and will be uplifted by the 'perpetual rebel' voter for a fair bit, as the 'sticky' parts of the republican institution drive overshadow the fading remains of the Clinton Era systems that basically died last night.
Hence why your side lost the "permanent lasting majority" last night. It was there for the taking. But instead you insult normal Americans from all walks of life, and all races. You fumbled the ball and now the permanent majority is now pretty much out of your hands for decades. No senate, for decades. No supreme court, and most likely no house. Hope you feel good feeling superior. As an irremediable, bitter clinging, deplorable garbage I'm feeling rather glorious this fine am. History was made. Deal with it Brian F.
Dude, you're right in your criticism... but what are you talking about with the "decades" lmao. Obama had a 60 senate majority and he lost it in 6 years. Trump will only have a 52-54 majority. There's no chance that lasts decades. It might be gone by 2026, probably be gone by 2028, and almost certainly by 2030 at the latest.
You could be right we shall see. They needed to keep it close to 50 for the senate and failed. This will be costly in 2026. After that it is dreary for sometime for the left. JD and Tulsi (or Younkin) will be tough to beat in 2028. Shapiro probably doesn't make it through the progressive version of perfection over common sense gauntlet. Remember 2020? The good news it is good for democracy for the left to learn and grow from it. Perhaps they can learn from it and regain power in 2028 and beyond. But it will be tough. No on trusts the media, the pollsters or Nate for that matter. The whole game has changed. Welcome to the new reality.
It definitely will be costly and I certainly they learn. Just wanted to note regarding numbers that this year, 17 democrat senators were up for reelection compared to just 9 republicans. The 2026 and 2028 maps are much more favorable to dems, with majority republicans up for reelection, hence why I said it will be difficult for R’s to keep majorities past 4 or maybe even 2 years (if dems manage hold 52/48 this year).
Which 3 (at least) Republicans are the most vulnerable do you think in 2028? I see zero at this point. Things change. But I think THE change just went down.
What democracy? Kidding, right? There ain't gomna be a democracy at the end of the Trump term. You've clearly missed a few of his memos. Don't think you care though, really. Based on some of your other posts you are very much an angry White guy.
I'm not making a predication. But I'm wondering how you will feel if the political pendulum, as it so often does, swings back the other direction in two, four, or six years. History says that's likely. Thing happen in the world that are beyond a parties control, voters get frustrated with things that make their life harder and they take it out on who they can. Republicans have all three branches now. Correct or not, voters will eventually take their pain out on Republicans. Will it mean that Republicans have it all wrong?
I am sick and tired of this "insulting normal Americans" trope. Yeah, Hillary had her off camera remak on the basket of deplorables, but Trump insults EVERYONE on camera, day in and day out. And just WHO are these normal working Americans, living in an alternative reality, thinking that crooked sociopathic billionaires are going to save their ass, but the dems are uninterested? Its all absurd, its wrong, its twisted - one can blame elites all one wants, but Thiel and Musk and Trump, and dare I say JFK jr. ARE ALL ELITEs, of the slimiest kind.
Seems accurate to me. They were very harsh and judgmental towards the centrists they should have been trying to win over, pushing them away, by calling them garbage, racist, deplorable, fascist, weird, and so on.
You are delusional if you think this wasn't about inflation. If Trump would have won in 2020, the Republican party would be facing punishment from voters right now because he would have been stuck with the same global COVID inflation.
To be clear, I'm not pro-insults, I think it's a major tactical error every time I see Democratic leaders or voters doing it.
But why do Trump and his supporters seem to get a lot more of a pass on this exact same behaviour? Because you cannot tell me Trump supporters don't routinely have extremely harsh words for everyone who identifies as liberal or progressive or even just anti-Trump, and Trump himself of course will insult any person or group who opposes him on anything pretty much daily.
There is no such thing as a "permanent" majority. You are engaging in the same post election over-fitting that the winning party always does: projecting all of your beliefs onto the general public. The Bush folks though for sure they had the recipe for a permanent majority until they didn't. The voters that put Trump over the top are punishing the incumbent party for global COVID inflation. Had Trump won in 2020, the Republican party would have been punished this election cycle.
Wow, talk about bitter, your response takes the cake. But, let's say, hypothetically, that 2 people run for a neighborhood office and 10 people vote. Candidate A uses lots of fearmongering ads and speeches and x10 more lies in every speech. Candidate B is female and black and tries to be more positive. Let's say 6 people vote for Candidate A. How do you know why the 6 people voted for Candidate A. If 2 of them were self-aware enough to know they'd never vote for a black woman, would they state that as their reason? If 2 of them subconsciously would never vote for a black woman, obviously they would state other reasons. So, how to tease out the "truth?" (Separately-- "Rational" would need to be defined and examined to begin with. If you believe the data that one person lied x10 times, that would undermine people voting for him based on his given arguments as being rational. If you believe in Climate Change as a top 3 global danger, you would find no rationality in the outcome. Rational reasons such as promised self-interest economic improvements would have to be x2d for truth given the high falsity rate in claimed facts.) Cheerio, Tim.
Voters will go back to Democrats when they get unhappy about some major catastrophe or economic downturn. The presidency and control of congress go back and forth regularly. And every time both parties inaccurately claim a new mandate to do everything they believe is important.
You are absolutely right that the pattern is eight years of R's followed by eight years of D's followed by eight years of R's and so on.
The question, which D party will be elected? It won't be far left progressives. The Trump campaign felt that their most effective ad was the one attacking Harris for sex change operations for illegal immigrants. Whoever wins for the DNC next will be somebody like Bill Clinton, a centrist who isn't afraid to reform welfare and pass criminal justice reform.
I think you are right. And also, I think it’s worth pointing out that Trump is night very far right in some senses—drug law, protecting social security, not banning abortion (we’ll see), not advocating for the end of gay marriage. However, much of the GOP is still far to the right of most voters. So when Trump is gone, the GOP I’ll have a tough time I think.
The _old_ GOP. Remember, Trump is the product not of a civil war in the Republican Party but an invasion. The old GOP would never have signed on for tariffs and protectionism. That GOP has gone the way of Mitch McConnell and the Cheneys.
At the very least, there are rational people who as a matter of principle abstained from voting this year, or who only voted in downballot races. I know several personally.
This is just flat out untrue. The big puzzle about voting is why people vote as it is a deeply irrational action: the probability that your vote matters in any way is infinitesimally small, but the cost is somewhat large: taking out an hour or so to go vote, and in some cases, hours.
It's best understood as something people do as an act that has meaning to them, completely independent of influencing the outcome. It's something people enjoy, something they find entertaining, something that makes them feel a sense of involvement and community. There's also a sense of social obligation, so they'd feel bad if they didn't.
All of that is worth the costs of voting to people, so it's not really irrational.
But what's interesting is that the OP mentioned some of his friends showing up to vote down-ballot but not for prez. How does that fit any pattern of rational behavior? Avoiding wrist fatigue???
The only claim I made is that I personally know several people who abstained from voting as a matter of principle. I'm not going to violate those people's privacy by outing them here, so perhaps you'd like to try a different comeback.
There is a thick philosophical and economic literature trying to understand why people vote even though it's obviously personally irrational to do so, yet Jeff can confidently state that voting is always rational because he is a Democrat so he knows best.
I don't think it's obviously personally irrational.
It's best understood as something people do as an act that has meaning to them, completely independent of influencing the outcome. It's something people enjoy, something they find entertaining, something that makes them feel a sense of involvement and community. There's also a sense of social obligation, so they'd feel bad if they didn't.
These are real benefits that people get out of it. All of that is worth the small cost of voting.
Let's see. I a Jewish man with a PhD from the top program in a quantitative field. I've taught grad level math and stats. I literally minored in logic in undergrad.
I voted for Trump after raising money in my home for Obama.
No worries. You just elected an amoral authoritarian with zero respect for our laws or governance. He wants to dismantle the Constitution. You won't ever need to vote again.
When Trump leaves office, and now we will never be sure when that will be exactly, because you can be sure he and his cronies will have altered things considerably in the next 4 years, the Republicans will have so cemented power through the courts and Department of Justice it won't matter. Even if you are able to cast a vote, it will be meaningless. Think Maduro.
Its striking that Dems always point out Trump's issues with the constitution, but fail to notice how they have undermined the rule of law and the constitution?
BLM rioters should not be charged.
Pack the bench to get the results you want.
Attacks on free speech.
Attacks on anybody that doesn't conform to your way of thing, even other Dems.
Attach on freedom of association. If somebody says he is conservative or voted for Trump, he must be deranged.
You may be rational generally, but you explicitly said you were voting "based entirely on the border, anti-Semistism (I'm Jewish), and generalized lawlessness."
Which makes it clear you voted based on emotional response to propaganda.
Propaganda? Are you saying that millions of illegals didn’t cross the border in the last 4 years? You realize that Biden opened the border on his first day in office?
Biden deported about the same number of people as Trump, and has not been able to improve on the processing rate because the Republicans didn't fund more resources.
Your brief anecdotal sketch indicates that you might often be rational in many areas. You decided to mention you are Jewish,-- was that an indication that T's hardline support for Israel's aggressive military action was a main factor? One could debate the rationality of that. But, the main point is that T campaigned on lies, lies, lies, just look at all the fact-checking data. People use lies to manipulate people, not convince them to logically vote for them. If you care about the economy, was voting against 12 Nobel prize winning economists' advice rational? They have PhDs and, you know, Nobel Prizes.
I literally have a PhD in economics and a close relative of mine won a Nobel in econ lol.
Democrat platforms in general are bad for economic activity. Republican policy is generally good.
I'm happy to debate individual parts of individual plans, but the truth is neither candidate has laid out any real plans. For example tariffs. Good if used to force China to respect and abide by US intellectual property and patent laws. Bad if widely applied as blunt isolationist tool.
But no, the economy was not what drove my vote.
I see anti-semitism in the news EVERY DAY here in Chicago. We have Jews getting shot on their way to synagogue in Chicago by psychos shouting islamist slogans. Elderly Jews being attacked outside of synagogue in LA. Americans who are held hostage in Gaza as we speak. College students being blocked from attending college because they are Jewish.
And the Biden admin and Harris campaign turned their backs. My grandmother survived a Nazi camp. It started much like we are seeing now: random acts of violence against Jews on the street; vandalism of Jewish businesses; barring Jews from public places like college campuses.
Haha, yes you are not rational. I am professional mathematician: anyone who could do a PhD in math/stat and come away with the idea that those credentials imply rationality, is in fact profoundly stupid.
Thinking that the average person with an advanced degree in a quantitative field is not more rational than the average person without is the actual profoundly stupid take.
I didn't make any claims about the average person, just about one person (you).
For a someone who "majored in logic", you seem to be pretty weak at making rigorous arguments. Next time don't try to sneakily change your premise from "my degree => I am rational" to "average person with my degree is more rational than the average person."
Lol, you're really struggling here. First, I didn't major in logic, and no school I've ever seen has a logic major. This makes me seriously doubt that you teach math.
Second, you said that anyone who thinks that a person having an advanced degree in a quantitative field implies that that person is rational is profoundly stupid.
It is quite obvious that you are comparing those with an advanced degree to the rest of the population. If you don't want to get called out for saying something dumb, don't say it in the first place.
Yeah, I think the reaction in that direction is a lot more widespread this time among Democrats.
First, if you believe that racism, sexism, etc. are responsible for Trump's win in 2024... this is a thing *you already knew* about the country from 2016 (and the close shave in 2020). So it's not a real excuse. Basically: "the damned DNC should've done something better to get some of those racists and sexists on board".
And second, there is an understandable desire to blame the DNC for allowing Biden to run again. However... it's still unclear to me exactly what kind of leverage they had over him. What were they going to do? Start leaking stuff to the press? 25th Amendment? Impeachment? How was any of this going to work, when the dude did not want to leave office, even after that debate? I think the DNC is getting more blame than Biden, and that that's... unfair.
The DNC should have held a primary and recruited people to run against Biden. And maybe also made a rule that all candidates (or maybe just over 65) have to have a neurological examination and make results public.
This one I can't get behind. I don't see how you're going to hold a fair primary with the amount of time they had left. I guess it would've been possible to have a state primary or two, but it would've been rushed, you'd have to choose the states, you'd have accusations of bias based on which states were chosen, you'd have to figure out how to assign delegates based on just those primaries....
I think the only serious path was something along the lines of an open convention. But Biden effectively prevented this by endorsing Harris.
Hold one national one and do it online. It could be done quickly. Choose 8 candidates or so, have them each make a speech or write a statement, and have everyone who wants to vote pay the DNC for a membership, get assigned a member number, and submit their vote online.
When there is an incumbent who is trying to do the incumbent thing of having nearly or exactly no primary challenge? Yeah. A full primary pushed by one of the other centers of party power against the wishes of the incumbent is the political equivalent of civil war.
Some civil wars are necessary. But avoiding them is, as a rule, wise. I can’t see any world where a democratic primary made things go better, tbh. But if there is one, it’s one where Biden doesn’t run.
I think people who were angry about inflation used it as an excuse to get off all of their general grievances with PC culture and elected Trump because of those two issues. I’m not sure how socially conservative these people are (my gut says they aren’t - and that a Trump administration focused on social conservatism would be deeply unpopular) but I think their general anger with experts and attitudes about the correct way to share power clearly led them to choosing Trump.
A second Trump term will be far more chaotic and anti democratic than the first, but I don’t think people will particularly care until it hits their pocketbooks. Regardless of who won last night, it’s clear that we are a deeply divided country and that whoever’s the incumbent can expect to see massive backlash in specials and generals.
At this point, I’m starting to wonder if social media has made incumbency a disadvantage. Because voters are constantly fed information to make them angry about world around them, people will go searching for destructive change in hopes of finding some relief.
I don’t really hold a lot of this against Kamala though. On The Daily, Astead Herndon mentioned this idea that Harris’s biggest flaw was running as an institutionalist in a country that believes its institutions are beyond repair. Voters might view the Trump chaos as a cleansing fire, after which they can build a house on the barren land. Unfortunately, it might end up consuming us all in the process.
Oh yeah, let's just throw the baby out with the bathwater.
No, we are not coming back from this. I never imagined Trump could be as as bad as he was the first term, the second term will be a nightmare because now he knows how to play the game and he knows what he can get away with which is - EVERYTHING. And he has lots of help.
We have elected our destroyer. God help us, it's over.
He is also rapidly deteriorating, and I am skeptical he has the healthspan left to serve a full term. It wouldn’t entirely surprise me if a stroke or something got him before he could be even sworn in.
Nate, do you think the immediate Democrat reaction of blaming others (sexism, racism, Latinos, Black men) instead of their own people or policy positions is emblematic of the party as a whole? They seem to be incapable of accepting that there are rational people who don’t vote the way they do, and that prevents them from reaching those people effectively.
I've said for years that Clinton lost in 2016 because her message boiled down to "why won't you stupid cousin humping rednecks vote for me?" to a lot of people, and because Trump told them he would fix their problems even though the cause of many of them was that the world had changed.
They basically ran against Trump again in 2024, instead of *for* anything. That was enough to get my vote, but obviously not enough. Hopefully they learn from it this time, but I'm not optimistic.
Historically,
It's moments like this that Parties begin larger shifts,
like the Democrats in the fallout of the post Woodrow Wilson administration
or the Republicans in the fallout of the Nixon Administration,
or the Democrats following the Carter administration,
or the Republicans following the Bush Administration.
When the people in the party stop reaching to Anger and Bargaining and start moving to Depression and Acceptance, it comes with the realization that something needs to change. And per Nate's point, the 'need to change' is that the democrats need to be more responsive to the population of America.
In many ways I have told my Democratic friends that while I would prefer that they have won this election, that was not something that was actually good for them in the long run. Whoever won this election would be entering into a very rough spot with several unwinnable problems and probably be eating a shit sandwich in the next three elections. I just preferred the Democrat's mediocre solutions to the Republicans complete lack of plan and avoidance of responsibility.
I see throughout these threads many people who are saying that the Democrats will be out of power 'For Decades', and that there is no coming back. But the reality is there are two forces that are in play that will likely change everyone's tone in 26, 28, and 30:
1. The Democrats will change. Forcing Biden off the ticket may have been too late to save the election, but it started the process of addressing the electorate's concerns and starts the process of revaluation they need to do. And given how their policies are popular, it's clear that they need to bury the elitism and adopt a little populism of their own.
2. A large percentage of the vote has, for years, been a rejection of the system in place. The Democrats will have little role in the system after last night, and will be uplifted by the 'perpetual rebel' voter for a fair bit, as the 'sticky' parts of the republican institution drive overshadow the fading remains of the Clinton Era systems that basically died last night.
Very good comment.
yeah Frank Luntz and Gary Kasparov have good post mortems
Links?
Kasparov: https://x.com/Kasparov63/status/1854208815086084542
Luntz: https://x.com/FrankLuntz/status/1854058416920293410
Thanks!
I am not sure there is any hard data showing any rational people voted for Trump.
Hence why your side lost the "permanent lasting majority" last night. It was there for the taking. But instead you insult normal Americans from all walks of life, and all races. You fumbled the ball and now the permanent majority is now pretty much out of your hands for decades. No senate, for decades. No supreme court, and most likely no house. Hope you feel good feeling superior. As an irremediable, bitter clinging, deplorable garbage I'm feeling rather glorious this fine am. History was made. Deal with it Brian F.
Dude, you're right in your criticism... but what are you talking about with the "decades" lmao. Obama had a 60 senate majority and he lost it in 6 years. Trump will only have a 52-54 majority. There's no chance that lasts decades. It might be gone by 2026, probably be gone by 2028, and almost certainly by 2030 at the latest.
You could be right we shall see. They needed to keep it close to 50 for the senate and failed. This will be costly in 2026. After that it is dreary for sometime for the left. JD and Tulsi (or Younkin) will be tough to beat in 2028. Shapiro probably doesn't make it through the progressive version of perfection over common sense gauntlet. Remember 2020? The good news it is good for democracy for the left to learn and grow from it. Perhaps they can learn from it and regain power in 2028 and beyond. But it will be tough. No on trusts the media, the pollsters or Nate for that matter. The whole game has changed. Welcome to the new reality.
lol Tulsi
Unserious minds abound in that administration. Tulsi, RFK Jr, Leon. It's a clown convention.
It definitely will be costly and I certainly they learn. Just wanted to note regarding numbers that this year, 17 democrat senators were up for reelection compared to just 9 republicans. The 2026 and 2028 maps are much more favorable to dems, with majority republicans up for reelection, hence why I said it will be difficult for R’s to keep majorities past 4 or maybe even 2 years (if dems manage hold 52/48 this year).
Which 3 (at least) Republicans are the most vulnerable do you think in 2028? I see zero at this point. Things change. But I think THE change just went down.
What democracy? Kidding, right? There ain't gomna be a democracy at the end of the Trump term. You've clearly missed a few of his memos. Don't think you care though, really. Based on some of your other posts you are very much an angry White guy.
And... this is exactly why Trump won, because of bizarre statements like this.
“There ain't gomna be a democracy at the end of the Trump term.”
Ridiculous.
I'm not making a predication. But I'm wondering how you will feel if the political pendulum, as it so often does, swings back the other direction in two, four, or six years. History says that's likely. Thing happen in the world that are beyond a parties control, voters get frustrated with things that make their life harder and they take it out on who they can. Republicans have all three branches now. Correct or not, voters will eventually take their pain out on Republicans. Will it mean that Republicans have it all wrong?
The Dems might learn something. It’s happened before.
It could be decades if the Dems don't change their attitude and get rid of the snobbery.
Obama's 60 seat senate lasted 6 months, not years. 59 seats until Al Franken was seated. Then 60 seats until Scott Brown filled Teddy Kennedy's seat.
Obama did have a Senate majority for 6 years.
Sorry I might not have even clear. I meant to say Obama won 60 seats and even then his majority (over 50) only lasted 6 years
I am sick and tired of this "insulting normal Americans" trope. Yeah, Hillary had her off camera remak on the basket of deplorables, but Trump insults EVERYONE on camera, day in and day out. And just WHO are these normal working Americans, living in an alternative reality, thinking that crooked sociopathic billionaires are going to save their ass, but the dems are uninterested? Its all absurd, its wrong, its twisted - one can blame elites all one wants, but Thiel and Musk and Trump, and dare I say JFK jr. ARE ALL ELITEs, of the slimiest kind.
>But instead you insult normal Americans from all walks of life, and all races
I'm sorry, who are you saying did that? This was literally Trump's entire platform.
Sorry Tim, with the best will in the world, the insults are unpleasant but wholly deserved.
And this is why your team was absolutely crushed by Trump.
Delusion top to bottom lol.
You think the Dems lost because they weren't nice enough? That's an amusing take.
Seems accurate to me. They were very harsh and judgmental towards the centrists they should have been trying to win over, pushing them away, by calling them garbage, racist, deplorable, fascist, weird, and so on.
They lost because they made enormous portions of the voting population feel excluded (which is the primary point of idpol i guess).
You alienate voters, you lose elections.
You are delusional if you think this wasn't about inflation. If Trump would have won in 2020, the Republican party would be facing punishment from voters right now because he would have been stuck with the same global COVID inflation.
How do you feel about conservatives who have been referring to feminists as “feminazis” for decades?
Not really a fan of that either, but it's clear that was only ever meant to apply to extremists, not everyone on the left
To be clear, I'm not pro-insults, I think it's a major tactical error every time I see Democratic leaders or voters doing it.
But why do Trump and his supporters seem to get a lot more of a pass on this exact same behaviour? Because you cannot tell me Trump supporters don't routinely have extremely harsh words for everyone who identifies as liberal or progressive or even just anti-Trump, and Trump himself of course will insult any person or group who opposes him on anything pretty much daily.
There is no such thing as a "permanent" majority. You are engaging in the same post election over-fitting that the winning party always does: projecting all of your beliefs onto the general public. The Bush folks though for sure they had the recipe for a permanent majority until they didn't. The voters that put Trump over the top are punishing the incumbent party for global COVID inflation. Had Trump won in 2020, the Republican party would have been punished this election cycle.
I have a question for you. Are you happy I'm upset?
Wow, talk about bitter, your response takes the cake. But, let's say, hypothetically, that 2 people run for a neighborhood office and 10 people vote. Candidate A uses lots of fearmongering ads and speeches and x10 more lies in every speech. Candidate B is female and black and tries to be more positive. Let's say 6 people vote for Candidate A. How do you know why the 6 people voted for Candidate A. If 2 of them were self-aware enough to know they'd never vote for a black woman, would they state that as their reason? If 2 of them subconsciously would never vote for a black woman, obviously they would state other reasons. So, how to tease out the "truth?" (Separately-- "Rational" would need to be defined and examined to begin with. If you believe the data that one person lied x10 times, that would undermine people voting for him based on his given arguments as being rational. If you believe in Climate Change as a top 3 global danger, you would find no rationality in the outcome. Rational reasons such as promised self-interest economic improvements would have to be x2d for truth given the high falsity rate in claimed facts.) Cheerio, Tim.
You are the problem, and even when you're having it explained to you that you're the problem you still can't stop yourself from being the problem.
An attitude like this should relegate the Dems to the wilderness for another few years.
Voters will go back to Democrats when they get unhappy about some major catastrophe or economic downturn. The presidency and control of congress go back and forth regularly. And every time both parties inaccurately claim a new mandate to do everything they believe is important.
You are absolutely right that the pattern is eight years of R's followed by eight years of D's followed by eight years of R's and so on.
The question, which D party will be elected? It won't be far left progressives. The Trump campaign felt that their most effective ad was the one attacking Harris for sex change operations for illegal immigrants. Whoever wins for the DNC next will be somebody like Bill Clinton, a centrist who isn't afraid to reform welfare and pass criminal justice reform.
I think you are right. And also, I think it’s worth pointing out that Trump is night very far right in some senses—drug law, protecting social security, not banning abortion (we’ll see), not advocating for the end of gay marriage. However, much of the GOP is still far to the right of most voters. So when Trump is gone, the GOP I’ll have a tough time I think.
The _old_ GOP. Remember, Trump is the product not of a civil war in the Republican Party but an invasion. The old GOP would never have signed on for tariffs and protectionism. That GOP has gone the way of Mitch McConnell and the Cheneys.
At the very least, there are rational people who as a matter of principle abstained from voting this year, or who only voted in downballot races. I know several personally.
That’s a rational decision only if you first assume that Trump and Harris are equally bad. And that’s a very debatable assumption, to put it mildly.
Abstaining from voting is never rational. Maybe think that one through again?
This is just flat out untrue. The big puzzle about voting is why people vote as it is a deeply irrational action: the probability that your vote matters in any way is infinitesimally small, but the cost is somewhat large: taking out an hour or so to go vote, and in some cases, hours.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_voting
It's best understood as something people do as an act that has meaning to them, completely independent of influencing the outcome. It's something people enjoy, something they find entertaining, something that makes them feel a sense of involvement and community. There's also a sense of social obligation, so they'd feel bad if they didn't.
All of that is worth the costs of voting to people, so it's not really irrational.
But what's interesting is that the OP mentioned some of his friends showing up to vote down-ballot but not for prez. How does that fit any pattern of rational behavior? Avoiding wrist fatigue???
I'm in California, where my POTUS vote did not matter. So I voted for Kara Dansky: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/fairness-justice/3112331/an-open-letter-to-kamala-harris-from-a-democratic-woman/
That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
That's Christopher Hitchen's Razor!
Is that a self-own?
The only claim I made is that I personally know several people who abstained from voting as a matter of principle. I'm not going to violate those people's privacy by outing them here, so perhaps you'd like to try a different comeback.
Any individual vote is meaningless. If it's cold and rainy outside maybe the better decision is to stay inside and play video games.
There is a thick philosophical and economic literature trying to understand why people vote even though it's obviously personally irrational to do so, yet Jeff can confidently state that voting is always rational because he is a Democrat so he knows best.
I don't think it's obviously personally irrational.
It's best understood as something people do as an act that has meaning to them, completely independent of influencing the outcome. It's something people enjoy, something they find entertaining, something that makes them feel a sense of involvement and community. There's also a sense of social obligation, so they'd feel bad if they didn't.
These are real benefits that people get out of it. All of that is worth the small cost of voting.
My poor political scientist friends. Theories of voting is classic political science!
Economists just barged into the party (like we're barging into just about every fields' parties) over the past decade or so.
And then of course we started pretending that we do it better, because that's what economists do.
But on the point of "is there a lot of literature on this?" Yes. So much. Reams and reams.
Not if you'd personally find voting more enjoyable or meaningful, or if you'd feel bad afterwards for not voting.
Or maybe if your social circle threatens to beat you up for not voting. Lots of potential reasons.
As national elections never come down to a single vote , voting is actually never rational
Perfect example. You can't appeal to someone for whom you have no theory of mind.
Let's see. I a Jewish man with a PhD from the top program in a quantitative field. I've taught grad level math and stats. I literally minored in logic in undergrad.
I voted for Trump after raising money in my home for Obama.
You think I'm not rational lol?
No worries. You just elected an amoral authoritarian with zero respect for our laws or governance. He wants to dismantle the Constitution. You won't ever need to vote again.
When Trump leaves office, and now we will never be sure when that will be exactly, because you can be sure he and his cronies will have altered things considerably in the next 4 years, the Republicans will have so cemented power through the courts and Department of Justice it won't matter. Even if you are able to cast a vote, it will be meaningless. Think Maduro.
When people tell you who they are - believe them.
Its striking that Dems always point out Trump's issues with the constitution, but fail to notice how they have undermined the rule of law and the constitution?
BLM rioters should not be charged.
Pack the bench to get the results you want.
Attacks on free speech.
Attacks on anybody that doesn't conform to your way of thing, even other Dems.
Attach on freedom of association. If somebody says he is conservative or voted for Trump, he must be deranged.
Using the judiciary to go after political rivals.
The hysterics just tells me that you believe the propaganda your team was putting out. You might want a therapist, and I'm not saying that as a troll.
Oh god, Maduro lolololol?
You obviously bought into the Democrat propaganda machine. You have to be profoundly gullible to think Trump is planning a coup lmao.
You may be rational generally, but you explicitly said you were voting "based entirely on the border, anti-Semistism (I'm Jewish), and generalized lawlessness."
Which makes it clear you voted based on emotional response to propaganda.
That seems like a rational approach to me. Those are important issues, and Trump is better on them.
Trump is hardly better, but let's not litigate this - your guy won, so his lies were convincing to enough people.
I actually think he's a lot better on those issues, and you don't even need his statements to know this.
Propaganda? Are you saying that millions of illegals didn’t cross the border in the last 4 years? You realize that Biden opened the border on his first day in office?
Biden deported about the same number of people as Trump, and has not been able to improve on the processing rate because the Republicans didn't fund more resources.
But he dropped many of the Trump-era restrictions.
Lol, there are Jewish people being attacked on the street DAILY here in Chicago.
I'm data driven. I'm rational. Trump was clearly a better answer than more of the leftist insanity and Jew bashing.
Pretty dumb to pretend that the border and anti-Semitism aren't 'real' problems.
Keep going like that and you'll get annihilated in the next cycle too.
Pretty dumb to pretend that 78% of Jews are anti-Semitic.
And popular vote is not a way to settle a "rational" argument.
Except to people who are basing their opinion in irrational terms.
Lol, you are truly special.
Trolling after getting dog walked lmao. Keep braying.
Your brief anecdotal sketch indicates that you might often be rational in many areas. You decided to mention you are Jewish,-- was that an indication that T's hardline support for Israel's aggressive military action was a main factor? One could debate the rationality of that. But, the main point is that T campaigned on lies, lies, lies, just look at all the fact-checking data. People use lies to manipulate people, not convince them to logically vote for them. If you care about the economy, was voting against 12 Nobel prize winning economists' advice rational? They have PhDs and, you know, Nobel Prizes.
I literally have a PhD in economics and a close relative of mine won a Nobel in econ lol.
Democrat platforms in general are bad for economic activity. Republican policy is generally good.
I'm happy to debate individual parts of individual plans, but the truth is neither candidate has laid out any real plans. For example tariffs. Good if used to force China to respect and abide by US intellectual property and patent laws. Bad if widely applied as blunt isolationist tool.
But no, the economy was not what drove my vote.
I see anti-semitism in the news EVERY DAY here in Chicago. We have Jews getting shot on their way to synagogue in Chicago by psychos shouting islamist slogans. Elderly Jews being attacked outside of synagogue in LA. Americans who are held hostage in Gaza as we speak. College students being blocked from attending college because they are Jewish.
And the Biden admin and Harris campaign turned their backs. My grandmother survived a Nazi camp. It started much like we are seeing now: random acts of violence against Jews on the street; vandalism of Jewish businesses; barring Jews from public places like college campuses.
Haha, yes you are not rational. I am professional mathematician: anyone who could do a PhD in math/stat and come away with the idea that those credentials imply rationality, is in fact profoundly stupid.
I mean, a PhD in math does imply intelligence. Unfortunately, intelligence doesn’t preclude many tragic forms of stupidity.
Thinking that the average person with an advanced degree in a quantitative field is not more rational than the average person without is the actual profoundly stupid take.
I didn't make any claims about the average person, just about one person (you).
For a someone who "majored in logic", you seem to be pretty weak at making rigorous arguments. Next time don't try to sneakily change your premise from "my degree => I am rational" to "average person with my degree is more rational than the average person."
Lol, you're really struggling here. First, I didn't major in logic, and no school I've ever seen has a logic major. This makes me seriously doubt that you teach math.
Second, you said that anyone who thinks that a person having an advanced degree in a quantitative field implies that that person is rational is profoundly stupid.
It is quite obvious that you are comparing those with an advanced degree to the rest of the population. If you don't want to get called out for saying something dumb, don't say it in the first place.
So you are in favor of running the country based on the opinion of highly educated.
Got it.
Take your meds dude. What do you think you are accomplishing by trolling stupid like this?
Troll funny or troll clever. Trolling stupid is stupid and wastes everyone's time.
I imagine this is sarcasm, correct? Think the other commenters might be missing that.
I don't know, I feel like I've been reading lots of Democrats whose instant reaction is blaming the party!
Yeah, I think the reaction in that direction is a lot more widespread this time among Democrats.
First, if you believe that racism, sexism, etc. are responsible for Trump's win in 2024... this is a thing *you already knew* about the country from 2016 (and the close shave in 2020). So it's not a real excuse. Basically: "the damned DNC should've done something better to get some of those racists and sexists on board".
And second, there is an understandable desire to blame the DNC for allowing Biden to run again. However... it's still unclear to me exactly what kind of leverage they had over him. What were they going to do? Start leaking stuff to the press? 25th Amendment? Impeachment? How was any of this going to work, when the dude did not want to leave office, even after that debate? I think the DNC is getting more blame than Biden, and that that's... unfair.
The DNC should have held a primary and recruited people to run against Biden. And maybe also made a rule that all candidates (or maybe just over 65) have to have a neurological examination and make results public.
This one I can't get behind. I don't see how you're going to hold a fair primary with the amount of time they had left. I guess it would've been possible to have a state primary or two, but it would've been rushed, you'd have to choose the states, you'd have accusations of bias based on which states were chosen, you'd have to figure out how to assign delegates based on just those primaries....
I think the only serious path was something along the lines of an open convention. But Biden effectively prevented this by endorsing Harris.
Hold one national one and do it online. It could be done quickly. Choose 8 candidates or so, have them each make a speech or write a statement, and have everyone who wants to vote pay the DNC for a membership, get assigned a member number, and submit their vote online.
Civil wars are famously great ways to solve internal disputes with no enormous downsides, after all.
Are you saying that a primary election is a "civil war"? What?
When there is an incumbent who is trying to do the incumbent thing of having nearly or exactly no primary challenge? Yeah. A full primary pushed by one of the other centers of party power against the wishes of the incumbent is the political equivalent of civil war.
Some civil wars are necessary. But avoiding them is, as a rule, wise. I can’t see any world where a democratic primary made things go better, tbh. But if there is one, it’s one where Biden doesn’t run.
I think people who were angry about inflation used it as an excuse to get off all of their general grievances with PC culture and elected Trump because of those two issues. I’m not sure how socially conservative these people are (my gut says they aren’t - and that a Trump administration focused on social conservatism would be deeply unpopular) but I think their general anger with experts and attitudes about the correct way to share power clearly led them to choosing Trump.
A second Trump term will be far more chaotic and anti democratic than the first, but I don’t think people will particularly care until it hits their pocketbooks. Regardless of who won last night, it’s clear that we are a deeply divided country and that whoever’s the incumbent can expect to see massive backlash in specials and generals.
At this point, I’m starting to wonder if social media has made incumbency a disadvantage. Because voters are constantly fed information to make them angry about world around them, people will go searching for destructive change in hopes of finding some relief.
I don’t really hold a lot of this against Kamala though. On The Daily, Astead Herndon mentioned this idea that Harris’s biggest flaw was running as an institutionalist in a country that believes its institutions are beyond repair. Voters might view the Trump chaos as a cleansing fire, after which they can build a house on the barren land. Unfortunately, it might end up consuming us all in the process.
Oh yeah, let's just throw the baby out with the bathwater.
No, we are not coming back from this. I never imagined Trump could be as as bad as he was the first term, the second term will be a nightmare because now he knows how to play the game and he knows what he can get away with which is - EVERYTHING. And he has lots of help.
We have elected our destroyer. God help us, it's over.
He is also rapidly deteriorating, and I am skeptical he has the healthspan left to serve a full term. It wouldn’t entirely surprise me if a stroke or something got him before he could be even sworn in.
Woodrow Wilson with Elon Musk playing the roll of Edith.