Michael Podhorzer is a political strategist for the AFL-CIO, and he’s published his numbers-driven post-election analysis:
Visualizations like this one from FiveThirtyEight, purporting to show that “America swung right,” have been ubiquitous since the election.
But, as we will see, America didn’t swing rightward, but couchward:
- The popular vote result was almost entirely a collapse in support for Harris and Democrats, not an increase in support for Trump and MAGA. Trump was no more popular this year than four years ago, while Harris significantly underperformed Biden 2020.
- Most of Harris’s losses were due to anti-MAGA surge voters staying home.2She lost the most ground in deep-Blue urban areas, where the dangers of a second Trump administration seemed most remote. About 19 million Americans who cast ballots for Biden in 2020 did not vote in 2024.
- Anti-MAGA surge voters stayed home because they were less alarmed by a second Trump Administration than they were four years ago. A key to Biden’s victory was high turnout from less-engaged voters who believed they had something to lose under Trump. In 2024, however, about 15 million fewer votes were cast “against” Trump than in 2020.
As I’ve been saying for years, America has an anti-MAGA majority, but not necessarily a pro-Democratic one. In 2020 (and 2022, in part), alarm about Trump and MAGA was enough to overcome the cynicism and alienation of mostly younger voters who desperately want bigger systemic change, but who oppose the MAGA agenda. This time, their cynicism won out. This was in no small part because the media and other non-partisan civil society leaders were themselves more skeptical of the dangers, and because the inaction of the Biden Administration and Democrats in Congress against MAGA threats belied their rhetoric of existential dangers to the nation.3
It’s a very long piece, it’s got that consultant-speak tone, and part of it relies on polling data, not election returns, to prove his point about who the non-voters were. Still, I think it’s well worth a read. He has an interesting contrast between what he calls “Flatland” vs “3D-Land”. In his terminology, a Flatland voting analysis only looks at people who vote and ignores those who didn’t. A 3D-Land analysis includes eligible voters. “This is important not because it will change the outcome, or bolster post-hoc finger pointing with new “what-ifs,” but because it will let us better understand the meaning of the vote, as well as where the best hopes for the future lie.”
His conclusion:
[…] When Flatland analysts argue that America “moved right,” the prescription tends to be that Democrats should also move right, or at least play nice with Trump to avoid alienating the Americans who supposedly granted him a decisive mandate. The same prescription will be dispensed to civil society and the media.But that diagnosis completely misses the life-threatening illness America is really struggling with: a billionaire-captured system that doesn’t work for most people, and justifiable disaffection and anger at this system. Americans are fed up, and people are perpetually in the mood to throw the bums out, whoever the bums in charge are. But with only two parties to realistically choose from – plus a democratically illegitimate Electoral College that makes most Americans’ presidential votes all but irrelevant – all of these “change elections” add up to little more than a seesaw that most Americans don’t want to ride in the first place.
And so, nearly 250 years after putting forth the then-revolutionary aspiration for governments “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” we deploy election procedures that can claim no more legitimacy than the seething resignation of the governed.
This is via Will Bunch’s free newsletter, signup here. I guess the tl;dr is what it always is: Dems lose elections when our voters stay home.
Belafon
Lot’s of people are about the get what they voted for and didn’t vote against good and hard.
Baud
Not much we can do about the Electoral College.
Funny how red states residents rarely seem to get tired of their red state governments, despite the absence of an electoral collge. Are state level Republicans not bums to be thrown out?
Suzanne
My resignation is more bitter and cynical than seething, but that’s only because I’m tired. Seething requires calories.
Suzanne
Also, I will note that January 8 is the anniversary of the day Gabby Giffords and many others were shot in Tucson, and some of that bitter, cynical resignation is borne of the fact that gun violence is apparently The Problem We’ve Decided to Live With.
TBone
No lie told about the FTFNYT
https://bsky.app/profile/greene.haus/post/3lf7a3hg5q22l
Pitchbot coming back to life
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Belafon: Exactly. Anyone who decided staying home or voting 3rd party as a “protest” was a good plan (how did that work out when they just could not bring themselves to vote for HIllary Clinton?!) was idiotically blind to how much damage Trump will do AGAIN in a second term. Especially since the very few Republicans willing to stand up to them have lost ground and he now owns the Supreme Court. I do not understand anyone who had the slightest chance of being targeted by his policies voting for him but quite a few did.
Their own spouses might be deported, oh well, their own kids need accommodations and help in school, oh well. Funding for programs they rely on like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Social Security Disability, as well as VA health care? Oh well his buddies want to defund, kill or privatize all of those and actually fucking SAID so, what the fuck did these people think was going to happen? You need FEMA help after the next flash flood, hurricane or wild fire? too bad its been defunded…
Jackie
Another post about why Dems lost?
Apparently there isn’t anything else newsworthy worth discussing on BJ. I’ll keep fingers crossed for the next post.
ArchTeryx
@Baud: Tribalism assures they keep pulling the lever for Rs in a lot of these permanently red states. The “throw the bums out” happens in the primaries. If the electorate gets fed up enough, they won’t vote for the evil Demoncrats, but they will throw out their incumbents. The primary becomes the only election that matters.
It takes something truly extreme, such as, say, the defunding of the state’s entire public school system, to finally make some of these people actually consider voting for the other party. See: Kansas
And it is naked tribalism that, IMHO, is the end reason. There was plenty of crossover between abortion rights initiatives voters and Trump voters. Stuff that doesn’t trigger their “TWO LEGS BAD, FOUR LEGS GOOD!” twitch has an even chance in an election.
different-church-lady
To absolutely no one’s surprise, Trump is going to get the Supremos to kill off his sentencing.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
I guess what people want the most is reform. Bashing corruption, profiteering, privatization, regulatory capture, rent seeking, lack of competition, etc might be good to promote as aspects of Democratic values. I think that would be attractive to a lot of our voters. We just have to figure out how to do that without losing the new voters from the suburbs. They hear that as ‘We will impose more badly thought out regulation on your workplace’. I know one voter who swung from Obama to Trump because he was angry about the Obama administration passing rules and regs for his industry that contradicted themselves and didn’t always make a lot of sense in practice.
different-church-lady
@TBone: The problem might be there’s no distinction between a rage click and an approval click, so in a world where clicks are the coin of the realm there’s perverse incentive to publish jaw-dropping stupidity.
Leto
@different-church-lady: and the release of Smith’s report to Garland.
glory b
Fight against MAGA how?
Someone on Bluesky said that this is like blaming water for people deciding to drink bleach, arguing that if water came in a bright shiny bottle like bleach, people would be moved to drink it.
But ultimately, voters are to blame because that’s how our democracy works. Some democracies compel people to vote. Ours doesn’t.
zhena gogolia
@Jackie: Talk about obeying in advance.
Baud
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
If they don’t post heavily in social media, do they really exist?
Seriously, though, the problem is our coalition is fragmented and diverse, and parts of it really have a tough time working with other parts.
tobie
@Jackie: Yup. And it’s all the Dem’s fault.
Funny how this works. The left takes out its knives whenever Dems lose to say, “See, we told you so.” When they lose–and they lose a lot–it’s because the game is rigged or Dems didn’t support them, though they’re of unimpeachable moral standing. I remember how Amy McGrath was raked over the coals when she lost the KY Senate race in 2020. Progressive favorite Charles Booker lost badly in 2022 and I don’t recall a critical word about him. Funny how that works.
glory b
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: And how did he vote this time?
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
glory b
@ArchTeryx: As I have said before, red state Republicans like many of our policies.
They will vote for them when they can be separated from the Democratic party.
They don’t want to vote for the party with the black people in it.
TBone
@different-church-lady: that’s a BlueSky link with only a screenshot of the FTFNYT by DougJ
Old School
TBone
@Old School: SWEET hahahahaha
Old School
@TBone:
The column is from Politico not FTFNYT.
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
I understand
I understand
I’m bitter as phuck
Captain C
@Baud: They’re very good at pointing out that the objects of their voters’ hate should be thrown out, despite the fact that said hate-objects (Democrats, minorities…) haven’t held power in their jurisdictions for ages.
See also: LBJ’s quote on someone to look down upon and picking pockets.
Scout211
Merrick Garland intends to release Volume One of Jack Smith’s report.
Loose Cannon’s edict does not apply to Volume One. I guess we shall see what Trump’s legal minions do next.
Another Scott
I haven’t clicked the link(s).
OTOH, the special election results in Virginia yesterday point to a different explanation.
https://xcancel.com/ChazNuttycombe/status/1876810856236810711
IOW, in HD-26, Kaine (the popular boring white guy Senator) did around 5% better than Harris in November. Singh (a guy in a beard and a Sikh turban) picked up about 1.5% of Harris’s deficit last night.
In SD-32, Kaine did around 3% better than Harris in November. Srinivasan (a brown guy) picked up about 1.5% of Harris’s deficit last night.
Special elections are special, but it is not hard to see that a few percent of people (at least in Virginia) would not vote for a Black woman when they would vote for a brown man. I don’t see any other reasonable explanation.
What to do with that in the next 2-4 years? Dunno. But we do know that representation matters and making politics look more like America is a task that is never done. We have to keep pushing forward.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
TBone
@Old School: oh, I thought since it was NYT Pitchbot it was the paper of record. No clicks given.
Ohio Mom
@Baud: I can’t speak for other states, not knowing much about their legislative maps, but here in Ohio we are gerrymandered into a Republican statehouse. Which makes it next to impossible to throw the bums out.
Not that we haven’t tried to find a way to redraw the maps, but we’ve failed twice now, stymied by the Republicans in Columbus.
And now for my eternal complaint, When I moved here, this was a Purple and swing state. We sent Democrats to the Senate. I feel like I’m been baited and switched.
Baud
@ArchTeryx:
@glory b:
Yes, but no one who wants to be seen as a serious person can say that. So they come up with alternative theories of failure. Until the culture improves, a halfway moral Demo party is going to struggle to win.
oldgold
Well, it appears the Supremes are not going to just swat away Trump’s ridiculous appeal asking that they stop the “sentencing” Judge Merchan has scheduled for this coming Friday.
This morning they have ordered New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg to reply to Trump’s motion by 10 AM Thursday.
Trump is contending that to allow the sentencing to proceed “would be a grave injustice and harm to the institution of the presidency and the operations of the federal government.”
Of course, this sentencing charade will not require Trump to be physically present and will not result in his incarceration, probation or even a paltry fine.
The rule of law is on fire.
rikyrah
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
My first questions when we get the stories…and we will get the stories of this affected by the future policies put into place..
Did you vote in 2024?
Who did you vote for?
Wrong answer to those questions, my only reply will be a shrug.
But, automatic sympathy? Naw.
Conditional sympathy is the name of the game now.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@glory b: He voted for Biden last time and Trump this time. Trump surrogates were actively courting his industry, plus he was mad about inflation.
different-church-lady
@TBone: Yes, it’s the
NytPolitico op-ed that I’m calling stupid.Baud
@Ohio Mom:
There are statewide elections. Even NC is starting to do the right thing in state races, so much so that Republicans there have had to up their democracy destroying game.
Captain C
@TBone:
From the replies:
I suspect some of the people writing about ‘healling the nation’ basically agree with the Trumpists and 1/6 Insurrectionists, they just want them all not to be so gauche when rounding up their enemies*. In other words, ‘Suffer and die quietly please, and keep serving us while you do so; you wouldn’t want my beautiful mind disturbed, would you?’
*At least some of the useless idiots writing this haven’t figured out that they’re also on the list, and probably can’t imagine it.
TBone
@oldgold: a preview of coming attractions
gene108
In think the deciding factor in 2024 was the power of right-wing propaganda over reality, and this includes the MSM that rarely reported on the positives in the economy, like low unemployment.
Given how the billionaires that own the media “are scratching Trump’s back” in the hopes of favors down the line, I think right-wing propaganda will be more prevalent.
Also, if you read through the article, there’s a chart that shows people’s views on if the country is headed in the right direction or wrong direction. Most people, per the chart, have felt the country is in the wrong direction ever since the housing bubble burst. 70% of people thought the country was in the wrong direction in 2008, while 73% of respondents thought the country was in the wrong direction in 2024.
Belafon
@Jackie: I think it’s useful to understand why people who didn’t vote didn’t, especially to keep us from wondering down a wrong path on a solution. But there’s no good way I know of to educate people on the fact that their not voting is a choice that has consequences except for them learning it the hard way.
Old School
It turns out private equity may not improve everything it touches.
Baud
@oldgold:
I’m not going to tell you to trust the court, but the request for a response is pro forma and means nothing.
TBone
@different-church-lady: I was just informed it’s not the NYT but I’m not clicking to find out hahaha it’s too dumb to waste that much time on, I’m learning about the human virome today instead
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@oldgold: He thinks his being sentenced will mean his supporters will have to recognize he broke the law. He’s trying to stop it by any means necessary. It is important to him that it be seen as nothing more than political prosecution. I only wish our people had be just as aware of the symbolism of moving quickly in the administration of justice.
Captain C
@Scout211: Just waiting for RV and Inquisitor to write passionately about how TCFG will take lasting damage from having the truth about his actions told, so therefore we should cover for him.
different-church-lady
@TBone: Oh, wait, I see what you’re saying now. I wasn’t saying “don’t give them a click”, I was only pointing out how “clicks” create perverse incentives for publishing crap.
gene108
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
My brother voted for Romney because of frustration over the Obama administration’s rule making.
Steve LaBonne
@Jackie:
But we're making so much progress in figuring it out!Baud
@gene108:
Agree about propaganda. It’ll be interesting to see how well they do convincing people that everything is great now that the Republicans are in charge.
Captain C
@Old School: Who can tell, these days?
different-church-lady
My gut still says a lot of people got so depressed and dispirited by the summer clown show the Democrats put on that they just tuned out or actually gave up.
zhena gogolia
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: He was mad about inflation, bullshit.
TBone
Just need to see this in print
seething or otherwise
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@zhena gogolia: He volunteers for the NAACP. His vote was not about race. He didn’t know inflation was world wide. He blamed inflation on worker friendly policies that raised pay and gave more financial benefits to poor people.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady: The summer clown show that included a fantastic convention and Harris’s stellar performance in a number of public venues including the debate?
I was a Biden remainer, but the Harris-Walz campaign had a flawless performance all summer and fall.
People stayed home because she was a Black woman.
different-church-lady
@zhena gogolia: Fuck it, I was mad about inflation. I just wasn’t going to blame the wrong people for it and then use it as a fig leaf to turn fascist.
TBone
@Captain C: leopards, faces, you can’t explain it…
zhena gogolia
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Tell yourself that. Anyone who could vote for Trump this time (after adjudicated rape, 34 felony counts, and A VIOLENT ATTACK ON THE U.S. CAPITOL) was voting because of race and gender.
Suzanne
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
The older I get, the more I think slowness is very damaging to us, in many arenas of public life.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady: Right, the other aspect of this is that inflation was not Biden’s fault, and he handled it better than any other developed country did.
Kay
I think it’s worthwhile after a loss to get broad and diverse views of why we lost.
Labor organizers are always about turnout, so can be narrow, but it’s an essential part of any win so looking at it along with other causes has value. Ask everyone. Collect it all and sift thru it to see what’s useful and actionable.
IMO the biggest indicator an organization needs reforms is when that organization resists all criticism and suggestions for change or improvement. Circling the wagons defensively is exactly what we shouldn’t do, IMO. I think it reads like fear and a lack of confidence. Get better at this. There is no alternative but constantly improving to stay ahead of them.
different-church-lady
@zhena gogolia: No, not the part where they put on a good show AFTER putting on the clown show. The part where the clown show was so
memorabledepressing that they didn’t tune in to the good show.Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@zhena gogolia: I told you they were courting his industry. He saw dollar signs. His vote was about greed. That is one of his bigger flaws. He will ignore ethical concerns when the dollar amounts are high enough.
And yes, I was angry about his vote. We had a big argument over it.
kindness
Democrats won in 2018 & 2020 because of Trump/Republicans over-reach and drooling lunacy. Trump has already shown us he’s dialing the lunacy (chaos) up to 11 from the git go. These next 2 years are going to suck but I’m thinking with 2 years frustration of the new Trump administration, Democrats will win again. Now the MSM will continue to sane wash Trump and paint Democrats as the ‘radicals’. How many normies take that as their world view will determine who wins.
TBone
@different-church-lady: dear sweet favorite church lady if I have offended thee I beg forgiveness! (snark is where you find it and I desperately need the laughs you so often provide). My favorite Antifa BlueSky account shuttered suddenly and without warning or explanation and it pisses me off, I’m still pissed.
different-church-lady
@kindness: The drooling lunacy was on clear display during this campaign.
zhena gogolia
I was in the Stop & Shop a couple of weeks ago. A young Black woman was having an altercation with the white manager (with whom I myself may have had an altercation or two; he’s a smug jerk). I have no idea what it was about or what the facts of the situation were, but as she left, she said loudly to her companion, “I hate white people!” I muttered to my husband, “I do too.” I’m white, but I’m so fucking mad at white people for this disaster we’re all about to experience.
Yesterday I looked to see if the guy who had TRUMP banners on his ugly white-columned house had taken them down. He had, but he still had a Trump-Vance sign, which he had wreathed in Christmas tinsel. Who the fuck puts Christmas decorations on their political signs? They are insane.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady: True.
different-church-lady
@TBone: Oh christ if I got offended that easily I’d be on Red State.
Old Man Shadow
Some people listen when you tell them the stove is hot.
Some people have to touch the stove.
Other dense motherfuckers have to climb on top of the stove, lay down, and turn the burners up to high.
Americans right now are the last category. God(s) help us all.
TBone
@different-church-lady: see!?? I told you so hahahaha!
The lol
TBone
@zhena gogolia: MY neighbors do!
tobie
@zhena gogolia: I think there was sticker shock when people went grocery shopping or got fast food. The irony of all this is that only one candidate made reducing the cost of food a central part of her campaign. It didn’t matter.
The AFL-CIO should maybe do some soul-searching on why union members vote overwhelmingly for Republicans in spite of what its leadership says. Maybe there’s a problem within their organization that they should be looking at. Just a guess.
zhena gogolia
@TBone: On Trump signs? Certainly not on Harris-Walz signs, right? All the Harris-Walz signs in my neighborhood have been taken down, because Harris-Walz supporters are not insane.
Kay
@kindness:
But that’s not enough. We can wait for the Right to overreach and destroy things over and over and then have a period where we clean it all up (again) all the while losing (big picture) because we’re always defending or we can build something resilient and proactive that operates on its own timetable and not as a reaction.
Soprano2
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: They continually told interviewers that they don’t believe he’ll actually do those things. The problem is that he lies all the time about everything, so it’s hard to challenge them on that.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Another Scott:
I recall reading a couple of pieces in December along these lines, basically how (D) Senatorial candidates outperformed Harris suggesting a lot of voters left the top of the ballot unchecked. Now wish I could put by hands on at least one of those pieces.
TBone
@zhena gogolia: some here have created actual shrines on their front lawns. Not the Dems of course. I’m sitting in my storage section of my basement right now where I saved one Harris sign for posterity.
Kay
@tobie:
Well, union members don’t vote “overwhelmingly” for Republicans, but ok.
gene108
@Baud:
Democrats have done well in statewide races at the state level for ages. Pat McRory, who served from 2013 to 2017, was the first and only Republican governor elected since 1993.
Republicans held the governorship three out of four terms from 1973 to 1993. Prior to that it was all Democrats.
That’s the big conundrum about NC. They’ve only voted for a Democratic president once since 1964 and that was Obama in 2008. D’s still win statewide races, it’s a mystery.
Like other states, Republicans gerrymandered the hell out of the legislative electoral map, when they took power in 2011 and have gotten worse.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Old School:
That conclusion for that industry applies to a whole host of others (education for example) wins this week’s Claude Rains Memorial Gambling Awareness Award with the coveted 4-Claude rating.
TBone
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: 🎯
Soprano2
This describes Missouri perfectly. They like our policies, but we give actual power to people who aren’t white, so they don’t want to vote for our candidates.
Kay
Misogyny was definitely part of it, as it was for Clinton, but one can understand why an analysis that comes out of organizing would not focus there – it’s not actionable.
We can have the misogyny analysis along with other analysis. We can have all of it. Why wouldn’t we take it?
tobie
@Kay: I’d feel more confident if the AFL-CIO would take a hard look at why their members don’t seem to trust their leadership when it comes to elections. What’s the disconnect between the policy wing of unions and their rank and file? The sample size would be smaller than the electorate as a whole but it would yield more accurate data and may help unions’ lobbying efforts with their own members.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
So classist. Heaven forfend labor and the poors get even crumbs in this economic setup of ours.
New Deal democrat
Hyman Minsky’s theory that “stability breeds instability” has been on my mind a lot since November 6. He proposed the theory as to economics, but it applies equally to politics. Basically it means that the more robust institutions are, the more they breed complacency. That complacency leads to more persons with power pushing the edge of the envelope, because they see little risk of the institutions failing. This in turn leads to the institutions actually failing catastrophically.
Minsky’s theory does a good job explaining why, after a century of relative peace and stability, Europe fell catastrophically into World War 1. I think it equally explains the US political situation now. That was brought home to me when I read a piece after the election reporting that many voters felt safe voting for Trump this time because nothing catastrophic politically happened during his first term (COVID being seen as beyond anyone’s control).
It will only be after Trump causes catastrophic failure that those people will come to their senses. Of course, by then it will be far too late.
TBone
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: made me repost this
https://www.jphilll.com/p/its-time-for-class-war-in-2025
And this
https://organizingmythoughts.org/wading-into-2025-how-to-begin/
TBone
@New Deal democrat: not comfortable to think about but the truth rarely is.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@kindness:
This is basically mistermix’s “drive a car into a ditch” theory (people vote for the clowns who drive the country into a ditch, people then vote for us to get the car out of the ditch, wash, rinse, repeat) and I’m hoping it’s correct.
tobie
@Kay: Point taken. But we had a President who worked hard to strengthen unions in countless ways–including as provisions of the infrastruture bill–and Harris earned just over 50% with that group. Not exactly a resounding response to the admin that stood by organized labor.
Kay
@tobie:
Because you don’t know anything about unions. Unions are for members. They’re not a group of voters Democrats pull off a shelf every two years. They’re a non government regulatory system for workers. They have a primary purpose and it’s not electing Democrats.
They can make a big difference in close races in union areas. Marcy Kaptur would have lost without labor. Kentucky would not have a D governor without labor. Either would Michigan.
Theyre about 45 R and 55 D but that’s not a good stat because it includes law enforcement unions, who are huge and far Right and skew the number Right.
Professor Bigfoot
@Ohio Mom: Ma’am, you sound exactly like me.
If you want to see something ridiculous, look up Ohio’s 49th House District. (I’d post it here if I knew how!)
ONE LOOK at the district drawing shows how utterly, UTTERLY ridiculous it is.
And somehow, the corrupt Republicans in Columbus continue to stymie Ohio voters (see also the schmucks trying to reverse the cannabis legalization that we voted for).
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@zhena gogolia:
Not the case here in the Denver core. Still plenty of them up although there weren’t nearly as many as I recall seeing up in the first place for Biden in 2020. We also had a 15% drop off in voting from 2020.
gene108
@kindness:
Democrats won big in 2018, because the grassroots were appalled Trump backed into the presidency via the EC. It was a reaction to an unqualified adulterer, narcissist, ill-tempered person who was backed by white supremacists, happily accepted them, and generally brought out the worst in people.
There was a mad burst of energy to restore “standards” back into politics. We just could not keep up that intensity for six years.
Soprano2
@Another Scott: One of the reasons I was reluctant to switch to Harris is because women have a 3-5% disadvantage, and non-white people have a 1-2% disadvantage, so she was starting already behind. I keep pointing to the Wisconsin election in 2022 where the white D governor won re-election, but the black D Senatorial candidate lost by 1%. Exact same electorate.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Oh I agree. We got dealt a bad hand. The rightwing has been saying for years that if Democrats had their way, they’d raise wages and give away all this money, and it won’t help the poor. It will just cause inflation. So when inflation spiked at the same time as the wage gains and pandemic era programs which helped the poor happened, he just assumed the rightwing was right and that those things caused inflation. This is why Dem messaging couldn’t break through on that issue.
Professor Bigfoot
@glory b: It really is this simple, and it’s really kind of disturbing how many folks refuse to see it.
different-church-lady
@Kay: And the the other problem is where everything is destroyed.
Poe Larity.
Garland is just making a play for Thomas’ seat.
oldgold
@Baud: That is not so. They simply could have (and should have) denied the request.
Kay
@tobie:
BJ commentirs love national numbers but frankly you’re going to have to work harder than that if you want to understand these groups. If you don’t that’s fine too but talking about “unions” is all but useless. Which union? The prison guard union or Unite Here?
zhena gogolia
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: But do any of them have tinsel wreaths?
One guy put up “T – R – U – M – P” in Christmas-colored lights.
tobie
@Kay: Unions represent the interests of their membership. I get that as a union member by the way. And those interests involve wages, working conditions, pensions, other benefits, etc. That’s why unions lobby the govt, and when they’re effective at it, you’d think that would be reflected in their vote. 53% for an admin that when out of its way to to protect organized labor does not strike me as high. Why shouldn’t the AFL-CIO study how union members vote
ETA: The study cited in this post is from the AFL-CIO. I’m using unions in the plural to acknowledge the federation.
TBone
@TBone: the links are *chef’s kiss
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@zhena gogolia:
Heh heh, no, that wasn’t the comparison I was trying to make, just looking at the speed in which signs are/ain’t taken down.
I think we’re all on the same page when it comes to seeing and ridiculing the exaggerated nature of RWNJ displays for Hair Furor. I see em as simply another dog whistle conveying the message the the displayer is a racist asshole but can’t just come out and say he’s a racist asshole most days.
tam1MI
The Tonya Harding Dems will never admit that, when you tell hefty chunks of your base that their votes doesn’t count and doesn’t matter, many of them will believe you and react accordingly.
Soprano2
I talked to someone at work yesterday who seemed to believe that an unemployment rate of 4% meant only 4% of people were working!!!! (At least he didn’t understand what the unemployment rate meant at all.) I said no no no, that means 4% of the people who want work are looking for jobs. How do you combat ignorance like that?
Jackie
@different-church-lady:
Ahhh, BUT the drooling lunatic had blotchy white (orange) skin, and more importantly… a penis.
Kay
@tobie:
Only unions seem to incite this ire. We lost ground with Latino men. Does that mean we go MAGA on immigration?
tobie
@Kay: Who said anything about changing course on policy? I didn’t.
The question was about the gap between the strong support for Harris among the leaders of organized labor and their membership. Maybe the AFL-CIO is conducting such studies and for good reasons, doesn’t make it public. Ditto for large Latino civil rights organizations.
Kay
@Soprano2:
They can have cheap credit, boom and bust and 16% unemployment. That’s what they voted for. The whining over Door Dash fees going up will end real quick when we’re feeding their kids bag lunches at the library again.
High unemployment is MISERABLE. Our oligarchs like it and media like it but voters are fucking nuts for not taking advantage of 4% unemployment. They won’t see that again. I tell my youngest – “your working life began in an economy desperate for workers. That’s over now – by design”
Kay
@Soprano2:
You know the first people who suffer with high unemployment? Small business. If they’re too lazy to figure out that cheap labor doesn’t matter if their customers are unemployed then they deserve to fail.
Kay
@tobie:
I objected to “overwhelmingly support Republicans”. Maybe thinking we pull people off a shelf every two years to complete our political project is something we should look at too.
Baud
@oldgold:
They never do that. This is standard procedure. Again, not saying they’ll do the right thing in the end.
Another Scott
@Soprano2: +1
Others have tried to make the case that there wasn’t any Democrat that could have beaten Donnie this time. Maybe they’re right, given the state of the race given to us by Cannon and the SCOTUS. But, man, the counterfactuals write themselves don’t they??…
Grr…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
I saw a pickup in town with two gigantic “TRUMP WON” flags the other day. Don’t know if the flags were purchased in response to the 2024 election or were recycled “Stop the Steal” material from 2020. Either way, it’s deranged, cultish behavior.
Miss Bianca
@Soprano2: That, plus folding instead of pushing back on the “Biden so old, he gotta go!” crap when the Republicans were running a guy only three years younger and *demonstrably* unfit mentally and physically – besides being a convicted felon – made the Democrats look like feckless idiots, imo. With all that, Harris still made the Hail Mary pass almost work, but…she should not have had to.
And what did we get for all that, besides a Trump presidency again? People still writing think pieces on how the Democrats suck. Can’t win…
*cue Richard Thompson here*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcuqR1r2Ji0
p.a.
That’s how activist autocracies, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan, fall. Self-wrought destruction. “Passive”, just keep the fascism home states, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, even the Soviet Union (client states did the dirty work until Afghanistan (pace Hungary & Czechoslovakia) last.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@rikyrah: same. I have sympathy for my fellow vets who Didn’t vote for Trump or third party. I’m on SS and my Navy pension. I’m on VA health care. I’m frankly terrified of what’s coming if Trump and his cronies get their act together. I have sympathy for my niece whose son is autistic and benefits from state early intervention programs. She lives in a deep red state but votes blue across the board. So does my sis in law in TN who has stage 4 breast cancer. People who voted for Trump and depend on these things. Oh well
Mike in Pasadena
@Baud: You have described the opposition to Hitler in Germany quite well.
p.a.
It can’t be as simple as right wing labeling attacks, but we’ve all seen the polls where a majority support liberal programs A, B, C, D…
but don’t support Demoncrats. The party that actually supports policies A B C D…
The Thin Black Duke
White privilege translates as I don’t give a fuck about voting because it doesn’t impact me in a meaningful way. Black people knew what was at stake but, unfortunately, in spite of white people’s fears of being overwhelmed by the dusky horde, there just ain’t enough of us.
Juju
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Well that makes him a much better person.
Ksmiami
@glory b: no question we have an electorate problem- I think the best hope for the US is complete balkanization of the states. Sorry red state people- you’re fucked. If you don’t like it , tear down your own state Capitols.
Juju
@zhena gogolia: I hate to think that’s true, but I agree with you. I don’t think I’ve seen a better campaign in my life.
Kay
@p.a.:
I think progressives over-rely on those issue polls and we exaggerate how popular our policies are, and I am a progressive. The Left side of the Party has to admit that some of our ideas are not popular.
Everyone needs to look at shortcomings. Everyone.
Geminid
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: The guy sounds like an Independent. I think Biden-to-Trump Independents accounted for a lot of the shortfall in Democratic votes this year. Some of them might a have swung back at the Senate level and contributed to wins by Senators Baldwin, Gallego, Rozen and Slotkin in states Trump won.
II Nettoyeur
@Another Scott: Without ids of unknowns like Cao and Cifer, I can’t make anything of this post.
Ksmiami
@Soprano2: you let idiots suffer. That’s the only solution.
Kay
@p.a.:
I feel like I watched this happen with issue polls. Progressives seized on the ones they liked and insisted that meant our policies were popular. It went from something advocates and professional operatives do to something all of us do. We have to be really rigorous and actually get better at this.
tobie
@Kay: Comment deleted because you said in comment #127 that every organization “needs to look at shortcomings.” Glad you said that. I think the soul-searching should be broad-based because national studies alone will not capture the necessary granularity.
Kay
@tobie:
Labor unions aren’t Dem issue organizations. They’re labor issue organizations. They have an actual primary governing function that is not advancing the fortunes of the Democratic Party.
Ksmiami
@Kay: Obama’s biggest error to me was letting his electoral machine wither once elected. It should have remained a focus.
tobie
@Kay: Then why is the AFL-CIO studying non-voters in general and not non-voters among union members? The post is about a study conducted by AFL-CIO consultants on the US electorate’s behavior in 2024.
Kay
@p.a.:
The Right side of the Party should also admit that some of their ideas aren’t popular.
Soprano2
@tobie: I can give you one example of personal sticker shock for me. The crystal cat litter I use was around $4.15 in 2020; now it’s over $7.00. I noticed that the brand name crystal litter is a lot higher than it used to be, too. There might be a specific reason for that, I don’t know, but it’s something I noticed because it was such a big increase.
Another Scott
@Ksmiami: I think there are campaign finance and tax rules about how campaign organizations have to wind down when campaigns are over. Corrections welcome.
That said, there are still Obama organizations out there, like https://www.obamaalumniassociation.org/
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Kay
@tobie:
All of this sounds like a rejection of criticism or analysis we don’t like to me. I want to hear from everyone and I want to stop hearing criticism as something I need to fight or refuse. We lost. That’s uncomfortable. I’m willing to be uncomfortable to LOOK at it – all of it.
Soprano2
This makes me want to bang my head against the wall. Of course COVID was beyond anyone’s control, but the response to COVID was not. Evidently not enough of the voters thought his response was as catastrophic as we all did, or else they’ve completely blanked it out of their memory.
Glory b
@Kay: Local union leaders said they officially endorsed Clinton but they knew their rank & file weren’t going to vote for a woman, and Republicans had embarked on a decades long campaign against her.
This time, they endorsed Trump, going along with their membership, in spite of Biden saving their pensions, marching on picket lines, etc.
I’m figuring that they CERTAINLY weren’t going to vote for the black woman.
I’m coming to the conclusion that blacks & females might have to concede “front-and- center” positions to white males to gain anything.
We aren’t going to purge these voters of racism & misogyny in a couple election cycles.
Otherwise, we also have a fragile coalition, too many of which will take their ball & go home because they only got 90% of what they wanted.
Also, the Gaza/Israel thing was guaranteed to end in a Trump victory.
Kay
I loved Bidens economic approach – it was a progressives dream, but Obama was our most broadly successful President – all factors – so I have to admit that maybe his very moderate approach is more popular.
He also was probably a once in a generation political talent so maybe not replicable. He’s extraordinarily talented. There just aren’t that many people that good.
Soprano2
@Kay: I notice that when you see pictures of the UAW it’s not mostly white men anymore. I agree, you can’t just say “union”. I’m in the IBEW union here, as are a lot of my co-workers, and I guarantee you most of them voted for TCFG.
Kay
@Glory b:
I, along with most of the human rights organizations we relied on when we opposed the Iraq war believe that Gaza and the US role in Gaza is ethnic cleansing and a war crime. Again – not everything is secondary to the Democrats political project. People don’t exist solely to vote for us. Labor predates the Democratic Party by about 1000 years. The Geneva Conventions are still operative no matter if we have to turn out Dearborn for Joe Biden.
Soprano2
@Kay: I think part of this is that a lot of them have never seen a market with truly bad unemployment as an adult. When you’ve lived through 10% unemployment you don’t forget it.
Soprano2
@Kay: Yep, I’m terrified TCFG is going to tank the economy for real and all of our business will dry up, because one of the first things people give up is going out for the evening. All the small business owners talk about, though, is all the increased costs. Just like lots of other voters they want the 2019 prices for the stuff they buy back, but unlike them they want to be able to still charge what they’re charging now. To be fair, small businesses were also hard hit by Covid. I’d argue that we’re just in the past year recovering from it.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Geminid:
He is. Right leaning, but not really GOP. He voted for some down ballot Democrats.
Soprano2
@Kay: For example, our position on immigration isn’t currently popular for a variety of reasons.
Quiltingfool
Sit next to me, sister. I’m white and I have zero warm fuzzy feelings about white people, and, frankly, white women who vote Republican. These white women shoved the shiv into all women’s backs; they support a party who is on board WITH MAKING WOMEN 2ND CLASS CITIZENS.
I can’t trust white people/white women at all. The only group I trust and will take seriously is black women. They are smart, pragmatic and have been on the front lines of this war forever. White women (Republicans, to be clear) just don’t get how much they cut their own noses off to spite their faces.
I know that many black people don’t trust white folk and I get it. Why should they? And it’s insulting to expect them to know “which” white people are worthy of trust. Not quite the same, but as a woman, I feel that way towards men. Women are trained to be careful around men, but even with taking care, if you are assaulted (physically, sexually or verbally) you have been conditioned to blame yourself for the assault. How fucked up is that?
Okay, I’ll jump off my soapbox now!
Glory b
@Kay: Then why didn’t they vote for Biden?
Example (I think I mentioned this before), Biden poured huge sums into WV, there are factories going up, infrastructure improvements, etc.
So much so that WV has a $1 billion surplus(but still can’t see fit to increase abysmal teacher salaries).
They still voted over 70% for Trump.
Does anyone know why?
I bet I do. LBJ knew too.
Kay
@Glory b:
I buy your analysis but to me it isn’t actionable. It doesn’t take us anywhere we as individuals can go.
zhena gogolia
@Quiltingfool: Totally with you on all of that.
Glory b
@Kay: The “why” is still out there though.
“Muslims & Uncommitted Voters Brace for Trump Onslaught.”
“Union Leaders: Trump Stabbed US in the Back.”
Why didn’t they vote for the person that could have stopped it?
Muslims were trending more GOP a couple years ago, joining Republicans to yell at teachers & school board members, based on their shared animosity towards LGBTQ people. That they stayed there , in spite of Trump’s threats to turn Gaza to glass, is something of a surprise.
Black voters, Jewish voters & senior citizens seem to be the only ones who understood the assignment. We probably need to build from there, even though those groups aren’t as “sexy” as constantly chasing after young people, who, historically, NEVER turn out as hoped.
Another Scott
@Kay: OTOH, things don’t change until they do.
Part of getting things to change and making progress is getting people to talk about them. Ignoring misogyny and racism because we can’t do anything about them in 6-12-24 months isn’t going to solve the problem.
Too many people said they didn’t vote because they hate politics and they think their votes don’t matter. That’s actionable. Even if that’s just what they said and not the real reason, it is an opening to start a conversation. The never-ending stories that people didn’t vote for Harris because of Gaza or the price of eggs or anger about student loan forgiveness is just misdirection if those aren’t the real reasons.
Incremental progress…
Best wishes,
Scott.
No Nym
A lot of them are dead.
No Nym
@New Deal democrat: What you describe is a very compelling theory.
Quiltingfool
Absolutely. You don’t get better if you refuse to take a hard look at everything, even if it makes you “feel bad.”
I am a retired teacher. If I had a lesson, or lab or test that crashed and burned (assessment results were poor), I didn’t automatically blame the students. I looked at my work with a very critical eye. I can control what I do, but I cannot control the lives of every student.
We can blame voters, but that fixes nothing. We look critically at ourselves and fix what is broken. We do have to listen to people, and we can’t expect to rally everyone to our side.
Citizen Alan
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: then I have no compassion for him. Every bad thign that ever happens to him is deserved.
Kathleen
@Jackie: At least there was no pile on Hakeem Jeffries for his speech this week. Yet.
Kay
@Soprano2:
No it isn’t popular but it’s right in my view so I hope we stick with it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Of course, it’s actionable. It helps us to to know what not to try.
Old School
The “guy” is Ronnie Jackson, so it’s still a nut.
Melancholy Jaques
@Another Scott:
I don’t either. It’s a hard thing. At times, we think Americans are better people. And we want them to be better people, but Trump twice says they aren’t.
BCHS Class of 1980
@Another Scott: The harshest lesson that I believe Dems have to take from 2024 and even 2016 is that a woman cannot head the Dem ticket; sucks but true. I also believe that many of the stay-at-home voters couldn’t be bothered to vote for The Scary Black Lady™️ as opposed to The Indisputably Evil Nutjob. There was always going to be the usual tantrum about inflation and prices not magically going down but the presence of the SBL turned it from Clinton-close to narrow but indisputable.
Quiltingfool
@Melancholy Jaques:
Misogyny is socially acceptable and exists within all groups.
Misogyny is acceptable to some women.
Sucks to be a woman, huh?
Miss Bianca
@Kay: Well, we’re pretty fucked if what it takes for voters to turn out for a Democrat for POTUS is “must be a one-of-a-kind, once in a generation political talent”.
I mean, if we only get those once in a generation, we have to wait for another 12 or so years.
K-Mo
@Another Scott: The only relevant contractual is running Joe Biden, who was running even further behind downballot D’s for at least a year.
Kathleen
@Miss Bianca: And by that time they’ll be too old!
K-Mo
@Kay: A lot of small business owners are good at what they do without any ability to see or understand the big picture. Deserving to fail seems to harsh for these folks.
Otherwise I agree with pretty much all your comments in this thread.
Another Scott
@BCHS Class of 1980: I don’t think we can say “never”, but I think we have to recognize the headwinds that exist at the moment.
In 2020, Biden won the popular vote by 4.5%. Democrats won the House popular vote by 3.1%.
If the cost for running a woman is 3-4-5%, then we need to make up that percentage elsewhere. Either by increasing the negatives on the other side, or turning out more new and sometimes voters on our side, or …
The voting population is too closely divided to think that elections are going to be easy or the obvious result is going to favor us in reality. We have to find ways to fight for every gettable vote, and if our best candidate is a woman, then we apparently – at the moment – have to fight all the harder.
Each election is unique in some way or other. We have to be clear-eyed about the challenges and we have to learn the right lessons. (Spanberger is a woman and is favored to win the governor’s race in Virginia this fall. But I’m sure she will still have to fight hard for it.)
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
BCHS Class of 1980
@zhena gogolia: Thank you ZG for fighting the good fight. Not going to snitch-tag anyone here but anyone who’s in business and didn’t know that inflation was worldwide post-crud … well, res ipsa loquitur. Also having concerns for the plight of a group of people doesn’t necessarily mean that you want one of them in charge.
Citizen Alan
@gene108: I’m coming around to the idea that everyone who votes GOP is a crook at heart. They hate Dems because they think Dems will stop them from stealing from other people.
BCHS Class of 1980
@Another Scott: To clarify: I should have said “short-term solution.” At 63, that’s the only term I have. I do believe that the first female President we get will enter through the VP back door.
Geminid
Lebanese have been without a President since October of 2022, but it looks like their Parliament will finally elect one tomorrow. From Al Arabiya:
Delegations from France and Saudi Arabia visited Beirut in recent days to discuss the election.
Under Lebanon’s constitutional power-sharing structure, Parliament must choose a President from the Maronite Christian community. The Prime Minister must be a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker of Parliament a Shiite.
rikyrah
Justin Chermol (@justin_chermol) posted at 11:01 AM on Wed, Jan 08, 2025:
Leader @hakeemjeffries ont the so-called moderate Republicans pretending to save SALT:
“The Republicans burned the House down and now want to pretend that they are firefighters.”
SALT was “obliterated by the GOP Tax Scam in 2017” https://t.co/ZdhVnuAbCm
(https://x.com/justin_chermol/status/1877037887717290094?s=03)
New Deal democrat
@Soprano2: If you are in the restaurant or tavern industry, there is a daily statistic of the number of patrons and the $$$ they spend published by an outfit called “Open Table”:
https://www.opentable.com/state-of-industry#fullbook-segment
It supports what you said about how the business finally fully recovered in the past year.
jefft452
“When Flatland analysts argue that America “moved right,” the prescription tends to be that Democrats should also move right, ”
There is no analys, it is a knee jerk prescription
When Rs win – they say Ds should move right
When Ds win – they say Ds should move right
Sometimes they say “move to the center” but no matter where you start they think the “center” is rightward
They do this not based on any well thought out research, but because they want the Ds to move right
catclub
I still say vote by mail in 2020 was the main difference.
New Deal democrat
@No Nym: Thanks.
Miss Bianca
@Kathleen: right?? lolsob
BCHS Class of 1980
@Soprano2: Also describes Flori-duh. The percentage in favor of the abortion amendment (57%) considered with Trump’s percentage (56%) shows that at a minimum, 1 in 7 FL voters voted for abortion rights and the party implacably opposed to those rights. Why? I can’t qwhite put my finger on it.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Kay:
That’ll be the day; somebody get back to me when a clown like Yglesias, and all the “progressives” who buy into a lot of his shit actually admit “Oh, you mean our grifting ideas are crap and might be harming us at the ballot box?” They simply say “Our ideas never fail, they can only be failed”. In that, they’re no different than the right in terms of self-examination.
rikyrah
CNN This Morning with Kasie Hunt (@CNNThisMorning) posted at 4:44 AM on Tue, Jan 07, 2025:
.@RonBrownstein tells @kasie: “Every president who has gone into a midterm with unified control of government since Jimmy Carter has lost it … and what that means is — as you noted — there is a very tight timeframe for Republicans to pass their legislative agenda.” https://t.co/EtXyxNkBLd
(https://x.com/CNNThisMorning/status/1876580774511624207?t=EV868zfOJyZOxmbZEwA6Dg&s=03)
rikyrah
Talking Points Memo (@TPM) posted at 1:41 PM on Tue, Jan 07, 2025:
Republican state officials and legislators in Louisiana argued Tuesday that the state has moved past racial discrimination in voting — and so should be allowed to suppress Black voting power with impunity.
https://t.co/PbtKREyWtK
(https://x.com/TPM/status/1876715912356569202?t=jFHqnNmfMQ5r3u0Wb1JFcA&s=03)
Miss Bianca
@Citizen Alan: No, I don’t think they rationalize it as “Democrats are going to stop me from stealing.” I think they think, to the extent they think about it at all, “Democrats are stealing MY hard-earned (crooked) money and giving it to THOSE PEOPLE.”
Citizen Alan
If I could kill people I don’t even know with just the power of my mind, that asshole who went viral for complaining about the cost of McDonald’s French fries which he ordered via Doordash would have instantly keeled over from an aneurysm.
Miss Bianca
@catclub: Maybe, but Colorado has had all mail-in voting for several years now, and we still didn’t turn out.
BCHS Class of 1980
@Kay: But that analysis is a starting point. It tells us things about the American electorate that we don’t much like but are apparently true and which have to figure into what Dems do next. The racism and misogyny of segments of the electorate have repeatedly surprised and disappointed me for ten years and I consider myself an embittered WV cynic on the level of The Blogfather!
That analysis is actionable in the sense that it outlines the shoals that Dems will have to navigate; assuming that they don’t exist is an excellent way to founder.
While I’m here: does the AFL-CIO include first responder unions? I agree that those should be considered separately.
robtrim
About 20 years ago I had a self-created web site named, “Plutocracy Watch”. It focused mainly the then emerging disparity in the national distribution of wealth which hurt the middle class and favored the richest one percent. The ramifications of this and political acts like Citizens United are even more manifest now that Trump will be seeking to finalize the corruption – self dealing, cronyism, nepotism – that he has long pursued.
Capitalism, the long praised economic system that has produced unimagined wealth for the top one percent of our nation, is probably in its late-stage manifestation. Trump will usher in an oligarchy; a Elon Musk fashioned dystopia where the ultra rich tread on democracy wherever they please.
BCHS Class of 1980
@Miss Bianca: Exactly. To put it in sportsball terms, if you’re waiting for Brady or Mahomes to take you to the Lombardi, you’re going to be waiting awhile. Also since 1992, Dems have had Brady and Mahomes.
K-Mo
@BCHS Class of 1980: Mind-boggling, but lots of people thought Trump would be a better steward of the economy than Harris or (especially) Biden. A lot of those people voted for Trump notwithstanding his other views. Is this partly due to (Trump’s) race and gender? Indubitably. But it’s not the only reason. Trump, Republicans, RWM, and the MSM sold this story for years and we did little to push back.
If I had to change one thing about the D approach here it would be to have pounded the message for the last 4 years that Trump had mismanaged the economy and set up the inflation while the Biden administration had cleaned up the mess and bright inflation under control. Instead we let the Republican framing set in; by the Fall of 2024 it’s was too late to push a new message.
Miss Bianca
@BCHS Class of 1980: I mean, there’s gotta be another way to prevail in national elections than, “Ooh, we need to run a Rock Star Johnny (but not Janey!) Unbeatable!”
If there ain’t, we’re in for a prolonged world o’ hurt.
Geminid
@Geminid: Al Arabiya has several Syria-related stories today. One was about Secretary of State Blinken telling reporters that the US is trying to persuade Turkiye not to intervene in Syria against the US-supported SDF. Blinken acknowledged that Turkiye has “legitimate security concerns” but said the problem could be solved without a Turkish Army offensive in Syria.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani visited Tehran and discussed Syria with Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian. Iran’s President called on Israel to withdraw from the Syrian territory it occupied when the Assad regime fell. Israel has occupied 440 square kilometers of Syrian territory beyond the lines agreed to in its 1974 Separation of Forces agreement with Syria.
And in the Irony-Is-Dead department, another Syria story:
There has been some loose talk in Israel over the last few weeks, including among government officials, about forming a military alliance with Syria’s Kurdish-based SDF. This is an exceptionally bad idea even for this government and is likely one reason Turkiye is now threatening to intervene directly in Northeast Syria.
Anyway
@tam1MI: I don’t buy this.
D primary turnout was pretty low and those that showed up were by definition dedicated, committed Dems. Never understood why they would skip voting in the general
fancycwabs
Any story about “why the Democrats lost” that doesn’t at least mention a giant, mostly-uncontested, multi-disciplined right-wing propaganda machine has missed a crucial detail.
Glory b
@tam1MI: Who said that?
Name some names.
Another Scott
@II Nettoyeur: Sorry.
Cao was the GQP candidate for US Senate in November. Cifers was the GQP candidate for VA Senate in that district.
HTH!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Bupalos
@zhena gogolia: turnout among black women was down. Which doesn’t disprove your assertion there I guess. Just would maybe complicate things.
I think you’re probably mostly wrong. Vance won his Ohio senate seat in 2022 on the same lower turnout in blue urban areas, running against white dude extraordinaire.
Bupalos
@The Thin Black Duke: black turnout was down from 2020 and was slightly less favorable for dems.
Barry
@Kay: “Labor unions aren’t Dem issue organizations. They’re labor issue organizations. They have an actual primary governing function that is not advancing the fortunes of the Democratic Party.”
This is hard to respond to, because it’s crazy. Which of these people’s interests are better served by the GOP?
Barry
@Kay: “Again – not everything is secondary to the Democrats political project. People don’t exist solely to vote for us”
I have a similar response – whose interests were served by Trump and the GOP being in charge?