Paul Krugman has some good news for us.
What actually happened in 2024 was that low-knowledge voters believed Trump when he promised to bring prices way down and deliver unprecedented prosperity. “Low-knowledge” isn’t a pejorative: G. Elliott Morris uses it to mean voters who don’t know which party controls the House and Senate. These voters went strongly for Trump in 2024, but their opinion of him has crashed:
So while people inside the MAGA bubble keep insisting that Trump is a great president, the greatest president ever, presidenting like nobody has ever seen before, their cheerleading reeks of desperation. The MAGA implosion is gathering force. Americans are mad as hell, and they won’t be gaslit anymore.
I have just one thing to say about this.
Yes! Finally!
Maybe it’s time for all of us to check in with Republican voters we know. The ones I know aren’t MAGA – I am just not in the same orbit with anyone like that.
The ones I know are either low information voters or they voted R because they always have, and they don’t really pay attention to the news so they have no idea how much trouble we are in as a country.
Yes, I am angry at those people, too. But we need more of these Republicans to vote differently in November, or at least not vote at all.
Jertian
Don’t tease me with that headline.
WaterGirl
@Jertian: Ha! I didn’t think of that.
RepubAnon
Indeed! Plus, one wonders where the low information voters are getting their worldview. If it is billionaire-owned social media and mainstream media, perhaps freeway overpass signs and other non-digital communication paths are needed.
As to reflexive voters, an analogy to Alcoholics Anonymous (say, Republicans Anonymous) would help.
jonas
I’m betting many just don’t vote at all. The default sentiment for low information voters is that both parties suck and what they’ve seen this year just confirms that more than ever. Even though all three branches are, you know, in Republican hands.
But if you can’t even be assed to know which party controls which chamber of Congress, then yeah, the world must seem a very weird and confusing place these days.
Ten Bears
What happened to “Low Information Voters?” Why the change …
Jackie
Related: Joe Rogan is coming out against FFOTUS in a big way – and he was very influential in getting so many young white male voters to vote for FFOTUS.
Nancy
A while ago I shared a Robert Reich substack with my brother thinking he would agree that billionaires shouldn’t run the show. He replied to criticize a spelling error and to say that Trimp always tells the truth.
Is my brother a MAGA?
piratedan
in effect, people that are low information voters followed the media tropes that Republicans are better at economic policy and foreign policy that is courteously supplied by the 4th estate and reinforced daily, didn’t make a big deal about Trump’s convictions because the media that feeds them didn’t make it a big disqualifier and treated those convictions as “partisan”. Since J6 the DOJ had only arrested the foot soldiers, so as far as the voters who rarely paid attention to things never saw the government itself hold DJT culpable for that crime.
Now, when we’re clearly off the rails, despite the bad faith sane washing of the GOP by the majority of the media, people sharing facebook, instagram, pinterest and you tube videos are informing more and more of us as the MSM has reached that tipping point of trust lost. That kind of shit is unrecoverable, just like this administration.
The squishy middle put the fucker back into office and the MAGA folks thought that they had converted people onto their team and now they are finding otherwise and not just some of the squishy middle, ALL of the squishy middle.
Doc Sardonic
@Nancy: Yes….and also an idiot, with a touch pedantry over spelling
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@RepubAnon: the LIVs I l know generally get their info from what gets beamed into their environs. And when the doctor’s office, gym and sports bar all plaster the screens with Fauxnews there was no real escape from the MAGA mindset. I say “was” because it seems even Fauxnews has had enough.
Betty Cracker
Wrote and deleted a couple of fully “pejorative” descriptions of these absolute dunderheads. Yes, it’s good news in the sense that it’s better if they’re against Trump than for him, albeit too late to stop him from destroying countless lives. But Jesus tap-dancing Christ!
I have lots of sympathy for people who are too busy or otherwise disinclined to pay attention to politics. I understand that we who do are the outliers. But dammit, there’s a minimum amount of attention required of voting citizens in a democracy, and these people aren’t meeting their civic duty.
Professor Bigfoot
I beg to differ!
If it is accurate, it is by definition a pejorative, and a well deserved one at that.
RevRick
A huge chunk of these low-information voters are in the lower income brackets. They are so busy coping with day-to-day stresses that they don’t have time to park their asses in front of a computer to comment on Balloon-Juice, let alone read a newspaper or a magazine. They have their hands full just getting by. And many of them have been, in fact, fairly regular Democratic voters.
I used to read to 2nd-graders in a school that was overwhelmingly Hispanic and poor. And one thing I noticed was how chaotic the classrooms often were. Not because the students were bad. No, the classroom chaos stemmed from the chaos caused by poverty. The uncertainty of knowing where they would call home or if they’d have a skimpy dinner. In that school, the average turnover of students in a year could reach over 100%. In other words, the students a teacher faced in the classroom in September could be entirely different by June. Imagine trying to teach in a situation like that. Imagine how hard it is for the kids and parents to live in a situation like that.
Can we just let go of our anger and snide remarks about the price of eggs and try to imagine how sensitive folks in those circumstances are to increases in their costs of living? Can we just consider that they were hurting and voted accordingly?
Professor Bigfoot
CAN I GET AN AMEN UP IN HERE?
ETA: sorry, too many episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race have been inflicted on me, and it kinda makes me mad that I enjoy it so much— just silly, campy fun with some serious craftspersonship and performance art. 😁
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Betty Cracker: I am torn between your perspective and the US’ fixation on all-out pedal-to-the-metal productivity robbing citizens of the bandwidth to build informed voting habits. LIVs are a product of the US’ misguided work ethic as much as anything else, and society is paying for that ignorance-by-design.
Melancholy Jaques
@Ten Bears:
I think in this case, it only refers to the knowledge of which party controlled each house of the congress rather than information about issues, the economy, etc.
Professor Bigfoot
@RevRick: I hear you, and I don’t disagree with you— but I must once again point out that there’s plenty of Black folks among those who “don’t have time to park their asses in front of a computer” but the percentage of Black people who voted for Trump is much lower than that of others.
It’s not the poverty, it’s not the grind… it must be something else, or else poor Black people would agree in FAR greater numbers than they do.
Derelict
As I noted on Krugman’s substack, these low-knowledge voters are not going to save us. These people do not vote in mid-term elections. If they vote at all, it’s in presidential elections–and even then, they’re often not aware of who’s running and vote solely on name recognition. One of the most common Google searches on election day of 2024 was “Did Joe Biden drop out?”
So these people will not be voting come November.
Betty Cracker
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq): I agree with your points and also RevRick’s, but damn, people who don’t even know which party is at the controls when they go to the booth to express their righteous anger might as well be blindfolded and throwing a dart at a ballot. It’s worse than random. It’s manifestly dangerous.
Miss Bianca
@jonas: frankly, I don’t think that anyone who is so incurious and checked out as to not even realize which fucking party is in power, or which fucking branch of government is in charge of what, is ever going to “come to their senses” about anything, period.
So now they’re mad because there wasn’t actually a pony under all the horseshit Trump and Co have been shoveling at them? Doesn’t mean that they’re suddenly going to become involved and responsible citizens.
I could be wrong. I just think we’re not going to end up engaging these people, more like just dragging them along.
cmorenc
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq):
One of the best management decisions at the local upscale Y gym in North Raleigh, NC where I am a member is that *none* of the bank of four TVs mounted above the workout areas be ever turned to any of the regular cable-TV news stations (no Faux, no CNN, no MSNBC)…only one of the four to the plain-oatmeal-pablum generic local cable news channel, two on sports channels, one on HGTV. Back when one was on CNN and one on Fox, even with the sound off, I had to regularly restrain myself from throwing a barbell weight at Sean Hannity, because the chyron strip at the bottom annotating the moment’s theme was so egregious. And I could see likely MAGA-types sometimes snarling silently at Jake Tapper on the CNN screen.
oldgold
The low information voters need to know 3 things:
Trump is absolutely unfit to be POTUS (Emotionally, psychologically and intellectually)
2. Trump’s administration is utterly corrupt; and,
3. Democratic majorities in the House and Senate are necessary as a bulwark to the dangers posed by 1 and 2 above.
I think in November they will know these things and vote accordingly.
Miss Bianca
@RevRick: No. Sorry, but no. I have taugjt in those environments myself and the people you are talking about are, by and large, not people who were going to vote for Trump. Mostly because they are and were undocumented and weren’t going to be voting for anyone.
No, I am talking about people who CAN vote and still vote for Republicans. Or don’t vote at all because Both Sides.
evodevo
@Professor Bigfoot: IMO it was the black churches who made the difference in the Sixties, as centers of organizing and information dissemination. Nowadays, the white megachurches with their talibangelical leanings have been the centers of misinformation for the MAGA movement. They hear this junk 24/7 from right winger podcasters, NewsMax, their friends at church functions, etc. etc. It’s been drummed into them for the last 35 years. My relatives and acquaintances are proof of that. And it’s just recently that that has even showed cracks in the dam. We’ll see if sanity prevails, but it’s a major roadblock to overcome.
Doc Sardonic
@Professor Bigfoot: It is something else, and while I am demographically in the Snow Whitey category, I believe the difference maker is community and shared experience or the lack thereof.
ETA: as per evodevo above also the relative toxicity of portions of particular communities
Suzanne
@RevRick:
Agreed.
Also….. while racism and sexism and every other kind of bigotry are in the water we are all swimming in, and they are worth analyzing…. conditions are genuinely bad for some people and they have been telling us so.
WaterGirl
@jonas: Not to my sister, who votes religiously, but pays no attention until right before the election, and then votes whatever way her conservative husband votes.
I’ll bet there are a ton of people like that.
Ben Cisco
@Suzanne: Yes, conditions were bad for some. I’m fairly confident that for those individuals, said conditions are markedly WORSE now.
Will their INCREASED hurt and anger lead to a better decision-making process, or do they play the “both sides suck” tango?
WaterGirl
@Jackie: wow wow wow.
WaterGirl
@Nancy: I vote yes.
FastEdD
When I hear all the time that “Congress did this” or “Congress passed a bill” usually it is one of those things where absolutely no Dems voted for it. Drives me crazy because it plays right into the pox on both your houses theme. When I remind others that it wasn’t Congress who did that, it was R’s only, I am the one being partisan. It is good there is an objective definition of LIV. It tracks with the evidence that when Piggy is on the ballot, many LIV will vote, and when he isn’t they don’t.
Suzanne
@Ben Cisco:
I wouldn’t count on a better decision-making process. Lots of people make poor decisions as a matter of course in their lives.
And, if we are being honest….. we benefit roughly 50% of the time from this dynamic. I have said before that I think we often over-interpret our wins and this is what I mean. Some amount of people are voting for us because they’re pissed at Republicans when they’re in power, nothing more.
BTW: “both sides suck” tango is funny as hell.
different-church-lady
In my view, “voters who don’t know which party controls the House and Senate” is still a pejorative.
Baud
I don’t think people want to accept this, but IMHO, the low knowledge voter is why the Republican mantra of always be closing works better than the liberal desire for righteous debate.
Baud
The first half makes me think he’s a jackal. But the second half outweighs that.
RevRick
@Professor Bigfoot: And why is that? Could it be that black people have a deep memory of what Southern whites did to them for 350 years?
Political scientists have long noted that revulsion is often a greater vote motivation than attraction . For instance, in the early days of the republic the Scotch-Irish voted Democratic…until the real Irish showed up on our shores. Black people used to vote GOP, because the Solid South voted Democratic. Now the voting patterns of Southern whites is a huge repulsive factor for black people. It overrides just about everything else. Low income Hispanic voters don’t feel that level of revulsion.
dnfree
I’m gonna just say that “low-knowledge” at a certain level is a pejorative, or should be. It’s like the people who post on social media about how bad the schools are, and they blame the mayor, or how bad the city streets are, and they’re going to complain to the governor. We need a basic level of knowledge of how things work in a democracy.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Rs don’t just get low information voters. They get plenty of white college educated voters too.
48% of white college educated voters voted for T2.0.
Chief Oshkosh
@Betty Cracker:
And the outcome is not random. As others have noted, a dumbed-down, distracted electorate is all part of the plan. It’s not new — Jefferson actually warned the a democracy only works if the electorate is educated, but it’s taken on extinction-level importance given how we’ve “progressed” to being able to nuke it all, or more slowly, choke ourselves to death.
NotMax
@dnfree
We’re all stuck living in a Nextdoor society now.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
True. There’s little evidence that people with knowledge will disproportionately choose us.
dnfree
@evodevo: I think this is a good point about white evangelical churches. I have also come to believe that people who reject the idea that there is any evidence whatsoever for “macroevolution” because it contradicts Genesis are predisposed to ignore evidence that contradicts what they want to believe.
schrodingers_cat
What is the demographic breakup of these ” low knowledge” voters?
PatD
@RevRick: Yes, a lot of truth to this. We spend a lot of time being bitter about Gaza or whatever else divisive issue but I think a lot of people who voted for Biden and would otherwise have voted for a Democrat sat out the election out of economic despair.
Our society, and the electorate, is troubled and perhaps fatally flawed but Democrats simply cannot win elections without a broad coalition of whites and minorities. We don’t need everyone to be allies but we do need enough of their votes to win.
Melancholy Jaques
@Professor Bigfoot:
You are correct, sir. And according to all the “can’t be racism because it’s never racism” analysts, black folk don’t care about grocery prices.
Professor Bigfoot
@RevRick: Over 400 years, but that sidesteps the point— that Black people know, and Black people have been telling everyone and Black people don’t get listened to.
From the immediate rejection of Trump to the distrust of Fetterman…
Professor Bigfoot
@Melancholy Jaques: Aren’t they the same people who don’t think Black people work? 😉
Belafon
This would be my one test to determine if you should be allowed to vote.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I am continuing my deep dive of Indian history and am in awe of Gandhi’s genius. How he created a formidable movement that shook the ramparts of the British Empire is truly inspirational.
different-church-lady
@Jackie: Oh, Joe, the filament in your head is so close to lighting up…
eclare
Mens’ ice skating finals today at 1:00 EST on NBC. Cheer on USA’s Quadgod!
Corny, but he is that good. He had seven quads in his short routine.
Melancholy Jaques
@schrodingers_cat:
That’s the point I was trying to make in a comment yesterday. That whole argument that MAGA is the people the system “left behind” ignores those people and the billionaires that finance the whole project.
WereBear
If “knows which Party controls the government” is as low as low info goes, I guess there’s LOTS of room for improvement.
Suzanne
@Melancholy Jaques:
People care about lots of things, and they wax and wane in personal salience depending on many factors. There is certainly privilege baked into that.
Melancholy Jaques
@PatD:
I don’t buy that at all. The economics of 2021-2024 were not that bad. Inflation was less than half of what it was during the late 70s, early 80s. The interest rates were low and unemployment was the lowest in my adult lifetime. There are always going to be people making less than they need and others making less than they’d like to. I can see there were stresses. I’m not that well off, I felt the price increases. But despair? There is no evidence that things were that dire for that many people. If it were so, things like Door Dash & Uber Eats wouldn’t have been thriving.
Did everyone just forget the Great Financial Crisis?
schrodingers_cat
@Melancholy Jaques: It is a convenient argument which makes people feel good about themselves because it externalizes the problem.
I find the same blindness among left of center folks in India, only idiots follow Modi. Yes he has a following among them but plenty of smart people, highly educated people vote for Modi and the BJP.
different-church-lady
@RevRick: I never doubted the hurting of the families you’re describing. For me “price of eggs” was always aimed at comparatively affluent middle classers who wanted a convenient excuse for their fascist curiosity.
WereBear
Sadly, all signs point to YES.
Online, a woman shared a Facetime with her parents, where they say “I don’t see any proof he’s a felon” and “he’s just deporting criminals” like a middle-aged Chatty Cathy doll.
brendancalling
I’m not longer in contact with the Republicans I used to know, and I have no intention of contacting them now.
different-church-lady
@Melancholy Jaques:
Apparently.
Suzanne
@Melancholy Jaques:
Record-high percentage of Americans are cost-burdened by their housing.
Professor Bigfoot
@Melancholy Jaques: Ta-Nehisi Coates pinned that after 2016.
Link.
Melancholy Jaques
@different-church-lady:
Agree completely.
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: I am tired of hearing these excuses. If you can’t even ackowledge the existence of a problem you are not going to solve it.
schrodingers_cat
@Melancholy Jaques: Yep Rs are better at economics doesn’t agree with macroeconomic data of the last 40 years at the very least. Its a convenient fig leaf.
WereBear
Difficlut, they were arrogant, at a time when even the Corporate Media was reveling in the low inflation. How we were on top of the world with all these economic indicators.
If you need the instructions for boot-emptying to be on the heel, you have no business voting or operating a subway train or anything else that is disastrous when someone is negligent.
Express your hurt in a better way. Have a clue about what you are doing, nominal adult.
Because it only gets harder from here. You’ll only fall further and further behind the eight ball.
Steve LaBonne
@jonas: The reason Trump has twice been elected is that he has somehow been able to motivate these people to vote. One hopes, and I genuinely expect, that no other Republican will be able to master that art.
Doc Sardonic
@WereBear: Some people can’t even get it with the instructions on the heel and a faucet on the toe
Steve LaBonne
@different-church-lady: It is difficult to get a white man to understand something when his white male supremacy depends on not understanding it
Hungry Joe
We don’t have to convince/convert the MAGA hordes, or even a whole lot of those who vote GOP out of habit or tradition; all we have to do is shave off a few percentage points and goose up our turnout, and we pretty much run the table. So, ignore the MAGA madness and concentrate on pounding our messages.
Ms. Joe organized a neighborhood rally yesterday; we made signs (okay — I just CARRIED a sign) and stood for an hour at our major intersection from 4:30-5:30. The honks and waves were nearly non-stop; it was encouraging and energizing as all get-out. People in cars were enjoying it, too. SO many smiles and upraised fists. Noem materialized at the Otay Detention Center (just south of most of San Diego) earlier in the day, so everyone was pretty fired up.
We’re going to be out there every Thursday, until hell officially freezes over. And yesterday it came close: Temp had dropped to 59 DEGREES by the time we left. Took me all evening to thaw out.
catothedog
Most of these analyses about voting behavior seem like the people who invest in stock market based on studying stock market price charts. People dont vote based on GDP, inflation and statistics. They vote emotionally for their team – and this is team whites playing for themselves
Step back and take a deep look. Look at what is happening around. What you see – prices, jobs, ICE, RFK dismantling medicine,Epstein …the depravity of it all.
Now look at the net Trump job approval of people who know. This is -14%? (57%-43%) Still 43% approve? When it should be like 90-10 ? OK, maybe then 75-25?
A decent human would be revolted by what is happening. It should almost be universal – Yet, yet – we don’t see anything that has changed. Even among those who know..what exactly makes them shut their eyes?
That should tell you. Nothing has changed. All this depravity is fine – if that is the cost of maintaining white privilege
Change does not happen when a small % of people shift their attitude. Change happens when a plurality of people stubbornly demand change at any cost – like the Rethugs are doing now, to maintain white privilege.
A small amount of people will shift and that will stem the tide. That has been going on since…. Reagan? Bush?
One cannot wish away that 43% who still approve. Change will happen when that becomes much, much smaller than it is. Maybe that needs more misery. Misery enough to crack the race consciousness of whites ..
White privilege, racism and its preservation remains the elephant in the room, and still under the carpet. White Democrats, liberals and left keep silent on this. Silence is assent.
And as long as they keep assenting, it will be just one more attempt to stem the tide. Trump may go, Rethugs may go, but MAGA and Trumpism will continue its inexorable march
Another Scott
I’m of two (or more) minds about stories like these.
So, I come down on mostly blaming the reporting these days. The mania for both-sidesing everything so that they do not upset their advertisers (and 47 and his monsters) is a danger to objective, fact-based reporting. It’s easier to sell “news” that says that the country is “closely/hopelessly divided” than stories that it would only take about 10-20-25 folks in the majority to uphold their oaths and act within the norms and their job descriptions for things to get back on track.
Yes, us normal humans have responsibilities as well. But division of labor means that the folks who are trained and work and have expertise in an area – like reporting – have a responsibility to do their jobs to the best of their ability. We aren’t expected to look over a farmer’s shoulder to make sure he’s tilling the soil correctly. We shouldn’t be expected to have to diagram political news stories to figure out if they’re slanting the truth or flat-out lying to us.
Grr…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Steve LaBonne
@catothedog: What makes me crazy is that white supremacy is passed down so efficiently from generation to generation and here in the 21st century there is basically still no indication that it’s declining whatsoever.
WereBear
I do think there were considerable numbers of people, the ones clogging the search engines with “Can I take back my vote?” the Morning After, who apparently though the process was like a vending machine.
Press A-3 and get cheap eggs. When you actually press D-9 for the peanut butter crackers, and get shot, instead.
Now THAT’S a low info voter.
I understand Independents, the people who are at least embarrassed enough to leave the Republican party when polled, have made a big swing towards planning to vote D this year.
Melancholy Jaques
@Suzanne:
That standard, which you didn’t include in the quote, is people who are paying more than 30% of their income for housing. That doesn’t describe dire economic circumstances such that one would despair. That describes the kind of financial stress that characterizes our consumer capitalist economy.
Contrast that with the people who lost homes or were evicted from their residences because they were unemployed in the GFC. And the unemployment for many was long term.
The post pandemic inflation that everyone was treating like the worst thing ever peaked two years before the 2024 election, steadily came down after that, and was 3-4% for more than year before the election. Source.
And understand, I’m not saying everything was rosy, everyone was fine. But despair? Please.
Anyway
Thought the discussion is about trying to peel T2.0 votes for the upcoming midterms …yes, no question that white voters voted overwhelmingly for Cheeto in 2016 and 2024
WereBear
@Baud: Sadly, if they HAD to go WWE to save the nation, I don’t know if they have the talent.
But the attitude of “if you aren’t smart enough to vote for us…” is present and chilling.
Demonstrate it to them. I don’t harass pre-schoolers for not footnoting properly, I show them to the bathroom.
Melancholy Jaques
@Steve LaBonne:
The reason is that his bigotry is open & unapologetic. In 2016 every pundit was giving us their savvy analysis of why that asshole beat Hillary Clinton. What they didn’t want to talk about was why he easily beat every well financed and well known Republican when he didn’t really have a campaign organization. Reporters found white people all over America who told them, “he says what I’m thinking,” but the reporters didn’t follow up to ask “what are you thinking?”
The reason was his voters knew his racism was sincere and as deeply felt as their own. His very public hatred and scorn for Obama was why they chose him and why they will never desert him.
Deputinize America
@WereBear:
Yeah, I’m not inclined to extend cheap grace to people who are deliberately pig ignorant about the downwind effects of what they do. To me, it’s akin to making excuses for “holler trash” to open dump their garbage down hillsides or into creeks, and I’m over the notion of making allowances for their earnest expressions of stupidity, racism, misogyny, parochialism or reflexive contrarianism.
Old School
@Nancy:
That seems normal.
<twitch>
Baud
@WereBear:
For me, it’s not about smart. It’s about character. Trump is transparently an ugly person. He didn’t hide his character like Ronald Reagan did.
The relationship between footnotes and bathrooms escapes me.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Most people are uninterested in politics and fewer still inform themselves about the participants and mechanics, causes and effects.
When things go pear-shaped they’ll pop their heads up and pay attention to current events, which is a far cry from an education, and they’ll perhaps even vote. At some later time they go back into hibernation.
Telling example: 2020 we were in the launch phase of covid, the end of Trump 1.0, and California voted hard for Biden. 2024 when things were less dire and folks kinda sorta still felt unnerved and confused about covid, 2 million stayed home on election day. But the Trump vote held from 2020.
Politics is still boring but people being slain on camera by masked federales seems to have invaded folks’ heads.
Steve LaBonne
@Melancholy Jaques: I mean, plenty of other Republicans clearly are deeply and sincerely racist, but so far none of them seem to be able to duplicate his performance as the idiot cracker whisperer. I guess we’ll find out in 2028.
WereBear
@Doc Sardonic: And they have used faucets before!
Interesting Name Goes Here
@RevRick: I was hurting. I had just gotten fired from a not-decent-but-needed job under very shitty circumstances and was facing health issues that persist to this day.
I still knew better than to vote for the convicted rapist conman fascist.
Then again, I’m Black. I don’t get the luxury of being able to blame my economic standing for my moral and ethical failings.
WereBear
@Steve LaBonne: And the women who have tied their kite to his string…
StringOnAStick
@RevRick: I wonder if low info Hispanic voters are building some revulsion now because of ICE attacks on their communities?
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: Amen.
Quiltingfool
@RevRick: As a retired teacher who worked for many years in a 50% free and reduced lunch school (high poverty marker) I agree that many of my kids came from highly disfunctional family situations. I am a product of a safe, secure family situation, so I had to learn how to interact with those kids in a way they would feel safe.
The big push in my area is to move to 4 day schools. I worry about kids who may miss meals or simply not be in a safe space an extra day.
I had students who had shitty home lives, but they would come to my room with a smile; I’d like to think they felt safe with me…or they were happy to be doing a science lab activity, lol!
Melancholy Jaques
@Deputinize America:
Right there with you and we – not elected Democrats – should be more vocal about irresponsible Americans who fail to do the bare minimum to be citizens.
different-church-lady
I can’t believe we’re nine years removed from election night 2016 — nine years of Trump’s naked racism on full display — and people are still trying to sell the “economic anxiety” excuse.
schrodingers_cat
This excuse of being too busy for politics or being above politics is in itself a privilege.
different-church-lady
@schrodingers_cat: Nominated.
Steve LaBonne
@different-church-lady: People with a vested interest, of one kind or another, in downplaying the central role of racism.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: Indeed I am done with this debate.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
I think you’re right. It’s why our policy discussions and conversations about programs generate the MEGO from so many voters. The political media are just as bad since they refuse to engage on that level and only do the horse race & click bait stories.
WereBear
While true, part of what sparked the Civil War was Northern organizers, explaining to poor white workers — which by design was most of them — how the workingman in the North lived. Which is why, when I attended a Christian school in the small town South, my biology teacher never let us open the textbooks and foamed at the mouth about Communists. It dates back that far…
Jim Crow was as much about fear of blacks and white organizing as it was about marriage. And it still is.
Divide and conquer. But look at the big brain on King Cyrus! He’s intent on knocking everyone down to the same desperate level.
Where they can get some perspective. The very first thing Hitler did was take money from targets and give it to his voters. I guess that was Term One?
These Fascist fools can’t even Reich right. Guess I’m grateful. Indeed, you have to be THIS stupid to ride the ride, because the wolves will show up, and people will be thrown out of the sled.
Mark
A lot of people are low info voters by choice. They tune into television stations that tell them what they want to hear. Same thing with web sites. After the 2020 election Fox News was reporting that Biden had won the election. They were losing viewers hand over fist to NewsMax that was peddling lies that the viewers wanted to hear. Fox switched gears to get their viewers back and ended up losing $787 million dollars in a defamation case.
Tony Jay
@eclare:
Is he the one who looks like he should be playing a young Doc Brown in a Back To The Future prequel or Mozart the Serial Killer in a remake of Sliders?
WereBear
@Another Scott: There has never been a better time to build new paths. People on Youtube get the word out better than giant corporations.
Because they have different incentives. All of our incentives for good are under attack.
trollhattan
@Tony Jay:
Based on costume I think of him more as a tall hobbit gymnast.
Melancholy Jaques
@different-church-lady:
Agreed. And I’ve had too much coffee or something. I apologize for excessive commenting on this. I need to get offline and read a fucking book or something. This argument gets us nowhere.
RaflW
Same vein: Brian Buetler has a good (tho long) post up today on how the ‘culture shift’ that got read into Trump’s very narrow win was likely very, very oversubscribed.
frosty
@Baud: “Always be closing” vs. “righteous debate” is a good observation. Ae Dems need to do more of it. Or at least sharpen our approach.
Mea culpa. That sounded like “improve our messaging, didn’t it?
jonas
@Steve LaBonne: I agree. It was simply his celebrity. These are the same people who watched The Apprentice and assumed he was a wealthy businessman who would know how “to get things done.” That’s going to be tough for other MAGA candidates to reproduce, particularly since the “knowing how to get things done” myth has been brutally debunked, even in the minds of low-info normies.
Suzanne
@Melancholy Jaques:
Our crony capitalist economy sucks. That’s exactly the point. It sucks, and people do not like it, and they are telling you so. Spending over 30% of one’s income on just having a roof over one’s head is incredibly stressful. Evictions also hit record highs in many cities in the years after the pandemic.
That would be my mom and at least ten of my friends.
I do not know why there is this utter resistance to believing people who said that they were struggling financially. There was plenty of data…. credit card balances hit record highs, people reported struggling with costs of childcare and healthcare. Krugman has talked a great deal about the K-shaped economy.
I will note that working-class people used to vote for Democrats. Maybe they still would, if we weren’t telling them that they were wrong.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
I bet there are people who are still trying to make fetch happen.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Betty Cracker: Agreed, and just as infuriated as you.
But what causes it?
My opinion: too many people are brainwashed into the Protestant Work Ethic approach to success. Too many think working stupid-long hours, burning the candle at both ends and sneering at “work life balance” discussions makes for success. That kind of “success” squelches the informed cirozen almost by design.
My shorthand for the phenomenon: the US has gone from working fewer hours than the French and being more productive than the Japanese to working more hours than the Japanese and being less productive than the French.
Remember when all the new technology trumpeted throughout the 1950s and 1960s was supposed to free people to do more fulfilling stuff? You could be a musician, or painter, or study something new, in the time all that tech gave you back. Instead, tech got us midnight pages and 24-hour on-call and work-from-anywhere-at-any-time. We are working more, and carrying more stress, rather than less.
With that kind of pressure, it’s easy to ignore anything not impacting the day-to-day.
What do you tell people caught in that? “Go find a job that doesn’t demand so much, so you can become a better citizen”? Who would take that advice? And the people who could make that kind of labor environment happen and improve things for everyone are the ones not getting elected because the electorate is too overworked to care.
catothedog
@Steve LaBonne:
A lot of this is manufactured and amplified propaganda within social media by vested interests funding it. There is lot of money spent on shoring up white privilege.
Poke around social media – GenZ, GenX. You will see 2 things. A hatred of boomers, (which to me is justifiable to a smaller extent than they claim ) but also a nostalgic yearning for the post war period – everyone could buy a home, car and take vacations and have the good life on one income.
What really gets unsaid is the reality of that era. Women as “homemakers” – servants inside the home – and colored people as servants outside.
A lot of the Bernie left are like this, but they are cunning at hiding it, and they have been at it way before MAGA.
But there is a new crop of supporters of MAGA among the young. These people now long for that post-war golden era. They are made to believe that they also could have lived such a life, but for women and colored people becoming uppity. They could care less about the status of women and colored folks during that glorious period – when women and blacks knew their place.
They believe very much that women and colored are responsible for them living in misery and missing out on their prosperity. Misogyny and racism is their trademark.
eclare
@Tony Jay:
I can’t answer that, but he is the one who does a backflip, on skates.
WereBear
Don’t forget MAGA also cornered the market on misogyny, too. They exploited the fearful by making up things for them to fear. We let rule of law, lapse.
And yet it’s not as bad as it was when I was a child. That nation was squirrely about a big strong handsome white man because he was Irish Catholic. They loved Nixon. No one ever admitted the 91% Christian nation hid child abuse in its clergy.
It’s different now. It really is. Despite their best efforts, in a million little ways. A friend of mine in the 90’s looked into my eyes, a black man who survived Vietnam, and declared he will never let things go back to when his father was a child, because that was his scariest thing.
We lost touch, but I know he probably feels the same up/down realities from that perspective. And now, so do I.
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: They do vote for Democrats- the working class voters who are not white, that is. Food for thought.
Tony Jay
@trollhattan:
He’s definitely got the look of a Jacksonian Elf about him, with eyes that have stared into the bright flame of glory for so long they’re blind to dim mortal lives.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady: Yeah.
Professor Bigfoot
I don’t think so.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ETA: presumption that “working class” here is (as usual) shorthand for the WHITE working class; since working class Black people already don’t vote for Republicans.
WereBear
@Baud: The child might ask about Proust. But if they are squirming, I help them with Priorities.
Perhaps I mixed up toddlers and MAGA in my example, but it’s an intrinsic quality we cannot help.
Tony Jay
@eclare:
Pffft. Anyone can do a backflip in skates.
Surviving the landing is the tricky bit.
no body no name
We won the 100k+ income bracket who has been running away with things no matter who is in office. We lost the under 50k income bracket and the 50-100k bracket for whom things have been getting worse no matter who is in office.
WereBear
@trollhattan: Part of the right wing revival was coaxing the religious back into the voting booths.
Warblewarble
Hughely effective billboard at Manchester United football grounds, says, ‘Immigrants have done more for this city, than tax dodging billionaires ever will”.
Baud
@catothedog:
Agree. Lots of mostly fake nostalgia on the left.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Suzanne: Cost of living is definitely a driver for the bottom 90%. My standard of living got a decent bounce in 2011 and again in 2018, but between those years and after 2018 the curve arced downward, and the bounce in 2018 didn’t do nearly enough to make me feel as good as the 2011 one did. And I was in a fairly decent income bracket so I can only imagine what it was like for folks less well off. If the US is going to resolve the Low Information Voter phenomenon (or even the Low Information Boater phenomenon, as I nearly typed just now) then we have to address quality of life issues beginning with business’ ever-expanding expectations of employee availability and an appropriate policy for work week hours and PTO.
Melancholy Jaques
@Suzanne:
You mean the white ones, right? Because the non-white ones still vote Democratic in super majorities.
And I don’t recall any Democratic candidates telling the white working class that they are wrong. Can you cite one example?
WereBear
@frosty: There is this tendency for them to brag on a bill and not explain how it works for YOU.
“It will keep prices down with a stable egg industry,” might need an extra interpreter. I love watching the deaf translation, especially if it’s boring. But perhaps we also need someone to translate that into MAGA, like:
“Those thieves stealing from the hardworking farmer will cry their eyes out at the money going straight to you, because baby needs a new pair of shoes.”
You know. Diversity.
trollhattan
This seems like a BFD.
California net +5, Virginia net +4, Texas maybe stompin’ on their own dicks, House might look a little different come January.
eclare
@Tony Jay:
I should have added, and the most important part, he lands it.
I have been rollerblading once in my life. I tell people that I had no problem stopping, I had a big issue with braking.
eclare
@Warblewarble:
Whoa.
no body no name
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq):
Due to the nature of my work I had to have a pager and then a blackberry for the longest time. Peers of my age thought that was so cool. A company issued phone. They all wanted one and were jealous.
I tried to warn them about this. I told them it sucked. But nobody believed me. Now everyone has their smartphone hooked up to work and has to suffer like me. The smartphone is one of the most diabolical things ever created.
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
Civil Rights Act
WereBear
@jonas: Dear heavens, 90% of them believed it. It ran 20 years! Best psyop in history.
If they had better actors on their side, they could conquer the world. But they get the B & C lists.
UncleEbeneezer
@eclare: He’s incredible but I heard he had to do some sensitivity training wrt to homophobia. Also, I’m so tired of the whole “Quad God” thing. I get it but damn, the commentators use it way too much. Anyways, I’m still pissed about the ice dancing robbery…
Emily B.
In 2024, through Vote Forward, I wrote more than 100 letters to Democratic-leaning but infrequent voters, telling them why I vote and urging them to vote in the upcoming election. “Your vote = your voice!” The letters were purely nonpartisan—in fact, that was supposed to be a big part of why they would be effective.
How many of those infrequent (and probably low-information) voters took my advice—and headed into the voting booth to cast a ballot for Trump? I’ll never know. But I do know that every single postcard I send to voters in the future will have a clear message: vote for the Democrat.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@different-church-lady: “Economic anxiety” driving GQP votes is camouflage for racism, sexism and xenophobia; but if you say “economic exhaustion” you describe bothsiderism and disincentivisation in voting.
I use “disincentivisation” rather than “disinterest” because the problem is a lack of hours/calories/neurons to devote to the situation, not a dissuasion from participating.
WereBear
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq): There’s also the angle that capitalism benefits from keeping their consumers infantile.
Not just the impulse itself, but a pervasive attitude. Disney Adults are the most visible. It’s on purpose, as much as possible.
PatD
@Melancholy Jaques: no, it may not have been bad for you but inflation had real effects. 7% mortgage rates and 7% car notes were real. And that perception that inflation had negative effects was widespread by the time of the election in 2024.
It’s more meaningful to people who live check to check but don’t otherwise follow politics closely. Gaza doesn’t explain a 5 million vote loss from Biden to Harris.
p.a.
@jonas:
@WereBear:
I remember (unverified source TBH) the producers of Apprentice joking about how hard they worked to edit the show so he wouldn’t look like an idiot. Goes along with the Art of the Deal ghostwriter commenting he has a usable vocabulary of about 500 words.
trollhattan
@WereBear:
Important point.
Goldwater (remember him?) was extremely leery of Christian fundamentalists and wanted to keep them out of the party. It was St Ronaldus of House Hair who threw open the doors, granted them influence, and now here we are.
In between, of course, being the Nixon Southern Strategy cocktail with a floater of George Wallace.
Whee!
WereBear
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq): The nation coming off came off two plus decades of incessant MLM propaganda and religious fervor. Manipulated in faceless stadium groups, even in church, stealing techniques from sex & drugs & rock & roll. After all.
It was the Grifted Age. I hope it is finally collapsing, since the market already tanked a few times? Max Headroom will show up soon.
frosty
@schrodingers_cat: You’ve probably mentioned this before but do you have one or two books for a shallow dive into Indian history? Like MacPherson did for the Civil War with Battle Cry of Freedom.
They Call Me Noni
@WereBear: And was FOX playing in the background?
trollhattan
@p.a.:
The little detail of them being so appalled at how trashy Trump Tower was they build a boardroom studio set instead, was so very on-brand for Donny.
No matter how much he steals he’ll always be the cheapest bastard in the room.
p.a.
@trollhattan:
@WereBear:
I know at present it’s a policy and electoral no-no, but as the nation loses religion, maybe eventually we’ll be able to tax these fucking politico-religious churches.
Fair Economist
@eclare: *Sigh*. A backflip on skates is not that difficult for this level of athlete. The reason backflips were banned is that they are very dangerous to other skaters, because their skates are ahead of their body and at head/neck/chest level when they are looking in the other direction. Surya Bonaly nearly assassinated Midori Ito that way during a warmup in the 1992 Olympics.
schrodingers_cat
@frosty: Indian history is vast, is there a specific period you are interested in?
Romila Thapar’s History of India in 2 volumes is a good start.
different-church-lady
@Professor Bigfoot: “Everyone else needs to be hyphenated”
p.a.
@trollhattan: Did not know that but, yeah, no stretch of the imagination to see that being true.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
My first good laugh of the day.
WereBear
@trollhattan: Another highlight: the Prosperity gospel is collapsing with the screaming obvious.
They will find a new shiny thing, but that one was their favorite.
eclare
@Fair Economist:
Didn’t know that. Thanks.
wjca
That’s not entirely a one-sided phenomena. My wife is pretty politically disengaged. Aware enough to occasionally see something on the news about Trump et al and remark “What an idiot!”, but not really paying a lot of attention.
A couple of weeks before election day, she will routinely ask to look at my (marked) sample ballot. I have no idea how she subsequently votes. But I can’t see why she’d always ask if it wasn’t having an impact on her vote, probably a big one.
WereBear
@They Call Me Noni: They were wearing the hats.
Gathered it was a habit of theirs, when chatting with their daughter of a Sunday afternoon.
WereBear
@p.a.: If there are any left. It’s been a steep drop and not slowing, either. The floor erodes each year.
Melancholy Jaques
@PatD:
Why do you think things weren’t bad for me? I was a fucking school teacher in Los Angeles. You think I’m rich?
What I said was that the excuse of economic despair to vote for that asshole doesn’t square with with me because I have lived through times of despair and 2021-2024 was not a time like that at all.
Another Scott
@Suzanne: I think it’s a both-and and more problem…
There was relentless reporting during the Biden administration that a recession was coming and guaranteed to happen in coming months, or that it was “the worst economy in history”, and inflation was at “record” levels, and it cost $200 to fill up the tank on one’s “car”, and airport hamburgers cost $70, and milk was $10 a gallon, and on and on. Little if any of it was true.
Yes, there were big step changes in too many prices. Yes, it hurt lots of people. But, along with that, many, many people at the bottom got substantial raises for the first time in ages (and raises above average inflation).
All of us know that Harris-Walz had policy proposals to address many of these economic issues. But, as you remind us, too many people don’t vote on policies. They’re tribal or vote on vibes or can’t stand the idea of a woman being president. It was ever thus.
A big problem with economic discussions in the USA is that – because we’re a huge, rich country – the mean or median is very, very broad, and there are masses of people below those peaks. And levels and rates of change are different but nearly equally important things. And “what have you done for me lately” is very powerful. And “I don’t care, just fix it. You didn’t fix it, so out you go!” is a powerful human reaction (as we saw worldwide).
Politics is hard. Politics is unfair. We have to find a way to muddle through and make things better even with a surly electorate (whether they’re surly for objectively good reasons or not-so-good reasons).
My $0.02.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Enhanced Voting Techninques
Also how infuriating a snide comments from someone who is fat, dumb and happy would be to them.
Suzanne
@Steve LaBonne: Yes, I am aware. White working-class people also used to vote for Democrats.
Again: why is there a resistance to accepting the fact that people are struggling in this economy?
We are supposed to be the party that does better for people.
Baud
@Suzanne:
We are and we did. People didn’t believe we were making things better, so now we and they will have to live through four years of decline.
UncleEbeneezer
@Professor Bigfoot: Also, being Working Class doesn’t magically make people immune to the appeal of various bigotries. Xenophobia has always found many fans among the working class in America and now all over Europe.
In Europe, when the peasantry were finally allowed to participate on elections, some of the first things they did was collectively vote to pass restrictions targeting Jews.
I was also just reading a fascinating account of the 1968 purge of Jewish government officials and compelled emigration/exile of tens of thousands of Polish Jews and the trade unions were a big part of where the Party spread their propaganda for public support. Interestingly, they didn’t use classic antisemitism, instead they used Anti-Zionism as their justification. The parallels to what we are seeing today with people going door to door asking Jewish residents if they are Zionist, pushing BDS/boycotts and harassment of anyone/anything related to Israel (ie- Jewish) are quite striking.
And of course you know our trade unions here in the US have their own racist histories as well.
Suzanne
@Melancholy Jaques:
No, I am citing actual Democratic voters saying that they are wrong. Like you are, right now. People have been telling you that they’re having a hard time holding it together financially and you are straight-up saying that they are not, that spending 30% or more of your income on housing isn’t so bad, just par for the course.
WereBear
@Suzanne: It’s partly because R’s tend to self-herd, from rural roots to wanna-be tycoons. The “no one I know voted for Nixon!” syndrome.
Once you do anything in that environment, the easy thing is to get more and more trapped into defending your choice, and not knowing how to handle being wrong.
You see the same people at Wal-Mart every week. You know people from fifty miles around it.
Everyone you know agrees with you except that snotty nephew who thinks studying economics means he can explain the value of a dollar!
frosty
@Warblewarble: ‘Immigrants have done more for this city, than tax dodging billionaires ever will”.
That’s going to be my rally poster on 3/28.
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: Why is there resistance to acknowledging that basically only white people reacted by supporting a criminal fraudster pedophile idiot who also happens to be a proud racist?
Suzanne
@Baud:
If one wants more people to vote for Democrats at any point in the future, I submit that the proper response to voters’ anger about their financial lives should not be “You’re not doing so bad”.
I bet if we tell everybody to cut back on lattes and avocado toast….. we’ll win even more!
Baud
@Suzanne:
Voters don’t matter. We get to express out opinions. We’re not second class citizens. That’s why everyone gets to criticize ourselves.
Baud
@Suzanne:
We can say things are getting better, when it’s true. If voters distrust Dems, then there’s little we can do.
ETA: Should we lie and say crime is really bad and we’ll get tough in it when it’s not?
frosty
@schrodingers_cat: I’ll look for that book series. I’m interested in the East India Company on through Gandhi and Partition. You know, the White Adjacent history. Apologies for that. :-)
Suzanne
@Steve LaBonne:
I fully acknowledge this. We can acknowledge it over and over and over.
But this gives you nothing actionable moving forward. People are racist and sexist. We still need them to vote for Democrats. We still need to convince people to vote for us. Do you think there was a time in the past, when Democrats won, because the American public was not racist and sexist?
Ta-Nehisi Coates said on Ezra Klein’s podcast, that right now has “possibly the best white people have ever been”. That’s also probably true of men. So, since winning the next election(s) are vital to saving the Republic….. how are we advancing this effort?
PatD
@Melancholy Jaques: Who said economic despair is a reason to vote for Trump? Not me. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I’m saying that many people at lower incomes felt the pain of cost of living increases much more, obviously, and chose to either sit out in significant numbers or to vote for that asshole. The economy was good overall but there were real problems too. You can scoff at “despair” all you want. It doesn’t change what happened in that election.
Baud
@Suzanne:
I can’t speak for others but IMHO constantly talking about how feckless the Dems are seems foolproof.
Another Scott
I decided to look for a story on voter turnout in Oregon. Mostly white, vote by mail for a long time, west-coast, pretty blue.
OPB.org (from 12/2024):
There seem to be lots of things going on there – as one would expect given all the changes happening…
What does it mean for 2026 and 2028? An easy attempted explanation is that relentless negativity against Democrats in the MSM is hard to combat and drives down turnout. But, who knows, really.
FWiW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
wonkie
I have a couple MAGA neighbors and they are in the primal scream stage: so threatened by the collapse of their concept of reality that they are in hysterical denial. TRUMP IS GREAT HE HAS TO BE GREAT EVERY HATER LIE ON REPUBICAN MEDIA HAS TO BE TRUE ETC!!!!!!!!!
None of them are dangerous, but I think it is quite likely that we will have localized explosions of violence from other MAGAs who just can’t believe that maybe they were wrong about some things and never represented the majority.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq): my thoughts exactly. So many people in this country live with their noses constantly affixed to the grindstone. It does not have to be that way!!
different-church-lady
@wonkie:
…yet.
different-church-lady
@Baud: I mean, if the past nine years have taught us nothing else, it’s that voters love it when you “keep it real”.
Baud
I bet Vance stole them so the athletes will make more babies.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Another day that ends in “Every four years”.
PJ
@PatD: Racism and sexism does.
Suzanne
@Baud: Plenty of people have been racist and sexist and voted for Democrats in the past. Plenty of Democratic pols are racist and sexist now! We still need to convince people that voting for us is in their best interest. That starts with acknowledging their valid concerns. Being in rough financial straits is a valid concern.
Political campaigns are not going to make people antiracist or anti sexist. That’s important personal work, and we should absolutely encourage people to do that work on themselves. But we still gotta win, and deliver for people, in the meantime.
different-church-lady
@PatD:
NO ONE THING explains it. That’s why we keep going around in circles here.
PatD
@Another Scott: I’m actually optimistic about this. Trump activated a significant (across the states that matter most electorally) enough group of voters who weren’t all that inclined to vote previously. I think there’s a lane for Democrats to do the same.
There is real energy behind being anti-ICE, anti-Epstein class, anti-AI, anti-billionaires and the tech elite etc in a way that might appeal to some of these unaffiliated voters.
Melancholy Jaques
@Suzanne:
How many white working class voters read my comments on this blog and decided to vote for that asshole?
I never said things were not difficult for some people. But there are always people for whom things are difficult. Even in socialist countries! What I do not accept is that things were so desperately difficult that people had no choice but to vote for that asshole. I don’t buy that. Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. But we ought to just acknowledge that we disagree and let it go.
PatD
@different-church-lady: I don’t really disagree with that. More than one thing, sure. The economy is what I focused on today related to the post I originally responded to above.
different-church-lady
@Steve LaBonne & @Suzanne: Why da fuk we got such a problem acknowledging both of these things?
PatD
@PJ: Those are some relevant factors. It’s not all of it. I think if we had a do-over of the election today that Harris wins easily. Anti-incumbency is something we overlook about 2024. The best and right candidate doesn’t always win.
Baud
@Suzanne:
If you’ve got a plan that works, more power to you. I don’t. I’m not knocking anyone’s strategy. But I’m not going to stop expressing my opinions on the theory that some other voter decides what I say will determine their civic and moral choices.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: The answer is that most of us don’t really want to be in a coalition. We want to be in deeper agreement. We want there to be more of us than there are.
Which, quite honestly, I get it. I have to remind myself that coalitional alignment doesn’t mean these people have to be my friends.
JGreen
@Baud:
Well, maybe he’s right. Trimp always tells the truth. Trump never does.
Baud
@JGreen:
Trimp/AOC 2028!
different-church-lady
I bet if we go out in the world we can find a number of people who fit the following descriptions:
* White people genuinely economically stressed who fell for Trump
* White people genuinely economically stressed who nonetheless didn’t fall for Trump.
* Black people who inexplicably fell for Trump (rare, but there).
* People of any demographic group who aren’t economically stressed, but say so because it gives them cover.
Etcetera…
Arguing about WHICH ONE GROUP is responsible for Trump amounts to pointing fingers.
Suzanne
@Baud: What we do and say — out in the real world, in our social networks — matters a great deal.
Again, I share:
I get that here in the BJ comments section, we’re letting off steam a bit. Which is fine. But I will also note that some commenters here are constantly reminding us to get behind whoever the Dem candidate is, not to complain about them. If this is true, the inverse is also true: don’t take dumps on the people whose minds you want to change.
Melancholy Jaques
@PatD:
At #44 you said:
That isn’t voting for that asshole, but staying home is not much different. It’s saying you’re okay with him. And I don’t scoff at financial stresses. I’ve lived them often enough to know they are real. I am just done with all the economic anxiety excuses for people to vote for that asshole or to just say they’re okay with him being back in power after all we know about him. So, let’s drop it. We aren’t going to find any agreement on this and there are no ways to prove anything.
Baud
@Suzanne:
It absolutely does not matter. That’s why people are allowed to criticize Dems instead of constantly selling their party the way Republicans do. The liberal internet has fought hard for years to win that right and they did. I’m convinced. The best thing is for everyone to speak honestly. So I’m not going to accept the argument that I now have some obligation not to say something that others find inconvenient. What we say doesn’t matter. Every voter is responsible for making their own choices.
Professor Bigfoot
I get that; but it doesn’t explain why Black people, under the exact same economic pressures, soundly REJECTED Trump and the GOP.
Professor Bigfoot
@PatD: But what’s the theory that explains why Black people, under the exact same economic pressures, still soundly rejected Trump and the Republicans?
different-church-lady
@Suzanne:
It’s fine as long as we’re aware that’s what we’re doing, and what it amounts to.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
I think it’s treating the racism as a given that we cannot affect, so people are trying to find ways to circumvent that on the theory that there’s no effective way to deal with it directly.
different-church-lady
@Professor Bigfoot: (Hint: it ain’t just a theory.)
PatD
@Melancholy Jaques: Ok, but you do realize I’m not saying those are good reasons right? People are irrational. They do irrational things. I don’t actually think we disagree that people did a bad thing (sitting out or not voting) for bad reasons. This does not excuse their behavior, it acknowledges it.
Anyway, we can drop it.
PatD
@Professor Bigfoot: I think we all know that the problem with Black people in the US is that there aren’t enough of them. If we had more we’d never lose a damn election.
To sum up, Black voters are the most rational voters. But you already knew this.
Suzanne
@Baud: @Professor Bigfoot: It’s not circumventing the fact that people are bigoted. I think every one of us believes that, strongly.
I think where we keep talking past each other is more a difference of opinion regarding what political engagement is capable of.
Professor Bigfoot
I read that, unfairly or not, as “I can’t change my white supremacist family and friends therefore I wish those people (or maybe that guy) would just SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
Baud
@Suzanne:
I don’t think anyone is opposed to political engagement. It’s the form of the engagement that divides us.
Professor Bigfoot
@PatD: And the Cassandras that other voters either will not listen to, or will listen to and intentionally choose the opposite because fuck those people, right?
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
Probably a superposition of both. Depends who you talk to.
Steve LaBonne
@different-church-lady: I am happy to point a finger at white men. If they voted Republican by only the same margin as white women, Democrats would win almost every election.
gvg
@RevRick: I know and sympathize BUT look at the proof that it is dangerous to ignore the need to be somewhat informed.
Perhaps they can pool knowledge or delegate different family members to follow certain kinds of news, but they HAVE to follow certain basic info. It is deadly not to, see vaccination.
There are also a lot more people who don’t follow politics because they don’t want to and it’s boring. Those sort of get excused when people bring up the seriously overworked poor. They aren’t the same thing. I tended that way when I was young but was brought up to vote and managed to keep doing it because my parents and teachers said I should even though it was boring. It was also in a past where I don’t think all republicans were vicious insane creeps and some democrats were even kind of dippy. Long time ago. Pretty much since 2001 its been crisis. People have had plenty of time to wake up. This is not a surprise break out, it’s been a trend for decades.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
Black people are unique in that they have used their prodigious influence in the Democratic Party long enough that there is a strong cultural alignment. Low-info/Ariana Grande Black voters can look to more engaged friends, family, neighbors, Church fellows….. and get good advice on how to vote. We all influence people in our social networks.
White people, and even other racial minority groups, do not have this long alignment to the Dems. White people have it to the GOP, and other people of color have weaker ties to political parties at all.
PatD
@Professor Bigfoot: I don’t disagree with 99% of the problems you identify and who is primarily responsible for it. I disagree with the 1% which is mostly style and isn’t an issue here today.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Melancholy Jaques: Look, Trump voters are a coalition of grievance. It’s not all MAGA. MAGA are a minority of voters. It is not irrational to figure out why people who aren’t MAGA voted for Trump and to try and get them to vote for us. People who were genuinely economically distressed did (inflation grievance), in fact, vote for Trump in 2024. If they hadn’t, he would have lost. Trump did a better job convincing them than we did. It is important that we figure out how to change that.
Suzanne
@Baud: What I mean is: I do not think that political life is for unfucking people’s brains. I think political life is for managing our shared resources and protecting people’s rights to live their lives as they wish.
Castor Canadensis
Off topic: I was just reading about WWII, and found two books of interest,
– The Art of Guerrilla Warfare, archive.org/details/SOE_The_Art_of_Guerrilla_Warfare_Gus
– The Partisan Leader’s Handbook, archive.org/details/SOE_Partisan_Leaders_Handbook_Gus
Both are by Colonel Colin Gubbins, a member of Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, described by Giles Milton in the book of the same name. Not the one by Damien Lewis. I bought it for $18.00 on Kobo.
In the short run, more interesting to Canadians and Greenlanders than Americans. I sincerely hope!
Baud
@Suzanne:
If more people believed that, we would be in our current predicament.
JGreen
@Baud: Shouldn’t that be Trimp/ACO?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Suzanne:
100%
gvg
@Another Scott: I have the impression that the reporters don’t know the answers so they can’t explain. I also think the reporting declined about a generation ago and these reporters don’t recall reading or hearing good reporting so they don’t even know what it is supposed to be like.
I am not a good writer. I take too many words to get to the point and I am not persuasive but I like to read good factual analyisis that is not too wordy. The Atlantic for instance always drove me nuts with how wordy it was and how long it took to get to the point. I can’t do this. I know it can be done though. I remember it. There has to be a fair amount frequently for the population to pick up the needed background info. Right now I think its the reporting class that needs to be educated before we can help anyone else. No idea how.
Suzanne
@Baud: I know. I wish more people were able to separate things in their minds, too. Like, I remember reading some social conservative freaking out about trans people…… and I’m like, “Why do you have to approve? Don’t you think you and your trans neighbor can work together on trash pickup?”.
I think therapy and books and church and school and quality relationships are what unfuck people’s brains.
gvg
@Melancholy Jaques: I think you need to look at the decades long pattern of losing that some exoerienced. At least that was what came through when this subject came up before form some people giving personal examples. Things like graduated high school in this recession, took starter job, pensions went away because company bought out, another recession lost house equity, started to catch up recession again had to retrain for new career draining IRA. kids start college and it costs a lot more, etc now I am 10 years from retirement but no one wants to hire or pay decent for a 50 year old. it wasn’t one moment in time, it was the whole thing.
Geminid
@PatD: I figure Virginia is now a reliably Democratic-voting state because Black people constitute 20 percent of its population. We were more a Red state coming out of the 20th century, but Virginia’s Black people were reliable Democratic voters back then. The change has been in the rest of the voting public.
So would I call Black Democrats the Virginia Democratic Party’s “Base”? No, but that’s just because my own formulation is that the “Base” is all voters who consistently vote Democratic. But I do consider Black Virginians the “Cornerstone” of our party.
That’s one reason why I thought electing Jay Jones Attorney General was so important. When a group has done as much heavy lifting for the Party as have Black Virginians, they deserve visible representation in statewide office.
Castor Canadensis
@Castor Canadensis: Note: these are scanned, not OCR’d
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: Were things somehow more dire for white people?
Geminid
@Professor Bigfoot: A commenter here once remarked that young people she talked to had no idea who this “Cassandra” person was. I thought about it and decided she should have described Cassandra as “a Failed Influencer.”
Melancholy Jaques
@gvg:
And voting for Republicans made things better when?
Republicans did anything to help those matters when?
Miss Bianca
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq): the one thing that being chronically underpaid and/or underemployed has done for me is to somewhat cushion the blows of economic fallouts – I’ve never been in a high enough income bracket to feel a massive drop. I just continue grubbing around at the lower end of the income scale. :)
Archon
@Melancholy Jaques: I’ll grudgingly give people who felt so disconnected from our system they didn’t vote in 2024 a pass. ANYONE who spent the time and energy to affirmatively cast a vote for Donald Trump is an asshole and they can cry me river about economic despair or anxiety.
Peale
@Derelict: if they voted because they thought he’d bring prices and changed their minds when he didn’t, they’ll do the same to the Democrat, who also won’t be bringing prices down
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Does that matter to the task at hand?
Melancholy Jaques
@Archon:
You are a much better person than I am. I might have done that in 2016, but not in 2024. Not after he incited the attack on the congress to overthrow the government. Anyone who thought he should still be president after that is fucked up beyond repair.
sab
Still puzzling over how low information voters being misinformated last time they voted works for our side. They are still misinformated amd misinformed. That is who they are and how they choose to be. Just physics.
Eduardo
Yes. Sigh.
And how I long for the days in which that kind of obliviousness wasn’t that consequential.
sab
How do we want to draw my staffie/ pitbull’s portrait because she looks so noble in profile but in person she is such a sweet harmless goofball.
ETA Today we took a nap on the same bed, me a human, my dog, and also five other cats who wanted to toast in the sun and thought the bed was safe. And it was.
Shakti
@Betty Cracker: I have no such compunction. What percentage of people were “high information voters” as defined by the survey?
The citizenship test can ask questions such as “who is your representative?” and “who are your senators?”. “Who is President and Vice President” appear and double as a check “Did you suffer memory loss from your head injury” in the ER.
I think the number of people who can be swayed by “If only we explain things the right way and give them the right info they will vote for Democrats” is lower than I would want. Not that they don’t exist.
However I don’t think I’m structurally capable of inventing ego salving balms for the chapped bruised egos of Crystal Mintons to change their votes or to stay the fuck home.
I don’t think people like that are genuinely ignorant or stupid no matter how much that would make me feel better.