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I spent hours trying to persuade US voters to choose Harris not Trump. I know why she lost | Oliver Hall

https://lemmy.world/post/21818288

I spent hours trying to persuade US voters to choose Harris not Trump. I know why she lost | Oliver Hall - Lemmy.World

Summary Gender bias played a significant role in Kamala Harris’s defeat, with many voters—often women—expressing doubts about whether “America is ready for a female president.” Some said they “couldn’t see her in the chair,” or questioned if a woman could lead, with one even remarking, “you don’t see women building skyscrapers.” Though some voters were open to persuasion, this often became a red line. Oliver Hall, a Harris campaign volunteer, found that economic concerns, particularly inflation, also drove voters to Donald Trump, despite low unemployment and wage growth touted by Democrats. Harris was viewed in conflicting ways, seen as both too tough and too lenient on crime, as well as ineffective yet overly tied to Biden’s administration. Ultimately, Hall believes that Trump’s unique appeal and influence overshadowed Harris’s campaign efforts.

Nov 9, 2024 at 12:23pmWeb
Show threadStovetopNov 9, 2024
That’s a generous way of saying “Most Americans are overly sexist and/or racist and are willing to make up any reason to not vote for a woman of color despite any evidence to the contrary”
Show threadVerdant BananaNov 9, 2024

Just at the shop work at most citizens make below $15 an hour even trades jobs

Not just any fucking reason

Most US citizens are struggling with overpriced housing, sky high taxes, ginourmous energy costs, inflatated food costs, and all on below living wages

Fuck the Democrats and the Republicans both for exploiting the citizens

Show threadStovetopNov 9, 2024
I’m glad enlightened centrist take is always here to offer the right answers.
Show threadVerdant BananaNov 9, 2024

Just see the US underneath on the daily when on the job

The real US that is hidden beneath all the media sprinkles and the propaganda icing

Gets worse every election no matter which “party” “wins”

Show threadCaptainvaqinaNov 9, 2024
Welp it’s about to get a WHOLE LOT worse. America is finished. Experiment over.
Show threadTimmyDeanSausage Nov 9, 2024
One party gets into power and throws shit everywhere. The other party gets into power and cleans as much shit as they can, but it’s on the ceiling and seeping into the walls. They never get all of it. Often they only get a small amount of it. It’s never the shit thrower’s fault though. Both parties are covered in shit.
Show threadEldritchFemininityNov 9, 2024

You may find it an absurd opinion, but I’d say it’s exactly why the Democrats can’t help but grab defeat from the jaws of victory.

They’re simply bad at showing off the good that they do and they spend their campaign time courting some mythical moderate Republican voting base that wouldn’t vote for them anyway by moving further and further right, disenfranchising their voting base. Who they then blame for their loss. Leftists don’t like voting for the lesser of two evils and vote with their heart, while Republicans vote for the nominee, regardless of their positions or values. And the stats show that the Democrats failed to motivate people to get out and vote. Trump actually lost 2 million votes compared to 2020. If there’s still elections in 2028, we’ll see a resurgence in votes for the Democrat candidate after 4 more years of this monstrosity, but people have forgotten just how bad it really was.

The economy does better under Democratic presidents. That’s a verifiable fact. Biden added 500,000 jobs to the economy and brought inflation down, started student loan forgiveness programs, and all kinds of other things. But the Dems didn’t talk about that, and the media sure as hell wasn’t when going to when they could blast Trump’s absurd claims instead. And when we did hear about it, it was through the lens of the economy as a whole, not what you average American experiences day to day. Inflation is down, but prices aren’t, and wages haven’t kept up in decades. According to the IRS, 51% of Americans made $15k or less in 2021.

So when Trump says he’s gonna change things, and Harris looks like it’s gonna be more of the same (no matter how much hogwash Trump’s claims are and things are only going to get worse), it’s gonna do nothing to alleviate the grievances leftists have had with the Biden administration on all sorts of things like the genocide in Palestine. They’ve heard the “vote for me or it’s the end of democracy!” song and dance too many times while seemingly getting nothing out of it.

Show threadctkatzNov 10, 2024

They’re simply bad at showing off the good that they do

pardon me, but I think this is an extremely bad take. because the two things that were glaringly obvious to me over the last 8 years have been

  • the total whitewash, sanewashing, and normalization of trump in every aspect by major legacy media and
  • the total ignorance of any democratic accomplishment by that same media.

    • it is extremely hard for a party to proclaim their good things when the people who have the most exposure to the public outright refuse to tell people about it. pundits have complained bitterly about the democrats communication problem on network tv but never seem to question those same tv networks why they won’t talk about what the democrats just did. and when democrats appear on those same shows and bring up their accomplishments themselves the hosts are completely disinterested in the topic and don’t allow the democrat to expound further on their accomplishments.

    this country has a severely unbalanced media coverage and bias issue that no one wants to talk about because it exposes how much the media has been bought and bullied by the right wing. for at least 40 years it’s just accepted that what a republican says goes unchallenged while the democrat gets no positive press whatsoever. acceptance of the false “liberal media” trope is baked in and simply taken as fact. it’s no wonder why the news is distrusted and no one pays it any attention anymore.

    Show threadEldritchFemininityNov 10, 2024

    I agree, the media has an absurd right-wing bias. You need simply look at the view ratios between the posts of right-wing and left-wing politicians to see how leftist messages are filtered out. And that’s not even getting into stuff like the company that bought up something like 500 local news channels after 9/11 with the sole intent of running more anti-Muslim broadcasts.

    But even beyond that, when you look at the Democrats during the campaign, it’s all maintaining the status quo rhetoric or shifting away from what their base wants to court the nonexistent moderate Republican, not showing how they’ve moved towards what their voting base wants.

    Show threadbtaf45Nov 10, 2024
    CBS morning news would always start off with a Trump droning sound bite EVERY FUCKING DAY. And then maybe a 3rd of the time they would play a Harris clip, but always after the mandatory Trump sound bite clip. Even though their viewers did not want to hear Trump.
    Show threadBustedknucklesNov 9, 2024

    Dems and Reps are both corporatists (though you could argue Reps are moving towards some neo-feudalism) neither is willing to severely curtail the big money interests. I think you’re right that people are genuinely hurting and anxious. People are also probably sexist and racist. Harris had a hell of a lot of disadvantages to overcome in the president’s race and she didn’t.

    Mostly though, reality doesn’t matter anymore for probably a supermajority because people are so checked out. Just vibes - and the vibes are bad

    Show threadbtaf45Nov 10, 2024

    Dems and Reps are both corporatists

    Here’s why we know this is bullshit. Reps keeping cutting corporate taxes. Biden raised corporate taxes. Harris was going to raise them more.

    Saying someone is a ‘corporatist’ is a meaningless generality. Focusing on tax rates always provides crystal clarity on whether the label is real or not. Cutting their taxes is the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd top priority of corporations. If they cannot get a politician to do that, they don’t control that politician.

    Show threadspacecadetNov 9, 2024

    Is this low unemployment and wage growth in the room with us?

    Unemployment is “low” because shitty gig economy jobs are counted as employment. And wages might be growing, but are lagging far behind inflation.

    The majority of Americans aren’t sexist and racist, they are living paycheck to paycheck and some unlikable rich black woman from San Francisco isn’t going to be able to relate to a poor white man from Nebraska or even a Hispanic dude from El Paso. And you would think “neither should a rich ass hole from NYC”, but he at least pretends to care about them. Democrats have been demonizing the working class for over a decade and they are starting to reap what they sow.

    I voted for Kamala, but she was a terrible candidate. She made no attempt to empathize with the plight of the majority of the working class voting base and instead was more worried about capturing the vote of rich trust fund babies that are being misgendered.

    Show threadNoneOfUrBusinessNov 9, 2024

    And wages might be growing, but are lagging far behind inflation.

    To be very fair real wages grew during Biden's administration, but probably not enough and definitely not for everyone.

    Show threadraoulNov 9, 2024

    I think that the problem is that the metric used for measuring the wages growth is an average:

    In a society where most of the wealth goes to a few, an average is not necessarily a good measure:

    I like this image from this article from the fed

    They have the following remark below this graph:

    For example, about 57 percent of the WGT sample had positive real wage gains during 2019, whereas during 2022, only 45 percent of people had positive real wage growth. Put another way, despite higher median nominal wage growth, the share of people with positive real wage growth between 2019 and 2022 due to higher inflation fell by 12 percentage points.

    Real Wage Growth: A View from the Wage Growth Tracker

    A Policy Hub: Macroblog post looks at wage trends through the prism of the Atlanta Fed's Wage Growth Tracker.

    Show threadgAlienLifeformNov 9, 2024
    Wanna bet the places and sectors that are doing worse than median wage growth and inflation are rural and manual labor things? That second one especially I think could explain why some gen z men voted the way they did.
    Show threadraoulNov 9, 2024
    If I interpret the first figure of this article correctly, the 25% poorest of the population have always been ‘shafted no lube’ (pardon my economists jargon), but were about to have a wages growth above inflation; before the fight against inflation was finally won (well done, joe) and the slaves slaved again.
    Show threadaestheleteNov 9, 2024

    Unemployment is “low” because shitty gig economy jobs are counted as employment. And wages might be growing, but are lagging far behind inflation.

    As soon as Trump takes office, the nuance you’re evaluating these numbers with will be lost. I’ve lived this thing before, Trump may use economic conditions to his benefit rhetorically and may even disagree with the numbers while he’s out of power, but the instant he’s in the same numbers will automatically signal to him and his cult of supporters that everything is great and people should stop complaining.

    Show threadWes4HumanityNov 10, 2024
    Correct, there is zero chance of ever getting through to these 75 million people… But there was a very good chance of getting through to the 10 million who stayed home but had voted last time, and at least some chance of getting through to the 50% who regularly don’t vote… But the Dems never go after those people, they continue to insist on wasting everyone’s time by only going after the imbeciles with actual policy changes (they go after the 10 million with bullying and fear mongering, which clearly doesn’t work)
    Show threadaestheleteNov 10, 2024

    Maybe and maybe not. Maybe I actually don’t give a fuck because all of this “but they didn’t actually improve main street” online shit also disappears during Republican administrations. I’ve been through multiple cycles of this shit and the people whining about the dnc online are just another level in Dante’s Inferno.

    We get it, you guys love Bernie and think Bernie would’ve won everything. Carry that energy forward for another decade if you don’t wind up in a Trump camp first.

    Show threadWes4HumanityNov 10, 2024
    I think the movement is there, it’s just kinda in the back of most people’s minds because no one is leading them effectively… Which I get, Bernie and AOC are obviously too busy to also be organizing a movement completely dependent on small donations and somehow figuring out how to use those to get the word out through the torrential downpour of bullshit we experience everywhere, but I wish they would choose leadership for that movement that can lead more effectively
    Show threadaestheleteNov 10, 2024

    I think the movement is there, it’s just kinda in the back of most people’s minds because no one is leading them effectively…

    Are you suggesting this movement only exists in people’s minds? I think I’d agree.

    A couple of national pseudo celebrity politicians are not going to personally organize the type of movement you’d need to make any actual progress on anything in this country.

    They keep telling us we need to build it, and then we keep deferring to celebrities and politicians at the top because we don’t want to build it. So we lean on the dnc. You get who shows up. I’m in CA and I looked during the pandemic for some mutual aid whatever in my area. There was one and as far as I could tell it shut down before I even knew about it.

    Show threadWes4HumanityNov 10, 2024

    All movements only exist in people’s minds, until there’s something for them to set in motion, a plan for them to execute.

    The thing we need to build is a political movement. As you pointed out, very few people have any idea about anything, let alone politics. I think the movement is bigger than just 5 million, that’s just the nihilistic part… I’d think maybe 15-20 million are truly onboard to some degree in their minds, and even more to a lesser degree, they just don’t know what their supposed to do because they aren’t politics experts. Also whenever a true leader emerges they end up getting elected, (and apparently later they then get pushed back out by big money and Israel, who knew?) but once they’re elected they’re legitimately too busy to lead anymore.

    People lean on the DNC because the DNC leans on them… The DNC demands loyalty from people who’s loyalty they could get by actually doing what they want, instead they’re chasing after loyalty from people who’s loyalty they could never possibly get. It’s insanity, and it’s insulting. And the more they do it the more the lines between them begin to blur until they’ve moved so far to the right that the group to the left of them starts to look big enough to go without them… If someone could unite them. But, the same people who own the media companies pay for the Dems campaigns… the Dems control all the levers of political organizing on the left and like 6 companies control all the levers of mass communication, so the politically illiterate group kinda need the Dems apparatus to be able to make their thing work… And the more the Dems refuse to cooperate, the more it starts to seem like maybe they’re truly just not on the same team.

    Show threadWes4HumanityNov 10, 2024
    I think for a lot of people the choice ended up being between a quick leap into fascism or the ongoing painfully slow fascism temperature being risen one degree to keep the other guy from blowing it to 100, and I think more people than I’d have hoped decided to let the bandaid be ripped off
    Show threadaestheleteNov 10, 2024

    Less people than you think thought that was the choice. Americans are big time ignorant of politics and even on this site we had people asking if this was a normal election.

    According to those who voted, this election was about the economy. 🙄

    Most people probably couldn’t tell you the first thing about fascism or even capitalism.

    Show threadWes4HumanityNov 10, 2024
    I wouldn’t say 5 million people thinking this way would be out of the question though… Would you? And are they polling the people who voted for Biden but didn’t show up this time? Because that data would be wildly valuable
    Show threadaestheleteNov 10, 2024
    It really wouldn’t shock me if a lot of the loss could be attributed to the fact that they couldn’t mail it in from the couch as easily this go around. I also think that people in this country are not as progressive socially as some of the most ardent people online like to pretend. Some simply didn’t want to vote for a woman…which is part of what the article says.
    Show threadWes4HumanityNov 10, 2024

    I got 2 ballots mailed to me, and just had to fill one out and send it in. There’s no reason it couldn’t have been that easy for everyone. Anywhere that it was harder than that, I’d guess Republicans were behind it, but if it was Dems they should be kicked out of the party, if the party wanted to start leading the widely varied left.

    No one on the actual left wouldn’t vote for a woman because she’s a woman… These are mutually exclusive things

    Show threadWes4HumanityNov 10, 2024
    They absolutely don’t have a coherent constituency, that’s for sure, but they certainly could have a large enough constituency to put Trump and his entire army of ignorance and sleeze to bed once and for all, but they only cater to a very small segment of what could be their constituency, and for many of the people who could be their constituency it often feels like they’re actually catering to the enemy rather than to them.
    Show threadaestheleteNov 10, 2024
    That’s exactly my point. To appease one section of their potential voters they have to piss off others. We can second guess them on which decisions would’ve led to a victory, but the fact remains that they come across as incoherent and inauthentic because they have to walk a tightrope to keep together an imaginary coalition between things like American Jews who support Israel and Palestinian immigrants together. They fail because they aren’t representing a coherent set of people. They’re representing sometimes conflicting ideas. American atheists and Catholics. Muslims, some of whom believe that women should be subservient, and “childless cat ladies”. People in this country are overall much more regressive socially than online progressives want to admit.
    Show threadWes4HumanityNov 10, 2024

    When it comes to the conflicting ideas they need to pick a side. And the other side has to decide whether to show up or not, we know which side always shows up, maybe they should take a backseat for a bit, they’ll show up anyway.

    Like if you think women should be subservient, you’re not on our side. If you are okay with arming a terrorist nation to carry out genocide you’re not on our side. Easy peasy ones.

    I think we’re actually finally at a truly 50/50ish ratio of regressive to progressive in the US… That’s why things are so tense between the progressive actual left and the regressive “left” DNC. Yeah there’s still misogynistic bigoted people here, but definitely way fewer than 100 years ago. And they should ALL be on the other team.

    Show threadVerdant BananaNov 9, 2024
    Harris lost because she thought ultra restrictive border policies and handing out home mortgages was going to persuade voterers
    Show threadgAlienLifeformNov 9, 2024
    I think both things play a factor, but ditching shitty policies and messaging would be a lot more straightforward process than reducing the number of raging misogynists in America
    Show threadTransplantedSconieNov 9, 2024
    Sucks man. I was really hoping to get to the Grand Canyon before they start strip mining it for uranium, but I might be fleeing with my family before we become the rape capital of the globe. India is still king, but judging from the chuds who vote for him, it won’t be long before we surpass them. I won’t have that for my wife and daughter. They deserve better.
    Show threaderan_moradNov 9, 2024
    Look at a population density map of the US and India and take comfort in the fact that we do not live in close enough proximity to each other to ever take the title of world’s rape capital. MURICA, BITCH!!!
    Show threadZakNov 9, 2024

    Persuadable voters seemed really focused on prices. It’s hard not to be condescending here. Eggs are expensive because of bird flu. Rent is high because not enough housing is being built, mostly limited by local issues. Gas is high because of Putin’s war. Anyone who thinks electing Trump will bring those prices down because they were lower last time he was president is fucking clueless.

    I’m interested to see how much of a factor unenthusiastic Democrats were. Trump got about the same number of votes he did in 2020, but Harris got far fewer than Biden. It looks like a bunch of people who voted last time didn’t vote this time. For them, the concerns the author dismisses might have been more important.

    Show threadspacecadetNov 9, 2024

    I’m fortunate to be well off, but I used to be below the poverty line in my city and qualified for social assistance (which I didn’t know about until a coworker told me). Having been in most of these voters shoes a little over a decade ago, I can tell you that don’t care about trumps rhetoric, he can stand there for an hour blathering non sense, but at the end of it he will say “I love you, I know you are hurting and I’m going to fix that”.

    Then a long come the democrats telling these people who are living paycheck to paycheck or still in their parents house that they are privileged racist ass holes who could never understand what is like to struggle as a rich minority woman from California. Then the most unrelatable person in the world gets chosen to replace Joe Biden and rich democrats and dumb ass celebrities like Cardi “I brag about how I used to drug, rape, and Rob men” B start telling working class men that they are stupid and racist if they don’t vote for Kamala.

    A lot of people couldn’t vote for a wannabe dictator, but they also couldn’t vote for someone who despises their very being.

    Show threadNougatNov 9, 2024
    You’re right. Americans as a whole are more stupid and racist than was previously thought.
    Show threadspacecadetNov 9, 2024

    You’re a stupid racist piece of shit and I hate you even though I don’t know you. Now vote for me you piece of trash and if you don’t it’s because you hate women.

    This was the Democrat campaign.

    Show threadOptionalNov 9, 2024

    It’s true but not for the reasons we may default to believing. That they’re just stupid, bad people who hate because they don’t know better.

    Multiple times, I was told that Harris was a “communist”, “clueless” and that she had “thrown black men in jail for carrying one blunt”. One Latin American voter told me at length that she had “seen it all before in South America”.

    Those are all verbatim quotes from Fox News, redstate, talk radio, the massive ocean of right-wing bullshit that these fuckers dunk themselves in daily.

    We’re losing to this garbage propaganda because we don’t invest in and understand media. As a nation, we don’t understand it at all.

    It’s really that simple.

    Show threadNougatNov 9, 2024

    Resisting garbage propaganda requires effort, and when that garbage propaganda is being sprayed at your through a firehose, not everyone has the resolve required to resist it.

    Lies and liars don't have to defend themselves, because the message they send does not depend on being true.

    Show threadOptionalNov 9, 2024
    Absolutely true.
    Show threadWes4HumanityNov 10, 2024
    No, Trump voters are EXACTLY as stupid and racist as was previously thought… The mistake was thinking anyone was going to change their minds by meeting them in the middle, and thinking they could do so in a short amount of time without understanding how to really use social media propaganda (just bullying everyone while ignoring their legitimate demands was not a good strategy) shows how stupid the Dems are as a party
    Show threadgAlienLifeformNov 9, 2024
    That is a completely accurate depiction of what every member and supporter of the Democratic party has said, which has certainly been much more hurtful than Republicans’ repeated threats to rape and kill us /s
    Show threadspacecadetNov 9, 2024
    I haven’t heard of any republican threat to raise and kill everyone, but a lot are unhinged and I’m sure it happens. But it’s not a central platform of the Republicans, while being condescending of working class men is a central campaign point of the democrats, in fact it was so bad that black and Hispanic men showed up in record numbers to vote for Trump
    Show threadgAlienLifeformNov 9, 2024

    I mean, no offense but the fact that you haven’t heard this just might mean you’re deep inside an echo chamber. It’s hard to have an exact measure of these thing, but Republican threats and celebrations of violence and sexual assault are at least as central to their party’s platform as being opposed to bigotry is to the Democrats party’s from where I’m sitting.

    And I’m not sure why you think being opposed to bigotry is an attack on working class men. Like, if we want to talk about the working class and poor people, let’s talk about the fact that transgender people are more likely than the average American to be living in poverty because of the discrimination they fave.

    I will say that’s an easy to miss fact because society in general doesn’t like to platform working class people because they’re not as eloquent or pretty and the Dems tend to behave the same way, so we hear more about wealthy celebrity members of queer communities and other marginalized groups. At the end of the day, tho, if you do really care about the working class you need to care about transphobic discrimination (among all the other kinds of discrimination) too, because it is absolutely a tool the capitalist class wields to keep us divided and oppressed.

    Show threadBlackbeardNov 9, 2024
    I think the difference is Trump punches up, and Dems punch down. It’s just that the folks on the bottom are more sensitive to it than folks on the top, so it translates into who they support.
    Show threadgAlienLifeformNov 9, 2024

    I don’t see how you could possibly see his attacks on migrants, trans kids, etc. as anything other than punching down.

    Also, why are you holding the Democratic party accountable for down voters here or other randos online who say stuff about Trump supporters? They’re pretty distinct groups, and the fact is elected Dems bent over backwards to talk as nicely about Trump supporters as they could.

    And I actually think that was a big part of what I think their real voter engagement problem was, which is that everything Dems say comes off like inauthentic over polished political bullshit to a lot of voters. I think simultaneously trying to say “Trump is an existential threat to democracy” and “Trump supporters are not garbage” sounds insane (like, if you’re supporting an existential threat to democracy you just inarguably are a garbage human being, sorry not sorry).

    I don’t think we should make it a centerpiece of our message or waste a bunch of time on it, but if we get a direct question about Republican party supporters we have to respect our potential voters enough to say “Yes, they are garbage, roughly 35-40% of this country are bad people who are willing to hurt others to get what they want and that’s why it’s so important for the rest of us to put aside our difference and work together to stop them.”

    Show threadBlackbeardNov 9, 2024

    I don’t see how you could possibly see his attacks on migrants, trans kids, etc. as anything other than punching down.

    He’s “protecting” kids and “protecting” legal immigrants. Not saying I agree with them, but it’s 100% how disinfected working class parents and legal immigrants see it. “He’s not talking about us.”

    Also, why are you holding the Democratic party accountable for down voters here or other randos online who say stuff about Trump supporters?

    You mean like “deplorables” and “garbage?”

    If you don’t see the entire liberal order referring to marginalized working class Trump supporters as…

    • inbred
    • racist
    • illiterate
    • stupid
    • voting against their own self-interest
    • ignorant
    • morons
    • hillbillies
    • rednecks
    • backwoods
    • mouth breathers

    …repeatedly through multiple societal megaphones, then you’re not listening carefully enough. Whether the party takes ownership of that snobbery or not is irrelevant to the fact that “the left” repeatedly and relentlessly punches down.

    Show threadZakNov 9, 2024

    It’s definitely true that white collar, urban liberals sometimes punch down at rural, blue collar white people. It does hurt them politically.

    I’m having trouble seeing anything Trump says about anyone other than high-level elected officials as punching up though. Attacks on the sitting president are punching up by definition, but the challenger always does that.

    It seems more to me that he’s telling people who don’t feel good about their position in society that there’s someone below them. That was the message of slavery, of apartheid, and of Hitler. I find it hard not to condemn those who were receptive to it.

    Show threadBlackbeardNov 9, 2024

    Do you know any Trump supporters? I mean that sincerely. Because I do, and no, they’re not telling them someone is below them. They’re telling them there’s someone above them who’s keeping them down. It doesn’t help that the new dividing line between R and D is a college education. There are a bunch of rich, racist Trump supporters, to be sure, but blue collar workers without a degree are, on average, not going to be as well off as a college educated liberal.

    I find it hard not to condemn those who were receptive to it.

    Do you think that’s how you’ll win back their support?

    Show threadZakNov 9, 2024

    Not many, and those who come to mind weren’t receptive to that kind of messaging. Reasoning I’ve heard includes “Biden ruined the economy”, “vote R no matter who”, and “RFK and Tulsi Gabbard endorsed him”.

    The statements I’ve heard from Trump himself are “illegal immigrants are going to steal your job, the election, and your cat”, and “trans people want to fuck your kid”, which are about groups of people with very little political power.

    Show threadBlackbeardNov 9, 2024

    The statements I’ve heard from Trump himself are “illegal immigrants are going to steal your job, the election, and your cat”, and “trans people want to fuck your kid”, which are about groups of people with very little political power.

    No, that’s very clearly how you heard what he was saying. If we’re talking about messaging and it’s effectiveness then you strawmanning his words into inane caricatures won’t help us figure out why his messages work.

    Every single message he has put out about illegal immigrants boils down to “they’re bringing drugs and crime, they’re illegally voting, and open border liberals keep letting them in.” Liberals have obsessed for so long about perceiving this as an attack on poor brown people that they forgot it’s also ironically a defense of poor brown people.

    Show threadZakNov 9, 2024

    I’m not going to cop to strawmanning here, but I will grant that people who are receptive to his messaging on immigration might hear it differently than I do.

    Perhaps part of my difficulty understanding how someone could resonate with that messaging without being an irredeemable racist stems from it not being based in reality any time there are actual numbers available from law enforcement. Drug couriers are citizens far more often than they are immigrants. Illegal immigrants have a lower crime rate than citizens. Noncitizens attempting to vote is rare and usually results in prosecution. “Open border” means something very different to me, e.g. intra-EU borders than it seems to mean to Trump.

    Despite all that, Trump’s supporters feel like he’s telling them the truth about these issues and everyone who contradicts him is lying. The explanations that come to mind for me are… uncharitable. I’d like to hear alternatives.

    Show threadBlackbeardNov 9, 2024

    He got almost half of the Latino vote, and we are bleeding Latino support. That’s not racism. It means there’s something else happening.

    Further, you’ll get no argument from me that they believe lies. But we are seeing record numbers of asylum seekers, many of which are legitimately abusing the system. When we ignore that problem and pretend it’s not happening and that it doesn’t have acute financial impacts on border communities, we abandon our chance to provide a counterpoint to the lies.

    “They’re not voting” rings hollow when these folks see reports of arrests for non-citizen voting, and then see this happening. When we pretend these things aren’t happening or downplay them, it not only feeds Trump’s narratives, it also strips us of our ability to be fact checkers.

    The people at the bottom of the economic ladder believe and support him. They are not all irredeemable racists. We need to stop disparaging them as such or we will never get them back.

    19 aliens charged with voter fraud in North Carolina following ICE investigation

    A federal grand jury in Wilmington charged seven foreign nationals on August 31 on federal felony charges including falsely claiming U.S. citizenship or making false statements on voter registration application, and with misdemeanor charges of unlawfully casting ballots in the 2016 presidential election.

    Show threadeatthecakeNov 10, 2024
    They voted for a rapist with a pack of white supremacists. They are irredeemable and they were never going to vote the other way. Thinking you can win them over is insane.
    Show threadBlackbeardNov 10, 2024
    If you want to write off half of the Latino population as irredeemable, then be my guest. Bernie wouldn’t, and I hope an acolyte will emerge and follow his example. I’ll be right there with them.
    Show threadeatthecakeNov 10, 2024
    Latino has nothing to do with it. They’re humans, and a sizeable portion of humanity is just awful. Trump erases morality and makes them proud of their awfulness. You probably believe that all humans are intrinsically good but that’s wishful thinking.
    Show threadZakNov 10, 2024

    I think the main thing I can take away from this is I’d be terrible at running a political campaign. I already knew that.

    While I can understand how more traditional conservative messages resonate with people, Trump’s are outside my Overton window. I can see the mechanics of how it works, and I can empathize with people who feel like the current system is failing them, but not with those who feel like Trump is going to fix it.

    I’m disappointed your comments are attracting downvotes. They are on-topic and well-reasoned.

    Show threadBlackbeardNov 10, 2024

    I appreciate your response and understand your conundrum. It’s hard to make sense of this because his movement seems so abhorrent sometimes.

    Consider for just a moment, though, that the downvotes are proving to you exactly the argument I’m trying to make. I’m squarely on the left and despise Trump, but for years the left has cared more about being “right” and punishing people who disagree in life and online, than about being open to diverse people and opinions.

    I really hate to have to echo tired right-wing talking points, but the terminally online left is our single most toxic bloc, and they exert huge amounts of control over what topics and opinions are “allowable” online. You get hammered with downvotes and shouted out of the room any time you even try to consider another perspective, even if you do it politely. I can see how someone looking in from the outside would start to doubt our sincerity in arguing for diversity and tolerance. We’re an awfully intolerant lot, all things considered.