Opinion | The Elites Had It Coming

Democrats got exactly what they set out to get, and now here we are.

The New York Times
@interfluidity I agree with most of this but not the knock against Harris's campaign. Her task was not to position the party for future victory, but to win (which would have positioned much better than any campaign speeches via labor & industrial policy).
The "opportunity society" messaging was on mainstream media, which reach middle-class Rs but few Trump-leaning workers. In western PA where I doorknocked, the TV ads and lit were heavily into jobs and anti-plutocrat.
@BenRossTransit i mostly think the campaign was lost not because of bad targeting or particular issues, but because the Trump campaign used new media to create a kind of tribe, in which belonging and (mostly false) worldview reinforced one another, in which the tools of a confidence man did their core work, engendering trust. https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/11/08/its-the-parasocials-stupid/index.html
It's the parasocials, stupid

drafts @ interfluidity

@interfluidity On the issues, I think voters were overwhelmingly persuaded that Harris would protect abortion more and Trump would cut immigration more.
You may be right about the second part, but the reason Trump could make "gaffes" is that he had a closed right-wing information system that hid them. To me, an equally plausible theory about non-issues voters is that Trump filled a human yearning for the strong man who will fix everything.
@BenRossTransit yeah. i think that’s right too. although i think by emphasizing “strong man” rather than “fix everything” we deny for ourselves an ethical path to compete. he said he would fix everything! he said things would be great, a new golden age. dems are too “reality based” to let themselves promise that anything will fundamentally change. it’s hard to get people excited over the slow boring of hard boards when the other guy is offering an amazing (if brave) new world.
@interfluidity I doubt the "fix everything" works without the "strong man." Americans are inured to the confidence man who promises everything, and can see through it.
If you believed the promises on both candidates' TV ads and lawn signs, Trump's ads were overwhelmingly superior to Harris's. He failed to persuade 48% percent of the voters in Pennsylvania and nationally.
@BenRossTransit The thing is, I don’t think he really presents as a strong man on “intimate” social media. I think he presents as a nice, reasonable guy who says some crazy things people who like him are willing to look past. And even if you don’t fully buy “Trump will fix it”, if you think he’s a fundamentally decent who exaggerates, you think “well, he’s going to do his best, he’a going to try”. 1/
@BenRossTransit it’s a bit like the “aim for the stars and you will never reach them, but you will go much higher than if you’d aimed for the tree” inspirationals. if what you see in Trump is a venal, self-interested con man, his grand claims just sound like deception. but if you think he’s a decent guy who overstates stuff but fundamentally means it, it signals ambition on your behalf. /fin