Triggering profound curiosity and reflection
I get the point, and it’s not wrong, but.
First, the issue isn’t the victory for the people who voted for him, the issue is the victory for him.
Second, and more urgent, the issue isn’t that the people who voted for him are clearly stupid and evil, the issue is that HE is clearly stupid and evil, especially the evil part. The issue is why do so many people embrace such a blatantly obviously unmistakably horrible person? One with no redeeming qualities? Honestly it’s hard to find people with no redeeming qualities at all – there’s usually something – good jokes or a bit of charm or occasional generous impulses. Something.
So yeah. It does bother me – profoundly – that so many people love such a howling wilderness of awful.
Wait. Did he tweet out the same thing when Trump was calling people stupid, evil, losers, bitch, crazy? Something tells me not.
Oh yes, I’m part of the problem. After much curiosity and reflection, I’ve concluded that there are stupid people who vote for utterly worthless people for stupid reasons. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, fella.
P.S. I’m going to continue to be “part of the problem.”
People generally pay more attention to the concrete than to the abstract. Trump’s threat to the Republic is abstract. A lumbering man in your daughter’s locker room is concrete.
Trump DOES have somewhat of a redeeming quality – his antics can be pretty funny sometimes. Not on purpose, mind you.
Mosnae, I imagine he is a bigger boon to cartoonists than Harris would be, for sure.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and a truism I’ve noted before is playing a strong role. People rarely vote ‘against’ something; they vote ‘for’ something. There has to be something there that motivates people to come to the polls. And as horrible as it is, I think the thing that worked this time was Project 2025.
Not the actual content, mind you, at least not for most of his voters. But I think a very large percentage of them were motivated by its mere existence. Ask yourself, what was Kamala’s actual plan for the border? Or for labor? Or even the environment? I know she was on-track with general Dem party principles, but beyond that, I have no real clue. And I doubt most other voters did, either.
And that’s a problem, because a confidently stated hare-brained scheme like “Deport everyone!” is still going to come across as more solid, psychologically, than a corporate mission-statement like “We will work in conjunction with our partners to develop a plan to…” The Dems have somehow gotten it into their heads that “Not the GOP plan” is as good as actually putting forward an idea.
Supporting this theory: The various abortion referendums have almost all gone off without a hitch (Florida’s failed, but that’s because Florida makes it harder for those to go through). These referendums are straightforward declarations, and people back them. For a Dem to win an election, they need a platform that makes a series of similar declarations of intent.
Not Nebraska; Nebraska voted to enshrine the right to life position in the state constitution. Now where will Iowa women go when they need an abortion? I guess there’s still Kansas…
I don’t think much of it was about policy, though. Hillary had policy; it was clearly stated, and discussed. People voting for Biden were more voting against Trump than voting for Biden.
I don’t think it is possible to understand this election without understanding the driving force behind sexism. Harris is a woman. Clinton is a woman. Biden is not. It is possible Trump won because too many people were voting against having the first female president.
iknklast: Oh, I have no intention of dismissing sexism as a motivator, here–but it’s important to note what was being motivated, or rather, de-motivated. Trump’s popular vote this time around is pretty close to what it was in 2020. So the sexism isn’t motivating people to vote for Trump (except in the sense that anyone who votes for Trump is, by definition, sexist, and racist to boot). Rather, it’s that sexism kept people who voted for Biden home. I do think an actual platform, one that spelled out a clear difference on some of the policy issues (especially the border) could have pulled those folks in.