2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'

[filghy2]

It's worth comparing this election to previous elections that were landslides.

In 1972, Nixon won 49 states and 61% of the vote.
In 1984, Reagan won 49 states and 59% of the vote.
This time Trump won 31 states and seems likely to get just over 50% of the vote.

Why is everyone talking as if this was a landslide when it was just an average win in historical terms?

[filghy2]

This points to the absence of a serious debate about economics in the election. Grocery prices as part of the cost of living issue were thus linked to Democrat incompetence or indifference, but no debate on why grocery prices are high, and no debate on how markets in the US work, let alone the wider debate on global markets and supply chains and how these have been affected by 2008 and Covid. I think the Democrats missed an opportunity here to change the terms of the debate, though to me Trump's statements on this merely amounted to a 'Trump will fix it' mantra, which is even more bizarre given that previous issue with Soy Bean farmers.

The problem is that it's very difficult to counter a simple argument with a more complicated one. The simple argument that inflation rose under Biden so he must be responsible resonates with how the average voter thinks. No amount of explanations about supply chains, etc is likely to be able to counter that.

More generally, Trump is running the simple argument that the struggles of the working class are due to immigrants and imports of foreign goods and he can fix that. What's the easily understandable narrative that can counter this effectively? One option is a left populist redistributional agenda like Bernie Sanders wants. The problem is that 'socialism' has never been very popular in the US. The main exception seems to be the New Deal, but that was only after 25% unemployment made voters more receptive to bigger government.

[MrFanti]

This sure aged well.

https://x.com/khris_thomas/status/1855773015822196983

EXACTLY what Black Lives Matter wanted as well for they stated on their website that they DID NOT ENDORSE Kamala Harris.

[Paladin]

It's all over except for the crying. the GOP is one seat away from the house majority.

Why CA and AZ take over a week to tally votes when FL can do it in a few hours amazes me, especially since AZ is a much smaller state.

[filghy2]

I just saw this report the on local news. Its about a continuing trend that I posted an article about in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Why I don't think New York will ever become a swing state, it should be a wake up call for the Democratic Party.

Noah Smith has written a good post on how poor governance in blue cities has contributed to these voting shifts - in particular, the 'progressive' idea that urban disorder should be tolerated for social justice reasons.
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-bl...-must-be-fixed

[Paladin]

Noah Smith has written a good post on how poor governance in blue cities has contributed to these voting shifts - in particular, the 'progressive' idea that urban disorder should be tolerated for social justice reasons.
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-bl...-must-be-fixed

Screw it up bad enough for long enough and it will eventually come back to bite you in the ass. And from what I can tell with the biased media and dems themselves still calling EVERYONE racist, etc, even black & CA / SA folks, and Not learning their lessons, this election was just the beginning. you don't earn voted by insulting people or their intelligence.

[Stavros]

Screw it up bad enough for long enough and it will eventually come back to bite you in the ass. And from what I can tell with the biased media and dems themselves still calling EVERYONE racist, etc, even black & CA / SA folks, and Not learning their lessons, this election was just the beginning. you don't earn voted by insulting people or their intelligence.

"...the biased media..."
Here in the UK we don't have access to the 'alternative' sources of news unless their episodes are on YouTube, and as I had never heard of Joe Rogan until this year I would not have looked for it -but Rogan regularly gets more viewers than any of the 'conventional' broadcasting outlets, including Fox News. This raises the question in response to your quoted comment -

Who watches the 'biased media'? Not most Americans. Maybe that it where the Harris campaign failed, setting aside the problem of being an incumbent, and other issues related to how people feel in their cities and towns.

The figures are here if you are interested

Some Viewers Abandon Television Networks On Election Day

[Paladin]

Safety in the big cities here: the NYC Mayor is about to go down for corruption and the mayor of Chicago is on the resident's shit list. Two DAs in CA have been booted, and another one that I can't recall of the top of my head. Unfortunately those three states still have off the rails governors. Nearly Every state has significant voter shift away from den to rep this year. Up to 20% in some states.

[Fitzcarraldo]

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trum...on-day-1984939

[filghy2]

This election result looks a lot like 2004, which was the last time a Republican won the popular vote. We know that Bush's popularity fell pretty quickly after that.
https://www.natesilver.net/p/its-2004-all-over-again

It looks like Trump 2 is going to be chaos that makes Trump 1 look like a picnic, because there will be very few adults in the room restraining him this time. It will be telling whether Republicans block any of Trump's crazy nominations or moves to get around Congress.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...licans/680655/

There's a strong chance things will swing back when people see the results of this chaos, but how much lasting damage will be done in the meantime?