Democratic strategists are still patting themselves on the back for a catastrophic defeat.
I think far too many people see the price of groceries, fall for the GOP line that it’s Biden’s fault (and that deporting all illegal immigrants will help) and think Trump will save the day.
Like, yeah, post-covid recovery has been hard. Mostly stagnant wages don’t help. People feel that. Unfortunately it’s harder to feel the fact that other countries are feeling the exact same things, often worse than we are, so they vote for some weird nostalgia for the days when things were better under Trump.
People are hurting, economically, and a lot of those people chose the person who is NOT in office, ie they voted against the incumbent who is telling them everything is fine and to stop whining.
People are hurting, economically, and a lot of those people chose the person who is NOT in office
That is actually a flaw in democracy. Many people don’t get that the person who is not in office can easily make things worse. So we usually get 8 years of 1 party, then 8 years of the other party. Way too many people forget after 4 or 8 years how terrible the incompetent the GOP is.
they voted against the incumbent who is telling them everything is fine and to stop whining.
Biden never once told anybody that. If anything Biden allowed his huge accomplishments (record low unemployerment, soft landing, lowest inflation of any developed country) to be underplayed.
Sanders said it perfectly in his open letter after the election.
While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.
Today, while the very rich are doing phenomenally well, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and we have more income and wealth inequality than ever before. Unbelievably, real, inflation-accounted-for weekly wages for the average American worker are actually lower now than they were 50 years ago.
Democrats just didn’t do enough to make people believe that their lives would change for the better from them. Continuing the status quo is not something they wanted to hear.
I can agree with that. People are so sick of things they want a disruptor. It’s hard to present yourself as that when you’re currently in office.
Going to the comment I replied to, most people don’t really know or care enough about what’s going on in Palestine right now. Not that that shouldn’t, just that they don’t (but admittedly those who do could be critical in Michigan). Medicare for all is certainly a disruptive idea, but it’s only a piece of what makes a person a disruptor. One that I’d bet not everyone fully understands.
I think Palestine was a demotivating factor for a lot of people, Michigan was still a pretty incredible outlier, but Trump picked up Muslim and Arab American voters across the board. A deciding factor? No, but a factor.
Now immigration… I’ve talked to people who’ve voted democratic by rote for their entire lives who voted for Trump over immigration. It was an extremely effective talking point that was ignored by Dems early on, then ceded to Republicans.
