What did Democrats do wrong?

[ahhell]

How did that hurt the Dems, though? Serious question. It's not like I imagine potential Democrat voters going 'okay, the D candidate comes across as insecure in front of the cameras and doesn't always speak coherently, so I'll instead vote for the guy who sounds like an mid-stage dementia patient with schizophrenia in how he can't finish more than a sentence or two before veering off onto steadily more incoherent tangents.' I've seen clips of so-called 'Harris word salads' on YouTube, and I've never seen anything come close to Dump's confused... I don't even know what to call them.

Though granted, a lot of Dump voters are probably in echo chambers where they perceive Dear Leader as faultless, since they only get to watch carefully curated clips of him speaking with all the energy and gusto of Hitler at his rallies.

Likely answer, turnout. Lots of questions are easier to answer if you aren't a member of the administration and/or a candidate that was able to attract voters in a primary.

Any Dem who was surprised by Biden's debate performance was pretty clearly in an echo chamber too.

 

[Donal]

We're pretending debate performances matter again?

 

[Ziggurat]

We're pretending debate performances matter again?

They do when the performance doesn't match expectations.

And for a lot of people, it didn't. A lot of people believed that Biden was with it (because that's what the press kep saying), and then they saw that no, in fact, he wasn't.

 

[ahhell]

This was possibly the only debate that ever actually mattered, at least in the last 20+ years. I absolutely know folks that were shocked by it and it pretty quickly resulted in Biden dropping out. So, this one mattered.

 

[Thermal]

Truth. It wasn't that the debate mattered, but that Biden publicly showed his worst face at it. You can't look befuddled and zoned out at game time like that.

 

[esquel]

Truth. It wasn't that the debate mattered, but that Biden publicly showed his worst face at it. You can't look befuddled and zoned out at game time like that.

Whereas Trump does word blender every time he speaks publicly, but it doesn't seem to matter either to journalists or his adoring fans.

 

[lobosrul5]

They aren't dumb enough for the average retard American.

 

[Thermal]

Whereas Trump does word blender every time he speaks publicly, but it doesn't seem to matter either to journalists or his adoring fans.

Right, but that's par for the Trump course. The normies were dumbstruck by Biden looking senile, even if it was mostly just a bad night. We have much, much higher standards. Like, we'd move to have him taken out of office and literally put under psychiatric evaluation if he started babbling about immigrants eating your pets or windmills causing cancer.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I don't know, I forgot where I was going with that, but please accept my apologies for being stupid.

But, let me try this again anyway. What I believe is that because there were 10 million less votes for Harris than for Biden in 2020, it's possible that she lost because those same amount of folks stayed home and didn't even bother to vote at all.


-

I think this is a solid possibility. At some point, I'm hoping to get state-level data. I'm interested to see if it's:
a) Dems in solid blue or solid red states who didn't bother to vote because the electoral was already locked in so why bother or
b) Dems in swing states who were disillusioned with the party, upset at having Harris forced on them, or otherwise not sold on Harris but who also couldn't stomach the thought of voting for Trump so just stayed silent on the matter

It could, of course, be a combination of the two. Or something else altogether.


ETA: In 2020, in CA for example, Biden got 11M votes to Trump's 6M. This year, Harris has 8.3M vs Trump's 5.4M. Apparently CA is counting really slow and is still only 87% done... but assuming the same ratio holds, that would end up being about 1.4M lower for Harris and about the same for Trump. I'd be inclined to think that's a case of Dems not going to the polls because the EC was already locked, but I could be wrong.

 

[Axxman300]

There are many things the Democrats failed at during the election.

Harris didn't hit Trump on being a convicted felon. This should have been in every speech and every commercial.
Harris distanced herself from Biden in spite of the booming economy and lowest unemployment in decades.
Harris was too slow in articulating an agenda for her administration.
The Democrats relied too much on anger over the abortion issue, believing it would drive women to the polls, which it did, but Trump gained women voters this time...so...
The Democrats were blind to the optics of forcing Biden out of the race without just cause other than "he was bad on TV". To much of the country this was nothing short of a coup, the DNC's version of January 6th, and certainly not democracy to have a candidate forced down our throats.

Fact is that Biden defeated Trump, and was still the only candidate who could. If he was slowing down, which he really wasn't if you saw his news conference the following week after the debate where he deftly laid out the trade issues with China, and our shift to focus on the South Pacific, they could have waited a year after re-election to have him resign due to health issues, and Harris becomes POTUS. But no, we were asked to eat soup with a fork.

I'm a Democrat since 1984. The party is run by fools. They genuinely think the solution is the be more liberal. They force Biden out, but Nancy Pelosi just filed to run again. They talk about freedom of expression while aggressively silencing anyone who disagrees with them, or questions their policies. They make a mess and refuse to clean it up. Well...now it's getting cleaned up. I don't care any more.

 

[dirtywick]

idk why the dems just ran the presidency like everything was normal when it was far from it

 

[theprestige]

They aren't dumb enough for the average retard American.

Messaging like this, and Democrats still can't figure out what they did wrong, to lose the popular vote.

 

[lobosrul5]

Messaging like this, and Democrats still can't figure out what they did wrong, to lose the popular vote.

I'm not a democrat, I don't message for them. The American people are ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ dumb, and getting dumber. We're getting what we want, and what we deserve. A nation run by morons and klepto's who literally tell us thats who they are.

 

[dirtywick]

the democrats can't really stop me from calling anyone an idiot. if that's the standard you are holding them to.

 

[Louden Wilde]

No, I don't know that. As I said before: Voters are liars. That evangelists are currently performing concern about trans folks in sports doesn't mean that they aren't still mad about the other issues I mentioned; it just means they think trans issues are currently the lower-hanging fruit.

Gender ideology is a gift that will keep giving to the Republicans - being full of bad science and demonstrably false statements (e.g. that Rachel Levine was the "first female four-star admiral in the Commissioned Corps" (yes this is really what was said) - forum member pixel42 put it well here ; or see a long form argument by Pamela Paul in the NYT today - I urge you to read it. Note that post-election two Dem congressmen - Seth Moulton (MA) & Tom Suozzi (NY) - have expressed support for keeping girls/women's sports single sex (& having a meltdown over calling adolescent males "boys" doesn't help Dems).

More broadly, the idea that self-identity is more important than physical reality doesn't fly for a lot of people - girls and women are discriminated against/oppressed/assaulted because they are female, not because they identify as girls and women. Ahmaud Arbery (as one example) was killed literally because he is black, not because he identifies that way.

ETA - I think dems have been on the right side - as historically judged - for so long that they have lost some ability to self-criticize. Decades ago (I think in grad school) I heard the saying that the right doesn't like science when it conflicts with their interpretation of the bible, and the left when it conflicts with accepted hippie wisdom (& at that time the most vocal anti-vaxxers were left-wing).

 

[Donal]

They do when the performance doesn't match expectations.

And for a lot of people, it didn't. A lot of people believed that Biden was with it (because that's what the press kep saying), and then they saw that no, in fact, he wasn't.

So the fact that Trump is a addle brained man child who regularly spouts racist nosnense works in his favor?

 

[Donal]

Gender ideology is a gift that will keep giving to the Republicans - being full of bad science and demonstrably false statements (e.g. that Rachel Levine was the "first female four-star admiral in the Commissioned Corps" (yes this is really what was said) - forum member pixel42 put it well here ; or see a long form argument by Pamela Paul in the NYT today - I urge you to read it. Note that post-election two Dem congressmen - Seth Moulton (MA) & Tom Suozzi (NY) - have expressed support for keeping girls/women's sports single sex (& having a meltdown over calling adolescent males "boys" doesn't help Dems).

More broadly, the idea that self-identity is more important than physical reality doesn't fly for a lot of people - girls and women are discriminated against/oppressed/assaulted because they are female, not because they identify as girls and women. Ahmaud Arbery (as one example) was killed literally because he is black, not because he identifies that way.

ETA - I think dems have been on the right side - as historically judged - for so long that they have lost some ability to self-criticize. Decades ago (I think in grad school) I heard the saying that the right doesn't like science when it conflicts with their interpretation of the bible, and the left when it conflicts with accepted hippie wisdom (& at that time the most vocal anti-vaxxers were left-wing).

Donald Trump and the Republicans thank you for your service.

 

[The Don]

So the fact that Trump is a addle brained man child who regularly spouts racist nosnense works in his favor?

Looking at a substantial proportion of the US electorate, it seems to.

IMO part of it is that the "weave" allows Trump to say many unconnected, in some cases contradictory thinks which acts like an aural Rorschach Test, people hear what they want to hear and convince themselves that he's their guy (and just ignore the rest). There is however a large constituency of people who are very unhappy with their current lot and have been given the convenient scapegoats of brown people. This is consistent with their inner racist and so they're happy to be swept along.

 

[Louden Wilde]

Donald Trump and the Republicans thank you for your service.

That is not an intelligent comment, let alone argument. On the contrary, they'll be thanking the out-of-touch left who don't cede on the more extreme positions (including the identity ideology) . Trump is a terrible person, businessman and candidate. This election should not have been close, let him alone winning. That alone suggests there may be multiple factors going on. You think social issues didn't play a part?

 

[ahhell]

Looking at a substantial proportion of the US electorate, it seems to.

IMO part of it is that the "weave" allows Trump to say many unconnected, in some cases contradictory thinks which acts like an aural Rorschach Test, people hear what they want to hear and convince themselves that he's their guy (and just ignore the rest). There is however a large constituency of people who are very unhappy with their current lot and have been given the convenient scapegoats of brown people. This is consistent with their inner racist and so they're happy to be swept along.

I almost liked this post, there's some insight there but as always, goes back to assuming it just racism. If your answer to every question is always the same, I'm not sure there's much thought going into it. To be fair, its the same two answers, hate and stupidity.

You are right though, trump will say two contradictory things in a single breath, lets folks read whatever they want into it. The weave, more like rambling BS but sure, call it the weave.

ETA

Why did trump win.
1. Incumbents lost all over the world, I suspect for economics as much as anything.
2. Biden's response to folks feellng insecure about the economy was to tell them they didn't know what they were talking about, wall street is doing great.
3a. Biden ran again when he at least implied he wouldn't when poling was showing nobody wanted him to.
3b. Polling showed that even most Dems thought he was too old.
3c. He was obviously too old and his team and their media flacks were saying, that's cheap fakes to show a real video of Biden obviosly being super old, this is the best biden ever as long as he goes to sleep by 6 and doesn't start work until 10.
4. Biden and his administration pretended and obvious crisis at the border wasn't obviously chaos right up until the election year. When admittedly they got behind some decent legislation that Trump scuttled.
5. Harris was way to tied to the administration in all of that and sucks as a politician. Never came close to winning a competitive race for anything, maybe some dem primary in SF.
6. The left of the Dems alienate almost everyone else.
7. Yes, lots of Americans are still racists and such, but not nearly as many or has hateful as folks think.