Not if the audience simply refuses to listen. If a segment of the population believes everything that doesn't fit their accepted sources is a lie, it doesn't matter what any other source says. Especially if that source is their avowed enemy.
Democratic operatives and party elites can now sleep well at night knowing that they literally could not have improved anything at all.
Whether or not it is a stupid thing to do depends on an individual voter's end goals. If they are, for example, primarily focused on tax cuts for wealthy people and their corporate interests, it may be the best path to get where they are hoping to go. Other examples would be voters hoping to roll back the federal administrative bureaucracy or do a mass deportation.
"Stupid things" is way too vague and (ironically enough) it's also a strategically foolish way to conceptualize swing voters whom the party is hoping to win back. Replacing that vagueness with specificity, Democrats relied on voters not to kick out the incumbent party on account of widespread dissatisfaction with two or three major issues generally thought to be salient to swing voters, which is what swing voters nearly always do.
One possible answer to the OP might be "Democrats failed to follow through on Biden's implicit promise to serve only one term and then allow for someone like Hillary Scholten to win the party nomination in a fully open primary process."
Another possible answer to the OP would be that "Democrats failed to adequately message the extent to which Trump's proposed tariffs will exacerbate consumer adversity." There has to be some way to say this such that even "stupid" voters get it.
None of those things matter if you deprive yourself of a responsive democracy. Which is a stupid, self-defeating thing to do.
No, I don't think it's accurate to say that Democrats relied on voters to do this. They made an argument for why voters should vote for an incumbent party, despite the fact that that party presided over high rates of inflation. That argument failed, but it's not like it wasn't made.
Sure, but that's been mentioned many times, and I don't think anyone disagrees that this was an error.
I don't see any reason to believe that. It's a technical argument that relies on expert opinions that are likely to be rejected because they are expert opinions. You have to imagine that voters are simultaneously disillusioned with the professional managerial classes and willing to listen to them for this idea to work. You also have to imagine that voters are really paying much attention at all.
Given all the various times and places in which citizens have voted an open authoritarian into power, it is clearly incorrect to assume all voters value "responsive democracy" among their top priorities. Of course, they probably should but as I said before we cannot reasonably expect everyone to value the same things we do.
Can we get a good example of the argument they made?
Come now, the inference from increased import prices to increased domestic prices can be illustrated in a single cartoon. No need to cite experts, even people with median IQs and thereabouts can make the leap from increased import costs to increased costs at their local Wal*Mart or any other chain store heavily stocked with imported goods.
The isn't that they do value responsive democracy. It's that addressing voter interests relies on formal mechanisms by which those interests can be enacted. Depriving yourself of those mechanisms means you have no reason to expect that your interests will even be attended to, let alone fulfilled. It's self-defeating, which means it's a bad move.
Specific plans for economic relief, bipartisan border bill, abortion rights, the insanity and authoritarian tendencies of her opponent, etc. I don't want to replay her campaign, but it's not difficult to find the arguments that were made.
I think you're being optimistic if you think most people will understand that cartoon, let alone be persuaded by it.
I'm not inclined to rely on dubious psychometrics, but consider what you're saying. Half of the country is below the median intelligence, by definition. And of course someone might say, "Sure, it will lead to higher prices at S-Mart, but it will also bring back jobs to America! It'll be better overall!" At which point the argument becomes more technical and difficult. You're not just explaining, you're combating the countervailing message, which has more truthiness to it.
The democrats cannot row back on Trans issues because the damage that has been done to children on their watch and by the instigation of Richard/Rachel Levine, who recently advocated removing all age restrictions on medically and surgically altering the bodies of children and young people. This is comprehensively reported in granular detail by scores of concerned adults all over X and youtube, but almost never on traditional media, which is why it is such a mystery to regulars here.
I don't remember any arguments that were made which actually addressed "the fact that that party presided over high rates of inflation" but maybe I misunderstood your meaning on that point.
I also don't remember any arguments that were made which actually addressed the "higher prices at S-Mart" problem, but living in a very red state we weren't exactly targeted with ads.
The principle argument there is that they did a better job keeping inflation in check than other developed countries. But you're arguing against feelings there, and it's mostly pointless.
They explained that often enough, and (maybe more importantly) so did the media. There's not much you can do to make people tune in, and that's sort of the problem. Uninformed voters are uninformed because they aren't seeking good information. How do you make them listen?
To be clear, do you see any difference between swing voters and Trump voters? I've been talking about people who are persuadable rather than people who are flying MAGA flags, since the OP asked how the Democrats could have pulled more votes this time around.
As a Maddow viewer (yes, I'm an AARP member) I'm fully aware of the argument.
An excellent question!
Then why say this:
Because I don't count news media directed at Democratic partisans to be part of Harris' messaging effort.
They voted to put an anti-vaxxer in charge of public health. That’s an objectively stupid thing to do.
And then they voted to put an anti-vaxxer in charge of public health. Totally tracks. Great analysis.
Democrats talked about the tariffs all the time. Almost as much as they didn’t talk about gender identity issues. Maybe they should have talked more about how polio is bad because that’s what these idiots decided to vote for.
Of all the highly effective ads about tariffs, which one did you find most memorable?
A Trump voter is anyone who voted for Trump, by definition. Whether they were always in the tank for Trump or were eventually persuaded by his well-articulated position on pet-eating migrants, they’re all Trump voters.