People Are Overthinking This Election

[KakyoinMemeHouse]

After 2 weeks of reading through posts and replies made in the aftermath of the election, it dawned on me that people have really been receiving the wrong message. I think we can really see this with the recent obsession around "anti-woke Dems", and the prospect of abandoning progressive social policy in order to apparently appeal to more voters.

But why in the hell is this the lesson being learnt here? Why is the takeaway "abandon trans people and become borderline racist"? Its honestly just f**king delusional and insane at this point. There are probably so many more worthwhile takeaways, and this isn't one of them. It's like if you got a mosquito bite, and your takeaway is that in order not to get bitten again, you must tear off all the flesh on your body until there is nothing left.

I mean, what are we doing here? Do you think politicians like Sherrod Brown found electoral success off the back of spewing hateful rhetoric? No! This isn't "going back to our roots". The fact is, at no time in our modern era were we ever like that, and do we have any intention of going back to the more messy parts of said era? Also no!


If your main takeaway from this election was that we must completely self-destruct and surrender by turning ourselves into some quasi right-wing dumpster fire, i seriously question your own judgement and morals.

[heatcharger]

Good for Harris.

[Zenobiyl]

Agree. It was inflation and a historically unpopular incumbent.

[E-Dawg]

Democrats need to learn how to go populist in rhetoric and actually present compelling narratives with clear good and bad guys and a case for some kind of transformative change. Trump has done this to great success. Bernie Sanders actually knows how to do this unlike other Democrats, there's a reason why a not insignificant number of Trump fans liked Bernie. Most mainstream Democrats are stuck complaining about how much of a threat Trump is to institutions (which isn't a compelling anti-Trump case to people sick of the establishment), and talking about their policies in a wonkish and technocratic way without attaching compelling narratives to it.

For example, Biden or Harris would say something like "We helped reduce the price of these drugs to give Americans a break, while Donald Trump talks a big game but does nothing!", while a populist Democrat would instead say "The evil big pharma companies are sucking Americans dry to gain profit and Donald Trump does nothing as they let Americans die! Democrats take on drug companies to lower costs for you, Donald Trump only cares about enriching his donors!"

[SN2903]

Agree. It was inflation and a historically unpopular incumbent.

Don't kid yourself. It was a lot more than that. The border, immigration in general, culture, DEI, crime and public safety. The massive cope continues though.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Agree. It was inflation and a historically unpopular incumbent.

Don't kid yourself. It was a lot more than that. The border, immigration in general, culture, DEI, crime and public safety. The massive cope continues though.

That all kind of fits into the anti-incumbent sentiment. Kakyo (for once) and Zenobiyl are correct here.

If this election was more complicated than all that it would have benefitted Harris. That's basically what her campaign was trying to turn the conversation to.

[Reactionary Libertarian]

Agree. It was inflation and a historically unpopular incumbent.

Don't kid yourself. It was a lot more than that. The border, immigration in general, culture, DEI, crime and public safety. The massive cope continues though.

If Vance can win in 2028 with a better economy then yes. Otherwise it’s mostly inflation and Trump’s unique machismo, with the border as number two and wokeness as a distant third.

[DrScholl]

Agree. It was inflation and a historically unpopular incumbent.

Don't kid yourself. It was a lot more than that. The border, immigration in general, culture, DEI, crime and public safety. The massive cope continues though.

You won, but you are still being nasty with the cope comments. Democrats weren't pushing DEI or anything cultural, that was Republicans. There is nothing to cope over, it's one election and for people like you winning just for the sake of winning is going to be very short lived. Worry about actually getting something done with your new administration.

[ottermax]

So maybe the election was about the economy, immigration, and "wokeness"... but guess what voters are flaky and fickle.

In 2000 and 2004 we saw a socially conservative wave, followed by 2008 with the largest win of this century by a candidate with the middle name Hussein.

2008 and 2012 saw "demographics as destiny" with a multiracial coalition that could never lose, followed by a man screaming about Mexicans being rapists and banning Muslims.

Voters didn't like him when they got inconvenienced by a pandemic (oh and "wokeness" certainly motivated a lot of Biden voters after the BLM movement), and then voters flipped when they didn't like the consequences of mass spending by Trump and Biden.

So given all this yes, people are overthinking, and at this rate Sarah McBride or Rashida Tlaib becomes president given history.

[Adam Griffin]

Harris was just a bad choice in general. Pelosi and Obama were right: there should have been a competition for the nomination.

I'm not exactly a Monday morning quarterback on this issue: I have a long history of arguing that Harris would be a horrible candidate based on her perception and demographic attributes, but more so on her previous electoral track-record. Whether it's her underperforming the baseline in CA for her AG elections, underperforming (admittedly in a D vs D) in her Senate election, or dropping out because she was broke before the Iowa caucuses in 2020 due to campaign mismanagement & nepotism. You can't assume every black person is an Obama - that is racism at its core, even if it's coming from a a positive-rooted premise.

Still, I think we have to acknowledge the people who want to have their cake and eat it too: they simultaneously want to argue that sexism and racism are real institutional problems, but somehow that a black woman will produce more votes than a candidate that ethnically, racially and by gender norms fits the "standard American mold" because of "enthusiasm" (or perhaps this cycle, "joy").

Either sexism and racism are real institutional problems that subsequently handicap candidates to which these attributes apply, or that a candidate embodying this will produce more votes and therefore sexism and racism are dead. I know which option I believe (Option 1). You can't seriously argue that both of these are institutional handicaps and that enthusiasm will simultaneously make them more electable than [bland generic white dude].

And just to be clear, I've maintained for many years that sexism is a bigger handicap than racism for a presidential or statewide candidate; better to be a black man than a white woman, and black women are usually going to be at the bottom of the list in terms of overall performance among any electorate. Stephen Abrams (Black-D-GA) would be halfway through his second term as Governor of Georgia as one notable example, and I am willing to die on this hill.

Democrats need to run men first and foremost for the Presidency: white men are more advantageous than black men, but black men are more advantageous than white women. Regardless of messaging changes or the lack thereof, this is the one lesson that needs to seep into our collective consciousness: let the Republicans try to elect the first female President. The squeeze is worth the juice.