Politics The Donkey in the room...the Democrats today

I'll believe it when I see the vote totals in the middle of November. I doubt the shift is more than 5% points where I live in Ohio. Instead of 65% R- 35% D (It was 63% Trump - 35% Clinton in 2016) But it has been very consistant in 2008, 2012, and 2016. Most of the same ~82,000 vote each election.

The Democrats have done a pretty piss poor job at unifying the party and getting input and suggestions from the people for their platform policies. They have done nothing to try and win over 18-40 year old straight white males. And only a little for 18-40 straight white females. And they haven't come up with better answers to abortion, guns, taxes, spending, crime, religion, foreign military intervention, globalism/trade, and other issues. There are a lot of soft issues like people having to move away from their hometowns to find partners and jobs, how attractive people influence people, and monetary policy (stuff costs too much, taxes aren't being used effectively, and the economy is rewarding certain people a lot more than the people actually doing the work.

But, they love sending out multiple emails begging for money everyday... Not asking for people to vote, to talk to their friends and family to vote, to sign up to volunteer, to come out to some events too.

 

I wonder how some of the state governor races are going to shape up?

Will voters remember and care that their governor followed Trump's lead in waiting to see what happened with COVID-19?

Our Republican governor did exactly that. Slow to shut down businesses, quick to re-open them, slow to even suggest wearing masks but now pushing them big time. Every action he has taken has been roughly four months slow. So what does that mean in Texas? Unless we have a catastrophe directly tied to his leadership or lack of, he'll get re-elected by a landslide.

 

So, it turns out I was pretty close. I was wrong before, in that Trump got 58% of the vote here in 2016, and Hillary got 34.6%. The results in my county were 59.7% Trump, 39.3% Biden in 2020, so it was +1.7% for Trump, and +4.7% for Biden, so a difference of a 3% shift. Some of that is the 3903 additional new voters from 2016, and some is that 3rd parties got fewer votes this time. I fear that very few people actually switched sides around here. Of the 87604 votes in 2020, compared to 2016, Biden got 5080 more votes, but Trump also got 2397 more votes, which is over a thousand more than the GOP candidate got in 2016, 2012, or 2008. Going into the election I thought it was going to be close, but I hoped for a 15%-20% shift, not a 3% one. Especially with the early vote numbers and the vote by mail numbers that had been reported. 100 million people voted before Election Day, and there is currently 152 million total votes or close to it. I was expecting the Democrats to win by 20+ million in the popular vote, maybe even 30 million.

I have created a quick list of the reasons why people wouldn't vote for the Democrats as an ideology. Did I miss anything obvious? This is in no specific order, but since the Democratic Party never did a real deep dive into why they lost in 2016 and why 73 million people voted against them this year (10 million more than in 2016) after 240,000 people died in a botched virus response along with the past 4 years of grift, hypocrisy, and incompetence, I put this list together:

1. Identity and feel that they belong to a team, since that is who they backed in the past
2. Neighbors, community, friends, and family influence
3. Roe vs Wade/Women's Rights/Abortion/traditional women are more desirable
4. Civil Rights/Racial issues/Don't want black people to do better than them
5. Equal Employment Act/Affirmative Action/Quotas helping others and not them
6. Right wing media arguing, talking points, and position papers
7. Past government experience, Expectation that Republicans run local government better
8. Better organized party and willing to run for seats everywhere
9. Dislike of rich college kids who don’t have to work hard jobs
10. Pissed off at hippies, draft dodgers, and college deferments from the Vietnam War
11. Fear of criminals who will injure themselves or their property
12. Don’t want to pay higher taxes so others get free services from the government
13. Want management of the corporations to have more power so they don’t leave
14. Their lifestyle is better accepted when Republicans are in charge
15. They like cheap gasoline and want to drill here to make it as easy as possible
16. Relationships are easier when the woman is reliant on the man
17. Divorce and child custody favors women when Democrats are in charge
18. Too many atheists and non-churchgoers are Democrats
19. Family. Liberals move away to the big cities and aren’t around.
20. Support long term monogamous relationships, not the casual, dating around lifestyle
21. Guns, and fear that they will be determined to be unqualified to own guns
22. Fear that their big truck will be banned, that coal, oil drilling, and fracking will be banned
23. Democrats don’t have a clear vision for what success is for people
24. Bad messaging on the issues and let’s the GOP define them.
25. Don’t want to see two guys kissing in movies or TV, and don’t want their kids seeing it
26. Alternative facts
27. Lack of a digital strategy to control the narrative and mood on forums and social media
28. Nanny state, shutting down businesses and economy because of a virus
29. Republicans are the tough, masculine party
30. They don’t want any of their tax dollars going to poor people, especially of a different race
31. Immigration and people from Central American countries coming here
32. Globalization and the export of stable manufacturing jobs
33. Hunting restrictions and other regulations
34. Military support and spending locally, as the bases are a fairly stable revenue source
35. Muslims and the Iran issue, along with wanting Israel to win
36. Using attractive females and loud bossy males as “news” reporters gets more attention
37. Don’t want to be told by the young people what to do
38. Don’t want the politically correct activists to win.
39. The DNC is corrupt, and don’t want to support Hillary
40. Want a conservative Supreme Court to stop enacting liberal rulings

 

Hmm, what I find interesting is that if you break down a lot of these topics you find that the average American supports a lot of "liberal" ideas.
Keep in mind I'm not a Democrat or a DemSoc.
I'd probably be best described as a Green Libertarian Socialist.
Universal healthcare has a 63% support for example. Whenever I use percentages they come from the Pew research.
So lets take a look at the list.

1. Identity and feel that they belong to a team, since that is who they backed in the past - Tribal identity is a thing that's true, my grandfather organized workers for the IWW in a time when you could get murdered for that sort of thing.

2. Neighbors, community, friends, and family influence - Young people are fighting with their parents right now on this.

3. Roe vs Wade/Women's Rights/Abortion/traditional women are more desirable - Only 26% of the US are against abortion rights, they just happen to be the loudest. 79% Support Women's rights.

4. Civil Rights/Racial issues/Don't want black people to do better than them - Yep, racism is a thing and a big reason that The Impeached 45 picked up so many votes. How do you appeal to people like that? I would argue you fucking don't. They aren't worth your time.

5. Equal Employment Act/Affirmative Action/Quotas helping others and not them - See Above

6. Right wing media arguing, talking points, and position papers - This is one place that we really have to up our game. BreadTube just ain't going to cut it as a challenge to all the crap pumped out by these guys. They gin up the fear level of the people to point where reality is a blur.

7. Past government experience, Expectation that Republicans run local government better - Republican presidents have always ran up the debt more than Democrats.

8. Better organized party and willing to run for seats everywhere - Sad but true.

9. Dislike of rich college kids who don’t have to work hard jobs - Like the Impeached 45?

10. Pissed off at hippies, draft dodgers, and college deferments from the Vietnam War - See above

11. Fear of criminals who will injure themselves or their property - See #6. The amount of actual crime is down from the 90's but watch the right wing media and you would think we are going to murdered in our beds.

12. Don’t want to pay higher taxes so others get free services from the government - If the bottom of your house if covered with T1-11 plywood, you don't have to worry about Biden's tax plan.

13. Want management of the corporations to have more power so they don’t leave - Kissing corporate ass doesn't keep them from leaving. Counties that gave Walmart huge tax breaks, built roads for their stores, and watched all their local stores go out of business, had no guarantees that the stores would stay open. Which they haven't, the minute the economy went south in those areas, Walmart bailed.

14. Their lifestyle is better accepted when Republicans are in charge - Nobody is attacking their lifestyles unless they are the 1%.

15. They like cheap gasoline and want to drill here to make it as easy as possible - Gasoline prices are based on world markets. It's way more complicated than who is president.

16. Relationships are easier when the woman is reliant on the man - The economy is what makes it possible for women to be stay at home moms. If you want a trad wife, you need better paying jobs so that both people don't have to work.

17. Divorce and child custody favors women when Democrats are in charge - Divorce and custody has actually changed under Democrats to take men's rights into consideration.

18. Too many atheists and non-churchgoers are Democrats - The fastest rising religious group in the US is NR (no religion)

19. Family. Liberals move away to the big cities and aren’t around. - Complicated that one. Kids move away from their parents. You just can't get around that. Kids move out of Alaska as fast as they can. It's tough.

20. Support long term monogamous relationships, not the casual, dating around lifestyle - Young people are also more open to alternative relationships. That can make more conservative folks uncomfortable but you know what? Too bad. They weren't too happy when Black and white people got to marry either.

21. Guns, and fear that they will be determined to be unqualified to own guns - A lot of Democrats own guns too. Even Progressives.

22. Fear that their big truck will be banned, that coal, oil drilling, and fracking will be banned. - Sorry but some of that shit really does need to be banned. We just can't do it the way coal mining was stopped without making sure there was alternative jobs.

23. Democrats don’t have a clear vision for what success is for people. Democrats come in all shapes and sizes. I suspect that knowing that what success looks like is going to be a matter of interpretation for each person and if they can express it clearly than there is someone in the party who can understand it.

24. Bad messaging on the issues and let’s the GOP define them. - Also sad but true
25. Don’t want to see two guys kissing in movies or TV, and don’t want their kids seeing it - Bigotry is a problem, see 4, 5 and 20.

26. Alternative facts - Yeah, not too much we can do about that bullshit except keep trying to get the message out.

27. Lack of a digital strategy to control the narrative and mood on forums and social media - I really don't want the government messing in social media as much as I'm pissed off at their handling of Russia's propaganda.

28. Nanny state, shutting down businesses and economy because of a virus - Piss poor planning on the part of our government is what is killing our economy. We have one of the richest and most powerful countries in the world. If Canada can pay their people to stay home so can we.

29. Republicans are the tough, masculine party - Mitch McConnell is tough and masculine? Hahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!

30. They don’t want any of their tax dollars going to poor people, especially of a different race - Yep, racism is a fucking problem.

31. Immigration and people from Central American countries coming here. Desperate, scared, people who are in danger where they live have the right to ask for sanctuary here. Maybe because I'm Jewish, I take this kind of seriously when I think of the shipload of my people being sent back to Nazi Germany but yeah, we need to stop being assholes.

32. Globalization and the export of stable manufacturing jobs - Globalization is far too often a dog whistle of the Jewish Conspiracy. The export of stable jobs goes back to how we've allowed unfettered capitalism to run amok.

33. Hunting restrictions and other regulations. I live in Alaska. Democrats up here hunt just like the rest of us. They aren't going to change any of that except for the killing of endangered species, baiting bears, and shooting wolves from planes, which the real hunters think are bullshit anyway.

34. Military support and spending locally, as the bases are a fairly stable revenue source - The Democrats aren't going to shut down bases willy-nilly. The military will come up with new ways to use the bases and keep them going. It really is a none issue.

35. Muslims and the Iran issue, along with wanting Israel to win - I have family in Israel. We will never see eye to eye on this. They will be stance Republicans forever even though they believe in a lot of things that would make them Democrats just because they feel Republicans support Israel better. It's a tough one.

36. Using attractive females and loud bossy males as “news” reporters gets more attention - Yep.

37. Don’t want to be told by the young people what to do - Or scientists, or doctors, or anybody who seems to know anything about what's actually going on.
38. Don’t want the politically correct activists to win. - For people who think politically correct means they can't say the N word anymore, fuck them.

39. The DNC is corrupt, and don’t want to support Hillary - Hillary isn't in politics anymore. If you don't like the DNC get involved with the party and kick it out. The party is the people involved with it.

40. Want a conservative Supreme Court to stop enacting liberal rulings. - As much as I'd like to see Biden toss a couple of extra judges on the Supreme Court I don't think it's going to happen.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I thought of a few more. Although I wonder how many Republican voters or anti-Democrat voters only care about a few of these, or even just one of these issues?

41. Small business owners and the local business community of entrepreneurs
42. Lottery winners, kids of wealthy parents, and rich people who dislike wealth or estate taxes
43. See drug policy as a deterrent that sends people to jail who negatively influence society
44. Religion, morals, and values of how to live a good life following family traditions
45. Actual issues with the Democratic candidate (too liberal, corrupt, doesn't know what real life is, flip-flops, doesn't tell the public the truth)

 

Go after those two Senate seats like your life depends on it.

 

Yeah where do I send my 27 bucks now ?

 

This seems like a person who desperately needs a time machine to go back to 1942.
I mean, not you ASU but the person your painting a picture of.

 

The kid holding the boot to his own neck.

Well...I don't know...it is hard to maintain attention. Political science isn't my expertise. I really can't commit the time needed to understand it all. That would be like a 2nd career.
Hopefully we can avoid a full scale 2nd civil war.