I sadly think that’s an excellent point. I truly believed a message of hope and compassion woukd resonate far more than grievance and retribution. I believed most of my fellow citizens want optimism in leadership.
I think they want optimism, but they’re also demanding change. There’s a broad feeling that the situation we’re in is untenable, and liberal parties around the world are losing to right-wing populists because they don’t seem to get it.
But what represents that change when things are quantifiably pretty good? Opting for chaos? Change for the sole sake of change?
If he was an unknown quantity sure - but there’s recent experience of his first term and it was a shit show. Embracing authoritarianism because…grocery prices? There’s something more afoot. The logic doesn’t hold and there must be a shred of logic in there somewhere.
But what represents that change when things are quantifiably pretty good?
I disagree that things are pretty good, and so did most of the country. Grocery prices are up. Housing and child care prices are insane. A significant injury or illness can still send you into bankruptcy. Income and wealth equality are still worse than before the French Revolution.
And I also disagree that people embraced authoritarianism. Trump won by default because the message the Harris campaign was sending didn’t motivate people to get to the polls to support her.
But they did because his first administration did nothing to address any of those issues and in fact made them worse. Based on his record their choice (deliberate or no) was to choose demonstrated incompetence and malfeasance instead of moderate change.
The chicken is too meh so order the shit sandwich?
Look at the vote totals. Trump got about the same as he did the last two times. Democrats dramatically underperformed compared to 2020. The people who want to embrace authoritarianism did so like they always do, but the loss was from people who couldn’t be bothered to go vote for continuing the status quo
I sadly think that’s an excellent point. I truly believed a message of hope and compassion woukd resonate far more than grievance and retribution. I believed most of my fellow citizens want optimism in leadership.
I think they want optimism, but they’re also demanding change. There’s a broad feeling that the situation we’re in is untenable, and liberal parties around the world are losing to right-wing populists because they don’t seem to get it.
But what represents that change when things are quantifiably pretty good? Opting for chaos? Change for the sole sake of change?
If he was an unknown quantity sure - but there’s recent experience of his first term and it was a shit show. Embracing authoritarianism because…grocery prices? There’s something more afoot. The logic doesn’t hold and there must be a shred of logic in there somewhere.
I disagree that things are pretty good, and so did most of the country. Grocery prices are up. Housing and child care prices are insane. A significant injury or illness can still send you into bankruptcy. Income and wealth equality are still worse than before the French Revolution.
And I also disagree that people embraced authoritarianism. Trump won by default because the message the Harris campaign was sending didn’t motivate people to get to the polls to support her.
But they did because his first administration did nothing to address any of those issues and in fact made them worse. Based on his record their choice (deliberate or no) was to choose demonstrated incompetence and malfeasance instead of moderate change.
The chicken is too meh so order the shit sandwich?
Look at the vote totals. Trump got about the same as he did the last two times. Democrats dramatically underperformed compared to 2020. The people who want to embrace authoritarianism did so like they always do, but the loss was from people who couldn’t be bothered to go vote for continuing the status quo
Yeah, discussing that in another thread. People just blowing off voting….insane.
It’s insane to us, but unless we can figure out how to get them to do it we’re never going to have a Democrat in charge again.