Vincent Oriedo, a biotechnology scientist, had just such a question. What lessons have been learned, he asked, from Harris’s defeat in this vital swing county in a crucial battleground state that voted for Joe Biden four years ago, and how are the Democrats applying them?
“They did not answer the question,” he said.
“It tells me that they haven’t learned the lessons and they have their inner state of denial. I’ve been paying careful attention to the influencers within the Democratic party. Their discussions have centred around, ‘If only we messaged better, if only we had a better candidate, if only we did all these superficial things.’ There is really a lack of understanding that they are losing their base, losing constituencies they are taking for granted.”
“We have set ourselves up for generational loss because we keep promoting from within leaders that that do not criticise the moneyed interests. They refuse to take a hard look at what Americans actually believe and meet those needs.”
Seriously those gas station “I did that” stickers were an actual grass roots movement, and it’s part of why Trump won.
A lot of people vote based on their wallets. If you’re worse off after 4 years, then why vote for the incumbent?
The Dems need to learn. Cheap food/gas/essentials, less outsourcing, less importing cheap labor, and lose the smugness. That’s what they need to do to win, and I don’t think that would mean abandoning much.
Less importing cheap labor means higher prices. Welcome to math. Americans expect no effort and lives of luxury because they’re at the center of an empire - except of course the ruling class increasingly reaps the rewards, and the money doesn’t recirculate into the economy due to how it’s structured, so we just slip into poverty. Neither major party will fix this, by design.
True, but the voters still want both low prices and good paying jobs, and the Dems promised neither. That’s my point.
Except we weren’t worse off after 4 years because 4 years ago we had Covid, and now we don’t.
We still have covid-19. Sure, fewer people are dying from it now, and yes, we have a vaccine, but most US Americans aren’t getting the regular booster shots required for continued protection against covid. It still kills people. It still causes brain damage and organ damage.
Overall, US Americans just stopped caring about it and stopped taking measures to avoid it.
It’s not about prices bro. It’s about culture
Elaborate
A lot of people talking politics online are younger or trump era folks (post-2016). I can tell you right now, policy don’t mean shit in this country. It’s about culture wars and racism. Romney ran on almost identical policies Trump has ran on THREE times. Deregulation, immigration, lower taxes, agency cuts. Typical Republican shit.
Difference is, Romney didn’t dog whistle enough, he was your average Republican. And Obama beat him comfortably. Trump campaigns almost entirely on culture war nonsense and has a HUGE propaganda machine behind him. But his campaign policy is no different from any other Republican.
Do you honestly think if Trump didn’t lean into racism, xenophobia and bigotry that he’d be successful in politics and gotten this far. You think racist rednecks would storm the Capitol for some billionaire 1 term generic Republican? Come on people. Use your brains. It’s Republican politics 101, always fight culture wars until that specific fight runs out of steam (post 80s gay panic).