Yeah, Dems really have a lot of work to do to earn back the trust of most Americans.
Literally no one I know believes anything they say (or I say about them) or at best they’ll think it’s all performative (which they’re mostly right about). Most folks just don’t really care about news/politics and live normal American lives and feel the struggle. It’s mind blowing to me that our messaging was about how great the economy is and how much better is. Literal insane shit to most working class people.
Instead of saying the economy is great, they should use another word for what they mean, which is specifically like the rate of inflation/cost of very specific things or like a very specific unemployment rate. Whereas when regular people hear economy, they think of more abstract things like money in their pocket/savings, the cost of groceries, their ability to plan for the future based on stable finances, or even the increasing APR on the credit cards they owe (something we choose to ignore but many struggle with) - none of that shit is great, it’s literally worse than ever. lol
I feel like they would have fared better if they went all in on the “corporations are gouging consumers” line and not try to convince people with GDP figures or the unemployment rate.
This is exactly the problem. The Dems hyperfixated on how well “the economy” was doing as some of kind of abstract entity, instead of acknowledging that none of those metrics actually represent a truly healthy economy. There’s more money, but it’s all going to the wealthy. There’s more employment, but being employed means Jack Shit if you’re working three jobs and still can’t make rent.
Successive Dem and GOP governments have spent decades overseeing the creation of an economy that has destroyed the livelihood of the average person (and the same has happened all across the neoliberal world). I’ve seen it said, accurately, that “poor” in the eighties was vastly more comfortable than poor today. Never forget that the Simpsons were supposed to be an average working class family struggling to get by. The Frank Grimes episode lampooned how the Simpsons basic existence had already transformed into one of relative luxury, and that aired in '97. It’s gotten so much worse since then.
People may be ignorant and easily lead, but they still know how much money is in their bank account. You will never ever win elections by telling voters they’re not actually poor because GDP growth is up.
The solutions Trump offered to these problems are objectively terrible, built on ignorance and outright lies. But he offered solutions. The Dems looked at a house full of people actively burning to death and said “What are you on about, there’s no fire. You’re stupid.”
Against that, the GOPs ideas didn’t have to be good. They just had to be different. The average voter figured that there if there was even a 1% chance that Trump made things better, that was still better odds than the Dems were giving them. Most of them didn’t even bother looking at the details of Trump’s plans, they just figured “Hey, he apparently has a plan, the other guys clearly don’t, so let’s go with that.”
Not sure I agree with the premise that people voted for Trump because he talked about solutions, but this does illustrate the complete disillusionment I experienced (and likely others) when realizing that in order to vote against the insane felon, I voted for the establishment who would change nothing.
The Kamala campaign was very careful to NOT say that the economy was doing great. It was Biden who essentially had this as his campaign strategy. I wonder why this piece of misinformation is so persistent on this platform. It is always mentioned by people without reference to a source.
Yeah, Dems really have a lot of work to do to earn back the trust of most Americans.
Literally no one I know believes anything they say (or I say about them) or at best they’ll think it’s all performative (which they’re mostly right about). Most folks just don’t really care about news/politics and live normal American lives and feel the struggle. It’s mind blowing to me that our messaging was about how great the economy is and how much better is. Literal insane shit to most working class people.
Instead of saying the economy is great, they should use another word for what they mean, which is specifically like the rate of inflation/cost of very specific things or like a very specific unemployment rate. Whereas when regular people hear economy, they think of more abstract things like money in their pocket/savings, the cost of groceries, their ability to plan for the future based on stable finances, or even the increasing APR on the credit cards they owe (something we choose to ignore but many struggle with) - none of that shit is great, it’s literally worse than ever. lol
I feel like they would have fared better if they went all in on the “corporations are gouging consumers” line and not try to convince people with GDP figures or the unemployment rate.
This is exactly the problem. The Dems hyperfixated on how well “the economy” was doing as some of kind of abstract entity, instead of acknowledging that none of those metrics actually represent a truly healthy economy. There’s more money, but it’s all going to the wealthy. There’s more employment, but being employed means Jack Shit if you’re working three jobs and still can’t make rent.
Successive Dem and GOP governments have spent decades overseeing the creation of an economy that has destroyed the livelihood of the average person (and the same has happened all across the neoliberal world). I’ve seen it said, accurately, that “poor” in the eighties was vastly more comfortable than poor today. Never forget that the Simpsons were supposed to be an average working class family struggling to get by. The Frank Grimes episode lampooned how the Simpsons basic existence had already transformed into one of relative luxury, and that aired in '97. It’s gotten so much worse since then.
People may be ignorant and easily lead, but they still know how much money is in their bank account. You will never ever win elections by telling voters they’re not actually poor because GDP growth is up.
The solutions Trump offered to these problems are objectively terrible, built on ignorance and outright lies. But he offered solutions. The Dems looked at a house full of people actively burning to death and said “What are you on about, there’s no fire. You’re stupid.”
Against that, the GOPs ideas didn’t have to be good. They just had to be different. The average voter figured that there if there was even a 1% chance that Trump made things better, that was still better odds than the Dems were giving them. Most of them didn’t even bother looking at the details of Trump’s plans, they just figured “Hey, he apparently has a plan, the other guys clearly don’t, so let’s go with that.”
I think I really agree with you here. Trump may have only had concepts of a plan but the Democrats denied even needing a plan in the first place.
Not sure I agree with the premise that people voted for Trump because he talked about solutions, but this does illustrate the complete disillusionment I experienced (and likely others) when realizing that in order to vote against the insane felon, I voted for the establishment who would change nothing.
The Kamala campaign was very careful to NOT say that the economy was doing great. It was Biden who essentially had this as his campaign strategy. I wonder why this piece of misinformation is so persistent on this platform. It is always mentioned by people without reference to a source.
Let me add a reference to break this spell: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/25/harris-opportunity-economic-plan-middle-class