An incumbent candidate whom the majority of his party views as the victim of a stolen election mustered 51% of primary votes in mutherfucking Iowa. And how, exactly, would the US split? There's this real need to simplistically stare at a map and go "that's a red state, that's a blue state" when the reality is that Biden won where people live and Trump won where people don't: Trump was going to be the 2024 candidate the minute Four Seasons Total Landscaping became a meme. That's one reason this has been such a deeply unserious spectacle. Here are the real questions: - Are more people going to vote Trump in 2024 than 2020? Every poll, every analysis, every indication we have is "no." - Are fewer people going to vote Biden in 2020 than 2024? Tough to say. It's going to depend almost entirely on the economy, and economic sentiment rocketed right out of the doldrums last month. Yeah, yeah, Israel/Palestine, the tankie outrage machine will have moved on to some other dumb shit Americans can't focus on foreign wars without US troops on the ground for more than a couple months. There is every indication that Trump won't debate. This means that Biden's messages will be whatever he can put out as press releases and Trump's messages will be whatever he puts out in his rallies. I don't know if you've seen his rallies lately but they aren't exactly targeted as a general audience. Here, click around. Is there anything there for anyone not already in the tent? Is there anything in there for someone disappointed with Biden?
I think it's worse than that. There were like 110,000 voters out of 700,000 registered republicans in the state. So that 110,000 represents the most die hard republicans. Caucuses do not represent a valid statistical sample. So if anything, I think that his numbers are worse than the early indications. This is a very far cry from 2020 when they literally made their entire platform "MAGA, bitches!" The NH result was probably even worse, given that Haley won over 60% of independents. Biden may be unpopular generally, but there's no way those independents split more than 50% for Trump in the general. I think the pollsters say he needs 90+% of GOP voters and more than half of independents to have a realistic shot of winning. IA and NH seem to be really dim for the Trump campaign, despite all the catastrophizing from NYT today.An incumbent candidate whom the majority of his party views as the victim of a stolen election mustered 51% of primary votes in mutherfucking Iowa.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/11/politics/cnn-polls-trump-biden-michigan-georgia/index.html Here in Michigan, this reflects what I am hearing and seeing. I don't think the left wants to believe what is happening. If Pence did what Trump wanted to, different states would have declared to have different presidents. We were close.
Yeah, I can't muster the energy to care anymore. If the Republicans don't win this one they'll win the next, or the one after, and wow, for "nothing fundamentally changing" he's sure let the abortion bans go through and all the anti trans legislation in Florida so he's not even effective as an obstructionist.
Idk, something? Maybe it's impossible It's just hard to care if Biden is unable to do anything. It feels like at best, things will just get worse somewhat slower. I don't know what positive change is even possible to hope for. Man I'm sorry , this is not a consistent political ideology , just feeling bleak :(
Though I don't actually know, my guess is that you're on the young side of adulthood, no? The older you get, the easier it is to keep things in perspective. Like for example, when my parents were young, the n-word wasn't controversial and a lot of white people used it as the default to discuss blacks. By the time I was a kid in the 80s that was unthinkable. But, 'fag' was the de facto insult for everyone, everywhere, all the time. Transgender may have been invented as a term in academic circles back then, but it sure wasn't known to anyone in the public. The fact that conservatives are making anti-trans legislation is only possible because trans people exist in public these days in a way that they did not until very recently. It may not be perfect, but it's very difficult to not see "positive change" as being possible to hope for. Do not let short periods of noise obscure the very loud signal.
Yeah, the social change is great. Huge progress there, feels almost unthinkable to be homophobic anymore. All of this seemed to happen without voting or it really mattering who the president is. And I haven't forgotten that Biden was one of the senators passing anti gay legislation back in the 90s. I can't really point to anything in Government that's gone the way I'd like it though. I guess Obamacare was better than nothing?
I remember Tootsie. I remember the Defense of Marriage Act. I remember Murphy Brown pregnant out of wedlock. I remember Saturday Night Live saying the word "masturbate" on the air. I remember Barney Frank jokes. I remember Don't Ask Don't Tell. ALL of it was hard-fought. ALL of it was culture picking a fight with government and government not being able to muster the power to kick culture back down. And that is why Republicans hate culture - they've been steadily losing to culture since they switched from Eisenhower to Goldwater. They're on the ropes and they're swinging wildly and it's ugly as fuck and we're all bleeding but goddamnit in my lifetime we've gone from Dungeons & Dragons = Satanism to "lol Ron DeSantis is picking a fight with Disney." I lucked out. I kept Bob Dole out of office. I voted for Clinton, and he didn't suck, and then I turned 19 and it was the End of History. If your electoral awakening aligned with Trump entering office? You're gonna be cynical for life. But the culture really does want things to be more liberal, and the conservatives will always wage culture wars to stay in office.All of this seemed to happen without voting or it really mattering who the president is.
Right. That's on purpose. That feeling you feel? It's being cultivated by the Republicans. "Look at this mess (that we made). Biden has done nothing to stop it/us. Aren't you sad for (what we did to) your country? Stay home and be mad." Populism arises in times of scarcity. Resources have become increasingly scarce since the Long Boom. Historically, cultures in scarcity pull together or pull apart - post-war Britain pulled together, post-collapse Russia pulled apart. Populists? Always pull apart. And they do so by cultivating EXACTLY that feeling.
Yeah :/ I mean you're obviously right that the Republicans are screwing things up a lot more. I just wish there was any real resistance. I think it would be cool to have a little more anti-corporate, anti-billionaire populism than we do now though
Polling has really wide margins of error at this early stage. I think people are likelier to say challenger over incumbent the farther from the vote you actually are. And in this case, it's probably more pronounced, because you know Uncle Joe is going to hammer J6 footage on TV ads until our eyes bleed. Mitt Romney had a lead in MI in early polls in 2012 and lost by like 9 points. Trump will fade. He may be more senile than Biden, and that will become more clear the more people have to actually watch him. He can't even keep Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi straight anymore. The Big Mac gunk is degrading his synapses by the day, and I don't think 50% of people are that stupid no matter how little they think of Biden. Call me an optimist. I've been wrong a lot.
The dislike of Biden is (1) high inflation, which is moderating (2) anger at stripped rights, see Spence's outrage over a Republican plan that has been in motion since 1977 (3) anger over Israel. There's plenty to disapprove of and lo and behold, Biden is at a 51% disapproval rating. Trump's at 52, though, so what's your point? The next nine months are going to be about Biden getting re-elected and Trump getting his day in five different courts. Apparently I'm the only one who has ever noticed that approval ratings always suck going into an election year and that "who don't you like" and "who do you want to be president" rarely align.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/americans-dismayed-by-biden-trump-2024-rematch-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2024-01-25/ The disapproval goes deeper than that in the midwest. It’s also “I’m sick of the dems woke shit” and “he seems dementic”. That’s what friends and family tell me.
But in the end it's still a lesser-of-two-evils type of vote, and Trump is doing exactly nothing to not continue to scare the shit out of everyday voters. His entire campaign is built around stop the steal. It is not an appealing message. I agree with your trepidation about Biden's weakness, but in the end we don't get to compare Biden to our perfect ideal of a candidate on voting day. We compare him to Trump. And to me that's like having the choice between eating hardtack and an actual shit sandwich. Hardtack sucks, but it's nutrition.
To you, but have you always voted for the winning candidate? The hard truth is that people aren't nearly as freaked out about a second Trump term as we (or apparently the dems) expect. Biden looks like a strong wind will knock him over, and sounds worse. Trump will definitely want to debate Biden, and he will utterly destroy him if Biden does. Also, no one I know likes Kamala. No one. Biden has no clothes and the dems are pretending he does: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/
Lol. I turned 18 just in time to vote for Gore. That was a nice welcome into presidential politics. Been shitty every since. I remember being so angry, disappointed, and disillusioned by the result that I didn't want to get out of bed for like 3 days. But I was 18. Things affect you more at that age. But on the other hand, Bush turned out to be the worst president in American history hands down, and I include Trump in that assessment. So I suppose I was right to be down. I do not think Trump has much of a shot in the rematch, but I also think his chances are non-zero. However, I do not share your pessimism that it will lead to the dissolution of the USA. We survived it once intact. We will again. None of this "he knows how to do it next time" carries water, because he doesn't give a fuck about policy. He cares about being in the news, and he'll never cede power to anyone who upstages him. So nothing will get done in Trump 2.0 either. And I also do not know anyone who like Harris. I almost didn't vote Biden because he picked her. But my Trump hate was stronger than my conviction that I'd never vote for her. And I think that's true of a lot of other people, too.To you, but have you always voted for the winning candidate?
I'ma go out on a limb and guess you don't have a lot of friends outside your bubble. To the contrary, I own a women's health clinic. Our patients talk. I like Kamala. I donated to her attorney general campaign back in the day, and I have friends who campaigned for her. Biden fell over on a bike when he couldn't get his foot out of the pedal clips. Trump barely made it down a ramp from Air Force One. I recognize that this doesn't fit your doomsday narrative? So I'm going to stop trying.
The thing is Trump has a good chance of winning right now. Sure lots of things could change but the guy should have no chance in hell but here we are. If the the goal is to squeak by with a 1-2% margin like it’s a union vote then the democrats got this down, if the goal is some sort of ruling majority capable of governing, well that shit ain’t looking good. 4 more years of disfunction under Trump or Biden is a pretty terrible outcome in my book. Even if Biden wins we still loose just a little less it’s not much you cheer for even if I have to eventually hold my nose and vote for the guy.
I don't think you believe I live in a bubble. Ann Arbor is definitely a bubble, and Biden is very safe here, but I have lots of relations outside of A2. It's a second Trump term. That's not a crazy proposition or a narrative. The Dems thought Hillary was going to win. They think Biden will win again. I think they are wrong.