Bozo_Casanova

“I’m a construction!”/Ralph Wiggum Voice

I could be wrong (of course) but I believe it’s more likely than not thay Democrats are going to outperform the Election day polling average in GA and NC by 2-3ppts.

Of course, but he won it because he got to the dumb thing first. It’s like when Hillary Clinton opposed the TTP. She conceded a point she should not have conceded and made herself look weak in the process.

Maybe? I think it’s going red this time- the tips thing.

500k what with indies?

Both men adhere to their own code in the service of masters that do not share it, succeed at their errand somewhat by accident while losing their illusions, and achieve wisdom in the process.

Just watched this yesterday for the first time since it came out. It’s even better than I remembered and everything a movie should be.

@Longhorn94 you seem to hold two views that I don’t think hold up- the first being that the inherent falsity of what Donald Trump says is relevant to his appeal or why it works, and the fact that Democrats have most substantial policy ideas and are relatively far more sincere in their desire for improved conditions makes their call to action more effective for their audience. I disagree with both of those ideas. 1 - the middle class standard of living is now what we used to associate with the working class, and Democrats aren’t addressing that directly. 2- Democrats talk about their “actual plans” to “help” all the time. It’s policy this and program that. It’s complicated and hard to follow, but if you put in the effort and pay attention you realize that none of it would restore the standard of living to the middle class that it used to have. Instead, they offer “help.” The middle class doesn’t want help or handouts. They want the economy to work for them and put them in a position to save money and go on vacations without taking on a mountain of debt. 3- yes, Trump says “I will fix it.” That’s simple, uncomplicated language. It’s clear, immediate and certain which true or not (obviously not in this case) is the kind of language that enlists people. 4- the people at his rallies are not rich people, but you and I both know that Democrats do small group fundraising dinners and events, and the people who get those invites aren’t managing the fabric store. 5 I shan’t.

That’s a really long post, but one thing would be a lot of time, attention and money on attacking Republican strengths in Republican strongholds to drive down popularity. Also, Democrats burn a lot of capital on unpopular things- for example opposing voter ID. It would be one thing if that was essential to winning, but it’s not even a popular position with Democrat voters- low propensity voters are now majority Republican voters in most places.

Great question- mostly yes, but the GOP’s economic ie fiscal and monetary policy is a failure period and is structurally unsound. It doesn’t work for anyone. It’s their tax policy that fails the middle, which Democrats are mostly complicit with. No. The marketing problem is the first problem. If you don’t win, policy is irrelevant. And nobody wins on policy. But when they do win, yes the policy isn’t great for the middle and working class. Like I don’t see anybody rearchitecting education or housing policy explicitly to address opportunity hoarding by generationally affluent members of historically disadvantaged groups. Well that’s certainly true.

But that’s a joke and his audience gets it, and he gets that they get it. Democrats are the ones who don’t get his audience, which is why they aren’t democrats anymore. We’ve got to stop deluding ourselves about Donald Trump and his audience. He’s good at this. Democrats are not. To beat him in a presidential campaign Democrats have to be better than him. Biden was still good enough to do it in 2020, but wasn’t anymore. Harris probably is, but it’s a close thing when she’s got the drag of those around her and limited time. So we’ll see

But he doesn’t. He literally says “I will fix it.” Democrats don’t say either. Instead they rarely say anything and when they do it’s policy this and program that.

Yep! Does that not seem like a failure to connect for you?

Shocking lack of Trump signs in Amelia Island Florida. Dozens of signs about voting NO on prop 4 (the anti-abortion side) but no Trump/Vance signs. Obvious Trump voters putting out signs, but not Trump signs. Literally not seeing any.

He wants more people on salary so he doesn’t have to pay them overtime.

Or maybe the problem is that Democrat consulting and candidate class can’t sell those thing because they can’t relate to these problems or the people who have them (and maybe also don’t want them because they mostly belongs to the class on the good side of the widening wealth gap).

I wonder how much the tax payers contribute in income and food aid to his employees and their families on a per hours worked basis…

One more By the way- this why all the ex Republicans crack me up, because on some level they think all that shit was true, or at least that it was rolled out with good intentions. Like @Brisketexan and people like him believed that that jazz at the time, and a lot of them think that the people who passed it actually believed what they were saying. In that sense Donald Trump’s tariff nonsense is nothing new- like saying tariffs are taxes on foreign countries, Reaganomics was understood to be bullshit at the team.

Agreed.

Remind me who signed the repeal of Glass-Steagal? Remind me to signed the act that made the Bush tax cuts permanent? Remind me who explicitly and intentionally declined to break the link between employment and healthcare? Remind me who declined to pursue action against the bad actors who broke the economy in 2010? Shall I go on? If your point is that the entire Republican economic orthodoxy is wrong about how growth works and is a con job to enrich the top, I agree. If your point is that the last generation of Democrats did not contribute to the massively widening wealth gap while pretending they would, that’s utter nonsense.

See that’s the problem. Their only *relative* gain in almost 50 years, and it was tiny, and primarily driven by quitting their jobs and finding new ones in the chaotic aftermath of a calamity. Even as the basic building blocks of middle class equity continued to accelerate out of reach faster than their income? And who did that accelerated asset price expansion benefit? Oh right- the people at the top whose *wealth* expanded relative to middle class *income*. Tell me again how what I said isn’t “remotely true” and do it like I’m not a person who follows econometrics- I need more examples of Democrats missing the fucking point this fall.

What Democrats forgot in the mid-90s is that an economy experiencing a wealth and consumption expansion at the top without an income expansion in the middle is experienced as a shitty economy by most people, and offering them safety net programs as a solution adds insult to injury. There is not better single example of the disconnect between Democrats and the middle class than their genuine confusion about this fact. You can’t treat middle class people like poor people. They didn’t fail, the economy is rigged against them and their standard of living has collapsed over the last 15 years, after a slow decline during the previous 35. Can you really blame some of them for wanting to give Democrats a big fuck you? As much as they have lost - defined benefit pensions, market rate affordable healthcare and housing and cars, vacations, savings, good public schools, dignity, community, humanity, etc- can you blame them for being angry when the latest career politician grin-fucks them with drivel like “Im going to create an opportunity economy?” and then they go on TV and instagram and see a world full of healthier, more popular, better looking richer people everywhere they look. And their friends are using social media to curate their lives, and they start doing it too, but deep inside they know their lives are substandard. Because they are.

Oh, absolutely. First, even if I accepted your premise, that’s only 40%. Even if you take them off the table you’re still working with a healthy majority. Second, if they are the dumb ones, and you can’t convince them to vote for you, what does that make you? Winning elections is their first and only job. The business of campaigns is sales and marketing and nothing beyond that matters if they don’t succeed at that part of it.

I’m not bedwetting and I realize this board doesn’t love Nate Silver, but I don’t disagree with any of these. Harris has done well, but she was an underdog from the beginning and Trump understands his audience well. Meanwhile the Democrat consultant class doesn’t really understand and can’t relate to either his audience or the bulk of their own.