Election 2024 Part III: Out with the old!

[danjuno]

Republicans were doing it decades before any of that.

Not to mention, even in recent history, the idea that anything said by Democrats comes even close to the normalization of political violence by the right under Trump is totally detached from reality. What we are seeing is a gaslighting effort to deny the violent seizure of the country right before our eyes.

 

[Kyriakos]

Trump certainly looks very frail and very old. Cognitive decline is obvious too.
If he was like this in 2016 he would have lost=>if he wins now, that speaks volumes as to the worth of the dem candidate.

I think the assassination attempt did change him (for the worst) mentally-wise.
Better get prepared for a possible potus Vance.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Kamala held a rally in Houston TX and 30,000 attended. Kamala's 30+ minute talk after speeches by others was outstanding and meant to rally Texans to get out and vote. She might not win TX, but she might well oust Ted Cruz from the Senate.

 

[Zardnaar]

Trump certainly looks very frail and very old. Cognitive decline is obvious too.
If he was like this in 2016 he would have lost=>if he wins now, that speaks volumes as to the worth of the dem candidate.

I think the assassination attempt did change him (for the worst) mentally-wise.
Better get prepared for a possible potus Vance.

See what we mean.

Numbers haven't really changed much. Both sides are essentially locked in doesn't matter what the candidates campaign like.

If Trump wins it's because of the EC ignoring any potential shenanigans like 2000's supreme court.

Keep an eye on Pennsylvania if Trump loses there you can call it.

If Harris loses it it's bad but not fatal but likely.

I don't expect Texas or Florida to flip. They fall into the wouldn't be surprised category.

Dems don't have a younger Bernie Sanders. That's a problem.

 

[SemiLazyGamer]

Not to mention, even in recent history, the idea that anything said by Democrats comes even close to the normalization of political violence by the right under Trump is totally detached from reality. What we are seeing is a gaslighting effort to deny the violent seizure of the country right before our eyes.

Just as to add on: a recent scientific study found that Trump and the far-right media were key figures into using the "Democrat Party" rather than the actual "Democratic Party" and making it an insult.

A key part of the analysis involved identifying whether there was a causal relationship between conservative media’s use of “Democrat Party” and its increasing adoption by Republican politicians. The researchers used a statistical method called Granger causality tests to determine whether changes in media usage of the term influenced political elites.


The results showed a marked increase in the use of “Democrat Party” as a slur in recent years, particularly around 2018 and 2019. While the term has been used sporadically for decades, its prevalence exploded during and after the 2016 election.

The study identified Donald Trump as one of the key figures responsible for mainstreaming the term. Trump, in his speeches and tweets, often referred to the “Democrat Party,” explaining that he did so because “it sounds worse.” This intentional mislabeling was echoed by other prominent Republicans, including Ted Cruz and Kevin McCarthy.

However, Trump wasn’t the originator of this trend. The study found that conservative media outlets, particularly Fox News and personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin, were instrumental in pushing the use of “Democrat Party.” These media figures regularly used the term, and their large audiences helped spread it further. Republican politicians, particularly those aligned with more performative and partisan factions of the party, adopted the term, likely as a result of the media’s influence.

How "Democrat Party" became a GOP slur: Study highlights media's role in political rhetoric

A study found that conservative media significantly influenced Republican elites' adoption of the "Democrat Party" slur, reflecting increasing partisan rhetoric. This shift underscores the growing role of performative politics and media-driven polarization in American political discourse.

www.psypost.org

 

[GenMarshall]

Just as to add on: a recent scientific study found that Trump and the far-right media were key figures into using the "Democrat Party" rather than the actual "Democratic Party" and making it an insult.

How "Democrat Party" became a GOP slur: Study highlights media's role in political rhetoric

A study found that conservative media significantly influenced Republican elites' adoption of the "Democrat Party" slur, reflecting increasing partisan rhetoric. This shift underscores the growing role of performative politics and media-driven polarization in American political discourse.

www.psypost.org

I remember the use of the phrase "Democrat Party". I honestly don't know if its done out of laziness or mallace to put an emphasis on "rat".

 

[SemiLazyGamer]

And here we ducking go, McConnell is trying to absolve himself of Trump and MAGA while also getting himself a good chunk of change when the guy was one of the key figures in all of this.

‘Sleazeball Narcissist’: McConnell Eviscerates Trump In New Book, Says Jan. 6th Was ‘Impeachable Offense’

"He calls Trump at one point, a 'sleazeball narcissist,' he called him, said 'not very smart,' called him 'nasty,' and just about every bad quality."

www.mediaite.com

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

I really need to get more popcorn and beer reading all this.

(On election night, I'm skipping streaming, and watching the comedy show on TV. aka: election coverage)

 

[Narz]

I really need to get more popcorn and beer reading all this.

(On election night, I'm skipping streaming, and watching the comedy show on TV. aka: election coverage)

I'll be fast asleep, que sera sera

 

[choxorn]

AOC would have been a star.

AOC might handle the media better than most politicians and have a good amount of natural charisma to her, but all the Fox News Engine has to do is scream "SOCIALISM" ad infinitum and she'd never win, at least not at this point in time. Maybe in a few decades Americans will have moved left enough to be willing to vote for her, but they wouldn't do it now.

Take yourself as an example. You say it was Trump. But can't you remember recent history, who started calling deplorables to half the population? Was that not "divisive"? And petty?

Trump and MAGA, circa 2015-2016:
"Obama is a secret Kenyan Muslim and not a real American"
"Mexicans are bringing drugs, they're rapists"
"Ban all Muslims"
"She's a nasty woman, lock her up"

Hillary: "Some of these people are deplorable"

Trump and MAGA: "OMG why are you so divisive"

 

[EvaDK]

Republicans are strongly in favor of Socialism, when it involves defense expenditure.

Same Republicans are strongly against Socialism, when it involves healthcare expenditure.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Kamala held a rally in Houston TX and 30,000 attended. Kamala's 30+ minute talk after speeches by others was outstanding and meant to rally Texans to get out and vote. She might not win TX, but she might well oust Ted Cruz from the Senate.

Yes, but I suspect that some of those may have turned up to see Beyonce.

Beyoncé urges Americans to support Kamala Harris

The singer is the latest superstar entertainer to endorse Kamala Harris.

www.bbc.co.uk

whose been marketing herself with Cowboy Carter.

 

[Voidwalkin]

Republicans are strongly against seeing the group rather than the individual. Probably an absolute majority prefer to see that in the US regardless of political party. This is majorly influential on why Dems find difficulty getting buy in. They're selling socialism and trying to see the group, which is more gladly done amongst Dem voters, but not without noteworthy and fairly wide dissent.

I think it'd be a much easier sell if the sales approach was tailored to fit the culture, rather than trying to make the nation adapt the culture so as to sell the policy. In practice, that'd involve concessions like inability to access state benefits after criminal offenses for periods of time, harsh checks on willingness to be employed, as the Republican opposition is largely built on a sense that it is unfair for the strong to be made to support the unworthy. Aid on basis of income rather than skin color is probably also necessary to get mass buy-in.

If you're not willing to make said concessions, you probably won't get it off the ground, and may risk rollback of whatever incremental advances are already on the books. AOC could not be Sanders, who made his fame in his first run before conceding to those who demand he see and speak of groups more than he did(which woulda prohibited ascending prominence, if he'd done it from the start)

 

[Kyriakos]

Bernie was indeed forced/shamed to stop talking about the plight of the working class or the poor in general, and say the same stuff as the others in the party (nominal focus on minorities, not real so not of use either).
Another lost opportunity. Let's see if AOC will ever get the chance to run in the primaries. She does have the potential to smash the rest, and at least get the nomination.

 

[Gori the Grey]

There are polls and then there are polls. Why do you think the media billionaires put themselves in Trump's camp, most recently Bezos? They have their own polls. As does each party. And they get non-doctored results.

The democracts knew Biden was sure to lose and that was when they dumped their stuffed candidate. At the time they still claimed that the public polls put them ahead but their "donors" knew better, the party leaders knew better. Then they tried Harris. And got every friendly media to spin her as something new, with new polls putting her ahead being part of that narrative. It's manufactured. How can it be that after all this time, after so many things you can remember from the past, you don't even suspect? Polls are part of the political game, ever some neutral evaluation. They are not wrong, they are part of the effort at getting the desired result. That's their only purpose.

My point is, published polls months from the election are not innacurate djust ue to undecided voters. They are innacurate by design, they are biased on purpose.

Political campaigning is a media circus of pandering to this or that tribe. But it is also a play by bureaucrats and oligarchs at who can become closer to power for the next few years, who gets to use that proximity for personal benefit. They will have their favoured candidates. Candidates of they same tribe. Or candidates they can buy easiest. So long as the election is far away in time the media will favor the preferred candidade of the manegarial class from whom reporters are overwhelming draws now. In the US that is the Democrats. But they must also play the circus as a close fight, so much the better to get "engagement". Hence 3 elections on a row with "tight" polls having a democrat lead. The oligarchs, those will help along the politicians they "invested" the most in, but cultivate their own sources of information on hoe the race is actually going.
As the election approaches the oligarchs shift to attempting to curry favour or own the candidate they then see as the likely winner. And the media "corrects" the polls because they must be sold to the public as having predictive value. Else more people may "disengage" in the next election. That is happenning already: how is confidence on the media doing it the US over the last decade?

So my further point is: as the election day approaches, published polls are corrected, nearer to what is actually believed by the pollsters to be the expected result. They better not fail by too much or this particular portion of the election circus would lose its value. And the pollsters would be unemployed. You want to know what private polling is saying: look at what the oligachs are doing. They're now droping the anti-Trump retjhopric, or openly play-acting as supporters.

I don't agree with you on many points, but this is spot on. The oligarchs know that Trump is way more favorable to them and way more easily managed.

I honestly don't know if its done out of laziness or mallace to put an emphasis on "rat".

It is not laziness. They made a deliberate, concerted, communal and sustained effort at denying the other party its own name. It was done, I believe, first for that very reason: "we'll tell you what you can call yourself." But second, to deny that party any association with small "d" democracy: i.e. "no you aren't; you're not democratic at all." (you're elitist or socialist or whatever they want to claim Democrats actually are). Some on the right said as much when they all started doing it (though I don't know if I can track down those admissions as to motive).

I listed the two in a particular order. The logic was actually the reverse of that: 1) "you are not either democratic" and then 2) "we're not going to honor you by calling you your own name." In that second aspect, it's a d**kish power move. "Rat" was just a bonus that they discovered along the way.

 

[Voidwalkin]

Another lost opportunity

Oh indeed.

These same pressures are tugging the Harris campaign in various directions, which is at least partly responsible for its stalling momentum. Not only does the campaign itself not know where it should go, insofar as I can tell via the prestige mags, the collective leftist intelligentsia doesn't, either. Same pattern. Calls to respond to concern identity group A has, leaving members of identity group B vulnerable to capture by a talented PR guy/salesman.

I'm skeptical that there will be any strong candidate to emerge from the left, at least from my(millenial) generation, in the US. If you're a member of the American left, the form on id matters is core to your continued membership in the group. The economics are far secondary. This promotes ideological purity, via exclusion, with standards evolving wildly within that bubble, simultaneously becoming increasingly foreign and bizarre to those outside it. Kinda can't see it succeeding until economics are imperative again.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Yes, but I suspect that some of those may have turned up to see Beyonce.

Beyoncé urges Americans to support Kamala Harris

The singer is the latest superstar entertainer to endorse Kamala Harris.

www.bbc.co.uk

whose been marketing herself with Cowboy Carter.

Perhaps. I watched an hour of it and Beyonce was on for about 5 minutes of that that hour. Her sister spent more time talking than Beyonce. It was a Harris rally from what I saw and the crowd was fully behind her. Harris spent her 30 minurtes or so talking about women and their reproductive rights.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Oh indeed.

These same pressures are tugging the Harris campaign in various directions, which is at least partly responsible for its stalling momentum. Not only does the campaign itself not know where it should go, insofar as I can tell via the prestige mags, the collective leftist intelligentsia doesn't, either. Same pattern. Calls to respond to concern identity group A has, leaving members of identity group B vulnerable to capture by a talented PR guy/salesman.

I'm skeptical that there will be any strong candidate to emerge from the left, at least from my(millenial) generation, in the US. If you're a member of the American left, the form on id matters is core to your continued membership in the group. The economics are far secondary. This promotes ideological purity, via exclusion, with standards evolving wildly within that bubble, simultaneously becoming increasingly foreign and bizarre to those outside it. Kinda can't see it succeeding until economics are imperative again.

When was there last time there was a strong leftist candidate running for president in the US? Bernie popped up for the primaries but failed to win the nomination. Too many Americans have lived through the Cold War and seen the results of leftist policies in real world action to go down that path. Social Security, Medicare, and Welfare programs seem sufficient to most. UBI might be next. In 30 years the leading edge of Millennials will be 70 and likely will have been influencing policy over time. I wonder if the Zoomers and Alphas will be following in their footsteps and moving left or be more reactionary and a force for more conservative values.

 

[Voidwalkin]

When was there last time there was a strong leftist candidate running for president in the US? Bernie popped up for the primaries but failed to win the nomination. Too many Americans have lived through the Cold War and seen the results of leftist policies in real world action to go down that path. Social Security, Medicare, and Welfare programs seem sufficient to most. UBI might be next. In 30 years the leading edge of Millennials will be 70 and likely will have been influencing policy over time. I wonder if the Zoomers and Alphas will be following in their footsteps and moving left or be more reactionary and a force for more conservative values.

I'd argue the entire FDR-Johnson era was pretty left-leaning.

Post Reagan, Obama could probably have been the strong leftist candidate, if he wanted to be. He chose otherwise.

I don't think that there's a hard opposition to leftist economic policies, though. When people hear them, they tend to like them. It's the subculture of the left that is against the longstanding hard individualism of American culture, but I think that can be worked around, provided a candidate knows that and has a touch of finesse. The lack of that emergence is imo a consequence that the system tends to disproportionately let university graduates rise, both in politics and the system generally, and this group is presently engaged in strict group gatekeeping and ideological policing. I tend to think that'll change, though. It's not sustainable, and a reorientation of the locus of the left away from the university is possible at any point. Conditions are right for it.

I read an article recently that may provide some food for thought on this matter.

How Did the Democrats Get Here?

Talking with Tim Shenk about party realignment, the legacy of 1990s political consultants, the 2024 election, and his new book, Left Adrift: What Happened to Liberal Politics.

www.thenation.com

It's an interview with an author providing prospective on broad shifts in voting patterns post FDR and various Dem strategies of adaptation. Most noteworthy is the working class shift away from Dems and potential responses, a question of central relevance, presently.

 

[SemiLazyGamer]

I'd argue the entire FDR-Johnson era was pretty left-leaning.

Post Reagan, Obama could probably have been the strong leftist candidate, if he wanted to be. He chose otherwise.

I don't think that there's a hard opposition to leftist economic policies, though. When people hear them, they tend to like them. It's the subculture of the left that is against the longstanding hard individualism of American culture, but I think that can be worked around, provided a candidate knows that and has a touch of finesse. The lack of that emergence is imo a consequence that the system tends to disproportionately let university graduates rise, both in politics and the system generally, and this group is presently engaged in strict group gatekeeping and ideological policing. I tend to think that'll change, though. It's not sustainable, and a reorientation of the locus of the left away from the university is possible at any point. Conditions are right for it.

I read an article recently that may provide some food for thought on this matter.

How Did the Democrats Get Here?

Talking with Tim Shenk about party realignment, the legacy of 1990s political consultants, the 2024 election, and his new book, Left Adrift: What Happened to Liberal Politics.

www.thenation.com

It's an interview with an author providing prospective on broad shifts in voting patterns post FDR and various Dem strategies of adaptation. Most noteworthy is the working class shift away from Dems and potential responses, a question of central relevance, presently.

Just to add on: Republicans love Democrat policies, but hate Democrats.

I remember reading an article about it, but I can't find it, but it's best seen with Social Security and Obama care.