[ookblah]

I bought that line in 2016 and again in 2020. I'm not saying I'm done with trying to understand, but that level of fks to give is very minimal now.

Obviously, I don't think 50% of the population is stupid, but every time I try to "understand" it's becoming increasingly clear it's about his "charisma" and "our team" and less about hard policies.

People out here voting against their own interests or blaming things on ignorance (inflation, etc.).

[manquer]

> 50% of the population is stupid

That would be the charitable interpretation, the alternate is that they are knowingly misogynistic, deeply racist and have strong fascist leanings to follow a flawed corrupt politician with cult-like devotion.

[Rinzler89]

That's why Kamala lost: they called supporters of the other camp racist and misogynists like you're doing right now instead of discussing and listening to their grievances.

Shitting on your voter base is no way to win sympathy.

[astrange]

The marginal voter doesn't have grievances like that unless the country is seriously in trouble (like it was in 2008 and 2020.) They're not paying close enough attention to have them, nor do they have clear ideas about which piece of government is capable of addressing which problems. They have better things to do.

If you talk to the median voter their thinking will be like "something happened three years ago I was mad about" or "my husband wants us to vote this way because he saw it on TV" or "the Democrats want to legalize incest" or "I like voting for whoever I think is going to win" (and yes these are all real.) They especially do not have coherent opinions on economic policy.

Mainly the problem is the US doesn't have a coherent media ecosystem anymore and Republicans were better aligned with newer media, ie Facebook posts and bro-y podcasts like Rogan. So TV ads and "ground game" don't work.

[jwells89]

Simply put, this chunk of the electorate doesn’t have any kind of grasp on the workings of government. As you say, their motivations for voting are simplistic and difficult for campaigns to reason about because they’re so particular to each individual.

Part of the reason why political media has seen such a decline in quality is because of that fundamental lack of understanding by the people. Neutral nuanced analysis doesn’t resonate because that’s some combination of too incomprehensible and not entertaining enough, which has led to the media landscape we have now where it’s turned to the televised version of junk food: hyper-processed with lots of salt and sugar and practically zero nutritional value.

That said, to some degree I don’t place fault on the people for this. A lot of it comes down to inadequacies in the education system when it comes to civics, wherein young people are not well equipped to become highly functional, fully conscious voting adults.

[manquer]

> don’t place fault on the people for this

—-

Economic vibes with simplistic immediate effects if truly were a major factor then 2020 Biden would have won with bigger margins than Reagan did .

—-

Countries with far poorer literacy and school attendance rates and patchy education systems vote quite well informed.

In India for example every candidate (party or independent) must have a simple symbol because many voters cannot read, yet nobody is saying Modi wins because of lack of awareness or good understanding of his Hindu nationalist agenda or extreme right wing policies.

It is the third election for both, voters have had a decade to see the effect of the policies have had first hand no matter what they have been told

—-

Body electorates aren’t as dumb as we like to explain away.

Education, economics, even disinformation (foreign and local) all play marginal role, but can’t explain the core

At some point we have to accept that this is a deeply racist(who come in all colors) misogynist society with facist Christo white nationalism deeply ingrained.

[EricDeb]

You have no idea if thats why she lost. Thats why you want to believe she lost but it could be things like inflation, immigration, and not having clear messaging. Also not distinguishing herself from an otherwise unpopular president.

[mrkeen]

If what you say is true, that only confirms the point.

[manquer]

We should hear their grievances on our bodily autonomy and healthcare ?

There are aspects where we can compromise, or empathize and learn to live together on such as economy or immigration, basic human decency and healthcare are not it.

Also bit rich that we have to listen to their grievances, they haven't afforded anyone that courtesy, or respected the process of democracy.

If the results were other way round, we would be hearing conspiracy theories about election interference non stop. You can only compromise with people acting in good faith, it is clear that majority of Americans don't want to do that.

[jajko]

Maybe mankind ain't yet so developed that what you list isn't present in general population in large numbers, even majority.

Echo chambers like HN or typical workplace of typical HN user give skewed image how much rational folks out there generally are. Most people that I ever met are trivially susceptible to smart manipulation via emotions, even to the point of shooting their own foot.

[manquer]

Social engineering is problem for everyone no matter their background HN echo chamber or otherwise

However we don’t get to use manipulation foreign, partisan or otherwise as crutch or excuse, post 2016 was full of that: oh there was Russian influence, he didn’t get popular vote or we didn’t know what MAGA stood for, as am sure there will be blame now on Biden not stepping down, Harris not having a primary, Gaza and inflation and dozen other things, and the platform would shift even more to right chasing the non existent center, instead of resetting to the left. The right has figured it out there is no centre and it is pointless to try to aim for it.

Bottom line is this is who Americans are , maybe the country can change and be better maybe not , but denying reality of is not the place to start.

[a2tech]

It’s clear that people hunger for the lash. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

[conradfr]

But how Obama and Biden got elected then?

[manquer]

They were both men, it should be obvious .

Misogynistic was my first qualifier, it is not an coincidence that Trump has won only against women twice, and it is not an oversight that in 250 years America is nowhere close to electing a woman president.

[conradfr]

That's a good point, although it was projected he would win against Biden.

[manquer]

Perhaps he may have, however June polls not a good indicator, it is lifetime away from November elections, politicians have recovered from such gaps.

[mvdtnz]

But they weren't running against women.

[manquer]

Technically Obama was running against one, McCain had Palin on the ticket .I don’t think that made a difference, VPs don’t .

misogyny is hardly the only factor but if there was woman on the top of the ticket than it absolutely seem to be number one factor .

You have to keep in mind it just wasn’t symbolic like in 2016. There are real tangible immediate threats to reproductive healthcare that this election also represented.

[mvdtnz]

> misogyny is hardly the only factor but if there was woman on the top of the ticket than it absolutely seem to be number one factor .

You're going to need to show your working here. How'd you get to this conclusion?

[refurb]

"Am I out of touch? No, it's the American voter who is wrong"

[tomcam]

You are so right. Thank heavens she was defeated.

[laborcontract]

I've read people say this over and over. And yet, I don't know of any single substantive position that Kamala has taken. She chose a vibes fight and she lost.

[therouwboat]

Do you wait for candidate to come tell you their position? Even in smaller elections, I feel like its my job to find "my candidate".

[laborcontract]

look at the comment i’m replying to. if you go to both candidates pages, they’ll have their policy positions laid out. Kamala made none of them a part of her core message. She instead leaned bizarrely into the threat of fascism.

[selfmodruntime]

The common answer to that was often "just read this 90 page document where she vaguely describes her opinions". This isn't how it works, people.

[slothtrop]

She was weak on messaging, but her proposal for housing was good (improving affordability has appeal, but she failed to capitalize on it). What confounded this in part was that she probably meant to mostly stay in line with Biden's policies, and you can't connect with voters on that. They're concerned about inflation and the border. Biden's administration already fucked that up for her; they fixed the border, but too little too late (so what is there to say?), and while inflation has abated and wage-growth has improved, people still feel poorer than before 2020 (so what is there to say?).

I can't see how anyone else in her position would have done much better. I don't blame Harris much.

[johnny22]

middle class taxes cuts, bringing back roe v wade.. all that..

[XenophileJKO]

I think the lesson is you can't win an election with "Well they aren't like the other guy.."

[willvarfar]

The last 20 years of the UK is an interesting rollercoaster.

There was a massive international financial crisis that outed the Labour government and brought in a Tory/Lib Dem coalition government based on promises of government austerity.

There was an independence referendum in Scotland where the main campaign point for staying with England was to ensure they stayed in the EU etc.

Then the Tories managed to pin the blame for the failings of the coalition on the minor partner and drew a line under that for the next election.

Then there's brexit, which was really a vote to put an end to bickering inside the Tory party. But the population, narrowly voted to leave the EU! This was very much a protest vote.

Then there's a utter crazy story of quick rotation of prime ministers and scandal and sleeze and very very poorly-received budgets and things.

So then this year Labour are back, and their main strategy was 'at least we're not the Tories'. They are not popular, but they are not the incumbents.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

The funny thing is that Labour is now 100% "like the Tories". It's the Tories who are no longer "like the Tories" and have morphed instead into a rabid populist party without real politics that bank instead on identity politics.

And then there's Nigel.

[blibble]

> There was an independence referendum in Scotland where the main campaign point for staying with England was to ensure they stayed in the EU etc.

in reality this was maybe priority #10

the main campaign point was currency

[Maken]

The UK is rapidly collapsing and at this point is a husk of a country in which nothing works except the City banking accounts.

[twixfel]

The UK is just developed country facing the same problems associated with an aging population as every other developed country (and also many developing countries—sucks for them...). There's absolutely nothing special about the UK and if the UK is a failed state then so too is Germany (where I live) and the rest of Europe, and the only "successful" countries on the planet are the US, Switzerland and a handful of microstates.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Well at least the trains run...

... yeah, fuck it.

[TheCoelacanth]

Also can't win with substantive policies or personal integrity either, so what's left?

[EricDeb]

She didnt explain why inflation happened. She didnt explain why dems did not crack down on the border until right wingers made an issue out of it. She didnt distance herself from biden. She didnt explain how she would protect abortion rights. I wanted her to win but she didnt have answers or her messaging was not getting through

[a1j9o94]

Inflation: "inflation has come down over the last two years, a lot of it has been from the healing of the supply side of the economy.

What is that? Supply chains have improved. The labor force has expanded, partly due to increased immigration, and that's helped to take some of the edge off of the supply-and-demand imbalances that we had when inflation was very high two years ago." https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/examining-how-economic-pla...

Immigration: "After hitting a record high in December 2023, the numbers of migrants crossing the border has plummeted since then. Harris and the administration have credited their tough anti-asylum measures for stemming the flow, although increased enforcement on the Mexican side has also played a key role." https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/elections/2024/where-trum...

Abortion rights: "At one of her first campaign events, she stated that if Congress “passes a law to restore reproductive freedom, as president of the United States I will sign it into law.”" https://www.aclu.org/news/reproductive-freedom/how-kamala-ha...

If you don't like what her positions are that's your prerogative but it's just not true that she did not have answers to these questions.

[dgfitz]

> Inflation: "inflation has come down over the last two years, a lot of it has been from the healing of the supply side of the economy.

I think this is one of the disconnects: inflation has been decreasing. What I think people hear, which is wrong: the prices of things are coming down.

They're not coming down, they're increasing _slower_ than before, and before was bad. Prices for lots of things are much more expensive than before covid.

The reason that "inflation is better now" didn't stick is because half the country was telling the emperor they were clothed, and half the country saw a naked person.

[camdenreslink]

A little bit of calculus could go a long way for understanding rates of change.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

That's exactly how Keir Starmer's Labour won the last UK elections: "we're not like the Tories".

[ks2048]

I think that's mainly why Biden won in 2020.

[ks2048]

Of course 50% of the population is not stupid. It's much higher than that.

[gitremote]

The problem really is that we need to accept that they are "stupid" but in an empathetic way, remembering that we were once stupid and ignorant. We took it for granted that other people wouldn't confuse correlation with causation, blaming Biden's presidency for inflation. But all of us thought correlation was causation at one point until somebody educated us on science. When a topic was confusing and complicated, we leaned on correlation to guide us until we learned better in formal education. It would be immensely difficult to explain to someone why groceries have become unaffordable without extensive exposition, but it's a hard problem that we should try to solve instead of just calling people ignorant in frustration.