[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?

[manquer]

I would have thought the data is self evident, here you go.

Women account for 51.1% population .

There are 25(15D:9R) female senators (25%)

There are 126(92D:34R) congresswomen (29%)

There are 2424 (1583D:815R) female state legislators (32.3%).

In addition to be poorly represented they are mostly democrats with 2-3:1 split from republicans.

It is important to note that ratio grows poorer higher the office , beyond senate it is 45:1 for VPs historically and 46:0 for presidency .

Given the higher life expectancy for women and fact that political office comes late in life they should be if anything more than 50% if gender does not play a significant role.

if not misogyny then it is on you to show why either women are specifically unqualified(!) or unwilling or uninterested in public office and why republican women in office are disproportionately missing in what is already low numbers

[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.