[nis0s]

The main grievance in the original post is the loss of left-leaning political power. While I think Goldhaber is right on a lot he said, it’s besides the point. The current state of politics in different countries is not because particular view points gained more attention than others, in fact those view points were utterly unpopular and unwelcome throughout this transition. But view points which did gain attention picked up on what’s missing from the life of an average person, whether it was love, wellness, confidence, money, or spirituality. In any population, there are more voters who are aggrieved because of their financial or life stability than any other issue. If you’re asking someone to pay attention, why should they? What does it do for them?

[jasdi]

Sort of typed this out before so just pointing at that comment - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42693234

[nis0s]

Detractors, critics and agents will capitalize on the grievances of subgroups in the population for any number of reasons, but optimizing for overall social stability prevents that kind of manipulation, as can be seen in the Nordic countries [1]. The left continues to aim for a high-minded, upper middle class voter base, which will always be a relatively smaller part of any given population. In fact, if recent income inequality trends hold then that supporter base will decrease in number.

[1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/06/10/e...