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[-] orclev@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

You seem to be assuming that people who were going to vote for Harris decided to vote for Trump. That's not even remotely true. What happened is a lot of people who would have voted for Harris stayed home, while a lot of people that normally don't vote at all decided to vote for Trump.

Democrats could actually win an election or two by running the Republican playbook of lying through their teeth. It more or less worked for Obama who talked a big game then delivered on very little of it. But ultimately that would be a losing strategy. Democrats are not like Republicans, they not only want to hear policies they agree with, they expect to see them implemented.

[-] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

You seem to be assuming that people who were going to vote for Harris decided to vote for Trump.

I'm not. Those voters stayed home. The ones that voted like to be lied to. A Democrat candidate can choose to lie just like Trump does. Same voters in play. These are the ones that vote and elect presidents.

Democrats could actually win an election or two by running the Republican playbook of lying through their teeth.But ultimately that would be a losing strategy.

Trump was elected twice on this. So clearly it works.

Democrats are not like Republicans, they not only want to hear policies they agree with, they expect to see them implemented.

Its as you said, Democrats won't vote for it, but a Democrat candidate doesn't need Democrat votes anymore to get elected. If you just need to make every opportunistic empty promise to get elected (as Trump did), then that is clearly the winning strategy now. This is what Americans want. They voted for it.

[-] orclev@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago

No they still need Democrat voters. Republicans won because their supporters vote for anyone with an R next to their name no matter what policies they have, so their lies are to convince the gullible morons that don't really care about the party affiliation, they just want things to be better (and are too stupid to realize Republican policies will do the opposite). Neither parties core supporters are enough to win an election on their own, they need all of them plus some of the independents.

That's what Trump did, he got all the Republicans plus a chunk of independents. If Democrats tried the same playbook and then didn't deliver on their promises they would lose the votes of the core Democrat voters and without them the independents aren't enough to win the election. Republicans are a party of loyalty. The party goes above everything else. Democrats are a party of ideals. If you fail to demonstrate the ideals you lose the votes. That's why it would ultimately be a losing strategy for the DNC. They'd win a few elections but when it became apparent they're full of shit the Democrat voters would stop showing up.

[-] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 0 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

So you're saying the winning strategy for Democrats is completely throw out policy ideals and adopt a "loyalty first" strategy which the GOP did and won the presidency, congress, and control of the supreme court? I hadn't considered that, but it appears to work, so I can't disagree with it.

[-] orclev@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

No, the party doesn't get to decide that, the voters do. If the DNC could decide that yes it would be a winning strategy, but they can't.

There are essentially three groups of voters roughly representing a third of the US each.

The first group are the conservatives, they primarily want to prevent things from changing further from their rose tinted vision of the past, and if possible undo "recent" changes. They often have an overly simplistic idealized vision of how things were when they were children they want to recreate. This is of course utterly impossible. They are the core of the Republican party and reliably vote Republican because they believe the lies they've been fed their entire life that the Republicans are the only ones holding back Democrats from making the US a communist dictatorship where everyone is required to have a sex change and all the white people will be rounded up and put in concentration camps so illegal immigrants can take their homes and jobs. They are so utterly terrified of this entirely fictional bogeyman that their entire voting decision boils down to "always pick the one with an R next to the name".

The second group are the progressives, they primarily want to improve social and economic issues. These are the core Democrat supporters, but Democrats have always been the least bad option. They know that our first past the post election system means only the two largest parties are truly viable and right now that means the Republicans and Democrats. These are the main group preventing Democrats from winning because as Democrats have consistently shifted right on social and economic policies they've lost more and more of the increasingly disenfranchised voters who look at their options and see literally nobody who represents them.

The third group is basically everybody else. Some of these people are hard core 3rd party supporters like fans of the green party, some are just the entirely apolitical who don't pay any attention at all to politics or current events outside of the occasional flashy headline or overheard water cooler conversation. Yet others are those that don't really fall into either the conservative or progressive camps, neither harboring a rose tinted view of the past, nor particularly caring about social or economic issues. Sometimes these people are very dedicated single issue voters. It's this third group that Trump was able to tap into with his lies and who Harris completely failed to motivate.

Any successful campaign must attract a sizable group from among any combination of these three. Obama for instance won all the progressives and a good chunk of that 3rd group. Trump likewise got all the conservatives and a good chunk of that 3rd group. Harris not only failed to get many of the progressives, but also most of that 3rd group as well.

Republicans have both an advantage and disadvantage in this situation. While each of those groups represents about one third of the nation, conservatives are the smallest of the three by a significant margin. This is offset though by them being very reliable voters (fear is an incredible motivator even when it's entirely imaginary), and progressives being very fickle in their support. This means without taking that 3rd group into account out of the gate Republicans tend to start with a solid lead. Democrats meanwhile need to rally progressives and a chunk of that 3rd group in order to win.

this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2024
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