2024 Presidential Election -- new thread for the final week

What will be the outcome of the 2024 Presidential Election


  • Total voters
    86
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.
The easiest way to drop oil prices for the US is to stop all exports. We are currently literally swimming in the stuff but because it’s a world market the price settles by global demand. If we keep all our own oil the local price drops to $30-$40 or whatever the marginal cost of shale oil is. We could replenish the strategic reserves on the cheap too but oil lobbyists would never let that happen.

The rude awakening over the next few years will be the rise of the American oligarchs at the expense of the American people. It will be the rise of the new age of the robber barons with the benefit of algorithmic media telling the people it’s OK, you might me then one day.
Yes, I'd argue America is already an oligarchy. I'm not sure the distribution of wealth in this country looks all that different from Russia.

But it will become even more obvious over the next few years. The richest man in the world just gave $200M+ (est) and the full power of his media platform to elect Trump. He will be richly rewarded. Others like Jeff Bezos have quietly fallen in line. The message is very clear. If you want to keep your riches and your power, do not cross Trump.
 
yep. I know a lot of folks won't agree, and the point is clearly arguable, but I continue to think that Bernie would have beat Trump in 2016....his populist message is pretty effective (and he has done very well in Vermont in places Dems don't often do well, the poorer, less educated counties). Sigh.
I think we've had this discussion before, you and I. I would have just loved to see the debates. Can you even imagine?
 
yep. I know a lot of folks won't agree, and the point is clearly arguable, but I continue to think that Bernie would have beat Trump in 2016....his populist message is pretty effective (and he has done very well in Vermont in places Dems don't often do well, the poorer, less educated counties). Sigh.
Maybe, but I doubt it. For two main reasons: (1) Vermont is a fairly homogeneous state, and (2) he did extremely poorly in primaries despite running against a pretty unpopular candidate in Hillary (his competitiveness was driven entirely by dominating in the caucus states). I don't believe he'd have done well in an election-based format in the general. But, yeah, we'll never know.
 
I’d like to use this observation as a jumping-off point that will lead me to ask several questions of posters here who voted for Trump. I intend to ask it as non-obnoxiously as I can. Bear with me, if you can.

Background first: Long ago, on what must have been the 2016 election thread, I revealed that I was (and still am) registered “unaffiliated.” On either that thread or the 2020 thread, possibly both, I stated that I’ve voted in both Republican and Democratic primaries. In a moment of, possibly, TMI, I stated that in the 2016 Republican primary, I voted for John Kasich.

More background: An intermittent paricipant in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 election threads, I have mostly sought to distinguish Trump and MAGAism from American conservatism. I have regularly used the term “actual conservatives,” to differentiate between the longstanding conservative writers whom I read and MAGA’s faux-conservatism.

I think I can recall that several posters, from a variety of political perspectives and also personal/family/friends experience, have insisted that nowhere near all Trump voters identify as MAGA; and, indeed, that a whole lot of people who have voted for Trump absolutely resent being lumped in with MAGA folks.

So, to Trump supporters on this thread, active posters and lurkers alike (but which question Harris voters can of course chime in on, too): Would you be willing help the conversation along by sort of “thinking aloud” about those people who, despite disliking Trump and finding his views more extreme, voted for him anyway?

The questions are these: (1) Did most such voters worry most about issues such as inflation, regulation, and illegal immigration? (2) Did most such voters dislike Trump’s ugliness, pettiness, threats to take revenge on Democrats and Never Trumpers? (3) Would you expect any/a few/many such voters to be upset if Trump “weaponizes” the Justice Department? That is, as people who, we are told, do not identify with MAGA radicalism, do they think Trump probably did some illegal/unconstitutional things, but that’s old news; but also, on the other hand, they do not want him wasting time using the Justice Department to get revenge, because they want him to solve problems and make their lives better? (4) Do they want him to focus on what they see Harris as not focusing on — making their lives better — and definitely do not want him focusing on his own persoanl grievances? (5) Or will non-MAGA, reluctant Trump voters, just like MAGA folks, take the view that, well, Biden used the Justice Department to “persecute Trump,” so, unfortunately, it’s ok if Trump does the same to his “enemies list”?

This is just a procedural question for the mods. The old election thread had a rule (I think) that one's post is not supposed to identify who they voted for. This new thread was opened I think with the new rules in the first post of the thread (avoid opinions, post dispassionate analysis, leave out the vinegar, report posts that might be breaking the rules rather than responding to them, don't attack the other side, etc.) . Do the old thread rules also apply (you shouldn't be able to tell who someone voted for from the post, discuss the horse race only, etc.). Do not discuss public policy on DBR, etc.

It would be tough to try to respond to this post without understanding the thread rules correctly. (And apologies if this question has already been answered. I have not read every post in either thread).
 
I'm sure those "left behind" young men will love this

https://www.wired.com/story/trump-election-4b-movement-tiktok-x-reddit/

For all this abandonment they feel, I have no sympathy. Nobody forced them to stay home and play video games and watch youtube influencers all day long. There is no group with more built in advantages than a young white man, despite what Ben Shapiro or Andrew Tate wants to tell them. They don't want to earn anything, they just want it given to them, they expect to have a girlfriend gifted to them and can't understand why nobody likes them. They spew hateful crap all day to anyone they see as a threat. Yet the fact remains, nothing has actually been taken away from. There are no laws that especially impact them over other groups, no rights have been removed, yet they have the most imagined grievances of anyone. And still nothing is going to improve for them.
Young men should be largely in the Democrats camp, but it's the Bernie Sanders economic populist message that wins them over. This was not a big enough focus in the campaign. I would have expected Tim Walz to be on Joe Rogan saying "Trump is lying to you. Let me tell you exactly why the Harris economic plan is much better for your future". It never happened.
 
I don't know the numbers exactly, but I really think we are in political camps for the most part, like we are fans of our teams. Its personal and starts early in life. When you believe in something all your life you are not apt to change that belief because the leader of your camp is morally bankrupt. ... They will use inflation as the reason for voting for Trump, but they are going to vote for him anyway. Trump knows this. It does not matter what he says or does, he will get their support. And many will say they do not like him, and they really don't. Then there is the group of people who flow with the wind and can vote either way for a vast array of reasons that I do not understand. Finally, there are 80 million eligible adults who are not registered to vote. They don't believe that it matters.
I strongly agree entirely that people tend to follow politics like they follow sports teams. Whether a football play is pass interference or not, or whether a basketball play is a block or a charge, starts from a place of "who am I rooting for?" The same goes when choosing how to interpret what a candidate says, depending on whether they wear red or blue.

I disagree that one's selected political camp always starts early in life. I have known many people who have switched camps through the years, some for rational reasons, some not so much.

As to your comment about "the group of people who flow with the wind and can vote either way for a vast array of reasons that I do not understand," I am in that camp and can provide some perspective. There are two parties that matter, for better or worse, and neither one ever represents my views. I believe in fiscal conservatism and certain liberal social policies, among other things. These days it takes a unicorn candidate to encompass even 50% of my views. In a country as vast as the US, I do not find it difficult to believe that there are people who find their views scattered between the two parties, and in plenty of cases feel that they are represented by neither.

More than that, though, I believe there are a lot of people who are hurting, and looking for candidates who just might end up doing something to make their lives a little better. In that respect, Trump gave people clear reasons for why they were hurting and why electing him would change things. Harris struggled to do this. (Disclaimer: that is my analysis of what did and didn't resonate with voters, and is not indicative of my thought process or beliefs.)

Absent somebody who supports my views, I just want adults in the important rooms that can be trusted to put the country above their party and themselves. I do not believe that I am alone in this, even though I think we would all find ourselves hard-pressed to name any recent politicians at the national level that fit that description.

On my more charitable days, I believe the tendency of many voters to support one party or the other stems from a place of trying to be optimistic: if one party is "bad", the other must be "good". On my more pessimistic days, I think it's that tendency, leading further to a tendency to forgive their "team" of pretty much anything, that will eventually doom the current form of government.
 
Young men should be largely in the Democrats camp, but it's the Bernie Sanders economic populist message that wins them over. This was not a big enough focus in the campaign. I would have expected Tim Walz to be on Joe Rogan saying "Trump is lying to you. Let me tell you exactly why the Harris economic plan is much better for your future". It never happened.
I do agree with just ignoring them is a fruitless gesture. They banked on the demographic being low turnout (and I agreed) and while I don't know the ratio to actual to potential voter turnout, it was one of Trump's strongest groups. That said, Tim Walz was not going to change their mind on just one appearance on Rogan or any of those spaces, these people have been red pilled for years.
My issue is with their grievance overall, its imagined and its got to be difficult to figure out how to message to people who feel victimized but aren't really victims.
 
Is it really a parallel? On one hand you have a group of people who lost a world war, had huge reparations thrust upon them so severe that it tanked the world economy, their sense of national pride in tatters, and on the other, you have a group furious that the latest Star Wars show has too many lesbians and people of color. That like equating a grievance between having your financial advisor steal all of your money vs somebody jumped the line at the popeyes to get one of those chicken sandwiches.
The only difference is one group knows what real hardship is and the other thinks they know hardship. It doesn’t make how they got there the resulting sentiment is the same. The definition of being poor or struggling in America is vastly different than being poor or struggling almost anywhere else but perception is their reality. My father grew up being African poor. When we moved here, in those early years, we would be considered poor in America but the standard was 100x of his childhood. Some people here don’t realize how good they have it.
 
Last edited:
Can we agree that the Dems need to find other ways to message with people outside the upper-middle class and college educated folk? That much seems obvious. The Republicans have really captured the "everyman" audience.
The guy that literally takes a dump in a gold plated toilet and the richest man in the world that travels via rocket ships have won the "everyman" vote. Dems definitely need to change their messaging if they can't beat that. Maybe they can go after unions......oh wait.

PS, not being snarky SouthernDukie, just laughing at how crazy the situation seems to me.
 
Can we agree that the Dems need to find other ways to message with people outside the upper-middle class and college educated folk? That much seems obvious. The Republicans have really captured the "everyman" audience.
I’m being completely serious - they need to throw out “When they go low, we go high” attitude. Fight and fight dirty. They need to make peace with the ethical compromises and win at whatever cost. Stop trying to win minds and win emotions.
 
To my DBR friends,

Although I've posted once or twice, I have not been a regular reader of this thread and its predecessor. It's just been too much of an echo chamber. I have read the last four pages to get a sense of the reaction to the election outcome. It's tough sledding, to be honest.

This election has seen a lot of mud throwing by both campaigns and the media, much of it exaggeration or pure nonsense with no basis in reality. That's how campaigns go - it's up to us to sort reality from fear mongering. The next four years will not be anywhere near as awful as the Harris campaign and some of the media would have us believe...or as good as the Trump campaign and some of the media would have us believe.
SkyBrickey did a good job covering this. In today's age, it is critical for each of us to ensure we do not live in an echo chamber, because that has become how most media and columnists make their money: cultivate an audience, and manipulate their emotions to keep them engaged. Those few sources that strive to remain neutral frequently devolve into whataboutism and other difficulties.

You are correct that what the Harris and Trump campaigns stated about the next four years was campaign-speak. At the same time, you offer no reason why the next four years cannot be as good or as bad as the campaigns warned. Perhaps you can elaborate on that, as I disagree that those outcomes are off the table.
 
I do agree with just ignoring them is a fruitless gesture. They banked on the demographic being low turnout (and I agreed) and while I don't know the ratio to actual to potential voter turnout, it was one of Trump's strongest groups. That said, Tim Walz was not going to change their mind on just one appearance on Rogan or any of those spaces, these people have been red pilled for years.
My issue is with their grievance overall, its imagined and its got to be difficult to figure out how to message to people who feel victimized but aren't really victims.
You're dismissing this whole demographic group as "feeling victimized when they aren't really victims". I think that's the wrong way to look at it.

It's a group that is not thriving and that is resentful, yes. Trump and Musk and Rogan have been successful at turning that resentment toward Democrats. Illegal immigrants, perceived favoritism to other groups.

The reality is the minimum wage has been stuck at $7 for 20 years. High paying union jobs have disappeared. And $14T in wealth has moved out of the middle class to the top 1%. These are the things young men justifiably should be angry about. These are the policy changes that will make their lives better. This is the Bernie energy that the Dems did a terrible job of channeling in this cycle IMO.

And after the oligarchs further hoard the country's wealth over the next 4 years, if we have a 2028 election, this is the kind of populist economic policy and messaging that will bring those working class voters back to the Dems.
 
Can we agree that the Dems need to find other ways to message with people outside the upper-middle class and college educated folk? That much seems obvious. The Republicans have really captured the "everyman" audience.

The guy that literally takes a dump in a gold plated toilet and the richest man in the world that travels via rocket ships have won the "everyman" vote. Dems definitely need to change their messaging if they can't beat that. Maybe they can go after unions......oh wait.

PS, not being snarky SouthernDukie, just laughing at how crazy the situation seems to me.
The Dems absolutely need to change their strategy to win the messaging battle. It seems to be a more complicated task though in the current climate of rampant misinformation.
 
The Dems absolutely need to change their strategy to win the messaging battle. It seems to be a more complicated task though in the current climate of rampant misinformation.
Not if they get on the same train. The rules have changed. Stop playing by the old rules. They adapt and evolve or subsequent generations will die out. They need to stop being the old them.
 
yep. I know a lot of folks won't agree, and the point is clearly arguable, but I continue to think that Bernie would have beat Trump in 2016....his populist message is pretty effective (and he has done very well in Vermont in places Dems don't often do well, the poorer, less educated counties). Sigh.
With all due respect, Bud, I think there was (and is) a 0.000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance that Bernie Sanders EVER would have won a national election for president, no matter whom he was running against.
 
With all due respect, Bud, I think there was (and is) a 0.000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance that Bernie Sanders EVER would have won a national election for president, no matter whom he was running against.
genial disagreement. You could have said the same thing about Trump in 2016 and many many Republicans did, including people active on this forum...."no way he'll ever get the nomination."
 
With all due respect, Bud, I think there was (and is) a 0.000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance that Bernie Sanders EVER would have won a national election for president, no matter whom he was running against.
Right? Why would a country ever elect a candidate aggressively espousing economic policies that benefit 80%+ of the population? An insane idea!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top