[Discussion] 2024 Election catch-all

AOC asks her split ticket supporters why they voted for Trump (reddit)

*throws up his hands* Heck with it. I don't know anything. We just slept walked into this.

I have no idea what went wrong.

Drazzil wrote:

*throws up his hands* Heck with it. I don't know anything. We just slept walked into this.

I have no idea what went wrong.

I'm still in the "seething with rage and contempt" stage of my response to this election, but right now I think attempting to explain the result is like attempting to explain a school shooting. Yeah, you can dig into the root causes, but that doesn't excuse it. Everyone knows what Trump is. Everyone knows they did the wrong thing, and that's why they did it.

Those responses are illuminating.

Dems: "Insane! I give up!"

Naw. The message is, lean into going against the establishment. Get the hell away from old guard D's and lean into tax rich/help middle class. They are screaming it from the rooftops and the elites be like: but what about means-tested grant programs and a promise for more weed jobs? The f*ck outta here.

Here's an example:

f*ck Silicon Valley. You're addicted to your phone and Bezos and Musk have too much. We're going to tax that ass and give you money. More unions. More good wage jobs. No more free ride for silver spoon muthaf*ckas. You want someone to despise? Let me introduce you to the billionaire class and how they're ripping YOU off.

It makes so much sense if you consider a vast majority of trump supporters felt like they could check out from politics until COVID hit and they couldn’t get toilet paper

My hottest post-election take is that Dems fatally misread the anti-Establishment vibe in 2016 and 2020, and the elites (for insert your reason here) mistakenly opted against leaning into the obvious energy Bernie found.

After his 2020 victory, secured with the maneuvering of Obama and Jim Clyburn, Biden seemed to register that a more structural set of problems needed to be confronted. For this purpose, he absorbed some of the energy and ideas of the Sanders and Elizabeth Warren campaigns, against which he’d previously arrayed himself as the sensible alternative. And his administration did make a game attempt, in its first half, at extending the U.S. welfare state in ways that would have represented a real effort to address the material sources of the Trump phenomenon. This, however, was too little and too late. By suppressing the challenge from the left in the primaries of 2016 and 2020, the Democrats had cut themselves off from the popular base that they might have rallied to this cause and that might have delivered a clear mandate for it. Lacking the legislative margin, they instead tried to horse-trade their way there. What they got was more than nothing, but not remotely enough.

The contradiction between liberalism’s substantive ends and its formal means is not a new problem. One could argue—I would—that virtually every historical moment of substantive liberal triumph has been made possible by social movements that imposed themselves from below, often over the protest of liberal policymakers and thinkers, registering their objection to the means despite their abstract support for the ends. Universal adult suffrage, the welfare state, equal protection under law—such is the story of each of these.

In our time, there are entrenched institutional liberal forces, not only in formal politics but in the universities, the press, the legal system, the nonprofit sector, and even the corporate world, that intone the threat Trumpism poses to democracy and the rule of law, yet work every day to defeat their own internal left-wing challengers: student protests, labor struggles, “woke excesses.” When they raid encampments (student or unhoused) or bust unions, they do Trump’s work for him, remaking Americans in authoritarian ways. The phenomenon that Trump represents can only be defeated when liberal institutionalists cease trying to quash the insurgent left in the name of protecting democracy, and instead look to it as an ally and a source of strength. This is not because the ideas of the left already represent a suppressed silent majority—a fantastical, self-flattering delusion—but because it is only the left that has a coherent vision to offer against the ideas of the right.

Top_Shelf wrote:

Those responses are illuminating.

Dems: "Insane! I give up!"

Naw. The message is, lean into going against the establishment. Get the hell away from old guard D's and lean into tax rich/help middle class. They are screaming it from the rooftops and the elites be like: but what about means-tested grant programs and a promise for more weed jobs? The f*ck outta here.

Here's an example:

f*ck Silicon Valley. You're addicted to your phone and Bezos and Musk have too much. We're going to tax that ass and give you money. More unions. More good wage jobs. No more free ride for silver spoon muthaf*ckas. You want someone to despise? Let me introduce you to the billionaire class and how they're ripping YOU off.

My hottest post-election take is that Dems fatally misread the anti-Establishment vibe in 2016 and 2020, and the elites (for insert your reason here) mistakenly opted against leaning into the obvious energy Bernie found.

I could genuinely look at this one for weeks.

Anyway, apparently Elon's been a Mar-A-Lago almost every day since Election Day to help pick the new WH staff.

Prederick wrote:

My hottest post-election take is that Dems fatally misread the anti-Establishment vibe in 2016 and 2020, and the elites (for insert your reason here) mistakenly opted against leaning into the obvious energy Bernie found.

This reminds me of this really excellent piece from a few days ago:
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/onli...

After his 2020 victory, secured with the maneuvering of Obama and Jim Clyburn, Biden seemed to register that a more structural set of problems needed to be confronted. For this purpose, he absorbed some of the energy and ideas of the Sanders and Elizabeth Warren campaigns, against which he’d previously arrayed himself as the sensible alternative. And his administration did make a game attempt, in its first half, at extending the U.S. welfare state in ways that would have represented a real effort to address the material sources of the Trump phenomenon. This, however, was too little and too late. By suppressing the challenge from the left in the primaries of 2016 and 2020, the Democrats had cut themselves off from the popular base that they might have rallied to this cause and that might have delivered a clear mandate for it. Lacking the legislative margin, they instead tried to horse-trade their way there. What they got was more than nothing, but not remotely enough.

The contradiction between liberalism’s substantive ends and its formal means is not a new problem. One could argue—I would—that virtually every historical moment of substantive liberal triumph has been made possible by social movements that imposed themselves from below, often over the protest of liberal policymakers and thinkers, registering their objection to the means despite their abstract support for the ends. Universal adult suffrage, the welfare state, equal protection under law—such is the story of each of these.

In our time, there are entrenched institutional liberal forces, not only in formal politics but in the universities, the press, the legal system, the nonprofit sector, and even the corporate world, that intone the threat Trumpism poses to democracy and the rule of law, yet work every day to defeat their own internal left-wing challengers: student protests, labor struggles, “woke excesses.” When they raid encampments (student or unhoused) or bust unions, they do Trump’s work for him, remaking Americans in authoritarian ways. The phenomenon that Trump represents can only be defeated when liberal institutionalists cease trying to quash the insurgent left in the name of protecting democracy, and instead look to it as an ally and a source of strength. This is not because the ideas of the left already represent a suppressed silent majority—a fantastical, self-flattering delusion—but because it is only the left that has a coherent vision to offer against the ideas of the right.

Drazzil wrote:

Leaning into and promising socialist policies will only bring people out to the polls if people think you will follow through. Obama campaigned VERY different from how he governed. I think Trump was a reaction to that.

Trump was a reaction to the color of Obama's skin and nothing more.

I bet you will, actually.

Prederick wrote:

My hottest post-election take is that Dems fatally misread the anti-Establishment vibe in 2016 and 2020, and the elites (for insert your reason here) mistakenly opted against leaning into the obvious energy Bernie found.

This reminds me of this really excellent piece from a few days ago:
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/onli...

After his 2020 victory, secured with the maneuvering of Obama and Jim Clyburn, Biden seemed to register that a more structural set of problems needed to be confronted. For this purpose, he absorbed some of the energy and ideas of the Sanders and Elizabeth Warren campaigns, against which he’d previously arrayed himself as the sensible alternative. And his administration did make a game attempt, in its first half, at extending the U.S. welfare state in ways that would have represented a real effort to address the material sources of the Trump phenomenon. This, however, was too little and too late. By suppressing the challenge from the left in the primaries of 2016 and 2020, the Democrats had cut themselves off from the popular base that they might have rallied to this cause and that might have delivered a clear mandate for it. Lacking the legislative margin, they instead tried to horse-trade their way there. What they got was more than nothing, but not remotely enough.

The contradiction between liberalism’s substantive ends and its formal means is not a new problem. One could argue—I would—that virtually every historical moment of substantive liberal triumph has been made possible by social movements that imposed themselves from below, often over the protest of liberal policymakers and thinkers, registering their objection to the means despite their abstract support for the ends. Universal adult suffrage, the welfare state, equal protection under law—such is the story of each of these.

In our time, there are entrenched institutional liberal forces, not only in formal politics but in the universities, the press, the legal system, the nonprofit sector, and even the corporate world, that intone the threat Trumpism poses to democracy and the rule of law, yet work every day to defeat their own internal left-wing challengers: student protests, labor struggles, “woke excesses.” When they raid encampments (student or unhoused) or bust unions, they do Trump’s work for him, remaking Americans in authoritarian ways. The phenomenon that Trump represents can only be defeated when liberal institutionalists cease trying to quash the insurgent left in the name of protecting democracy, and instead look to it as an ally and a source of strength. This is not because the ideas of the left already represent a suppressed silent majority—a fantastical, self-flattering delusion—but because it is only the left that has a coherent vision to offer against the ideas of the right.