Current Affairs The 2020 United States Presidential Election

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Pittsburgh Footy said:
How do you argue with people who want the anti-socialist candidate, yet favor the guy, who quite literally, may actually be a socialist? At least in American terms?

It's stuff like this that does my head in. And you cannot fix this without first fixing the disinformation that's out there, which has spiraled out of control in the age of social media
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It may lend credence to the theory that people on the street are often both simultaneously more left-wing and right-wing than those of the Establishment (they wouldn't mind if railways were brought back into public hands [UK example] but would also bring back public hangings if given half a chance).

And although it's true that Bernie's engagement with PoC, young people and Latinos was far superior to that of Clinton in 2016, I think is important to state is that there isn't a monolithic Latino experience or voter, given that the young Latinos recently moving into Arizona want very different things to the middle-aged males of Florida who turned out so emphatically for Trump.

For the middle-aged Latinos in Florida, I wouldn't say that they were voting against the prospect of the spectre of socialism returning, but rather were attracted by the lower rates of both income and corporate tax (with many being small business owners) and greater deregulation. In my opinion, they don't see politics in a puritanical sense of 'good versus evil' but rather simply want to get on an improve their lives, and they perceive lower tax rates etc. to be the best way to achieve that, irrespective of the well-documented pitfalls of Trump's administration. That's to say that big giveaways from the Dems in the form of a Green New Deal, college funding or adequate healthcare provision could tip the scale for working-class voters. (see also; Thatcher's council housing policy expanding her core voter base)
 
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Pittsburgh Footy said:
How do you argue with people who want the anti-socialist candidate, yet favor the guy, who quite literally, may actually be a socialist? At least in American terms?
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abelard said:
This is why the 'Sanders would have lost by even more' arguments are so incoherent. Liberals, following their nice, orderly spectrum of left-centre-right, observe the mounting backlash against professional-class identity politics and conclude it also must mean voters are opposed to minimum wage hikes and medicare for all, too. So they ignore the mountain of data showing that these are overwhelmingly popular with voters of both parties, and determine that they need to campaign on incoherent and ideologically-radical pro-market policy contortions like subsidised private insurance instead, because according to their delusional logic this signals 'moderation' and 'centrism'.

It couldn't be further from the truth.

Left-wing policy ideas are overwhelmingly popular with swing Republican voters. Professional class liberal identity politics and wokeness oblige is extremely unpopular with working class voters, all Republican voters, and just about anyone without a college degree, which you effectively need at this point just to be able to determine what the proper etiquette around 'racism' even means. This is why the two most pointedly unwoke candidates ran away with it even in the Democratic primary. American voters hate liberals - but they do not regard Sanders as a liberal, which is why he is so popular with ordinary voters in both parties. The professional class which runs the Democratic Party observes this well-earned loathing and assumes it means voters must hate Sanders even more, since on their orderly but illusory spectrum he is the most 'liberal' of all. But this is wrong. What voters refer to when they say the hate liberals are people like Elizabeth Warren or Pete Buttigieg or, probably most of all, Kamala Harris, who the Democrats are now all but stuck with in 2024 despite being comprehensively and humiliatingly rejected even by her own party. In four years they will be utterly annihilated, and they will deserve it.

The future of American politics belongs to whoever figures out that the Red-Blue divide will be decisively bridged by a candidate promising left-wing economics and right-wing patriotism - and surprisingly strong showing but ultimate defeat of Donald Trump paves the way for Republicans who have already realised at exactly the same moment that the Democrats have doubled-down on the exceedingly unpopular obverse: condescending performative wokeness and professional class liberal sanctimony combined with a very deliberate rejection of overwhelmingly popular economic policies. Get ready for President Tucker Carlson in 2024.
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You have to listen to what people actually say they want, rather relying on aggregate polling data collating how they respond to categories like liberal or socialist, which mean one thing to political media and professional class observers, and a different thing to everyone else.

To many voters 'Socialism' means abolishing the police, reparations, and a bunch of overeducated middle class kids complaining about their trauma, even though it means 'restorative justice' or whatever to people who read the New York Times. While at the same time the notion that anyone who works 40 hours a week deserves to afford a house, a family, a car, a vacation and to see the doctor without declaring bankruptcy or first earning a college degree is not socialism but basic common sense - and one's inherent right as an American - to Trump voters, even though it means 'socialism' to people with university degrees.

Making America Great Again for most obsoleted Trump voters means making this a reality again.

When the Democrats start to campaign on this and nothing else (and not just as a head-pat gesture to keep the credulous Warren bros purring and retweeting 'the most progressive platform evarrr' until they can be safely ignored), and repeat it over and over again, then they can slowly win back ground from Trumpist swing Republicans. They will never win the racist suburban pool-repair shop heirs, but they can win the actual middle (which is not at what people who think The Economist is peak centrism imagine it to be).

But it will take time, patience, real strategy, and consistent commitment beyond just the next election cycle (or even the next news cycle). They will need to acknowledge how badly they have hurt their former working class base, ever since the modern Democratic Party took shape in the 1972 election, and make it clear, like Labour under Starmer, that they realise there is a problem. A thorough, public clear-out and repudiation of Pelosi, Schumer, Perez et al is the most basic first step - but it obviously won't happen, and they'll most likely double-down on the exact opposite: Harris/Buttigieg 2024, or whatever.

The Republicans strategise in decades while the Democrats strategise 24 hours at a time (I can still remember reading about Rahm Emmanuel chastising Democrat staffers in 2008 for getting 'distracted' with trivialities like judicial appointments lol)

And it might already be took late, in any case.
 
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ButOkayThatsFootball said:
It may lend credence to the theory that people on the street are often both simultaneously more left-wing and right-wing than those of the Establishment (they wouldn't mind if railways were brought back into public hands [UK example] but would also bring back public hangings if given half a chance).

And although it's true that Bernie's engagement with PoC, young people and Latinos was far superior to that of Clinton in 2016, I think is important to state is that there isn't a monolithic Latino experience or voter, given that the young Latinos recently moving into Arizona want very different things to the middle-aged males of Florida who turned out so emphatically for Trump.

For the middle-aged Latinos in Florida, I wouldn't say that they were voting against the prospect of the spectre of socialism returning, but rather were attracted by the lower rates of both income and corporate tax (with many being small business owners) and greater deregulation. In my opinion, they don't see politics in a puritanical sense of 'good versus evil' but rather simply want to get on an improve their lives, and they perceive lower tax rates etc. to be the best way to achieve that, irrespective of the well-documented pitfalls of Trump's administration. That's to say that big giveaways from the Dems in the form of a Green New Deal, college funding or adequate healthcare provision could tip the scale for working-class voters. (see also; Thatcher's council housing policy expanding her core voter base)
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This is very true, and it demonstrates that the Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan elites and their children from former military dictatorships are, fundamentally, Republicans - and that if even a 'centrist moderate' like Joe Biden can't win them after Obama recognised Castro (which is somehow entirely ignored), it is probably best not to pursue them in vain at the expense of winnable constituencies elsewhere. The Democrats are never going to be able to compete with the current iteration of the Republican Party (which is changing faster than most people here realise) on tax cuts and deregulation, and after decades of failing on this score they should probably stop trying.
 
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