Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 447: 2016-2, Electric Boogaloo

(+) Yeah! (+)

Nominate President Undertale. Itd probably win.

On a more serious note, ceasefire in Lebanon. Well, thats good.

How did it work there but not in Gaza?

Because Israel have different goals in Lebanon v Gaza of course. In Lebanon it is strategic, obviously carried out with excessive brutality but they were working towards military goals. In Gaza it is genocide and imperial conquest.

Lebanon also has some form of a civilian government, even if it's basically ineffective in the face of Hezbollah. Most people there want peace and have some means of advocating it. In Gaza, Hamas straight up are the government and the civilian population have far less means to be heard.

As an aside, this is (partially) why a huge portion of the dead in Gaza are considered members of Hamas by official counts. Most working age (and younger) men will be employed in some facet related to Hamas given their control over Gaza, and so healthcare and admin workers are often automatically lumped in with armed members. There's a lot more depth to it and I think emphasising death statistics misses the reality of the conflict's impact, but that's just something I think is important to mention.

So... are Trump's tariffs going to affect the prices of physical video games?

I already bought a PS5, but I'm wondering if I need to be stocking up on disks as well. Everything I'm reading just talks about the consoles.

Fun fact tariffs don't just effect individual products as companies will raise prices across the board to make up for increased strain on their supply side.

Expect everything to go up

Games already have a good system for inflating price while keeping the game at $60, so they will just do that more aggressively. Publishers will also become much more conservative with funding and cancel more aggressively, which has obviously been happening already.

If anything, the problem with games is that there is an attention economy, where even good games have trouble finding an audience because even the most dedicated hobbyists don't have time to play everything.

They could literally stop releasing video games and it would take years before I run out of stuff I want to play.

Inflation expectations are also well known to affect prices in economics. If huge numbers of people expect lower inflation due to Trump's election, that would tend to keep prices down.

Overall, the bigger issue inflationwise is money printing. I think the inflation from the great money printing of 2020-2021 has largely run its course. We won't have much more inflation unless we get another round of massive money printing.

We will get massive money printing but only nerds like us follow that stuff, so it's basically free politically.

I don't know if the general populace actually expects lower prices. Even the dumbest person understands that prices don't go down without subsidies. And money printing will definitely be required to pay for subsidies.

I think the only expectation with this election is that Democrats are punished. That was the goal and it was achieved. There's no renewed hope or cultural change at all, that's just pundits filling air time.

Well I don't think people are expecting lower prices (as in deflation), but lower inflation, yes. Not through any particular mechanism, but because it was the norm over the last 40 years until 2021, and people think Trump has some magic touch on the economy.

There might be a few items that actually go down in price that Trump will trumpet endlessly (maybe gasoline). Inflation has always been uneven - there are certain things that have barely budged in price since the 90s like video games and other things that have gone through the roof (college tuition).

People definitely don't expect standard 2-4% inflation, that's what they voted against hard this election. They either expect flat prices, higher subsidies, or they do understand prices are going way up but they think the fascism is worth it (accelerationists, etc)

The average Trump voter had no idea how tariffs worked at all. They believed what he said about other countries being the ones to pay more and thought Americans wouldnt

Don't have a link handy, but now that the votes are counted, every single state trended red this cycle.

Republicans came closer to winning Illinois than Democrats came to winning Texas.

I cannot BELIEVE I let myself fall for the hype after knowing something was wrong 2 months ago, lmao.

I really feel like I lived in a bubble via this topic tbh.

It really didnt feel good until that Selzer poll brought the false hope. I didnt want to say anything but it felt odd seeing the constant boosterism in this topic and other progressive spaces.

We didn't message hard enough on Project 2025, and Harris was defined by that stupid anti-trans messaging. You couldn't turn on sports without seeing that ad. And Dems can't just throw trans people under the bus with a wink and a nod like Trump could throw evangelicals under, because trans people are actually oppressed and not just pretend oppressed to fuel their persecution complex. On top of that, Harris had to carry the dead weight of a Biden administration that was silent on all of their accomplishments.

People just wanted to have faith Americans wouldnt be brainless enough to elect Conald Trump again, but American lack of intelligence should never be underrated I guess

I think a lot of people underestimated the trans hate in America. I thought we had gotten past it myself. Not like 100%, but I thought "It's low on the totem pole."

Also Harris's whole housing plan wasn't great. "We'll help you buy your first house," is a great policy, but people are selfish, so people who already own homes will be like "I HAD TO PAY FOR MY HOME WHY SHOULD THEY GET HELP I DIDNT GET"

For some reason every time one group ages out of hate, another group has to fill the void for the weirdos.

And then they don't even ever stop hating the others.

LightningStrikes posted...

It really didnt feel good until that Selzer poll brought the false hope. I didnt want to say anything but it felt odd seeing the constant boosterism in this topic and other progressive spaces.

After the initial Kamala hype it did get low for a long time until just before the election. Motivation wise, it was well done by the Democrats. Build hype then turn up the fear to convince people to come out.

But again, the overwhelmingly clear lesson is that strategy didn't matter, people votes against the incumbent and that's it. A globally consistent trend that is on average far stronger than it was in the US.

Didn't the US incumbent do significantly better than incumbents throughout the rest of the world? It's possible to do most things right and still lose.

It's also that in an election against a demagogue, the normal "right things" don't apply

I felt like there were people here shouting people down who were skeptical of their narrative (i.e. the people who kept saying to ignore "right-leaning" pollsters who were the most accurate in 2020 and were most accurate again this year).

The Selzer poll was very weird, but there was another one from a reputable pollster in 2020 in Wisconsin that missed by about the same margin (predicted D+17 and ended at D+1). And I want to say the polling in the Hillary vs. Bernie primary in Michigan was also really off? Not a huge sample, but all of these extreme polling misses have gone against the Democratic Party establishment.

I do think you could have gotten a better sense of the last 3 presidential elections looking purely at Corrik's posts here than looking at all the polling done by all the pollsters. Corrik is slightly to the left of Pennsylvania as a whole, and that's been the median state since 2016.

Almost all house races have been called and it is looking like Dems might finish 215-220, picking up two seats.

How? And they won every swing state senate race outside of Pennsylvania. I would not have guessed either of those things based on the general election results and every single state swinging red.

trump activates a certain kind of mostly white demographic that only really cares about voting for him. a bunch of trump voters voted for trump only and didn't even bother voting down the rest of the ticket

red_sox_777 posted...

I felt like there were people here shouting people down who were skeptical of their narrative (i.e. the people who kept saying to ignore "right-leaning" pollsters who were the most accurate in 2020 and were most accurate again this year).

Some former Kamala staffers went on PodSaveAmerica, and I didn't listen to it, but I saw clips and summaries, and apparently Joe/Kamala's internal polling never had them up against Trump.

They fucking lied to us the entire time, and I swear to god you could just FEEL the vibes were bad way back in January of last year, and everyone constantly told me to shut up. This isn't an Ulti style "called it" to gloat, this is me saying god dammit people stop trusting the Democrats and start demanding them to listen.

ivysnow posted...

trump activates a certain kind of mostly white demographic that only really cares about voting for him. a bunch of trump voters voted for trump only and didn't even bother voting down the rest of the ticket

Yeah but the data suggests this isn't why Trump really won, it was the support he gained with every other group of people. He seemed to even lose support, ever so slightly, amongst white voters. It was still the only demographic he won outright, but the fact that every state moved more right is extremely concerning and more proof that there's a lot more to worry about than just these stereotypical MAGA white people we see so much of.

ivysnow posted...

trump activates a certain kind of mostly white demographic that only really cares about voting for him. a bunch of trump voters voted for trump only and didn't even bother voting down the rest of the ticket

Some Democrats did outperform Kamala even accounting for that though.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Some former Kamala staffers went on PodSaveAmerica, and I didn't listen to it, but I saw clips and summaries, and apparently Joe/Kamala's internal polling never had them up against Trump.

To be fair, I felt the narrative Kamala had the entire time was that she was the underdog. That's like a direct quote from her; she always painted herself as the underdog or at the very least barely tied with Trump. It felt like when I saw that information and her saying it, versus what I was reading from so many people in here singing the praises of how great things were about to go... yeah. I was pretty confused. I personally don't participate in by posting nearly as much as I do by reading, but the vibe I got here kept me sane because I personally was very doom and gloom in my mind. This topic series (and other echo chambers I frequent, imgur specifically) kept me hopeful that it was just my own anxiety and automatic assumption of the worst.

Are there any analyses of the voter swing this election vs 2016?

All states swinging red makes sense when they all swung blue last time (regression to the mean). But if they swung further red than even 2016, that's actually significant.

v_charon posted...

Yeah but the data suggests this isn't why Trump really won, it was the support he gained with every other group of people. He seemed to even lose support, ever so slightly, amongst white voters. It was still the only demographic he won outright, but the fact that every state moved more right is extremely concerning and more proof that there's a lot more to worry about than just these stereotypical MAGA white people we see so much of.

Tbf had voters even paid attention to the campaign trail then Trump would not have won. At this point if THIS is what it takes to end the current era of political polarisation in the country then so be it.

Campaign trail is less important than the media that they're exposed to, and what that media portrays as reality

Thats true but were not even talking about MAGA cult by this point.

I was pretty sure Trump would win. Right after the debate, I felt like Kamala had a path to victory but she didn't really take it and Trump and especially Vance were clutch. Unfortunately.

v_charon posted...

Yeah but the data suggests this isn't why Trump really won, it was the support he gained with every other group of people. He seemed to even lose support, ever so slightly, amongst white voters. It was still the only demographic he won outright, but the fact that every state moved more right is extremely concerning and more proof that there's a lot more to worry about than just these stereotypical MAGA white people we see so much of.

The joke goes something like... the winner of the great boat race turned to the runner-up, and said, "immigrant"

https://youtu.be/lIv5oPIDmO8?si=yBVla-YvTI5J5vgu

Hasan Piker on Pod Save America.

I havent watched this yet, but the response has been good.

Watched a bit of it, when he says its a big tent but it doesnt need Dick Cheney in it that reminded me of a very good and relevant Neil Kinnock quote, its a very broad church but it still has walls.

One last thing on the Democratic campaign: the whole happy warrior thing they tried to do doesnt work when most people are feeling the pressure, I know people have gotten frustrated about other progressive parties emphasising that things will be tough but its necessary because if you offer too much optimism when times are hard people will not believe you.

Anyway, election day in Ireland. I voted but its the least fussed Ive ever been about an election anywhere. :| Like the frustration with the main progressive blocs in different countries is very valid, but at least you dont have to deal with the Irish left. I dont especially appreciate that the next government will be led by a choice between rightwingers, so-called leftwing racists, and Fianna Fail the party with no principles or ideology to speak of.

Maybe this humanity thing was a mistake

LightningStrikes posted...

Fianna Fail

ok I know it's not an English name and the actual definition is completely different but imagine literally including Fail in your political party name

Hahaha people do get mileage out of that. Though its pronounced like fall.

LightningStrikes posted...

but its necessary because if you offer too much optimism when times are hard people will not believe you

Unless you are Trump of course. Who promises to fix everything in his first year and end two wars in a day.

I wouldn't exactly call Trump's rhetoric optimistic, but he can definitely over-promise and be believed by a certain sort of person. Despite being maybe the single least likely person on planet Earth to actually solve a problem.

There is a between "good now" and "will become good". Both are referred to as optimistic but they're completely different. The lesson here is that "good now" will never win an election, ever.

That said, I still really want to see an analysis of swings between 2016 and 2024, not just 2020. It might be that Kamala's "good in some ways, bad in others" nuanced rhetoric was actually very effective and led to the strongest incumbent defense of 2024.

I wonder if there's any chance that the wars actually do end because of Trump. Not because of him actually doing anything towards it, but because making Trump look good benefits both Putin and Netanyahu.

https://twitter.com/JDVance/status/1862285652609388954

Same energy:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/633dad7f.jpg

So much to take away from that picture. The old "land doesn't vote" but more hilariously, why did Vance himself post a photoshopped image of him as Trump's wife?

The election is over, you don't need to pretend to give a shit about posts like that anymore

Trump told him that he was his bitch, and that picture is Vance's takeaway from the conversation.