Current Events > Democrats Need to Face Why Trump Won

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-david-shor.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx0J7dIlL7c

I'm not gonna watch an hour and thirty minutes Ezra Klein video

Probably cause Something Something Voting Machines, Something Something Musk
https://youtu.be/F9gCyRkpPe8?si=Ts3-eV2SjBTowrPu

Decency and trying to make things work is not competitive with hate and wanting to watch the world burn.

Especially when both decency and trying to make things work are subject to significant self-imposed limitations.

Is it something about democrats being to woke or something?

Bruh, did you seriously just drop a 90 minute video on us with no comment and not even give a tl;dw? LMAO

NeonPhoenix posted...

Bruh, did you seriously just drop a 90 minute video on us with no comment and not even give a tl;dw? LMAO

It's okay. He gave us a paywalled article to read instead

Election interference?

I only watched a few minutes, but based on what I've seen so far, I'm guessing that it's that they are too focused on how things are polling rather than how to influence the public with their ideals.

Sansoldier posted...

I only watched a few minutes, but based on what I've seen so far, I'm guessing that it's that they are too focused on how things are polling rather than how to influence the public with their ideals.

Harris: Here is my plan for the economy.
Voters: That's too confusing.
Trump: I have a concept of a plan
Voters: Sounds good

How do you share your ideas with the public when this is what happens?

tldw tldr Key points?

Because lets be serious why in the fucking hell would you link a video that long and not write a damn thing about it???

loafy013 posted...

Harris: Here is my plan for the economy.
Voters: That's too confusing.
Trump: I have a concept of a plan
Voters: Sounds good

How do you share your ideas with the public when this is what happens?

You dumb them down. People don't care about plans. They don't care about so and so support or so and so program. Tell them you'll make stuff cheaper and give them free healthcare and they'll go to war for you

IceCreamOnStero posted...

You dumb them down. People don't care about plans. They don't care about so and so support or so and so program. Tell them you'll make stuff cheaper and give them free healthcare and they'll go to war for you

Have you paid attention to what happens when democrats dumb down their message? They are told they are being condescending and treating the voters like idiots. Another in the long line of double standards when it comes to democrats and republicans.

IceCreamOnStero posted...

You dumb them down. People don't care about plans. They don't care about so and so support or so and so program. Tell them you'll make stuff cheaper and give them free healthcare and they'll go to war for you

But the current president has people cheering on $9 a dozen eggs, an incoming recession, and calling affordable healthcare a woke socialist plot.

So, I guess you don't even need that. You just need to sell hate and tell dumb people that everything bad in their life isn't their fault.

karmageddon28 posted...

But the current president has people cheering on $9 a dozen eggs, an incoming recession, and calling affordable healthcare a woke socialist plot.

So, I guess you don't even need that. You just need to sell hate and tell dumb people that everything bad in their life isn't their fault.

You'll never win over the hardcore cultists sadly.

Apparently it's the Democrats fault that this country is full of stupid fucks

El_Dustino posted...

You'll never win over the hardcore cultists sadly.

That's a given. The real problem is that the morons in the middle are as morally depraved as they are intellectually incapable.

The reason is that 77 million Americans are massive flaming racists.

EPR-radar posted...

That's a given. The real problem is that the morons in the middle are as morally depraved as they are intellectually incapable.

I guess that's why a popular meme during the election was "we trained this monkey to understand the median voter's politics and it hanged itself."

"Trump gives me scapegoats for why my life is terrible, while Harris wants companies to hire the people who Trump scapegoated, so obviously I'm voting for Trump"

• most white men

Revocation68 posted...

Apparently it's the Democrats fault that this country is full of stupid fucks

I mean when you care about a specific cause, the onus is kind of on you to educate others about it. Republicans are out there outright spreading disinformation, so yeah, as the opposing party youre responsible if you fail to properly educate others and call that shit out. If you don't try and persuade a voter, someone else will.

Red_XIV posted...

The reason is that 77 million Americans are massive flaming racists.

Or "Christians" that somehow believe the only thing the NT teaches is violent hatred against immigrants and the LTBGQ community.

I ain't watching that

Republicans : THING BAD

Democrats : *wall of text and an hour long video*

I actually have found the information pretty fascinating so far.

Jeff_AKA_Snoopy posted...

I actually have found the information pretty fascinating so far.

If you care to share, I wouldn't mind if you gave a summary or outline. Or if there's more detail to it than can be made succinct, maybe I should just watch.

Evening_Dragon posted...

If you care to share, I wouldn't mind if you gave a summary or outline. Or if there's more detail to it than can be made succinct, maybe I should just watch.

I'm currently 41 minutes in.

It is a collection of slides that is all about research data on the election and the most important pieces of information so far seem to be...

• More first time voters voted for Republicans in comparison to Dems
• Immigrant populations voted in higher amounts for Republicans over Dems
• The areas where people felt the most trust in Dems over Republicans (and were overall important to their voting preferences) was really only in Mental Health and Health Care. For nearly everything else that voters in their studies found as "important" they trusted Republicans more.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/8e01af4e.jpg

• The largest gap between voting genders compared to age was 18-23 year olds, where the difference was 23 points between young men voting Republican versus young women voting Democratic.
• Clearly the most important issue for all voters was cost of living and economy, which as you can see the voters in the survey group trusted Republicans. A lot of that is of course the incumbent party in control getting shit on for how they have handed inflation.
• People who identified as being "political" in general became MORE Democratic, while people who were decidedly not "political" and didn't pay attention became MORE Republican.

The fact that Democracts are seen as the ones really breaking things shows that the BIGGER problem is that the GOP's control over information has made so many broken from reality and nothing really can be fixed without solving that...

loafy013 posted...

Harris: Here is my plan for the economy.
Voters: That's too confusing.
Trump: I have a concept of a plan
Voters: Sounds good

How do you share your ideas with the public when this is what happens?

It's about having a clear, strong ideology. People don't listen or remember outside of viral clips, so candidates are dumbed down to mascots (or brand). What was Harris' brand? Harris said many great things about what she was going to do with housing and tax credits, but it wasn't something that was "sloganized" and broadcasted everywhere.

What I was trying to get at is that they were focused too much on what was "popular" instead of guiding us towards a clear path forward. Where was Medicare For All? We needed like 2-3 similar economics-focused slogans that signaled strong policy efforts. Instead, we got a solid list of policies that only critics / career professionals cared to scrutinize or even read. 3M new homes, price gouging, etc. However, since people thought Harris was "too liberal" by default, we were probably screwed anyways.

Edit: Another point with the video specifically, they're caring about what is "popular" while Republicans own all media and are just influencing people to what they want anyways.

It's about having a clear, strong ideology. People don't listen or remember outside of viral clips, so candidates are dumbed down to mascots (or brand). What was Harris' brand? Harris said many great things about what she was going to do with housing and tax credits, but it wasn't something that was "sloganized" and broadcasted everywhere

I mean at some point you just have to wonder if America as a whole is just to dumb for democracy to even function anymore...hard to think anything else with Trump able to win again and all.

• The most successful ads that Harris ran were ABOUT the economy. The first phase of her campaign pushed that narrative and it was working far better than the shift to defending institutions. The guy who helped to publish the polling data said that what he believed happened was that the Dems shifted focus because what Trump (and the Republicans) are doing is horrendous. However, those horrendous things are not what the majority of voters wanted to hear about. They wanted to hear about the price of eggs, not about defending Democracy.
• Data seems to suggest that a LOT of people wanted "an angry moderate" which is not really being served right now. Almost like they wanted an angry Dem to come out and acknowledge things suck, they fucked up some things, they were pissed off about it too, and here is how it's gonna be different. (AOC could actually really fit into this mold IMO). Failing that, a lot of voters went with Trump to justify their whole "I'm pissed off and things are wrong, don't tell me otherwise" mentality.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/4d8c15ab.jpg

• Most voters felt that Kamala was too liberal compared to Trump being too conservative. 27% said Kamala was close to their views, while 33% said Trump was close to their views. This would suggest overall that voters felt Trump more closely aligned with their own views than Kamala Harris did.

Most voters felt that Kamala was too liberal compared to Trump being too conservative. 27% said Kamala was close to their views, while 33% said Trump was close to their views. This would suggest overall that voters felt Trump more closely aligned with their own views than Kamala Harris did.

The fact that after trying to win over Republicans so much and they still thought she was to liberal does make it seem that they thought she was to liberal just for being a Black woman...damn it.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/23a9cf43.jpg

• The info here are some statements made to Trump supporters from people polling to find how they can broach Trump's policies and use of power to see if there are ways to take down his favorability. As you can see, even with the worst of his policies and pointing out very plainly why it is a bad thing, 2.5% said that would make them reconsider Trump support. Now in some ways that is at least something to work towards, but it is showing just how much of a mountain it is to get Trump supporters to even consider NOT supporting him right now.
• There is a division in the Democratic party based on all the data they have. Many do not want to "chase" Trump on every single thing because the data shows that clearly MOST voters don't care about a vast majority of them. More or less the "highly educated, highly political" group that cares about those things are already largely voting Dem. So chasing Trump's every single issue doesn't really get to the thing that will get them elected... talking about the economy.
• Elon Musk is a general weakness. From the above polling it suggests that Trump supporters are more likely to flip because of Elon Musk stuff than from him MAKING MEDICATIONS FOR SENIOR CITIZENS COST MORE. It is a weakness for the Dems to exploit.
• Trump is losing approval pretty quickly.

Thanks for the in-depth breakdown, Jeff!

BlueKat posted...

Thanks for the in-depth breakdown, Jeff!

You are welcome!

Jeff_AKA_Snoopy posted...

* Data seems to suggest that a LOT of people wanted "an angry moderate" which is not really being served right now. Almost like they wanted an angry Dem to come out and acknowledge things suck, they fucked up some things, they were pissed off about it too, and here is how it's gonna be different. (AOC could actually really fit into this mold IMO). Failing that, a lot of voters went with Trump to justify their whole "I'm pissed off and things are wrong, don't tell me otherwise" mentality.

It was actually a point a streamer made, that a lot of people voted for AOC and Trump at the same ticket.

There's even a Wikipedia mention of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/be3915b6.png

In general, it feels like I said before. People didn't like Trump, they just hate the current DNC. I unironically believe that AOC might be the best bet for DNC but I don't know if they will deride her like they did with Bernie.

but I don't know if they will deride her like they did with Bernie

They already did when they picked that old guy with cancer over hear to appease the rich.

Because Republicans have umpteen many think tanks and PACs, all of southern talk radio, the most overrated news station in the history of mankind, Sinclair Broadcasting, and take the side of Christianity which comes baked in with Magical Thinking and sometimes the belief of infallibility.

Not to mention the Russian Troll farm disinformation campaigns in every aspect of social media.

012yArthur0 posted...

It was actually a point a streamer made, that a lot of people voted for AOC and Trump at the same ticket.

There's even a Wikipedia mention of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/be3915b6.png

In general, it feels like I said before. People didn't like Trump, they just hate the current DNC. I unironically believe that AOC might be the best bet for DNC but I don't know if they will deride her like they did with Bernie.

This part is the most critical of all of it. You can only win voters by appealing to them, even if it means being stupid to appeal to stupid.

Yeah, that's the same reason why authenticity is becoming an even bigger thing. People are wanting someone who codes as authentic, even if they're a shitty person.

I always find it absolutely adorable when someone on a forum posts a 10+ minute (or, in this case, >1 hour) Youtube video with zero context and thinks that anyone will actually watch it.

In general, y'all should listen to the Ezra Klein podcast though.

darkknight109 posted...

I always find it absolutely adorable when someone on a forum posts a 10+ minute (or, in this case, >1 hour) Youtube video with zero context and thinks that anyone will actually watch it.

TC's a MAGA troll who pretty much only posts "Democrats are bad" articles and videos.

Which is a shift from when he'd just post stuff like "I woke up feeling great about our president, Donald J. Trump, today!" atleast

Yeah, that's the same reason why authenticity is becoming an even bigger thing. People are wanting someone who codes as authentic, even if they're a s***ty person.

But Trump is the biggest liar in the damn planet....

Fear and hate+ tik tok luring zoomers to conservative influencers. You can't argue with people who don't care about facts or logic.

Necronmon posted...

But Trump is the biggest liar in the damn planet....

They don't care.

Necronmon posted...

But Trump is the biggest liar in the damn planet....

It's irrelevant. The average unengaged voter isn't tuning into every soundbite and every fact check. Dems and most mainstream outlets just gloss over Trump's lies. Instead people just see him talk in a way antithetical to "Politican Speech" and say that he'll make shit cheaper. Whether you like it or not that'll always be perceived as more "authentic" and "going against the man" than democrats coming off as stuffy corporatists

Necronmon posted...

But Trump is the biggest liar in the damn planet....

Trump is authentically a bigoted piece of shit, and has lots of fun being that way.

The first part appeals to his base, and it looks like the second part appeals to the morons in the middle.

IceCreamOnStero posted...

It's irrelevant. The average unengaged voter isn't tuning into every soundbite and every fact check. Dems and most mainstream outlets just gloss over Trump's lies. Instead people just see him talk in a way antithetical to "Politican Speech" and say that he'll make shit cheaper. Whether you like it or not that'll always be perceived as more "authentic" and "going against the man" than democrats coming off as stuffy corporatists

Yes, the mainstream media has significant responsibility for this disaster.