President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

I for one appreciate your opinions (as well as a few others on here) to try and consider how and why Trump got more votes, and why they rejected Harris in favor of someone with truckloads of personal baggage, insults and threats.

As you said, if we don’t try to find out the Trump voters’ motivations, he, Vance and their fellow travelers will keep winning elections.

 

I've been thinking along the same lines as a lot of you. The last few days have been a punch in the gut and then some. Not ready to give up teh Twitterez yet, but plan to unfollow a lot of politically-oriented accounts. With holidays coming up. I need some peace. Others are more than welcome to fight that fight. Me? Social media, including this place, need to be fun again.

 

I for one am going to be a lot meaner to illegals, cheat on my wife, commit some felonies and sexual assaults, grab some pussy, salute nazis as some 'very fine people' and lie a fuckload more than I currently do. Then maybe I will be on my way to finding out Trump voters' motivations.

 

There’s something to what Bernie Sanders said about working people abandoning the Democratic Party.

Trump has exploited, ripped off and sabotaged working people his entire life. He wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire. So why do increasing numbers of workers — including a number of Blacks and Latinos — vote for him?

I genuinely don’t have an answer. But I refuse to believe that every single one of those voters is a racist, rapist, lying piece of shit like Trump is.

 

I'd love to see a venn diagram showing "people with empathy" and "Trump voters". I am willing to bet there is little to no overlap.

 

And dismissing such folks as "stupid," doesn't help. I'm as guilty as anyone on that front. You have to reach people, connect with them "where they live." I think too often Dem leaders just take for granted that people know Democrats "do the right thing" and work for working folks. Do these voters think Trump will do better for them this time around? I don't know. But they haven't seen the results in their everyday lives from the Dems. Heard interesting analysis on NPR from a Vox reporter - Vox has some of the best reporting and analysis I've read on this election. Two potential scenarios for Dems. 1) Trump IS a unicorn, no other Republican is able to replicate his appeal or get away with what he is able to get away with and his policies are a disaster. 2) A significant shift in working class voters of all ethnicities to the GOP that takes hold.

 

I can’t stress this enough. It is not my damn job to market the Democratic Party. And I grit my teeth and keep my head down concerning 99 percent of the stupid MAGA shit I hear, although that percentage may suffer in the new year.

I live in the Heart of Dixie, as the license plates proclaim per state law. This is my one main outlet to vent and bitch and not expect to get lynched for my trouble. Somebody else can have a turn making nice with President Baal’s followers. I have clocked out from my too-long shift.

 

T_B_F,

You know everyone here respects you. I doubt anyone is upset with or down on you. I'm certainly not. I think maybe some of us might've been surprised, is all, at your reaction to us. To what, after all, has only been two days of angst since what was, I think most would agree, a momentous event, especially for a bunch of former and current journalists here who would quite naturally be deeply interested in it. It also was a terrible outcome of an election we had allowed ourselves to hope would be a legitimate chance to end the past decade of Trump and finally be rid of him. But no, we only got four more years of him -- AND he will absolutely get away with everything he has said and done, and not only that, has been willingly given the biggest opportunity there is to encourage/not stop even more of it, and worse.

So this isn't just a reaction to an election. It's also, I think, perfectly valid righteous indignation, anger, sadness and yes, grief (and you should know the stages of grief; it takes some time). We're just doing what we always do, dealing with things as we're always wont to do: by posting on this board.

You, like all the rest of us, can do whatever you wish, as far as your response to the election. This is what I choose to do -- what I kind of need to do, because the three people in my family who live closest to me, and my best friend of more than 50 years? They're all Trumpers -- and discussing any of this with them -- whether just because I'm intensely interested, or because I want/need to vent, is not an option if there is to be peace in our homes. And that's all thanks to...oh, right, Trump.

So, just as you've told us not to judge you, you shouldn't judge us.

I appreciated your post explaining what you think are the roots of the election results. Really, I wanted to know, so thanks for sharing.

 

This is also why I, and a lot of other people, I'm sure, are struggling with all this. The angst is about so many things -- much of it not really explainable, unless people truly are that ignorant and that stupid. And I think we'd like to not think that.

It is scary to do so, and we're being made to do so.