Laughable to think this election made a statement about sports of all things. There's a ton of articles by now seeking out Biden -> Trump voters, specifically asking them why they voted Republican, and it's simply inflation, inflation, housing prices, rent, insurance, the disruption of the past four years, feeling like things were better…
Laughable to think this election made a statement about sports of all things. There's a ton of articles by now seeking out Biden -> Trump voters, specifically asking them why they voted Republican, and it's simply inflation, inflation, housing prices, rent, insurance, the disruption of the past four years, feeling like things were better under Trump, that he said a lot of crazy things but didn't actually do them, things actually felt just fine under Trump and then went crazy under Biden, Trump's going to end inflation but keep job growth and income gains, etc., etc. But sure, let's pile on to trans people and blame them for all this. Great stuff, this is the recriminations and scapegoating I can always look forward to after we lose an election.
Yup! And people are more obvious than they think about trying to pass their grievances off as "Democrats need to do this to win elections". If you're favorably collecting all the soundbites from Dem congressmen who are taking shots at trans people - I get you, I see what you're doing. May it age as poorly as what a bunch of conservative Dems did after 2004.
The problem is there's never any ground for reasonable debate. I would bet dollars to donuts that a majority of Democrats aren't supportive of letting biological men compete in women's sports, but trying to just open up a respectful discussion on that is immediately shutdown as "attacking the trans community" . .sorry your median voter sees this dynamic and doesn't like it. It also opens the door for more regressive, reactionary positions and policies to gain more support.
Both things can be true. 1) We need a reasonable answer on women's sports that respects Trans women's right to participate in society without unfair advantage 2) it's likely at the bottom of issues the vast majority of people care about.
It is at the bottom of issues of concern but vibes are important. If people only voted on the issues, the GOP wouldn’t win very much. The whole thing is a popularity contest first and foremost, period.
Anecdotal: Sunday, while having winter tires mounted on our car, I spoke to the two people in the waiting room about the election. A middle-aged woman was so alarmed that she was seriously investigating moving abroad. An elderly man said he, unenthused by either candidate, held his nose and voted for Trump. His reason? That Trump had promised to "stop the wars".
I'm not gonna wade into the trans issue in terms of a policy/civil rights debate, but I suspect you're wrong about it not swinging votes. Dave Chappelle's highly successful anti-trans stand-up shtick doesn't exist in a bubble insulated from electoral salience. It wouldn't be the first time that being at the tip of the spear on culture war issues cracked up the Democrats' coalition.
At the very least, the Democrats need to acknowledge they're on the wrong side of public opinion on this and update their messaging. They were winning the argument in the Roy Cooper era but once Republicans figured out a way to make it about children, they've been on offense and made considerable inroads. Pretending that they haven't and hoping people will be naturally co-opted by the gravity of civil rights acceptance might work, but it's risky.
The more serious reckoning needs to happen with illegal immigration and I won't pull punches on this. If the Democrats had to have their asses handed to them two weeks ago, I was hoping it would be unambiguously because of their unacceptable stewardship of immigration policy. The verdict wasn't definitive and Dems are interpreting it as giving them permission to stay the course on an asylum platform that is unequivocally batshit insane.
And honestly, that includes the reform plan pitched this spring which still allowed for 5,000 people PER DAY to manipulate the asylum process and cut in front of millions of people trying to immigrate legally. If anything, Democrats were lucky Trump sabotaged that bill because allowing 5,000 new asylum manipulators per day would not have stanched the deluge of crossings. The borders would be just as clogged now as they were a year ago and the issue would have been more front and center during the general election with people still as angry about the border in November as they were in February. The executive order Biden passed in lieu of the border reform bill did a lot more to cool down this issue than the reform bill would have.
Herein lies the risk for Democrats in the months to come. Trump will be carrying out deportations and, at least until there's tangible economic pain felt by consumers, these deportations will be broadly popular. If the Democrats choose to spend an inordinate amount of time in the next year outraged about sending illegal immigrants back home, they will have once again misread popular opinion badly and position themselves for another disappointing cycle.
Pretending that the Trump surge was entirely about inflation does nobody on our side any favors. It's not as if the demographics that surged to Trump this year did so out of this blue. 2024 wasn't 2016. The trend lines have been in motion for a few cycles now. We have a much bigger problem with American voters than the price of eggs being too high.
What's your idea of an "inordinate amount of time"?
The whole problem with this issue is that it ignores what caused the increase in the first place. Which was the economic disruption caused by NAFTA and similar agreements. You can either work to improve conditions in central America or you can start shooting people at the border. Because you're not going to stop people from coming otherwise. BTW, what happened to the Wall?
An early concession should be made that a limited number of deportations is good public policy and a good deterrent to illegal border crossings or asylum manipulation....as well as a good deterrent to employers exploiting an undocumented workforce. Obama oversaw more than his share of deportations and it certainly had more of a deterrent effect than anything Biden did for the first three and a half years of his Presidency. It's bonkers to say we're gonna deport millions of people at a cost of $88 billion per year as Trump is saying, but I would strongly advise Democrats against losing their minds at the onset of deportations.
There will undoubtedly be examples of overreach where they will be well served to sound off as needed, but if ever there's a scenario where it's wise to choose your battles, screaming bloody murder about deporting illegal immigrants as a matter of principle is one of them.
Republicans have always made it about children. It wasn't just marriage in the Bush years, they went after adoption by same-sex couples. Books in school libraries. Republicans have argued LGBT people are a threat to children for decades. The idea that we were doing okay on defusing these attacks in the 2010's but are failing now is driven more by the unique electoral results of the year than any truth of the matter. Again, we beat plenty of Republicans fixated on this stuff in 2022, not by making concessions or punching left, but because we had a better electorate in many states, and were in a position to turn the focus to topics where we were more broadly popular. I will insist there is nothing we need to do, any more than after 2004. Attitudes will change with time and the aging of the younger generations into the electorate.
As for the border, I don't have any great arguments. I do agree it motivates a lot of people (this also has been true for decades). To an extent we're at the mercy of international trends (like Venezuela's collapse and hemorrhage of their population). I hope these trends reverse, but I fear it's only going to get worse over time. I think it's going to go worse for Trump than you predict. It also doesn't matter what Democrats say, Republicans are in the drivers' seat and will be judged.
Laughable to think this election made a statement about sports of all things. There's a ton of articles by now seeking out Biden -> Trump voters, specifically asking them why they voted Republican, and it's simply inflation, inflation, housing prices, rent, insurance, the disruption of the past four years, feeling like things were better under Trump, that he said a lot of crazy things but didn't actually do them, things actually felt just fine under Trump and then went crazy under Biden, Trump's going to end inflation but keep job growth and income gains, etc., etc. But sure, let's pile on to trans people and blame them for all this. Great stuff, this is the recriminations and scapegoating I can always look forward to after we lose an election.
This is Christmas time for dems with grievances
Yup! And people are more obvious than they think about trying to pass their grievances off as "Democrats need to do this to win elections". If you're favorably collecting all the soundbites from Dem congressmen who are taking shots at trans people - I get you, I see what you're doing. May it age as poorly as what a bunch of conservative Dems did after 2004.
The problem is there's never any ground for reasonable debate. I would bet dollars to donuts that a majority of Democrats aren't supportive of letting biological men compete in women's sports, but trying to just open up a respectful discussion on that is immediately shutdown as "attacking the trans community" . .sorry your median voter sees this dynamic and doesn't like it. It also opens the door for more regressive, reactionary positions and policies to gain more support.
Both things can be true. 1) We need a reasonable answer on women's sports that respects Trans women's right to participate in society without unfair advantage 2) it's likely at the bottom of issues the vast majority of people care about.
It is at the bottom of issues of concern but vibes are important. If people only voted on the issues, the GOP wouldn’t win very much. The whole thing is a popularity contest first and foremost, period.
Anecdotal: Sunday, while having winter tires mounted on our car, I spoke to the two people in the waiting room about the election. A middle-aged woman was so alarmed that she was seriously investigating moving abroad. An elderly man said he, unenthused by either candidate, held his nose and voted for Trump. His reason? That Trump had promised to "stop the wars".
I'm not gonna wade into the trans issue in terms of a policy/civil rights debate, but I suspect you're wrong about it not swinging votes. Dave Chappelle's highly successful anti-trans stand-up shtick doesn't exist in a bubble insulated from electoral salience. It wouldn't be the first time that being at the tip of the spear on culture war issues cracked up the Democrats' coalition.
At the very least, the Democrats need to acknowledge they're on the wrong side of public opinion on this and update their messaging. They were winning the argument in the Roy Cooper era but once Republicans figured out a way to make it about children, they've been on offense and made considerable inroads. Pretending that they haven't and hoping people will be naturally co-opted by the gravity of civil rights acceptance might work, but it's risky.
The more serious reckoning needs to happen with illegal immigration and I won't pull punches on this. If the Democrats had to have their asses handed to them two weeks ago, I was hoping it would be unambiguously because of their unacceptable stewardship of immigration policy. The verdict wasn't definitive and Dems are interpreting it as giving them permission to stay the course on an asylum platform that is unequivocally batshit insane.
And honestly, that includes the reform plan pitched this spring which still allowed for 5,000 people PER DAY to manipulate the asylum process and cut in front of millions of people trying to immigrate legally. If anything, Democrats were lucky Trump sabotaged that bill because allowing 5,000 new asylum manipulators per day would not have stanched the deluge of crossings. The borders would be just as clogged now as they were a year ago and the issue would have been more front and center during the general election with people still as angry about the border in November as they were in February. The executive order Biden passed in lieu of the border reform bill did a lot more to cool down this issue than the reform bill would have.
Herein lies the risk for Democrats in the months to come. Trump will be carrying out deportations and, at least until there's tangible economic pain felt by consumers, these deportations will be broadly popular. If the Democrats choose to spend an inordinate amount of time in the next year outraged about sending illegal immigrants back home, they will have once again misread popular opinion badly and position themselves for another disappointing cycle.
Pretending that the Trump surge was entirely about inflation does nobody on our side any favors. It's not as if the demographics that surged to Trump this year did so out of this blue. 2024 wasn't 2016. The trend lines have been in motion for a few cycles now. We have a much bigger problem with American voters than the price of eggs being too high.
What's your idea of an "inordinate amount of time"?
The whole problem with this issue is that it ignores what caused the increase in the first place. Which was the economic disruption caused by NAFTA and similar agreements. You can either work to improve conditions in central America or you can start shooting people at the border. Because you're not going to stop people from coming otherwise. BTW, what happened to the Wall?
An early concession should be made that a limited number of deportations is good public policy and a good deterrent to illegal border crossings or asylum manipulation....as well as a good deterrent to employers exploiting an undocumented workforce. Obama oversaw more than his share of deportations and it certainly had more of a deterrent effect than anything Biden did for the first three and a half years of his Presidency. It's bonkers to say we're gonna deport millions of people at a cost of $88 billion per year as Trump is saying, but I would strongly advise Democrats against losing their minds at the onset of deportations.
There will undoubtedly be examples of overreach where they will be well served to sound off as needed, but if ever there's a scenario where it's wise to choose your battles, screaming bloody murder about deporting illegal immigrants as a matter of principle is one of them.
Republicans have always made it about children. It wasn't just marriage in the Bush years, they went after adoption by same-sex couples. Books in school libraries. Republicans have argued LGBT people are a threat to children for decades. The idea that we were doing okay on defusing these attacks in the 2010's but are failing now is driven more by the unique electoral results of the year than any truth of the matter. Again, we beat plenty of Republicans fixated on this stuff in 2022, not by making concessions or punching left, but because we had a better electorate in many states, and were in a position to turn the focus to topics where we were more broadly popular. I will insist there is nothing we need to do, any more than after 2004. Attitudes will change with time and the aging of the younger generations into the electorate.
As for the border, I don't have any great arguments. I do agree it motivates a lot of people (this also has been true for decades). To an extent we're at the mercy of international trends (like Venezuela's collapse and hemorrhage of their population). I hope these trends reverse, but I fear it's only going to get worse over time. I think it's going to go worse for Trump than you predict. It also doesn't matter what Democrats say, Republicans are in the drivers' seat and will be judged.
When it comes to Venezuela, the U.S. is not at the mercy of events.