Are the Democrats out of touch with the average American?

[Grizzly Bear]

What Democrats are out of touch with is the messaging about these policies, not substance.

If this isn't an ironic post I think you've been played and bought into propaganda here. The idea of using pre-trial detention to fight crime, especially non-violent misdemeanor crime does more damage than good as freely putting accused criminals in jail for significant time makes all the conditions that breed crime worse. The NY laws were even when "liberalized" were more draconian than those of that bastion of liberalism, West Virginia. NYC policies were bonkers before that.

It takes a while for some of the benefits of this sort of thing to manifest, and it is too easy for those opposed to emphasize low probability dramatically severe bad outcomes to sway public opinion. People awaiting trial will here or there reoffend. That's the cost of not locking everyone up. The benefits of not disrupting families economic and social lives, enriching the bail bond industry at the expense of poor people, etc. based on accusations aren't as immediately concrete.

We've developed a rather liberal culture of pre-trial release and restorative justice in my area. Our only city of any size has by far the lowest crime rate among what passes for the major cities here. We went from near the top in fatal drug overdoses to middle of the road while the lock em up counties that think jail is a good remedy for drug use stagnate.

Obviously there are chicken-egg issues with this sort of thing, but having been on the ground for decades some things start to seem obvious...

Reforming the prison system is fine; the problem is that certain programs and policies related to that effort contributed to exploitation. With California and New York both being the most publicized examples, dealing with either rampant organized retail theft, or cases of violent crime that has pushed a National Guard presence in NYC subways.

The issue boils down that you have people being encouraged to do repeat offences because they know that the consequences of doing so are minimal. And this is corroborated by a decade of policy. I don't necessarily blame the laws, but I do blame the state AG's, and their respective governors for showing a reluctance to enforce laws on the books, or to articulate the laws they view as well-intentioned, vs their real world consequences.

Crime spiked under Trump and was brought down to record lows under Biden.

Your claims are completely divorced from reality.

Your citation has a caveat, of course. Also hyper-simplifying this down to a Biden vs Trump metric is disingenuous considering most of the issues I brought up revolve around State level government policies. You'll need to give me a reason to respond to you going forward, because debating with you in good faith isn't worth my time if you're counter argument is always going to be an un-nuanced simplification.

 

[johnny karate]

Humm, well, I don't know what alternate reality you inhabit, but in the USA down here on Earth, turnout in the 2024 election was 63.9%, which was 6.2% higher than in the 2016 election (60.1%) and 9% higher than in the 2012 election (58.6%). 2024 turnout was also 3.8% higher than in 2008, when Obama won his historic victory (61.6%). I'm pretty sure you wouldn't use your juvenile argument in the case of Obama's wins in 2008 and 2012: You wouldn't say, "the overwhelming majority of eligible voters did not vote for Obama!"

For starters, you don't know how the people who didn't vote would have voted if they had voted. You don't know that. You just make a baseless assumption because you're troubled that Trump not only trounced Harris in the electoral college but won the popular vote by over 2 million votes. I remember back in 2000 when many Democrats were howling because Gore won the popular vote by 543,000 votes but lost the electoral college, and were arguing that therefore Bush was an "illegitimate" president. But, gee, when Trump wins the popular vote by over 2 million, oh, that's different!

None of this contradicts what I said. You keep asserting that Trump’s win is representative of what the majority of Americans want. The majority of Americans didn’t vote for him, so your assertion remains baseless.

 

[johnny karate]

Reforming the prison system is fine; the problem is that certain programs and policies related to that effort contributed to exploitation. With California and New York both being the most publicized examples, dealing with either rampant organized retail theft, or cases of violent crime that has pushed a National Guard presence in NYC subways.

The issue boils down that you have people being encouraged to do repeat offences because they know that the consequences of doing so are minimal. And this is corroborated by a decade of policy. I don't necessarily blame the laws, but I do blame the state AG's, and their respective governors for showing a reluctance to enforce laws on the books, or to articulate the laws they view as well-intentioned, vs their real world consequences.



Your citation has a caveat, of course. Also hyper-simplifying this down to a Biden vs Trump metric is disingenuous considering most of the issues I brought up revolve around State level government policies. You'll need to give me a reason to respond to you going forward, because debating with you in good faith isn't worth my time if you're counter argument is always going to be an un-nuanced simplification.

Your “caveat” is one former Trump administration official making unsupported claims. The article also confirms my claim: Crime spiked under Trump.

If you want to go state by state, you’re not going to fair much better in your attempt to claim that crime is exclusively a problem in blue states.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Looks like Dems were out of touch with anti-genocide Americans, who correctly identified Trump as the better hope for a ceasefire.

And of course his support for ethnically cleansing the Palestinians out of Gaza.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

One thing at a time

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Nope. Majority of votes, not voters. A very large proportion of voters sat this one out.
Discussion elsewhere.

Nope. Because that isn't happening. You really mean "that small group of like-minded Americans who have bought into this lie".

Wait... That's a Democrat initiative! What the hell is wrong with you! Gone all commie on us?!

Your "vast majority of Americans" elected a fascist clown who wants no truck with your soft, lefty thoughts on immigrants. They are all illegal until proven otherwise. And that's not gonna happen.

Less than one third?? Last November, sufficient Americans elected a government hell-bent on recreating Gilead in real life. That means no abortions, ever, for any reason, whatever the consequences.

It clears things up a bit, certainly.

Plus, we don't know what percentage of the votes cast in red or purple states were cast by voters. We can be certain that the results in blue states were fair, but the states that autocrats study for pointers on how to run sham elections are a different matter.

 

[Darat]

Indeed the result of the 2024 election could have been rigged like the 2020 elections.