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Top 5 Reasons the Democrats Lost the Election

Tax cuts mean nothing if they don't cut what is actually a waste, i.e. most defence spending, all oil and coal and farm subsidize, etc. etc.

"haircuts" are always stupid, as by definition they cut to much of what is good and not enough of what is bad: if you are for that, you are an idiot.

This is something that is obvious to anyone who thinks of a Business: you don't just cut spending as a principle, you cut out the dead wood, and pour more money into what gives you the best ROI. In that sense, putting a ton of money into the IRS would be a no brainer, since every dollar spend there is returned many times over, but that is exactly what Republicans want to cut, first and foremost, completely ignoring the most important rule of business: make it easy for others to give you money.
Taxes are not all the same: some are a complete waste or distort competition, but many are an INVESTMENT. And when you make an investment, the only question is whether it can pay for itself, not whether you have the cash for it, given that the State can always raise more money.
Education, Healthcare, Infrastructure, Transportation, food security, fully staffed Courts etc. etc. are all INVESTEMENTS, not just spendings: if you cut there now, you will have to pay way more later to make up for the shortfall.

But more basic: Government Debt is what you get if the Rich make too much of a stink when you try to make them pay their share. They might not be paying taxes, but they are handing over their money in the shape of a loan they know they will never actually see again.
This has always been the case since governments first raised money.
 
Given that transgender issues affect a small minority of the population, it's difficult to believe that large numbers of people based their voting decisions on them. Did they otherwise believe that there was little difference between the candidates? Or that Harris was superior on most issues but that this one issue over-rode that?
Given that Trump put the ad with Kamala talking about government funding for transgender surgery for prisoners and illegals in heavy rotation in the swing states in the last two weeks, it sure seems like Trump's advisors thought sufficient numbers of people based their voting decisions on them. In reality, though, it was more about putting Kamala in that "kooky liberal with crazy ideas" box.
 
Also the governement owes me about 40K per year as well as medical insurance, things I have already paid for.
Yeah, good luck on collecting those things if the government (or its foreign billionaire chum) decides it more efficient to not fulfill those particular "entitlements".
 
Given that Trump put the ad with Kamala talking about government funding for transgender surgery for prisoners and illegals in heavy rotation in the swing states in the last two weeks, it sure seems like Trump's advisors thought sufficient numbers of people based their voting decisions on them. In reality, though, it was more about putting Kamala in that "kooky liberal with crazy ideas" box.

And then these reasonable-minded voters who don’t want politicians with “kooky” or “crazy” ideas voted for the “They’re eating the pets” guy who ran on putting an anti-vaxxer in charge of public health. Yeah, that totally tracks. Razor-sharp analysis.
 
And then these reasonable-minded voters who don’t want politicians with “kooky” or “crazy” ideas voted for the “They’re eating the pets” guy who ran on putting an anti-vaxxer in charge of public health. Yeah, that totally tracks. Razor-sharp analysis.
No they didn't. They voted against communism socialism, which we all know caused the inflation that is making us go hungry. The middle classes are now literally starving because they don't have enough money to buy eggs! In October inflation was a massive 2.6%, 0.1% higher than under Trump in October 2018. Which is why we voted for him. That 0.1% is going to make all the difference!
 
Fun fact: Reagan won a landslide re-election in 1984 with an inflation rate almost double what it is now. Somehow, the electorate 40 years ago was able to take a rational look had how things had improved from four years previous, and even though they weren’t perfect, didn’t punish the incumbent for it.
It's probably worth looking at Reagan's approval ratings during that time. At the start of 1983 it was almost as low as Carter's was at the end of his term, and he was being talked about as a failed president. The shock of high inflation could also be more plausibly (to the public, anyway) pinned on Carter--Trump largely escaped the perception that he was responsible for high inflation. The Fed also didn't have clear targets in mind during the 80s. We're accustomed to 2-3% these days, but 3.8% wasn't considered a high rate then, and certainly not high relative to 14.6%.

Probably the biggest change between now and then is a media landscape dominated by right wing propaganda and a general desire for generating clickbait vs reporting the facts.
I'm sure that matters, too.
 
I think people also have some psychological expectations about what the remedies ought to look like here. Lots of peoples are thinking "When are prices going to come back down?!" and the distant technocrat says "Never, that's not how this works."

I mean, I still feel like the bill is too high when I go grocery shopping, and I will probably still think so even if/when my real wages catch up to inflation. That will only change after I become accustomed to paying more, which is probably just down to repeated exposure. Or maybe my brain is too old and that will never change. Every time I saw my step-mother's mother, she'd ask me "Do you know how much a subway ride cost when I was young? A NICKEL," and then kind of shake her head in a way that suggested that she thought the whole world had gone crazy. Number too big.
What Republican voters want is a DeLorean and a 1731896525622.png.
 
Given that Trump put the ad with Kamala talking about government funding for transgender surgery for prisoners and illegals in heavy rotation in the swing states in the last two weeks, it sure seems like Trump's advisors thought sufficient numbers of people based their voting decisions on them. In reality, though, it was more about putting Kamala in that "kooky liberal with crazy ideas" box.

What happened to "it's the economy, stupid"?
 
Didn't they just forget to steal the election this time?

I mean last time they rigged all those voting machines and recruited millions of illegal aliens and did all those other nebulous but definitely nefarious things to cheat and steal Trump's victory and it worked a charm, but somehow this time they just forgot to do all that or something and there were no voting irregularities worth mentioning.

A basic mistake, surely.
 
The loss of female safe spaces would affect 50% of the population. You may not believe that would be the inevitable result of self ID, but for those that do it is a significant issue.
How does this fit with the majority of women voting for Harris?
 
Many women voted a split ticket. They voted to protect abortion rights where it was on the ballot, but also for Trump on those same ballots. It's like voting for a law to keep the leapards from eating faces, while voting in the chief face eater to oversee that law.
 
Many women voted a split ticket. They voted to protect abortion rights where it was on the ballot, but also for Trump on those same ballots. It's like voting for a law to keep the leapards from eating faces, while voting in the chief face eater to oversee that law.
According to your theory, four years of Biden-Harris somehow made American women stupider.
 
a lower percentage voted for her than voted for Biden, as I recall.
A slightly smaller percentage. But there was only a percent difference in Harris' share of women's votes and Hillary's share of women's votes (Biden actually received a slightly larger share of women's votes than Hillary did). Given that there were larger shifts in other demographic groups, I don't see the slight drop in Harris' votes from women as proving that women were fearful for their safety because of Democratic support for transgender rights.
 
A slightly smaller percentage. But there was only a percent difference in Harris' share of women's votes and Hillary's share of women's votes (Biden actually received a slightly larger share of women's votes than Hillary did). Given that there were larger shifts in other demographic groups, I don't see the slight drop in Harris' votes from women as proving that women were fearful for their safety because of Democratic support for transgender rights.
I'm not sure we can know. Complicating factors - some folks don't realize that transwoman = male, and/or that many TW retain testicles and penis. Two clear points - 1) the proposed trans rights eliminates female only activities and spaces; 2) Allowing males into female sports is not popular . Questions like this may be highly dependent on how they're phrased, of course. Long term, I have no doubt this is not a winning issue for Dems (at least the way it's been phrased to date - where treating TW any differently from females is considered bigoted/discriminatory).
 
Excuse me if I find this soul searching the other side demands of us to be a bit shallow considering the lack of any such thing from them after the madness Trump put us through after 2020. They simply ramped up the propaganda to minimize every little bad thing they've engaged in since.

I'm not suggesting Dem-aligned people do the same thing. I'm not suggesting we shouldn't try to fix our public stances. But I emphasize the role of the media because rightwing media narratives are so dominant. My impression is that they're very strong among regular folks disproportionate to how those issues actually affect them. Nowhere I've been, whether work, at sports games, cookouts, church, etc are the loudest people in the room liberals. It's always some guy repeated what he heard on Fox News or Daily Wire. If there are liberals among us they're rarely as combative and in-your-face about it. I've had several friends flip from Democrat or undecided to full Trump-to-the-death within the past few years. The people who flip the other way are usually nowhere near as committed to the Democrats.
 
I'm not sure we can know. Complicating factors - some folks don't realize that transwoman = male, and/or that many TW retain testicles and penis. Two clear points - 1) the proposed trans rights eliminates female only activities and spaces; 2) Allowing males into female sports is not popular . Questions like this may be highly dependent on how they're phrased, of course. Long term, I have no doubt this is not a winning issue for Dems (at least the way it's been phrased to date - where treating TW any differently from females is considered bigoted/discriminatory).

Yes, you’ve nailed it. The people who voted to open the door on unleashing numerous lethal infectious diseases on all of us clearly have real world concerns about safety. Airtight logic.
 
Excuse me if I find this soul searching the other side demands of us to be a bit shallow considering the lack of any such thing from them after the madness Trump put us through after 2020. They simply ramped up the propaganda to minimize every little bad thing they've engaged in since.

The "other side" isn't demanding that the Dems search their souls. The "other side" would love for the Dems to just stay the course and continue their march to total irrelevance.
 
The "other side" isn't demanding that the Dems search their souls. The "other side" would love for the Dems to just stay the course and continue their march to total irrelevance.

Exactly. The grown ups are back in charge and here to take care of the important business of denying a century’s worth of medical science and getting to the bottom of who’s been eating all the pets. Republicans are very serious people.
 
The "other side" isn't demanding that the Dems search their souls. The "other side" would love for the Dems to just stay the course and continue their march to total irrelevance.
You must not be paying attention, not that I expected much.
 
Harris is not far left. Life would have continued as under Biden. Maybe the eggs and gas would be affordable. As wages adjust to inflation.
 
Harris is not far left. Life would have continued as under Biden. Maybe the eggs and gas would be affordable. As wages adjust to inflation.
They already are for most people. Wages have caught up with inflation for most people. IMO the issue is expectation. People expect gas to be, say, two dollars a gallon. It doesn't matter that their salary is much higher than it was when gas was routinely two dollars a gallon - anything higher is deemed unaffordable.

In the UK petrol currently sells for £1.30-£1.40 a litre. This is "too expensive". Petrol exceeded £1.00 a litre back in 2000. Petrol is 30-40 more expensive than it was nearly 25 years ago, that's about 1% inflation rate over that period. The average salary on the other hand has increased 130%. Petrol prices have almost halved in real terms but it's still "too expensive" because people feel it should be around £1.00 a litre.

OTOH people are perfectly happy to spend £1000 on a mobile phone - go figure.
 
They already are for most people. Wages have caught up with inflation for most people. IMO the issue is expectation. People expect gas to be, say, two dollars a gallon. It doesn't matter that their salary is much higher than it was when gas was routinely two dollars a gallon - anything higher is deemed unaffordable.

In the UK petrol currently sells for £1.30-£1.40 a litre. This is "too expensive". Petrol exceeded £1.00 a litre back in 2000. Petrol is 30-40 more expensive than it was nearly 25 years ago, that's about 1% inflation rate over that period. The average salary on the other hand has increased 130%. Petrol prices have almost halved in real terms but it's still "too expensive" because people feel it should be around £1.00 a litre.

OTOH people are perfectly happy to spend £1000 on a mobile phone - go figure.
Even stranger is that in the States, people joyfully spend more for bottled water in a throwaway container than they do for the same amount of gasoline.

What gets me about gas though is the markup. Venesuala pays an order of magnitude less than you pay a litre...but for a gallon. While a lot of Europe can't really pump its own oil, the US can and does.
 
People here are playing right into Trump's hand with this whole "It is hopeless there is nothng we can do" attitude.
I was hoping that lot of thiis was just ventingbut I now afraid people really are just giving up. Trump and MAGA just loves htat.
 
The "other side" isn't demanding that the Dems search their souls. The "other side" would love for the Dems to just stay the course and continue their march to total irrelevance.
Which means the end of Democracy in the US given it is clear Trump is out to destroy it.
 
The "other side" isn't demanding that the Dems search their souls. The "other side" would love for the Dems to just stay the course and continue their march to total irrelevance.

Which means the end of Democracy in the US given it is clear Trump is out to destroy it.

If so, then too bad the Dems are blaming their loss on the voters rather than on themselves, dooming themselves to making the same mistakes four years from now.
 
1.) Wasn't enough time to have a real primary, at least not one that would not have left the winner bruised and battered going into the general.

2.) Harris was never a "Border Czar". Please stop watching Fox News.

3.) The "transgender agenda" was mostly pushed by Republicans as a bigoted attack on a very small segment of society. If Harris had thrown them under the bus, the left-wing would have been pissed off, and Republicans would have just chosen another culture war target.

4.) Walz was a good, solid choice. No appreciable negatives, charming and likeable. Shapiro was way too pro-Isreal for the left. Given how many left-wingers did not vote Harris due to the ongoing war in Gaza, it's hard to see this as a mistake.

5.) A majority of Americans are not worse off today than four years ago (smack in the middle of the COVID downturn). They just think they are because Fox News tells them they are. A much different problem.
Wow! Okay. I seriously wonder what planet you live on to claim that the transgender agenda was "mostly pushed by Republicans as a bigoted attack." I guess you've heard nothing about all the states where the transgender lobby has tried to make it legal for teachers and counselors to encourage and facilitate transition for minors without their parents' knowledge. I guess you missed the news about the Biden administration's effort to overturn/block state laws that prohibit minors from getting irreversible transgender surgery. I guess you missed all the far left protests calling such laws "bigoted" and "discriminatory," claiming that such laws deny "gender affirming care" (when it is actually gender-denying care). I guessed you missed the news about far left's efforts to get teachers and officials fired for daring to state the scientific fact that there are only two genders. I guess you missed the news about the far left's efforts to force localities and states to allow biological males to compete against females. Any of this ringing a bell? Well, down here on Earth it's common knowledge to anyone who follows current events.

I suppose next you're gonna tell me that the prices of groceries and gas and so many other things have not really gone up very much but that this is just another illusion created by Fox News propaganda.

"Walz was a good, solid choice"?! He let BLM rioters burn and loot his state for several days because he refused to call out the National Guard to stop the rioting. By the time he finally did so, most of the damage had been done.

But, hey, keep telling yourself your fantasies.
 
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People here are playing right into Trump's hand with this whole "It is hopeless there is nothng we can do" attitude.
I was hoping that lot of thiis was just ventingbut I now afraid people really are just giving up. Trump and MAGA just loves htat.
1) It's been two weeks
2) People rushing to arm themselves so you can finally have your war is a you fantasy

Get over yourself
 
Many women voted a split ticket. They voted to protect abortion rights where it was on the ballot, but also for Trump on those same ballots. It's like voting for a law to keep the leapards from eating faces, while voting in the chief face eater to oversee that law.
And apparently a notable number of voters cast their votes for Donald Trump and.... AOC. Sufficient for her to actually reach out to them and ask for them to engage so she could understand their reasoning.
 
Wow! Okay. I seriously wonder what planet you live on to claim that the transgender agenda was "mostly pushed by Republicans as a bigoted attack." I guess you've heard nothing about all the states where the transgender lobby has tried to make it legal for teachers and counselors to encourage and facilitate transition for minors without their parents' knowledge. I guess you missed the news about the Biden administration's effort to overturn/block state laws that prohibit minors from getting irreversible transgender surgery. I guess you missed all the far left protests calling such laws "bigoted" and "discriminatory," claiming that such laws deny "gender affirming care" (when it is actually gender-denying care). I guessed you missed the news about far left's efforts to get teachers and officials fired for daring to state the scientific fact that there are only two genders. I guess you missed the news about the far left's efforts to force localities and states to allow biological males to compete against females. Any of this ringing a bell? Well, down here on Earth it's common knowledge to anyone who follows current events.

I suppose next you're gonna tell me that the prices of groceries and gas and so many other things have not really gone up very much but that this is just another illusion created by Fox News propaganda.

"Walz was a good, solid choice"?! He let BLM rioters burn and loot his state for several days because he refused to call out the National Guard to stop the rioting. By the time he finally did so, most of the damage had been done.

But, hey, keep telling yourself your fantasies.

Team Anti-Vax has thoughts about other people living in a fantasy world.
 
Wow! Okay. I seriously wonder what planet you live on to claim that the transgender agenda was "mostly pushed by Republicans as a bigoted attack." I guess you've heard nothing about all the states where the transgender lobby has tried to make it legal for teachers and counselors to encourage and facilitate transition for minors without their parents' knowledge.
I guess I have heard nothing of it. Please provide examples.

I guess you missed the news about the Biden administration's effort to overturn/block state laws that prohibit minors from getting irreversible transgender surgery.
I guess I have heard nothing of it. Please provide examples.

I guess you missed all the far left protests calling such laws "bigoted" and "discriminatory," claiming that such laws deny "gender affirming care" (when it is actually gender-denying care).
I guess I have heard nothing of it. Please provide examples.

I guessed you missed the news about far left's efforts to get teachers and officials fired for daring to state the scientific fact that there are only two genders.
I guess I have heard nothing of it. Please provide examples.

I guess you missed the news about the far left's efforts to force localities and states to allow biological males to compete against females. Any of this ringing a bell? Well, down here on Earth it's common knowledge to anyone who follows current events.
I guess I have heard nothing of it. Please provide examples.
 
The amount and severity of denial by the woke left here is something to see. Maybe you folks will listen to fellow liberal Bill Maher when he talks about some of the reasons Harris and the Dems lost the election:

 
He's not bad sometimes, though. That was a good bit posted up there. He can pull off that Everyman thing pretty well when he feels like it.
 
Nothing says "everyman" like coked out Hollywood millionaire who gets chauffered around.
 
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