2024 Elections Thread

[kaysixteen]

People like us know that Trump has had a cult of personality increasingly developing since '16, but, well:

1) In 2016, many if not most evangelicals voted for him because they hated Hillary, openly holding their noses to do so

2) By '20, this had changed, and most evangelicals were openly all-in on him.  And they ignored or denied the bad things he had laden his term with.

3) By '24, they had, well...

4) People like us continue to talk of the cult of personality, but this has largely not been talked about in mass-market broadcast or print sources after the election, at least none that I have heard or seen, methinks in order to avoid offending the cultists.

[ciao_yall]

I recall when Bush II was running against Kerry, the "Flip-Flopper"the argument was that even if you didn't always agree with Bush II, he was predictable. You knew what he was going to do.

That's something people like about Trump. He says/does what he wants, so he is perceived as a known quantity. You may not always agree with him, but he won't surprise you.

[ciao_yall]

Hard core party loyalists might well have voted for any GOP nominee this year, but Trump got many votes from non-Republicans, at least some of which had never voted for a GOP candidate before.  How many of these sorts of voters would have voted for DeSantis over Harris this year?  The level of cult of personality-driven voter support and loyalty Trump has is astounding-- even my own very Trump-friendly pastor felt the need, a month or so ago to decree in a sermon various comments he had been hearing from church folks, our church folks, which essentially atttributes a 'he can do no wrong, he is God's prophet'-style attitude towards Trump, and I have seen many a nigh-onto-cultic slogan flying from banners in yards of people who are, ahem, clearly not devout Christian fundamentalists of any stripe.  Really, Trump has done it, created this allure over himself in a way which literally no other president has ever done (though of course Washington could have but pointedly refused to do).

Trump also appealed to voters who wanted a strong man, an alpha male, etc.

He appealed to young men who didn't know what to do with themselves.

Finally, the whole Christian Bible-Banger shtick seems to scare religious voters into voting for him. Because they will go to Hell if the don't?

[Stockmann]

Disclaimer: Not American, nor living in the US. I have no problem discussing my own countries politics with foreigners, and have discussed it with Americans not living here. So given that and the obvious global impact, I'm posting on this thread.


In no particular order, my thoughts and impressions on the lessons for the Dems:

-It seems that it's not so much that Trump gained votes, as the Dems lost votes - Harris failed to gain much traction with various demographics compared to Biden, such as male Hispanics and young people.
-Only a very small minority has much enthusiasm for "first [ethnicity/race] [position]" or "first woman [ethnicity/race] [position]." Nobody votes for a minority candidate just for being a minority - in a very hypothetical Bernie Sanders vs. Condoleeza Rice, the SJWs would vote for the old white male, or stay home, so this includes the loudest identitarian politics voices.
-Like it or not, women candidates seem more likely to lose more votes due to gender than they are to gain them. I'm not seeing any evidence female voters are more likely to vote for female candidates.
-If voters (unhappy with high COL or for any other reason) want an anti-status quo/outsider/non-establishment/different candidate, then belonging to a minority on its own gives a candidate zero outsider cred.
-Economic issues are far more decisive for the Hispanic vote than race or immigration.
-Abortion and related rights aren't decisive for white women.
-Dems are failing to appeal to young men or to Hispanic men. I think there's far more to it than reluctance to vote for a woman among these groups, and it's not solely down to economic issues either - slogans like "believe women," etc are problematic if you're perceived as ignoring issues such as boys lagging behind in education or false accusations of SA.

A few days ago I was listening to an interview of a Swiss lawyer of Congolese family background and regarding racism she mentioned she preferred to work with right-wing people to left-wing people, not because the former were less racist but because they were less hypocritical about it, and also tended to be pragmatists which made them easier to deal with. Now, Switzerland is a different context, etc, but I wonder how much a similar dynamics might be at play with significant numbers of women, etc in the US that vote Republican.

[marshwiggle]

A few days ago I was listening to an interview of a Swiss lawyer of Congolese family background and regarding racism she mentioned she preferred to work with right-wing people to left-wing people, not because the former were less racist but because they were less hypocritical about it, and also tended to be pragmatists which made them easier to deal with. Now, Switzerland is a different context, etc, but I wonder how much a similar dynamics might be at play with significant numbers of women, etc in the US that vote Republican.

This fits with the research that showed liberals are more condescending to minorities than conservatives are.

If you're black, then it's not in your head. White people really are talking down to you. At least, the liberal ones are, according to a new study to be published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

As reported Friday by the Washington Post, the study looked at people from different ideological perspectives and their word choices when communicating with blacks and whites. When choosing words off a list, liberal participants selected ones "that would make them appear significantly less competent with a Black interaction partner than with a White one," the study said.

"White liberals may unwittingly draw on negative stereotypes, dumbing themselves down in a likely well-meaning, 'folksy,' but ultimately patronizing, attempt to connect with the outgroup," said the study, titled "Self-Presentation in Interracial Settings: The Competence Downshift by White Liberals."

[ciao_yall]

Trump also appealed to documented immigrants by making them want to separate themselves from those people. Or convincing Muslims that despite his Islamophobic rhetoric and bans, really, he would be on their side versus Israel.

Which makes me wonder...

How many Jews voted for Hitler because they were not like those Jews?

[spork]

Pankaj Mishra, Age of Anger: A History of the Present.

Unlike the other books I've listed, I would use this one only for a graduate course on authoritarian reversion/democratic erosion. It's not very long, but the writing is dense. It's also a literary/philosophical study rather than an empirically based work of social science. Despite this, I think Mishra's discussion of the popular appeal of Gabriele D'Annunzio's proto-fascism and the takeover of Fiume is relevant.

[Stockmann]

Trump also appealed to documented immigrants by making them want to separate themselves from those people. Or convincing Muslims that despite his Islamophobic rhetoric and bans, really, he would be on their side versus Israel.

Which makes me wonder...

How many Jews voted for Hitler because they were not like those Jews?

There existed an actual "Jews for Hitler" org. The leaders were among the first tp get rounded up for the concentration camps.

Many legal immigrants and native-born descendants of immigrants take a dim view of illegal immigrants and there is some logic to it (viewing them as cutting in line) - it's much uglier and callous that many just shrugged immigrant children being seized from their parents and put in cages.

A somewhat similar dynamics may be at play with Muslims - the ban wouldn't apply to citizens so voters aren't directly affected. As for the Palestinians,  I doubt they're truly very popular with Jordanians, Kuwaitis or the Lebanese, and generally it seems common in the Muslim world to use the Palestinian cause as a geopolitical pawn or as a fig leaf for antisemitism while in practice being indifferent to the plight of ordinary Palestinians - this is especially true of the Palestinian leadership.

[ciao_yall]

Trump also appealed to documented immigrants by making them want to separate themselves from those people. Or convincing Muslims that despite his Islamophobic rhetoric and bans, really, he would be on their side versus Israel.

Which makes me wonder...

How many Jews voted for Hitler because they were not like those Jews?

There existed an actual "Jews for Hitler" org. The leaders were among the first tp get rounded up for the concentration camps.

Many legal immigrants and native-born descendants of immigrants take a dim view of illegal immigrants and there is some logic to it (viewing them as cutting in line) - it's much uglier and callous that many just shrugged immigrant children being seized from their parents and put in cages.

A somewhat similar dynamics may be at play with Muslims - the ban wouldn't apply to citizens so voters aren't directly affected. As for the Palestinians,  I doubt they're truly very popular with Jordanians, Kuwaitis or the Lebanese, and generally it seems common in the Muslim world to use the Palestinian cause as a geopolitical pawn or as a fig leaf for antisemitism while in practice being indifferent to the plight of ordinary Palestinians - this is especially true of the Palestinian leadership.

Sadly, this. The Palestinians were caught in the middle of a bigger geopolitical drama and not cared about by anyone in that region.

[spork]

[...]

 As for the Palestinians,  I doubt they're truly very popular with Jordanians, Kuwaitis or the Lebanese, and generally it seems common in the Muslim world to use the Palestinian cause as a geopolitical pawn or as a fig leaf for antisemitism while in practice being indifferent to the plight of ordinary Palestinians - this is especially true of the Palestinian leadership.

100% correct. Khomeini promoted Palestinian "liberation" via the PLO in an effort to expand the influence of his new government in Iran. The Iranian government has since financed Hamas and Hezbollah for the same reason. The PLO in Lebanon was a major causal factor in that country's civil war, and the growth of Hezbollah has been similarly disastrous for that country. Hamas has contributed to the immiseration of ordinary Palestinians in Gaza. If the Egyptian government wanted to alleviate the suffering of Gazans, it could simply open the Rafah border crossing and allow entry into Egyptian territory, but no Egyptian president has ever agreed to this. Generally Middle Eastern leaders like to use the plight of the Palestinians as a way to distract citizens from their leaders' own abuses and incompetence.*

After the Hamas attack on October 7 of last year, a segment of the American left (e.g., college students) ignorantly latched onto the idea that identity politics in the USA mapped exactly onto the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Israel = white = bad, Palestinians = non-white = good). Democrats probably didn't garner votes when they tried not to alienate this part of their traditional coalition  instead of making clear pronouncements about terrorism and national security.

Jordan has to date walked a successful middle line. The monarchy made peace with Israel in the 1990s and cooperates extensively with Israeli intelligence. In general Jordanians prefer stability and peace to fighting a war on behalf of people in the West Bank and Gaza, even though over a third of Jordan's population identifies as Palestinian in origin.

[Ruralguy]

The situation is more complex than most people know or believe. For one, Israelis themselves have an array of thoughts on the future of the Palestinians, even after October 7 (though not surprisingly, they skewed towards more hawkish views after that). Egypt and Jordan have stuck with peace agreements that entitle them to billions of dollars in aid from the US. In addition, they really do have a relatively peaceful existence.

Also, on another issue, the ethnic composition of Israel is changing over the years. The percentage with East European (or any European) ancestry is decreasing. Much higher percentage with middle or far eastern ancestry than decades ago. And, yes, less white. 

[Langue_doc]

Voting demographics

Interactive: How key groups of Americans voted in 2024 Scroll all the way down to see the issues and views of the voters.

How voting demographics changed between 2020 and 2024 presidential elections

[lightning]

David Brooks

Voters to Elites: Do You See Me Now?

The article in its entirety:

We have entered a new political era. For the past 40 years or so, we lived in the information age. Those of us in the educated class decided, with some justification, that the postindustrial economy would be built by people like ourselves, so we tailored social policies to meet our needs.

Our education policy pushed people toward the course we followed — four-year colleges so that they would be qualified for the "jobs of the future." Meanwhile, vocational training withered. We embraced a free trade policy that moved industrial jobs to low-cost countries overseas so that we could focus our energies on knowledge economy enterprises run by people with advanced degrees. The financial and consulting sector mushroomed while manufacturing employment shriveled.

Geography was deemed unimportant — if capital and high-skill labor wanted to cluster in Austin, San Francisco and Washington, it didn't really matter what happened to all those other communities left behind. Immigration policies gave highly educated people access to low-wage labor while less-skilled workers faced new competition. We shifted toward green technologies favored by people who work in pixels, and we disfavored people in manufacturing and transportation whose livelihoods depend on fossil fuels.

That great sucking sound you heard was the redistribution of respect. People who climbed the academic ladder were feted with accolades, while those who didn't were rendered invisible. The situation was particularly hard on boys. By high school two-thirds of the students in the top 10 percent of the class are girls, while about two-thirds of the students in the bottom decile are boys. Schools are not set up for male success; that has lifelong personal, and now national, consequences.

Society worked as a vast segregation system, elevating the academically gifted above everybody else. Before long, the diploma divide became the most important chasm in American life. High school graduates die nine years sooner than college-educated people. They die of opioid overdoses at six times the rate. They marry less and divorce more and are more likely to have a child out of wedlock. They are more likely to be obese. A recent American Enterprise Institute study found that 24 percent of people who graduated from high school at most have no close friends. They are less likely than college grads to visit public spaces or join community groups and sports leagues. They don't speak in the right social justice jargon or hold the sort of luxury beliefs that are markers of public virtue.

The chasms led to a loss of faith, a loss of trust, a sense of betrayal. Nine days before the elections, I visited a Christian nationalist church in Tennessee. The service was illuminated by genuine faith, it is true, but also a corrosive atmosphere of bitterness, aggression, betrayal. As the pastor went on about the Judases who seek to destroy us, the phrase "dark world" popped into my head — an image of a people who perceive themselves to be living under constant threat and in a culture of extreme distrust. These people, and many other Americans, weren't interested in the politics of joy that Kamala Harris and the other law school grads were offering.

The Democratic Party has one job: to combat inequality. Here was a great chasm of inequality right before their noses and somehow many Democrats didn't see it. Many on the left focused on racial inequality, gender inequality and L.G.B.T.Q. inequality. I guess it's hard to focus on class inequality when you went to a college with a multibillion-dollar endowment and do environmental greenwashing and diversity seminars for a major corporation. Donald Trump is a monstrous narcissist, but there's something off about an educated class that looks in the mirror of society and sees only itself.

As the left veered toward identitarian performance art, Donald Trump jumped into the class war with both feet. His Queens-born resentment of the Manhattan elites dovetailed magically with the class animosity being felt by rural people across the country. His message was simple: These people have betrayed you, and they are morons to boot.

In 2024, he built the very thing the Democratic Party once tried to build — a multiracial, working-class majority. His support surged among Black and Hispanic workers. He recorded astonishing gains in places like New Jersey, the Bronx, Chicago, Dallas and Houston. According to the NBC exit polls, he won a third of voters of color. He's the first Republican to win a majority of the votes in 20 years.

The Democrats obviously have to do some major rethinking. The Biden administration tried to woo the working class with subsidies and stimulus, but there is no economic solution to what is primarily a crisis of respect.

There will be some on the left who will say Trump won because of the inherent racism, sexism and authoritarianism of the American people. Apparently, those people love losing and want to do it again and again and again.

The rest of us need to look at this result with humility. American voters are not always wise, but they are generally sensible, and they have something to teach us. My initial thought is that I have to re-examine my own priors. I'm a moderate. I like it when Democratic candidates run to the center. But I have to confess that Harris did that pretty effectively and it didn't work. Maybe the Democrats have to embrace a Bernie Sanders-style disruption — something that will make people like me feel uncomfortable.

Can the Democratic Party do this? Can the party of the universities, the affluent suburbs and the hipster urban cores do this? Well, Donald Trump hijacked a corporate party, which hardly seemed like a vehicle for proletarian revolt, and did exactly that. Those of us who condescend to Trump should feel humbled — he did something none of us could do.

But we are entering a period of white water. Trump is a sower of chaos, not fascism. Over the next few years, a plague of disorder will descend upon America, and maybe the world, shaking everything loose. If you hate polarization, just wait until we experience global disorder. But in chaos there's opportunity for a new society and a new response to the Trumpian political, economic and psychological assault. These are the times that try people's souls, and we'll see what we are made of.

Yeah, I've been saying this forever. Higher education has economically divided society, in tandem with a tectonic shift towards globalization and technology/STEM. For decades, I tried to make the positive changes in my small corner of the world, to reverse the trend, so that everyone could benefit and all boats are lifted, but to no avail. People in general just didn't give a crap about other people, especially old guard Republicans, who wanted to accelerate the divide through policy and Rush Limbaugh.

Trump in the chaos that will come will make everyone (except the uber-rich), equal again through a national reset by making EVERYTHING suck for most everyone except the filthy rich, kind of like what the y2k bug promised to do, but didn't. Or like what the aliens from outer space were supposed to do, but they never came. Or like what the second coming of Jesus was supposed to do, but he never showed up. Trump will be the reset, so those smart kids that bothered to learn their stuff and went on to great lives through education will now live the same crappy life as those that didn't bother to crack open their math books. At least, that's the fantasy. It's the reset that the willfully ignorant have always dreamed of. They really don't care if  eggs, bread, milk, homes, cars, heat, etc. become affordable again. That's not their priority. They want the so-called educational elites to eat the same sh1t they've been eating for their entire lives, since high school. After that happens, then they'll think about inflation.

What this recent election has taught me, is I should be focusing my energy on maintaining the life that education has afforded me, rather than thinking about the public good. The public has spoken and they don't care about the public nor the public good. Let them have their sh1t and eat it, too. I'm done with them. I'm shopping for a used Porsche, tomorrow, and maybe I'll live out of the country for a year and hope the USA doesn't mess up wherever I'm living.

Let your enemies see that we're not swimming in their sh1t, even after four years. They will never win in life, without sufficient education, and they should be reminded of that. So make sure your degree is visible in social media, and when you pay off your nice house, or buy a nice car, gloat about it. They hate that--it's what made them angry and it's what makes them angry.

Will that attitude get their votes for the Democrats? Fvck 'em. Their lives will always suck whoever is in office. All they can hope for is that everyone else's life sucks, too. I'm focusing on making sure that my life won't suck as bad as theirs, even after the chaos that will ensue. That's really all I can and should do at this point.

[marshwiggle]

Voting demographics

Interactive: How key groups of Americans voted in 2024 Scroll all the way down to see the issues and views of the voters.

How voting demographics changed between 2020 and 2024 presidential elections

I'm kind of curious to hear someone explain how voters that were intelligent and insightful enough to vote for Biden in 2020 became bigoted trolls by 2024. Especially the black and Latino ones, and women. (This is based on the suggestion from many that only horrible human beings would vote for Trump, and that any other reasons given are just a smokescreen.)

[ciao_yall]

Voting demographics

Interactive: How key groups of Americans voted in 2024 Scroll all the way down to see the issues and views of the voters.

How voting demographics changed between 2020 and 2024 presidential elections

I'm kind of curious to hear someone explain how voters that were intelligent and insightful enough to vote for Biden in 2020 became bigoted trolls by 2024. Especially the black and Latino ones, and women. (This is based on the suggestion from many that only horrible human beings would vote for Trump, and that any other reasons given are just a smokescreen.)

Short memories?