I'm not completely convinced we're the problem

[EnergizedLib]

It's going to take a long time to recover from the trauma of the election, and I've seen all sorts of blame and finger pointing and people hating on us, dunking on us and our policies and the things we've said and done.

The more I think about it, the problem isn't us. In fact, while unfortunately and undoubtedly prevalent, I'm not even convinced racism and misogyny were the big problem.

The big problems I see, in the two weeks after the election, are the complete disconnect from reality and an uninformed electorate.

Exhibit A, not knowing about tariffs:

https://thenightly.com.au/politics/us-politics/what-is-a-tariff-google-searches-for-term-tariff-spike-after-donald-trump-elected-as-president-c-16712054

-----Snip

"Google searches for the term “tariff” have spiked after the election, as have queries about “Trump’s tariff plan” — spiking more than 1650 per cent since the election. Searches for “who pays tariffs” have risen 350 per cent since the election.

To be fair, the vast majority of people may not know the intricacies of tariffs — let alone heard about them — before Mr Trump waxed lyrical about them throughout his re-election campaign."

-----Snip

How about a failure of those in charge, those whose job it is to teach and inform, what a tariff is?

I'm not sure how often it is I will ever post something from Truth Social, but here's one user in shock:

https://bsky.app/profile/ggold328.bsky.social/post/3lba3c45tc22p

Exhibit B, Project 2025

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/us/politics/trump-project-2025.html

Article is titled, "What is Project 2025 and why did Trump Distance Himself From It During the Campaign?

I'd like to answer that question. I think if trump actually tied to himself to Project 2025, she would've won.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-americans-vote-plutocrats-taxes-1235161296/

Article is titled, "Americans didn't vote for what Donald Trump is about to give them."

----Snip

"So what happens when the emperor is revealed to have no clothes — or even worse, the garb of the same financial “elites” he claims to be against? Obviously, the MAGA faithful will stay with Trump no matter what — after all, his failure to bring about revolution in 2017 spawned the QAnon conspiracy theory, which said he was really about to do it, any day now. But the economic voters that gave him his victory could abandon Trump if he can’t deliver results. And he cannot. While Trump is busy trying to throw his enemies in jail, he has no plan — not even “concepts of a plan” — for the kitchen-table concerns that actually put him into office. Maybe, just maybe, voters will see they’ve been conned."

----Snip

Exhibit C, Getting the Muslim vote

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/muslims-who-voted-trump-upset-by-his-pro-israel-cabinet-picks-2024-11-15/

Article is titled, "Trump's pro-Israel cabinet picks upset Muslims who voted for him."

----Snip

WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - U.S. Muslim leaders who supported Republican Donald Trump to protest against the Biden administration's support for Israel's war on Gaza and attacks on Lebanon have been deeply disappointed by his cabinet picks, they tell Reuters.
"Trump won because of us and we're not happy with his secretary of state pick and others," said Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump.

---Snip

Exhibit D, Healthcare

This is nothing new, something I've known for years, but the reality is people in this country hate Obamacare but love the Affordable Care Act.

Article is titled, "Trump voters mercilessly mocked over heartbreaking mistake."

---Snip

Some people have allegedly admitted that they didn't even realize that Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act were the same thing - and social media users are making fun of them for making the mistake.

One man, named Bernard Taylor, explained in a TikTok video posted last week that he had just seen a clip shared by a man who confessed that he thought they were two different things.

'I'm sorry but is this real life? This can't be real life right now,' he said. 'I just saw a video of a guy who said he voted for [Trump] because he was gonna get rid of Obamacare.

'He didn't like Obamacare, and he was voting to get rid of it. But he said he wasn't worried because he's unemployed and on disability, so he has his insurance through the Affordable Care Act.'

----Snip

But we're the problem, right? Those of us who've paid attention all along have known Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act are the same thing.

Exhibit E, Engagement

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/democrats-won-highly-engaged-voters-struggled-everyone-else-2024-rcna179957

Article is titled, "Democrats won 'highly engaged' voters and struggled with everybody else in 2024."

----Snip

Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats convinced frequent voters and highly engaged voters to stick with them in the 2024 presidential election.

Their problem: They lost with most everyone else.

According to the final NBC News poll of the 2024 race, 76% of registered voters said they follow public affairs and politics closely. The poll showed Harris winning among that group by 5 points over Donald Trump, 52%-47%.

----Snip

"But among the remaining quarter of voters who said they don’t follow politics closely, Trump was ahead by a much greater margin — 14 points, 54%-40%.

These less-engaged voters were disproportionately younger, more Republican-leaning and less likely to have college degrees — all groups of voters the NBC News Exit Poll showed Democrats struggling with in the election results earlier this month, especially compared to past presidential races."

---Snip

So, people who were informed and paid attention voted for us. Those who were not, did not. Now, how do we get the word out, get others more engaged and get others more informed to fight back against an aggressive, and unfortunately successful, disinformation campaign?

Conclusion - Maybe there are some policy and messaging tweaks we can make, certainly racism and misogyny are prevalent in America, but I'm convinced the biggest reason we're about to face the sequel to this nightmare, hopefully just for four years, is that people who voted for the convicted felon got conned.

Again.

[Basso8vb]

1. We have an uninformed, propagandized electorate.

THAT is the problem.

[EnergizedLib]

2. Exactly

[kerouac2]

10. This plus

A lot of folks who just aren't too bright.

I mean, ignorance is a choice.

The not so bright ones are easily misled and media is heavily right wing.

And then you have a big chunk of truly terrible people. Hateful and selfish with unyielding hate based on race and religion.

[EnergizedLib]

11. ' I mean, ignorance is a choice'

Bingo!

‘The not so bright ones are easily misled and media is heavily right wing.’

Ding, Ding, Ding.

And guess who’s incorporating Project 2025 now? I knew he was full of it by the how many lies he told from 2017-2021, while people on Twitter kept saying it was a lie, he disavows, it’s a non-story.

And they believed him.

And they think his policies will hurt others, but not them.

All he did was praise and surround himself with Project 2025 during the campaign, but I think even he knew it’d be a losing issue to campaign on Project 2025.

[live love laugh]

97. It's not a choice. De-education is happening.

Schools stopped teaching cursive writing of all things. That’s like the canary in the coal mine. They stopped teaching phonetics, how to tell time on analog clocks, civics …. And don’t forget book banning and school council infiltration by MAGGOTS.

[EnergizedLib]

98. When people are Googling if Biden dropped out

How is that anything but a choice?

[live love laugh]

100. Add being cell phone mesmerized to the mix.

[EnergizedLib]

102. And if people (myself included) are so addicted to their phones

How’d they not hear of this?

[jimfields33]

105. And don't forget that idiotic new math crap.

No wonder people can’t give change.

[Initech]

17. Yup, and I've been saying it's the problem for 15 years.

Hell, the Philadelphia Inquirer said this was the most uninformed electorate in US history. The propaganda is the problem. It has always been the problem.

[EnergizedLib]

28. For 15 years? Wow

[Initech]

35. Fox has been a problem since the 2000 election.

They threw a metric temper tantrum when Obama won with that stupid Tea Party bullshit. I lost friends and family to Glenn Beck's nonsense. Things haven't been the same since. So many of our problems can be traced back to that wretched network.

[EnergizedLib]

36. I remember the Glenn Beck nonsense

And people thought he was ‘educational.’

The Tea Party was MAGA before MAGA. They just didn’t have their mouthpiece at the time.

All because Obama had the nerve to be president while black.

[BComplex]

65. Actually, it's been more like 40 years. eom

[RockRaven]

3. The blame game has very "look what you made me do" abusive vibes.

And I, for one, am not taking any of that shit.

[Initech]

19. Hell no! It's the same shit every election cycle.

They win, we fight. The ultimate circular firing squad. It's time to end this vicious cycle. We figure out what went wrong and how to stop it next time... if there is a next time.

[EnergizedLib]

25. Let's start building up more leftist media and podcasts

Let’s have a stronger social media presence, let’s get the word out more, let us tout our accomplishments and their failures.

I’m not sure what’s worse between being a non-voter and being an uninformed voter.

And that’s why we’re in this position now, in my opinion.

[OneGrassRoot]

30. That's exactly right. F*ck that. n/t

[yardwork]

41. Bingo. Abusers always blame their victims.

[Think. Again.]

4. The trauma of the election hasn't even begun yet.

We are not going to be the same country in 4 years, or even in 2 years.

Whatever the anti-trump party will be at some point in the future, it will be something new.

Pretending we just have to make minor changes to ourselves to help our nation in the future is delusional.

An era is ending, a new one beginning.

The "good" people will have to figure ourselves out later, after the trauma subsides.

[EnergizedLib]

5. We're not the same country we were before this nightmare

I mean, I’m not sure how much we have to tweak in terms of policy, doesn’t have to be a complete overhaul.

What we do need, however, is to find a way to get our message out, get people more engaged and push back harder against the right wing propaganda machine.

People got conned in 2016, conned even harder in 2024.

[Think. Again.]

7. You're pretending there will be some kind if consistency...

...from now until some future point after trump. That's just not realistic.

[EnergizedLib]

8. People were asking after the election

How to change their votes.

We don’t have to abandon all we stand for and all of our policy positions. If there’s anything we failed in, it’s not doing a good enough job informing people about the dangers were set to go through.

[Erda]

6. Sometimes, when people won't listen,

The only way for them to learn is the hard way.

Let's hope by the mid-terms, they will know better.

[EnergizedLib]

9. I hope there is a midterm

[Johnny2X2X]

12. Propaganda is so strong

I'm convinced the economy could totally collapse and the UE rate could hit 20% and half the people would still say "Trump saved the economy!" It's that scary.

Biden built the best economy in generations and like 60% of the country thought the economy was bad.

[EnergizedLib]

13. Because of the powerful propaganda machine

Inflation has been a global problem, yet our inflation has been much lower.

Like I said in another post, if trump died tomorrow, people would scream it was fake news and try every trick in the book to try to resurrect him.

[keep_left]

18. So many people are ignorant about economics, and believed that prices...

...would somehow magically come down once inflation subsided. That of course is not what happens--prices stay flat with zero inflation, but they don't come down. And those post-Covid price increases were steep. Add to that a whole lot of related and unrelated economic issues, some of them going back many decades (e.g. deindustrialization/Rust Belt, lousy schools in poor neighborhoods), and the result of the election wasn't that surprising in hindsight.

Once again, we see that the lack of civics and economics education in the schools has a price.

[Johnny2X2X]

20. The fact real wages went up under Biden was reported like twice

Compared to the 40 million time the media talked about inflation.

Real wages rose, that means wages increased more than prices. The majority of the people oin the country have no idea that happened.

[EnergizedLib]

23. The corporate media is largely to blame

They wanted trump because trump = ratings.

And I’m I wrong about this, but isn’t the way to beat inflation when wages are higher than inflation is?

[keep_left]

24. Yep. Let's not forget all those man-on-the-street interviews...

...or should I say, man-in-the-diner interviews--where they all seemingly had time and money to spend sitting in a diner all morning long, despite their assertions that the economy is in the crapper.

(See panel #5 in the cartoon).

[EnergizedLib]

26. That was depressing to read

[brush]

37. So spot on. He always nails it.

[MichMan]

111. When people are too stupid to realize their pockets are bulging with extra cash, not much hope on messaging them.

[EnergizedLib]

22. Lower prices deflation

Deflation = Recession/Depression

Nobody in the Oval Office can magically snap their fingers and lower prices. If it was that easy, it would’ve been done.

[HereForTheParty]

14. Our country's ugly streak is deeper and wider than I thought

Hell, it may be the majority.

[EnergizedLib]

15. I'm not sure about the majority

But there's a lot of them.

This is the smallest popular vote margin since 2000, and a lot of others went third party or didn't vote.

Another thing is a lot of people didn't know President Biden dropped out.

We could have the best, most effective policies in the world and it'll mean nothing if people aren't informed.

[brush]

16. Let's face it, the fault is not that of the center-left/and left. We live in a racist, misogynist majority nation.

After much success with the civil right movement of the late '50s-'60s and the women's rights movement of the '70s and on, the permission structure for the racists/sexists to come to fore again began with the bloviating a-hole trump and his birther bullshit against Pres. O. It culminated perhaps as the orange turd rode down the tacky, fake gold escalator to accept the rethug nod for president in 2016.

Some say it's been all downhill since then, but it actually started much earlier. It's even harder to deal with. It's in the nation's DNA. The founders were white men of their time as it's said, meaning most owned enslaved humans, and their wives were property too, not to mention their enslaved females, and the founding documents they produced where high-minded with words and phrases like liberty and freedom and "when in the course of human events", but they were not "inclusive" of people who were unlike themselves (a concept now that's laughed at by rethugs). All of that was reflected in the founding docs and it took centuries and a brutal Civil War followed by decades of segregation to wrest the gains of the '60s-'80s, only to be rescinded symbolically by trump's elevator descent and the corrupt SCOTUS 6' snatching away of hard-won abortion rights.

What a mess. It's in our DNA.

[EnergizedLib]

21. Racism and misogyny undoubtedly exist in this nation

The thing is, I think that’s only a part of the problem and why the election turned out the way it did and why we’re in for the continuation of this nightmare.

[brush]

27. Agreed. And would you say the other part of the problem is the spectre of fascism?

It's there. trump is now a dictator with immunity for 'official acts', and he and his cabal will be the ones defining what are official acts. The SCOTUS 6 will back them up of course.

[EnergizedLib]

29. The other part of the problem is the uninformed electorate

Who made this all happen.

None of this would’ve happened without them.

And the leopards will eat their faces, and it’ll be too late. And when the leopards are eating their faces, will they notice? And will they care?

[brush]

39. Have you heard of trump's latest pronouncement of taking back the colleges from...

the Marxist profs and admins? Of course Project 2025 already includes the elimination of the Dept. of Education.

[EnergizedLib]

43. Yes, I have

But I don’t think the government should be involved in colleges and universities, at least not private ones.

I hope that’s a narrow margin in the House and we get a Republican or two who can stand on principle.

[geardaddy]

57. They'll blame the democrats for releasing the leopards

Even though it was the right wing that released them.

[EnergizedLib]

60. And then when they finally wake up

How much damage has been done?

[geardaddy]

66. I don't think many of them have the ability to wake up

[EnergizedLib]

67. They will if and only if it affects them

[geardaddy]

70. Yes, I agree with this.

[Raven123]

31. If TFG said the sky is green his cult would have believed it.

Cults are immune to facts - until they are crushed by reality. We tried. Now we must let the tariffs do the talking.

[EnergizedLib]

33. People got crushed in 2020

Then forgot all about it.

[Raven123]

52. Apparently not.

[W_HAMILTON]

32. Nothing has done more to damage our country than a decades-long deluge of Republican propaganda.

Most of our problems today can be directly traced back to it.

[EnergizedLib]

34. And Reagan and ending the Fairness Doctrine

[WarGamer]

38. Elections aren't decided by a committee of tenured professors at Harvard

If you can't sell a product, either change the product or the way you sell it.

[EnergizedLib]

40. Buyer's remorse by settling in

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-how-change-vote-election-day-1984939

https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/11/22/trump-change-my-vote-search/

When people are Googling about changing their votes, this tells me they didn’t know what they voted for.

So, I’m thinking for next time, don’t double down on everything or make some of our focal points this election the focal points of the next election, but don’t abandon them.

We have to start to start building up left wing media, podcasts and talk shows and get others more engaged.

[Mariana]

96. How many people actually Googled that?

How many Trump voters are expressing regret? Doesn't seem like it's any significant number of them.

[BannonsLiver]

42. Agree on some points

But I don’t buy the overarching notion that there’s nothing to learn from this election. Throwing hands up and saying the electorate is dumb doesn’t seem like a winning strategy for the years to come.

[EnergizedLib]

44. What to learn

Is to inform the electorate of how they’ve received a bill of goods, in what ways and how they’re impacted.

Don’t look down on them, talk to them as if they’re victims. Instead of celebrities performing at rallies, have real people come up and share their stories.

[BannonsLiver]

45. I think those are solid points

[EnergizedLib]

47. Thank You

[ancianita]

46. Anyone with an educated perspective on recent history and fact-based news is called "elitist." So yes, the

majority of postmortems on the election say you're right about this:

The big problems I see, in the two weeks after the election, are the complete disconnect from reality and an uninformed electorate.

Even though we're right, we Democrats still have to not only lead the uneducated horse to water, but also make them drink. Pretty impossible.

So hopefully, youth won't get derailed with bot-amplified single issue voting in '26 and '28.

[EnergizedLib]

48. Confirmation bias and propaganda

I guess I’m an elitist even though I don’t have a high paying job and only have a Bachelor’s.

They know how to speak in code, I know that.

The fact that Kamala won among people who follow politics closely, and lost among those who do not, also says a lot.

[ancianita]

59. Right, but it's about WHO has convinced folks about what they need to keep confirming that we need to watch out for.

Propaganda either confirms/validates incorrect narratives, or happens when there are no other media outlets available.

Using "elitist" isn't really code. When it's code, it's used by right wing politicians to manipulate the low literacy and anti-literate folks to think we look down on them.
Republican voters themselves mostly believe that we are an elitist captured party -- us and all our unions and working class voters and Black women and LGBTQ, etc, etc.

What are now programmed into AI chatbots to drive platform narrative environments are oligarchic message machines that have pumped out all kinds of lies about being educated, informed, and what an "elite" is.

So much that people have altogether lost even a "sympathy for intelligence." Which is an important value to hold, and that leads one to be a lifelong reader and lifelong learner. This is the opposite of what fascist oligarchs want. Thus, X. Thus FOX News and the rest of the RW news networks.

[LymphocyteLover]

49. Who is "we"?

[Ray Bruns]

50. It's as simple as this. Some people you can tell not to stick the metal fork in the electrical outlet.

Some people have to learn by experience.

[EnergizedLib]

54. I'd have thought they learned in 2020 and 2021

I guess not.

[usonian]

51. Racism and misogyny, We can't change "hearts and minds" but we can change laws and the culture by WINNING.

The question is HOW.

https://democraticunderground.com/100216524810

The best, the ONLY cure to WhiteChristianNationalism, race baiting, mysogyny, etc. is WINNING

This is from the epilogue of "Stamped From the Beginning", by Ibram X Kendi.

Protesting against racist power and succeeding can never be mistaken for seizing power. Any effective solution to eradicating American racism must involve Americans committed to antiracist policies seizing and maintaining power over institutions, neighborhoods, counties, states, nations—the world. It makes no sense to sit back and put the future in the hands of people committed to racist policies, or people who regularly sail with the wind of self-interest, toward racism today, toward antiracism tomorrow. An antiracist America can only be guaranteed if principled antiracists are in power, and then antiracist policies become the law of the land, and then antiracist ideas become the common sense of the people, and then the antiracist common sense of the people holds those antiracist leaders and policies accountable.

We need to unite and take action. Be ready for the day when their house of cards falls apart. It could be soon.

TrumpV2 is Hitler's final days. Deranged and incapable of maintaining security other than his own.

I'm collecting a list of activist tools similar to DU'er Wednesday has collected for the election.

[EnergizedLib]

56. I don't think Christian Nationalism and theocracy are popular

The problem is, the threat of them haven’t been at the forefront like they should have been.

[usonian]

61. People are voting their prejudices and electing Christian Nationalism and theocracy.

BAIT AND SWITCH

[EnergizedLib]

62. And then they realize

Who is actually ruining their lives when it’s too late.

Trans people are the current boogeymen, when the real boogeymen are pick pocketing them in daylight and plain sight.

[usonian]

68. I only linked half the picture, to fit better with your comment on Christian Nationalism and theocracy

Here's the whole picture, courtesy of "the internet".



And that's what they get.

A fleecing. That's what sheep are for.

[EnergizedLib]

69. I've seen that before

I wouldn’t hate the fleecing as much if the rest of us didn’t suffer, too.

[CountMyVote4Reality]

53. Agree! Not only uninformed, but deliberately mis- and dis-informed.

Last edited Fri Nov 22, 2024, 03:46 PM - Edit history (1)

“The news is fake.”
“Alternate facts.”
Etc.

[EnergizedLib]

55. So, if the news is fake, what's fake about it?

I picked up on feeling many years ago that fake news code for news they did not like.

[jimfields33]

107. Many say Fox News is fake. It's just an extension of that.

[EnergizedLib]

108. Let news organizations that haven't settled for $787 million

Cast the first stone.

[jimfields33]

109. I suppose. Hope they get sold off too.

[EnergizedLib]

110. Why? So Elon can buy MSNBC?

I think not.

[Initech]

58. The problem is we have a sadistic, psychotic, vindictive and hostile propaganda outlet...

That calls itself "news" that is convinced that the White House, all of DC, and the United States government is their personal property when it isn't. I'm talking about Fox of course. And their underlings, the Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society. Until we deal with this menace, things aren't necessarily going to change for the better. They can all go get royally fucked.

[Phoenix61]

63. Spot on!

And yet those same folks easily research cars, vacations, washers and dryers etc. They just don’t give a shit.

[muriel_volestrangler]

64. I think it's still mainly racism and misogyny. The "uninformed" bit is more "I won't listen to things that go against ..

... my prejudices". Take this:

from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/21/trump-biden-economy-republicans/ (you may get a gift link at Wonkette). Now that they've won, many Republicans suddenly feel that they're not doing worse than since a year ago, after all - although Trump is not yet in power, and can have had no actual effect. The difference is they don't need to tell themselves "I am/we are worse off, so I'll vote for a change in president" to persuade themselves that it's not about taking revenge on groups they hate, via a president who clearly shares that hatred.

They weren't disconnected from reality, or woefully uninformed; they just felt better pretending that they were. They picked what media - social or commercial - to listen to, so that they felt they had made a "rational" choice.

Good point from the end of the Wonkette article:

It has consistently been the case that Republicans have more extreme views of the change in the state of their own finances than Democrats or Americans overall. Under Trump, Republicans were on average 28 points more likely to say their position had gotten better than worse; Democrats were 16 points more likely to say it had gotten worse. Under Biden, Democrats were only one point more likely to say things had gotten better (across his entire term); Republicans were 41 points more likely to say they’d gotten worse.

The same held for Obama, for all the Republican insistence that Democrats believed he was the Messiah. Clearly, this means that Republicans are far more in touch with their economic feelings than Democrats, who fail to perceive how Trump is flawless and both Obama and Biden ruin everything good and holy. Heh, remember when Barry Bamz ran a budget surplus? Terrible times!

With that in mind, we can confidently predict that within a month of Trump’s second inauguration, the economic stats won’t have changed significantly, but Republicans and probably idiots in the mainstream media will be kvelling about the bright new economy the Great Man has ushered in. Even if he follows through on those inflation-boosting tariffs.

Then Big Brother will increase the chocolate ration to a smaller amount and we’ll all rejoice.

[EnergizedLib]

71. Gas was pretty high in 2018

And people didn’t attack him over that, despite the tariffs/trade wars.

[iemanja]

72. It's not a question of "blame." It's what we need to do to win next time.

and most of you have decided to throw your hands up in the air and do nothing differently. Why is it so difficult to admit we weren't perfect in this election? By we, I mean the party and us as individuals and how we behave on social media.

When we lose low-income voters for the first time in decades, there is obviously a problem.

[EnergizedLib]

76. As I would love to run for president in 2028, I have ideas

- Tax cuts and poor and middle class, let them know the trump tax cuts for them expired, while trying to return to a greater tax bracket for the wealthy.

- If the Department of Ed is still around, establish some curriculum guiding points at the national level. Don’t micromanage curriculums, but teach real American history - the good, the bad and the ugly for kids to learn and prevent state legislatures from putting theocracy in public schools, go after them and dangle funding. Make it a point of emphasis not to sexualize kids, but to teach them there are those different than them who exist and that they deserve their respect just like anybody else.

- Look for ways to scale back whatever tariffs trump has put in place, do what I can to end the trade war.

- With immigration, focusing on deporting the worst, most violent criminals. Others who are here illegally - no deportation without replacement, so if people want other illegals gone, their jobs have to be filled before they are deported. Those who come to the border seeking asylum must have proof to back up their requests for asylum, while warning employers of penalties if they hire illegals.

- Run on decriminalizing marijuana at the federal level and commuting federal death sentences to life without parole.

- Also, frame the abortion issue as an economic one and let them know about more than a woman’s right to choose, how healthcare providers leave their states and their loss of access to services. And if abortion doesn’t affect them, let them know the dangers of them losing other freedoms they take for granted Republicans want to eradicate.

- For Social Security, call on Congress to pass a bill making it illegal to raid the Social Security trust fund, and if it’s insolvent, find a way to get people who paid into it their money back.

- In terms of strategy and marketing - more social media presence, go on left wing podcasts, phase out the use of celebrities for the use of real people who can share their problems.

Sadly, I don’t have the money to run for president, but would if I could.

[hunter]

73. About half the people in the U.S.A. are ignorant fuckwits or sociopaths

In Republican states more than half the people are ignorant fuckwits or sociopaths. Our government is structured by the electoral college, the senate, etc., so that the votes of fuckwits and sociopaths give them greater political representation than the rest of us. That was part of the compromise that allowed the U.S.A. to unite against Great Britain.

Donald Trump represents the fuckwits and sociopaths perfectly because he is both a fuckwit and a sociopath.

Strong currents of anti-intellectualism and sociopathy have always swept this nation, before the internet, before television, before radio. Many U.S. Americans worship cruel and capricious gods and celebrate sociopathic billionaires. There have always been political leaders who directly appeal to that constituency.

I post this with the usual disclaimer that my radical environmentalist and social justice warrior self does not represent any platform of the Democratic Party. My voting, and my political activism are always practical, except when I'm raging here on DU.

Most people who voted for Trump are the hapless victims of a con man, soon to be twice burned.

[MaineBlueBear]

74. Nailed it

No analysis of how we lost across the board without an honest conversation about the role of mis & dis- information, is complete.

Democratic-aligned policies won but these rubes think Republicans will implement them. I contend you can't get there from here without a boatload of lies.

[EnergizedLib]

77. People want their abortions, but they voted Republicans

People like a lot of our ideas, but they don’t like us.

[Tweedy]

75. Agreed

We are in an information war, the fourth estate is addicted to entertainment almost other everything else, and too many of us operate blindly inside much of the gop frame that has dominated our discourse for much of the twentieth century.

So, what are we going to do to win it?

The facts are on our side. We simply need to get reality out to our misinformed neighbors.

[EnergizedLib]

78. Call out the corporate media

Take them head on and tell them they enabled and allowed this to happen, that they abandoned their integrity and journalism for money and ratings and the country is suffering for it.

[Tweedy]

81. Yeah. I think the responsible culprits are at

Fox News, News Max, Joe Rogan and etc.

Both siderism is nonsense, no doubt. Yet, CNN putting on some Trump flunkie to interrupt everybody else does not rise to the level of the falsehoods spewed on right wing misinformation channels all the day long.

The mainstream media needs to ditch sane-washing and simply report the facts. Don’t get caught up in the gop frame. Just report the facts.

Defamation suits against the right wing 24 hour fib-a-thons would be more effective than trashing the MSM who will need their courage ( and our support) to stand up to the incoming Mr. Snowflake Trump has already begun throwing at them. IMHO

[EnergizedLib]

83. Fox News already paid one settlement

We’d have to prove misinformation, but we can’t let the MSM get completely away with the normalization and sane washing of this.

[Tweedy]

112. Five minutes of Fox News

makes one misinformed.

Fox News successfully argued in court that its evening line up was not required to be truthful because its personalities were entertainment, not news.

Still there is plenty of defamation happening there daily.

[IronLionZion]

79. Tariffs lower prices the same way Mexico paid for the wall

by having Americans pay for it.

There will be cuts to government programs, deregulation, corruption, and grift everywhere. The Trump administration is here to loot and pillage as much as they can from America while blaming immigrants or woke liberals or whatever. They are counting on enough people not knowing any better.

[EnergizedLib]

80. But they would own it

That’s the one good thing about us not being in power, we’re not responsible for the catastrophes in place. And remember, trump has outperformed the rest of Republicans since 2016, and those who try to be like trump fail miserably.

[Skittles]

82. repukes have access to the same information we all do

they CHOOSE to remain ignorant by only listening to rightwing trash

[JustAnotherGen]

84. They can't use

Ignorance as an excuse with me.

[EnergizedLib]

86. No sympathy for them

[TBF]

85. These dumbfucks are outlawing abortions, cutting themselves out of healthcare, and

will lose school services for their disabled children as they obliterate the Department of Education.

Not that the public schools are going to be any great bastion of actual education, starting today in Texas they've voted to destroy the curriculum by infusing it with Christian Nationalism.

Most of these people are dumber than doorknobs, but some of them will no doubt explode when they realize what they've done. And then they will blame liberals for what they've willingly done to themselves.

[EnergizedLib]

87. I'd sure hope lawsuits would follow in Texas

[TBF]

93. There is a TX chapter of ACLU -

I think the State is hoping to fend off lawsuits by making it voluntary to use the curriculum (although schools that use it get increased funding). So, we'll see how that shakes out.

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

88. OP is on the right track. except theres more to it than electorate being merely "uninformed" though. It's that theyve

bought into the whole masterful propaganda/ disinformation campaign weve been subjected to for quite a few yrs now., Maybe they believe drump's utterances as literal truth, maybe they dont but just enjoy the schtick and love the "stick it to the Libs" reality show. From where I sit, I see a lot of liberal-left commentary that totally underestimates the power of propaganda and disinformation - as practiced by despots, dictators and repressive regimes the world over. Dont know how many of yall out there routinely listen to RW talk radio, but if all people are hearing is THAT there's no suprirse who they vote for. But theres more to it than that. The tactic of spewing out all the outrageous, stupid, crazy, offensive utterances and lies on a daily basis has the effect of totally dominating news cycles of even the center and left media - and overpowering any message our candidate is trying to put out there. The one interview I saw of Kamala - she's trying to say some things but the interviewer keeps badgering her and steering her back to "how do you respond to this latest stupid thing that trump said." Honestly, its a small miracle she did as well as she did. HOW do we counteract that???? Do we get as offensive and ridiculous as our opposition? It kinda presents sort of a moral dilemma for those of us who have always believed in civility and fact-based discourse .

[EnergizedLib]

89. Don't completely abandon civility

But do fight back if they start stuff.

When they go low, kick them down below.

[uponit7771]

92. This and the generation bought into the most is gen-x. The generation with the least amount of ...

... leaned ability to defend against propaganda

[betsuni]

90. None of it's true. BLAME DEMOCRATS says the sheep herder: Blaaaaaaaame Democrats elite establishment

corporatist neoliberals corrupted by oligarchs and wealthy donors (lets see the list of policies the party has changed because of money and not because they can't get enough votes -- oh, yeah, that doesn't exist), have no idea what a working class is (erase any Democratic Party platform unless they can take it back to FDR and pretend that was actually a made-up fantasy of "democratic socialism" and not typical liberal Democratic. Responsible for every bad thing in America since the '70s when Bill Clinton forced the change of the economy from manufacturing (main cause automation) to a service and technology one with his diabolical NAFTA plot so Wall Street would invite him over for fancy canapés every day (remember "Roger & Me" that movie Micheal Moore made about manufacture moving abroad, that and Farm Aid all happened in the '80s (between 1970 and 1990, inflation-adjusted prices for wheat, soybeans and corn decreased by two-thirds). They just want to blame Democrats for everything, It's all poo. People seem to have it in their thick heads there has be a scapegoat and Democrats are the government so there's your scapegoat no matter what reality is. Thanks for the people who don't step in the poo and mindlessly track it around.

And of course The American Dream last for those 25 or so post-war years. That's history. Democrats didn't ruin your American dream, history moved on.

[ThoughtCriminal]

91. It's them, not us

After Trump lost in 2020 and January 6, did you see ANY significant soul searching by the GOP to "Rethink" their strategies and "Reach out" to Democrats?

Criticisms of Trump lasted about a week. No, they doubled down, quadruple downed, on the Big Lie, and just went for what their most extreme base wanted to hear.

There was nothing really wrong with the Democratic campaign, it was the ignorance and bigotry of the GOP base that is going to destroy us,

[ecstatic]

94. How long will it take for idiots to realize they were conned?

Take Russians for example. Did they start out like us? Initially electing Putin and do they realize now what's going on? Or are they still blind?

[EnergizedLib]

95. They won't realize until after it's too late

[IzzaNuDay]

99. Folks voting for the dotard had short memories

if nothing else, what happened in 2020 — covid— and the dotard’s response should have been the final straw. Not to mention all the stupid shite he had done prior to that.

but the trumpanistas will have to learn the hard way next time around. Trouble is, we all experience the consequences.

[EnergizedLib]

103. No matter who is president, America will confront a crisis

So, why bring back someone who bungled such a crisis in historically epic fashion four years ago?

If trump’s response to COVID was even average, just competent, we’d be saying goodbye to him next month instead of a sequel to the nightmare coming back.

[duncang]

101. You could see that online and some families/associates.

Try to say something or explain and it immediately went to screaming or insults from those who drank the koolaid.

[valleyrogue]

104. The people who voted for him don't care about tariffs, the economy, immigration or anything else.

They voted for Trump because like him they are sexists and racists and he makes them proud of it.

You cannot, repeat, CANNOT reason with these people--EVER. If they ever change their minds, it will be on their own accord.

Those who voted for him are the issue, or rather are to blame for the results, not our lack of "messaging" or lack of appealing to sexists and racists because we can't "fix" them. It is not our job to change their minds because their minds are made up. There are also other things at play. There were some 8 million FEWER people who voted for Harris than for Biden. WHY is that the case? Did that many voters die between 2020 and 2024? Were they that turned off by Harris and Walz? Or was there some kind of rigging in the swing states that made the implausibility of Trump winning all of them plausible?

More important, why are so many people not bothering to register to vote or registered but didn't vote in the first place? I loathe these people even more than those who voted for Trump. There is no excuse not to be registered to vote or not to vote. NONE.

THAT is what we should be focusing on, not trying to "fix" the unfixable.

[EnergizedLib]

106. I think what happened

Maybe people voted by mail in 2020 but weren’t inclined to want to vote in person in 2024.

‘You cannot, repeat, CANNOT reason with these people--EVER. If they ever change their minds, it will be on their own accord.’

I’ve always said if you could reason with trump supporters, there wouldn’t be any.

[ecstatic]

113. The Israel / Palestine conflict

A lot of left-leaning voters stayed home over that. Sorry but they're stupid as well. We had a direct threat here in this country to address FIRST. I still cannot believe this is happening. I feel like we've been let down by soooo many people, not just idiotic voters but also by numerous elected/nominated officials with the power to hold trump accountable for his crimes.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/13-ex-biden-voters-gaza