Jack Herrera has a piece in Politico today about why Democrats lost the Latino vote this year. This is already a tedious genre, but if it's Jack Herrera it's worth a read
First off, it's worth acknowledging that the blowout wasn't as bad as it seems. The biggest losses were in places like Florida and Texas, states so red that Harris never bothered campaigning there. In swing states, where she did campaign, Latino losses were a few percentage points.
That said, no one questions that the shift is real. Herrera says that part of the answer lies with both Biden and Harris adopting tougher border positions this year, but mostly it's the economy:
There’s one powerful variable that explains Latinos’ embrace of Trump more than any other: class. Over 80 percent of Latinos are working class, and an enormous number of them are strivers working manual labor.
OK, let's listen in:
I spoke with Ismael Cardenas, a soft-spoken Mexican immigrant from Michoacán who worked at one of the plants.... Over the last three years, his family had been crushed by inflation and gas prices. Though they had once voted Democrat, they’d stopped believing that the party actually cared about working people like them, no matter how the politicians talked. “What Trump says is what Trump does. If he promises something, he is going to do it,” Cardenas told me.
“That’s it, exactly,” Lira said, jumping in. “Democrats talk so eloquently, but their actions are not good. The way Trump talks may not be nice. I think, at times, he has said racist things. But his actions, his policies are good. And he keeps his promises.”
....Other Trump voters I met in town, however, were much less ideological. Their message, instead, was something like this: Under Biden, there were days I couldn’t afford to fill up my truck with gas; the price of eggs doubled; my rent went up. Entonces, Biden is fired. It’s time for change.
....The morning after the election, I got lunch with Chuck Rocha, a Democratic campaign strategist.... Almost all the men in his family worked at the Goodyear tire factory.... That eventually led him to the Democratic Party, which Rocha joined in 1990, hoping to, as he recently put it, “fight NAFTA, drain the swamp of over-educated rich people in power, stop investing my money in foreign wars and prioritize making things in America again.” Over our table, Rocha raised his eyebrows and asked me, “Who does that sound like today?”
After a Democrat — Bill Clinton — signed NAFTA, thousands of factory jobs moved to Mexico. Rocha and the men in his family all lost their jobs when the Goodyear plant shut down. There’s a similar story in Reading — during Obama’s presidency, a litany of factories, including Hershey and Pepsi, closed their doors for the last time. The hard truth for Democrats is that their problems with Latinos, and their problems with all working class voters, go beyond Trump — these are people who feel they’ve been materially failed by Democrats for a generation.
I think a lot of this shows the power of rhetoric as much as it does reality. There was nothing Joe Biden could do about inflation, for example, so he decided his best bet was to stay quiet about it. But that's not what people want to hear. They want to hear that you're mad as hell and by God you're going to fight it.
Or take NAFTA. Trump has no intention of repealing it. Hell, it was passed by Republicans in 1993 and Trump signed an expansion of NAFTA when he was in office. But that never stopped him from yelling loudly about how unfair it was and promising to do something about it.
Here's how the power of rhetoric works:
| What Trump Says | What They Hear |
|---|---|
| NAFTA is the worst deal ever. | I'll protect American workers from Mexicans. |
| We'll deport 20 million illegal immigrants. | I'll get rid of the cheap labor that's stealing your jobs. |
| We'll cut taxes. | I'll cut your taxes. |
| Inflation is killing us. | I'll never let inflation happen again. |
| Tariffs as far as the eye can see. | I'll punish China for taking away our manufacturing jobs. |
Now, the truth is that (a) although a modest number of factory workers lost their jobs under NAFTA, it was responsible for almost no net job losses, (b) illegal immigrants don't compete for the same jobs as native workers, (c) Republican tax cuts focus almost exclusively on corporations and the rich, and (d) Trump has no influence over inflation. As for (e), China really did take away a lot of manufacturing jobs in the aughts. But tariffs won't bring them back.
But who cares about the truth? I don't even mean that sarcastically, either. People mostly want to know which side are you on? Democrats are keenly aware of this when it comes to gay issues, trans issues, race issues, union issues, and so forth. Did Biden walking a picket line actually help UAW workers get a better contract? Of course not. Did it get a lot of UAW votes anyway? You bet.
For some reason, though, Democrats have long been unable to understand this when it comes to the working class. I don't mean that they disparage working class voters. They don't. But they don't loudly promote their interests either—not economic interests and not cultural interests. A $25,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers? Come on. Nobody understands that. Sex change surgery for trans prisoners? Please.¹
I believe pretty strongly that, in reality, neither party is able to do much for the working class. Biden did a little bit for them by increasing subsidies for Obamacare, but that's probably about as much as any president has done this century. Harris actually came close with her long-term care proposal, and might have made a splash if she had flat-out endorsed Medicare covering all long-term care. But she didn't.
Still, for a variety of reasons, I remain skeptical of the argument that Trump won because of the economy. One reason that gets too little attention is the comparison between Biden and Ronald Reagan. Both faced high inflation, high unemployment, and slack wages, and both presided over an improving economy by the end of their first term. But Biden and Harris presided over a way better economy: inflation at 2.4% compared to 4.2%; unemployment at 4.1% compared to 7.2%; and blue collar wages up 5% over five years compared to down 10%. And yet Reagan won a landslide while Kamala Harris got badly beaten.
Now, that was 40 years ago and times have changed. And you can certainly argue that Biden also presided over the inevitable end of the pandemic goody bag. Still, it strikes me that the evidence suggests economic discontent was more media driven than real. Nothing else really adds up.
All that said, it's still the case that if you want the working class to vote for you, you have to take their side. Even if you're faking it, you still have to do it. Democrats haven't for a long time.
¹You think this is unfair? It's not. Kamala Harris "strongly" supported it of her own free will in 2019 because she thought it would appeal to the college educated lefties that made up her base. And it was official policy under both Obama and Biden.
The next charismatic Dem who will sweep into the Presidency will talk alot more like Bernie Sanders than Harris.
Is probably not accurate to say that Trump "learned" the following, but in the age of the internet and social media Harris and the national Dem leadership campaign like anyone can verify their solid policies. That's true, but the potential voter has to be interested in verifying policy and the vast majority are not.
In reality, anyone can claim to be on the side of a person, and if someone tries to fact check you, if you phrase your pitch correctly they will never be able to pin you down. Hence, Trump.
Yeah, at this point the Democratic candidate should just make extravagant promises about putting money in low and mid-income peoples pockets. Trying to run on rational policies doesn't work with a voting population that just doesn't pay attention past "how much did it cost to fill up my truck last week."
once again mr. drum's bias regarding trans issues shines through. i can already see him casting trans folk into the outer darkness.
what he doesn't get is that if you asked republicans if they think prisoners deserve appropriate and adequate healthcare a majority would say "no". i would wager a month's teacher retirement check on that. republican cruelty to prisoners is not restricted to torturing trans prisoners.
this shows that the idea of "generations" is bs, mr. drum and i are in the same age cohort. i may even be a year or two older yet his thinking on trans issues is more archaic than my 86 year old mother's.
i've been following mr. drum since he did the "political animal" blog. i can't remember if he was this awful on trans and palestinian issues 25 years ago?
I remember him when he was Calpundit, and I don't believe trans was even an issue that long ago.
I'm not sure what's awful about his take. Kamala did say she supported government funded sex change operations for undocumented immigrants in prison. This statement may have been something that hurt her in the general election. Trump certainly ran tons of ads featuring it. Is it anti-trans to point this out?
If, approximately, 250,000 people in three key upper Midwest states, had voted for Harris, rather than Trump the outcome of the election would have been different.
It seems likely, that each of these mythical 250,000 voters would have different reasons: some believed Trumps BS, others are unhappy with immigration, I am sure inflation mattered to others, a few fell for the transgender commercials, etc.
In Michigan, the GOP ads were wall to wall "Transgender drug gangs coming over the border to take American jobs". Dem's were sweetness and light heralding a new age.
The most vicious, bloody shirt ones by far were sponsored by Miriam Adelson's Preserve America PAC, with Trump's a close second.
"...by far ... close second."
Inconsistent.
Same in Pennsylvania. I think Biden's policies were good for the middle and working class but he had great difficulty promoting them and instead Trump and right wing media focused on: trans issues, Immigration and Student loans. All of that right wing messaging was "Biden is taking your money and giving it to people who don't deserve it."
I think the Dems got beat on cultural issues at a time when working class people were hurting due to inflation and Harris didn't clearly articulate how she was going to help them. Most voters don't really understand what a child tax credit actually means and instead she should have promised and promoted a broad based tax cut. I know she did talk about cutting taxes but she was up against right wing media which were more effective then her message.
Or, if the same number of voters had turned out in 2024 as turned out in 2020, then Harris would have won. That's the real question: why did so many voters stay home?
I think people were scared of trump and his response to covid. As time passed some people believed it wasn't as bad as it was hyped and forgot about a lot of his stupid comments and actions
More to the point, lock downs and extended school closures totally discredited the Democratic response to COVID for most Americans.
One problem is that Trump still has enough energy, barely, to belt out his vision - lies - on TV day after day, while Biden no longer did after 2021 or so. Jim Clyburn unwittingly set us up for this by endorsing Biden before the SC primary.
Biden was barely energetic enough to pound his fist on a lectern and spout rhetoric in 2020. Jim Clyburn, for whatever reason - perhaps his own advanced age - either did not recognize or did not acknowledge that Biden was going to be in no condition to work the pulpit again 4 years later.
As for the idea that Biden would have bowed out before the 2024 primaries? Please! He was stupid enough to be running at age 77 in 2020, and politicians do not step down unless it's already too late, as we saw this summer.
The Democrats needed a straight white man who was well known to the American people in order to beat Trump, and Biden had those qualifications. As it was, it was a close call. A few thousand people in some of the swing states could have overturned the result, even though Biden got 7 million more votes.
It hasn't been mentioned enough, but although Harris would have been a fine President, and ran a great campaign, a lot of men and a fair number of women may simply not have wanted to vote for a woman for President. They'll vote for women for other offices, but not that one. They would never give that as a reason if you asked them, but I still think it was an important factor.
Make that Black woman.
In the boonies it's still 1954.
The people who wouldn't vote for her merely because she's black would not vote for a Democrat anyway. However, it's possible that some people who were willing to vote for Obama were (possibly unconsciously) thinking that black people have had their President, and it's too soon to give them another one. They would never say that was a reason, but it might have been.
It really stuns me how Democrats think.
I am a right wing Republican and I was really hoping in 2008, 2012, and 2016 that Condoleezza Rice would finally run.
In 2016 and 2020 I was really hoping for Tim Scott to make a serious bid for the nomination so we could better understand his positions on domestic and foreign policy and I could decide whether or not to support him for president. He sounds good, but we don't really know enough about him just from his time as a Senator.
I never thought about whether it was the blacks' turn again. After all, if I vote for Rice or Scott it's to be MY president, not a president for some black people, most of whom I do not even know.
But for Democrats apparently it is all about identity politics. I guess we can't have another black Democrat president until we have a Hispanic and an Asian and maybe an LBTQ+gobbledegook president?
You voted for a gibbering nigh-octagenarian orange raccoon game show host. You pissed away the chance to vote for somebody who wouldn't immediately be a lame duck (and an old and incompetent one at that). I'm not sure why your judgment is anything anybody should listen to.
See you in 2026. And 2028. You'll learn that revenge is a bitch.
The Democrats just nominated another Black person for president. I don't know why you think they're the ones obsessed with whose turn it is. As for whether it made a difference to conservatives, I guess you must have missed all the "DEI hire" BS?
Harris is so stupid that she went on a performatively Muslim influencer's podcast with the hot take that bacon is a spice.
Obama was an A player who hired a B or C player VP who hired a D player VP for himself who hired Little League players for her team.
Biden choose Harris because of her race with little attention to her capabilities. In short a DEI hire.
Let's say for the sake of argument Biden finished fourth or fifth in Nevada like he did in Iowa and New Hampshire. Clyburn would have never endorsed him because he knew Biden was finished politically. But Biden finished second and meant he still viable and Clyburn endorsed and the one he knew was still viable and good thing because if Biden collapsed the idea of a nomination contest between Bernie Sanders and Mike Bloomberg is truly nauseating
In fact Biden has done a great deal for the working class. He has supported unions more than any other President in recent times. He passed the infrastructure act after Trump promised to do it for four years and never delivered. There has been a resurgence of U.S. manufacturing under Biden.
But it's not enough for Biden to talk about his own accomplishments. He needed a chorus of prominent Democrats continually telling the country about what a great job he's been doing, and as far as I can tell that hasn't happened. As a result, people who don't pay much attention to politics don't know what he's done and as a result he hasn't received the credit.
Thank you. Yes.
And not just the big things:
Junk fees! Capping the price of insulin! Late fees! Click to cancel! Expanded overtime rules!
While none of these have the scale of the BIL, they make ordinary people’s lives easier and less frustrating. And every one was pushed over the pitched opposition of the respective business lobbies.
And he beat trump. By a lot. One of the best presidents of my lifetime, both heart and accomplishments.
I don’t know if not beating this drum was the main reason Harris lost, but you are absolutely right that the _repeated _ failure of democrats to do this is part of the story.
This is correct. As far as I could tell, no Democrat in this campaign ever made an effort to claim credit for anything that Biden accomplished. People think Trump is more for them and Biden is for the rich. It's insane.
I will return to my common lament--Our news media sucks. I remember when price capping on insulin happened and ABC news ran a segment on how the 'U.S. government' capped insulin fees. WTF, try 'Biden administration'?
If Biden / Democrats are to be blamed for something it is that they do not understand that the morons in our news media need to be beat over the head to give proper attribution. The media collectively wants to be 'in the middle' so that they can draw more viewers and not piss off conservatives, the ultimate squeaky wheels.
Beside old media, working this new media is going to be a challenge. How do you convince Joe Rogan to let a democrat talk about facts when his stock is fully bullshit?
I would like to see Pete Buttigieg on Joe Rogan.
People who don't pay much attention to politics don't listen to "prominent democrats". You need to get Russian bot troll farmers to sneak the facts into their instagram and tik-tok feeds.
Yeah I left TikTok during the summer because despite trying to change my algorithm (blocking MAGA types) I kept being fed a steady stream of Trump and MAGA. All I wanted was vids of pit bulls, power washing and grass cutting...lol
The bottom line appears to be that policy ultimately doesn’t matter. All that matters is talking, or yelling, a good game on the stump.
I have no doubt that’s true but speaks very poorly of the voting pubic. This is not a populace capable of self governance in the modern world.
"If you wish in this world to advance,
Your merits you're bound to enhance.
You must stir it and stump it and blow your own trumpet,
Or trust me, you haven't a chance!" -- Gilbert & Sullivan, Ruddigore
Most people pay too much attention to politics, but none to government & how it functions- even if they're aware that Biden's work to get funding for the infrastructure legislation & broadband for rural areas, they have no idea of how long the planning takes that determines distribution of finding to the states needs, as if massive projects over a wide area should spring up fast, so they don't see the results And while Biden & Harris did speak about such accomplishments, how many voters heard some of the details on NPR- or would have taken the time to listen?
It still seems to me that this country needs classes in civics & maybe debating & logic, as well - but that seems extremely unlikely, the way that education has become so splintered, with resulting draining of funding for public schools.. Unregulated home schooling, vouchers for both private & parochial schools all reduce money for school repairs, teachers' salaries - & i don't want public-school teachers spending their pay on supplies for pupils.
All anybody can do for the working class is to tax the wealthy class more and spend it on end-user benefits for the working class. Better local education so that the kids can break the cycle of poverty. Greater subsidies for health care. Shoring up Social Security which they will need more than knowledge workers.
That's about it, other than actually electing working class representatives in the political process.
See my reply above to Keith B:
Junk fees. Capping the price of insulin. Late fees. Click to cancel. Expanded overtime rules.
Some of these were significant fights.
There are lots of things Biden did that make people’s lives easier, and most of them don’t know it.
This is the stuff that tells people what side you’re on.
Harris missed a chance to trumpet this stuff when asked if there was anything she’d do differently from Biden. Unfortunately the story of the Democratic Party.
All of this stuff is nonsense. TANSTAAFL - There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.
If you get rid of junk fees you will see higher base prices.
If you cap prices of ANYTHING at an amount that actually drives down prices you get shortages.
If you expand overtime rules businesses reduce overtime even more and more people need a second job (usually at a lower hourly rate) to get by.
There is, however, one way to support the working class.
You make it harder for working class immigrants to come to the US and far easier for high income high end workers to come to the US.
When you have more high income high end workers making lots of money in the US you have more demand for the goods and services that working class people provide in the real US economy. You need more restaurant meals, more deliveries, more plumbers, more car washers, more parking lot attendants, more janitors, more repair people for everything from elevators to HVAC systems.
When you have fewer working class workers in the US you bid up the cost of their labor.
So institute a simple rule: Anyone who has a firm job offer paying 100K or more can get a working visa for the US on demand. For each additional 25K / year they can bring in one member of immediate family. They can stay as long as they have sufficient income (so 100K + 25K per family member) or can prove that they have funds in the bank to support themselves and maintain their lifestyle. Add a $10K deposit to be refunded with interest when they leave voluntarily or become US citizens but to be forfeited if we have to deport them.
Allow workers to come in for industries where we really need hard working low wage workers at jobs most Americans do not want, like farm labor.
Then enforce e-verify and go medieval on deportations of criminals and non-working illegal aliens.
It is that simple.
It is super important to recognize that there is a very powerful global trend to boot out incumbent parties, and the stuff discussed here is only effective at the margins.
And it is also super important to recognize that of the group of incumbents booted out this year, Democrats did about the best of all of them, in terms of vote share.
And yeah, Trump being a criminal and a traitor didn't get traction.
After all that: Yes, I agree. People want to know what side you are on. Clinton got mocked for "I feel your pain" but he won the presidency, twice. At a time when Democrats weren't doing too well overall.
People want broad brushes and simple language. They want followup. They say "Trump keeps his promises". It's not true, but he looks like he's keeping his promises.
That is totally necessary, if not sufficient, for political success in my book.
Kinda amazing that the exact same party that is trumpeting Ban the Box laws, that insists we use language like "has history with law enforcement" rather than criminal, that says "a person is not defined by their crime" is so enthusiastic to keep mentioning that Trump is a felon...
THIS, this is exactly what I am talking about, the pure, unadulterated, and utterly obvious hypocrisy. You don't actually care about felons one way or another, you never have. The INSTANT it becomes advantageous to stigmatize felony rather than excuse it, you were happy to do so.
The hypocrisy didn't even register, the way it did immediately to half the country, because none of this is even real to you; it's all just a game of burn down society and let's see what happens afterwards.
I am not a hypocrite. I will gladly stop calling Trump a felon after he has faced justice, served his time, and shown remorse.
This is the most ridiculous take I have ever heard. You really think there is no difference between saying that we should treat prisoners and ex-cons like human beings and saying we should completely ignore the fact that someone has gleefully committed crimes when evaluating who should be president?
+1
No, name99 doesn’t really think that, it’s just a troll.
> he looks like he's keeping his promises
Well, at least he says that he kept his promises.
Let's look at something very different, to open our eyes.
There's a current genre of "Hollywood Literature" that's all about big bad streaming. Doesn't matter whether it's actually about music or movies or TV, it's always the same story: we're drowning in mass-produced garbage culture because the people have no taste and want to watch this schlock, not the artistic I want to create.
Compare this to the equivalent genre in the 90s, which was "the big Media Corporations and their interchangeable executives are forcing America to watch and listen to garbage, but I know that what the people want is quality art, and as soon as we get rid of the gatekeepers you'll be amazed at the coming renaissance".
The point is, you have here these people who spoke this aggressive leftist-democrat-then-woke story that was all about how wonderful the people are, until it became undeniable that, no, the people actually have zero interest in what you're selling. At that point the wonders of the people and democracy went out the window and it was all about how America sucks for not being able to recognize my genius.
What we're seeing here is the political version of that exact same psychological type. Lots of claims about the wonders of the "true people", but zero actual interest or concern for these true people. You didn't consult them 10 years ago when you insisted you knew what they wanted, and you aren't consulting them now. Primarily we have rage that "the people" refuse to be your puppets, that they dare to think for themselves.
Americans are the wealthiest society the world has ever seen. This doesn't mean they don't care about economic issues; it does mean that they care about a lot MORE than just economic issues. Insisting this is all about economics is one more version of Dems refusing to acknowledge that what they are selling (which, let's not sugar-coat it, is the destruction of Western Civilization, that's the target) is not very appealing to plenty of people -- INCLUDING people who left places that have rather too little civilization for their tastes.
You want to know why a gay furry wouldn't vote for you? That gay furry looks at the enthusiastic Hamas support from Harris down, and knows full well which society is better for him.
Likewise the black twenty-year old who has already been mugged three times this year, and would like rather less Defund The Police nonsense, and a rather more hands-on attitude from his city government.
And the female engineer doing well at her $80K job, who's sick of having to waste hours every month to listen to hectoring HR lectures.
They all have little in common except that they like the civilization they're living in, and want to see a whole lot more of it, not the steady chipping away at it week by week.
First off - at least 48% of Americans like what the Dems are selling. Secondly Dems probably lost mostly due to economic issues and immigration - not having to attend he lectures. Also I work at a super “woke’ org and our DEI type training is barely a few hours a year so I doubt Boeing/Coke/McDonalds is spending several hours of their employees wages on this stuff each month. Maybe spend a little less time in the conservative media sphere and understand how 48% of Americans who vote dem live. It’s very different to how Fox etc paint it.
Also when did Harris or anyone in his campaign indicate anything other than total support for Israel let alone support for Hamas? The only people who support Hamas are far to online delusional leftists.
+1
I work at a union corporation and our "woke" policy was to hang signs reading "Not In Our House" after a manager got caught having sexual relations with a subordinate. I always joke that there should be an asterisk saying "not today... atleast not yet."
A long rambling post with nothing much to say but weird anecdotes. "we're drowning in mass-produced garbage culture because the people have no taste and want to watch this schlock, not the artistic I want to create." No one wants to buy whatever you're selling?? I'm shocked.
"Let's look at something very different, to open our eyes." You are hillarious sometimes, even if it's unintentional. Open our eyes?? Speak for yourself. Besides I doubt your eyes have ever been open.
The female engineer is making a lot more than $80K, and she is happy that HR is making sure men don't creep on her, and also, she voted for Harris.
+1
Comparing FDR to Carter vs Reagan to today, the New Deal era gave us
Higher growth
Increasing share of national income to labor, vs capital
Steady split of labor’s share between managers and regular employees
Declining deficits
The post-Reagan era has brought us
Lower growth
Capital’s share of income reaching new heights
Almost all of the increase in labor income going to the managerial class
Exploding deficits
Gilded-Age levels of wealth inequality
And that’s ignoring tax havens, which are probably hiding an ever-increasing share of the elite’s wealth.
Yet somehow these folks who probably know plenty of immigrants both legal and illegal somehow think it’s the next immigrant that’s going to eat their lunch.
+1
"eat their lunch"
What's that? People are pissed beause Haitians are eating the dogs and cats the whites were planning on eating?
😉
The real change was in 1973 because of OPEC, This is well-known to anyone who has studied the US economy at even the most cursory level.
Reagan may have implemented terrible policies (or not); but refusing to include in your analysis the 1973 shock makes it worthless.
Biden had low ratings, so Harris ran away from him and their administration's accomplishments.
She should have touted the infrastructure bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS act, etc. I even did a "because We Believe in America..." sloganeering campaign here (I guess they don't read your blog).
She should have countered Trump's garbage pail comments with we're the greatest country on Earth. That's why our parents and grandparents came to this country, and they helped build it with their blood sweat and tears. Defend their adopted country with their honor and sometimes their blood or the blood of their children.
but that's history now....
She did but those impressionable voters who MAY have voted for her didn't hear it, or were drowned out by right wing media.
This is straight-out ex post facto rationalisation. NAFTA didn't exist in 1990, there were no foreign wars of any consequence, and Democrats certainly weren't promising to make things in America again.
The Democratic Party has been fighting for subsidised child care, universal health care, child tax credits, a higher minimum wage, mandatory paid sick leave, universal paid parental leave, stronger unions, and a lot of other measures that would benefit lower-paid workers. Republicans oppose them all. All the nonsense about Democrats "abandoning the working class" is nothing but bloviation by people who refuse to acknowledge Trump has mobilised tens of millions of Americans whose bigotry finally has a political home.
+1
NAFTA talks began in 1990 and it was a major issue in the 1992 election.
https://www.reuters.com/article/economy/timeline-the-long-bumpy-road-from-nafta-to-usmca-idUSKBN2424F8/
“What Trump says is what Trump does. If he promises something, he is going to do it,” That's not even remotely true! When someone says something so far divorced from reality I tend to think of them as either incredibly naive or incredibly stupid. Or both. How can you possibly reach someone who believes such nonsense?
+1
That was the quote that jumped out at me, too. If that was his take-away from the first living through the first Trump administration, the concept of reality does not apply in his world.
Wait, do you mean we're not going to get "No Taxes on Tips" and "No Taxes on Overtime"??? Heavens. He had big signs at his rally with those slogans in big, bold letters.
The only way I see them not taxing overtime is if they raise the the threshold at which it starts. my guess is 50 to 60 hours. They'll virtually eliminate overtime. No overtime, no taxes. This will be one of his many broken promises. He won't do anything to help the working class. He'll most like do much harm. Lowering SSI benefits while increasing the age requirement. Doing something similar to Medicare and Medicaid using the excuse that we can't afford it, due to his tax cuts of course.
They won't even bother. Just flush it down the memory hole.
BTW, CNN is reporting Marco Rubio is likely to be named Secretary of State. BwaaHaaaHaaaaa.
I've seen a few of his picks so far. The bad is so far beyond my imagination. Elise Stefanik for Ambassador to the U.N. I thought Nikki Haley was bad. It's going to be non stop corruption and grift.
Ah, but there's a silver lining to everything. (Well, some things, anyway.) Stefanik will no longer be my Congressional "representative".
Well that's some good news.
The shit list just keeps getting shittier.
Oh I think Trump is stupid and arrogant enough to try it. He'll make it out to be this grand deal. He probably thinks his base is stupid enough to fall for it. . The sad thing is some of them are. Some won't and will have a look of utter betrayal on their faces that will bring a smile to my face. A small minority will just shrug it off.
Why would Trump try to get rid of taxes on tips or overtime? He isn't paid in tips or hourly wages. And he's already been elected, so there isn't any political benefit for him.
I understand why Trump would say that's what he wants to do, but not why he would actually do it.
Because he's an unrepentant and pathological conman. If he thinks he can get away with something he's gonna go for it. He has nothing to lose by trying. Making overtime pay start at 50 or 60 hours will be a huge windfall for corporations. Which includes himself.
"If he thinks he can get away with something he's gonna go for it."
Get away with what? How does making overtime pay start at 50 or 60 hours a week help Trump?
Moreover, the time-and-a-half pay for hours beyond 40 is from a US statute (and one so old that it's even slightly older than Trump himself: the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act)--Trump cannot change it through executive action, which means that Congress would have to pass legislation. Does Mike Johnson look like he cares? And does anything about the first Trump administration make you think that Trump himself would push for any legislation aside from occasionally tweeting about how Obamacare ought to be repealed?
social media has a LOT to do with it. TikTok, IG and Facebook is a sewer of misinformation and gaslighting
Part of the explanation:
Machismo is a social norm in Hispanic cultures that refers to a set of values and beliefs about masculinity. It can include both positive and negative aspects, such as:
Positive: Bravery, honor, compassion, responsibility, and being a pillar of the family
Negative: Aggression, sexism, emotional detachment, and womanizing
Attitudes: It's appropriate for women to remain in traditional roles, and men should be dominant over women
I also wonder if the fact that a lot of these people have lived under strong man rule in their own lives gives them a comfort level with a guy like Trump not as traditionally widely shared in the US. There's more than a little of Juan Peron or Fidel Castro about Donald Trump...
Racist much?
(1) I think Kevin's wrong on this and it was mostly the economy. Yes, broadly speaking it's been great under Biden, but the inflation burst, while now over, was both real and recent. And, while many voters are aware of this, it only requires a small sliver to switch to turn a winning coalition into a losing one. It doesn't strike me as a stretch that, say, one in fifteen or sixteen voters were sufficiently freaked out by today's much higher prices to decide to go with Trump. (Yes, I'm well aware nominal price level isn't the same as rate of inflation—the latter of which is now benign—but how many low info voters have economics degrees?)
(2) We'd all better hope I'm right, or we could be in for a very prolonged era of darkness in America ,
I agree. Most of us weathered inflation relatively well and it didn't significantly change our lifestyle. I really believe she should have offered up a significant tax cut for those under 400K deficit be damned. Expanding the child tax credit and credits for buying a house seemed gimmicky and I know that's not the right word
once again mr. drum's bias regarding trans issues shines through. i can already see him casting trans folk into the outer darkness.
what he doesn't get is that if you asked republicans if they think prisoners deserve appropriate and adequate healthcare a majority would say "no". i would wager a month's teacher retirement check on that.
the shows that the idea of "generations" is bs, mr. drum and i are in the same age cohort. i may even be a year or two older yet his thinking on trans issues is more archaic than my 86 year old mother's.
i've been following mr. drum since he did the "political animal" blog. i can't remeber if he was this awful on trans and palestinian issues 25 years ago?
Trans issues became a thing as soon a Obergefell came down. There was a massive infrastructure in place to push same-same marriage over the finish line. Once that was achieved, these institutions needed a new cause. Something to keep the money flowing.
In June 2015 Obergefell was decided. In July 2015, Vanity Fair published "Call me Caitlyn" and we were off to the races.
So this notion that Kevin was "awful on trans ... issues 25 years ago" is gloriously a-historical.
All the people who want to divine some fine line exquisitely nuanced reason for why Harris lost and GOP took hold of power across the board are too cute by half.
Harris lost share of all demographic splits, not just the Latino. Why did she lose Black votes? Asian votes? Working class votes? Why didn't she outperform Biden with women?
The narrative is broad and simple, not narrow and nuanced. The reach for Occam's Razor has almost become trite, but in this case it fits.
People want to believe it's complicated because it's a lot easier to excuse an erroneous prediction if the reason is acutely nuanced and could have been easily missed.
Be a grown up. Admit that we got it wrong because of our cognitive biases.
Not sure we really have good data to draw these conclusions yet. But its fun to use incomplete data to draw conclusions using our priors.
Trump has already exceeded his 2020 vote count by nearly 1M while Harris is currently behind Biden's by 10M, even though total ballots cast are just 9M short (-5.6%) of 2020 as they stand right now.
There were big swings across the board, not just in some demographics. A lot of useless handwringing over nuanced differences requires ignoring the bigger picture. She lost big in the popular vote and got swept across the battleground states. Any issue is going to necessarily be broad, not narrow.
That's bullshit. She didn't lose share among potential voters. Her voters didn't turn out.
Losing share is how you would frame it if the same number of people voted in 2020 and 2024 and she lost. When the same number of Trump voters turn out and a smaller number of Democrat voters turn out, that's not losing share. It's about problems with getting your base to turn out.
One reason why the Democrat base might not have turned out is because Harris moved so far to the right, many Democrat voters couldn't see any real difference between her and Trump and just didn't care.
Well, I dug down in a few key precincts and while Dearborn overstates the effects, it is emblematic of what happened. In Dearborn there were ~8% fewer voters but she only received half the votes Biden got in 2020 (15K vs 30K), while Trump boosted his numbers over 2020. Nationally, the vote projection is in the ballpark of 8% fewer ballots cast, but he is projected to win the popular vote so it means a lot of voters did switch to Trump.
I'm not bullshitting you; feel free to check the numbers yourself.
> Trump has no influence over inflation.
You should read Krugman.
But in any event, my takeaway is the complete dumb-fuckery coming out of the mouths of these Trump voters:
* Trump always keeps his promises? Where's that fucking wall?
* NAFTA is bad? Trump called it the best treaty ever!
* Prioritize making things in America again? Um, that's exactly what Biden was doing.
* Gas prices were high? Biden fixed that and his policies of drill-baby-drill + EVs for everyone will continue to lower gas prices.
* Egg prices were high? Well, fuck. I guess Biden personally spread bird flu around the country.
* Rent increased? Well who is more likely to fix that? The party that wants to build more housing? Or the party that wants to deport the labor that builds housing?
But, yeah, there are a *lot* of idiotic voters out there, and we've got to stop over-estimating their intelligence and learn how to communicate with them.
"Now, the truth is that (a) although a modest number of factory workers lost their jobs under NAFTA, it was responsible for almost no net job losses, (b) illegal immigrants don't compete for the same jobs as native workers ... As for (e), China really did take away a lot of manufacturing jobs in the aughts. But tariffs won't bring them back."
This why you lose. Your basic view (similar to that of most comfortable neoliberals) is that the economic system is largely sound and all that is necessary is a bit of tinkering around the edges. In the meantime, wage growth has completely decoupled from productivity, the labor share of output has declined, wealth inequality continues to rise, and rural america is in utter collapse. Furthermore, those social institutions that used to shelter the less-fortunate are in decline, as documented by Robert Putnam.
"All that said, it's still the case that if you want the working class to vote for you, you have to take their side. Even if you're faking it, you still have to do it. Democrats haven't for a long time."
This is as bad as the ignorance of the interview subject. HE WALKED IN UNION STRIKES. Democrats have long been the only party taking the side of the working class.
"What Trump says is what Trump does" has got to be the stupidest thing said. Ever.
+1 Yet we are supposed to reach out to people who think like this. As if that's even possible. When the full extent of a Trump presidency is experienced then maybe they can be reached. Not until.
We're supposed to gaslight them like the GOP
All the reporting showed is the Latino community he interviewed were reacting on feelings and not economic knowledge. That thing pundits like to call "lived experience". Which is shorthand for being unable to understand your relationship with the overall economy.
Add in a conman that speaks in digestible bullshit and they follow like lemmings.
Voters are idiots who live in alternate realities and it is impossible to run a democracy under these circumstances.