Dem Post Mortem

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Little girl in the grip of a rapist" Help me, please". Witness: "She hasn't made a convincing appeal; I'll just let the rapist do what he likes to her."
This is what saying the electorate isn't to blame is like. As Shakespeare said, "The fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves".
So, the Democrats ran a bad campaign. Therefore people should make decisions based only on who did a more convincing propaganda show; not actually do some work themselves to know what is going on. The concept of being responsible for your own decisions is a big one in society, and boy do they like applying this to people in a bad situation.
There are two groups of people who are to blame - those who voted for Trump, and those who didn't vote at all.
American exceptionalism is about not being responsible for your own decisions and actions, always blaming someone or something else. "The devil made me do it". The rest of the world perceives America as weak and soft.

There is a bit of schadenfreude in seeing what will happen to Trump's supporters in the future that they have enabled (if Trump keeps his promises, and is not controlled by others to do less stupid things).

 

[Jarhyn]

Fucker is literally arguing for the candidate who would turn out and then "do something about" her being homeless on the street...

Well, ya know what those immigrants are like.
Tom

Technically, I am an immigrant where I live, now.

Soon, potentially, even a refugee.

I'm not homeless by any stretch? My husband keeps trying to find reasons to go back to try to ride out whatever is going to happen, but the fact is, now that we're here, it's cheaper buying round trip tickets back to the Netherlands, anyway.

My husband thinks I'm paranoid, but the fact is that 90 years ago, it started just like this. There's no burning of the university, but that took other forms this time around, particularly in Florida.

It was about the 30's iteration of the "woke" propaganda cycle. It was declared first an enemy, and that used to accuse, encamp in occupied lands in Poland (deportation), and then execution.

These things happened as a series of escalations, and fascist states across the world are refining variations on it day by day. It does happen outside the US, and the US has no structural resistance to it. Poland had something similar happen and their country got fucked over hard.

Something like half the country was "LGBT free zone".

Think about that for a moment.

I am shitting myself with worry that something is going to happen to Minnesota, being a tall nail that stands out In the red Midwest, to borrow meaning from an east Asian saying*.


*"The tall nail gets hammered"; also, "The nail that stands out is hammered down". (Japan, but also outside Japan?)

Well, at least my husband and I got out. Maybe Europe isn't far enough?

Good luck. Things will get bad.

I doubt Europe is far enough unless you're in one of the nuclear powers.

I looked at the possibility of getting out, nothing looked feasible for us.

I would say either NE or Western seaboard are the best bets, in the US. I don't see the union staying "whole" after this, and those are the logical breakaways at this point.

I would say Minnesota, but MN is an island, and I can foresee attempts to force unrest through occupation there.

He has to keep the blue areas because that's where the money is.

He does have to keep blue areas, but Minneapolis is one of those blue areas whose industry isn't as immediately useful to trump.

There's some aerospace engineering in Minneapolis, and a lot of med tech development, a number of corporate offices, and some attractions, but nothing of particularly vital importance there, and most of that can be spared by keeping most of the action focused northward.

There's a lot of difference between causing enough unrest to mangle the city (or half of it) and causing enough unrest to mangle the whole state.

Finally, I'm not sure he cares about keeping the US solvent. He cares about keeping his handlers happy to keep himself out of jail long enough to die without having seen consequences for his actions. We are talking about someone whose go-to solution to doing something that loses money is to do it anyway, bluster until people forget about it or decide they don't care, and make sure someone else ends up holding the bag.

 

[bigfield]

I suggest a dictionary and a thésaurus. They are human just like you I and deserve to be treated with respect. You wish to be treated a certain way and surprisingly they do too.
Otherwise you will lose more elections.

It's a particular kind of respect: the politician needs to validate the concerns of the voter and make the voter believe that they will do something to address that concern.

There's a clip of Bill Clinton demonstrating the technique, and future Democrat candidates will need to deliver their messages with the same persuasiveness to inspire voters.

Unfortunately for modern Democrats, they wont get to walk over a Bush Sr or a Romney who presents as dignified but out of touch: they'll be facing a post-Trump demagogue.

 

[ZiprHead]

It was the poster of post 161 who averred that Harris ran a good campaign. The Shadow asked about such a strawman. I merely noted that strawman has already been presented by another.

I wrote the post number 161. I just repeated it. you are welcome to refute it if you can.

It is president-elect Trump not president-elect Harris ergo Harris ran a poorer campaign than Trump.
I know it is hard to acknowledgement you lost to a clown and a buffoon but reality doesn't not care about your feelings.

Note that I also asked how do you run a campaign against a campaign like Trump's. Would you care to take a shot at answering?

 

[ZiprHead]

So please. Do tell us all how you counter that sort of attitude?

Not by the doing the following

How do you tell someone they are stupid and believe in bullshit without insulting them? I'm all ears.

I suggest a dictionary and a thésaurus. They are human just like you I and deserve to be treated with respect. You wish to be treated a certain way and surprisingly they do too.
Otherwise you will lose more elections.

Okay. Try it out here and now. What would you say to a Trumper to change their mind?

 

[Millrat]

So please. Do tell us all how you counter that sort of attitude?

Not by the doing the following

How do you tell someone they are stupid and believe in bullshit without insulting them? I'm all ears.

I suggest a dictionary and a thésaurus. They are human just like you I and deserve to be treated with respect. You wish to be treated a certain way and surprisingly they do too.
Otherwise you will lose more elections.

Okay. Try it out here and now. What would you say to a Trumper to change their mind?

In your larger post you sort answered this already. They enjoyed the rejection of science and logic.

Whether a Trumper or a theist; science (evidence) and logic is all there is.

I think insults and ridicule contributed to his getting elected.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So please. Do tell us all how you counter that sort of attitude?

Not by the doing the following

How do you tell someone they are stupid and believe in bullshit without insulting them? I'm all ears.

I suggest a dictionary and a thésaurus. They are human just like you I and deserve to be treated with respect.

I'm tired of being told that we aren't respecting the "Fuck your feelings" people enough. You have no clue what is going on in this country.

Otherwise you will lose more elections.

We won 2020, 2022. The Democrats have been moving to the right since 1992. Are we suppose to start applauding 19th Century denigration of immigrants now? Should the Democrats laugh at the transgendered, at the gays to keep trying to be "inclusive" with the far right?

Harris lost 2024 in large part because of the economic consequences of the Pandemic and small part because of anti-transgender/immigration ads.

 

[Elixir]

I just learned on facebook that Trump won because he is a smart, generous, self made billionaire, savvy businessman, family man and brilliant economist who really cares about America.

People think that.
S'cuze me I gotta go puke.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I just learned on facebook that Trump won because he is a smart, generous, self made billionaire, savvy businessman, family man and brilliant economist who really cares about America.

People think that.
S'cuze me I gotta go puke.

I've never seen someone beloved so much by people that person has so much indifference of. He took hundreds of millions from them to "Stop the Steal" (read line his pockets) and they never blinked an eye over it. They are like that friend or family member who has found love online and that love is asking for money, more and more of it, and they keep giving it despite their friends telling them there are huge red flags popping up everywhere.

And then we are told we are the problem because we aren't being inclusive with Trump supporters. That we use mean words to describe their ideas, values, or actions.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

im a white male and have suffered from some of the complaints these other white male voters have complained about. in fact i have been told on a few occassions i was not hired for good paying jobs because it was determined by the corprate hr they needed minorities or women to fill those roles

did it suck not getting my way? yes. am i the apple of my own eye? of course. but im not insane and realize the world does not revolve around me and in fact dont want it to. minorities and women have needs just like i do and have to be met as well. if they arent why should they give a shit about anything? the social engineers are paid and the lawmakers are paid to try to make sure the country worjs for everyone and we just cant always get our way. ive done well in life and have a good job so im grateful. Dont begrude the fews times aomeone else might have edged me out on something.

Go electing a dictator wannabee isnt going to help. if Trump actually tried to put white men back at the top like the 1950s and before we will have to just start all over again when the political winds change towards equal rights. And in a fe years time the white men will be a minority and nay face some real repurcussions and payback.

Did you ever wonder how different elections would be if voters had to decide based on what their candidate is for? Cut out all the jibber jabber, all the insults, all the false claims, all the rallies, simply cut out all the horseshit and make candidates write down their positions on all given subjects as they see them. Then voters have to read and decide.

Orange Dotard is an asshole that appeals to lots of people. They like the fact that he is an asshole and that he misbehaves, that he is entertaining. That's why Joe Sixpack sends his money to the billionaire asshole. Joe Sixpack is voting and spending his money based on entertainment value.

Yeah, I have long felt that we should do away with political campaigns. Both candidates put up a website listing their positions--and all opposition candidates get to put rebuttal links next to any claim the website makes. Everything's hosted on government servers, all sites for a given office are hosted on the same server or server cluster (thus anything that takes one down takes the others down, also.

 

[Swammerdami]

Hope we're all aware we're going to blow past 2.5 degrees celsius of global warming and polio is going to come back. Sorry to be extra depressing. By the way I have all the deniers of these issues on ignore, can't see your stupid shit.

Nitpick: IIUC, projections are for only a 2°C additional rise over the next century. (Projections of a 2.5°C rise or more include the 1°C rise already experienced over the past 140 years.) OTOH I read of increased carbon burning planned to meet the needs of giant "AI" data-centers. (I'm not sure why we need so much "AI."

Not according to this new report.

www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/climate-track-warm-by-nearly-3c-without-greater-ambition-un-report-2023-11-20/

You may have missed a point I articulated poorly. Future temperature increases are NOT stated relative to the present, but rather relative to a "pre-industrial baseline." This is NOT one of my (very many) pet peeves, but it strikes me as somewhat misleading. With the precedent established, there's no sense in changing but I (subconsciously?) reverted to "ADDITIONAL increase" -- (less misleading?).

I don't think I'm mistaken about this, e.g.

The global mean near-surface temperature for each year between 2024 and 2028 is predicted to be between 1.1°C and 1.9°C higher than the 1850-1900 baseline, according to the WMO report.
...
Global temperature is projected to warm by about 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7° degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050 and 2-4 degrees Celsius (3.6-7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.

I THINK my point is correct, and can inferred my point from examples like the above, although (misleadingly?) the baseline is usually omitted.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

im a white male and have suffered from some of the complaints these other white male voters have complained about. in fact i have been told on a few occassions i was not hired for good paying jobs because it was determined by the corprate hr they needed minorities or women to fill those roles

did it suck not getting my way? yes. am i the apple of my own eye? of course. but im not insane and realize the world does not revolve around me and in fact dont want it to. minorities and women have needs just like i do and have to be met as well. if they arent why should they give a shit about anything? the social engineers are paid and the lawmakers are paid to try to make sure the country worjs for everyone and we just cant always get our way. ive done well in life and have a good job so im grateful. Dont begrude the fews times aomeone else might have edged me out on something.

Go electing a dictator wannabee isnt going to help. if Trump actually tried to put white men back at the top like the 1950s and before we will have to just start all over again when the political winds change towards equal rights. And in a fe years time the white men will be a minority and nay face some real repurcussions and payback.

Did you ever wonder how different elections would be if voters had to decide based on what their candidate is for? Cut out all the jibber jabber, all the insults, all the false claims, all the rallies, simply cut out all the horseshit and make candidates write down their positions on all given subjects as they see them. Then voters have to read and decide.

Orange Dotard is an asshole that appeals to lots of people. They like the fact that he is an asshole and that he misbehaves, that he is entertaining. That's why Joe Sixpack sends his money to the billionaire asshole. Joe Sixpack is voting and spending his money based on entertainment value.

Yeah, I have long felt that we should do away with political campaigns. Both candidates put up a website listing their positions--and all opposition candidates get to put rebuttal links next to any claim the website makes. Everything's hosted on government servers, all sites for a given office are hosted on the same server or server cluster (thus anything that takes one down takes the others down, also.

That is too logical and sensible to ever have a chance of happening unfortunately (at least in the next maybe twenty years).

 

[Colonel Sanders]

So please. Do tell us all how you counter that sort of attitude?

Not by the doing the following

How do you tell someone they are stupid and believe in bullshit without insulting them? I'm all ears.

I suggest a dictionary and a thésaurus. They are human just like you I and deserve to be treated with respect. You wish to be treated a certain way and surprisingly they do too.
Otherwise you will lose more elections.

Okay. Try it out here and now. What would you say to a Trumper to change their mind?

Therein lies the problem. Although I keep saying we need to get enough of them back to win elections, I figured out years ago that they're bad faith, unrepentant, stupid, willfully ignorant dipshits. I haven't engaged in argument with a single one since likely sometime in 2016. It's like talking to a brain damaged dog whose breath smells like it's just eaten a pound of its own shit and loves it.

My guess is that serious catastrophe or overthrow is the only way out, and I'm not talking about a bad recession, but something several orders of magnitude worse than the Great Depression that kills millions.

I'd like to think secession is possible, but it's not. Think of any major city on the west coast and the Trump party would happily turn at least the poorer areas with high concentrations of minorities into ash if not the entire city. There'd be no chance to fight to back.

As I've said before, the Dems really fucked things up and it's likely too late to fix it because it's doubtful we're going to have another legitimate elections. I think it's all just a bunch of shouting about the barn door being left open, the donkey leaving, and then getting hit by a fully loaded semi going 90 miles an hour.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

As I've said before, the Dems really fucked things up and it's likely too late to fix it because it's doubtful we're going to have another legitimate elections. I think it's all just a bunch of shouting about the barn door being left open, the donkey leaving, and then getting hit by a fully loaded semi going 90 miles an hour.

You keep repeating this. 40 years of right-wing propaganda is directly responsible for 30% of the voters for thinking the US was in a much worse state in 2024 than it was in 2020.

In '94, Newt Gingrich began the hyper-partisan age of hypocrisy and pearl clutching. He embraced obstructionism and abusing investigatory powers in order to weaken a Democrat Administration.

The 2000 election outcome had a grave impact on our nation both through 9/11, death of the surplus, and nominations of Alito and Roberts. It helped lead to Citizens v United States.

The ACA in 2009 was the next step as the GOP won in a red "tsunami" and gerrymandered the fuck out of the US House and State legislature districts. They effectively made it much harder for the Democrats to win back in the States and require much larger wins to take the US House back. The GOP would continue expanding on their abuse of using investigatory issues in order to weaken the Democrat Party.

MAGA was in the womb of the GOP in 2012 when the to be MAGA base tried like all heck to end the Romney nomination.

By 2015, the Tea Party had become MAGA and Trump was the naked emperor in his new clothes. The election 2016, in tune with McConnell stealing a SCOTUS seat, saw three very conservative partisan justices being added to SCOTUS, which set a far right SCOTUS in stone for a generation. Trump was able to take advantage of the GOP convincing rural and industry displaced folks that the jobs moving overseas and automation was the Democrats fault.

Transgenderism wasn't on the map in 2000 when W barely got the win, and only because of a messed ballot in Palm Beach County. Instead Scalia was whining about why gay sex should remain criminalized. Transgenderism wasn't even on the map in 2016.

The Democrats are losing not because they aren't listening. Bill Clinton shifted center. Obama wasn't a wild liberal. Joe Biden is a centrist. This was needed to get elected! But the expansion of gay rights, turn transgender rights pissed the a portion of the US off. They celebrated Kim Davis.

I'm reading that some are saying the Democrats abandoned the working class. The GOP abandoned the working class decades ago, but thanks to some right-wing populist catchphrases, Trump was able to convince people there was an easy button for fixing the economy, something he really never did in his first term. And lets be clear, while Trump and the GOP won, this wasn't a wave. This wasn't 2010, this wasn't 1994, this wasn't 1980. The GOP advantage in the House might increase one seat.

How much more to the right should the Democrats go? Which minority should they join the GOP in demonizing to be more inclusive with that base? Or maybe just go to neglect some people, so as to trigger the MAGA base?

 

[Shadowy Man]

My guess is that serious catastrophe or overthrow is the only way out, and I'm not talking about a bad recession, but something several orders of magnitude worse than the Great Depression that kills millions.

Unless it’s directly linked to Trump and his movement in the most undeniable way possible I am not sure that even that would move the needle.

 

[TomC]

My guess is that serious catastrophe or overthrow is the only way out, and I'm not talking about a bad recession, but something several orders of magnitude worse than the Great Depression that kills millions.

Unless it’s directly linked to Trump and his movement in the most undeniable way possible I am not sure that even that would move the needle.

In a culture where Fox and X are the mainstream media nothing is undeniable.
Tom

 

[Elixir]

My guess is that serious catastrophe or overthrow is the only way out, and I'm not talking about a bad recession, but something several orders of magnitude worse than the Great Depression that kills millions.

Unless it’s directly linked to Trump and his movement in the most undeniable way possible I am not sure that even that would move the needle.

Zackly. How many millions dead would it take? I think he would get away with his tariffs scam, despite the transparency of intent.
(You CANNOT explain to trump's morons that THEY pay for tariffs, which pay for billionaire tax cuts.)
Anyhow, he killed a million or so in 2020 and they didn't even seem to notice. Maybe they're so thrilled that COVID killed great aunt Eunice, and she willed them her '57 Chevy?

 

[Shadowy Man]

My guess is that serious catastrophe or overthrow is the only way out, and I'm not talking about a bad recession, but something several orders of magnitude worse than the Great Depression that kills millions.

Unless it’s directly linked to Trump and his movement in the most undeniable way possible I am not sure that even that would move the needle.

In a culture where Fox and X are the mainstream media nothing is undeniable.
Tom

To be fair, even Fox has a limit, when it starts costing them near a billion dollars.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

As I've said before, the Dems really fucked things up and it's likely too late to fix it because it's doubtful we're going to have another legitimate elections. I think it's all just a bunch of shouting about the barn door being left open, the donkey leaving, and then getting hit by a fully loaded semi going 90 miles an hour.

You keep repeating this. 40 years of right-wing propaganda is directly responsible for 30% of the voters for thinking the US was in a much worse state in 2024 than it was in 2020.

In '94, Newt Gingrich began the hyper-partisan age of hypocrisy and pearl clutching. He embraced obstructionism and abusing investigatory powers in order to weaken a Democrat Administration.

The 2000 election outcome had a grave impact on our nation both through 9/11, death of the surplus, and nominations of Alito and Roberts. It helped lead to Citizens v United States.

The ACA in 2009 was the next step as the GOP won in a red "tsunami" and gerrymandered the fuck out of the US House and State legislature districts. They effectively made it much harder for the Democrats to win back in the States and require much larger wins to take the US House back. The GOP would continue expanding on their abuse of using investigatory issues in order to weaken the Democrat Party.

MAGA was in the womb of the GOP in 2012 when the to be MAGA base tried like all heck to end the Romney nomination.

By 2015, the Tea Party had become MAGA and Trump was the naked emperor in his new clothes. The election 2016, in tune with McConnell stealing a SCOTUS seat, saw three very conservative partisan justices being added to SCOTUS, which set a far right SCOTUS in stone for a generation. Trump was able to take advantage of the GOP convincing rural and industry displaced folks that the jobs moving overseas and automation was the Democrats fault.

Transgenderism wasn't on the map in 2000 when W barely got the win, and only because of a messed ballot in Palm Beach County. Instead Scalia was whining about why gay sex should remain criminalized. Transgenderism wasn't even on the map in 2016.

The Democrats are losing not because they aren't listening. Bill Clinton shifted center. Obama wasn't a wild liberal. Joe Biden is a centrist. This was needed to get elected! But the expansion of gay rights, turn transgender rights pissed the a portion of the US off. They celebrated Kim Davis.

I'm reading that some are saying the Democrats abandoned the working class. The GOP abandoned the working class decades ago, but thanks to some right-wing populist catchphrases, Trump was able to convince people there was an easy button for fixing the economy, something he really never did in his first term. And lets be clear, while Trump and the GOP won, this wasn't a wave. This wasn't 2010, this wasn't 1994, this wasn't 1980. The GOP advantage in the House might increase one seat.

How much more to the right should the Democrats go? Which minority should they join the GOP in demonizing to be more inclusive with that base? Or maybe just go to neglect some people, so as to trigger the MAGA base?

You know what my views are on the Dems, and I 100% agree with you on how the Trump movement came about. My criticism of the Democratic party is a mournful retrospective that's largely meaningless at this point because I don't think we're going to have the opportunity to rectify things.

The only thing I have to add to what you said about the conservatives is that the internet played a huge role in all this, but I'll save that now irrelevant discussion for another day.

Finally, at least for the time being, it's more interesting to me to discuss what went wrong with the Dems than it is to keep saying the same things we've been saying for the last ten years about Trump and his supporters. That's old*. It's like having a ten year discussion about a cockroach infestation in the garage. We all agree that's a bad thing.

*I reserve my rights to rant about how awful the Republicans are at anytime.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

You know what my views are on the Dems, and I 100% agree with you on how the Trump movement came about. My criticism of the Democratic party is a mournful retrospective that's largely meaningless at this point because I don't think we're going to have the opportunity to rectify things.

The only thing I have to add to what you said about the conservatives is that the internet played a huge role in all this, but I'll save that now irrelevant discussion for another day.

Honestly, it is so easy to get lost in this subject. A number of things impacted the outcome of the election. Like 2016, it isn't as simple as it seems. Looking at some of the Exit Polls provides contrasting and varying results, latino women being the big change in North Carolina, "other" in Michigan.

Economics, confusion over inflation and people thinking we can get rid of the higher prices today, 40 years of propaganda, the GOP being so much better at bloviating to the nation, civil right concerns, some of the ugliest campaign ads in a long time, restrained campaigning by Harris because she couldn't go the "change" route and few in America were satisfied with the inflation that occurred, potentially surgical campaigning and messaging by the Trump campaign. So many things brought us to here.

Currently I'm too indifferent to really dive too deep into the numbers.

Finally, at least for the time being, it's more interesting to me to discuss what went wrong with the Dems than it is to keep saying the same things we've been saying for the last ten years about Trump and his supporters.

My problem is, with how the votes ran, I'm not certain how to undo the switch we saw with Latino and Black (male) voters. Granted, Trump might help us with that over the next four years, but unlike some people, I don't wish a sort of political Armageddon on this country. Regarding the Dems fault? It is incredible what can befall a nation with a butterfly ballot design and passing health care reform which, when one aims at putting blame on the actions of the Democrats that got us here are the two big ones.

That's old*. It's like having a ten year discussion about a cockroach infestation in the garage. We all agree that's a bad thing.

*I reserve my rights to rant about how awful the Republicans are at anytime.

My "Finally", personally, I hate hearing about how Harris had a truncated campaign of only three plus months. *bangs head on wall*