superrific
Legend of ZZL
- Messages
- 8,513
1. You're right, we will know more after people who know how to get good data and make sense of it weigh in. That's none of us here.And I’ve seen nothing to show that it wasn’t the economy.
The fact that Trump didn’t campaign very heavily on the economy doesn’t tell us anything. Until I see some detailed political science analysis on the 2024 Latino working class vote switch, I am going with the assumption that it was the economy stupid.
I also think there was a segment of the Latino voting population that was still upset about Covid shutdowns, which manifested itself a bit in 2020 exit polling. That population needs the economy to be open to make ends meet. And they think the democrats don’t care about the working person because of Covid shutdowns.
2. I'm not sure why Trump not campaigning on the economy doesn't tell us much. Here's what I see:
A. Trump runs virulently racist campaign for president in 2016. Wins. People look at the data. It was actually about race, and not about "economic anxiety."
B. Trump runs less virulently racist campaign in 2020. That's because most of the racism was aimed at China and Americans just don't respond to that distant racism nearly as much. Loses, although for a number of different reasons.
C. Trump runs the most vitriolic, racist campaign for president we've ever seen. Spends almost all of his time with incredibly nasty, mean-spirited and outright racist lies that would make Bull Connor blush. Wins, by a bigger margin than 2016.
So I predict that the data is going to show something similar to A in situation C. I don't know it for sure, obviously, but I'll bet that's what we find.
3. I can't comment on your point about Covid shutdowns. nycfan made a similar point some time ago. It's an interesting thought. I'm ill-equipped to evaluate it.