What did Trump tap into?

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Many of the reasons discussed on this thread certainly help explain how Trump took over the Republican Party and nominations for three times running. Remarkable feat, because Americans tend to get tired of their politicians by this time. His "hate and division" message works for that.

However, explaining how this is even a close GENERAL election is another matter. It shouldn't be.

What I notice when I question Trump voters who normally would be middle of the road, is always the same common thread. That Democrats are too corrupt or bad or whatever to be considered as an alternative.

So just maybe Democrats need to figure out what they are doing wrong. In this century, would Obama have won if it wasn't for the Great Recession? Nope. Would Biden have won if it wasn't for Trump's Covid mismanagement? Nope. Just not a good track record for Dems in taking the WH without help.
 
BlueSmoke said:
Many of the reasons discussed on this thread certainly help explain how Trump took over the Republican Party and nominations for three times running. Remarkable feat, because Americans tend to get tired of their politicians by this time. His "hate and division" message works for that.

However, explaining how this is even a close GENERAL election is another matter. It shouldn't be.

What I notice when I question Trump voters who normally would be middle of the road, is always the same common thread. That Democrats are too corrupt or bad or whatever to be considered as an alternative.

So just maybe Democrats need to figure out what they are doing wrong. In this century, would Obama have won if it wasn't for the Great Recession? Nope. Would Biden have won if it wasn't for Trump's Covid mismanagement? Nope. Just not a good track record for Dems in taking the WH without help.
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It’s not like the country is really 50/50 though. That’s just of the people that are able and willing to vote. You factor in all of the ways that people are disenfranchised (through nefarious means like removing polling places and id cards) or through practical means (have to work or don’t have reliable transportation), only 2/3 of voting age citizens voted. So Trump garnered votes from roughly 1/3 of the voting populace.
 
BlueSmoke said:
Many of the reasons discussed on this thread certainly help explain how Trump took over the Republican Party and nominations for three times running. Remarkable feat, because Americans tend to get tired of their politicians by this time. His "hate and division" message works for that.

However, explaining how this is even a close GENERAL election is another matter. It shouldn't be.

What I notice when I question Trump voters who normally would be middle of the road, is always the same common thread. That Democrats are too corrupt or bad or whatever to be considered as an alternative.

So just maybe Democrats need to figure out what they are doing wrong. In this century, would Obama have won if it wasn't for the Great Recession? Nope. Would Biden have won if it wasn't for Trump's Covid mismanagement? Nope. Just not a good track record for Dems in taking the WH without help.
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WTF?
 
ZenMode said:
Trump says a lot of things….many of which are lies and dumb. Remember he was going to put Hillary behind bars?

Our institutions did, and will, contain Trump. In fact, on the topic of the Mueller report, his obstruction actions would have been far more numerous had the people he told to do things had ACTUALLY done things he requested. They didn’t because they knew those requests were wrong or illegal. Pence didn’t, either. Trump is a deranged fool. He’s very much the exception. The world around him is largely not.
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Project 2025 will considerably erode these institutions His appointments will -he had checks and balances-he won't this time . Oh I will "live "
 
BlueSmoke said:
Many of the reasons discussed on this thread certainly help explain how Trump took over the Republican Party and nominations for three times running. Remarkable feat, because Americans tend to get tired of their politicians by this time. His "hate and division" message works for that.

However, explaining how this is even a close GENERAL election is another matter. It shouldn't be.

What I notice when I question Trump voters who normally would be middle of the road, is always the same common thread. That Democrats are too corrupt or bad or whatever to be considered as an alternative.

So just maybe Democrats need to figure out what they are doing wrong. In this century, would Obama have won if it wasn't for the Great Recession? Nope. Would Biden have won if it wasn't for Trump's Covid mismanagement? Nope. Just not a good track record for Dems in taking the WH without help.
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I bet you think Dean got his two “with some help” from Freddie and Chris
 
After 9 years of this nightmare, I’m kind of at the point where I don’t really care why people support him. I used to think that despite our faults, America was the greatest country in the world. I don’t think that anymore…you can’t be “great” and have this many crappy people.

America is a country where we’re taught everyone is created equal, and everyone should be given equal opportunities. Anyone who supports Trump doesn’t believe these things…no matter how many flags they wrap themselves in. No amount of rationalization changes that.

This election shouldn’t be as close as 2008 was. Hell, it shouldn’t be as close as 1984 was. I don’t care about what a red state is or a blue state is…if the people who lived in this country were good people, he wouldn’t carry a single state. There comes a point where people are either crappy or clueless…no third option exists. Rant over.
 
BlueSmoke said:
Many of the reasons discussed on this thread certainly help explain how Trump took over the Republican Party and nominations for three times running. Remarkable feat, because Americans tend to get tired of their politicians by this time. His "hate and division" message works for that.

However, explaining how this is even a close GENERAL election is another matter. It shouldn't be.

What I notice when I question Trump voters who normally would be middle of the road, is always the same common thread. That Democrats are too corrupt or bad or whatever to be considered as an alternative.

So just maybe Democrats need to figure out what they are doing wrong. In this century, would Obama have won if it wasn't for the Great Recession? Nope. Would Biden have won if it wasn't for Trump's Covid mismanagement? Nope. Just not a good track record for Dems in taking the WH without help.
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1. The idea that Dems are too bad or corrupt to be considered is not a fact-based belief. It's just the same bullshit that the GOP has used for a generation or more. I just saw an anti-Kamala ad. Some dumbass white dude in Wisconsin was claiming that his hard working tax dollars were going to pay for sex change operations for federal prisoners. Also there was something equally insignificant from . . . 2009! cited there. That is not an ad for serious people.

2. Does it occur to you that maybe they don't want to tell you the real reasons they support Trump? They might not even know why they do. My mom is a usually GOP voter who told me she didn't vote for president in 2020. Then she told me a couple of years ago that she was completely "done" with Trump. I asked her last week if she was standing by that. Well . . . see, she's never liked Kamala. She would have a tough time voting for Kamala, she said. I knew better than to ask why.

For example, my mom is not a racist. She's subconsciously biased. She feels more comfortable around white people than black people, which isn't surprising considering that she has lived most of her life around white people. She's a timid personality, one who is far more scared of the devil we don't know than the devil we do. Put those together and you have someone who is going to default to the white candidate. Of course, she won't say that. She would never admit it. Instead she will open up a can of bullshit about Kamala this, Kamala that. Whether she even understands her biases is unclear to me.

3. Almost all presidential elections are defined by things that went wrong. If the country was doing great under the incumbent party, the incumbent party usually wins. Reagan would not have won in 1980 without help from the Iranians and the Fed. Clinton won during a recession. Bush 43 won during a recession. Trump, of course, had plenty of help in his own way.

The idea that Dems "require" help is silly. Also, it's far from clear that Trump would have won but for Covid. He wasn't exactly popular heading into 2020.
 
an0maly said:
An entirely separate thing that disturbs is exemplified in that video, and of course too many times among educated people on this board and elsewhere. People need to somehow force themselves to understand the nature of a cult.

jt-2-real-1024x662.jpg

Does everyone know what is in this photo? These are ordinary people, including families with children and tiny babies, who because their cult leader told them to do it, all gave themselves and those children poison. By some estimates, more than 500,000 Americans are dead because they rejected the facts about Covid-19 due to the lies and distortions of Trump.

And you are looking for "reasons" for these things? Humans are subject to this kind of cult infatuation behavior and its results, and you are never going to adequately sort it out into various social constructs. It is beyond that. I have written about what happened to the Republican Party over the last 70 years or so, but that is not what this topic and the OP video are actually about.
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The preventable COVID deaths weren't entirely due to Trump. Trump had nothing to do with the anti-vaccine narratives. In fact, Trump took personal credit for the creation of the vaccine (because of course he did).

Trump certainly played a role. He downplayed the severity of COVID, downplayed the need for lockdowns prior to vaccine rollout, pushed dangerous and ineffective alternatives. These all placed seeds that allowed antivax sentiments to prosper. (For example my brother who is now disabled from long COVID not only believed the vaccines were deadly but that COVID was harmless to someone his age, 57 at the time. Maybe had he realized the true dangers of COVID he might have thought twice about his vaccine stance.) Finally, Trump stopped talking about the vaccine when he realized that the vaccines were very unpopular with his supporters.

But a lot of blame lies at the feet of those pushing antivax stances and that was not Trump.
 
I am simply referring to voter perceptions of Dems for the swing voter. Yep there are a few swing voters who could go either way. Its not important to discuss voter bias for voters who are locked in on their Party loyalty.

Obama did win by appealing to the swing voter. The voter with biases is going to vote whatever way they are inclined anyway.

And interestingly to me, lust looking up what Gallop said the Democratic favorbility rating was in November 2008: it was 39% compared to last month at 55%. Yea, I am cherry picking dates.

Now Republicans are also bad. But i trending up since 2008. But currently on par with Democrats.
 
ZenMode said:
I agree with this. I’m not voting for Trump or Harris, I want to see significant change in politics. I believe both sides need a wake up call for their own reasons. I want MAGA gone. I want the far left gone. I want religion, identity politics, wokeness, science-denial, etc all gone.
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Harris is pretty middle of the road, as is Biden.
 
ChapelHillSooner said:
The preventable COVID deaths weren't entirely due to Trump. Trump had nothing to do with the anti-vaccine narratives. In fact, Trump took personal credit for the creation of the vaccine (because of course he did).

Trump certainly played a role. He downplayed the severity of COVID, downplayed the need for lockdowns prior to vaccine rollout, pushed dangerous and ineffective alternatives. These all placed seeds that allowed antivax sentiments to prosper. (For example my brother who is now disabled from long COVID not only believed the vaccines were deadly but that COVID was harmless to someone his age, 57 at the time. Maybe had he realized the true dangers of COVID he might have thought twice about his vaccine stance.) Finally, Trump stopped talking about the vaccine when he realized that the vaccines were very unpopular with his supporters.

But a lot of blame lies at the feet of those pushing antivax stances and that was not Trump.
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We have very different recollections.

Also… https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103119302628
 
ChileG said:
Harris is pretty middle of the road, as is Biden.
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Biden is middle of the road. How middle of the road is Harris depends on whether you're talking about Harris who ran for president in 2020 or Harris that is running today.

Political views are one factor in candidate quality, but not the only factor.
 
BlueSmoke said:
Many of the reasons discussed on this thread certainly help explain how Trump took over the Republican Party and nominations for three times running. Remarkable feat, because Americans tend to get tired of their politicians by this time. His "hate and division" message works for that.

However, explaining how this is even a close GENERAL election is another matter. It shouldn't be.

What I notice when I question Trump voters who normally would be middle of the road, is always the same common thread. That Democrats are too corrupt or bad or whatever to be considered as an alternative.

So just maybe Democrats need to figure out what they are doing wrong. In this century, would Obama have won if it wasn't for the Great Recession? Nope. Would Biden have won if it wasn't for Trump's Covid mismanagement? Nope. Just not a good track record for Dems in taking the WH without help.
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After reading this post, I'm impressed that as much as you must drool on yourself, that it hasn't shorted out your keyboard.
 
ZenMode said:
Biden is middle of the road. How middle of the road is Harris depends on whether you're talking about Harris who ran for president in 2020 or Harris that is running today.

Political views are one factor in candidate quality, but not the only factor.
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Cool, but I was responding to what you posted, not to unmentioned other factors.
You said you wanted to rid the Democratic Party of all these left-wing politicians, but you aren’t voting for the MOR politician they nominated.
 
BlueSmoke said:
Many of the reasons discussed on this thread certainly help explain how Trump took over the Republican Party and nominations for three times running. Remarkable feat, because Americans tend to get tired of their politicians by this time. His "hate and division" message works for that.

However, explaining how this is even a close GENERAL election is another matter. It shouldn't be.

What I notice when I question Trump voters who normally would be middle of the road, is always the same common thread. That Democrats are too corrupt or bad or whatever to be considered as an alternative.

So just maybe Democrats need to figure out what they are doing wrong. In this century, would Obama have won if it wasn't for the Great Recession? Nope. Would Biden have won if it wasn't for Trump's Covid mismanagement? Nope. Just not a good track record for Dems in taking the WH without help.
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Man, this is a steaming pile of bullshit.
 
ChapelHillSooner said:
Trump certainly played a role. He downplayed the severity of COVID, downplayed the need for lockdowns prior to vaccine rollout, pushed dangerous and ineffective alternatives. These all placed seeds that allowed antivax sentiments to prosper. (For example my brother who is now disabled from long COVID not only believed the vaccines were deadly but that COVID was harmless to someone his age, 57 at the time. Maybe had he realized the true dangers of COVID he might have thought twice about his vaccine stance.) Finally, Trump stopped talking about the vaccine when he realized that the vaccines were very unpopular with his supporters.

But a lot of blame lies at the feet of those pushing antivax stances and that was not Trump.
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He also had no plan to distribute vaccines because he was laser focused on overturning the election after November. Biden's people had to start the distribution from scratch.
 
CallMeTyler said:
Written by a "I'm just an everyday bo-sider just trying to give a level-headed opinion" MAGA (when you look away).

1729095617777.jpeg
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Judges would also have accepted:

"I'm a registered Democrat, but...."
"But his economic policies"
"I hate Trump, but also, I totally don't"
"Bosides; therefore, Trump"
 
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