AOC talks a lot about how there is also a non-zero overlap between people who voted for her and trump in 2024.
I think a large part of it is that people are sick of the status quo. Trump, Mamdani and AOC all speak out against the status quo. The problem is trump is a lying, fascist, racist, pedo. It says though, the best way to peel voters from the right isn’t to court Liz Cheney, it’s to provide legitimate solutions to peoples problems and push back against the status quo.
Trump tells you all your problems are caused by the browns and trans.
Democrats yell you, there are no problems.
People are idiots, but they are struggling idiots, and telling them everything is fine isn’t a winning strategy.
It’s simplified, but at its core, that’s is the crux of the problem.
Democrats tell you, there are no problems.
Holy shit I actually hit my desk when I read this. I’ve been trying to put into words why “centrism” and “both sides” bullshit is just conservatism and why liberals stand for nothing. I have been trying for years now and then you come along and just: “Democrats tell you there are no problems” YES. That is what I’ve been trying to tell people for fucking years!! I’m not the problem for being concerned for the world, stop giving me that look when all I’m doing is pointing out that the problem exists and you should care about it as much as I do. Don’t tell me I live in a fake reality because the things I want done are somehow impossible when we know what many of the world’s issues are and how to solve them. It’s power structures controlled by the rich that stand between us and a better world, and it’s not my fault if you can’t realize that! Son of a bitch, I need to calm tf down.
So thank you for that.
Yeah. Both Hillary and Kamala ran on maintaining the current system and lost.
You can win some of those people without tap dancing for them if you just do net positive things for society and have a pro working class agenda. They will respect you more if you actually stand for something at least.
I think the common theme is dissatisfaction with the status quo.
Estimates are that 6-12% of Sanders primary voters voted for Trump in 2016. The specific ideology of the candidates was likely less important than the promise to dismantle the establishment.
In times like these centrists are risky, not safe
Not a you specific thing, but I hate when people cite these stats as though they’re significant, but in reality they are pretty standard for the past decade at least. I know people mostly do it because the media highlights them without comparable information or context and it just sticks in people’s heads. Plenty of people think things must be meaningful or significant just because there’s a headline, but this is not a new phenomenon.
Data shows that in 2016, these [Obama] voters comprised roughly 13% of Trump voters. In 2012, this segment of voters made up 9% of total Obama voters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama–Trump_voters
I agree that one of the themes is dissatisfaction though.
That still follows the logic though. Obama was seen as the disruption candidate in 08.
Yes, I agreed that it was a dissatisfaction thing, I was just commenting in the context of the whole thread where some are suggesting it’s because people have left the Trump cult or that it’s about charisma or whatever. This 1 in 10 figure is pretty standard now. I’ve made the argument previously that it really is more about ignorance than dissatisfaction, because truth be told I’m probably more dissatisfied than any of those crossover voters and I can actually list real specific reasons. You have to be really ignorant to think that this sort of crossover voting is good, regardless of if the person you’re voting for seems like an outsider or not. But yes, long story short, disruption seems to be a big part of it.
There were Perot voters in the 90’s, some had the same sentiment.
further proof that the “left/right” political divide is bullshit
i heard a great lecture on it last week calling it an “empty significand” because it doesn’t mean anything. the idea behind it is that if you reduce the meaning within your category, that’s a good thing because you’re implementing the intersection set of many different people’s political view, which is necessarily going to be rather small.
most people just want to live. they vote for mamdani, because they want to live and recognize they need economic support to do so, and they voted for trump because he promised (but didn’t deliver) on lowering the cost of living. most people don’t really care about anything else.
“It’s the economy, stupid.”
It’s really the only issue in any election.
The left right divide is real but the way we frame it in the US is wrong. It’s not about some amorphous culture war issues the media pushes though - it’s about class and who controls the levers of power. What people are asking for with the way they vote is for some of that power to be shifted back into the hands of the working class.
The need for economic support is a need for more equitable redistribution of resources across society writ large. The only way to have sustainable and long term working class prosperity is for some of that power to be permanently wrested from the hands of the rich. Some would argue that ultimately all of that power must be taken away.
This is also why politically we should focus on real and simple examples on how leftwing politics can and will improve the lives of the majority of people. This doesn’t mean, that we should stop protesting against fascists and their action, or that we shouldnt aim for a revolution to overthrow capitalism, just that we should always aim for improving everyone’s lives and this also means, that we shouldn’t block reformist actions just because they are reformist.
So basically Bernie could have won if the DNC didn’t sabotage it and those voters went Trump.
God that was the most frustrating and infuriating campaigns to witness in real-time, falling apart.
Here we finally had a man, that was for the people, in what feels like several generations. And the DNC was actively trying to ruin his momentum, because they wanted Clinton so bad.
And a large number of people were brainwashed into demonizing everything Bernie was proposing. Like when they thought he was going to give everybody free internet, when what he really meant was giving us more opportunity of a free market of internet.
Then annoying activists from BLM were stealing podiums from him just to scream about a cause they were dismantling themselves because at that point they were becoming unhinged over everything.
It was just nauseating to have witnessed in everything that happened in 2016 that time. So of course he lost, of course Clinton got the nod and of course that bitch lost. Probably the only time I felt that the American people deserved Trump for all of that.
I was watching that shit from Canada and MAN was that ever fucked to see.
Like when they thought he was going to give everybody free internet, when what he really meant was giving us more opportunity of a free market of internet.
Same familiar rhetoric: “It’s literally Socialism!!!”
One of the big (and actually valid) concerns about socialism is “the government giveth, the government taketh away”.
Socialism is a great goal but I think this year kinda taught us that we are much further away from realizing that goal than we thought we are, if a dude like trump can come in with the trifecta and rip it all to shreds overnight, like a bully to a 5th grade diorama.
Sounds like you’re just riffing off me mentioning socialism.
Nah, capitalism is clearly broken, and I agree that socialism is the most appealing -ism.
But a key requirement to socialism is a strong and stable central government. And we…don’t have that. Instead we have consolidated power in the executive and a judicial branch which is clearly bought and paid for.
We need to replace the roof before we think about putting in a pool.
We’ve outgrown our entire system of government…or managed to shape it into something that clearly does not match the will of the people.
We need to rewrite it with more fail-safes and circut-breakers for corruption. Social programs need to be uncuttable. Then, socialism has a fighting chance. It can be done, but not easily or willingly.
One in 10 left a cult, study finds.
I still think lots of the “trump voters” were actually “man voters”.
Trump beat Hillary. A woman.
Trump lost to Biden. A man.
Trump beat Kamala. A woman.
I’m still of the belief that 2024, Biden beats Trump.
I’m still of the belief that 2024, Biden beats Trump.
I don’t think so. In each case, there was significant dissatisfaction with the losing candidate prior to the election.
- In 2016, it was because people saw the DNC as having subverted the democratic process to give the nomination to Clinton when Sanders might have won in a fair race.
- In 2020, pick any of Trump’s many faults, or the various impacts of the pandemic. He was terribly unpopular and would have lost to any mainstream candidate.
- In 2024, it was mostly economic concerns, for which many blamed Biden. Harris positioned herself as a continuation of Biden when Biden was terribly unpopular.
Also Harris straight up refused to denounce a genocide. Not a popular stance for people who would usually be voting democrat.
So logically they voted for an even more aggressive perpetuator?
However you feel about it is irrelevant, it’s one of the reasons she lost.
No, many didn’t vote or they protest voted.
Random tangent but I rewatched Dr. Strangelove today and was struck by how much General Turgidson sounds exactly like liberals on here.
It is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two, admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless distinguishable postwar environments: one, where you got 20 million people killed, and another, where you got 150 million people killed!
You’re talking about mass murder, General, not war… I will not go down in history as the greatest mass murderer since Adolf Hitler.
Perhaps it might be better, Mr. President, if you were more concerned with the American people, than with your image in the history books!
It’s the exact same lesser-evilist logic combined with the exact same condescension towards anyone who’s not a psychopath.
Even if you want to go full on, “Actually, Turgidson was right,” you still can’t make it your platform and expect it to be popular.
I think you are severely overestimating the average U.S voter here. Religious cultists will not vote for women. The U.S is full of religious cultists.
Hillary won the popular vote.
Don’t give them ideas, they will not hesitate to run Hunter Biden.
Hunter vs Don Jr.
A matchup for the ages.
God, if only Stephen Colbert would still be hosting the Late Show in 2028. Imagine the Don Jr impressions!
A lot of people wonder what George Carlin’s material today would be about. I already know what it would be about. Just listen to his old material, and have AI insert the name Trump into his old material about the republicans draining the country for personal gain. See, the thing is, his material isn’t timeless. It’s just that we as a society haven’t fixed our shit, or fixed the core problems that gave him material. If anything we’ve amplified the problems. So if Carlin was complaining back then, I assume his modern day stance would be to take a pistol to the mouth. I can’t imagine complaining about problems you can’t fix, for 30+ years, and keep living to watch it get progressively worse over time.
Kamala brought on a lot of the exact same staffers who helped Hillary lose and ran a similar and bad campaign. Female democratic senators won in three of the swing states that Kamala lost.
But it isn’t really about the facts, at a certain point. It’s just a symbolic belief that allows people to absolve Kamala and the democrats of all fault. People love to punch down at voters instead of punching up and demanding better candidates, even though that’s a complete inversion of how democracy is meant to work. This inability to self-criticize and change things that don’t work is, ironically, another reason that the democrats perform poorly.
It’s more some Trump voters only voted for Trump because he was seen as anti-establishment. So Mamdani being seen as anti-establishment=those type of Trump voters voting for him.
I see how you would think that. But, I think you’re delusional about 2024. If Biden didn’t decide to run again and there was a real primary, the democrats would have had a real chance. The problem was that both Hillary and Kamala were basically appointed as the candidates by the party.
Your comment is the real sexism. And socialist erasure, for that matter.
Run an actual leftist woman and watch her cruise to victory. I fucking dare you!
You’re not wrong. Sexism and racism are defining characteristics of this country’s voters.
Bernie lost to Hilary, a woman.
Surprised it’s not higher really. Politically engaged folks like to think it’s all left vs right, socialism vs whatever the fuck you want to call Trunmpism.
At the end of the day a lot of voters vote for the person who tells them they’re going to make their lives better in a way they can believe.
I can totally see a vibes based Trump voter also voting Mamdani. They’re both charismatic guys selling a vision for the future.
Visions, which at the core, are the same ‘I’ll make your life better’. The details are starkly opposed but that’s not important for someone who just wants change and to believe it can happen.
My turds have more charisma than Trump
It is inherently socialism vs capitalism, left vs right, worker vs owner. The want to vote for the average person’s lives to be better is objectively a manifestation of a tacit understanding that the balance of power has shifted so far out of what is acceptable. It is a desire for the working class to be in more control of the destiny of this country and by extension the people who live in that country and make it what it is.
I know that makes it sound like I’m reading into it a ton but the reality really is working class power = average person’s life gets better. Full stop.
We get variations of this story pretty often.
We had some interesting discussions along the lines of people who backed both AOC and Trump about a year ago. AOC did a bit trying to engage them to understand the overlap better. The common theme then was that among right-leaning areas in the right-wing media bubble, Trump is seen as being strongly aligned with the working class and a lot of people voted for him because of his positions on the economy and cost of living.
Trump is seen as being strongly aligned with the working class
This explanation is even more unfathomable than the thing it explains. I dont really understand how anyone can look at the (multi)billionaire Trump and think “he’s on the side of the workers.”
Trump actually acknowledges that things are bad and promises to fix it. Democrats, often, don’t.
Remember “America is already great”? Remember Bidenomics? The Democratic line, every time they lost, was “things are fine, don’t believe your lying eyes.” And when they won, they focused on how bad things are and made promises to fix it.
That’s it. The working class knows things are bad and whoever is willing to say it, and promise to fix it, tends to win.
Yeah Trump’s solutions are dogshit but the fact that he acknowledged it at all and pretended to give a shit meant a lot to a lot of people. Understandably so unfortunately for us all.
The American politics are vibe politics. You can have no policies but as long as you say the thing people want to hear people will vote for you. I can absolutely see why some people thought a wealthy criminal who regularly screws people over would side with the working class. Because Trumps campaign did focus on working class issues. It doesn’t matter that his “solution” to those problems was blame the immigrants and he had no real intention of helping the working class. Because for the average American the politics end at “I hear you”. That’s what the average American cares about, having their problems being acknowledged. Actually solving the problems is a problem for a different time.
That messaging in the right-wing propaganda sphere is just the continuation of the campaign, because somehow it works even when those people see the contradictions on a daily basis.
This.
The literal ONLY explanation I can think of is that the media kept parroting his bullshit about lowering prices while having absolutely ZERO ideas, and people who couldn’t be bothered to look deeper than the headlines bought it.
10 years ago me thought better of people than that.
2025 me can’t even pretend to be surprised.
I don’t understand it either, but what he said convinced a lot of working class people that he was on their side. I don’t get HOW but that is somehow what happened.
It’s almost like if you had good policy to support the working class, you’d get the votes. 😒
Don’t even have to have good policy, just have to convince the plebs you have a concept of a policy.
Which says a lot that most of these careerists can’t even do that coherently.
still rookie numbers imo, given how Trump messed up the country.
