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> thinking they could fool us all into believing that Biden's faculties were unaffected Yeah, this was a big part of a general trend of the Democrats treating

> thinking they could fool us all into believing that Biden's faculties were unaffected Yeah, this was a big part of a general trend of the Democrats treating voters like children to be coddled and lied to. Voters don't like being treated as less-than just because they're less educated, and uneducated doesn't mean stupid. They can see through it. My county went >75% for Trump, and the reason is because Trump is the only presidential candidate in most of our lifetimes who treats working-class voters as his equal. He doesn't talk down to them, he talks like them, and they eat it up.

tfehring 2y ago
I think it is stupid to vote based on how a politician talks rather than the expected impact of their proposed policies, though of course I realize that that’s how elections have been decided in practice for as long as representative governments have existed.
- astroid 2y ago
  The thing is, when you "talk down" to people, chances are pretty good those people's best interested aren't being represented by the one doing the down-talking. However, if you "talk to" them, you are in a much better position to actually hear and respond to their concerns - with the added bonus of seeming actually human. The way you frame it seems to imply that people are voting for him because he talks 'like them' while ignoring the 'to' them. I believe the hot leftist term for this is 'code-switching' which just means talking to your audience with language they understand and relate to -- and it's usually portrayed as a virtue, not a defect. In reality, these people voted for Trump because as a result of him talking to them like equals rather than down to like subjugated servants left many feeling that he was in fact advocating for policies that support their best interests and would be impactful in their day to day lives. Obviously personality matters more than it should - but in Trumps case the entire media apparatus was single-mindedly determined to make sure they dictate what his personality is, rather than his words or actions. So if anything this win shows that policy matters more than personality at this point anyway. Now of course, if you see his policies as wrong and evil and dictatorial and the embodiment of fascism, none of that will matter and no lessons will be learned from this absolute rejection of the democrats platform.
  - dickersnoodle 2y ago
    You're not wrong about people resenting being talked down to. I've tried to make this point to Democratic (especially progressive) activists for years and years and it's like talking to a dog that just heard a new noise. The fraction of people in the country that actually care about religious culture wars is relatively small; it's one reason why seven states passed initiatives enshrining abortion rights in their state constitutions this go-round. Voters care deeply about concrete things that affect their lives and they're not receptive to someone haranguing them to care about something else entirely. If you want to catch a fish, you bait the hook with something the fish wants to eat instead of something you want the fish to eat.
tartoran 2y ago
>who treats working-class voters as his equal Maybe that's the message he was sending but is that really true?
- lolinder 2y ago
  It doesn't matter if he actually perceives them as his equal (I frankly think he doesn't perceive anyone as equal to him, he appears to be something of a sociopath), what matters is that he successfully treats people that way. Democrats would be welcome to continue believing voters are children as long as they don't project it so blithely.
  - tartoran 2y ago
    > Democrats would be welcome to continue believing voters are children as long as they don't project it so blithely. I hear you and found it irritating as well. Republicans don't even treat their voters as children, it's far worse in my opinion, and yet they reap all the benefits. I think that if Democrats want to continue treating their voters as children they should go all the way and use the same dirty lies in the republican handbook, at least we could finally say they're all the same.
- pvaldes 2y ago
  > who treats working-class voters as his equal As long as they aren't blacks, or muslims, or Asians, or Mexicans, or Puertoricans...
  - CWuestefeld 2y ago
    Citation, please? I think you're making the error that the media loves to commit, which is to forcibly reinterpret everything as racism. For example, in the recent Puerto Rican "garbage" kerfuffle, the comedian never said that Puerto Ricans as such were garbage - that was a fabrication of the media. What he said was that the island of Puerto Rico is an island of garbage, which is figuratively true as it has an acknowledged a problem with garbage disposal. Similarly, Trump never said that Mexicans are rapists, etc.; that's another media fabrication. What he said was that those in America illegally are disproportionately criminals. That may or may not be true, but it's not a statement about Mexicans as a race, but about a particular subgroup set apart by their own behavior of illegal immigration, and notably NOT directed at their cousins in America legally, or still back in Mexico. Trump says a lot of crap. But if you find it particularly egregious, chances are that it was fabricated by the media. Another very recent example is when the media told us that Trump said that Liz Cheney should be put in front of a firing squad. In reality, the topic of conversation was her attitude toward war, and his statement was that if there were guns pointed at her, she'd feel different about soldiering.
FireBeyond 2y ago
> who treats working-class voters as his equal. He doesn't talk down to them, he talks like them, and they eat it up. No, he demonstrably doesn't treat them as his equals - however, you're absolutely right, he does talk to them like they are, and in this sense, it is one of his strengths.
JamesBarney 2y ago
Trump also lies to voters. For instance every sophisticated analysis of his tariff plan have shown it will do the exact opposite of what he promises. The analysis is as bad as the analysis of Bernie and Warren's Medicare for all plans where magically everything was 50% cheaper.
mrguyorama 2y ago
>Yeah, this was a big part of a general trend of the Democrats treating voters like children to be coddled and lied to. Meanwhile the rest of this comment section is talking about how democrats lost because they tried to talk about complex policy issues instead of just giving vague promises. Which is it? >He doesn't talk down to them, he talks like them, and they eat it up. "He says it like it is" right next to "But he didn't mean that", and he also literally talked about how devastated he was that the Jan 6 supporters were so shitty looking. He spends all sorts of time shit talking veterans who sacrificed for our country, even when the wars they fought were caused by dumb Republican policy. It's fucking schrodinger's reality when it comes to Trump.
marcuskane2 2y ago
Tangential, but I think a big problem for the world going forward is that modern technology has made the average voter unable to really understand things important to their lives. People who don't know what RNA, lymphocytes or spike proteins are, are nonetheless trying to make decisions about taking a vaccine. People who don't understand statistics, can't comprehend graphs and don't understand fundamental physics are nonetheless trying to make decisions about climate change. See also corporate tax law, Middle East ethnic divisions, AI, pollution, etc. Our innate intuition is often entirely wrong and disinformation can often make compelling arguments that sound correct to non-experts. I'm not sure what the solution is. We all have to put our trust in others about the many things where we're non-experts, but obviously many people are choosing the wrong people to believe.

tfehring 2y ago

I think it is stupid to vote based on how a politician talks rather than the expected impact of their proposed policies, though of course I realize that that’s how elections have been decided in practice for as long as representative governments have existed.

astroid 2y ago
The thing is, when you "talk down" to people, chances are pretty good those people's best interested aren't being represented by the one doing the down-talking. However, if you "talk to" them, you are in a much better position to actually hear and respond to their concerns - with the added bonus of seeming actually human. The way you frame it seems to imply that people are voting for him because he talks 'like them' while ignoring the 'to' them. I believe the hot leftist term for this is 'code-switching' which just means talking to your audience with language they understand and relate to -- and it's usually portrayed as a virtue, not a defect. In reality, these people voted for Trump because as a result of him talking to them like equals rather than down to like subjugated servants left many feeling that he was in fact advocating for policies that support their best interests and would be impactful in their day to day lives. Obviously personality matters more than it should - but in Trumps case the entire media apparatus was single-mindedly determined to make sure they dictate what his personality is, rather than his words or actions. So if anything this win shows that policy matters more than personality at this point anyway. Now of course, if you see his policies as wrong and evil and dictatorial and the embodiment of fascism, none of that will matter and no lessons will be learned from this absolute rejection of the democrats platform.
- dickersnoodle 2y ago
  You're not wrong about people resenting being talked down to. I've tried to make this point to Democratic (especially progressive) activists for years and years and it's like talking to a dog that just heard a new noise. The fraction of people in the country that actually care about religious culture wars is relatively small; it's one reason why seven states passed initiatives enshrining abortion rights in their state constitutions this go-round. Voters care deeply about concrete things that affect their lives and they're not receptive to someone haranguing them to care about something else entirely. If you want to catch a fish, you bait the hook with something the fish wants to eat instead of something you want the fish to eat.

tartoran 2y ago

>who treats working-class voters as his equal Maybe that's the message he was sending but is that really true?

lolinder 2y ago
It doesn't matter if he actually perceives them as his equal (I frankly think he doesn't perceive anyone as equal to him, he appears to be something of a sociopath), what matters is that he successfully treats people that way. Democrats would be welcome to continue believing voters are children as long as they don't project it so blithely.
- tartoran 2y ago
  > Democrats would be welcome to continue believing voters are children as long as they don't project it so blithely. I hear you and found it irritating as well. Republicans don't even treat their voters as children, it's far worse in my opinion, and yet they reap all the benefits. I think that if Democrats want to continue treating their voters as children they should go all the way and use the same dirty lies in the republican handbook, at least we could finally say they're all the same.
pvaldes 2y ago
> who treats working-class voters as his equal As long as they aren't blacks, or muslims, or Asians, or Mexicans, or Puertoricans...
- CWuestefeld 2y ago
  Citation, please? I think you're making the error that the media loves to commit, which is to forcibly reinterpret everything as racism. For example, in the recent Puerto Rican "garbage" kerfuffle, the comedian never said that Puerto Ricans as such were garbage - that was a fabrication of the media. What he said was that the island of Puerto Rico is an island of garbage, which is figuratively true as it has an acknowledged a problem with garbage disposal. Similarly, Trump never said that Mexicans are rapists, etc.; that's another media fabrication. What he said was that those in America illegally are disproportionately criminals. That may or may not be true, but it's not a statement about Mexicans as a race, but about a particular subgroup set apart by their own behavior of illegal immigration, and notably NOT directed at their cousins in America legally, or still back in Mexico. Trump says a lot of crap. But if you find it particularly egregious, chances are that it was fabricated by the media. Another very recent example is when the media told us that Trump said that Liz Cheney should be put in front of a firing squad. In reality, the topic of conversation was her attitude toward war, and his statement was that if there were guns pointed at her, she'd feel different about soldiering.

FireBeyond 2y ago

> who treats working-class voters as his equal. He doesn't talk down to them, he talks like them, and they eat it up. No, he demonstrably doesn't treat them as his equals - however, you're absolutely right, he does talk to them like they are, and in this sense, it is one of his strengths.

JamesBarney 2y ago

Trump also lies to voters. For instance every sophisticated analysis of his tariff plan have shown it will do the exact opposite of what he promises. The analysis is as bad as the analysis of Bernie and Warren's Medicare for all plans where magically everything was 50% cheaper.

mrguyorama 2y ago

>Yeah, this was a big part of a general trend of the Democrats treating voters like children to be coddled and lied to. Meanwhile the rest of this comment section is talking about how democrats lost because they tried to talk about complex policy issues instead of just giving vague promises. Which is it? >He doesn't talk down to them, he talks like them, and they eat it up. "He says it like it is" right next to "But he didn't mean that", and he also literally talked about how devastated he was that the Jan 6 supporters were so shitty looking. He spends all sorts of time shit talking veterans who sacrificed for our country, even when the wars they fought were caused by dumb Republican policy. It's fucking schrodinger's reality when it comes to Trump.

marcuskane2 2y ago

Tangential, but I think a big problem for the world going forward is that modern technology has made the average voter unable to really understand things important to their lives. People who don't know what RNA, lymphocytes or spike proteins are, are nonetheless trying to make decisions about taking a vaccine. People who don't understand statistics, can't comprehend graphs and don't understand fundamental physics are nonetheless trying to make decisions about climate change. See also corporate tax law, Middle East ethnic divisions, AI, pollution, etc. Our innate intuition is often entirely wrong and disinformation can often make compelling arguments that sound correct to non-experts. I'm not sure what the solution is. We all have to put our trust in others about the many things where we're non-experts, but obviously many people are choosing the wrong people to believe.