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You will never win in a democracy if your stance is 'the voters failed me'. That the dems have chosen that mindset saddens me. It's not the voters job to come

You will never win in a democracy if your stance is 'the voters failed me'. That the dems have chosen that mindset saddens me. It's not the voters job to come to a party, it's the party's obligation to figure out how to appeal to voters. The dems chose to tell people who are suffering that 'the economy is great, this is what we think a good economy looks like and we are patting ourselves on the back for it'. To voters that are suffering that seems like 'our version of good doesn't GAF about you'. Not a great message. You could have the best economics professors/communicators in the world explaining it, people still aren't voting for that.

jenkstom 2y ago
There's always the hope that the average voter can find their way to a considered, moral vote. That didn't happen.
cmdli 2y ago
What could the Democrats have done about it? Inflation was successfully reduced back down to normal levels without a recession, successfully managing a soft landing. What else could they do?
- angrysaki 2y ago
  Just picture Bernie Sanders hammering home that the wealthy are screwing everybody. That's the kind of messaging they need but they would rather loose than move left.
  - spankalee 2y ago
    Identifying a viable villain and being mad about it would probably have helped, but the election pretty clearly shows that moving left would have had a _worse_ result.
    - UncleOxidant 2y ago
      I'm not so sure of that if they found a way for the message to connect. Bernie did pretty good with his messaging in 2016.
    - greycol 2y ago
      Arizona and Nevada both voted for abortions rights even though they voted republican. The left and right aren't a boolean option, a left candidate who says the system isn't working may do just as well as a right candidate who says the same because they get more of "the grocery prices are broken" crowd even if their overall policies are less palatable.
    - no_wizard 2y ago
      How exactly? Harris didn't run even a center-left campaign, she pushed center-right except on a few issues at the margins and it was late in the game on that front. Americans generally favor more liberal policies economically, like stronger labor rights, universal healthcare, student debt cancellation etc. There was a lot to offer voters of all stripes there. I think too many Democrats counted on a huge pro abortion turn out of women specifically and that translating into democratic votes, which, even to my surprise, it did not.
      - lynx23 2y ago
        Have you ever considered that the stance regarding pro aboriton amongst women is to a certain extend age dependant? What I have noticed anecdotally amongst my acquintances is that older women tend to change their mind on that matter, at least sometimes. I am suspecting this has has plain egotistical reasons, simply because they no longer have to care, paired with a certain amount of women that had an abortion and never really managed to find peace with themselves about it. TL;DR: Careful, not all women are pro abortion, possibly not even the majority.
      - TimTheTinker 2y ago
        I think most conservatives have a strong idea in their mind of who their idealogical opponents are: ivory-tower academics, liberal business people and politicians, and all the plebs who side with them to push ideologies and social policies they don't want (policies like people born as men competing with women in sports). Harris did nothing to distance herself from being strongly associated with that liberal cohort. Regarding social policy and ideology, she came off as being far-left to the average conservative.
      - int_19h 2y ago
        Take a look at the results of the various referendums. Some of the same states that have voted for Trump with a hefty margin also voted for things like raising minimum wage or guaranteed paid sick leave.
  - EricDeb 2y ago
    exactly its all messaging. dems suck as messaging and kamala was not the right person to deliver messages because she avoided interviews, conversations, etc. Dems needed someone who would go on any show at any time like Bernie does.
  - exceptione 2y ago
    The problem is: Bernie can hammer all he want, but there is no platform to reach the voters. That is __the problem__ for the Dems. 1. The big media is in the hands of a select few (tech) oligarchs. Look for the accelerationists there. 2. Take notice of what happened at the WaPo. Bezos fell on his knees for Trump, fearful of having his other business interests been killed. 2. I mean: no reasonable platforms. The false balance in the New York Times is below the most horrible standard you can get in journalism. New York Times Pitchbot exists for a reason. 3. In the US the press is allowed to spread fake news. Some media make a living of it. Others (see 2) try to give a neutral impression by presenting false balance 4. The serious, damaging analysis will get moved below the fold, if there is one. ==> Now you have gotten a system where the populace doesn´t even get informed anymore, so no serious debate is possible. ==> The Dems are not even able to have their own policies, they have to lean deeply right to stay not too much out of touch of what is presented as normal discourse in the media. If the US slips further from Anocracy to Autocracy, it will be 1) because the press gave the autocrats the nod and 2) some powerful captains of industry were on board, 3) and they were helped by radicalized far right christianity (Heritage Foundation et ali.). An echo of Weimar.
    - angrysaki 2y ago
      I don't disagree, which is sort of my point. The democratic party apparatus and their allies don't want that platform/message. I was mostly just pointing g out ghat there is a stance/platform that could combat right wing populism.
      - exceptione 2y ago
        > The democratic party apparatus and their allies don't want that platform/message. Sure they would love to use a reasonable platform with broad reach, but they haven´t. Relevant media are heavenly partitioned in buckets of insane "Infotainment Corp" and "Sane Washing Corp". There is simply no room for truth if you give non-truth equal space. Non-truth can be made as entertaining as possible, sucking out all oxygen for truth. That is what Americans allowed to happen over the decades, and the consequences are getting more grim every election. It is not even about Trump.
  - gizmo 2y ago
    You can -- to some extent -- combat right wing populism with left wing economic populism, but there are two key problems with this strategy: 1) the Democrat party hates economic populism. Bernie would have to hijack the party like Trump did. But where Trump has many allies in positions of power, Bernie has none. 2) the populist rhetoric that people like the most is false. Grocery prices aren't high because supermarkets suddenly got greedy. Worker exploitation isn't why billionaires exist. I also don't think it's good strategy blame a minority group for all the problems in the country. Billionaires are not a protected minority obviously, but when you stoke anger against one group it can easily result in a different group getting unjustly targeted (Mexicans, trans people, etc). We don't need any more of that and politics of hate and resentment isn't the way forward.
    - ImHereToVote 2y ago
      The COVID years oversaw the biggest transfer of wealth to the rich in history.
    - int_19h 2y ago
      Either billionaires really earn their pay, which implies that they are thousands of times more productive as a person than the rest of us - literally superheroes. Or - if you accept this as the obvious bullshit that it is - then all that money is not a fair compensation for anything, but rather the consequence of being in a position of economic power that makes it possible to extract wealth from the economy in one way or another. How exactly said extraction is done is immaterial - if the wealth is unearned, it means that it was taken from someone else, since someone ultimately did the work necessary to create it.
      - TimeBearingDown 2y ago
        You seem focused on the labor theory of value, and sidestep completely the entire idea of investors, or the entrepreneurial function they serve. Advocate for higher taxes if you wish, but acknowledge that economics are not a zero-sum game and propose an alternative to savvy investment, unless you simply want to foment division or to upend modern capitalism entirely.
- rqtwteye 2y ago
  At a minimum they should have admitted that inflation is a big problem. Instead they chose to ignore it or lecture people why they are wrong that inflation is a problem. Same with the border.
  - gizmo 2y ago
    High prices are a big problem, but the primary thing you can do to compensate for that is push wages up through stimulus spending, which Biden also did very aggressively. When people have a wrong perception (i.e. that Biden did poorly on the economy) you cannot contradict them or lecture them. That's a losing strategy. But if you don't correct them they will continue to blame Biden. That also loses. The border/immigration suffers from similar perception problems. When people believe that dems are shuttling illegals to swing states in order to steal the election, how can you respond to that? Or to claims about illegals eating cats and dogs? Trump is very effective at messaging that invokes strong emotions. People will forget about grocery prices and the border once Trump is in office. Trump will shout things and maybe do a few publicity stunts and that's enough to appease people. The actual reality matters little.
    - ImHereToVote 2y ago
      https://genevavsarette.pages.dev/immyufx-border-crossings-in-2024-compared-to-2024-tbssuqc/ https://genevavsarette.pages.dev/immyufx-border-crossings-in...
    - FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
      Stimulus spending CAUSES inflation. You are expanding the money supply. You want to reduce prices, then you need to cool off the economy and reduce the money supply. Lowering govt spending PLUS raising taxes would have been the way.
      - gizmo 2y ago
        Stimulus spending can cause inflation, but doesn't do so necessarily. A cursory look at deficits and inflation charts will tell you as much. Biden got inflation under control and got the economy to bounce back very quickly -- a feat very few people believed he could pull off. "Reducing prices" means deflation, which doesn't happen outside of a depression. Triggering a depression intentionally is absolutely bonkers in terms of policy.
- UncleOxidant 2y ago
  The real problem is housing costs. They should've laser focused on that. A lot of that is due to short supply, so build more houses (Harris mentioned this in her plan, but I don't think it connected). Also look into wall st buying up rentals - there are cities where most of the apartment complexes are owned by 2 or 3 companies, if one of them raises your rent and you try to find housing elsewhere you find either that the same company has raised rents in their other buildings or the other companies are doing the same.
  - eschaton 2y ago
    Way to ensure the real estate holding companies and their owners switch their lobbying dollars and campaign contributions to the other party.
    - IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
      Or, pass a law restricting ownership by holders of SSN. Only 1 example. I'm sure simpler things can be done such as preventing subsidized mortgages by non-citizens. Etc. Of course, this is tough, which is why it would never be done. And that's why you lose elections. If a president won't do it, what makes anyone think that a cowardly congress would ? Plus , the usual suspects of real estate inflation are urban centers with heavy if not complete 1-party control for years. So any attempt at national policy has no credibility when local policy -which is already in control- continues to ignore the problem. Contrast this with Trump - say what you will, he is willing to take flack to do things that are very unpopular, and that's what makes him stand out. Remember the early innings on the border wall ? Walking out of Kyoto ? The collective meltdown. Exactly.
  - sethammons 2y ago
    imagine a Trump response: build, baby, build. We are going to make so many new houses, they wont be able to sell them there is so many. People will have extra houses. People will beg me, please president Trump, no more houses.
    - drawkward 2y ago
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. - 1984 is not a winning message in the US. Dems should have seen people are suffering and instead of giving them economic data given them hope (the Republicans at least offered some 'other' to blame/direct anger at). Most Americans use food as their comfort/escape. They can no longer even afford that. Personally, I think the Democrats need to run on ending zero hour jobs and $1 cheeseburgers. Zero hour jobs are ones where people have to have 1 or more jobs that don't give you a schedule until the start of the week, don't guaranty you any hours (other than that you will get less than 36), don't give benefits. It allows companies to cut to the bone (which overworks people) knowing that if the company needs more hours they will just push up the hours later in the week (which wreaks havoc on peoples lives because these people often need to work/juggle hours at two jobs). Companies should have to staff like they used to with actual jobs and not treat/schedule people like EC2 instance. At the least the government shouldn't count zero hour jobs as 'employment' in the traditional sense. They are not. They are human EC2 instances and that is a very stressful(harmful) way to live.
intended 2y ago
No absolutely right. This old school form of campaigning on issues and policy are just redundant in this day and age. Trump just showed us the speed of the current media cycle. Its minutes or hours. Democrats and all "rational" styles of electioneering on "issues" and "policy" are doomed to fail agains Trump style content. Trump can insult or harm so many voting groups in a day, that people are completely exhausted and then just blank it out. If Biden did the same thing, it would result in the same electoral outcome, it would not cost the dems any more votes. People would just be exhausted by Biden, and then blank him out too. Then it would be whatever default placeholder people like to think about when they think "Presidential candidate", and would then vote without having to worry about what they were doing. Its honestly insanely amazing. Its like we have been doing politics wrong since the Greeks.
- drawkward 2y ago
  This is an astute comment; we are in the social media era of elections, probably have been since 2016. Policy Vibes > Policy Content
  - salawat 2y ago
    >This is an astute comment; we are in the social media era of elections, probably have been since 2016. No it isn't. In the U.S., we were consciously doing it wrong because the Greek system failed for the specific reasons that are currently being discussed. The democracy broke down to the issue of personality coalesced voting blocs, that once delegated to, used the levers of power to make the task of holding onto that power easier. There was a reason the Electoral College was designed in to the American System, and there was a reason National political parties were specifically warned against by the Early Founders, and it was because down that road was the path to repeating the Greek's mistakes. The Faithless Elector was a feature, not a bug. >Policy Vibes > Policy Content Is specifically the death knell of a political system.
    - deleted 2y ago
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UncleOxidant 2y ago
But the economy is pretty great: 4.1% unemployment - I'm old enough to remember when 5% was considered full employment, inflation rate back down close to pre-covid levels, manufacturing up, etc. EXCEPT there's one big problem with our economy: Housing. There's not enough of it so prices for housing are very high relative to incomes. The solution: Build a lot more houses. Harris mentioned this, though I don't recall a lot of details for how they were going to get there. If a lot of people didn't have to pay more than a third, sometimes over half of their income for housing the inflation wouldn't have been nearly as painful.
- carom 2y ago
  Foreign born employment increased [1], while native born employment actually decreased [2]. My wife combined the graphics [3]. The axes are in thousands of persons, so we lost 4 million native jobs and gained 4.2 million foreign born jobs. Coincidentally, that is about how many votes the democrats lost by. 1. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02073395 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02073395 2. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02073413 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02073413 3. https://i.imgur.com/KtBGrkg.png https://i.imgur.com/KtBGrkg.png
  - dwallin 2y ago
    Your wife's graph is massively misleading. Why would you choose to put two different scales on the y-axis when they are already in the same units? The reality of the data you linked to is that the 5 million job difference you claim is pretty much an arbitrary artifact based on whatever month you place your starting line, the amount of native jobs is essentially flat from pre-pandemic. The amount the foreign-born jobs changed is on the same order of magnitude as seasonal fluctuations in native-born jobs and would barely register as a blip if you used a fair and consistent scale.
    - bberenberg 2y ago
      I thought the GPs post was an interesting claim so I dug into it and I think you may be wrong in this case, let me know if I have made any mistakes or misunderstood some of the data. If you go to https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02073413#0 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02073413#0 and click Edit Graph, then Add Line (at the top) then add LNU02073395 (Foreign Born dataset) and then export to CSV it's relatively clear that in 2007-01-01 (start of dataset) at 18.3% of jobs were held by foreign born individuals, and by 2024-10-01 (end of dataset) it was 23.7%. When reviewing the slope of the data, it's not tied to the month of choice, there is a relatively clear linear trend over time. Jobs as a % are being taken from native born Americans. If we look into census data at https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/acsbr-019.pdf https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/acsbr... we see that as of 2022, 13.9% of the US population was foreign born. If 13.9% of the population hold 22.5% (2022-12-01 data from the fed) of the jobs, I can see why some people may have a concern there. Furthermore, if we look at sources of immigration in the census data, we see that roughly 50% come from Latin America, which has the highest percentage (79.7%) of individuals in working age (18-64) of which 82.8% do not have a bachelors degree of higher. Also, in support of the previous paragraph, the census data shows us that as of 2022, 66.9% of foreign born individuals held a job vs 62.9% native born. I see a very persuasive argument for "they took our jobs" here. In practice, my guess is that it's much more complex than that, but I do see how the raw numbers support the argument.
michaelmrose 2y ago
[flagged]
xivusr 2y ago
Agreed. Trump has been successful mostly not because of any meaningful policy, but from being able to capitalize on Democrats tendency to treat the uneducated as fools and even call them deplorable. Gangs and fringe movements thrive off taking in the rejected. Until Democrats can find a way to reach the opposition in a way that isn't condescending they will continue to lose and drive away voters. The so called deplorable will grow. They need to design, build, and walk over the bridge - patiently, despite all the chaos and negativity. If they continue to do the same thing and treat their fellows as idiots and expecting different results..is delusional and insane.
- zippothrowaway 2y ago
  I'm not running for office so I can say this. Their fellows are idiots and fools. I know it's not a winning strategy to point this out. But it doesn't stop it being true.
  - theonething 2y ago
    That you present a subjective opinion as fact doesn't make it true.
- vundercind 2y ago
  The “deplorables” thing is kind of amazing. The message was “you guys are wrong, only like a third of Republicans are all the things you say—committed racists et c.—and the rest are normal, reasonable people we should try to reach and serve” but was delivered the kind of way a couple policy wonks and campaign strategists sitting and looking at hard polling and behavioral data might talk, such that it was disastrous. “Some of you write them all off, but [looks at meta-study] only about a third of them are committed to principles and ideals that might, fairly, be called ‘evil’ or ‘disgusting’ or what have you”. A lesson in how shitty delivery can deliver exactly the opposite of the literal message you’re conveying.
- gizmo 2y ago
  Trump referred to Mexican immigrants as rapists and murderers and yet plenty still voted for him. By word and deed it's very clear how little Trump thinks of women, and yet white women as a bloc elected Trump. Hillary Clinton used the phrase 'basket of deplorables' ONCE, 8 years ago, but that was an unforgivable mistake. By contrast nothing Trump does sticks to him. The perception that Democrats are smug and condescending have certainly hurt them. But that perception is mostly the result of relentless Republican messaging. Tim Walz is a down-to-earth governor of Minnesota who treats everybody with respect. He's a lot less condescending than JD Vance. But the perception of Democrats hating regular people persists.
BobaFloutist 2y ago
That's not the position of the politicians and messengers of the party, that's the position of democrat voters after many desperate attempts to reach and persuade other voters.

jenkstom 2y ago

There's always the hope that the average voter can find their way to a considered, moral vote. That didn't happen.

cmdli 2y ago

What could the Democrats have done about it? Inflation was successfully reduced back down to normal levels without a recession, successfully managing a soft landing. What else could they do?

angrysaki 2y ago
Just picture Bernie Sanders hammering home that the wealthy are screwing everybody. That's the kind of messaging they need but they would rather loose than move left.
- spankalee 2y ago
  Identifying a viable villain and being mad about it would probably have helped, but the election pretty clearly shows that moving left would have had a _worse_ result.
  - UncleOxidant 2y ago
    I'm not so sure of that if they found a way for the message to connect. Bernie did pretty good with his messaging in 2016.
  - greycol 2y ago
    Arizona and Nevada both voted for abortions rights even though they voted republican. The left and right aren't a boolean option, a left candidate who says the system isn't working may do just as well as a right candidate who says the same because they get more of "the grocery prices are broken" crowd even if their overall policies are less palatable.
  - no_wizard 2y ago
    How exactly? Harris didn't run even a center-left campaign, she pushed center-right except on a few issues at the margins and it was late in the game on that front. Americans generally favor more liberal policies economically, like stronger labor rights, universal healthcare, student debt cancellation etc. There was a lot to offer voters of all stripes there. I think too many Democrats counted on a huge pro abortion turn out of women specifically and that translating into democratic votes, which, even to my surprise, it did not.
    - lynx23 2y ago
      Have you ever considered that the stance regarding pro aboriton amongst women is to a certain extend age dependant? What I have noticed anecdotally amongst my acquintances is that older women tend to change their mind on that matter, at least sometimes. I am suspecting this has has plain egotistical reasons, simply because they no longer have to care, paired with a certain amount of women that had an abortion and never really managed to find peace with themselves about it. TL;DR: Careful, not all women are pro abortion, possibly not even the majority.
    - TimTheTinker 2y ago
      I think most conservatives have a strong idea in their mind of who their idealogical opponents are: ivory-tower academics, liberal business people and politicians, and all the plebs who side with them to push ideologies and social policies they don't want (policies like people born as men competing with women in sports). Harris did nothing to distance herself from being strongly associated with that liberal cohort. Regarding social policy and ideology, she came off as being far-left to the average conservative.
    - int_19h 2y ago
      Take a look at the results of the various referendums. Some of the same states that have voted for Trump with a hefty margin also voted for things like raising minimum wage or guaranteed paid sick leave.
- EricDeb 2y ago
  exactly its all messaging. dems suck as messaging and kamala was not the right person to deliver messages because she avoided interviews, conversations, etc. Dems needed someone who would go on any show at any time like Bernie does.
- exceptione 2y ago
  The problem is: Bernie can hammer all he want, but there is no platform to reach the voters. That is __the problem__ for the Dems. 1. The big media is in the hands of a select few (tech) oligarchs. Look for the accelerationists there. 2. Take notice of what happened at the WaPo. Bezos fell on his knees for Trump, fearful of having his other business interests been killed. 2. I mean: no reasonable platforms. The false balance in the New York Times is below the most horrible standard you can get in journalism. New York Times Pitchbot exists for a reason. 3. In the US the press is allowed to spread fake news. Some media make a living of it. Others (see 2) try to give a neutral impression by presenting false balance 4. The serious, damaging analysis will get moved below the fold, if there is one. ==> Now you have gotten a system where the populace doesn´t even get informed anymore, so no serious debate is possible. ==> The Dems are not even able to have their own policies, they have to lean deeply right to stay not too much out of touch of what is presented as normal discourse in the media. If the US slips further from Anocracy to Autocracy, it will be 1) because the press gave the autocrats the nod and 2) some powerful captains of industry were on board, 3) and they were helped by radicalized far right christianity (Heritage Foundation et ali.). An echo of Weimar.
  - angrysaki 2y ago
    I don't disagree, which is sort of my point. The democratic party apparatus and their allies don't want that platform/message. I was mostly just pointing g out ghat there is a stance/platform that could combat right wing populism.
    - exceptione 2y ago
      > The democratic party apparatus and their allies don't want that platform/message. Sure they would love to use a reasonable platform with broad reach, but they haven´t. Relevant media are heavenly partitioned in buckets of insane "Infotainment Corp" and "Sane Washing Corp". There is simply no room for truth if you give non-truth equal space. Non-truth can be made as entertaining as possible, sucking out all oxygen for truth. That is what Americans allowed to happen over the decades, and the consequences are getting more grim every election. It is not even about Trump.
- gizmo 2y ago
  You can -- to some extent -- combat right wing populism with left wing economic populism, but there are two key problems with this strategy: 1) the Democrat party hates economic populism. Bernie would have to hijack the party like Trump did. But where Trump has many allies in positions of power, Bernie has none. 2) the populist rhetoric that people like the most is false. Grocery prices aren't high because supermarkets suddenly got greedy. Worker exploitation isn't why billionaires exist. I also don't think it's good strategy blame a minority group for all the problems in the country. Billionaires are not a protected minority obviously, but when you stoke anger against one group it can easily result in a different group getting unjustly targeted (Mexicans, trans people, etc). We don't need any more of that and politics of hate and resentment isn't the way forward.
  - ImHereToVote 2y ago
    The COVID years oversaw the biggest transfer of wealth to the rich in history.
  - int_19h 2y ago
    Either billionaires really earn their pay, which implies that they are thousands of times more productive as a person than the rest of us - literally superheroes. Or - if you accept this as the obvious bullshit that it is - then all that money is not a fair compensation for anything, but rather the consequence of being in a position of economic power that makes it possible to extract wealth from the economy in one way or another. How exactly said extraction is done is immaterial - if the wealth is unearned, it means that it was taken from someone else, since someone ultimately did the work necessary to create it.
    - TimeBearingDown 2y ago
      You seem focused on the labor theory of value, and sidestep completely the entire idea of investors, or the entrepreneurial function they serve. Advocate for higher taxes if you wish, but acknowledge that economics are not a zero-sum game and propose an alternative to savvy investment, unless you simply want to foment division or to upend modern capitalism entirely.
rqtwteye 2y ago
At a minimum they should have admitted that inflation is a big problem. Instead they chose to ignore it or lecture people why they are wrong that inflation is a problem. Same with the border.
- gizmo 2y ago
  High prices are a big problem, but the primary thing you can do to compensate for that is push wages up through stimulus spending, which Biden also did very aggressively. When people have a wrong perception (i.e. that Biden did poorly on the economy) you cannot contradict them or lecture them. That's a losing strategy. But if you don't correct them they will continue to blame Biden. That also loses. The border/immigration suffers from similar perception problems. When people believe that dems are shuttling illegals to swing states in order to steal the election, how can you respond to that? Or to claims about illegals eating cats and dogs? Trump is very effective at messaging that invokes strong emotions. People will forget about grocery prices and the border once Trump is in office. Trump will shout things and maybe do a few publicity stunts and that's enough to appease people. The actual reality matters little.
  - ImHereToVote 2y ago
    https://genevavsarette.pages.dev/immyufx-border-crossings-in-2024-compared-to-2024-tbssuqc/ https://genevavsarette.pages.dev/immyufx-border-crossings-in...
  - FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
    Stimulus spending CAUSES inflation. You are expanding the money supply. You want to reduce prices, then you need to cool off the economy and reduce the money supply. Lowering govt spending PLUS raising taxes would have been the way.
    - gizmo 2y ago
      Stimulus spending can cause inflation, but doesn't do so necessarily. A cursory look at deficits and inflation charts will tell you as much. Biden got inflation under control and got the economy to bounce back very quickly -- a feat very few people believed he could pull off. "Reducing prices" means deflation, which doesn't happen outside of a depression. Triggering a depression intentionally is absolutely bonkers in terms of policy.
UncleOxidant 2y ago
The real problem is housing costs. They should've laser focused on that. A lot of that is due to short supply, so build more houses (Harris mentioned this in her plan, but I don't think it connected). Also look into wall st buying up rentals - there are cities where most of the apartment complexes are owned by 2 or 3 companies, if one of them raises your rent and you try to find housing elsewhere you find either that the same company has raised rents in their other buildings or the other companies are doing the same.
- eschaton 2y ago
  Way to ensure the real estate holding companies and their owners switch their lobbying dollars and campaign contributions to the other party.
  - IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
    Or, pass a law restricting ownership by holders of SSN. Only 1 example. I'm sure simpler things can be done such as preventing subsidized mortgages by non-citizens. Etc. Of course, this is tough, which is why it would never be done. And that's why you lose elections. If a president won't do it, what makes anyone think that a cowardly congress would ? Plus , the usual suspects of real estate inflation are urban centers with heavy if not complete 1-party control for years. So any attempt at national policy has no credibility when local policy -which is already in control- continues to ignore the problem. Contrast this with Trump - say what you will, he is willing to take flack to do things that are very unpopular, and that's what makes him stand out. Remember the early innings on the border wall ? Walking out of Kyoto ? The collective meltdown. Exactly.
- sethammons 2y ago
  imagine a Trump response: build, baby, build. We are going to make so many new houses, they wont be able to sell them there is so many. People will have extra houses. People will beg me, please president Trump, no more houses.
  - drawkward 2y ago
_DeadFred_ 2y ago
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. - 1984 is not a winning message in the US. Dems should have seen people are suffering and instead of giving them economic data given them hope (the Republicans at least offered some 'other' to blame/direct anger at). Most Americans use food as their comfort/escape. They can no longer even afford that. Personally, I think the Democrats need to run on ending zero hour jobs and $1 cheeseburgers. Zero hour jobs are ones where people have to have 1 or more jobs that don't give you a schedule until the start of the week, don't guaranty you any hours (other than that you will get less than 36), don't give benefits. It allows companies to cut to the bone (which overworks people) knowing that if the company needs more hours they will just push up the hours later in the week (which wreaks havoc on peoples lives because these people often need to work/juggle hours at two jobs). Companies should have to staff like they used to with actual jobs and not treat/schedule people like EC2 instance. At the least the government shouldn't count zero hour jobs as 'employment' in the traditional sense. They are not. They are human EC2 instances and that is a very stressful(harmful) way to live.

intended 2y ago

No absolutely right. This old school form of campaigning on issues and policy are just redundant in this day and age. Trump just showed us the speed of the current media cycle. Its minutes or hours. Democrats and all "rational" styles of electioneering on "issues" and "policy" are doomed to fail agains Trump style content. Trump can insult or harm so many voting groups in a day, that people are completely exhausted and then just blank it out. If Biden did the same thing, it would result in the same electoral outcome, it would not cost the dems any more votes. People would just be exhausted by Biden, and then blank him out too. Then it would be whatever default placeholder people like to think about when they think "Presidential candidate", and would then vote without having to worry about what they were doing. Its honestly insanely amazing. Its like we have been doing politics wrong since the Greeks.

drawkward 2y ago
This is an astute comment; we are in the social media era of elections, probably have been since 2016. Policy Vibes > Policy Content
- salawat 2y ago
  >This is an astute comment; we are in the social media era of elections, probably have been since 2016. No it isn't. In the U.S., we were consciously doing it wrong because the Greek system failed for the specific reasons that are currently being discussed. The democracy broke down to the issue of personality coalesced voting blocs, that once delegated to, used the levers of power to make the task of holding onto that power easier. There was a reason the Electoral College was designed in to the American System, and there was a reason National political parties were specifically warned against by the Early Founders, and it was because down that road was the path to repeating the Greek's mistakes. The Faithless Elector was a feature, not a bug. >Policy Vibes > Policy Content Is specifically the death knell of a political system.
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UncleOxidant 2y ago

But the economy is pretty great: 4.1% unemployment - I'm old enough to remember when 5% was considered full employment, inflation rate back down close to pre-covid levels, manufacturing up, etc. EXCEPT there's one big problem with our economy: Housing. There's not enough of it so prices for housing are very high relative to incomes. The solution: Build a lot more houses. Harris mentioned this, though I don't recall a lot of details for how they were going to get there. If a lot of people didn't have to pay more than a third, sometimes over half of their income for housing the inflation wouldn't have been nearly as painful.

carom 2y ago
Foreign born employment increased [1], while native born employment actually decreased [2]. My wife combined the graphics [3]. The axes are in thousands of persons, so we lost 4 million native jobs and gained 4.2 million foreign born jobs. Coincidentally, that is about how many votes the democrats lost by. 1. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02073395 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02073395 2. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02073413 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02073413 3. https://i.imgur.com/KtBGrkg.png https://i.imgur.com/KtBGrkg.png
- dwallin 2y ago
  Your wife's graph is massively misleading. Why would you choose to put two different scales on the y-axis when they are already in the same units? The reality of the data you linked to is that the 5 million job difference you claim is pretty much an arbitrary artifact based on whatever month you place your starting line, the amount of native jobs is essentially flat from pre-pandemic. The amount the foreign-born jobs changed is on the same order of magnitude as seasonal fluctuations in native-born jobs and would barely register as a blip if you used a fair and consistent scale.
  - bberenberg 2y ago
    I thought the GPs post was an interesting claim so I dug into it and I think you may be wrong in this case, let me know if I have made any mistakes or misunderstood some of the data. If you go to https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02073413#0 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02073413#0 and click Edit Graph, then Add Line (at the top) then add LNU02073395 (Foreign Born dataset) and then export to CSV it's relatively clear that in 2007-01-01 (start of dataset) at 18.3% of jobs were held by foreign born individuals, and by 2024-10-01 (end of dataset) it was 23.7%. When reviewing the slope of the data, it's not tied to the month of choice, there is a relatively clear linear trend over time. Jobs as a % are being taken from native born Americans. If we look into census data at https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/acsbr-019.pdf https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/acsbr... we see that as of 2022, 13.9% of the US population was foreign born. If 13.9% of the population hold 22.5% (2022-12-01 data from the fed) of the jobs, I can see why some people may have a concern there. Furthermore, if we look at sources of immigration in the census data, we see that roughly 50% come from Latin America, which has the highest percentage (79.7%) of individuals in working age (18-64) of which 82.8% do not have a bachelors degree of higher. Also, in support of the previous paragraph, the census data shows us that as of 2022, 66.9% of foreign born individuals held a job vs 62.9% native born. I see a very persuasive argument for "they took our jobs" here. In practice, my guess is that it's much more complex than that, but I do see how the raw numbers support the argument.

michaelmrose 2y ago

[flagged]

xivusr 2y ago

Agreed. Trump has been successful mostly not because of any meaningful policy, but from being able to capitalize on Democrats tendency to treat the uneducated as fools and even call them deplorable. Gangs and fringe movements thrive off taking in the rejected. Until Democrats can find a way to reach the opposition in a way that isn't condescending they will continue to lose and drive away voters. The so called deplorable will grow. They need to design, build, and walk over the bridge - patiently, despite all the chaos and negativity. If they continue to do the same thing and treat their fellows as idiots and expecting different results..is delusional and insane.

zippothrowaway 2y ago
I'm not running for office so I can say this. Their fellows are idiots and fools. I know it's not a winning strategy to point this out. But it doesn't stop it being true.
- theonething 2y ago
  That you present a subjective opinion as fact doesn't make it true.
vundercind 2y ago
The “deplorables” thing is kind of amazing. The message was “you guys are wrong, only like a third of Republicans are all the things you say—committed racists et c.—and the rest are normal, reasonable people we should try to reach and serve” but was delivered the kind of way a couple policy wonks and campaign strategists sitting and looking at hard polling and behavioral data might talk, such that it was disastrous. “Some of you write them all off, but [looks at meta-study] only about a third of them are committed to principles and ideals that might, fairly, be called ‘evil’ or ‘disgusting’ or what have you”. A lesson in how shitty delivery can deliver exactly the opposite of the literal message you’re conveying.
gizmo 2y ago
Trump referred to Mexican immigrants as rapists and murderers and yet plenty still voted for him. By word and deed it's very clear how little Trump thinks of women, and yet white women as a bloc elected Trump. Hillary Clinton used the phrase 'basket of deplorables' ONCE, 8 years ago, but that was an unforgivable mistake. By contrast nothing Trump does sticks to him. The perception that Democrats are smug and condescending have certainly hurt them. But that perception is mostly the result of relentless Republican messaging. Tim Walz is a down-to-earth governor of Minnesota who treats everybody with respect. He's a lot less condescending than JD Vance. But the perception of Democrats hating regular people persists.

BobaFloutist 2y ago

That's not the position of the politicians and messengers of the party, that's the position of democrat voters after many desperate attempts to reach and persuade other voters.