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> "Trump is only in power because millions of Biden voters stayed home." From a detailed post-election analysis posted on HN a few weeks ago (https://news.ycom
by ThrowawayR2 2y ago
> "Trump is only in power because millions of Biden voters stayed home."
From a detailed post-election analysis posted on HN a few weeks ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43400172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43400172): "The reality is if all registered voters had turned out, then Donald Trump would’ve won the popular vote by 5 points [instead of 1.7 points]. So, I think that a 'we need to turn up the temperature and mobilize everyone' strategy would’ve made things worse." Anyone who still thinks that there's some latent segment of the voting public that's on the Democrats' side needs a wake up call.
- acdha 2y agoIt’s not that simple. As Shor noted, most of the weak Democratic voters were motivated by economic concerns (Gaza was also a big factor for roughly a third, too). The fact that they stayed home in 2024 doesn’t mean that they will next time, but it absolutely means that Democrats need to give them a convincing reason to show up. His analysis of social media trends is similarly incomplete: he identifies the degree to which it’s influential but misses the billions of dollars plowed into promoting right wing content, just as the age gap analysis sees a real phenomenon (younger voters aren’t as likely to vote for Democrats) but misses whether the explanation is that they’re ideologically conservative or economically more precarious and swimming in a sea of propaganda blaming Biden for the pandemic fallout, which has affected every incumbent party around the world. Again, that doesn’t mean that the Democrats don’t need to do a lot of hard work but I think it’s a mistake to see it as “they’re all movement Republicans” rather than “we need to focus on economic inequality”.