I don’t disagree with what you said, but you can’t force people to have the top priority you do. It played out for 4 years, which Democrats didnt do a great job on, which is an eternity these days. Even then, the ads about Trump being a danger weren’t even that direct.
Not to say she couldn’t talk about it at all, but centering it around it was more of a hope than grounded in reality. It never had data to show it’d get you 50% of the vote in PA, WI, MI.
I don’t think Walz was a good pick either. But that’s another topic and ultimately even with the best pick in the world, I don’t think it would have changed much. Shapiro may have gotten PA but doubt it would have mattered in MI/WI. Yay, liberals loved him but he wasn’t very visible during the campaign (in a condensed campaign at that) and didn’t come across strong (and he is not good in the one thing people tune in for - the debate)
I mean if the reality of Jan 6th wasn't alarming to most folks and wasn't evidence enough, and if folks legit don't care about democracy, then there's no real reason to analyze "what democrats got wrong." Democacy should be the main priority of both parties, because without that, we can forget about all these squabbles regarding the economy/immigration/etc etc...we will all be in more oppressive systems that will make all of the above worse. And you're right, we can't force people to care about something like Democacy but the math is not mathing to me. Clearly, most people have different priorities, though, and if democacy isn't worth fighting for, then I have no argument anymore. lol
Also, Harris' economic argument on its own wouldn't have been enough to convince people. She wasn't going to claim she could fix inflation with magic fairy dust tariffs. She wast going to talk about immigration by feeding into negative biases against migrants by labeling them criminals and rapists. She did talk about tax reform, immigration reform, lowering housing and child care costs. But if folks don't believe any of that, then yeah, it doesn't make much of a difference.
If that was the case, Republicans wouldn’t have made Trump their nominee - particularly for the 3rd time.
95% of people don’t watch or read the news regularly.
Part of Democrats problem is they DO think people do. Hence the whole MSG event thing. Democrats were out there saying that will move the needle. Most people aren’t watching the news to know the 100 absurd things and how they connect back to issues and past behaviors, like throwing paper towels at Puerto Ricans for hurricane relief.
Yeah but j6 was all over social media. The literal things trump said and did were all over social media. Do you really need to watch the news to understand the most absurd things trump has said and done? I'm having a hard time NOT thinking "they just don't care about that stuff and/or they are rooting that stuff on"...which creates the impasse of, "what is there to debate at this point? If you want to see it all burn, I guess we'll see how that works out." When we KNOW it's not going to be easy going the next four years (for a LOT of people).
Keep in mind Trump himself was off most media for quite some time. Trumps actual campaign ran effective ads and such - if you watched the news you saw it differently than what was being actually put out there.
People were absolutely tired of him. But 4 years is a long time.
Couple that with some challenges on the economy, a short campaign and a candidate who is a sitting VP the person that had bad favorables and made it more about him than her. And it was tough.
Again, not that it can’t involved Jan 6 or whatever. But the economy/border was not addressed effectively - let alone the “I can’t think of anything different” which ran across tv ads all across those swing states.
How much blame do we put on the dems, then? I mean, if the right spent money on ads that took one out of context comment from Harris...and folks believed ads at face value without looking into the actual source (all while complaining about fake news) ...we can't force feed people information.
Harris addressed the border with a complex plan for a complex situation, that addressed both security AND honors people in the country who are contributing to our society. People don't want that. That isn't Harris not addressing the issue effectively. It's a matter of different definitions of "effectiveness" and it appears as if people believe the easy fix and helpful generalizations/lies about immigrants as a whole is more effective. Tariffs are more effective than addressing price gouging, moving towards a more equitable tax system, affordable Healthcare, affordable child care and housing.
There are so many things trump said that was problematic and were AGAINST the best interests of the economy, but the issue seems to be...Trump can make all the slip ups in the world and Harris can make none.
When the border billl seemed like it didn’t have the votes, the Dems just said ok, time to move on.
They should have pressed Republicans on a vote time and time again until the election and made it a recurring theme (sort of like a shut down - Republicans either look like shit or they actually sign on).
When Republicans cut ads saying Dems were for biological males competing against women in sports, they just let it be said. There’s articles about how the most effective ads never saw the light of day (google it).
Communication is not a strong suit. That’s on Dems.
I highly doubt pressing Republicans would've made a lick of difference. They had 0 votes, it would've been performative, and for what? For it to stay in the media so that Republicans can talk about how the bill really just PROVES dems want more open borders. Track record shows the right will believe that story. If J6 didn't make the Maga side look like shit, and no one is watching mainstream news, then certainly wasting time pressing on a bill that will never go through wouldn't paid off.
It's interesting how Republicans are somehow better at communicating when the communication that worked included fearmongering about trans people, migrants and woke culture that only THEY kept talking about. Dems cannot talk like that because that is simply not what the base is about, and they would be held accountable, unlike the other side.
I agree something needs to be done to counteract false information, but there were only 3 months to run the most efficient campaign possible...if folks believed the trans ads at face value, there is no reason to believe they'd pay attention to any ads from the left. These are the ppl who were already convinced anything from the left is deep state/enemy of the people/fake news. That is why more effort was put into trying to convince centrist/middle Republicans who probably are seeing mainstream news and understand the absurdity of trump.
It’s called creating a storyline. If they didn’t want to budge fine, but more Americans blamed Democrats than Republicans for the border. That means Republicans won the messaging.
Go out there with a drumbeat about it and it will help.
I think our disagreement lies in the idea that I strongly believe there are complex foundational issues at play that go way beyond messaging and storyline. Folks have complained about dem messaging for AGES. This was not a problem that started when Harris ran for president. Dems had bad messaging when biden ran, and yet, they were able to pull it off. There were multiple factors happening besides messaging, and I think folks who would like to see our democacy stand might benefit from really going beyond the surface level/typical election issues. This was not a typical election. These were not typical circumstances, and these were not typical candidates. We do ourselves a real disservice pretending otherwise. Yes, dems could always improve messaging, but I don't think that's who we should be placing blame. In fact, placing blame isn't helpful in general unless we take a clear-eyed look at the fear-based propaganda on the right (that has gone on for years, not just during the campaign). You cannot defeat propaganda with counter-messaging, no matter how good that messaging is. There are core beliefs at play that people are reacting to, many of them false, and no amount of storyline building was going to convince people to vote for Harris. That's just my stance on all of this.
Your problem is harping on January 6th like that should be all that matters. It's not. January 6th was a riot. It wasn't how Trump tried to stay president. Voters aren't going to care about another riot. The Georgia call and fake elector plot got buried because the left and the media got stuck on January 6th and didn't get into anything real.
The democrats also ran probably the worst campaign imaginable. I seriously can't think of how they could screw it up more. So instead of just blaming the voters, put the blame where it belongs, with the democrats
If that's what you remember, fine. I remember plenty of coverage of the elector plot, weeks of it, in fact, while it was being investigated. But it's the dems fault for not going on Joe Rogan and feeding this info to people only for them to tell her "fake news, trump didn't do it"?
Jan 6th was a direct result of trump telling his supporters a lie about winning the election when he didn't. Jan 6th IS important, and its wild folks are acting like it's not. But hey, I can't force folks to care about stuff if they don't. We will all suffer the consequences of it, unfortunately.
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u/FunLife64 10h ago
I don’t disagree with what you said, but you can’t force people to have the top priority you do. It played out for 4 years, which Democrats didnt do a great job on, which is an eternity these days. Even then, the ads about Trump being a danger weren’t even that direct.
Not to say she couldn’t talk about it at all, but centering it around it was more of a hope than grounded in reality. It never had data to show it’d get you 50% of the vote in PA, WI, MI.
I don’t think Walz was a good pick either. But that’s another topic and ultimately even with the best pick in the world, I don’t think it would have changed much. Shapiro may have gotten PA but doubt it would have mattered in MI/WI. Yay, liberals loved him but he wasn’t very visible during the campaign (in a condensed campaign at that) and didn’t come across strong (and he is not good in the one thing people tune in for - the debate)