Even in Harlem you'd probably don't have to walk more than 50 yards to talk to someone.

It is strange how there is this superficial notion that areas are 'Blu' or 'Red'.

I thought the implicit assumption in their comment was that OP/grandparent isn't American.

Oh. Makes sense.

In the bluest district of the bluest state you still don't have to leave the neighborhood to find them. And visa versa.

Well that's all wrong. You don't need to travel to find a Trump voter. And merely talking to them is not going to be sufficient to truly "understand" them. If only.

Talking to a person should be at least one thing to try to do to understand another person.

It's not wrong to try to understand another.

Maybe it's just cope for the massive disappointment I'm feeling about the state of my country, but I'm somehow also disappointed that you could somehow read my comment and misunderstand it so badly. Of course I wasn't arguing that people should not talk to one another.

It's probably even easier than that. Watch a Fox News, Newsmax, etc. for a full week. This will give you an 80% approximation.

To be fair, that is not easy in any practical sense of the word for most of us.

I live outside the SF Bay Area in the hills. I'll vouch for the thought here.

Several of my neighbors wear Trump's mark.

And I would add, listen. Don't immediately check out mentally because you disagree with what they are saying, don't argue, simply listen and try to understand. It's really hard for humans to do, but it's important. You cannot hope to change minds or appeal to voters if you don't understand what motivates them in the first place.

And when I say you have to understand people I mean truly understand, not intellectually lazy crap like "oh they're just stupid" or "they're racist" like you already see in this thread. Stupid/racist/etc people do exist, but that isn't most people and it isn't most Trump voters either. They are normal people with real concerns and needs, not caricatures of evil.

I do try. The problem is, a lot of times what they're saying is just nonsense.

"The economy is terrible" -- well, no it's not. We had some inflation a few years ago, but so did every other country in the world, and the US has had far lower than most other places. The Biden administration has been doing a great job with the economy. And you know those business people who want Trump to win because they want lower regulations? Yeah, they're not on your side -- they're trying to screw you over. You feel economic pressure, and so you're going to vote someone who's going to make it worse?

"Libs are weaponizing the justice department" -- People who have flagrantly tried to flout laws and undermine our democracy need to be held accountable. I mean yeah, "Always prosecute the outgoing party" is something we want to avoid, but "Never prosecute anything any politician does" is just as bad, if not worse. And at any rate, if that's something you're actually concerned about, why is your solution to vote for "LOCK HER UP!" Trump?

"Biden / Harris are just as bad" -- I mean, no? Trump literally sent an armed mob to attack his own vice president. Nothing you think the alleged "Biden crime family" comes anywhere close (and BTW there is no "Biden crime family").

"Immigrant gangs are invading our country" -- I mean, just no.

Not everyone is like this, but a lot of people are just living in a fictional reality constructed by Fox, Newsmax, and now Musk.

Try to listen to why they are saying these things. Find where you are similar not where you differ.

Often I have found the same fears, desires and hopes in my opponents as myself. For example: "I want my children to grow up happy"

From that level of similarity we can reach people. It takes effort.

Yes, this. If you really listen to people, both sides care about the same things they’re just drinking different flavors of kool aid.

> "...so did every other country in the world, and the US has had far lower than most other places..."

And you fail to see why that might be uninteresting and unconvincing to a low income voter struggling even harder to make ends meet? Maybe even infuriating enough to vote against whoever said it?

I'm trying to treat people like adults. They're suffering because of worldwide macroeconomic conditions that are out of Biden's control, but Biden's administration has managed to make the suffering less than in other places. Other sources of suffering include policies which the Republicans themselves have been pursuing.

Imagine someone buys a Kia hoping to reduce how much they pay in gasoline; but then the price of gasoline doubles, and they end up paying more than they were before anyway; and so they say, "Kia is a terrible car, it's so expensive to fill up, I'm going to buy a Hummer instead".

That's what voting for Trump in this situation is like: at minimum he's going to enable rich oligarchs to squeeze low-income voters even harder, and at worst he's going to trash the economy by raising tariffs, deporting working immigrants, and politicizing the federal reserve (lowering interest rates and triggering even more inflation).

I think normal voters are perfectly capable of understanding this. It's you who seem to be saying that low income voters are incapable of understanding this and should instead be lied to.

> "I think normal voters are perfectly capable of understanding this. It's you who seem to be saying that low income voters are incapable of understanding this and should instead be lied to."

I offer in rebuttal the election results (which, to be clear, I myself am not happy about).

The Democrats could have promised a lot more programs and initiatives to relieve the pain of the working class than they did. They could have made economic relief a lot more central to their advertising. People want their pain acknowledged and sympathized with, not waved away with an airy "it's not so bad".

Definitely agree that things could have been done differently and democrats were far too modest/quiet about what they did.

A lot of red states are benefiting from Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and don't even realize it.

I think we basically agree then. As far as I'm aware, the Democrats didn't attempt even to make the "making the best of a bad hand" argument, much less make a case for how they were going to address the situation.

One thing that Trump is incredibly talented at at is getting everyone to talk about him. I've always thought that the way to get him beat wasn't to trash him, but to talk about the great things about the alternate candidate. So I made it a point to avoid talking about Trump on my social media. After the DNC, I thought we were going to get the same thing from the Harris campaign -- but it seems like in the last few weeks, Harris went hard on attacking Trump, hoping to get women out to vote for reproductive rights, leaving me nothing really to share or talk about on FB.

Trump, on the other hand, went hard on getting young adult males, who typically don't vote at all, to come out and vote for him. Both efforts had their effect, but Trump's bet seems to have paid off more, and put him back in the white house.