You can blame Trump but in the US, we’re all to blame here. Blaming somebody who’s not me just make it easier to feel good about myself and like I’m less of the problem.
I mean call them the Democrats tariffs. 2024 was a gift-wrapped election victory and the Democrats (shockingly) bungled it in staggeringly impressive fashion.
What do you think the democrats did wrong-- what should they have done to win?
I'm curious; I currently don't think that election was so easy for them, with having to run a different candidate, and the overton window shifting right (not just US; EU too).
1. Biden was clearly gone mentally well before they let on. He should have been taken out in the primary season.
2. Democrats believe that "anybody who's not the other guy" is a winning strategy despite it failing over and over. They think that a candidate that people are excited to vote for is not a necessity and have been proven wrong over and over and over again. They got beat with this strategy in 2000, 2004, 2016 (and now 2024). It barely worked in 2020.
If the plan in 2028 is somebody who's a hold-your-nose and say "Well I'll vote for anyone who isn't republican" they will get absolutely smoked again.
I can see your point about it being better to switch candidates early, but this is mostly on Biden himself IMO; I can see publicly visible infighting against the current president doing even more damage to the party (long term and immediate results!), than being slow at picking the candidate.
> They think that a candidate that people are excited to vote for is not a necessity and have been proven wrong over and over and over again. They got beat with this strategy in 2000, 2004, 2016 (and now 2024). It barely worked in 2020.
Who, specifically, is "they"? I think either party just picks the candidate that can muster the most internal support and money, and those are both pretty good proxies for probability of success.
I strongly disagree with your examples. I think Al Gore was an excellent candidate (and he was very close to winning, too). 2004 was basically unwinnable for democrats against an incumbent after going through a crisis that fused the country together.
Trumps success I believe is mainly owed to a media landscape that is extremely helpful for populism in general, a bit of an overton "backlash" after achieving a lot of progressive goals (LGBT, black president, environmentalism) and his success in building a cult of personality out of voters with conflicting beliefs (=> the whole anti-woke movement) as well as diametrically opposed interests (working-class voters that don't stand to profit from neither isolationism-light nor gilded-age-v2 policies).
I personally don't see the republicans holding on to the presidency either way, because in my view, Trump was basically heaping a lot of blame as central part of his rethoric, but after actually getting all the power, people are gonna expect results at some point. Blaming "deep state obstructionism" and "the media" is just not gonna cut it to justify mediocrity, and looking at present policies and past results, mediocrity is about the best I'd expect from him as administrator (thats simply not what he is good at).
For starters they more or less blindly went with their candidate until forced to change. I don't know who should have seen Biden was no longer competent, but the signs should have been there - those people should have made Biden resign a year before the primary season started.
Of course the republicans are just as guilty as democrats in letting their people keep running as they get old in office.
I have a personal policy of never voting for someone who has held the office more than 1 time. If more people would do this we would solve a bunch of problems. (2 terms is a good number if you like the person since they have some experience in the second term). This also means I oppose too small districts in local issues - if there are not several people interested in running for the office than either it shouldn't be elected (why do I elect my country treasurer - it shouldn't have any power), or the district is too small.
> If my toddler scribbles on the wall I better put the markers away next time not put up a little sign that says, "Junior's Doodles."
The point of "Trump Tariffs" is not to make the Trump the scribbler face that wall and feel shame for his output--everybody knows he's too damaged for that.
The point is to ensure everybody else (i.e. voters) recognize that the government is taking their money and understand how it came to occur.
To return to your analogy, it's some message that tells other adults to stop giving Junior their markers, from a source that is beyond your direct control.
> The point of "Trump Tariffs" is not to make the Trump the scribbler face that wall and feel shame for his output--everybody knows he's too damaged for that.
Why do you believe that is the point of “Juniors Doodles”?
> The point is to ensure everybody else (i.e. voters) recognize that the government is taking their money and understand how it came to occur.
If you put “Trump’s Tariffs” there then you are fundamentally ignoring how it came to occur by blaming the person who enacted the tariffs.
You don’t blame the bomb for exploding, you blame the person who lit the fuse.
> To return to your analogy, it's some message that tells other adults to stop giving Junior their markers, from a source that is beyond your direct control.
Sorry, either this makes no sense or I’m too stupid to understand it.
All the democrats who ran with a candidate who couldn't convince other independents to vote for Harris, or convince all the potential voters who stays home to come vote are also to blame.
Would I have voted for a Democrat or a Republican if they ran the "right" candidate? I suppose anything is possible, but given the history, I would consider that to be very unlikely.
I'm focused on harm reduction - there was no credible non evil candidate on the ticket in 2024. I don't like either of them, but only one of them was whipping up a frenzy to disenfranchise my friends and cut them off from society on a fundamental level, and the other was not.
I mean call them the Democrats tariffs. 2024 was a gift-wrapped election victory and the Democrats (shockingly) bungled it in staggeringly impressive fashion.