The "other side" has been wrongly casting me and my (hypothetical) kids as villains for decades. No, I will not be voting for them just because some ultra-woke New York school got overzealous.
Yes they have. You're making my point for me. Why would you vote for someone who attacks you in that way? As I stated here before, I won't be voting Republican again in my lifetime unless there is a major reform of the party. It's become the party of religious zealots and racists who will destroy our democracy to stay in power.
My point is that the Republicans are always worse. Every critique of Democrats is so milquetoast compared to what's just the on-the-label identity of the Republican party.
Looking at the early 2024 polling of CPAC attendees, it occurred to me that one way to measure just how insane the Republican party is is to realize that Charlie Baker has the highest approval ratings of any governor in the country and has for years, leads a state with an advanced economy, and can win independents and Democrats, and he has zero support from the Republican base. The base would prefer Ted Cruz, who is Ted Cruz, Kristi Noem, who is the grim reaper of a state small enough to be a suburb of Los Angeles, and Don Jr., who is a literal cumstain. You could make similar arguments for Larry Hogan and Phil Scott, both of whom also have no support.
I also generally feel that the politicians within the GOP are usually far worse than those in the Dems, but I’m also getting tired of being left out of all of the financial benefits because I fall into a weird category of not being poor and not being wealthy. I feel like Biden and the Dems have a real opportunity to unify a large segment of population across a lot of socioeconomic brackets. But they keep means testing everything to the point of being irrelevant. For instance, I don’t qualify for a stimulus check. I understand that and don’t feel like I totally need one. I’m not asking for all of my student loans to be forgiven, but reducing the interest rate to zero forever would make shit a lot easier while I pay them off. But I also can’t get tax credit anymore for my student loan interest payments like I used to. Home mortgage interest credit didn’t do anything either. We don’t have kids, so there’s no credit there. I feel like I can’t be the only person in this boat who feels like a fucking cash register for the government. I know there’s people out there way worse off than me. But being married with no kids seems to get me little to no benefit whatsoever. There is zero chance I ever associate with policies from the gop. It’s just too hateful and helps no one. But I can see people getting disaffected with how things are with the Dems and staying home in 2022.
This makes me think part of the disconnect is between "brand" and "governance". Republican as a brand is pretty hazy: Trump? Maga? Conservative but ill defined, and anti-liberal, but no one knows what we're actually mad about. It has no bearing on governance, for good reason: they simply don't do it. Democrat as a brand is somehow worse: it's like all the cringiest tumblr blogs, but with policy implications, and yet they have to actually govern. My biggest fear is Trump launches a labor party, because it might actually fucking work.
I'm on the opposite of that. Trump starting a new party is the dream. There is no way the MAGA cult wins a national election on its own.
I think you're right and you can attribute this to the Republicans "winning", positioning themselves as an underdog, and turning the business of politics into some weird form of competition. Also, given the lack of good faith negotiations the GOP has engaged in, you're right....I would be pissed Feinstein hasn't learned her lesson. I don't think the Democrats are beholden to younger voters, as much as the GOP simply doesn't have messaging for the youth, so they don't bother. The GOP is a minority by population, and they don't seem to be able to reverse this: they aren't doubling down on minority or youth voting.
The MAGA cult already won an election, its just that some of their members then had human properties to relate with and decided bedding with hayseed traitors is a bad look. The remaining now are hopeless and utterly clueless turds who will never see the truth. Wallow in silence.
Larry Hogan seems to be to logical of a Larry for the current base of the GOP. They’re more suited to having Larry Nassar speaking for them.
They probably don’t think they need to; they made gains with a lot of minority demographics this past election cycle.
I suppose it's a perspective question rather than a strategic one, but they did lose. As ridiculous as it sounds, that math is still the same for both parties: 3% here and 5% there is all that's needed. They have a receptive audience in minority voters, if they could just y'know tone down some of the evil, racism, and economic policies that gut minority communities. Like I said, an actual labor party that takes the populist economic tenets of the Democratic platform, eschews the billionaire, trickle-down bullshit the GOP has spouted for 40 years, and just stays quiet enough on the racism/identity politics to slip in under the radar would be a game changer. Trump might be smart enough to make those promises, but he's not smart enough to actually execute it.
Yeah, well he's definitely not. As far as the parties, though, the Democratic plan to appeal to minority and young voters hasn't paid the dividends you'd expect. The GOP has captured the White House about a third more than the Democrats with nearly a third less registered party members since they shifted to that strategy. The Democrats have also not held on to both houses for more than a single term in almost 30 years. The Latino Vote is becoming more and more diffuse with every cycle. First-generation Hispanic-Americans and illegals tilt left, but illegals can't vote so that doesn't translate well into electoral victories. Polling clearly suggests that Hispanics care most about economic and healthcare issues, but both parties barrage them with messaging on illegal immigration and the border. The parties don't really care; or at least they don't know how to care. The GOP is the Trump Party at this point. And for an actual labor movement, that will probably not happen again until there is massive unemployment due to automation, which won't look like anything that came before it. Unionization never really penetrated deep into the private sector; it was mostly relegated to trucking, mining and old-school manufacturing. Since the industries that comprised that bloc are declining across the board, the remnants are basically the "old, white men" people like to dunk on. But that group votes and they vote consistently.