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US election 2020 thread

littlebabyjesus said:
Plus if it is a shift, it's a small one. And it's still somewhere close to 90% Democrat. I think it's a non-story really. Same with the supposed loss of Latino support. That's a particularly diverse group of people, and it's still strongly Dem. There are no historic shifts going on there.

The real issue is why do so many older middle-income white people with no college education vote Republican. That's a bigger group of people, although it is shrinking.
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On Latino voters, I remembered this morning that Bernie won the Nevada caucuses by connecting with Latinos directly rather than going through the Culinary Union ie the party machine. He did really well in Texas down the Rio Grande Valley for similar reasons. The Democratic Party, like Labour, can be incredibly complacent about the bloc support of certain communities and leave themselves open to alternative messaging to see those people peeled away
 
planetgeli said:
The most common thread I've seen in Trump's supporters language hasn't been about policy - it's been "he speaks our language". They like his style, his personality. I think populist ideas come second to this and I'm not even sure it's a close race.
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I think there's a lot of truth to that, but as ever, the liking of the style/personality isn't totally independent of policy. In other generations, these would have been people mobilised by Macarthyism and the Red Scare. Sod Sanders. Biden is a socialist.

It's hard to know what to say or do about that, tbh, but they're there to be picked up by somebody else.
 
planetgeli said:
I think you mean me (maybe others too, but I'll speak for myself).

I think Trump did so well in this election (and 2016) with a large dose of 'cult of the personality' more than any populism. As the article you quote says, he all but gave up campaigning on any policy in the final days. Instead he was relying on the hero worship he's cultivated and demanded. For the Republican Party to reproduce that they need another Trump more than they need some form of conservative populism which didn't really show itself in his administration and its policy.

For a significant proportion of his votes (ignoring RP voters who would vote for a donkey wearing a red rosette) they weren't voting for particularly populist ideas against the elite (ironically ideas, if they were there, that were put up by a member of an elite) - they were (to paraphrase a Tea Party congressman from 2016, but even more relevant to now) "voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race - and Trump won Best in Class".



The most common thread I've seen in Trump's supporters language hasn't been about policy - it's been "he speaks our language". They like his style, his personality. I think populist ideas come second to this and I'm not even sure it's a close race.

That's why I think Trumpism, without Trump, or another Trump-like, could melt away.
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Yes I think you did say it but i wasn’t responding particularly to your post more then general speculation of a timeline of disassociation , Trump goes and it’s all back to normal for GOP. Yes big personality and personality can help populist parties/ populism ( and I know you are not saying this ) but it would me a mistake to for anyone to just down the path of ‘ Hitler was a very good speaker’ type analysis.
 
Found an article on disinformation campaigns in Florida targeting the Spanish-speaking population, I don’t think this is the article I shared before but there are several if you google (“do your own research” :D). Comparisons have been made to the fake news stuff circulated on WhatsApp that got Bolsonaro into power in Brazil - an example of the results this type of stuff can have.

www.nbcnews.com

Spanish-language disinformation intensifies among Florida Latinos, worrying Democrats

A slew of YouTube, WhatsApp and Facebook clips link Democrats to outlandish conspiracy theories. "People start to believe it or they completely tune out," an analyst said.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com
 
The39thStep said:
Yes I think you did say it but i wasn’t responding particularly to your post more then general speculation of a timeline of disassociation , Trump goes and it’s all back to normal for GOP. Yes big personality and personality can help populist parties/ populism ( and I know you are not saying this ) but it would me a mistake to for anyone to just down the path of ‘ Hitler was a very good speaker’ type analysis.
Click to expand...
I think it's more Hitler was a very new sort of speaker than Hitler was a very good speaker. No one these days would associate his gestures, so integral to the performance, with being a good speaker. But novelty often goes a long way to making people think something good.
 
Some US paleoconservative types in the vicinity of Pat Buchanan have long been advocating a Republican strategy to make it easier for young blue-collar workers to start families, mainly by lowering housing costs.

Don't know if the Trump government made any serious moves in this direction. It might turn out to be one of those policies which both Left and Right occasionally make encouraging noises over, but do nothing about due to internal ideological differences.
 
What do you do when 31% of people think climate change is 'not a serious problem'?:facepalm: The kind of thing that tests the limits of my philanthropy.

It is tricky, because you know full well that there will be a very high correlation between those 31% and the 26% who don't think racism is a serious problem, those who think the pandemic is a scam, etc. The plug-ignorant vote was, unsurprisingly, very firmly with Trump. And it's worryingly big - tens of millions of people.
 
Pickman's model said:
I think it's more Hitler was a very new sort of speaker than Hitler was a very good speaker. No one these days would associate his gestures, so integral to the performance, with being a good speaker. But novelty often goes a long way to making people think something good.
Click to expand...
There is a thing though with populist movements or in fascist movements about personality and being a 'good speaker though. I suspect a lot of it is airtime ( Hitler utilised the new technology at the time very well) even smug golf club know it alls like Farage are often thought by some as having personality and being a 'good speaker' . A lot of its manufactured, as is being the rebel , a lot of it is media coverage and fawning but its definitely there.However my point is whilst that all helps its isnt the whole story.
 
Smokeandsteam said:
it seems to me to be another rehash of elite fear of grassroots politics. A default assumption that anything - ideas/demands/impulses -
emerging from below is automatically reactionary, simplistic and bigoted. The link with Gina Miller and Brexit is woeful.
Click to expand...

Yes - some really facile stuff in there - apparently there are "good politicians" (like Biden) and "bad politicians" (like Trump)...er right.
 
Trump's gestures were just really weird, its true. That thing where he was playing an invisible accordion a lot for instance, definitely novel. I don't think this is what drew people to him though.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
I think there's a lot of truth to that, but as ever, the liking of the style/personality isn't totally independent of policy. In other generations, these would have been people mobilised by Macarthyism and the Red Scare. Sod Sanders. Biden is a socialist.

It's hard to know what to say or do about that, tbh, but they're there to be picked up by somebody else.
Click to expand...

I never said it was totally independent of policy. I said policy came a poor second - to the commnicator of, and therefore the communication of that policy. Where any debate about racism or immigration could be levelled to "Build a wall!" for just one example. Trump's ability to tap in to populist themes came from his ability to simplify what the left treats as sophisticated, complicated debate/theory/commentary. For the left to tap into that in the same way requires a communicator the like of which we've never seemingly found in the U.K at least.

We laugh at Trump's twitter. But he has 88 million followers for a reason.
 
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planetgeli said:
I never said it was totally independent of policy. I said policy came a poor second - to the ability to communicate that policy. Where any debate about racism could be levelled to "Build a wall!" for just one example. Trump's ability to tap in to populist themes came from his ability to simplify what the left treats as sophisticated, complicated debate/theory/commentary. For the left to tap into that in the same way requires a communicator the like of which we've never seemingly found in the U.K at least.

We laugh at Trump's twitter. But he has 88 million followers for a reason.
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I don't think policy is quite a poor second, though. It's a necessary precondition. As you say, Trump tapped in to something rather than creating it.

But I wouldn't overstate that. He's comfortably lost the popular vote both times he's stood for election. I'd still argue that his 2016 win was essentially a fluke. People ask how come Democrat candidates couldn't do better against such a clown. But you can also turn that around. How come the Republican candidate couldn't do better against such insipid Democrats?
 
On the other hand, I similarly wouldn’t overstate the interpretation of the popular vote in terms of how successful candidates are relative to eachother. California is so populous and so Democrat that the Dems start with a massive background lead on the popular vote. It’s similar to the way that the Republicans start with a baked-in lead on the electoral college vote. Trump was certainly successful at disrupting things enough to maximise the latter advantage and ignore the former disadvantage.
 
planetgeli said:
I think you mean me (maybe others too, but I'll speak for myself).

I think Trump did so well in this election (and 2016) with a large dose of 'cult of the personality' more than any populism. As the article you quote says, he all but gave up campaigning on any policy in the final days. Instead he was relying on the hero worship he's cultivated and demanded. For the Republican Party to reproduce that they need another Trump more than they need some form of conservative populism which didn't really show itself in his administration and its policy.

For a significant proportion of his votes (ignoring RP voters who would vote for a donkey wearing a red rosette) they weren't voting for particularly populist ideas against the elite (ironically ideas, if they were there, that were put up by a member of an elite) - they were (to paraphrase a Tea Party congressman from 2016, but even more relevant to now) "voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race - and Trump won Best in Class".



The most common thread I've seen in Trump's supporters language hasn't been about policy - it's been "he speaks our language". They like his style, his personality. I think populist ideas come second to this and I'm not even sure it's a close race.

That's why I think Trumpism, without Trump, or another Trump-like, could melt away.
Click to expand...

What about if he stands in 2024?
 
It's a sample size of one but my trump-voting relative claimed that he likes trump because of the way he talks, not using long words, not talking down to you like all those new york people do, but that was a lie. He voted trump again because he doesn't want to pay higher tax and trump's tax breaks helped him, thats it.
It was pure self interest dressed up as 'i'm just a simple uneducated guy and he's a straight talker'.
 
rubbershoes said:
What about if he stands in 2024?
Click to expand...
Americans hate losers. And all those voters who were too shy to confess to pollsters that they were going to vote trump will be joined by ranks of others who will retrospectively believe that they never supported him. He won't be remembered as the incumbent who got the highest ever total vote.
 
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