I had expected to be angry, but I'm not. Deeply saddened, confused, a little bit frightened -- mostly for others as my position as a straight cisgender white man provides a level of protection that the majority of my friends do not enjoy.
I know someone who voted for Trump. For reasons I won't go into, this would be the classic example of a person voting against their interest on the face of things. But, she's a devout Catholic and believes that abortion is a sin. Trump offered her a way to vote against abortion. Maybe that one issue was enough to let her overlook less deeply held moral objections to Trump's other policies.
I heard an interview with an Arab-American who had been active in the "uncommitted" movement during the primaries who was trying to persuade his family and other Arab-Americans to vote for Harris as the lesser of two evils. He described how his father planned to vote for Trump becasue he would stop sending weapons to Israel. Even though he expected Trump to try to repress and expel Arab-Americans in the US, he felt that was a burden he was better able to bear than the hospitalized children in Gaza who were being killed with weapons supplied by the US.
The argument in both cases comes down to this: something that the Democrats are doing is so morally reprehensible that I'm wililng to vote for Trump to get them out of power, and then we'll resist the rest of his agenda.
Is this Trump's secret sauce? Find enough niche issues where a policy, even one based on lies, or a promise that he doesn't intend to keep, injected into an environment where fact checking is non-existent, will get people to pull the lever for him *even if they dislike him him and find the rest of his promises morally repugnant?*
But it's not just that the Republicans won this election. The Democrats lost. Biden screwed the pooch, as you point out, by even running for a second term. But the party fell in line behind him obediently. Harris's nomination without any primary process was a sham, and her platform was weak sauce poured in short measure. I voted for her, much in the way I'm imagining some Trump voters cast their ballot. There was one moral judgment that was so important I could put the rest aside until later.
The moral imperative for me was keeping Trump out of the White House. That's not a great reason to vote for anybody.
Bill, lots of good points here but I have to object to the term "sham." People voted for Biden knowing his age and knowing who his chosen successor was. There was a moment where I thought it might get thrown to the Convention, but she apparently did a good job gathering enough support to avoid that. We didn't fall in line behind him, we unified behind her as the most legitimate option. If, say, Gavin Newsom, had somehow been nominated, there would have been a lot of bitterness about Harris being passed over in the heat of the moment. She was the best available choice, not despite the primaries but because of them.
Jim: Why would I be angry? I see the current state of affair as pretty close to disastrous especially with respect to illegal immigration, drug deaths, inflation, dumb spending, etc. Trump is nasty. Hopefully he will act as an emetic like Ipecac and the body politic will disgorge the stupidity and odiousness of the last 16 years from all sides. My hope is that the Supreme Court will be strengthened with people committed to keeping the Executive and Congress in their lanes and prevent lower courts from legislating to suit political purposes.
Fair enough. But I would say the last election (and some of the reactions I have received locally) demonstrates that many Democrats do not listen very well to anything that is counter to their preferred narrative.
I had expected to be angry, but I'm not. Deeply saddened, confused, a little bit frightened -- mostly for others as my position as a straight cisgender white man provides a level of protection that the majority of my friends do not enjoy.
I know someone who voted for Trump. For reasons I won't go into, this would be the classic example of a person voting against their interest on the face of things. But, she's a devout Catholic and believes that abortion is a sin. Trump offered her a way to vote against abortion. Maybe that one issue was enough to let her overlook less deeply held moral objections to Trump's other policies.
I heard an interview with an Arab-American who had been active in the "uncommitted" movement during the primaries who was trying to persuade his family and other Arab-Americans to vote for Harris as the lesser of two evils. He described how his father planned to vote for Trump becasue he would stop sending weapons to Israel. Even though he expected Trump to try to repress and expel Arab-Americans in the US, he felt that was a burden he was better able to bear than the hospitalized children in Gaza who were being killed with weapons supplied by the US.
The argument in both cases comes down to this: something that the Democrats are doing is so morally reprehensible that I'm wililng to vote for Trump to get them out of power, and then we'll resist the rest of his agenda.
Is this Trump's secret sauce? Find enough niche issues where a policy, even one based on lies, or a promise that he doesn't intend to keep, injected into an environment where fact checking is non-existent, will get people to pull the lever for him *even if they dislike him him and find the rest of his promises morally repugnant?*
But it's not just that the Republicans won this election. The Democrats lost. Biden screwed the pooch, as you point out, by even running for a second term. But the party fell in line behind him obediently. Harris's nomination without any primary process was a sham, and her platform was weak sauce poured in short measure. I voted for her, much in the way I'm imagining some Trump voters cast their ballot. There was one moral judgment that was so important I could put the rest aside until later.
The moral imperative for me was keeping Trump out of the White House. That's not a great reason to vote for anybody.
Bill, lots of good points here but I have to object to the term "sham." People voted for Biden knowing his age and knowing who his chosen successor was. There was a moment where I thought it might get thrown to the Convention, but she apparently did a good job gathering enough support to avoid that. We didn't fall in line behind him, we unified behind her as the most legitimate option. If, say, Gavin Newsom, had somehow been nominated, there would have been a lot of bitterness about Harris being passed over in the heat of the moment. She was the best available choice, not despite the primaries but because of them.
Jim: Why would I be angry? I see the current state of affair as pretty close to disastrous especially with respect to illegal immigration, drug deaths, inflation, dumb spending, etc. Trump is nasty. Hopefully he will act as an emetic like Ipecac and the body politic will disgorge the stupidity and odiousness of the last 16 years from all sides. My hope is that the Supreme Court will be strengthened with people committed to keeping the Executive and Congress in their lanes and prevent lower courts from legislating to suit political purposes.
I was mainly speaking to Democrats.
Fair enough. But I would say the last election (and some of the reactions I have received locally) demonstrates that many Democrats do not listen very well to anything that is counter to their preferred narrative.