2024 US Presidential Elections Megathread

[Valmy]

Yes - although I always find "voting against their interests" a bit frustrating because I don't think it's often a charge levied at people like me - or, I imagine many of the people here, who have degrees and solidly middle class jobs but vote for parties that will probably raise our taxes.

Yeah well I ended up paying higher taxes under Trump's tax plan 

[Sheilbh]

Most of you are missing the reason why non college educated people are voting for the far right.  The left does not give them any hope for the future.

Although that makes me think of that Macron point about grand narratives. Because I take your point but I'm not sure we're necessarily capable of believing in "hope" or "progress" or any other grand narrative of that nature.

A little more prosaically - I saw something recently and wonder if there's something to it. That the left has broadly moved to a "grow and re-distribute" model, but a lot of their traditional supporters are basically pretty producerist (and I wonder if this is tied to status anxiety). (And I can't help but wonder if the producerists were right all along )

There was an era of "Rockefeller Republicans" when the true elites were GOP voters.  The realignment I mentioned has been going on for 50+ years.

I can't remember who wrote it but there was a book recently about re-alignments in American politics and I think particularly the sort of party builders who help make them happen (not necessarily the big name leaders but the strategists).

But I think his argument on recent politics is actually exactly that American politics isn't re-aligning. That the historic norm of every thirty years or so one side building a majority coalition that broadly defines the terms of politics hasn't really happened since the late 60s/collapse of the New Deal coalition. So instead you struggle to get things done, everything becomes contested and there's a bit of a doom loop because no-one's (yet) been able to build that durable majority. So the re-alignment is precisely in the re-alignment not happening.

[Valmy]

That chart is crazy. I had no idea the poorest third was so against Reagan and his policies, and tended to vote for the Republicans in 1960. Wild. Or that the rich really love Barry Goldwater.

but it kind of makes sense things went south for the Democrats with that group once they adopted those policies (and likewise the rich shifting bluewards). Biden has been more worker friendly in a pre-1990s way but it will take awhile to turn that around.

Or the poor just really love right wing social values and nothing can be done but we will see...

[Valmy]

But I think his argument on recent politics is actually exactly that American politics isn't re-aligning. That the historic norm of every thirty years or so one side building a majority coalition that broadly defines the terms of politics hasn't really happened since the late 60s/collapse of the New Deal coalition. So instead you struggle to get things done, everything becomes contested and there's a bit of a doom loop because no-one's (yet) been able to build that durable majority. So the re-alignment is precisely in the re-alignment not happening.

I guess that is true. Both parties have threatened to do so in the past 50 years but have consistently failed to close the deal. Neither has been able to replicated the dominance of the 1865-1932 Republican coalition or the 1932-1968 Democratic coalition.

[Sheilbh]

That chart is crazy. I had no idea the poorest third was so against Reagan and his policies, and tended to vote for the Republicans in 1960. Wild. Or that the rich really love Barry Goldwater.

On those particular examples of the 60s and Reagan, I feel like that must in part reflect race and the impact of civil rights?

[Josquius]

It is a weird situation and you see it more than in just the US. Increasingly the poor are the ones voting for policies that actively hurt them.

Increased cost of living and frozen wages that will really kill those around minimum wage? I mean that's bad and all... But brown people!

[Razgovory]

It is a weird situation and you see it more than in just the US. Increasingly the poor are the ones voting for policies that actively hurt them.

Increased cost of living and frozen wages that will really kill those around minimum wage? I mean that's bad and all... But brown people!

The gender stuff is killing us.  Our black and brown people don't care for it.

[OttoVonBismarck]

One thing to keep in mind is, despite common rhetoric, in a vast array of metrics the poor are doing a lot better in the 2020s than they were doing in the 1970s. This goes against certain common tropes / claims, but is born out by the data. I think purely economic appeals may resonate less when people are at a higher level of comfort, e.g. there are just genuinely economic conservative lower income people who don't actually believe the rich should be taxed more (I think that is still a minority position based on polling on that exact topic), and there is almost certainly a lot of poorer working class people who aren't sufficiently motivated by economic issues to care about them more than culture war stuff--which for a lot of them is as core to their identity as "going to church" was for churchgoers 50 years ago (and many of these people have replaced decaying activities like going to Church with enmeshing themselves for hours every day in culture war propaganda, serving as a quasi-religion.)

[Sheilbh]

One other thought is that I always wonder if we make too much of Trump - or tie everything into Trump as an explanation.

So on the shift of minority conservatives which might be happening, it's easy to tie that to Trump. But if it's driven by those more social forces (weakening party loyalty to the Democrats, particularly among the young, and increasingly racially mixed communities and social circles etc) it seems possible to me that what's happening is in spite of Trump. It feels at least equally possible that actually the shift could have been even more pronounced.

It's the other side of the challenge for incumbents at the minute. I think it's absolutely true that any incumbent is going to struggle because of the economic situation people have experienced (not necessarily just numbers on a chart) with the pandemic, supply shocks in China, war supply shocks in energy and food etc. And I think Biden's been a pretty impressive President but I'm not sure he's a particularly strong candidate and clearly lots of people do think he's too old. Again in that context this should be an election the GOP absolutely walk - and the reason it's not looking like that is, I suspect, Trump (and I do think this, which makes me think there's probably something to the idea above that he's actually hindering the de-polarisation on racial lines).

[Valmy]

It is a weird situation and you see it more than in just the US. Increasingly the poor are the ones voting for policies that actively hurt them.

Increased cost of living and frozen wages that will really kill those around minimum wage? I mean that's bad and all... But brown people!

The gender stuff is killing us.  Our black and brown people don't care for it.

Yeah well they said the same thing about the gay stuff. I don't think that is the reason.

But even if it is the Democrats can't ever abandon the LGBTQ. That would be disastrous.

[Valmy]

It's the other side of the challenge for incumbents at the minute. I think it's absolutely true that any incumbent is going to struggle because of the economic situation people have experienced (not necessarily just numbers on a chart) with the pandemic, supply shocks in China, war supply shocks in energy and food etc. And I think Biden's been a pretty impressive President but I'm not sure he's a particularly strong candidate and clearly lots of people do think he's too old. Again in that context this should be an election the GOP absolutely walk - and the reason it's not looking like that is, I suspect, Trump (and I do think this, which makes me think there's probably something to the idea above that he's actually hindering the de-polarisation on racial lines).

Yes. That is the thing. We are running a 81 year old man in a shaky situation.

We'll see how many trends hold up going forward, or even if they are trends. Right now they are projections based on some things that happened last time and some polls but while those things can tell us the what they don't really say the why.

[Jacob]

It may be true that by a whole lot of metrics the poor are doing better, but I expect that means less when wealth inequality is has continued to grow.

[Sophie Scholl]

If you can hear me from under the bus that someone wants to throw people like me under, is there any evidence of the claim that "gender stuff is killing us"? Everything I've seen and read seems to suggest that it remains a policy loser for the Republicans and simply red meat to feed to the very red base.

[Josquius]

It is a weird situation and you see it more than in just the US. Increasingly the poor are the ones voting for policies that actively hurt them.

Increased cost of living and frozen wages that will really kill those around minimum wage? I mean that's bad and all... But brown people!

The gender stuff is killing us.  Our black and brown people don't care for it.

Perhaps part of it.
But then is the answer to do as the (political, non racial) browns want and have a decent social system with otherwise reactionary social attitudes?
I do agree the left should stop falling for the rights trap of making identity politics such a critical issue.
But throwing trans people under the bus is completely betraying our fundamental values and just isn't acceptable.
Solidarity and egality for all, not just regular old straight cis white folks.

[Sheilbh]

It may be true that by a whole lot of metrics the poor are doing better, but I expect that means less when wealth inequality is has continued to grow.

Yeah I saw this doing the rounds earlier in the week which was interesting to me not so much because the list of cities is different than now - but because of how small the differences are between them. It's just incredibly even compared to now:


I think this is where I wonder if the producerist argument was right and the growth plus redistribution wrong. Partly is that people feel their status decline in some way if they're just a recipient of state largesse - either through welfare or the "we're going to regenerate this post-industrial hell hole with a one (1) block arts centre" models - compared to being part of a productive industry. But also that an economy of widget manufacturers is more equally spread with less differences between places than one of the "jobs of the future".

That's on a zoomed out level - though I think people's sense of place and of their community is really important. I often think about the stat that one of the best predictors of whether a rural area in France will vote Le Pen or not is whether there's a village shop - if there is, it's far less likely. But you're absolutely right on an individual level too - poverty (and wealth are experienced relatively).

If you can hear me from under the bus that someone wants to throw people like me under, is there any evidence of the claim that "gender stuff is killing us"? Everything I've seen and read seems to suggest that it remains a policy loser for the Republicans and simply red meat to feed to the very red base.

I agree.

But I think the language of activists and social movements can be a trap which the Democrats need to avoid - and possibly serves as a bit of a shibboleth. Again I think Biden is actually pretty good at this. And I think broadly, for whatever reason, the older generation of Democrats are better at this - both Biden and Sanders spring to mind. They're both good at making things universalist (which I think anything from the left needs to be) and expressing things in a relatively straightforwrd, jargon-free language.

Even away from social issues I think you have the same problem in other areas - I saw a clip about Americans' economic pessimism with, I think Chris Hayes or some MSNBC host with a big chart of how much the economy's growing. And I just don't understand the idea that if you beat people over the head with stats enough you'll convince them. It is true but again many people's lived experience of the last few years has been really tough - and I think there's a school of commentators and people in and around the Democrats who think that winning a seminar argument based on abstract facts like GDP or stock market numbers will somehow help. I think if anything it probably alienates people even more. I think it's similar with crime stats.

I know it's different but I always think of one of the town hall debates during the Brexit campaign - when a professor of European Studies (and very good guy who is really interesting) made a point about trade barriers and the impact it would have on GDP. And someone in the audience shouted, to applause, "that's your bloody GDP, not ours".