Who do you think's going to win the US presidential election?

[crazy canuck]

It's worth noting that the Democrats did not control congress, so the extent to which they could do anything for anybody was almost nothing.

Absolutely. But nothing stopped them from saying what they wanted to do.  And what they said they wanted to do was privilege the educated elite even more than they already were.

[celedhring]

It's worth noting that the Democrats did not control congress, so the extent to which they could do anything for anybody was almost nothing.

Absolutely. But nothing stopped them from saying what they wanted to do.  And what they said they wanted to do was privilege the educated elite even more than they already were.

I'd say Biden's semi-failed infrastructure bill was very blue-collar friendly.

[garbon]

It's worth noting that the Democrats did not control congress, so the extent to which they could do anything for anybody was almost nothing.

Absolutely. But nothing stopped them from saying what they wanted to do.  And what they said they wanted to do was privilege the educated elite even more than they already were.

Here's what Kamala Harris said she wanted to do. These are all the section headers in her policy document that make it abundantly clear that she wasn't just talking about helping the elite.

SECTION 1: Lower Costs for Middle-Class Families 
1. Cut Taxes for Working People 
2. Lower Food and Grocery Costs
3. Lower Health Care Costs
4. Lower Prescription Drug Costs
5. Lower Energy Costs
6. Lower Costs by Protecting Consumers From Fees and Fraud

SECTION 2: Build an Opportunity Economy to Help Americans Get Ahead and Build Wealth
7. Help Americans Buy a Home and Afford Rent
8. Invest in the Small Businesses That Drive Growth, Innovation, and Jobs
9. Invest in American Innovation and Industrial Strength Powered by American Workers
10. Create Security and Opportunity for Workers and Build a Care Economy
11. Strengthen Opportunity in Communities Across America
12. Protect Americans' Ability to Retire With Dignity
13. Make Our Tax Code More Fair and Promote Growth

[Caliga]

Nobody reads that shit.  That's a big part of the problem.  Like, I've seen some election post-mortems where the columnist was like "But when Kamala was on the view, she was given the opportunity to say 'x' and she said 'y' instead!"  Joe Sixpack either doesn't watch The View, or didn't remember what she said there.  The average person doesn't pay attention to the details like that.

[garbon]

Nobody reads that shit.  That's a big part of the problem.  Like, I've seen some election post-mortems where the columnist was like "But when Kamala was on the view, she was given the opportunity to say 'x' and she said 'y' instead!"  Joe Sixpack either doesn't watch The View, or didn't remember what she said there.  The average person doesn't pay attention to the details like that.

If they don't watch her performances or look up any information her campaign is putting out then yeah of course the message doesn't cut through. Doesn't mean she was being elitist.

[Caliga]

If they don't watch her performances or look up any information her campaign is putting out then yeah of course the message doesn't cut through. Doesn't mean she was being elitist.

Yeah, I agree.

[frunk]

Which is why I said traditional political campaigning is mostly meaningless.  Harris ran a working class focused campaign, in fact it was hyper focused on it.  However nobody paid it much attention beyond the attendees and reporters, so much so that many people seem to think it was something else entirely.

Meanwhile Trump has a dumpster fire of barely attended campaign rallies that got a lot of headlines precisely because it was a mess.

I think a traditional campaign can cost you votes, but it won't win you any.  The rallies only matter if you can get publicity, and the only publicity you get is from car crashes.

The hyper focus of the campaign I think is the biggest mistake Harris made.  We live in a fragmented and diverse media ecosystem, and the ability to customize the message to the listener is much more powerful.  You need to use the scattershot approach of a hundred reasons why your candidate is better than the other one and make sure the right reason gets to the person that is receptive to it.

Caliga's example isn't going to respond to an economic/working class message because they've already made up their mind about the economy and what to do about it.  But if they heard about one of the hundred other reasons why Trump is terrible one of them might resonate and make the difference.

[Josquius]

It is interesting how much history is being rewritten already with so many commentators, professional and randomers, going on about how Harris lost because she was all about "woke" and helping the elites rather than working people... which is completely the opposite of reality.

Though really shows what the problem actually was. The right message but terrible delivery.

[The Minsky Moment]

So let's dig into that. Should the state be subsidizing people who are highly educated and will go on to earn high incomes, or those who are working class.

The Dems' policies spoke to the former and not the latter. That is the point.

Policies?  I don't think that is true at all.

Just focusing on Biden: the stimulus package targeted direct payment only to low and moderate income people, lowered prescription drug costs for Medicare and Medicaid, he repealed a Trump era regulation limiting overtime payments to blue collar workers, he cracked down on overdraft and junk financial fees which disproportionately impact the poor, he targeted billions of aid to small farmers and rural small business owners, he tightened enforcement against employers who violate the labor bargaining rules, he was the first President in history to march with workers on a strike picket.

That's not even including the big infrastructure and reshoring legislation, which is not specifically targeted but clearly benefits the less affluent, who are usually the most impacted by substandard infrastructure.

In terms of concrete legislative achievements with impact for working people, Biden is probably the most consequential 4-year term since LBJ 64-68. But while LBJ had huge Congressional majorities, Biden faced seemingly impossible odds in Congress.  It's really an impressive achievement.

And yet you see the pundits say - in virutally the same breath - that Harris screwed up because she didn't emphasize her support for workers too much *AND* that she screwed up by not distancing herself from the administration's policy.   That's why I can't and don't take political punditry seriously.  It's of bunch a people with nicely styled hair leaning into their own subjective prejudices and then just grabbing whatever ad hoc "evidence" they can to support it.

(And it's also why the one pundit I'll listen to is Carville. He may not be any wiser, but at least he's bald and has the Cajun accent).

[crazy canuck]

Nobody reads that shit.  That's a big part of the problem.  Like, I've seen some election post-mortems where the columnist was like "But when Kamala was on the view, she was given the opportunity to say 'x' and she said 'y' instead!"  Joe Sixpack either doesn't watch The View, or didn't remember what she said there.  The average person doesn't pay attention to the details like that.

Yeah, that's exactly how I was going to respond. The people that read that are the highly educated elite that the Democrats actually cater to.  The highly educated elites read it and feel good that the poor are also getting a bit of a break, but nobody else is t
Reading it.

And it's the loan forgiveness for college students that everyone hears about.

[crazy canuck]

It's worth noting that the Democrats did not control congress, so the extent to which they could do anything for anybody was almost nothing.

Absolutely. But nothing stopped them from saying what they wanted to do.  And what they said they wanted to do was privilege the educated elite even more than they already were.

I'd say Biden's semi-failed infrastructure bill was very blue-collar friendly.

Yes, that would be a good argument. And how many times did you hear that in any stump speech during the election?

[crazy canuck]

So let's dig into that. Should the state be subsidizing people who are highly educated and will go on to earn high incomes, or those who are working class.

The Dems' policies spoke to the former and not the latter. That is the point.

Policies?  I don't think that is true at all.

Just focusing on Biden: the stimulus package targeted direct payment only to low and moderate income people, lowered prescription drug costs for Medicare and Medicaid, he repealed a Trump era regulation limiting overtime payments to blue collar workers, he cracked down on overdraft and junk financial fees which disproportionately impact the poor, he targeted billions of aid to small farmers and rural small business owners, he tightened enforcement against employers who violate the labor bargaining rules, he was the first President in history to march with workers on a strike picket.

That's not even including the big infrastructure and reshoring legislation, which is not specifically targeted but clearly benefits the less affluent, who are usually the most impacted by substandard infrastructure.

In terms of concrete legislative achievements with impact for working people, Biden is probably the most consequential 4-year term since LBJ 64-68. But while LBJ had huge Congressional majorities, Biden faced seemingly impossible odds in Congress.  It's really an impressive achievement.

And yet you see the pundits say - in virutally the same breath - that Harris screwed up because she didn't emphasize her support for workers too much *AND* that she screwed up by not distancing herself from the administration's policy.   That's why I can't and don't take political punditry seriously.  It's of bunch a people with nicely styled hair leaning into their own subjective prejudices and then just grabbing whatever ad hoc "evidence" they can to support it.

(And it's also why the one pundit I'll listen to is Carville. He may not be any wiser, but at least he's bald and has the Cajun accent).

We're talking about what the Dems are talking about and they're messaging not what one can come up with on a deep dive of their policy initiatives.

You were talking about things that  appeals to highly educated elite who are might be policy wonks.

You can't expect the electorate and particularly the working poor, who are working 2 to 3 jobs a week just to feed their families, to dig into this the way we have the luxury of doing here on Languish.

[The Minsky Moment]

CC where I live I got all the Pennsylvania ads for the national campaign.
 
The Harris ads were all about lower costs and health care for working people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6bv6jYEVAs

The Trump ads were attack ads about immigrants and transgender.

Trump won PA

If the actual legislation doesn't matter, and concrete benefit doesn't matter, and messaging doesn't matter, what it is that would matter?

[crazy canuck]

CC where I live I got all the Pennsylvania ads for the national campaign.
 
The Harris ads were all about lower costs and health care for working people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6bv6jYEVAs

The Trump ads were attack ads about immigrants and transgender.

Trump won PA

OK, I stand corrected then at least in the state of Pennsylvania.  All the ads I saw here from my American sources, were all about the danger to democracy and reproductive rights.

Don't get me not wrong. Those are important issues, but not issues that resonate with people who think that their economic well-being is the most important thing.

[DGuller]

I share Minsky's frustration that we're clearly not dealing with rational people.  A lot of voters' logic, if we take it at face value, really is no smarter than Jews voting for Hitler because of anti-Semitism under Wiemar Republic.

That said, voters are like that, and if you're in the game of politics, you have to figure out how to deal with that, no matter how infuriating it is to have to deal with that.  Psychiatrists shouldn't go "how the fuck am I going to deal with my clients, they're fucking crazy", and neither should politicians.  That's not to say that psychiatrist's clients aren't fucking crazy.