If you were in this situation and had a choice between letting your family starve or supporting and adminstration that promises to make you whole by taking away benefits from someone else, most of us would do the exact same thing.
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Well, the key word here is “promises.” Only if I believed those promises would I vote for such an administration. Although I think “fell for” would describe it better in this case. And I don’t think nearly as many people would fall for what trump is saying if he didn’t have a massive propaganda operation behind him.
[quote=flu]
The democratic party ,I am afraid, had not offered a compelling alternative yet to these swing voters
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The democratic party hasn’t offered anything “compelling” to anyone in decades. I guess “hope and change” was mildly interesting, but it was quite vague and not really all that grand. Hillary, as brilliant and tough as she is, had pretty much zero vision. Part of the problem is that people want a great and compelling vision from their candidates when, in reality, any great and compelling vision is most likely a bunch of bs. So a candidate (or a party) has to choose between 1) selling a grand, compelling, bullshit vision or 2) plotting a course that will keep our country and our economy and our society on a steadily upward path. The democrats choose to sell the latter, and it just doesn’t sell.[/quote]
“promises”… If you were suggesting a lot of desperate Americans were conned into a vision put on by this administration… Yes,I agree with you….. I think for a lot of us on piggs, for example, we probably can tell the difference that those tax cuts really benefit corporations more than individuals and especially for any of us in high tax states causes more damage than good, albeit it’s more annoying that financially impacting people that are affected by this….
But the way I look at it, these were the same people that bought into “hope and change” and when change didn’t happen , probably abandoned the democrat. Hillary didn’t have much to bring to the table for these folks. Bernie Sanders would have been better. There would be no way in hell I would have voted for Bernie (my socialist alarm bells were going off) but at least he brought to the table very interesting ideas that was aimed at helping people and his vision was much more aligned to the greater good than either Hillary or Trump. I didn’t quite follow what exactly happened, but my personal opinion was that I think the DNC sold out Bernie to try to get the first woman elected, but that’s my personal opinion.
Anyway, you and I both understand the compelling economic vision of the party is b.s., but that’s what sells votes. These people, they don’t have a lot going for them, so hope is all they got.
I really don’t think most of them.care about the plight of DACA or even migrant children, or if they do they care it’s only on the surface or with lip servicr, If push comes to shove, and their economic situation is on the line, they won’t care. I mean we’ve seen this before on a much larger scale in history…in Germany with Hitler, with millions of Jews persecuted, and no I don’t think we are that much better these days, maybe a bit better but not much.
When a large mass of people get left behind, weird things happen. that mass islooking for someone else to blame and even of the truth is there, they don’t want to believe it. Prior to that, the blame fell on “rich people , 1%” …Now it’s China, immigrants, illegals, etc. The democrat party failed in that it really should have taken this playbook of protective tarriff and played it. Now, regardless of how effective or not, people have the perception that Donald trump is trying to do “something” when no one else did….he gets credit for that, despite everything else wrong with his administration.and every blatant lie Sarah says between her teeth, and despite the extent of russian collusion… that’s how desperate people are….
And we won’t see any of the tarriff repercussions for some time, not before the midterms at least. Trump isn’t dumb when it comes to these games. There are two outcomes. Trump is pulling on the tarriff onto China right now basically on chinda entire export to the US. The timing is calculated….If China concedes by itself and gives concessions (which imho won’t happen) trump gets credit , stock market goes on a Rocket ship, and everyone is happy before the midterms.
If China resists (which I think it will), we will get some relatiation that might sink the stock markets in the short term….then some time in October , Trump throws China a large bone, an agreement is made, the markets take off again, and everyone is happy again before November.
Forget about what’s actually in the contents of the trade agreement, most people whont bother to try to understand it … just like the US-Mexico agreement that is suppose to replace Nafta… people will fall for it.
This is why i question the blue wave beyond already heavily blue states. What happens in CA and NY doesn’t really matter in the same way that briansd’s vote doesn’t really matter. it’s going to be a consistent blue regardless. hence useless vote…what matters are all the unsure votes or votes that can cross party lines…ironically people like me.
I’d say states like Michigan would be an indicator, given their heavy dependency on manufacturing…
