Trump was the overwhelming favorite among people who don't know or care how government or economics works. These folks are not uninformed because they haven't had an opportunity to learn about these things, but because they are defiant of any effort to teach them. It's a difficult problem, that no one has found a solution to.
Trump's campaign promised one impossible thing after another. This is why he's talking about Greenland. For people who view government as something that only happens on TV, as a reality show, this is all well and good.
It's been the problem for Democrats since Reagan. The answer isn't to adopt a set of equally impossible promises -- this loses the reality-based part of the coalition, and, as it turns out, a lot more white people like the fantasy of restoring white supremacy than like the fantasy of all peoples living in harmony. Similarly, a lot of men, of all races, like the idea of putting women back in their place. It's all such a bitter pill to swallow.
Anyway, because I don't think we're losing on policy, the answer isn't new policies. We're also not losing because of our candidate's attributes.
I genuinely struggle to figure out my feeling about the connection between policy and political success. I strongly believe that most voters do not chose a candidate based on the desire for that person to carry out specific policies.
But, I don't think policy is entirely (or that "deliverism" is entirely discredited), but it's not a direct relationship. I think policy success still matters. I would also very cautiously recommend some of Nate Silver's pontificating about the policy debates within the campaign -- with the obvious caveats that Nate Silver should always be taken with a healthy degree of skepticism, I think there are some interesting comments here, for example, about the political reasons which may have limited Harris's room to make clear policy commitments: https://www.natesilver.net/p/likability-isnt-enough
I would say that there's a slice -- a substantial slice -- of voters that care about policy a whole lot. But I don't think they are in the cohort that decides elections in this closely divided country: either by voting for the more entertaining/indulgent candidate, or staying home when the side they would normall be on isn't as entertaining as they'd like.
On the Dem side, we've laid down the marker for a generation as being the reality based and compassionate to all side. One pundit after another suggests that we ditch this or that part of our identity, but none can show, even a little, that our prior successes at the presidential level have been based on doing so. Our approach wins when the contradictions on the fantasy/asshole side become too much to bear. I think the media's sanewashing played a pretty big role in that respect in 2024.
Trump was the overwhelming favorite among people who don't know or care how government or economics works. These folks are not uninformed because they haven't had an opportunity to learn about these things, but because they are defiant of any effort to teach them. It's a difficult problem, that no one has found a solution to.
Trump's campaign promised one impossible thing after another. This is why he's talking about Greenland. For people who view government as something that only happens on TV, as a reality show, this is all well and good.
It's been the problem for Democrats since Reagan. The answer isn't to adopt a set of equally impossible promises -- this loses the reality-based part of the coalition, and, as it turns out, a lot more white people like the fantasy of restoring white supremacy than like the fantasy of all peoples living in harmony. Similarly, a lot of men, of all races, like the idea of putting women back in their place. It's all such a bitter pill to swallow.
Anyway, because I don't think we're losing on policy, the answer isn't new policies. We're also not losing because of our candidate's attributes.
To your first point, indeed, Krugman has some polling numbers here: https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-chaos-monkeys-have-already-taken
I genuinely struggle to figure out my feeling about the connection between policy and political success. I strongly believe that most voters do not chose a candidate based on the desire for that person to carry out specific policies.
But, I don't think policy is entirely (or that "deliverism" is entirely discredited), but it's not a direct relationship. I think policy success still matters. I would also very cautiously recommend some of Nate Silver's pontificating about the policy debates within the campaign -- with the obvious caveats that Nate Silver should always be taken with a healthy degree of skepticism, I think there are some interesting comments here, for example, about the political reasons which may have limited Harris's room to make clear policy commitments: https://www.natesilver.net/p/likability-isnt-enough
I would say that there's a slice -- a substantial slice -- of voters that care about policy a whole lot. But I don't think they are in the cohort that decides elections in this closely divided country: either by voting for the more entertaining/indulgent candidate, or staying home when the side they would normall be on isn't as entertaining as they'd like.
On the Dem side, we've laid down the marker for a generation as being the reality based and compassionate to all side. One pundit after another suggests that we ditch this or that part of our identity, but none can show, even a little, that our prior successes at the presidential level have been based on doing so. Our approach wins when the contradictions on the fantasy/asshole side become too much to bear. I think the media's sanewashing played a pretty big role in that respect in 2024.
I remain pretty optimistic about the midterms.