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Biden said to be increasingly frustrated by dismal poll numbers
(www.washingtonpost.com)
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this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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As always:
The issue isn't people voting for trump, it's them not voting.
Because for some people, voting can take hours.
This is intentional because Republicans know depressed turnout is how they win. Unfortunately Dem party leadership just refuses to acknowledge that.
It's why trump beat Hillary, and can 100% happen again in 2024. The most important job of any candidate is getting votes. And just saying: "What are you going to do, vote Republican instead?" Isn't going to motivate enough voters to get to the polls.
The party is obsessed with stealing voters from Republicans, because that matches their preconceived notion that the democratic party needs to move to the right and gives them an excuse to do so.
Despite the fact that it's easier to get a non voter to vote than convince a Republican to start voting D.
And Biden - who has won elections for the past 40+ years - really understands this.
Which is why he is frustrated.
We have to be honest. Things really aren't looking good.
Let's not fool ourselves. Trump has a large, dedicated base willing to vote for him.
If turnout is high, his chances of winning are low. But with a low turnout, his chances are high.
A potential Biden voter staying home, because of low motivation to go stand in a line for hours - that's the Republican winning ticket.
Which is why the conflict in Israel and stalemate in Ukraine are good for Trump, it de-energizes the Democrat base.
Normally I'd agree, but it seems like the only people who are polling less favorably than Biden are literally every other GOP primary candidate. Even beloved local candidates like De Santis are floundering on the national stage. The MAGA schism is too wide for the Republican party to recover from at this point, if you ask me. This was something that started gaining momentum under the Obama administration and can't be easily stopped or redirected. Without Trump at the vanguard, the Republican party would be in complete disarray. Why else would they continue supporting him while he's under so many felony indictments?
It's not just turnout, turnout was much higher in 2020 than 2016 but even with that Trump gained 12M votes between the two. Millions of people who sat out the 2016 election looked at those four years and decided Trump deserved another go. But Biden got nearly 19M more than Hillary did, and more importantly, got those margins in the correct states to make an EC win out of it.
This is another area Hillary's campaign fucked up, despite being very simple if looking at the larger picture.
The population increased like 16 million in that time.
So "turnout" when viewed as a total number makes it look like it constantly gets better. Hillary ignored that and chased beating Obama's total votes out of pride rather than focusing on the electoral college to win.
So its best to use percentages, and 2016 was the lowest it's been in 20 years, ironically enough, that was the other Clinton.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/11/politics/popular-vote-turnout-2016/index.html
In 2020 it was like 2/3s of eligible voters who voted. But it's a lot easier to motivate people to vote for someone solely because "they're not a Republican" when the Republican is already in office. Especially when the challenger is telling everyone they're going to fix all the shit the Republican is breaking.
But four years later after that didn't happen....
And I don't know how anyone can't forsee a decline in turnout.
And just to be safe I'll say it again:
Republicans only win when turnout is low, so we need to focus on increasing turnout
And poll numbers show Biden most likely won't be able to match 2020's numbers. Republicans tho...
Not many voted for trump in 2020 but won't in 2024.
Well, the ones who died due to not following covid protocols. ;) And the ones in jail for 1/6.
While we're being cynical, don't forget it only matters in swing states and down ticket races.
The game isn't "get people to approve of my performance." The game isn't even "get most people to vote for me." The game is "get a marginal victory in a few states, because land matters more than people."
Perfect explanation ☝️
What? Democrats don't need to steal votes. Democrat voters outnumber Republicans but a fairly decent margin. It IS as you say: they just need people to vote. Which is why Democrats generally back voting by mail and early voting that Republicans try to stop.
That was what givesomefucks was saying. Team Blue does not need any Team Red voters. They need Team Yellow and Team Green and Team No-Colour-Because-They-Stay-Home votes. But they keep reaching out to Team Red voters by shying to the Right in the stupid and hopeless quest to draw some of those voters over to their side, ignoring a much larger slice of people who don't want our government slipping to the right. Of course, I have my theory -- Team Green especially is horrible about staying home if they don't get EXACTLY what they want. Team Red SEEMS to be the more reliable answer than Team Green, but they've already bought the propaganda that we're all baby-eating, baby-f**king Satan worshippers over here on the Left.
I think your confusing me saying what the party has spent decades doing, and me saying it's a good idea.
Clearly it's not.
Because even if it gets a few in office, they're unwilling to actually fix anything because it may piss off the hypothetical former Republicans that never vote D anyways.
A cynic would say party leadership is smart enough to understand this, and it's all a lie to justify keeping donors happy. Because the party wants those donations and is banking on "what are you going to do, vote Republican?" To get just enough votes to win the election.
In reality it just makes the office cycle between the two parties. And Republicans break as much as they can, and Dems don't fix it fast enough before Republicans get it back.
Resulting in a slow but consistent destruction of America, which further depresses turnout and keeps the cycle going on a long timeline.
Which could all be fixed by electing progressives willing to try as hard as they can, even if they fail
If we do that, then the wealthy donors stop donating. And current party leadership gets replaced.
Good luck convincing them to do that.
This. Democrats are way better with ideas and policies that help working people, minorities, women, LGBTQ people, non Christians, and the middle class. Republicans only have tax cut for the wealthy and culture war hate.
I wish Biden were more progressive, but he is a good president. And Trump is a criminal who wants to be a dictator.
Now if they would get out of their own way and pass some.
Biden has passed a lot of good policy: Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS Act, Respect for Marriage Act, American Rescue Plan, and more. He has also put put fair judges on the bench and one of the supreme court. None of these would have happen under Republican control.
Democrats have blocked good policy as well. BBB and the minimum wage increase spring to mind. Democrats won't end the filibuster to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights act. They didn't end it to codify Roe. They won't end it to codify Obergefell. They didn't end it to support rail workers. Biden promised to revisit the public option during his campaign. Hasn't bothered to try. And this is a pattern of behavior going back decades. Our own caucus killed the public option with no help from Republicans. We had a filibuster-proof majority and we still managed to find enough no votes. Even after the bill went to reconciliation and could have been passed with a simple majority, did we put the public option back? Of course we didn't. Did we even try to? Nope.
Nothing stops Democratic policy like Democrats.
Biden is a good president? He is literally funding and supporting a genocide. The fact that the alternative is worse doesn't make biden good.
I can't think of a US president in my lifetime who shouldn't have been tried and convicted by the ICC.
We're Americans: We don't get nice things. Especially government.
In that case theree' no need to move right IR appeal to "centrist" voters so the Democratic cannidate can focus on turning out their base by throwing them red meat, right?
Both of those are hard. Which is why Democrats focus on option three: convincing independent voters (who do not consistently vote D or R) to vote D this time.