Almost any R that gets nominated in 2024 will be spun as Trump x 1000. Bank on it.

I don't know. I think the value of primary is that it gives a signal to when a governing ideology or coalition is getting tired. If Bernie had won in either 16 or 20, I would have taken that very seriously about the limits of the mainstream Democratic approach. As is, I think the Obama coalition is still big enough to win (obviously), but the opposition to it also hasn't shrunk, so it's no landslide.

I disagree that the US standard of living is getting worse. Regardless, yeah, sometimes a ruling regime can lose legitimacy and voters start looking for a new approach to politics -a political realignment. My fear is that voters who've lost faith in the system are more likely to turn to Donald Trump-style nationalism and xenophobia than Bernie Sanders-style leftwing agitprop. Like you, I view the US as a more rightwing than average country, but unlike you I think those rightwing attitudes trickles down to voters as well, so I fear American fascism much more than American communism.

This is a dangerous assumption imo.

I was astounded by how many vox pops the BBC did with Americans who were obviously educated and reasonable that went along the lines of blah blah blah so yea gonna vote Trump.

Because black support for the dems eroded in 2020, that's why it's dumb to pat herself on the back. People on the right have been hoping for decades that black voters would wake up and realize they're being taken advantage of. The results here might be an indication that some have started to question the groupthink.

"If you don't vote for me, you ain't black." - Joe Biden

That's the real WTF, given the extremely underwhelming outcomes that America's blackest cities have experienced under decades-long complete control by democrats.

"What have you done for me lately?" is hopefully what they'll be asking President Biden as they hold his feet to the fire for results.

Were there any progressive dems that won big races? I honestely haven't drilled down and probably not since the dems didn't flip any house seats but all the high profile wins (Biden/Harris, Mark Kelly, Hickenlooper) seem to be pretty moderate. But primary season is the time to address that. General election is too late.

My takeaway is that the left is still way out ahead of most of the country on the culture war issues. Personally, I find this disheartening, but this has always been a war of inches. Fact is, tons of voters are willing to tolerate (or support) Trump's behavior because they are even more afraid of the America that they perceive the Democrats as standing for. As a matter of messaging, we need to let off the cultural issues and go back to the kitchen table.

I really do feel like the Biden campaign was weak on policy messaging. Really the only message of the Biden campaign was "character is on the ballot." Welp, we found out that most people don't care about character, at least not enough to switch sides. Also, I don't think coronavirus was very persuasive to most Republicans and independents (whoever they are) because a lot of folks (probably rightfully) believe that a vaccine is on the way and most of the damage Trump did on it is already water under the bridge.

Bernie wasn't given a fair shot in 2016.
No one would have been because Hillary was the candidate the Democratic elite wanted.

I agree that in 2020 his moment had already come and gone since he's too old and doesn't have the predatory instinct to fight the establishment and win (that's where Trump shines). But his policies are easy wins. The Dems will try to win without them, which is stupid. But the die is cast for now.

The standard of living may be going up do to technology but it's a fact that each generation is slipping backwards at this point. Actually that's why people gave a guy like Trump a chance in the first place. It's always about money when push comes to shove. People need to eat and in America they need hope for themselves and their children.

As far as voters being culturally right of center, sure. But Americans still love government . They just like to pretend they don't. I've had guys I play poker with tell me they didn't care if their kids had to struggle. Now, I know these guys will do anything for their kids. But they won't say it. So imo you just offer people the policies and they just accept them. That's pretty much the American way for some dumb reason.

Biden was a terrible candidate. He lost some black voters but picked up some whites.

So the black voters did help him.

Do you ever wonder what black voters think of you lower class whites when you vote ?

The BBC poll said 43% of college educated whites voted for Trump.
OP said it was 49%.

I had my rant on it already. Funny that a white guy in the richest country the world has ever seen with good earning prospects would vote for Trump.

We all deserve to die.

In a grease fire.

cities are now the shittiest parts of our country? I would say rural parts of the country are many of the shittiest. yes there are ghettos in cities but some of our greatest areas are cities. many ghetto areas are very comparable to some shitty rural areas.

biden probably won some by being likeable and not scaring anyone by coming across as a radical

but it seems like it's more that trump is (still) a terrible candidate. he came very close to losing to one of the all-time worst candidates in hillary clinton and now he lost to a guy running at 80% of his previous mental capacity and who wasnt even that impressive in the first place

Cities are apparently autonomous free states impervious to outside forces

Should Trump concede, iyo? Would you be okay if he was able to cling to 4 more years?

people keep saying how bad trump is, dude won a ton of votes. i think that's a pretty inaccurate account of how good of a candidate Trump is for 40% of the country which he dominated. biden is also a decent candidate. which candidates over the last 50 years do you really find that impressive? Reagan, Clinton and Obama?

I think Trump should play it out if only to shed any light on potential foul play, but I'm surprised that we're even having the discussion. I thought it would go much worse for him.

I do legit hope that he doesn't somehow "cling to 4 more years" because that means the courts decided it and we will never hear the end of it.

The Internet will be completely unusable.

You should link to the BBC if you think I'm wrong. They use the same exit polls as everyone else. You're mixing up the college grad support for Trump (42%) for the white college grad support (49%).

A trio of hippie commies

One of the aspects of the trump era is that I just no longer trust myself to say anything about post-mortems. Like in a vacuum my priors are all that trump could never win GOP nomination, could never get elected, could never maintain popularity in the 40s etc. I was getting frustrated earlier for instance about anchors talking about the "macho" appeal of trump to male cuban hispanics in miami-dabe and like basically **** if I know anymore.

I didn't say you were wrong. You had a different number. It still speaks to my point.

Nostalgia is a helluva drug. The trumpers pine for the new deal era of their youth--and apparently the Cubans pine for the days when conservatives were saying Castro is just sending us all his criminals. They didn't mind scoring some of those 'socialist' goodies once here either

yeah this times 1000. pretty much everyone would rather live in chicago(republican boogeyplace #2) than anywhere in iowa if given the choice.

the "shittiest" part of the country is obviously the poor rural areas.

The election confirms the USA has at least seventy million *******s.

This should surprise no one who has been paying attention.

.

If you were given a map of the greater Chicago area and had to buy a house within your means somewhere on that map, where you'd have to stay for at least the next 10 years, let's just say I doubt you'd pick a deep blue address.