• WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    Trump is campaigning on making massive changes to American domestic and foreign policy. I don’t like the changes he’s pursuing, but he is absolutely not running on the status quo. And that is, in fact, exactly what won him the race.

    If he was just running on the status quo, he wouldn’t be a threat to democracy. Deporting 20 million people isn’t the status quo. Repealing civil rights isn’t status quo. Attacking or ending NATO isn’t status quo. Abandoning Ukraine isn’t status quo. Befriending Russia isn’t status quo.

    Yes, Trump is a conservative white guy. But type of thinking, focusing on identity groups and demographics, is what has got us here. Kamala herself is a historically novel nominee, she was new in terms of personal identity. But she wasn’t actually offering anything other than the same milquetoast centrism of Biden.

    This is the problem. People are hurting. Trump actually had something to offer these people. He said, “elect me, I’ll throw out all the immigrants, and by doing so I’ll lower the cost of housing and increase wages!” It’s a horrible, evil, and long-term unproductive solution, but he was actually offering SOMETHING. Democrats offered no meaningful answers to the things people are actually hurting on. The only thing Democrats offered were wonky dismissals of economic concerns by citing official inflation numbers and calculated real wage gains. (Ignoring figures like ratio of median housing cost to median wage.)

    People are in pain right now. People are on the edge, driven to the brink by late-stage capitalism. Biden was a milquetoast centrist, but he was able to barely eek out a win by running on a lot of progressive promises in 2020. He walked away from a lot of those commitments and governed as the centrist he is. Harris offered just more of the same. Neither offered real meaningful solutions and proved completely incapable of handling the crises at hand.

    Trump again, he actually offered solutions, or at least something that seems like a solution. Like it or not, he WAS the change candidate of 2020. And that is what won him the election.

      • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        And their centrist wing managed to completely kneecap it. The same centrist wing that ran Kamala’s campaign.

        How has US fossil fuel production been cut back AT ALL from any Biden or Harris policy?

        Yes, I know you can blame it on Manchin. The problem is that there’s always a Manchin. The Democrats take turns being the sacrificial lamb, and they can always find some conservative Dem to kneecap any serious Democratic proposal.

        Voters don’t give two shits about what your party introduces. Parties introduce all sorts of policies they have zero intention of passing for easy political points all the time.

          • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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            16 days ago

            And look where that type of thinking has got us. Democrats don’t run on any meaningful bold policy positions, as there’s always some needling centrist saying why this or that will never be politically viable.

            Trump doesn’t run this way. Deporting 20 million people has all sorts of practical, legal, fiscal, and political issues with it. No rational or sane professional political consultant would say that it’s a winning strategy. Yet, time and time again, Trump proves that things that all the political consultants and experts would be political suicide, are in fact anything but.

            Democrats give up before the fight even begins. They accept Republican framing and Republican ideas on what is politically possible. They run as Republican-lite, and they lose again and again because of this.

            • Montagge@lemmy.zip
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              16 days ago

              So you’re saying Democrats should say stupid shit that appeals to the deep seated bigotry embedded in our national culture?

              • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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                16 days ago

                That’s a clear bad-faith interpretation of what I posted. Try improving your reading comprehension skills.

                • Montagge@lemmy.zip
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                  16 days ago

                  If there’s subtext to what you posted then maybe post that instead.

                  Claiming the Democrats don’t have bold ideas and then bringing up one of Trump’s stupid claims as an example of what Democrats should be doing doesn’t leave much room for another interpretation.

                  Maybe work on your communication skills if you can’t post what you mean