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To paraphrase Rumsfeld: "You go to elections with the populace you have."

If the Dems don't/won't/can't account for it by changing their messaging, devising better or more readily understood platforms, then it is on them. You have to meet people where they are, not where you think they should be.

There is no competing message to be had. The people believe that whoever is in charge is bad because their lives are terrible. They just ping pong between parties without caring to investigate policies.

You can’t appeal to voters like this apart from not being the person in charge.

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You can manufacture a favorable electorate. Republicans have been extensively working on that far harder than the Dems have since some time around Goldwater and the last great re-alignment, and it kicked into overdrive in the 80s. They pushed for loosening rules around mass media so they could do it better, and they succeeded. This current re-alignment of their party is an outcome of that “farming” they did over decades growing out of control of the party leadership post-Citizens United and the huge shake-up in campaign spending that brought in.

This observation admittedly provides little actionable for democrats in the near-term. But one strategy that demonstrably works is picking demographics and pushing media at them that creates a demand for solutions to issues they didn’t previously think existed (and need not necessarily exist). Look at e.g. the molding and elevation of the modern pro-life movement for an early example, or at their entire current platform, very nearly, for a bunch more-recent ones.

But the Dems did. They did everything you're asking for. Their messaging was totally different from 2020, everything was clear and understandable.

That's what's so sad. The Democratic campaign was A+ in execution. The Republican campaign was a disaster in execution, but they won anyway.

The message of this election isn't that Democrats did something wrong. It's that they did everything right, and a majority of voters simply still don't care. They don't think the insurrection mattered, and they think Trump will fix inflation because he's a strong businessman. And they don't listen to anyone who says otherwise.

I don't see anything the Dems could have done about that. You can't force people to listen, you can't force people to understand economics. That's not something campaigns can do.

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>The Democratic campaign was A+ in execution.

Objectively untrue; Harris lost.

>You can't force people to understand economics

You're correct. So you have to reformat the message. The Dems failed to do this. I can tell you have never been a teacher: teachers are forever having to change their messaging because different people understand in different ways.

This teaching thing is a terrible comparison. As a teacher you have a captive audience with a (somewhat) agreed upon goal: the student(s) are going to learn something.

This is absolutely not the model for candidate<->electorate relationships in any way. If anything, the elector(ate) wants the candidate to simply tell them things that confirm what they think they already know.

Are you serious? The entire nation was fully captivated this election cycle.
Captivated is not captive, and even if it is etymologically adjacent, most of the electorate did not expect to have to learn about stuff like econometrics ...
Then I meant captivated AND captive. Why are you being pedantic?
How was anybody captive? I didn't see a single campaign ad or watch a single rally, except for a couple of brief excerpts that I chose to.

You're missing the critical point: it's not about captive, it's just that this helps with the critical point, which is an expectation of learning taking place, rather than worldviews/prejudices confirmed.

I see, I missed that nuance in your point.
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> Objectively untrue; Harris lost.

Yeah, sometimes if you play by the rules you lose.

> So you have to reformat the message.

They did, and it didnt matter.

The argument here is essentially: 1) IF the dems communicated correctly, they would have won 2) They did, and it didnt matter. 3) If they had communicated correctly they would have won.

Correct communication here is a place holder for winning.

Consider the many things the Dems did pull off, including Biden dropping out, and the massive massive outreach and funding they used to get the message out.

Consider that Trump is definitionally reprehensible, as just a human being, forget the standards America used to have as a presidential candidate. Seriously - tell me you think that Trump <the person> is actually what you want in a Republican candidate. Every single time, Trump supporters have to resort to some variant of "he didn't really mean that", to defend him.

There is FAR more incorrect in Dem electioneering than just communication. I think the fundamentals of how elections are held have changed. You dont really need policy any more.

Because you guys twist everything the guy says
This is nonsense.

From the memorable “grab them by the pussy”, to fabricating stuff about the draft recently.

“ She’s already talking about bringing back the draft. She wants to bring back the draft, and draft your child, and put them in a war that should never have happened.”

The only twisting here is when people try to ignore what he is saying and pretend he meant something benign.

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It's hard to conceive of a change in the Democratic strategy that would have gained more votes without losing others. In contrast, there is seemingly nothing that Trump could say that would lose him support. Trump had a very high "floor" that he could not fall below. Democratic voters are fickle and would just as soon stay home or vote third party as a protest vote.
Trump's a pretty singular personality. He floods the zone with bullshit and denigrates vast swathes of the electorate. His insane ramblings are just considered by his adherents to be part of his allure and mystique. The American people can't seem to get enough of it, presumably because they so strongly identify with his character.

I have no love for Democrats but it's unclear to me that there's really anything they could have done. The common wisdom in the past had been that Trump is some kind of liability for Republicans, but at every turn he has been underestimated and I question that assumption.

To me Trump looks like a true master of his craft, and there is no line of carefully triangulated messaging that will resonate more with typical Americans than his stream of vitriol and lies.

> it's unclear to me that there's really anything they could have done

Don't choose such a unpopular candidate as Kamala. Have a primary instead of appointing someone.

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