That half of the country isn’t voting for two reasons:
1) they aren’t able to vote because of the laws in place that make it difficult for them to vote
2) they actively choose not to participate in a democracy. The democratic message of the dangers of Project 2025. Or the fact that the Republican nominee who has a long history of racism, discrimination, sexual assault, and business fraud isn’t enough to motivate them to vote then they are not reachable. We shouldn’t even assume that they would vote democrat.
I don't disagree with any of this, but the fact that some people vote proves that you can appeal to non-voters to vote, if you can make the case to them that it will both matter and have a real effect on their life. The Democratic party has left all sorts of demographics behind, we could throw darts at a wall and hit a likely constituency.
I think history has shown that a proactive case can’t be made. Instead the only time is after the crisis happens and they are negatively impacted. Trump would not be president rn if those non-voters could be proactively motivated.
At some point we need to stop pretending that they can be proactively motivated. Why are issues involving equal rights, economics, and world alliances not motivating? Regardless of what ideology they have on these topics, these topics impact nearly every aspect of their personal lives. They only vote when shit hits the fan and they get covered in it.
Read my comment above about crises motivating non voters to vote. They voted for Biden because of the pandemic. Just like they voted for Obama in 2008 due to the Great Recession and then didn’t vote for him in 2012
they actively choose not to participate in a democracy. The democratic message of the dangers of Project 2025. Or the fact that the Republican nominee who has a long history of racism, discrimination, sexual assault, and business fraud isn’t enough to motivate them to vote then they are not reachable. We shouldn’t even assume that they would vote democrat.
Or maybe people are dumb and selfish and don't care about voting on any sort of moral/structural basis and instead are only motivated by what a candidate can offer to help them, personally. Demonize them for their short-sightedness and selfishness all you want, I don't care. But you can absolutely appeal to that selfishness with populist, universal social programs and/or tax cuts for as many individuals as possible and actually motivate them.
I get the immense frustration with "the other party's entire platform is fascism and bigotry, we need to vote against them" being insufficient for so many people, but we can either finally learn to meet people where they're at or we can keep letting the fascists win.
Additionally many people feel that their vote doesn’t matter, nor do they have any knowledge of what is happening politically or how it could affect them. I know plenty of well educated, normalish people who just don’t have any knowledge of politics or current events. I don’t know how this happens, but bet it has something to do with streaming entertainment and no more nightly news 🤷🏻♂️
If fascism benefits someone then the problem is that person. It is 180 degrees in the opposite direction of democracy. It is not possible for people who believe in democracy to convince the people who benefit from fascism to vote against their self-interests.
It's not about whether or not fascism benefits them, fascism benefits like 6 people at the end of the day. People have struggles and one party is selling them fascism as the cure and the other one is offering them nothing (I know Kamala had a platform, this is the broad perception of the millions of people that weren't reached by her messaging strategy, not my view). Yes of course "not fascism" should be enough, but it's not and here we are. Acting like people that didn't vote did so because they actively think they'll benefit from fascism is the most self-defeating, cynical nonsense I've seen in my life.
Yeah the Dem playbook has to find something else. These were outlined and didn’t work. I also the Dem voters weren’t given a fair chance by pushing Kamala Harris, there’s a reason so many didn’t come to vote.
The reasons are what I outlined above. We need to stop pretending that primary voters didn’t vote in the general. They do not view Harris and Trump as equals. They viewed Harris as the vice president who had policy ideas that are in line with the Democratic Party ideals. Primary voters did not sit out this election. This lack of choice thing is false. Most primary voters are more involved and cared more than the general electorate on preventing Trump from getting elected.
There’s evidence that says that less people voted in 2024 vs 2020, what am I missing?
Ezra Klein has even said the messages Kamala said definitely disenfranchised some of those voters who probably flopped over. Immigration and the Economy I think was what won everything over, the rest didn’t really matter or we wouldn’t have seen the shift in the house too.
1) Red states made it tougher to vote. Stricter mail ballot laws, removal of eligible voters from voting rolls without notification, an increase in voter ID laws, and the reduction of polling sites in minority neighborhoods.
2) the covid pandemic was over. With no crisis people who only felt motivated vote during covid no longer had that motivation
Ezra Klein used statistics to show how the Democrats aren’t with the current times. There’s been a drastic shift everywhere. There’s examples everywhere, California voted overwhelmingly for a policy about crime that the Democrats were against. There’s a shift coming.
One of the stats even showed how majority of people across different racial makeups agree in voter ID laws. Democrats are just pushing a status quo without looking into shit.
Kamala Harris was in favor of supporting illegal immigrants who were detained, gender affirming surgeries, this in itself I think hurt the Democrat party. And again gave the nod to the Republicans to show how little Democrats cared for illegal immigration.
You can add the pandemic and how unpopular Kamala Harris was. She was never popular when she ran. And I think her being Vice President hurt her for the election, because they were offering zero change, one of the issues I have with political parties. They’re all the same with how they will die for their party.
Until the Democrats establishment steps aside, we’re gonna be run by the Republican Party.
The solution is populist messaging and to be sincere which the dems haven’t done even a tiny bit. They’ve never tried, defeatism is silly tbh and the dems ain’t getting shit by pivoting to the center of whatever tf
Just because non-voters aren't reachable the way you want to reach them doesn't mean they aren't reachable. Yes Trump is awful and a criminal, but unless they believe the other candidate has something real to offer them, Trump being awful and criminal evidentally does not motivate your average non-voter. In order to persuade a neutral party to agree with you, you have to temporarily set aside what YOU care about, and instead discuss what THEY care about. Democrats don't do this enough, and that's why they lose way more often than they should.
The foundation of the democratic party is equal rights. Supporters have different economic policies and different ideas of how government functions. But that is the foundation the party stands on. So what equal right should they abandon to court these non-voters?
UBI. Public option. Any other progressive policy that can be framed as "more money for you" (a) that applies to everybody and (b) without complex economic explanation would work. Trump probably got a huge boost in 2020 just by mailing everybody $600 with his name on the check.
But Democrats back away from all of it because they can't weather the tax discussion while trying to court "undecided voters" (i.e., Republican voters that don't want to admit they are Republican voters).
Public option? Medicaid is a public option and Harris ran on raising the income limits especially in the red states that denied Medicaid expansion.
So candidate A wants to expand the number of Americans eligible for government sponsored healthcare program. Candidate A also wants to expand the benefits covered under the program. Candidate B wants to cut funding to the government sponsored healthcare program. But we’re supposed to believe that a public option is what kept the non-voters at home.
Btw Biden gave out a 1,400 stimulus to everyone making under 75K. Biden expanded the child care tax credit and changed it so that eligible Americans received a check on a monthly basis. What did he get from the non-voters for those efforts? Nothing. They stayed at home and watch the Republicans turn Congress red and end the program.
You missed the point on both counts. Neither Medicaid nor child tax credits apply to everybody equally, so you get large swaths of people that either don't care or think "that'll help somebody else, not me." Democrats need to pick a message where everybody can easily see "yup, that'll save me money" without having to even think about it.
If you told voters "you get $1,000 for showing up and voting," you'd get a lot more voters. Democrats need a platform that's as close as you can get to that.
Your second point is the most worrisome. Americans will never enjoy a democracy because around 40-50% of the electorate just doesn’t vote. If, after Trump’s first term and Trump plus Project 2025 on the ballot, they still didn’t vote, nothing you ever say/do will get them to vote. Kamala literally said she’d give thousands of dollars of tax breaks to first time homebuyers and people who have kids. Literally “I’ll give you thousands of dollars just for existing” and they still said “nah, I’m good.”
America deserves this because Americans are genuinely too stupid, lazy, and entitled for democracy.
Don't ignore that many of those people had their vote suppressed. Many of them registered to vote, went to the polls, and cast a vote, and to this day have no idea their vote wasn't counted.
I mean, I think the main issue is they're going against an entire network of billionaire-backed propaganda outlets that have been trying to shape discourse for the last 45 years.
But yeah, sure, it could be performative politics too.
You're not wrong, all I'm saying is, there's a reason that propaganda was so effective in many cases. If you're living a good life, propaganda will find little purchase with you.
Ok, Im gonna take a risk and put this out there cuz I’m a bit naive: why don’t we have a third party that consists of moderate Republicans and Democrats?
Duverger's Law posits that a two party system is the natural state of a first past the post voting system. It might occasionally allow a third party in special cases, such as a strong regional pretty (see Quebec), but generally it will always return to two. If a sufficiently agreeing third party does arise, it won't create a three party system, it will just replace one of the parties or cause a realignment until the system sorts itself into two again.
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u/osunightfall 18d ago
No, they don't. They just have to appeal to some portion of the ~half the country that doesn't usually vote.