I'm still saying Dems should take a lesson from Reagan/Trump and run something like Tom Hanks. Foreign policy? He's fought in WWII ten times. Science? He was on Apollo 13. Environment? He was stranded on a desert island. If we want the first black woman president, run Oprah. She's a celebrity, a self-made billionaire, and a mononym.
What have you got to lose other than an election (because that's going so well already)?
The average American isn't a nerd, and doesn't read legislation or Supreme Court decisions for fun. Many people vote on what feels comfortable and familiar. At the very least, I don't expect that Hanks or Oprah would assume they're the smartest person in the room...all the time...in every room.
Interesting perspectives, and validating in regards to the attitude found in the decadent and depraved piece. Validating in the sense that it demonstrates what I’ve been seeing in the immediate aftermath of this election from MAGA friends and progressive friends, in terms of their perceptions. Because indeed there seems to be a trend among at least some Democratic voters to have a fundamental distrust (and now outright disdain) for half the electorate as human beings. Conversely, the celebrating MAGA types—who seem to have no problem with the outlandish and cringe developments leading into 2025, much less the objectively stupid/insane tariff ideas that Pregmo mentioned—have demonstrated and acted upon their knee-jerk distrust of our institutions and any who they see as carrying water for them. Some people see the former condemnation as somehow being worse than the latter (and thus see me as a “MAGA/fascism apologist”, whatever), but the truth is I see them as equally bad in the broader context of democracy being in peril. Because it is. Not because of a specific person—Trump or Harris—but because the fundamental pillars of democracy (that is, the institutions of it and the people who participate in it) are hated by a not-insignificant portion of the electorate. Obviously plenty of Republican voters just hate mass immigration, inflation, etc, and plenty of Democrats just see Trump as a divisive dealbreaker and bad leader, and both don’t care about the abstract notions of democracy and freedom and so on. But the people who do think about these things seem to only operate on distrust and disdain. It’s done from healthy skepticism to outright cynicism. Trump may be bad, but if the populist backlash doesn’t diminish on its own or its concerns aren’t mollified, these dual disdains will produce something far worse down the line. If history has done me any good, it has been to remind me that, as Mr. Wood put it so well here, things could get a LOT worse.
Sorry, but I stopped reading after this inaccurate and obtuse sentence appeared early on:
"The reasons why Trump won, and won so decisively, will no doubt be combed over meticulously in the years to come."
WHAT?!?!?!? The person who wrote this appears to be a clearly intelligent guy, but this sentence is ludicrous. Trump's margin over Kamala Harris was 1.47 percent, the lowest margin of victory by a candidate since 1968. In every single one of the crucial "Seven Swing States" the margins were razor thin and without Musk giving Trump a "legal bribe" of almost $300 million and Trump's vile anti-Transgender ads that they ran more than any other Trump ad, Harris likely would have won at least The Big Three of PA, MI and WI and thus the White House. And is very probable that Trump's very narrow popular vote margin was due to the fact that people got the message over and over and over again that your vote did not count unless you lived in one of the seven crucial swing states. If you notice the drop off for Democratic votes was most severe in big blue states like NY, NJ and CA. In those states and others like them, if people knew that their vote was just as important as the voters from Arizona and North Carolina, for instance, Trump would have undoubtedly lost the popular vote as well.
I could go on and on to illustrate this point even further. But writers need to do simple arithmetic before writing sentences like the above one. Anyone who considers that razor thin margin some sort of substantial or decisive or overwhelming victory is either deliberately deceiving us or ridiculously careless or just downright dumb.
I mean no insult against this writer but I have to bring this up and get people to take this obvious point more seriously. If we Harris supporters stand around whining that we were somehow "creamed" and that "Trump won BIG!" we are not only validating and reinforcing Trump's false narrative which he constantly cites to "justify" his horrific and illegal actions, but we are also deluding ourselves. We can't begin to take account of what happened, learn from it, and develop effective strategies going forward if we are ignoring mathematical reality. You can live in denial by refusing to accept very bad things that depress you. But you can also live in denial by refusing to accept very good things because they're hard to find in the mist of something like this past year's election.
So let's not do either going forward and find a way to not only oppose Trump and the entire vile MAGA agenda, but to also develop an game plan that will work and help us win going forward.
He won every single swing state, overwhelmingly. He won the popular vote, something no republican has managed the last 20 years. The margins might have been slimmer than once thought, but that is still very much a decisive victory.
I'm still saying Dems should take a lesson from Reagan/Trump and run something like Tom Hanks. Foreign policy? He's fought in WWII ten times. Science? He was on Apollo 13. Environment? He was stranded on a desert island. If we want the first black woman president, run Oprah. She's a celebrity, a self-made billionaire, and a mononym.
What have you got to lose other than an election (because that's going so well already)?
The average American isn't a nerd, and doesn't read legislation or Supreme Court decisions for fun. Many people vote on what feels comfortable and familiar. At the very least, I don't expect that Hanks or Oprah would assume they're the smartest person in the room...all the time...in every room.
If nothing else it would be great entertainment.
Interesting perspectives, and validating in regards to the attitude found in the decadent and depraved piece. Validating in the sense that it demonstrates what I’ve been seeing in the immediate aftermath of this election from MAGA friends and progressive friends, in terms of their perceptions. Because indeed there seems to be a trend among at least some Democratic voters to have a fundamental distrust (and now outright disdain) for half the electorate as human beings. Conversely, the celebrating MAGA types—who seem to have no problem with the outlandish and cringe developments leading into 2025, much less the objectively stupid/insane tariff ideas that Pregmo mentioned—have demonstrated and acted upon their knee-jerk distrust of our institutions and any who they see as carrying water for them. Some people see the former condemnation as somehow being worse than the latter (and thus see me as a “MAGA/fascism apologist”, whatever), but the truth is I see them as equally bad in the broader context of democracy being in peril. Because it is. Not because of a specific person—Trump or Harris—but because the fundamental pillars of democracy (that is, the institutions of it and the people who participate in it) are hated by a not-insignificant portion of the electorate. Obviously plenty of Republican voters just hate mass immigration, inflation, etc, and plenty of Democrats just see Trump as a divisive dealbreaker and bad leader, and both don’t care about the abstract notions of democracy and freedom and so on. But the people who do think about these things seem to only operate on distrust and disdain. It’s done from healthy skepticism to outright cynicism. Trump may be bad, but if the populist backlash doesn’t diminish on its own or its concerns aren’t mollified, these dual disdains will produce something far worse down the line. If history has done me any good, it has been to remind me that, as Mr. Wood put it so well here, things could get a LOT worse.
Just remind yourself, Elon Musk is only 53.
Sorry, but I stopped reading after this inaccurate and obtuse sentence appeared early on:
"The reasons why Trump won, and won so decisively, will no doubt be combed over meticulously in the years to come."
WHAT?!?!?!? The person who wrote this appears to be a clearly intelligent guy, but this sentence is ludicrous. Trump's margin over Kamala Harris was 1.47 percent, the lowest margin of victory by a candidate since 1968. In every single one of the crucial "Seven Swing States" the margins were razor thin and without Musk giving Trump a "legal bribe" of almost $300 million and Trump's vile anti-Transgender ads that they ran more than any other Trump ad, Harris likely would have won at least The Big Three of PA, MI and WI and thus the White House. And is very probable that Trump's very narrow popular vote margin was due to the fact that people got the message over and over and over again that your vote did not count unless you lived in one of the seven crucial swing states. If you notice the drop off for Democratic votes was most severe in big blue states like NY, NJ and CA. In those states and others like them, if people knew that their vote was just as important as the voters from Arizona and North Carolina, for instance, Trump would have undoubtedly lost the popular vote as well.
I could go on and on to illustrate this point even further. But writers need to do simple arithmetic before writing sentences like the above one. Anyone who considers that razor thin margin some sort of substantial or decisive or overwhelming victory is either deliberately deceiving us or ridiculously careless or just downright dumb.
I mean no insult against this writer but I have to bring this up and get people to take this obvious point more seriously. If we Harris supporters stand around whining that we were somehow "creamed" and that "Trump won BIG!" we are not only validating and reinforcing Trump's false narrative which he constantly cites to "justify" his horrific and illegal actions, but we are also deluding ourselves. We can't begin to take account of what happened, learn from it, and develop effective strategies going forward if we are ignoring mathematical reality. You can live in denial by refusing to accept very bad things that depress you. But you can also live in denial by refusing to accept very good things because they're hard to find in the mist of something like this past year's election.
So let's not do either going forward and find a way to not only oppose Trump and the entire vile MAGA agenda, but to also develop an game plan that will work and help us win going forward.
He won every single swing state, overwhelmingly. He won the popular vote, something no republican has managed the last 20 years. The margins might have been slimmer than once thought, but that is still very much a decisive victory.