The soaring cost of living
Refusal by Americans to support the war in Iran
Unity of Democrats
Massively unpopular POTUS
Pissed off Latino and Black votersI appreciate that. Not only had I missed it, but reading mode in the browser ate #3 so I didn’t have that part anyway. heh
It’s the economy, stupid
I imagine that is what moved the fence-sitters, the apolitical, aka, the “center” and the “independents” - usually people that are extremely low-info.
You combine oil prices and inflation and then: seeing donnie fussing over vanity projects like ballrooms, arches, reflecting pools and putting up gaudy gold shit in the WH, all while making 2+ BILLION in under 2years (assuming any of this broke through at all into the low-info bubble, that is) and I imagine that has to absolutely enrage even somebody mostly tuned out of everything else.
Those on the other side of the aisle agree.
There’ve been a lot of poll results getting turned into articles talking about this. The overwhelming result of basically all of these polls is that the economy / cost of living is the most important issue, closely followed by the state of democracy. It’s consistently in the 30-50% range for both of them (percent of people who said that was the most important issue to them). The fact that “state of democracy” is a close second is heartening, and suggests that there might be enough outrage over what’s happening to drive some actual change, but we’ll see.
Since conservatives always get around to politicizing everything, I’m wondering if conservatives don’t start agitating to have gas stations no longer put their prices on big signs you can read from several hundred yards away.
Even the most low-info people that do any travel whatsoever are driving past signs that put the lie to conservative bootlickers talking about how we are a “golden age” and how they are working to overcome a supposed terrible economy that Biden gave them. The golden age has gas at $4+? Even complete dumbasses can usually recall that gas was not over $4 when donnie took office in Jan 2025.
If the conservatives find a way to cover up gas prices and grocery stores are able to do dynamic pricing - two places where cost of living and inflation are staring most Americans right in the face right now as an everyday experience - they may be able to pull more shenanigans in the future.
There is no way to hide the cost of gas from the masses. From rich people and wives who will always vote how their husbands tell them? Sure, but they aren’t voting progressive.
Yeah, I’m just talking the hypothetical. The signs are still there, advertising the prices, barring some kind of weird fuckery from conservatives.
Even if EVs become nearly what everyone drives, and the trend of younger people not even owning any vehicle and not driving trends up ( https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2024/05/17/gen-z-less-likely-get-drivers-license/73678202007/ ), people are still driving past those signs. Although seeing numbers on a sign may not hit as hard as having the visceral feeling of watching your money being set on fire every time you fill up…
People notice when they can’t afford groceries.
They ran in 2024 with having the answer to the economy and then made it worse
Standard Republican procedure.
It’s so cyclical yet Americans have such trouble breaking it. Hopefully the trajectory will change but I still have a lot of reservations
Hah! I love how this phrase can now be used against them. Thank you.
The funny thing is, it was actually invented by a Democratic strategist for the Clinton campaign in 1992.
Today I learned…
And politics
Interesting, I thought it was just going to be 5 letters: T,R,U,M,P
Well he said “Nuh uh” so…
What’s funny is that #1 is soaring cost of living, #2 is Iran war, #5 is Hispanic and black voters shift again, while #4 is his unpopularity.
So, he’s really behind 4 of them, since he’s the direct cause of 1 and 2, and 5 was caused by his racist bullshit like ICE.
I’m thinking if Natalie prints out any stories like this one any room he’s in will be painted in ketchup. 🤣
Price of gas. That’s it.
Unfortunately… yep, not because the GOP are the literal Guardians of Pedophiles, but because of fucking gas for their gas-guzzling Ford trucks. America gotta be the country with the highest educational gap in the world. I mean, an absolute insane amount of their stupid people lowkey gotta be able to qualify for assisted living or some shit (below 70, I think does), how can so many people still vote against their quality of life, just to hurt muh “twansgenda”.
- They suck. 2. Hateful. 3. See one and two. 4. Iran, Israel, the Middle East. 5. All of the above.
SIX: Donny T!
- They are shit people x5
The most recent episode of This American Life featured a maga guy who goes around convincing people to vote R and he was so confident that Rs would win again same as 2024. Would love for them to follow up with him and see how confident he is now.
MeidasTouch had a cut of various cons like Mikey Johnson claiming the “polls were wrong” and there is lot of “energy” out there, etc.
Real 2020 energy when all these jagoffs were claiming donnie had it in the bag because of “enthusiasm” at his hate rallies and Biden was “campaigning from his basement” and “no one is going to his rallies”.
These people seem to be completely innumerate. Anecdotal experience among the self-selected at events like donnie’s stupid rallies is no way to really get a sense of how an election is going to turn out, FFS.
Remember this election the next time you think, “independents and/or centrists are secret right wingers”
We’re not, you couldn’t win elections if we were! I’m happy we all worked together to get Trump and his mooks out
(voters are D 28%, R 28%, Ind 44%)
A whole lot of professed “independents” are actually Republicans who just don’t want to admit it, when you probe even just a little bit.
That’s why there is Murc’s Law and the term “reactionary centrists”.
And then a large portion of the others are just fence-sitters that are generally low-info, but throw in with what they think will be the “winning team”. Or vote for/against someone based on some arbitrary trait - they found the candidate tall/attractive, they didn’t like the way they laughed, etc…
Lastly: nearly everyone knows that elections are decided at the margins. No one contests that. But it’s not really like most “independents” are evaluating things on the merits like some set of perfectly rational actors. Just because elections that are nearly 50/50 and swung by the arbitrary whims of a few people that don’t profess allegiance to being R or D does not really speak to the actual independence of people that merely claim they are independent.
