Dr. Strangelove

You skipped right over the parts where they like to invade countries for no reason and then institute policies of torturing innocent people after doing so. And heck, that was before the most recent Republican President who botched the response to a pandemic, direct a self-coup that ended his Presidency with a press conference outside of a landscaping service (and next to a dildo store), found liable for rape, can't operate a business in New York because of decades of criminal and massive fraud, and is seeming losing his ability to coherently communicate. But yes, protecting America from terrors of socialism that only exist in the imaginations of Conservative voters certainly Trumps all that (pun intended). So, you know, good job I guess.

Because of the coalitions that make up the Democratic Party, having a "good" candidate that appeals to that coalition is really difficult. The party consists of college educated voters concentrated on the coasts, minority voters in the south, and white union voters in the Midwest. In this coalition, the white female college graduate who lives in California has very different views (climate change, LGTBQ rights) than southern African American voters (police reform, social program investments) who are also much different than Midwest Union voters (trade protection policies). A Democrat in California is a lot different than a democrat in Michigan who is a lot different than a democrat in Georgia. Pete Buttigieg was a very competitive candidate - and does very well in TV interviews and in debates - with coastal Democrats. However, he had next to no appeal to southern minority voters who dubbed him "Mayo Pete" (which is kind of funny) because he was seen as not really understanding Black voters. All Democrat candidates struggled to appeal to all parts of the coalition, leaving only Joe Biden who was sort of the second or third favorite for each of them as the winner. This is also why it's dangerous for Democrats to move onto a different candidate other than Joe Biden, because they risk alienating any part of that coalition and they'd likely lose. Compare this with the Republican coalition - which are white voters without college degrees - and their political objects don't change all that much. A white voter without a college degree in Nebraska mostly wants the same thing as a white voter without a college degree in Florida, who wants mostly the same thing as a white voter without a college degree in Texas. It's easier for Republican candidates to nominate anybody with an R next to their name because really anybody appeals to those voters.

The median American agrees with you, but the median voter rewards partisanship. Make no mistake, politicians behave and respond to incentives. They are incentivized by the electorate to behave the way they do because it works. JD Vance and Josh Hawley play characters in pursuit of power because their electorates reward that behavior.

It could be, hear me out, that Republican voters live in an information bubble that is disconnected from reality. Hyper partisanship, particularly on the Right, makes Reagan style victories all but impossible. You do realize the irony of what you're saying, as a voter convinced that Biden is a criminal based on no evidence and only substantiated by the intelligence agencies of China and Russia? Since huge swaths of the country vote and behave like you do, Biden cruising to re-election is all but impossible. To many voters are willing to vote for a rapist (like you did twice) America hating insurrectionist because he is part of their identity politics. Any Presidential race between any Democrat and any Republican (unless it's Mitt Romney who truly would win easily) is going to be a coinflip.

I certainly hope they do nominate a younger candidate, however, Democrats do have a problem with their coalition. It can be difficult to find a candidate that makes all elements of that coalition happy while also being competitive in a general election. Overall Bidens speech was pretty good. There aren't going to be that many undecided voters watching but I do think non-right wing news coverage will be positive. We'll see if poll numbers improve this time next month or not.

I do appreciate the well articulated post, and I agree with most of it. I do disagree with the "Not Trump" portion at the end, because the Biden Presidency has been the most liberal Presidency from a policy standpoint in decades. The idea that Biden is simply the "not Trump" option that doesn't deliver positive policy outcomes is frankly just wrong.

Would that help Joe Biden? Anybody who feels like Trump doesn't reflect them and is clamoring for a 3rd party option are probably reluctant Biden voters. This is just not being reflected in national polls where Biden is losing, massively. The political environment needs to improve by huge margins for Biden to win. I'm not convinced that there are huge swaths of Nikki Haley Republicans that are going to crossover and save Joe Biden.

Case and point. Republicans just nominate bad candidates.

While I hope support for Trump is massively over estimated, did Virginia (or any state) get a lot of high quality polling for the Republican primary? The race for the Republican nomination isn't populated with high quality polling with a lot of money invested in figuring out who is winning. The race for the nomination has been over for a year, and polling firms know it.

Maybe in lefty circles it does, but the majority of Americans support Israel and have no idea what Palestine is. I'm rooting for Trump to galvanize and untie the left and for Democrats to jettison the stupid elements of their coalition that cost them elections. America is closer than a Republican tri-fecta and a 7-2 SCOTUS than people realize. We don't need to let the morons on the left off the hook anymore than we should the morons in the right.

This is concerning for Republicans, but it's also meaningless unless it's compared to enthusiasm for Biden supporters, which is likely equally tepid. Any environmental that shows North Carolina as competitive would mean Biden is winning national polls by 5%, which just isn't happening. Unless polls start to show the paradigm listed in the above tweet, any environment that isn't D+3.5 or more probably means a Donald Trump won. Biden has to shift polls in his favor by huge amounts to win.

This is specifically referring to the political left being stupid and not voting for Biden because of his perceived support for "genocide" and support for Israel. This quote from Trump is the alternative for these voters, which is expressing support for Israel and outright approval aggressive Israeli Defense Forces tactics and by saying "you have to finish the job", my interpretation is that he supports even more aggressive responses from Israel. My personal opinion is not expressed in that tweet and I didn't mean to convey it, my apologies if that wasn't clear.

https://twitter.com/KateSullivanDC/status/1765007876324462637?s=19 Just to add to this point.

It was heavily sarcastic using the scariest buzzwords that the political Right uses to scare their horde of voters. They come up with new nonsense weekly after focus grouping the scariest sounding nonsense imaginable, and it works because Conservative voters are easily influenced. It contained tongue-in-cheek messaging about how Democrats "stifle business" by protecting consumers, along with not so subtle hints that the recent news of Republican states rejecting federal money to feed poor children is something Conservative voters stupidly approve.

She had no viable path to victory, although her third party candidacy probably helps Kari Lake had she stayed as an Independent.

If you can't beat them, join them.

These people are impossibly stupid. But the problem with the American Left is virtue signaling has become more important than electoral outcomes. These people don't think for a nanosecond about the Trump alternative to the issues in Palestine. I hope Trump institutes the most pro-Israeli policies imaginable if nothing else but to show how profoundly idiotic these leftist voters are.

This is the type of government overreach that stifles business and is a flat out slippery slope to the type of Anarcho-Communist-Fascist CRT laced Socialism that leftists love. Between this and offering free money to feed children in poverty, Dems have lost me. #Trump2024 #2020WasStolen

Democrats need to stop playing nice. Instead of referring to Trump by his name, refer to him by what he is, The Rapist. If calling a Presidential candidate who was deemed legally liable for sexual assault (and later defamed his victim) The Rapist is to harmful for their prospects in rural America, start questioning why those voters support The Rapist in the first place. These voters deserve mocking and derision, not treated as though their political opinions have merit. And, for the love of God, Democrats need to stop throwing things into the court system with the misguided thought that they will issue rulings that favor them OR that the rulings will galvanize the electorate because of brazen corruption or obviously inconsistent interpretations of the law. The average voter doesn't know what the Supreme Court is.

Honestly, Liberal States were ridiculously stupid to attempt to kick him off the ballot. Democrats need a national strategy to counter the Trump horde. Doing dumb things like this only helps Trump. Now he can claim he's exonerated and the moronic voters that make up the American electorate will believe him. It had a 0% chance of success and was not legal from the start.

At a certain point though, what you're saying needs to be reflected in polling or in favorability ratings. The problem is that you assume that voters properly blame the responsible political party for negative events. But the reality is that voters who are concerned about IVF procedures, the Dobbs decision, or that Donald Trump is a rapist, are already tuned into politics and already support Democrats. The other voters are pretty stupid, don't pay attention to politics, and think that because Biden is President, he's responsible for these things. These voters are hard to reach, don't often vote, and actively dislike politics. They dislike Joe Biden at the moment and Democrats need to win over huge chunks of these voters over 8 months to still lose. Democrats are running out of time.

Which is approximately where it should be. The real odds are 55% Trump/45% Biden, assuming Biden gains ground over the summer. Most people terrified of Trump and who are watching the sheer stupidity of the American voter are huffing a lot of hopium trying to rationalize these numbers.

Democrat stupidity at its finest. They are so preoccupied with performative politics that it's going to lead to a Republican tri-fecta next January. It's hard for Biden favorable to improve when Democrats attack themselves. Joe Biden needs to gain 8% to lose like Hillary Clinton did in 2016. He needs to gain 10% to have a shot at winning. Some people would say this election is Joever.

The vibes based impeachment is sort of imploding. It is only March, so I am curious about what else they do to anger farm their voters until November. Or, they just quadruple down on xenophobia from now until election day.

My God this is hilarious. It's so blatantly obvious that Republicans aren't serious about Hunter Biden but their voters eat this alive to reconcile their own support for corruption.