XPost: or.politics, rec.woodworking, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   XPost: sac.politics, talk.politics.guns   
   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   It's pretty generally acknowledged at this point that President Trump won   
   the 2024 election with help from a lot of working-class voters who'd   
   previously cast votes for Joe Biden. The Democratic theory about how they   
   could return to power was that Democrats would drive Trump's numbers down   
   with constant criticism and soon enough those voters would see the error   
   of their ways and return to the Democrats. In short, Democrats were   
   counting on a backlash to save them.   
      
   But so far it's not happening. Trump's numbers have gone down but   
   Democrats numbers haven't really gone up. The voters who left the party   
   don't see a good reason to go back.   
      
   ...in interviews with nearly 30 predominantly working-class voters who   
   supported Mr. Biden in 2020 before defecting or struggling deeply with   
   their choices last year, many had a stinging message for the Democratic   
   Party.   
      
   Just because we have misgivings about Mr. Trump, they say, it doesn’t mean   
   we like you.   
      
   “I think I’m done with the Democrats,” said Desmond Smith, 24, a deli   
   worker from Smithdale, Miss., and a Black man who said he backed Mr. Biden   
   in 2020 at the height of the racial justice protests. But last year,   
   disillusioned by what he saw as the party’s overemphasis on identity   
   politics and concerned about illegal immigration, he voted for Mr. Trump.   
      
   Asked how Democrats could win him back, he said, “Fight for Americans   
   instead of fighting for everybody else.”   
      
   That's just one anecdote but polling seems to suggest a lot of former   
   Democratic voters aren't returning as Dems hoped. A Democratic strategist   
   suggested a backlash wouldn't be enough this time. “They think that this   
   is about Trump’s numbers getting worse,” he said, adding “They need to   
   worry about their numbers.”   
      
   There are various reasons people aren't flocking back to the Democratic   
   Party but one thing that clearly turned people off was all the lying about   
   Joe Biden's condition. Democrats went way out on a limb claiming he was   
   sharp as a tack then turned on a dime the moment their secret got out.   
      
   Democratic leaders had insisted that the plainly frail Mr. Biden was   
   vigorous enough to run, and they had encouraged skeptical voters to fall   
   in line. Instantly after he dropped out, they urged Democrats to unite   
   behind the candidacy of Kamala Harris, who was then the vice president.   
      
   That did not sit right with Mr. Bielski, who said he was already   
   distrustful of Democrats who had pushed pandemic-era lockdowns. Ms.   
   Harris, he said, “wasn’t someone that I got to vote for in a primary.”   
      
   Another problem for Dems, all the wokeness taking over the party. It was a   
   turn off, including among minority voters.   
      
   Many in this multiracial group of voters said they thought Democrats had   
   gone too far in promoting transgender rights or in emphasizing matters of   
   racial identity...   
      
   “It seemed like they were more concerned with D.E.I. and L.G.B.T.Q. issues   
   and really just things that didn’t pertain to me or concern me at all,”   
   said Kendall Wood, 32, a truck driver from Henrico County, Va. He said he   
   voted for Mr. Trump last year after backing Mr. Biden in 2020. “They   
   weren’t concerned with, really, kitchen-table issues.”   
      
   Other messages that got through to voters included the America First focus   
   on keeping us out of foreign entanglements and the sense that the border   
   was out of control under Biden.   
      
   But despite hearing all of that direct from the voters themselves, some   
   Democratic commenters still think these voters were tricked somehow. For   
   instance:   
      
   "Most of the viewpoints of these people are false narratives created by   
   MAGA."   
      
   The border situation was a false narrative? Democrats didn't lie to voters   
   about Biden's fitness for office? Democrats weren't pushing gender   
   affirming care and men competing in women's sports? All of these things   
   were really happening. People saw what Dems were doing and didn't like it.   
   At least some readers get it.   
      
   Many excellent points, all will be ignored by current Dem leadership,   
   which is focused entirely on tactics — finding a new Joe Rogan, appealing   
   to voters based on identity (young males) — rather than their positions on   
   real issues.   
      
   A corollary point is that exactly none of the current favorites for the   
   2018 democratic nomination present any hope of this changing.   
      
   What's most concerning is the number of deluded socialist revolutionaries   
   in the comments. Here's the top comment:   
      
   Today the Democratic and Republican parties function as two wings of the   
   capitalist party, with the Democrats often playing good cop to the   
   Republican’s bad cop.  The billionaires control Congress, the Presidency   
   and the Supreme Court.  Nothing short of a revolution in peoples’ thinking   
   will change this situation into one that prioritizes the health and well-   
   being of all.  I’ll vote for Democrats the day they start calling for   
   universal high quality health care, truly taxing the rich, drastically   
   reducing funds for the military and seriously addressing the climate   
   crisis.  In other words, probably never.   
      
   Ten minutes with a calculator ought to be enough to disabuse anyone of   
   these delusions, but people like this aren't interested in reality. They'd   
   rather live in a fantasy world where all their problems are the result of   
   someone else's successes.   
      
   https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2025/08/12/working-class-voters-who-abandoned-   
   democrats-arent-going-back-n3805743   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)