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The funnny thing about elections is that politicians do the things people vote for. Literally no one gives a shit about people who don't vote. Everyone who sat out and couldn't even be arsed to vote third party just helped move the country to the right. Everyone who sits at home during primaries let's the rest of the country have its way.
Democrats don't implement the things that you want because you don't vote and therefore you don't matter. Republicans don't implement the things you that want because you don't vote and therefore you don't matter.
"Waah, waah, there's only two parties." More than half the country doesn't vote. That's enough to elect a third party candidate. Instead millions of idiots sat at home complaining that they can't get everything they want today, and moving the needle is too much work.
What bugs me about this election is that turnout of GOP and independent voters surpassed Dem turnout.
This makes me wonder if a bunch of former Dems switched parties between 2020 and now. Which would suggest that voters themselves are swinging rightward.
Consider that he's gained in previously blue strongholds, like in Beverly Hills as per https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-07/trump-victory-by-the-numbers/104573034 and even in Brooklyn as per https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/06/trump-voter-gains-new-york-00188078
To me, this seems to justify the Dems rightward swing - they are following the voters. No wonder Harris campaigned with Liz Cheney at her side.
But, it also makes me feel kinda sick inside. If the country as a whole is swinging rightward, that makes me wonder where I fit in - or even if there is any room at all with someone with my beliefs.
Could be that they were shut out of the primary process, and wouldn't have chosen Harris.
This would make more sense if they just sat it out and didn't vote (or say voted third party).
But this doesn't make sense if they switched parties and voted for orange voldemort. All the reasons not to choose Harris (such as not being strong enough on Gaza) would apply even more strongly to that guy..
That's exactly what happened. Trump's turnout was about the same, but Dems turnout was 15 million less than 2020. That shows not that people are going more right ward and voting for Trump, but that Dems turnout was depressed due to apathy or something else.
Oh, interesting. Do you have a source regarding the turnout? What I've been reading elsewhere suggests that turnout wasn't depressed except compared to 2020 - which may have been a fluke due to the pandemic - but the sources I have (such as https://dailyiowan.com/2024/11/06/2024-election-reaches-second-highest-voter-turnout-in-the-past-century/ ) aren't clear on hard numbers or stats.
A different commenter on this thread (see https://lemmy.world/comment/13325248 ) claims that orange voldemort actually got fewer votes in this election than in 2020. No source was provided and I'm a bit skeptical, but if you both are right (contradicting the sources I have pointed to in my other comments) then it suggests a) that there was no such shift and it was merely a turnout issue and b) that more leftist or progressive policies might do the trick!
Which are much easier problems to solve than to deal with folks actually moving their beliefs and votes to the right.
I think you're right that turnout in 2020 was kind of an anomaly from being higher than normal. The stats I found, and this is just what I am seeing referenced so I'll keep trying to find a source, is that Trump had 4 million less than 2020 but Democrats had 15 million less. So a general depression of turnout but way more from the Democrat's camp than Trump's.
But either way, if people are moving right, I think they can also be moved to the left, too. I tend to think that it happens when current times are bad, than they stop wanting to move forward and they look for scapegoats. We just need a more equitable economy that works for everyone, and not just the rich.
There's a really good repost at https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/18340229 which shows that actually turnout was higher where it mattered almost across the board, though alas it also doesn't cite a reference or source for the numbers. (Remember though that even an extra 81 million votes for Harris in California wouldn't have made a difference in the EC, but split 15 million Dem votes evenly across the seven swing states, and Harris would have won.)
This suggests that there wasn't much of a depression of turnout - perhaps only in the safe blue states, which wouldn't have been impactful.
Of course that's based on an estimate, or guess, on how the total popular vote count will turn out, which is still unknown. We'll see, I guess.
You're right about being able to get voters to switch back to blue. But that's what puzzles me - why did they switch from blue to red in the first place?
But actually you answered this already - it's the age old "it's the economy, stupid." Maybe this was unavoidable then? Biden and his Dem replacement would have always taken the hit on the economy no matter what. The only one eligible to run who might have been able to avoid that stain would have been Sanders.
Oh, right I forgot that the presidential race was the only thing on the ballot in the generals, and that there weren't primary elections for every position, including president, in multiple parties.
Except of course that's not true, and they didn't participate in any of that, and thus no one cares what they say. If they cared, they would have voted for someone else in the primaries. They didn't so that means one of two things. They assumed Biden would win and were happy about it. Or they assumed he would win and couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. So if they don't like it, who cares what they think? They're not going to do anything about it, so why appease them?
Instead, they're going to whine on the Internet about how they were "shut out" of something that was completely open to them, and pretend like it's the world's fault, and can safely be ignored.
I've read that comment a few tims now. I genuinely can't follow what you're talking about.
Calm down. Come back, and try again.