Leopards Ate My Face

I think the problem here is that the democrats got addicted to the lazy politics of fear. It's always kinda been there, but we got where we are today in '16 when they decided that their best shot at getting HRC her win was promoting the craziest Republican possible. If your opponent is turbo Hitler, then you don't need to promise anything and therefore don't need to keep any promises, you just promise to not be turbo Hitler and go back to yucking it up with the lobbyists and your pals from the hedge funds. And Hillary didn't promise much (inb4 she offered a pretty means-tested half-hearted helping hand to a select few people under special circumstances). I'm now convinced that the only reason Trump lost in '20 was COVID, and democrats misread it as people being willing to embrace their spineless platform of "not that guy". So, when they of course tried it again in '24, they got egg on their face.

The thing is, you can't keep people afraid, eventually they burn out on the fear for better or worse. I remember the government tried that post-9/11. Every day for years (and especially when they were trying to sell the Iraq war) the terror threat level was Orange or Red. The news even had a little dooblie-doo in the bottom left corner that showed the threat level of the day. Well, when it's orange or red for six years and nothing happens, people eventually just stop paying attention. People stopped being afraid of Trump, and with nothing really on offer besides more "not that guy"ism, it's not a shock they lost.

Of course, the lesson the democrats already seem to be taking from this is that they all need to become republicans, because surely Republicans will finally vote for Democrats if democrats are Republicans. Because, you know, the only voters that matter are Republicans, and they definitely will vote for a different party if given the chance, right?