this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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[–] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 28 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Biden has the best chance of NOT beating Trump (I fear). He cannot change and as a known commodity will not generate new enthusiasm. Trump has generated all the outrage and rejection he is going to get. No new information is going to change that.

Someone else is an unknown. What happens if we switch is unknown. It may lose. But we are losing now.

But it could grab a LOT of press attention, generate enthusiasm, and break up the logjam of conservatism that runs national politics.

The whole point is that this is not a "dicey" or desperate thing to do when we are fighting for democracy and freedom. It is the ONLY thing to do when you are sure your current course loses.

We have to win.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

enthusiasm

It’s an interesting day when you get to identify a new talking point

[–] AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Enthusiasm in this case would be turn out, actually getting butts out of seats to vote.

The existential threat that Trump poses no longer seems enough to motivate people to vote specfically against him. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the reduction in turn out by people who are not energized by Biden and aren't afraid of Trump has been a thing this whole time, it's not new.

Like literally the campaigns are targeting people to tell them not to vote at all, right? The fact that Biden is visibly spiralling gives those campaigns a lot of very effective ammunition imo.

Then again you got that x-ray shill vision.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev -3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

the reduction in turn out by people who are not energized by Biden and aren't afraid of Trump has been a thing this whole time, it's not new.

Do you have numbers for this?

Like voter turnout numbers for Biden vs Trump or vs Democrats in earlier elections? All the numbers I have seen are in the opposite direction, which is understandable, because the voters unlike the media understand how catastrophically high the stakes are.

[–] AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

You see it referenced all the time as a bit of democratic dogma. There was even a meme about it that hit the top of all/active like a few days ago on Lemmy. I like how this article from April puts it:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/2024-turnout-apathy-biden-trump.html

It's not necessarily true, let me be clear, but it's an active assumption. Higher turnout benefits Democrats. A reduction in turnout due to voter apathy will directly effect the Democrats more than the Republicans. The current propoganda campaign are targeting Democratic voters apathy rather than trying to switch a "swing voter."

This election will probably be at least as high as 2016, and like I think you are referencing, every election since 2016 had basically had record turnout over the last.

Imo this election comes down to the number of voters who are motivated by abortion and worries about the supreme Court, which is middle aged to older people, high percentage women, reliable voters.

He's an interesting one that talks about the enthusiasm vs apathy of voters but doesn't specifically turnout, which is against my interpretation. I struggle to understand the relevance of it in this context:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/07/02/biden-trump-poll-post-debate/74263315007/

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev -3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

You see it referenced all the time as a bit of democratic dogma. There was even a meme about it that hit the top of all/active like a few days ago on Lemmy. I like how this article

Imma stop you right there

Yes, I am aware that it is a popular narrative in the media and on Lemmy. My question was, do you have numbers for it?

Because my assertion that it isn’t actually true, and people are saying it anyway, and that the discrepancy and the reasons for the discrepancy is an important fact.

[–] AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah I referenced two articles talking about it in multiple ways.

You acting like it's a new thing that's never been discussed was what I was referring too. It's absolutely a thing! That's a bit of goal post moving on your part to go from "wow I've never heard of this before!" To "I don't think that's status statically true."

https://lemmy.world/comment/11132168

Like correct me if I'm wrong, this is you right? Are you also going senile?

[–] archomrade@midwest.social 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Mozz sees anti-liberal conspiracies everywhere he looks.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ha. It was too complex for me to want to get into it, and I feel like I already said what I said about it... but honestly, it's sort of a fair question / point that I just dropped the conversation. Here's what happened:

So the NYMag article is full of some fascinating statistics, including the fact that voter engagement overall is going steadily up over the last few elections, and that Democratic likeliness to vote is way higher that Republican. It also includes a qualitative narrative about (slightly oversimplified) why that's bad news for Democrats or something. To me, the numbers it was citing didn't match the narrative.

But anyway I didn't want to play the game of going to some vague citations and digging through them for specific numbers to argue against, so that I have to do the work of both sides of the argument, and just kinda lost interest. If you or @AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world want to cite some statistics that might back up the media narrative that Democrats aren't "energized" in the sense of planning to vote in the election, whatever articles you want to draw them from, I'm good with that. If you or they want to send me some articles and pretend that you win if I don't feel like digging through them for those statistics (or alternatively if those articles just repeat the exact narrative that I'm acknowledging the existence of but not the factual backing for), I'm good with that too.

[–] AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

Ooooh thank you, every time someone tags me another angel loses their faith in the electoral system!