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The answer is more propaganda directed towards the working class. How much could it cost to buy every am radio station?
The campaign connected just fine with the college educated working class. It didn't connect with the highschool or less education working class. IMO it seems the big party divide today is higher education.
Working class should refer to people whose income is primarily derived from selling their labor vs the value of their assets.
We need to start using the term working class correctly.
certainly didn't connect with me and my social circle and we're all college educated working class. maybe you're confusing people who voted for her as people who thought she was worth voting for?
"we have a concrete plan for helping you" - crickets
"my plans will hurt you but I'm pretending otherwise" - "what a brilliant businessman!"
her plan involved helping people get a home loan with no plans to raise the minimum wage
what did Harris say she was going to bring to table that would attract any voters other than high middle and above class?
She backed a plan to raise the minimum wage to 15 dollars. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/kamala-harris-says-us-must-raise-federal-minimum-wage-2024-10-21/
The much bigger issue I see is that policy choices are simply not communicated by the media. Half of this discussion complains about Kamala not adopting policies that were in fact in her platform. Only stories about the horse race and Trump outrage make the news (even in this community which is supposed to focus on policies). How can you get your message across in such a media environment?
That home loan was fucking worthless to boot. You know what would save Americans money? Directly building homes and selling them at cost.
Building new homes was part of the campaign plan right?
Support for unions, getting inflation down, etc
"We have a concrete plan to help you! For example, higher federal minimum wage!"
"Okay, take my vote!
Four years later
"You've been in office for four years. Where is the minimum wage hike?"
"Turns out we can't actually do it unless we have a supermajority of government. And then it's still questionable if we will. Vote for us some more in your state and presidency. Hope that others in other states do too. Also stop bitching, we are moral and the other people are fascists, do not fail us, you must defend women and minorities by keeping us in power etc etc."
"I had more money under Trump, fuck off."
Did she, though? All I remember is something about a "new small business" subsidy fund, which is... good, I suppose, but didn't address any of the probkems the average American is facing.
Okay, there was also the suggestion of Medicare for all, which would put a dent in things, but I only heard it casually mentioned once and it sounded like something she was "open to discussing," not a core part of her platform.
Aside from that, there was nothing directly addressing the core daily problems the majority of people are experiencing, like overpriced living expenses and underpaid wages.
The small business loan was a joke if you look at the details. First off most people dont want to start a business its a lot of hard fucking work with a lot of risk. It also had a bunch of means tests involved. Which would make it a disaster to implement and a disaster to get.
Similar thing happened with Hillary and the green energy jobs training.
That's not the message working people heard. They heard, "we are the establishment whose theories have been fucking you over for fifty years, but in our infinite wisdom and benevolence we have decided to make some changes that WE have determined will make your lives better, and so you must vote for us. After all, we are your intellectual superiors."
Yes. Incredibly theoretical, difficult to understand, highly abstract plans like "raising the national minimum wage".
Wrong plans, they're referring to the joke '50k small business loan with a bajillion strings attached', 'a maybe tax hike for the wealthy, but no transfer to middle/lower income', 'here are two tax credits half of which only impact parents and together dont break even on inflation', 'absolute refusal to commit to keeping khan', in short dems to working Americans: fuck you, and here's some genocide on top. Vote for us because we think we're the only option.
You know what you call someone who votes for fascism? A fascist.
How do you appeal to fascists without being more fascist than the alternative?
America is comprised of stupider, shittier people than was thought.
Trump told people they were struggling and only he could fix it.
Kamala told people the economy was rebounding and they were gonna create more opportunities for the middle class.
People didn't give a shit about what opportunities they were given. They also didn't give a shit about a rebounding economy because none of them were feeling things getting better. Media kept saying real wages beat inflation finally. Only after 3 years of insane inflation where wages in no way kept up.
So sure, the economy is better than it was, and better than the rest of the world. But the shock happened and nothing was done to actually help the people that were suffering. Instead they were told by Democrats that 'it could have been worse! And it will be worse under Trump' basically admitting they weren't really interested in helping.
So Trump, despite him not actually caring or really planning to do anything about it, stayed on message with something that resonated to voters. While Kamala assumed people wanted to start businesses? People can't afford food but sure, let's talk about how they have some opportunity to open a mom and pop shop across from Walmart.
She literally said, "I will go after price gouging," which is 100% the reason prices are so high, but instead, the media focused you on starting a business. The whole price gouging thing was absent from every news article. The only time you heard it was when she spoke live. Absolutely wild.
This message fell flat. She's the vice president, the message should have been I'm working with the AG now to investigate price to gouging, and will continue that when elected. Also the end result is just the government getting a small settlement check, that means fuck all to people.
Do... You know what the Vice President does? And she should have done all of this while she was campaigning?
If the vice president can't be the figurehead of a taskforce in a friendly administration for an important campaign issue, they aren't qualified to be president.
One of the frustrations was that they would be talking about how the economy was doing great... if you were a homeowner. The inflation was also in things like rent which they have no intent on really addressing, but disproportionately gets omitted from broader stats regarding inflation despite people getting $500+ rent increases shortly after the end of the COVID eviction protections.
Can you give an example of Kamala saying that? I know Biden did, but I am pretty sure the campaign attempted to avoid this messaging.
I don't have a citation for you of Kamala saying exactly that- but yeah that was more a Biden line.
I wouldn’t say Trump stayed on message, but he included it enough in the insane rambling.
The problem is that Harris was from the incumbent party and administration at a time of deep dissatisfaction with the economy. That's an extremely difficult position to be in, and it's made all the worse for her because as VP she gets all the blame by association but can't really do much personally to adjust policy. She's handcuffed to the status quo at a time when the vast majority want change.
Biden and Harris both chose to try to defend the status quo and spin things as more positive. This waa a mistake. I don't know if they would have won by acknowledging the problems and portraying this as them leading through a time of crisis, and how they have plans to get us through, but it probably would have had a much better chance.
It also didn't help that most of the things they did to address the economic woes were either indirect or only narrowly targeted (or canceled out by courts). News that a factory will eventually open and add jobs in one area doesn't alleviate the concerns of the vast majority of voters, nor does processing student loan forgiveness for a few thousand people at a time under very specific programs. These things are good, but they don't make most people feel better the way a more broadly applicable benefit would.
This loss brought to you by Corporate Media. We sanewash the insane bullshit and manipulate you into anything.
I wonder how much this whole situation resonates with what happened in Argentina, when they elected Milei.
Milei to them was an obvious lunatic who would probably be terrible but had a small chance to be different, versus their traditional party who would very obviously just continue the country's predictable economic decline.
Then again, I can't really see any way Trump could be good for you if you're poor. Not ever by the most charitable interpretations.
I think the difference is we already had Trump as President. Thinking he might be good now is admitting you have no idea how he was the first time.
Preventing the Railworker's Union strike pretty much solidified the Democratic position as a Union enemy regardless of anything that happened afterward.
He closed that strike down in like December of 2022, the East Palestine train derailment happened on February 2023, exactly what the rail workers were warning about.
East Palestine was arguably in Biden's hands. Maybe the regular people forgot, but a lot of union workers didn't.