To make matters worse, there were a significant number of American voters whose lives didn’t actually become worse, or noticeably worse, during Trump’s 4 years in office. So now they aren’t afraid of a Trump second term, even if he’d be worse this time than last time.
The single best article was shared by @PhillyGuy guy here.
It is one of many though.
Yes. There’s also a problem that precisely what is great about Biden (he’s willing to do the boring hard work of endless negotiations and compromise to make sure shit gets done) is… boring. Our culture conditions us to expect a narrative, such as Underdog! (speed of lightning… oh, wait, that’s a different Underdog) or Hero vs Monster! (Trump’s Hercules-style “I will drain the swamp”) or Jesus! (Trump’s “I will save you from mumble mumble at great cost to myself!”
That we don’t take our civic duty more seriously is the fault of a number of things: poor civics education, media competition for attention and the ensuing shorter attention spans, the nature of an appeal that works for millions, and goodness knows what else. Biden is the clear choice for anyone who wants the country to work. Trump is a clear choice for anyone whose vote is swayed by an exciting (if vaguely expressed) story, especially ones with deep and even mythological resonances.
Yeah, I really doubt this. They might vote 3rd party or stay home, however.
For enough voters, there are other conditions besides “How was my life going during the Trump years?”
January 6th took place two weeks before Trump left office, and the Dobbs decision took place in summer 2020. The Project 2025 manifesto is beginning to make mainstream news. Conditions on the ground are not the same. Not all voters will be moved by such things, but it doesn’t take a huge percentage to be impactful.
There’s data this way and that way – collectively, it’s equivocal.
Yes, that’s what I was referring to. Thanks for the link!
(my emphasis and compression of link for brevity)
I did see when PhillyGuy posted that, but only skimmed the first third of the article or so. This time, I read it through. In brief, the article brings a lot of data and several narratives to bear – it’s actually IMO a good overview of the state-of-play regarding unengaged voters. However, drawing from so many separate sources and quoting so many people … the article overall waters down the message conveyed in the headline – this article, as well, is equivocal.
Turn the prism this way and you see one thing. Rotate it and flip it upside down, you see some different thing. Same prism, different perspectives.
EDIT: The Nate Cohn/NYT analysis that ratatoskK just linked is also featured in the recent MSNBC and CNN links. It made the rounds before the Atlanta debate took over the news cycle.
EDIT2: Thanks, everyone, for coming up with links and ground-truthing that at least there was, indeed, some underpinning analysis out there.
True, at least when looking at presidential elections. In fact, Americans as a whole have been consistently voting against fascism since 1992, with the one exception of 2004. Of course, votes don’t translate directly into political wins, but the sentiment is there.
Presidential Total Popular Vote Fraction:
| Year | (D) | (R) |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 51.3% | 46.8% |
| 2016 | 48.2% | 46.1% |
| 2012 | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| 2008 | 52.9% | 45.7% |
| 2004 | 48.3% | 50.7% |
| 2000 | 48.4% | 47.9% |
| 1996 | 49.2% | 40.7% |
| 1992 | 43.0% | 37.4% |
| 1988 | 45.6% | 53.4% |
On the other hand, it’s not as clear when looking at Congressional elections.
Congressional Total Popular Vote Fraction:
| Year | (D) | (R) |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 47.8% | 50.6% |
| 2020 | 50.3% | 47.2% |
| 2018 | 53.4% | 44.8% |
| 2016 | 48.0% | 49.1% |
| 2014 | 45.5% | 51.2% |
| 2012 | 48.8% | 47.7% |
| 2010 | 44.9% | 51.7% |
| 2008 | 53.2% | 42.6% |
| 2006 | 52.3% | 44.3% |
| 2004 | 46.8% | 49.4% |
| 2002 | 45.2% | 50.0% |
| 2000 | 47.1% | 47.6% |
| 1998 | 47.3% | 48.4% |
| 1996 | 48.22% | 48.15% |
| 1994 | 44.7% | 51.5% |
| 1992 | 50.1% | 45.1% |
| 1990 | 52.1% | 44.3% |
| 1988 | 53.3% | 45.6% |
Cite: 2022 United States House of Representatives elections - Wikipedia
I did my best to point you to the “this way” … what “that way” are you seeing? Can you point me to it please? I’ve looked and am not finding any.
ratatoskK
Sorry, the NYT is no longer trustworthy on this issue.
I can pull quotes later, but the bottom half of PhillyGuy’s link has plenty.
You can start with the paragraph midway through that begins “Michael Madrid, a long-time GOP strategist who has become a fierce Trump critic …” and just read down. Might be kind of a Rorschach-inkblot thing going on because of my own priors … but I perceive an ebb-and-flow throughout much of that article.
Not mincing words:
Subscribe to unlock this article
Here is the relevant bit:
A party that has become used to watching Republican strife over Trump’s leadership is now reckoning with its own mix of division and despair over whether to try and force Biden out.
“Every single Democrat that I’ve talked to, and I’ve talked to about 1,000 in the past week, every single one thinks the same thing, which is we’re totally, totally screwed,” says one person close to the White House.
“There’s no way [Biden] can win this election, there’s no way he can prosecute the case against Trump. If it turned into a referendum on Biden, we were always going to lose. And that’s what’s happening,” the person adds.
To many Democrats, the insularity of the White House and Biden’s inner circle of advisers keeping him in the race and clinging to power is overwhelmingly to blame.
“I feel like I’m screaming into the void. We are willingly walking into a bear den,” says one party strategist. “We have a team in the presidential space here that has looked at all the options and decided that murder-suicide is the way to go. And it’s pretty terrifying.”
The DNC is like a mate, landlord, parent or boss who says: “Take it or leave it!”, expecting the response to be to take it, and then is gobsmacked when the recipient instead chooses to leave it.
“The DNC” did not make Biden the nominee nor can they cause him to cease being the nominee.
(quoting an anonymous source to the Financial Times article above - b)
Interestingly … New York Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado was on Jake Tapper’s CNN program about an hour ago and used much the same wording: “… prosecute the case against Trump”. He was a second-term Congressman during the first 16 months of Biden’s term – I wonder if Delgado is the “source close to the White House” being quoted?
I really need to look for video – Delgado told Tapper that a Manhattan-based pollster now believes that New York is a swing state and no longer safely blue 
That’s laying it on a little thick.
…
Mr. Spock: A sustained warp 7 speed will be dangerous, Captain.
Captain Kirk: Thank you, Mr. Spock. I mean to catch them
Scotty: We’ll either catch them or we’ll blow up, Captain. They may be faster than we are.