I don't understand what voters Trump could've picked up between 2016 and 2020

[DemonTree]

@QuickSilver

Democrats are already viewed by Republicans as being against corporations. It’s been drilled into conservative minds that progressives are against corporate interests. If that is true then it cannot also be true that Democrats will not go against corporate interests. If, as conservatives believe, being aligned with corporate interests is goof for American voters because it creates jobs, then American voters should not object to whatever alignment may exists between Democrats and corporate interests. What is this argument even about at the end of the day; why is it okay for republicans to be in alignment with corporate interests but not for democrats?

Maybe Democrats aren’t viewed as aligned with corporate interests, but that doesn’t mean that’s the reality. I believe both parties are. But Trump at least claimed to be moving away from that, and several of his key policies were different to standard Republican ones. Weren’t they big supporters of free trade before Trump, for example? I think this was part of Trump’s appeal and something Democrats could look at emulating. The idea, if not specific policies.

This excerpt GreenWyvern posted in another thread is along the lines of what I am thinking, although I haven’t had chance to read the whole article yet:

The "Far Left" is already being demonized

From Yanis Varoufakis: The tragedy of progressives is that Trump’s supporters are not entirely wrong. The Democratic party has demonstrated time and again its determination to prevent any challenge to the powerful that are responsible for the pain, anger and humiliation that propelled Trump to the White House. Democrats can talk until the cows come home about racial justice, the need for more women in positions of power, the rights of the LGBT community etc. But, the moment politicians like …

@puzzlegal

Also, this seems like a good time to point out that a lot of “the swamp” is lobbyists. But lobbyists are the people who understand the pain points of the farmer who has to abide by those environmental regulations, and can work with legislators to craft effective regulation that is less onerous than naive regulation would be. I realize that the world doesn’t work the way one might like the ideal world to work. But in an ideal world, we would have paid industry lobbyists negotiating the details of most regulation, bringing the expert knowledge of the people most affected to the table, to craft the most efficient possible regulations.

The big problem with this is that the legislation that would be best for eg Microsoft may be very different from the legislation that would be best for Microsoft’s customers. But the former has all the money and lobbyists dedicated to getting it’s way, so the latter lose out. I don’t know how it is in the USA, but in the UK it often happens that a minister will make some decision that benefits a certain company, then when he retires from politics, he gets a very well paid position on the board of that company. Ordinary taxpayers are the ones who lose out.