[Genuine Realist]

- While I wouldn't wish a pandemic on anyone -- obviously -- keep in mind that without a once-in-a-century pandemic, Trump likely wins in a landslide.

I never understand the Trump worship and adulation. I get that some people have an incentive to want lower taxes or fewer regulations for their business, or put up with him — a thrice married, lying, mysoginist and 6 times bankrupt businessman — for judges who will enforce their religious views on the entire population, but those people view Trump as a means to an ends. I can never understand how people actually look at him and adore him. The only explanation I can think of is that Trump is very effective at psychological control and brainwashing. I read somewhere that he has studied hypnosis techniques and uses them in business and media.

A lot of people in America who think that the two major parties have ignored them and that their government simply doesn't work for them have heard Trump speak their language and vow to give them a voice they have never had before.  I've always been an admirer of Obama, but keep in mind that under his watch, Wall Street was bailed out while millions of Americans were foreclosed upon.  Under his nose, tens of thousands of Americans were dying from opioid overdose seemingly without anyone doing anything about it.  Now, I understand that these problems are complex, and I think Trump's response to COVID suggest he would have been no better at handling the opioid epidemic (with overdose deaths flat since his innauguration, which, to be fair, is better than the previous trend).

Secondly, to us (mostly well educated, white collar workers), the economy really didn't change all that much when Trump became president.  The trend that started in the aftermath of the financial crisis more or less continued linearly.  For people at the lower end of the income spectrum, making close to minimum wage, there actually was a step-change starting in around 2018.  At that point, the labor market finally became tight, and employers were forced to start increasing wages.  I don't think you can attribute that to Trump, but its not like the Obama administration (somewhat forced by the Republican congress) and the fed at the time, committed some own goals on the economy.  Trump was right (policy-wise) to hound the fed to keep interest rates low.  Trump was right to push fiscal stimulus (even though I disagree with how he did it).

All that being said, I think progressives need to be better at listening to what the people they purport to represent want, rather than presuming to know better, or, at the very least, explain why their policy preferences are better for average Americans instead of presuming that this is somehow self-evident and sneering at them for not somehow managing to understand by magic.

I'll give two examples, both related to Latino voters, who seem to have shifted significantly towards Trump.  The aims of the BLM movement are noble, and many of their policy goals will benefit anyone, including Latino voters, who encounters the police.  But how do you think imagery of Che Guevara, who, ideology aside, was objectively a murderous despot, particularly to Cuban emigres in South Florida, plays?  Secondly, something like 90% of people of Latino descent have never heard of the term "Latinx", don't know how to pronounce it, feel it wipes out their heritage, and sure as hell don't want to be told who they are by a liberal elite.  Now, I get that gendered language is problematic for some people, but you can't impose a fix from above.  In some ways, those are trivial examples.  But they are very representative of the attitudes of progressives to the people they believe should naturally support them.

I would suggest more listening and less sneering.

BC

Amen, except you've forgotten the profound anti-Catholic bigotry that has infected the Democratic Party. If Rubio had become the Republican nominee in 2016, he would have become President, and the Democrats would know what real trouble they're in. They assume that the Latino vote is just naturally going to become Democratic and that simply does not follow.

Trump's America, by the way, is the same as Obama's America which was the same as the earlier America's.  Nothing chaned in the twinkling of an eye in November of 2016.

[Genuine Realist]

- While I wouldn't wish a pandemic on anyone -- obviously -- keep in mind that without a once-in-a-century pandemic, Trump likely wins in a landslide.

I never understand the Trump worship and adulation. I get that some people have an incentive to want lower taxes or fewer regulations for their business, or put up with him — a thrice married, lying, mysoginist and 6 times bankrupt businessman — for judges who will enforce their religious views on the entire population, but those people view Trump as a means to an ends. I can never understand how people actually look at him and adore him. The only explanation I can think of is that Trump is very effective at psychological control and brainwashing. I read somewhere that he has studied hypnosis techniques and uses them in business and media.

A lot of people in America who think that the two major parties have ignored them and that their government simply doesn't work for them have heard Trump speak their language and vow to give them a voice they have never had before.  I've always been an admirer of Obama, but keep in mind that under his watch, Wall Street was bailed out while millions of Americans were foreclosed upon.  Under his nose, tens of thousands of Americans were dying from opioid overdose seemingly without anyone doing anything about it.  Now, I understand that these problems are complex, and I think Trump's response to COVID suggest he would have been no better at handling the opioid epidemic (with overdose deaths flat since his innauguration, which, to be fair, is better than the previous trend).

Secondly, to us (mostly well educated, white collar workers), the economy really didn't change all that much when Trump became president.  The trend that started in the aftermath of the financial crisis more or less continued linearly.  For people at the lower end of the income spectrum, making close to minimum wage, there actually was a step-change starting in around 2018.  At that point, the labor market finally became tight, and employers were forced to start increasing wages.  I don't think you can attribute that to Trump, but its not like the Obama administration (somewhat forced by the Republican congress) and the fed at the time, committed some own goals on the economy.  Trump was right (policy-wise) to hound the fed to keep interest rates low.  Trump was right to push fiscal stimulus (even though I disagree with how he did it).

All that being said, I think progressives need to be better at listening to what the people they purport to represent want, rather than presuming to know better, or, at the very least, explain why their policy preferences are better for average Americans instead of presuming that this is somehow self-evident and sneering at them for not somehow managing to understand by magic.

I'll give two examples, both related to Latino voters, who seem to have shifted significantly towards Trump.  The aims of the BLM movement are noble, and many of their policy goals will benefit anyone, including Latino voters, who encounters the police.  But how do you think imagery of Che Guevara, who, ideology aside, was objectively a murderous despot, particularly to Cuban emigres in South Florida, plays?  Secondly, something like 90% of people of Latino descent have never heard of the term "Latinx", don't know how to pronounce it, feel it wipes out their heritage, and sure as hell don't want to be told who they are by a liberal elite.  Now, I get that gendered language is problematic for some people, but you can't impose a fix from above.  In some ways, those are trivial examples.  But they are very representative of the attitudes of progressives to the people they believe should naturally support them.

I would suggest more listening and less sneering.

BC

Amen, except you've forgotten the profound anti-Catholic bigotry that has infected the Democratic Party. If Rubio had become the Republican nominee in 2016, he would have become President, and the Democrats would know what real trouble they're in. They assume that the Latino vote is just naturally going to become Democratic and that simply does not follow.

Trump's America, by the way, is the same as Obama's America which was the same as the earlier America's.  Nothing chaned in the twinkling of an eye in November of 2016.