185
I spent hours trying to persuade US voters to choose Harris not Trump. I know why she lost | Oliver Hall
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2024
185 points (87.4% liked)
politics
19098 readers
4062 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
No, that's very clearly how you heard what he was saying. If we're talking about messaging and its effectiveness then you strawmanning his words into inane caricatures won't help us figure out why his messages work.
Every single message he has put out about illegal immigrants boils down to "they're bringing drugs and crime, they're illegally voting, and open border liberals keep letting them in." Liberals have obsessed for so long about perceiving this as an attack on poor brown people that they forgot it's also ironically a defense of poor brown people.
I'm not going to cop to strawmanning here, but I will grant that people who are receptive to his messaging on immigration might hear it differently than I do.
Perhaps part of my difficulty understanding how someone could resonate with that messaging without being an irredeemable racist stems from it not being based in reality any time there are actual numbers available from law enforcement. Drug couriers are citizens far more often than they are immigrants. Illegal immigrants have a lower crime rate than citizens. Noncitizens attempting to vote is rare and usually results in prosecution. "Open border" means something very different to me, e.g. intra-EU borders than it seems to mean to Trump.
Despite all that, Trump's supporters feel like he's telling them the truth about these issues and everyone who contradicts him is lying. The explanations that come to mind for me are... uncharitable. I'd like to hear alternatives.
He got almost half of the Latino vote, and we are bleeding Latino support. That's not racism. It means there's something else happening.
Further, you'll get no argument from me that they believe lies. But we are seeing record numbers of asylum seekers, many of which are legitimately abusing the system. When we ignore that problem and pretend it's not happening and that it doesn't have acute financial impacts on border communities, we abandon our chance to provide a counterpoint to the lies.
"They're not voting" rings hollow when these folks see reports of arrests for non-citizen voting, and then see this happening. When we pretend these things aren't happening or downplay them, it not only feeds Trump's narratives, it also strips us of our ability to be fact checkers.
The people at the bottom of the economic ladder believe and support him. They are not all irredeemable racists. We need to stop disparaging them as such or we will never get them back.
I think the main thing I can take away from this is I'd be terrible at running a political campaign. I already knew that.
While I can understand how more traditional conservative messages resonate with people, Trump's are outside my Overton window. I can see the mechanics of how it works, and I can empathize with people who feel like the current system is failing them, but not with those who feel like Trump is going to fix it.
I'm disappointed your comments are attracting downvotes. They are on-topic and well-reasoned.
I appreciate your response and understand your conundrum. It's hard to make sense of this because his movement seems so abhorrent sometimes.
Consider for just a moment, though, that the downvotes are proving to you exactly the argument I'm trying to make. I'm squarely on the left and despise Trump, but for years the left has cared more about being "right" and punishing people who disagree in life and online, than about being open to diverse people and opinions.
I really hate to have to echo tired right-wing talking points, but the terminally online left is our single most toxic bloc, and they exert huge amounts of control over what topics and opinions are "allowable" online. You get hammered with downvotes and shouted out of the room any time you even try to consider another perspective, even if you do it politely. I can see how someone looking in from the outside would start to doubt our sincerity in arguing for diversity and tolerance. We're an awfully intolerant lot, all things considered.
What's funny is I'm not a part of the terminally online left. It would be hard to deny the terminally online part while posting on Lemmy, but I lean more libertarian than left. I voted for Gary Johnson in 2016. Now some reader here probably thinks I'm a terrible person.
Trump's 2016 election convinced me to compromise a lot and vote for team blue even if I had major differences of opinion of certain policies. His attempt to steal the 2020 election cemented that decision, as that's a long-term threat to the continued existence of democracy in America.
They voted for a rapist with a pack of white supremacists. They are irredeemable and they were never going to vote the other way. Thinking you can win them over is insane.
If you want to write off half of the Latino population as irredeemable, then be my guest. Bernie wouldn't, and I hope an acolyte will emerge and follow his example. I'll be right there with them.
Latino has nothing to do with it. They're humans, and a sizeable portion of humanity is just awful. Trump erases morality and makes them proud of their awfulness. You probably believe that all humans are intrinsically good but that's wishful thinking.