I actually think this is a very important lesson for Democrats: if you expect voters to vote rationally, you will lose. You can’t win by trying to appeal to people’s intellect and reason, you have to try and appeal to emotions and passions. If that sounds potentially dangerous, that’s because it is, but unless they’re willing to abandon democracy, I don’t see any other option.
Who could have guessed that “I’m 100% aligned with the guy who is helping to kill your extended family, but the other guy is probably worse” would result in a negative emotional response.
Although, to be fair to the Democrats, it is difficult, if not impossible, to appeal to every potential voter’s emotions, especially in the Israel-Palestine conflict. It’s essentially impossible to try and appeal to the emotions of those sympathetic to Palestine without upsetting voters who are sympathetic to Israel, and vice versa.
Yeah, there’s no perfect “everyone loves me” choice for any issue. I do think the salience of the issue was probably different between Muslims and Jews though. “Not giving Israel more free bombs in their time of need” when they’re already dominating the battlefield is a different level of criticality than “is callously killing my family”. Plus, many Jews were also passionately against the genocide. It wasn’t simply a matter of adding up all the Jewish voters and Muslim voters and going with whichever number was bigger.
There was some path that minimized the number of voters so turned off by the choice that they’d abandon the Democrats, and I’m confident where they landed was no where close to that. I’m also confident that getting that one issue right would not have turned the tide and made Harris win, it’s just one of many she failed to handle by charting the path that was “I’m Biden, but reliably able to form sentences”.
It’s not even just logic versus emotion. It’s what was on offer. People are hurting. Harris said that was an economic victory and it wouldn’t change. Trump acknowledged they were hurting and promised change.
The post election and exit polling made that extremely clear. Running a stock corporate campaign that claimed Biden was doing everything great was never going to work.
I was an Elizabeth Warren supporter, but watching her give speeches I knew she was doomed when I realized that she was trying really hard to get people to think things. Every single one of her policies was fantastic, but her delivery was more about thoughts than feelings, and I’m convinced that little distinction of stagecraft, more than anything else, is what sunk her campaign.
It’s the same thing with Biden trying, legitimately trying I believe, to provide student loan relief and getting cock blocked by the Supreme Court, but then just asking people to think about the hard work he’d done, rather than picking a loud emotional fight on behalf of the students who’d just got the rug pulled out from under their feet.
You can apply this same lesson to a lot of Democratic messaging failures lately. Getting people to feel things is always going to win over getting them to think things.
I think she tried, but in a very ineffective way. The problem is the emotions that many, if not most Americans are feeling right now are centered around anger, resentment, disillusionment, angst, etc, and I don’t think Harris knew exactly how to capture that vibe. Admittedly, it’s a tall order.
I think what people wanted was someone to tell them they were right to be upset and that there were going to be big changes, but that’s risky because Harris was part of the incumbent administration and because it potentially alienates people who are pretty ok with the status quo and don’t want things to radically change. It’s an extremely difficult (if not impossible) balancing act, which, obviously, Harris did not pull off. To be fair to Harris, she didn’t have a lot of time to try and find the right balance given the unusual circumstances surrounding her nomination.
This is amazing. Kamala didn’t do enough so we are going with the guy who has literally said he will fuck up everything we stand for.
I actually think this is a very important lesson for Democrats: if you expect voters to vote rationally, you will lose. You can’t win by trying to appeal to people’s intellect and reason, you have to try and appeal to emotions and passions. If that sounds potentially dangerous, that’s because it is, but unless they’re willing to abandon democracy, I don’t see any other option.
Who could have guessed that “I’m 100% aligned with the guy who is helping to kill your extended family, but the other guy is probably worse” would result in a negative emotional response.
Not the Democrats, apparently.
Although, to be fair to the Democrats, it is difficult, if not impossible, to appeal to every potential voter’s emotions, especially in the Israel-Palestine conflict. It’s essentially impossible to try and appeal to the emotions of those sympathetic to Palestine without upsetting voters who are sympathetic to Israel, and vice versa.
Yeah, there’s no perfect “everyone loves me” choice for any issue. I do think the salience of the issue was probably different between Muslims and Jews though. “Not giving Israel more free bombs in their time of need” when they’re already dominating the battlefield is a different level of criticality than “is callously killing my family”. Plus, many Jews were also passionately against the genocide. It wasn’t simply a matter of adding up all the Jewish voters and Muslim voters and going with whichever number was bigger.
There was some path that minimized the number of voters so turned off by the choice that they’d abandon the Democrats, and I’m confident where they landed was no where close to that. I’m also confident that getting that one issue right would not have turned the tide and made Harris win, it’s just one of many she failed to handle by charting the path that was “I’m Biden, but reliably able to form sentences”.
It’s not even just logic versus emotion. It’s what was on offer. People are hurting. Harris said that was an economic victory and it wouldn’t change. Trump acknowledged they were hurting and promised change.
The post election and exit polling made that extremely clear. Running a stock corporate campaign that claimed Biden was doing everything great was never going to work.
The thing is, many of the people who were hurting economically and wanted Trump to change things are already crediting Trump with fixing the economy. Polling in swing states between October and November showed a huge swing in voters perception of the economy even though nothing actually changed. So I’d argue this is just emotion for a significant fraction of voters.
I’d say a perception. But yeah it feels a lot easier to deal with stuff when you believe it’s temporary.
I was an Elizabeth Warren supporter, but watching her give speeches I knew she was doomed when I realized that she was trying really hard to get people to think things. Every single one of her policies was fantastic, but her delivery was more about thoughts than feelings, and I’m convinced that little distinction of stagecraft, more than anything else, is what sunk her campaign.
It’s the same thing with Biden trying, legitimately trying I believe, to provide student loan relief and getting cock blocked by the Supreme Court, but then just asking people to think about the hard work he’d done, rather than picking a loud emotional fight on behalf of the students who’d just got the rug pulled out from under their feet.
You can apply this same lesson to a lot of Democratic messaging failures lately. Getting people to feel things is always going to win over getting them to think things.
I think that Kamala was known as the vibes candidate, she was going for appealing to peoples emotions?
I think she tried, but in a very ineffective way. The problem is the emotions that many, if not most Americans are feeling right now are centered around anger, resentment, disillusionment, angst, etc, and I don’t think Harris knew exactly how to capture that vibe. Admittedly, it’s a tall order.
I think what people wanted was someone to tell them they were right to be upset and that there were going to be big changes, but that’s risky because Harris was part of the incumbent administration and because it potentially alienates people who are pretty ok with the status quo and don’t want things to radically change. It’s an extremely difficult (if not impossible) balancing act, which, obviously, Harris did not pull off. To be fair to Harris, she didn’t have a lot of time to try and find the right balance given the unusual circumstances surrounding her nomination.
positive emotions only. no downers allowed.
It was a dumb idea.
Using this logic, how exactly did Trump not win in 2020??? It’s almost like absolutes don’t work in reality.
I think it’s going to be a very important lesson for dumbasses that voted against continuing some semblance of democracy.
enjoy that pretentious win for now shitbags. I hope it keeps you warm at night when we’re in work camps.
If it doesn’t, don’t worry, the piles of burning bodies will.