I am extremely upset about the David Hogg / Maher interview (Update 2)

Infighting — Geez, happening in Virginia now. Democrats have candidates on the ballot in all 100 state districts. This is from the article: (emphasis mine.) virginiamercury.com/...

The full-court press is led in part by Dr. Fergie Reid Jr., a retired physician and longtime political activist who has made it his mission to recruit candidates in every district, especially those overlooked by traditional party infrastructure.

The son of Dr. William Ferguson Reid, the first Black Virginian elected to the General Assembly since Reconstruction, Reid said this milestone holds special meaning in a year when his father, founder of the 90 for 90 Voter Registration Project, celebrated a milestone birthday.

snip

Despite his effort in putting Democrats ahead of Republicans, Reid’s role hasn’t been without controversy. This cycle alone, he claims credit for recruiting Democratic candidates in 23 Republican-leaning districts and hasn’t hesitated to call out the Democratic Party of Virginia for what he sees as strategic failures. That has sometimes strained relations with party brass.

In a Feb. 8 email obtained by The Mercury, Tina Winkler, a top DPVA official, warned local party leaders to be cautious when dealing with Reid, accusing him of being “harassing and intrusive” and urging that they were “not obligated to take his calls.” She also expressed concerns that he was encouraging some candidates to skip the required petition process.

I don’t know what it true or not. But I don’t like the infighting. Seems like it is always party leaders being cautious about those from outside their ‘closed’ group who have the audacity to criticize or challenge them.

To be clear, I’m talking about recruiting voters, not candidates.  I’ll readily admit that candidates face different challenges, including the determination of issue priority within their respective electorates.

Having said that, I have no problem with primary challenges involving honest, local Democrats.  I do, however, tend to thumb my nose at carpetbaggers, partyhoppers, and vanity candidates.  We have a person in my state who is all three of those.

Thanks for the clarification. I am kind of brain fogged today.

No, I’m sorry, but that’s just not how it works. Two-thirds majority of voters is not going to translate into supermajorities in Congress. Even if that two thirds dissatisfaction with Trump means that number are actually willing to vote for the Democratic candidate in their state  or district, which is not a given. The structural impediments from the Constitution and gerrymandering (both the intentional gerrymandering by partisans in red states and self-gerrymandering of urban liberals in blue states) mean it would take a much larger majority in the nation to reach the needed threshold in Congress. 

Agreed with many of your points, but what’s so heroic about Josef Stalin? He was a brutal Soviet/Russian dictator who murdered millions of innocent Russians.

I’m pretty sure progressive2016 was using the context of WWII when FDR, Churchill, and Stalin came together to defeat Hitler, even through the amount of hatred and contempt between the West and East.  “The enemy of my enemy” and all that.

The acceptance of that in no way lessens the horror of Stalin.  

Yes, that’s what I meant. As bad as many disgruntled former Trump voters are, most are not as bad as Stalin, so if FDR and Churchill could work with Stalin to defeat Hitler, we can work with disgruntled former Trump voters to defeat Trump.

Thanks for the explanation. It makes perfect sense.

Yes! I agree with what you are saying and would love nothing more than impeaching the orange one and holding these Republican enablers accountable. But the one thing we overlook in that, besides the 30-40% of the public that’s ok with all of this no matter what, is who would then be president after impeachment. I don’t think a president Vance would be all that much better. Or if he goes down, how about president Mike Johnson?

The only good thing in that scenario is that neither Vance nor Johnson has the devoted followers or the charisma to build the kind of base that Trump has. But the only way that either can happen requires an act of God, so no use thinking about it. 

But getting the party fully on board with returning to being a New Deal / Great Society labor and antitrust party is too much to ask for. Despite the historical evidence for not only putting the GQP out of the race in DC for two or three elections, but perhaps, again for two or three generations. While building our story in the states. If red states got all the financial benefits including wages and savings that their grandparents and great-grandparents for, they might abandon the Republican party in a decade.

But that is too much extra work reconfiguring the economy wholesale for workers as opposed to nice dinner parties with rich donors and their power sharing sessions over coffee and creme brulee.

But voters are generally completely ignorant of the almost storybook advantages we had in so many ways. And the things that weren't as such are lessons learned which may also serve as shortcuts. Right now though, maybe we're getting the government we deserve so far.

Maybe if we educate voters and get them angry about what they might have if they become demanding of the party we'll get somewhere.

A third of eligible voters stayed home last year, which is far more than the Biden-Trump swing. Give them a credible reason to turn out—i.e. an actually populist platform—and you’ll win back a lot of those swing voters in the process.

People do cling to cherished beliefs, but there is usually a tipping point. Consider the spouse whose partner is cheating. Friends will notice the (in this imagined case) clear cut signs but they are in denial.. but there comes a point when the evidence mounts up and a crisis and change in beliefs happens.

I should be clear that the tipping point for the Trumpites is the total wreck of US that is now underway. --and polls show T’s popularity is plummeting.

I wonder what it takes for the tipping point to happen in this country.  Here’s just a small sample of trump’s deeds:

• suggesting people ingest bleach to fight a virus
• inciting mob violence to overthrow democracy
• making an idiot of himself by exclaiming to 70M viewers on live TV that black immigrants were hunting whites’ pets and eating them
• totally botching a pandemic causing us to lose 400K more than we should have, and have the worst per-capita death rate of all developed nations, and worse than many undeveloped ones,
• being convicted of 34 felonies,
• being found liable for rape and defamation and having to by $80M to the victim,
• being found liable for massive financial fraud and having to pay $400M in damages and be banned from doing business in NY.

That’s just a tiny sample of trump’s crap.

In any other nation, any single one of those things would have been “tipping point” to get rid of him.  What the fuck is wrong with this country, that trump can get away with fucking ANYTHING and EVERYTHING with zero political consequence?

Poor media, poor civics education, years of manufactured hate from the right, inadequate Democratic organizing and pushback. As I know you know, several of those items you list aren’t believed by a big portion of Trump voters. 

It might be how an individual ranks their values and priorities in comparison to trump’s behaviors, past and present, and (nonexistent) “policy proposals,” AKA executive orders.

For example:   if you are a blatant racist, then trashing a Black community by saying that they are eating whites’  pets scores higher than a trade deficit.   One is emotional, the other practical.   Most people are far more invested in their emotions than their practicals until they get forced down their throats.  EG:  they might be willing to set aside their racism for a minute when their attention turns to something that is more pressing to their actual life, unless they view their racist thinking as explanation for their problems.  IE:  my dog disappeared (reality: bc I let it out the door unsupervised and it never came back) and it must be bc Black people ate it, trump said so.   They are totally off the hook for their own behavior, trump has justified them, and they are OK with maintaining their status quo.   Worse, they now have a “reason” for going after that Black community. 

If you believe that any woman who is raped or sexually abused “asked for it” and is therefore, responsible, then trump being found liable for rape and defamation is an injustice to him, and he is not responsible.   My own grandmother “explained” to me one day that rape is not a crime bc “men have needs,” and the woman is always responsible for her own assault.  Unbelievable, right?   Are these the words of a young girl who cannot explain her own abuse any other way but to put the blame on herself?   Doubtful my grandmother would have been troubled by trump’s sexual assault, and would have found EJCarroll responsible.   Besides, didn’t you know that women secretly enjoy being raped and assaulted?   /s.  Didn’t we hear that a few years back?  Her fault, not his. 

The list goes on.  

Are trump’s tariffs and incompetent mishandling of this country on every level problematic?  I guess it depend on who you ask, what their value system is and then how that syncs up with trump.

As you point out, any one of those things on your list would have been a game over for many countries, but not here?   Why is that?   Or as you and I say, “What the fuck is wrong with this country?”   There’s the million dollar question, but I think we all have a generally correct idea about what drives this.  It’s safe to say that it’s not any one thing, but an interacting systemic complex of societal issues which interface with any one individual’s psychology.   Which is why it’s hard to solve it bc the variables move around minute by minute.  Which is why republicans are better at coalescing their base.  They are not interested in the mercurial nature of those variables, DEMs lament and lose sleep over them bc a very big DEM value is big tent inclusion, down to the minute details.   For republicans it tends to be issue oriented, for DEMs it’s always personal, and we worry to the point of paralysis about leaving someone out and hurting feelings.

I think the sociologists have better answers than the economists, bankers and business people to this problem, but that’s just what I think.  I could be completely full of shit.  

Sounds like you're looking for what already exists. They're called Republicans. Enjoy. 

I think that there is a portion of Trump voters from this last time that are worth keeping in the consideration fold. Not allowing them into the cold per se, but considering them potentially gettable.

as I stated in a reply off the main thread, 49.8% of people who showed up to vote voted for Trump. Not all those people are MAGA. At best, MAGA are about 30% of the population. A disturbing figure, but also a wide minority figure. That means about 20% of those people who voted for Trump, low information types Who are strictly reactive in their voting behavior, have the potential to sour on him pretty quickly as prices continue to go up. So I don’t think the economic message is a bad one, but I think it needs to be targeted to the right people. I won’t engage with a MAG a person, ever. Like shit on my shoe, I have scraped them off. But I do look for opportunities to engage with people who are not MAGA who are experiencing frustration that prices are still high and that communities are being affected financially, to include them, by the gutting of federal government jobs.

The opportunity as I see it is going to come when enough of those 20% of voters are suffering. They voted for suffering, it sucks that plenty of people that didn’t vote for him who showed up to vote at all are also suffering, but there’s no way around that. it’s the widespread suffering that’s going to move the needle, and I would at least counsel to be open to taking those opportunities when they present themselves, after discerning whether or not the target person is MAGA or not. I think plenty of those voters that voted for Trump will abandon him the second their life either stays hard or gets harder.

First, the MAGA component is about 40% not 30%. This is born out IMO by the GOP winning the popular vote in the House the last two elections and 3 of the last 5.

for over a century now only about 2 out of 3 eligible voters casts a ballot in ANY federal election  I haven’t uploaded a newer version of this from FairVote.org but I should. 

It’s pretty explanatory. 

200 years ago about 80% of those who could, voted. Every election, for about 60 years. Then the bottom dropped out of voting and has never recovered. 

No one knows why.  

So when you say 40% of voters are MAGA you mean 40% of the 66% of eligible voters. Which means that the people who elected Trump (like those who elected most of the presidents for the past century) were just 26.4% of the eligible voters. 

About a quarter of the people who could choose, were the ones whose votes mattered most. 

You know how in a group of friends, say four of them, one of them ends up being the most tiresome and ludicrous of fools? That’s the moron who chose Trump, on behalf of the rest of us. 

THAT in a nutshell is how we got #FeloniousDon and his corrupt misadministration.

I agree with Matt Z.  Fuck ‘em for what they did and fuck ‘em again if they refuse to admit they were wrong.  Are they adults at all?  Or are they overgrown children who can’t admit what is blatantly true.

I have a “big tent” idea: DEMOCRACY!! If they aren’t interested they aren’t worth the time.

You cannot have any tents large enough when the oligarchs own all the tent poles. We need a revolution. We must take power from the billionaires. As a society we are free to organize it as we see fit. 

Agree but just look at Bernie and AOC’s town halls with many Trump voters angry.

Why is it only Bernie and AOC out taping into this anger and not more democrats ?

The democrats have a goldmine in PR sitting right in front of them and are blowing it. 

Bernies rallies rarely are even mentioned in the press.

SMH

Yet some of them claim to thrive on liberal tears

And they will cut off their nose to spite their face in order to screw a marginalized group.  I’m with Matt on this.  You really can’t scream a warning louder than we did prior to the election.  These voters are united more by what they are against, than what they are for.  And they are against anyone unlike themselves.

Agreed … I’m afraid that this past election has changed my view on Republicans.

It did not for me. I’ve known they were self-deluding morons for 45 years.

Every republican president since Nixon has been a nightmare and a disaster for America. Every last one of them has been a criminal and a fraud.

After Nixon, absent some radical change in the GOP, you had to be a fucking idiot to vote for them.

But there was all that racism and greed clogging their brains.

But after 20 years of voting for, “Vote republican and get rich,” you would think some glimmer of, “It’s been twenty years and I’m poorer,” would break through. But, sadly, “Black people are being given all my money by Democrats,” was the only message they could accept.

I have zero sympathy for them, and only contempt for the damage they have idiotically done to all of us.

Yes, this makes it hard to have alliances with them — many of them imagine and celebrate our pain and suffering as a hobby. It’s pretty awkward for us all to then turn around and work together on a common goal. 

Seconded.  Apologies mean diddly.  Chasing authoritarian- adjacent chaos agents looking for a self righteous anger engagement high behind their privilege is a non-starter for me. You broke it , you own the results 

The prevailing attitude I see from regretful MAGAs is “I shouldn’t have voted for him but what choice did I have? I could NEVER EVER vote for Kamala.”

So yeah I agree. They do NOT get a pass. 

The prevailing attitude I see from regretful MAGAs is “I shouldn’t have voted for him but what choice did I have? I could NEVER EVER vote for Kamala.”

Is this an opening to ask the question “why not?” and see if a fruitful conversation evolves?

I am getting a chuckle.    Have you ever tried it?   I tried it with my family.   Lots of profanity and name calling and zero explanation about their thinking.  Why is that?   Bc they don’t THINK about anything, they don’t UNDERSTAND anything, and they are driven by EMOTIONS.    So, the “answers” are consistent with that.  Swearing and name calling.   I abandon that ship a long time ago, never going back. They are sailing off into the sunset without me.  Bon voyage. 

The delusion of the left is that the dems could ever get the majority of white voters.  

Obama did it!!  So, yes we can!!

He did not

Nope, not really.

If trump is so repulsive and so is Kamala, the choice they had was to not vote for either.

Something about that what choice did I have but to vote for a rapist felon stinks like day old puke to me.   They had a choice.   No pass here either.  

After the election when everyone was tripping over themselves trying to analyze what Harris did wrong, what the Democrats did wrong, blah blah blah. I said then and I still maintain that the Trump voters voted for him because they hate the same people he hates. 

True.  But his base isn’t enough to win an election.  He won because of “the price of eggs”.  Everyone was pissed off about the covid inflation and he was going to magically lower prices, “on day one”, and he pulled a few percent that voted for Biden away from Harris.  And of course he lied.  

But until the elections in Canada, all of the wester parties in power lost elections after covid.  This wasn’t unique to the US, it was voters punishing the party in power during covid and inflation.

The price of eggs was a smoke screen

His base is very close to swimming an election.  MAGA is at 40%, not the 30% people claim. 

Republicans have won the popular vote in The House last two elections and 3 of the last 5. They have begun making in roads to the Hispanic community and that is extremely problematic to Democrats. 

Your post is very well taken.

Yeah, all of these fuckwits seem to be saying, “I had no idea Trump would be so bad, but what could I do? Kamala would have been worse!”

A moldy baloney sandwich would have been better than Trump. How could Kamala have been worse? How could Biden II have been worse? Literally not having a President would have been better than Trump.

If Kamala were President, the stock market would still be solid, unemployment would remain low, our international standing would be secure, our allies would remain allies, the dollar would not be collapsing and would remain the world’s reserve currency, prices would be going down. We were FINE when Biden was President. Harris would have continued the good times.

Just as Hillary would have continued the stellar economy of the Obama years, instead of the collapse of the first Trump debacle.

What these dipshits mean is, “I cannot accept the idea of a WOMAN being President, and it was bad enough having a black MAN as President, but a black WOMAN president is well beyond a bridge, three highways, a suburban street, a forest path, falling off a cliff, and another bridge too far. I will suffer any loss or degradation to avoid being ruled by a black woman (more to the point, I will endure YOU suffering any loss or degradation), I’m shocked, SHOCKED, this is happening to ME!”

Weee dee dee dee, da dee dee dee dee, the leopard burps tonight.

Aweem away, aweem away,...

OK then. Now explain why Sherrod Brown lost.  It goes beyond black woman.

Team Harris/Walz was awesome, by the way.

This right here.  People here continue to ignore that 40% of the country are Fascists. Then add another 9% of a mix of low info voters and our stuck with Rethugs getting the popular vote in the US House two elections in a row.  

There’s no mea culpa. There’s “Look what you made us do.”

I think a refusal to say “I’m sorry” is in the white supremacists (and their groupies) oath, as decreed by a sadistic dictator. I think he declared to never apologize, because “it’s a sign of weakness”. I don’t need to hear “Should’ve voted for Kamala”; I want to hear, “I was played. I was wrong.” 

I watched the Hogg/Mahrer interview- and I was wrong. I’ve been a fan of David’s since he survived the Parkland H.S. massacre. I used to be a fan of Bills. But I did start watching his show again, skeptically, to hear an opposing side. It helps to argue “fair & balanced”. So, unable to stomach FAUX, Mahrer is attempted. Al Gore was on last week; that was good. But his Left/Right 2-person panel included Kevin McCarthy, whose lip are still orange. He will never say, “I’m sorry” or even admit to being wrong

David was nauseating, and Bill was like a puke bag on an airplane seat. He just gave him a place to spew. I hope enough people of his generation push back against that interview to surprise him, unflatteringly so. What he should be talking about are the reasons why he’s a victim of gun violence: Hate. Anger. Propaganda. Money. He owes his dead classmates that much.

Swarms of murder hornets put Felon47 back into the Oval Office, and not just from his rallies. The predators mauling public opinion- Alex Jones, Bannon, podcasters of hate; the worms behind the curtain, like Stephen Miller and Roger Stone; deliberate disinformation from the NRA and Fossil Fuel behemoths, and of course, Elon Musk’s massive wealth and media mic, are why David Hogg should be Marching for Our Lives. Saying Democrats are “annoying” and “sensitive” and not reaching out is parroting propaganda. I’m all for calling out all weak, greedy politicians, who are cowards and derelict of duty. But we’re not all cut from the same cloth. If there is one size that fits all, its resistance to fascism.    

Yep. Because they’ll cry about republicans and their harmful policies on Monday and then vote for them again on Wednesday.

People on the left should realize that those tears are not significant signals of change of worldview, it’s just garden variety complaining. The same type of complaining you do when you go to your favorite restaurant and they don’t put enough cheese on your pasta. You complain to your fellow diners and friends, but you still go right back next Friday night for dinner.

Good one

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Huge maga brother-in-law (who hit on my wife years ago) texted me that a friend near us wanted to start going fishing on my boat regularly this summer. Been using fuck a lot lately in normal calm conversations even. Text him if his friend voted for that mother fucker in the white house (old white man in red county) I really don’t care to hang with magas. He replied that that was not nice. Essentially told him we are in a trump world now so suck it up snowflake. We have all been degraded by trump.

If that friend wants to spend time on a boat, then why doesn’t he just work harder and buy his own? Or as Mitt Romney would advise, just borrow money from his parents? Or start a meme coin? Or any day now, he will be flush with cash from all the money he has saved at the grocery store, and on his taxes. There’s so many ways for him to have everything he desires, if he just works harder at it, pulls himself up by his own bootstraps and whatnot. /s

Right? Everyone has parents that can give them a small loan of $1m.
Asking to use someone else’s boat sounds like communism /s

I would never have the nerve to tell someone I wanted to spend time fishing on THEIR boat.    If they invited me, great. If not, then see your comments, or stand on shore of the river and cast away like most of the world.  

How arrogant that this friend of your BIL would assume you’d just let him without him even asking your permission. And arrogant of your BIL to assume you’d think this was alright. It smacks of gross entitlement and obnoxiousness. That you’d just let this guy go out on your boat any time he pleases (will he maintain, put gas in or even treat it well?). You are allowed to say, “F*7K No! It’s only to be used by immediate family members only, not friends or others who I don’t know all that well.”

They want to hurt other people yet demand politeness.  FOH.  

A family member texted me after not hearing from her for seven months. I had to think about if I’d just ignore it, or let her have it. But instead, I kind of gave it back to her, and said that I thought she blew me off because of the elections. “Oh no. People can have their views as long as they don’t shove it down my throat.” 

I’m having a difficult time with it. Hopefully, there won’t be much communication, but I am fighting telling her I just can’t be in this relationship. This is my sister. We don’t talk that often, anyway, but I saw one of her facebook posts, and I couldn’t even finish it. She was going on and on about how mistreated he is, how mean people are, and that he’s a great leader. Ugh. I haven’t told her I saw it, but I really am struggling with saying something or keeping my mouth shut.

We haven’t been close for years, so I guess it shouldn’t matter. But I’m having a really hard with this. I’m so close to saying that I’m done. This relationship is over. The damage caused is too much. 

Those tears aren’t even worth that speck of dust in their eyes.

1 Conservative tear = 0.60 crocodile tear

= absolute jack shit

They're an indication that we're doing things right.

The more, the better.

If we aren’t going to win over Trump voters, we have to turn out our own at a far higher rate.

There’s a core of 30-40% that we aren’t going to win over. They’re too far gone. People who have voted democrat before and switched? Yes, they need to be switched back, but I don’t see a need to bow down to every racist and homophobe in rural Iowa in the hope that they’ll someday vote for us.

Probably right around 30%.

People who have voted Democratic, please.

You doubt that? I hear that a lot from folks — mostly union folks in the trades that were D voters that moved to Trump and feel he and the R’s better understand their needs. 

I was merely correcting the "vote democrat" to the correct English, non-MAGA term.

Was typing with a migraine. This site really needs to allow us to edit  comments.

Their white supremacy needs

Ok… everyone doesn’t look through that prism— several Mexican and Black folks in this camp that made that switch. 

That is irrelevant to my point is that race motivated many white voters.  

Ok, and we’ll never change that. It likely also voted folks to vote for Kamala because she was black. If someone truly values the color of ones skin as a reason not to vote for someone, they’re not going to have their mind changed. 

My point was that plenty of union voters moved from D to R. 

 thousands in Ohio who voted for Obama twice voted for trump twice 

algorithms and bots, data collecting and targeted misinformation.. 

Yup.  One of the things that happened after Trump won in 2016, was that at every protest, every gathering, there were people registering voters. 

I don’t see as much of that right now, maybe its happening but no one is talking about it, I don’t know, but without getting voters to turn out, especially new voters, things won’t change.

Somebody can correct me if I’m wrong (and I might be) but Black women were the driving force behind that in 2017. I think the consensus now is this is a problem white people need to get their own houses in order for. You know what? That’s fair. 

Actually here it was white, black, brown men and women signing people up…..and that work has never stopped…..it just has become harder as Republicans have added more and more restrictions on who can vote and who can help people sign up to vote.

It was local Dem clubs, local organizing, and social media that made that happen,  one, simple, common core, a vanilla mission, resistance to Trump. Unfortunately, fractions followed, diviseness and multiplying fractions became a political agenda, and la di da...next?

Republicans in red states made that almost impossible to do now.

Explain losing Wisconsin, Michigan and PA 2 out of 3 times. Those aren't Red States and it categorically cost Dems the Presidency 2\3. 

were they prevented from registering voters in WI, MI, and PA?

Exactly what I was thinking about the AOC/Bernie tour. They are doing the right thing, but where are the party organizers working the crowds and signing up voters and recruiting people to take a more activist role in politics. 

One example… www.mobilize.us/…  There are organizers holding tables/events on the Oligarchy Tour.  Sanders RSVP page for each event usually has links to volunteer, register, and donate too.

Thanks for the correction. 

Awesome. They aren’t stupid, but yeah, we’ve got to make sure we are using these numbers to our advantage.

Agreed, D’s should have a national network of GOTV activists at each/any event.

Nothing stopping any Dem. Org’s from working the mile long lines and the thousands attending as some groups (including D’s) are already doing.

As with most things here, we DK peeps love to pontificate/rant without knowing all the story, nor researching, nor writers posting necessary links to even see the video’s or read the transcripts to gleam an unadulterated view of actual events.  We simply react to what the writer states as their take. 

We are often our own worst bubble makers/enforcers.

I will have to look into it further, because I did try to sign up for voter registration. I took the course, but it seemed to me that my ability to register voters was limited to certain dates/events. 

I want to help at events, but I also want to just help people in general. I live across the street from a high school. I also tried to get involved with the group working with HS. The group is mainly for students to register other students, but I volunterred my time to assist.

Sorry, but it just wasn’t clear, and maybe I need to speak to the elections office to clear it all up.

Try this link if you’d like….www.mobilize.us .  It should pick up on your location for showing local events, but if not you can enter your own preferred local and or preferred action. Click along the top boxes ie. Maps, Filters, Get Out The Vote, etc.   

Good luck and good on you!  We need more doers.

Thanks so much for the link. I will def check it out.

League of Women Voters has many opportunities to help register voters — including at local high schools. Check out your local chapter and they can help you get involved.

Thank you. I think registering people to vote is the first big step. They actually have to research what they’re voting on, and actually get out there and vote.

But the civics org working with HS students states that the earlier people start voting, it often leads to life-time voters. 

People should look what Field Team Six has been up to. AFAIK they are going stronger than ever. Are we sure they haven’t been working the crowds. 

That's why GOTV in your district focuses on registration and turnout. GOTV.

Yes,  last election saw roughly 89 million voting elgible people didnt vote, or almost 37 percent.  Thats a lot of people considering Harris lost by a little under 3 million votes.  Maybe we are focused on the wrong people.

While I could probably agree that many registered voters didn’t vote, I can’t help feeling the scenario was closer to how many were thrown off the voter rolls before election. There is a huge amount of voter suppression happening, especially in red states.

I can’t accept that it was just people who couldn’t get out to vote.

From Chat GPT and CB and the Guardian: 

Regarding registration status, the Census Bureau reported that 73.6% of the citizen voting-age population was registered to vote in 2024. This implies that approximately 26.4%—or about 62 million eligible citizens—were not registered. Therefore, among the estimated 90 million who did not vote, around 62 million were unregistered, and the remaining 28 million were registered but did not cast a ballot.

If these numbers are anywhere near accurate, it tells a story that goes beyond registered voter suppression, but yes you arent wrong.

How are older leaders going to win over younger voters?  That’s an important question for the future of our democracy.

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Actually the bigger group that needs to be won over are the independents in the 30-64 age range, those voters are the ones who switched from Biden to Trump. If Biden had been younger he would have won them.  His age was an issue (not his capability) because the media refused to consider that Trump was nearly as old and a felon.  Kamala was terrific, she closed a huge gap in just two and half months, the one thing she couldn’t overcome was the sexism, and she had double racism against her as a Southeast Asian/Black woman.  But the reason that I focus on that age group rather than young people is that young people never vote in large numbers, I hate it but those are the facts.Young people have too many things vying for their time and don’t think voting matters as much as older age groups.  The age range from 30-64 is the largest voting group, sway them and we win.  

Delivering