Chuck Darwin on Nostr: I don’t think Harris lost because of campaign missteps. To put it another way: ...
I don’t think Harris lost because of campaign missteps.
To put it another way: it’s hard to think of a campaign she could have run that would have overcome the negative ideological environment in which the election took place.
We don’t yet fully understand that environment.
We do know that the disastrously misguided political operations of the Democratic Party over the last four years contributed significantly to the problem.
❌Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, Garland, et al. utterly failed to grasp the threat posed by Donald Trump’s Republican Party,
including its Supreme Court branch.
They sentimentally overestimated the attachment of American whites to the liberal order.
They failed to take seriously that vast numbers of Americans inhabit far-right information communities.
They undervalued the importance of showing cultural solidarity with working-class voters.
And so on and so forth.
A lot went wrong, politically.
The richest, most militarily secure democracy in the world doesn’t embrace authoritarianism unless lots of mistakes have been made.
The current prevailing theory about Trump’s victory is that most Americans,
irked by an unpleasant encounter with inflation,
cast an anti-incumbent vote without giving much thought to the consequences of that vote for US democracy.
I don’t totally buy this whoops! theory.
🔥My sense is that, in this era of the Internet, there are millions more fascists in this country than people think,
young men in particular.
🆘And I believe that many more millions are fascinated by Trump not for his supposed business prowess
but for his transparent wish to hurt others.
⚠️He is an evil guy, a villain
—and many Americans are excited by it.
Harris and the Democrats, by contrast, are boring, boring, boring.
In this sense, the election was like a choice between four more years of church or four years of violent entertainment.
➡️ Nihilistic consumerism, as much as authoritarianism, prevailed.
Of course, political science is not designed to investigate this kind of stuff.
The clearest insights we have come from the realm of philosophy and literature.
Hannah Arendt and Primo Levi did not rely on focus groups.
To put it another way: it’s hard to think of a campaign she could have run that would have overcome the negative ideological environment in which the election took place.
We don’t yet fully understand that environment.
We do know that the disastrously misguided political operations of the Democratic Party over the last four years contributed significantly to the problem.
❌Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, Garland, et al. utterly failed to grasp the threat posed by Donald Trump’s Republican Party,
including its Supreme Court branch.
They sentimentally overestimated the attachment of American whites to the liberal order.
They failed to take seriously that vast numbers of Americans inhabit far-right information communities.
They undervalued the importance of showing cultural solidarity with working-class voters.
And so on and so forth.
A lot went wrong, politically.
The richest, most militarily secure democracy in the world doesn’t embrace authoritarianism unless lots of mistakes have been made.
The current prevailing theory about Trump’s victory is that most Americans,
irked by an unpleasant encounter with inflation,
cast an anti-incumbent vote without giving much thought to the consequences of that vote for US democracy.
I don’t totally buy this whoops! theory.
🔥My sense is that, in this era of the Internet, there are millions more fascists in this country than people think,
young men in particular.
🆘And I believe that many more millions are fascinated by Trump not for his supposed business prowess
but for his transparent wish to hurt others.
⚠️He is an evil guy, a villain
—and many Americans are excited by it.
Harris and the Democrats, by contrast, are boring, boring, boring.
In this sense, the election was like a choice between four more years of church or four years of violent entertainment.
➡️ Nihilistic consumerism, as much as authoritarianism, prevailed.
Of course, political science is not designed to investigate this kind of stuff.
The clearest insights we have come from the realm of philosophy and literature.
Hannah Arendt and Primo Levi did not rely on focus groups.