Had the Democrats ran a half decent candidate, they could easily have won. But they're just not capable of doing that.
Harris wasn't the worst possible replacement, sure. But the Democrats have several very competent governors who could have done a lot better, but that was not considered.
“If only all those idiots on the right and in the center could see they should vote for the bumbling but well-intentioned candidate over the obvious liars and thieves” is an explanation that feels good to tell yourself, but also incredibly patronizing and prevents actually understanding why people vote the way they do.
I find the arrogance of the left pretty abhorrent. I also despise aspects of the right, but boy does the left rub me the wrong way.
Personally, I don't expect people on the right to come around. I am mystified by people on the center who looked at Trump and Harris and decided Trump was the way to go, or even just didn't care. If you'd like to enlighten me why they did that, I'd be interested.
My real confusion is people on the left who did this. They decided that Harris didn't say the right things about Israel, or they were upset at not having a primary, or they were still upset about Bernie, and decided to stay home. That is baffling.
He already was president for 4 years, which - aside from a lot of crazy talk - was a pretty stable and prosperous time.
OTOH, Harris had no track record to talk about, and hardly impressed anyone in any way.
you did NOT just write this seriously???! :) I hope you are being as sarcastic as one can be or did you sleep through it. just check how much of the total national debt comes from his first term… it is arguably the least “stable and prosperous” 4 years any American who is alive has ever seen
The short answer to your question is that the Democratic establishment in general and Harris in particular repeatedly lied throughout the Biden administration, culminating in the bald-faced lie that Joe Biden was completely competent. This was done with the attitude of “well what are you going to do? Vote for the other team? Don’t be ridiculous.” There were so, so many other things throughout the Biden administration, it felt (feels) like a race to the bottom.
So Trump, who is notorious for lying, won. To be fair to Republicans, Trumps lies are more like crazy exaggerations sprinkled with outright bullshit which somehow is more palatable than being gaslit.
If the defense of the Democrats is “Well look at how bad Trump is!” it should at least be acknowledged that is one of the worst defenses possible. And in general, if my options are to be stabbed by person A twice, or by person B once but person B expects me to be grateful, I might just go with person A.
The end result is we will keep toggling between the two parties until one of them decides to run using sane people. I sincerely hope that will be the Democrats this year.
Swamps are rich ecosystems with incredible natural beauty and diversity. Draining a swamp is extraordinarily bad in general, even if good for wealthy property developers.
Ironically, it seems that "drain the swamp" turns out to be an apt metaphor for what Trump and that gang have been doing, as promised.
Like the man said, I'm definitely tired of all the winning. Emoluments clause be damned.
Technically, no, they did not come up with this thought on their own. It's been heavily propagandized that 'voting does no good, so just stay home". I just want to point that out as it's an active attack on American voters.
People that are actually leftist don't vote because there's nobody that represents them. Most Democrat politicians are centrist.
Joe Average the Trump voter got to be the way they are from a "grooming" process of some kind.
Who would Trump have ever have picked up something like that from?
But it’s of course a hellishly complex problem