Republicans pull in a consistent number of votes every election because they have the hateful moron brigade as a consistent voting bloc. Dems win when there is higher turnout because they motivate people to show up, and lose when there is lower turnout, but they sure as shit aren’t appealing to the hate brigade.
Trying to be reasonable and polite with Republicans like Liz Cheney is what took the wind out of the sails of the Harris campaign. They did the fucking appease everyone bland bullshit and lost. That is what you are saying is the right thing to do.
Your theory is just a theory, and a weak one. The evidence suggests that the election was mainly just a backlash against inflation and immigration, as has happened across the world to parties of all stripes. Not much could have been done to avert the outcome. But it is also clear that a bunch of voters were pissed off by what they perceived as Democrat excesses on cultural issues, and apparently many of those people were in swing states.
More generally: “just turn out the base” is usually a losing strategy in democratic politics. For a simple reason: the cost of turning out your own base is that your will fire up the opposing base and turn them out too. To be sure of winning an election in democracy, you will need to get your hands dirty and persuade people. In practice that will mean tacking towards the center and making compromises.
Republicans pull in a consistent number of votes every election because they have the hateful moron brigade as a consistent voting bloc. Dems win when there is higher turnout because they motivate people to show up, and lose when there is lower turnout, but they sure as shit aren’t appealing to the hate brigade.
Trying to be reasonable and polite with Republicans like Liz Cheney is what took the wind out of the sails of the Harris campaign. They did the fucking appease everyone bland bullshit and lost. That is what you are saying is the right thing to do.
Your theory is just a theory, and a weak one. The evidence suggests that the election was mainly just a backlash against inflation and immigration, as has happened across the world to parties of all stripes. Not much could have been done to avert the outcome. But it is also clear that a bunch of voters were pissed off by what they perceived as Democrat excesses on cultural issues, and apparently many of those people were in swing states.
More generally: “just turn out the base” is usually a losing strategy in democratic politics. For a simple reason: the cost of turning out your own base is that your will fire up the opposing base and turn them out too. To be sure of winning an election in democracy, you will need to get your hands dirty and persuade people. In practice that will mean tacking towards the center and making compromises.