view the rest of the comments
politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
The base isn't going to be put off by it, but that's not who they're worried about. Every election is divided by independent swing voters and yes, some of them do care.
The 33% that constitutes Trump's base probably likes him more after every racist outburst, but they alone don't win national elections.
I've seen a lot of people raise doubts about whether there really are significant amounts of swing voters this time 'round, and I'd sort of tend to agree – if not for any other reason than it seems bizarre that somebody could be vacillating between Trump and Harris
Totally, Trump's not really trying to win any more voters, everyone has already made their decision. He's mudding the waters and hoping he can discourage people from voting in general to hurt Harris.
The only way he can win is if a majority of people don't vote. If you don't vote, it's accepting a second Trump presidency.
If everyone voted, and especially if everyone under 40 voted, the Republican party would lose in a landslide. There's a reason that the Republicans are so big on voter suppression.
Campaigning these days is not about convincing anyone to vote for one candidate or the other. Everyone who might conceivably vote will have known who they'd vote for before the campaign season even began.
The campaign is about convincing the people who would vote for you that they actually should show up to vote instead of staying home or just going about their day. As a bonus if you make your opponent look like a big enough clown, maybe you can demoralize the opposition's voting base so they don't bother showing up to vote.
This is a big part of why Republicans always want to make it as hard as possible to vote: The people who tend to vote Republican have perverse incentives (lower taxes, ban abortion, etc) so they're generally much more motivated to get out and vote despite barriers than the typical Democratic voter who just wants a sane government but probably feels like sanity is never delivered on no matter who wins.
That might be true but democrats do have perverse incentives to vote this time. Women weren't an out group last election.
There are enough swing voters to deliver a Democratic victory in 2012, Republican in 2016, Democratic in 2020, and either way in 2024.
I agree with you that it seems ridiculous. The policies and personalities are completely different so it's difficult to imagine people who can't decide between the two.
But I think you have a lot of people who are disaffected with politics in general, who think all politicians are the same, who probably don't pay too much attention to the news, who make up this bloc. And they probably vote in a reactive way, if at all - a referendum on a bad economy or whatever news breaks through to them. Maybe it's only 10% of voters, but that's the margin that decides all these elections. And they are potentially swayed by a constant drumbeat of negative Trump news, especially that he now no longer faces an opponent with their own significant visible flaws.
There are far more ignorant people than you could ever imagine.
I didn't think there are undecideds, but there are fringe people on one side that he can lose and some on the other side who will secretly vote for him.