Honestly, it's difficult for me to mind meld into a republican. Their messaging always sounds to me like "shit sucks and it's supposed to suck. I want you to go fuck yourself and live a life full of toil as I tighten the screws because I want to profit off of it! I do not want to know what other cultures are like." And then they all start cheering wildly. Their boogeymen make my skin crawl. I don't see a lot of trans people and blue haired feminists causing civil unrest. I think generally messaging and education enable people to say that feminists want a choice and a fair shot. Not that you should even endeavor to be seen as acceptable through their lens; in my experience that's an intractable fool's game that becomes a barrier to living a life full of that which you find important. In addition I am simply stupified that the Dems can take the torch for the border wall and take the project higher and still the Republicans call Dems the party of illegal immigrants. That should be your crown jewel as a country of ashes and cruelty. Then of course you have your firm base of racism and sexism - they'd codify men and women can't be friends + you were assigned one at birth" on day 1 if they could.

But what I do know is how to fucking hate liberals. You can build a house on that shit. I can even conceive of the right wing attack as well. You get all the WEF "eat ze bugs" rhetoric where they're trying to put you in cages and allow you to scream in the Amazon mindfulness cubes. Inflation would be a thing that governments do to rob people of purchasing power and is therefore a lib thing (don't ask about war). They think you're the party of HR and big tech (spiderman pointing at spiderman). They think you're the warhawk who wants to babysit the middle east (sometimes, other times they also want to). You'd hate how INCREDIBLY corrupt they are; their messaging is like a sponsorship from a big company that you hate (spiderman pointing at spiderman). They siphon everything nice for themselves and they (spidey senses) cheat at the stock market. I bet all sorts of foul shit happened in Ukraine. I bet all sorts of shit happened with Diddy and Epstein. I bet foul shit of both types is still happening.

So I could comprehend doing a harm reduction by being a republican if I never knew about socialism and still hated the libs. I could never imagine in a million years being excited because my boss is going to save so much money by dumping shit into rivers.

This is just what happens in a declining country with an enforced two party system: people blame the decline on the incumbent party and vote for the other party in a desperate attempt to right the ship. But the decline continues and people blame the decline on the new incumbent party and vote for the old incumbent party back in a desperate attempt to right the ship.

At the end of the day, Harris couldn't distance herself from the Biden administration by virtue of being part of it. Her not invoking the 25th amendment meant that she either cosigns to everything the Biden administration has done, including genocide in Palestine, or lacks the leadership qualities to make decisive decisions. Factor in her being a terrible candidate in general and the (truthful) perception that she didn't earn her spot as the presidential candidate (ie she lost the only primary she participated in and was only handpicked at the last minute) and it shouldn't be that surprising that she got BTFO.

I honestly think any Democratic candidate that isn't working directly for the Biden administration like Gruesome Newsome would beat Trump because Trump is also a known quality and a shadow of his former 2016 self, but it goes back to what I said in the first paragraph. The US is going to be worse off in 2028 than in 2024, people will blame it on the GOP, and whoever is the Democratic candidate would BTFO their Republican rival. The smarter political operatives like Gruesome Newsome understand this and are setting themselves up to run in 2028. He's probably going to push some ghoulish "liquidate the homeless" initiative in California to show how he's "tough on crime." I guess this also shows Harris's poor political instincts. In a way, the DNC pretty much set her up for failure whether they realized it or not.

i don't think it's that republican policies reflect popular opinion but rather that popular opinion has turned against voting because it doesn't fix anything

Because left-of-center people -- not even "leftists" mind you, just people who broadly want to Improve Society Somewhat -- were told loud and clear by the Harris campaign that their support wasn't needed, so they stayed home. It's still too early to show this definitively, but I believe the final results will bear this out.

I think it's two things:

Firstly, identity politics is a hell of a drug and Trump has put the blame for the current miserable situation on the "Wokes".

Secondly, America is a country where you have beaten into you from a young age that voting every 2 years is how political action is done. Protest are constantly put down as childish inconvenience at best and actively criminal at worst. With that in mind how as an American do you voice your frustration with the incumbent? You vote for the challenger.

NBC exit polls

dems look like a party of over-educated weirdos who failed to message on the economy -- the Important Thing. losing 2nd and 3rd income quartiles, only 10 point margin for union families, trounced with first time voters and those who think the economy is Not So Good or Poor, and those who are Dissatisfied and Angry. lost latino men and those without any college. Few voted chiefly on foreign policy and those who did swung for Republicans (no one gives a fuck about Gaza, obviously). And abortion wasn't salient-- nearly half of those who though abortion should be legal in nearly all cases still voted GOP.

More upshots: Harris may have reduced the number of "double haters" but the remaining haters swung clearly to Trump. Vance salvaged his favorable/unfavorables and appears at par w/Walz. Those who decided late (within the last week) broke clearly to Trump (RIP squirrel).

Same as it always was, the answer is material interests

people want their pre covid life back

As a non-american I don't quite get it. People must think their lives will materially improve under the republicans, but why?

the american people are unintellectual. we laugh at trump's conception of tariffs but his silly economic rhetoric and proposed policies sound good and correct to a lot of fools.

SQUIRREL