Politics 2025

[Elok]

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/08/a-median-voter-theory-of-right-wing-populism.html

Somebody did a study last year finding that European parliamentarians are on average much more liberal on "social" questions (most meaningfully, immigration) than the median voter in their respective countries.  Which is to say that right-wing populist movements appeared in those countries for a reason.  It may be the same in our own; certainly Trumpism seems to speak closer to the average American on immigration than Democrats and pre-2016 Republicans.  This suggests (to me, at least) that the most reliable way to beat Trumpism would be to move to the center on those questions.  At present the D strategy seems to be staying hard-left on immigration (and other issues) and trusting in their more palatable stances on other issues, and our current president's abrasiveness, to turn out votes for them.  Which doesn't seem to work very well so far.

Personally, I'm somewhere between apathetic and ambivalent on immigration, and getting all het up about it mystifies me.  But it's one explanation why the American left can't seem to reliably beat the single stupidest figure in US politics ...

[Buster's Uncle]

Chasing the center is a mug's game they been playing like fools since before you were born.  It IS a chase, the center being further right every year - EXACTLY not what the country needs.

[Elok]

Okay.  So, why is the moron beating you?  What is your side doing wrong here?  I mean, I can buy the elections as three specific outcomes with no ties to larger phenomena (2016 came out of nowhere; 2020 he lost to relative normie Biden because we were getting tired of the zaniness, plus COVID; 2024 you have the cumbersome aftermath of Biden's abrupt stand-down) but that avoids the bigger question of why the ape has any staying power at all.  He is very bad at basically everything politicians are supposed to be good at.  He has essentially no talents.  He has essentially never had a positive approval rating.  Somehow, this yields him getting re-elected after a sort of bizarre abortive half-coup involving a half-naked painted guy in a racoon/bison hat storming the capitol.  That didn't sink him.  The man is not doing a bang-up job.  He would be hard-pressed to do worse.  He's just bouncing between unforced errors at this point.  The explanation that he is giving some sizable percentage of the country what they want (and not just his true believers), while your folks are not, is unpalatable but more persuasive to me than any others at this point.

(I find myself circumlocuting to avoid saying his name and triggering the censor autoreplace.  This is annoying and I am registering my protest.  He is not Voldemort.  Voldemort was sometimes competent.)

[Lorizael]

The Democrat strategy on immigration is just not hard left, unless anything short of mass deportation and ethnic cleansing is to the left. The borders certainly weren't "open" during Biden and Obama's terms; they both detained and deported millions. As conservatives love to mention in a weird, incoherent gotcha, Obama built the cages [Sleezebag] put kids in. The primary difference between them and [Sleezebag], ironically enough, is that they were much more likely to detain and deport undocumented migrants with criminal records/charges.

[Lorizael]

[Sleezebag] lost the popular vote, lost the House, lost the popular vote by a lot and lost the Senate, and won the popular vote by the second smallest margin of the century, ahead of only 2000's hanging chads, in a century with extremely close margins. Maybe ask Republicans why they keep nominating him.

[Elok]

The Democrat strategy on immigration is just not hard left, unless anything short of mass deportation and ethnic cleansing is to the left. The borders certainly weren't "open" during Biden and Obama's terms; they both detained and deported millions. As conservatives love to mention in a weird, incoherent gotcha, Obama built the cages [Sleezebag] put kids in. The primary difference between them and [Sleezebag], ironically enough, is that they were much more likely to detain and deport undocumented migrants with criminal records/charges.

I was thinking more of sanctuary cities, which are a very, very bad look.  You are correct that Obama and Biden deported plenty.  I have no idea why this isn't sufficient, or why anybody cares this much that their fruit gets picked by people without appropriate paperwork.  I just know that this is something which a lot of Americans, and not just Rs, seem really worked up over, and the President, for whatever reason, appeals to them on that.  Or did until he actually engaged in his current round of mass deportations, and his approval rating on immigration specifically dropped.  Even so, the fact that he is being a stereotypical autocratic thug with armies of inept club-swinging goons rounding up utterly random brown people without even checking if they're illegal, and four out of ten Americans STILL think he's doing a fine job on this ... that says something!

Looking at a -immigration-deportation-poll-el-salvador-81f8040599b9c585554678371e12ed5a]poll conducted in April, eighty percent of Republicans said he was deporting enough or should be deporting more.  No surprise there.  But fifty percent of independents and twenty percent of Democrats said the same thing.  And he started the El Salvador thing well before April.  Moving on to mid-July, you've got about 60% of Republicans approving of work raids, of officers wearing masks, and of arrests being conducted like military operations.  Another 15-20% unsure.  For independents, about a quarter outright approve and another quarter are unsure, for all three.  10-15% of Democrats, give or take, approve, and equal margins unsure.  Conclusion: the typical American doesn't want this, exactly, but he probably wants something between this and what Obama did.  What does that look like?  Beats me.

I know why the man keeps getting nominated; he's turned the GOP into his personal cult and he will primary anyone who speaks against him.  The more interesting question for me is why is he winning, by any margin at all?

EDIT: The stupid autocensor broke my first link.  Leaving broken link up as support for my case that the autocensor is a nuisance.  https://tinyurl.com/49n7xtup

[Trenacker]

Okay.  So, why is the moron beating you?  What is your side doing wrong here?  I mean, I can buy the elections as three specific outcomes with no ties to larger phenomena (2016 came out of nowhere; 2020 he lost to relative normie Biden because we were getting tired of the zaniness, plus COVID; 2024 you have the cumbersome aftermath of Biden's abrupt stand-down) but that avoids the bigger question of why the ape has any staying power at all.  He is very bad at basically everything politicians are supposed to be good at.  He has essentially no talents.  He has essentially never had a positive approval rating.  Somehow, this yields him getting re-elected after a sort of bizarre abortive half-coup involving a half-naked painted guy in a racoon/bison hat storming the capitol.  That didn't sink him.  The man is not doing a bang-up job.  He would be hard-pressed to do worse.  He's just bouncing between unforced errors at this point.  The explanation that he is giving some sizable percentage of the country what they want (and not just his true believers), while your folks are not, is unpalatable but more persuasive to me than any others at this point.

(I find myself circumlocuting to avoid saying his name and triggering the censor autoreplace.  This is annoying and I am registering my protest.  He is not Voldemort.  Voldemort was sometimes competent.)

Several reasons.

Premise One. [Sleezebag] understands, probably intuitively, that social media has transformed what elections do in the eyes of many Americans.

[Sleezebag]’s core support comes from people who are humiliated—both by the unhappy circumstances of their own lives as well as by what they see in media. Fox News has been assuring them for decades now that dinner party liberals are laughing at them, that their way of life has been characterized as “bigoted” or “backwards,” and that the Democratic Party wants to make it impossible for them to live and believe as they do. Well, here comes Donald [Sleezebag] to send you constant uplifting messages of glorification. You’re one of the “true” patriots. It’s okay to be you. It’s everyone else who’s bad. He’s like their psychiatrist. He’s juicing their self-worth, and that’s more important to them than any legislation or money or policy achievement will ever be.

Never forget that, "You're good just as you are" is something more people wait to hear their whole lives. It's one of the most reassuring phrases in the English language. It means we can rest easy. The hard work of change is over, or unnecessary to begin with. For many, it's liberating.

Why is it possible for a politician to offer emotional rewards to the exclusion of more traditional results? Because voter confidence in public institutions has cratered. Despite unprecedented levels of partisanship, it is also extremely common to hear voters complain that the two parties similarly inept, similarly corrupt, and both committed to policies that “don’t do anything for people like me.” This isn’t objectively true, but it is deeply felt. So a large number of people don’t vote because they think a politician will do the work of actually governing. Just ask them. They’ll happily use “bad leadership” and “poor results” as a bludgeon against Democrats, but when it comes to a Republican, well, [Sleezebag] just needs more time, or else the President really can’t control costs. In other words, they’re happy to be hypocrites when it might add to their rhetorical arsenal, but it’s not really about the tangible results that [Sleezebag] can deliver. It's about the pleasure they get when [Sleezebag]--their proxy--wins the vote, escapes punishment, gives them sanction using all the most legitimate symbology our society can muster, and gives their alleged detractors a taste of the bitterness they've been choking on for so long.

So what can a politician do? He or she can perform, using their celebrity to project loud messages of praise and criticism that give supporters an increased sense of self-worth.

Premise Two. The market position of Fox News is so dominant, conservative spin is increasing the starting point for all news discussion. Hence, [Sleezebag] appears less incoherent. Conservatives don’t see the full range of his misdeeds, his frailties, his poor judgement. Inconvenient facts are suppressed. Lies are told. All cities are crime-ridden wastelands. All universities are overrun by lazy protesters. Democrats care only about deciding who is “woke” and who must pay and letting shoplifters get away with it. Fox News is starting to become ubiquitous in the way Johnson & Johnson products did a few decades ago. Did you know Band-Aid™ is a brand name for adhesive bandages (plasters in the UK)? That a Q-Tip™ is a brand of cotton swab?

Large number of voters are unsure what the Democratic Party stands for anymore because conservative media has successfully rebranded it. And the conservative media model is so successful, formerly liberal institutions like MSNBC and CNN are tacking right in search of greater market share from viewers who only want their own views repeated back to them. How many liberals do you know who talked about Sydney Sweeny’s jeans? How many conservatives do you know who talked about liberals talking about it?

Fox News created a world in which no crime that could possibly be committed by real [Sleezebag] is nearly as bad as what imaginary Hillary Clinton would surely do in his place.

Premise Three. [Sleezebag] brought paranoids back into American life, and he created a permission structure to disbelieve any information that causes distress. Americans are now fully authorized to live in a fantasy land where any inconvenience can be waved away as “fake news” or potentially suspect. And they often lack the education and experience to fight their way out of misinformation traps.

Even better, [Sleezebag] wants nothing of his supporters beyond their vote. If they don't like bad news, they don't have to keep it! Climate change? Not real! COVID-19? Not real! It's life in Easy Mode.

The reason the Democrats can’t move their platform right in search of voters is that there’s already a party for narcissists, and they’re not going to outflank it. The Democrats can rebrand themselves—that is, they can potentially tear down the strawmen that have led some moderates and swing voters to bolt temporarily right—but they shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that success will lie in adopting Republican positions.

The media bubbles also help explain why blind partisans--the conservatives who aren't much fans of [Sleezebag] but haven't abandoned him--stick around. Because if you hum loud enough, and don't go looking too hard for disconfirmation, Fox News will eventually lull you into complacency.

Premise Four. A sizeable percentage of the American electorate has no interest in democracy. They don’t understand what is actually Constitutional. They aren’t concerned about the fates of others—only themselves. [Sleezebag]’s behaviors, including his coup, don’t bother them because they wouldn’t have minded had he succeeded. America isn't an idea to them--just a piece of land where too many other people have a say in what goes on. To them, the worst thing about January 6 was that it was temporarily inconvenient for them to have to explain why they supported Donald [Sleezebag].

Thanks to Fox News, they are convinced that the United States is gripped by a border crisis that doesn’t exist, and because they are zero-sum thinkers, they are jealous of every minute that politicians talk about or help anyone who isn’t them.

[Lorizael]

I know why the man keeps getting nominated; he's turned the GOP into his personal cult and he will primary anyone who speaks against him.  The more interesting question for me is why is he winning, by any margin at all?

Again, the last quarter century has been nothing but very tight margins. We're currently extremely polarized, so anybody who manages to get the nomination of a major party is going to get roughly half the votes. You can point to declining party membership as evidence against the thesis that we're polarized, but that quickly evaporates if you look at actual voting patterns. Most unaffiliated voters are, well--I hate to say this--like me: despite their non-affiliation, they still identify as leaning in one particular direction... and almost always vote in that direction. They are unaffiliated in name only.

So, no, I really think the more important question is why the Republican party decided to sacrifice any inkling of integrity or backbone for such an obvious, demented, and not especially popular crook. They have agency, dammit. It is not unreasonable to ask why they let this happen. And they did, very clearly! You can easily pull up videos from 2015 and 2016 of just about every Republican who hasn't since quit the party saying, "jfc, don't elect that guy. we're ruined if we do!" They knew, and they were right, and they did it anyway. They are not required to give in to demagoguery just because they want to win. Somehow, Democrats manage not to. They keep sending out Clintons and Bidens. Their most extreme candidate was... a Black man.

[Buster's Uncle]

Elok, we ain't feeding the attention-hog the attention it's willing to ruin the world just to get - not naming it on my dime.

See y'all, there's a really basic -stupid- political principal in play here, one I used to get a girl liked elected student body president when I was in the ninth grade - the name most out there wins.  I PLASTERED the building with her name, and she didn't have any real negatives to overcome.  Her opponent had a serious chance, mind you - Wildman was an amiable mildly retarded boy who everyone knew and liked, and the novelty candidate factor -it would be funny- was considerable.  -But papering the world with "Be for Bonner" -and probably enough kids who refused to play with their own poop while voting- did do the trick.

I saw a deacon get elected once on the same name recognition principal - the preacher didn't mean to, but had to mention him every time he talked about upcoming deacon elections over some point of eligibility.

The Pig's negatives are what they are -arguably the mildly retarded w/o the amiable, plus SO much more- but they've ALL been saying his name incessantly for NINE Years now, the only7 mystery being how people -including Republikkkan leadership- could be SO stupid/credulous as to take the -rotten, stinking- bait.  I can only conclude that about half of everyone is also venal/evil.

I also still half-believe that he's the Antichrist; for doing signs and wonders he's got that anyone ever supported him, and getting away with all the crows deaths and doing treason on live TV.

[Elok]

Again, the last quarter century has been nothing but very tight margins. We're currently extremely polarized, so anybody who manages to get the nomination of a major party is going to get roughly half the votes. You can point to declining party membership as evidence against the thesis that we're polarized, but that quickly evaporates if you look at actual voting patterns. Most unaffiliated voters are, well--I hate to say this--like me: despite their non-affiliation, they still identify as leaning in one particular direction... and almost always vote in that direction. They are unaffiliated in name only.

So, no, I really think the more important question is why the Republican party decided to sacrifice any inkling of integrity or backbone for such an obvious, demented, and not especially popular crook. They have agency, dammit. It is not unreasonable to ask why they let this happen. And they did, very clearly! You can easily pull up videos from 2015 and 2016 of just about every Republican who hasn't since quit the party saying, "jfc, don't elect that guy. we're ruined if we do!" They knew, and they were right, and they did it anyway. They are not required to give in to demagoguery just because they want to win. Somehow, Democrats manage not to. They keep sending out Clintons and Bidens. Their most extreme candidate was... a Black man.

Trying to organize my thoughts on this.  You may be on to something in the sense that the GOP famously has greater party discipline, so their coalition, such as it is, will hold together.  I'm sure you've read the old Scott piece on Conservative vs. Moderate, where conservatism is defined by exclusion from a center-left norm.  Democrats really do have a broader and more unwieldy coalition to manage, or so it seems to me--everyone from raging moonbats (of different stripes, economic and social, and they frequently disagree) through to basically my center-left parents and now I guess a few NeverTrumpers who jumped ship, plus whichever moderates can't stomach Trumpism at the moment.  Possibly an Orange Man couldn't take over the Dems, in that one who tried would flail as everybody took their toys and went home rather than fall in line.  If he did get the nomination, though, I suspect he would lose much more badly than T ever has because the floppy moderates would sit out the general rather than support him.

I mean, realistically, try to imagine a leftist Donald who makes insane campaign promises about nationalizing every company and legally mandating race and gender quotas, and indulges in off-the-cuff musing about airdropping heavy weapons into the Gaza Strip, or whatever the equivalent would be (fill in your own if you like).  I'm pretty sure he or she would get pummeled.  Polarization would not matter.  That person would not get anywhere near half the vote.

[Buster's Uncle]

Party discipline?  Not since 2008 - but they're united in hatred of the imaginary left, no discipline to it.

Can you say speaker fight?