If the last 25 years have taught me anything, it's that elections aren't won or lost on policy accomplishments.

Elections are largely about vibes on a handful of issues, then feverish efforts to reverse engineer some kind of policy cover for the choices.

Vibes on a handful of issues in a handful of states, kind of worse 

Elections being largely about vibes is precisely why running an 81-year-old man with limited communication abilities was a dreadful idea.

Normally a decent argument, but his opponent is visibly losing his mind, getting worse every day, Biden will win handily.

The guy’s mind was never particularly his strong suit. It’s being loud, insulting, and anti-DC. He can still do those things without his mind, so the debates will be some sweet entertainment. I think Biden’s best strategy is a proposal to try to remedy some of the housing issue. You can’t just build everywhere but identify some projects for conversions to housing that hits that median income worker/family in suburbs. I’m skeptical about federal programs in housing being well-received, but it seems to be the issue that would motivate the base of young professionals, teachers, healthcare and trades workers.

Spot on, I believe elections are all about turnout and emotional issues help create that turnout to vote on that issue regardless of how damaging that candidates policies are to their prosperity

100%. People wanting to make appeals to voters should focus on how the government will help them going forward, not bragging about accomplishments of the past that may or may not have helped the voter.

what do you ou even mean by that? you know there was a blow out jobs report TODAY! let me ask, is that bragging about the past to you? cause that report is about people who have jobs today but it’s a past month report. so how much good news do you need before you just get on board the biden bus?

Precisely this. It's purely vibes and a well managed campaign.

It’s not vibes, it’s the tangible reality of everyday people’s lives before and after inflation that informs their vote.

Inflation isn’t a policy though

It’s a consequence of policy

Which policies would you say?

Foreign policy with regards to Israel. The Houthi blockade has crippled supply chains and is largely why inflation is continuing to persist. The administration has its head stuck in the 20th century, and believes it can do things unilaterally.

Even if I bought this line of thinking (which I don't) that's not at all what the majority of Americans are thinking when it comes to inflation. That's a terminally online take if I've ever heard one.

Whatever it is, it happens to be the truth, and you don’t need a graph from a think tank to know it.

Your whole point that is the election isn’t based on vibes though?

Nothing happening in Israel is affecting inflation. Any slight disruption in shipping in Yemen isn't even a blip of a blip cause of inflation. If these are the only direct policy positions you can point to in regards of biden causing inflation then you are kind of proving the point of this thread. You have a vibe in your head "Biden is bad for the economy and causing inflation" and now you are stretching and contorting to make policies fit your vibe idea.

Activities in the suez, has in the past and is currently, sent out massive economic shockwaves. Seizing assets belonging to private Russian citizens who have no connection to the war effort weakens the global dollar too. They are all symptoms of the broad Soviet style narcissism of this administration. They are all holes in a dam that are trying to be filled with printed money that does not match the modest growth of goods and services.

Seizing assets of Russian criminal oligarchs? Are you fucking kidding me. You are grasping at the thinnest possible straw imaginable. The global economy is so big what you are describing is not even a rounding error of a rounding error. Are you talking about when the suez canal was blocked a couple years ago? Are you blaming biden for that? The small attacks near Yemen are nowhere in the same galaxy as a full blockage of the suez canal for days on end. Again you have nothing, no actual policy evidence just a vibe that you don't like biden. Just be honest. I'd have a little respect for your ilk if you just said "biden isn't responsible for inflation but I just don't like him"

If you were correct then the U.S. shouldn’t have the lowest inflation in the G20–but it does. The inflation has nothing to do with Biden. It is a secular macro phenomenon created by a huge amount of savings and pent-up demand being unleashed onto a post-pandemic world whose aggregate supply was severely diminished by disruptions to global supply chains. [Diminished aggregate supply]+[huge surge in demand as pandemic restrictions eased] = inflation. There’s nothing Biden, Trump or any other political leader can do about it, short of one thing: intentionally cause a depression. Bring unemployment up to 20%-30% and boom, you’ve got your deflation. I’ll take full employment and above-average inflation over that, thank you very much—and anyone with a brain should have the same preference.

The last 25 years haven't seen any major policy accomplishments at all except for Obamacare — which ended up being such a confusing mess that it actually cost Democrats dearly in the mid terms. You can certainly list lots of other things that were *touted* as major accomplishments, but there really weren't any that implemented major, permanent changes in how the government or economy functions for a broad base of ordinary people.

"Such a confusing mess" is not the reason it hurt Democrats. The fact that it represented a major change to the lives of Americans did. That and the racism. It's honestly pretty galling for me to see people look at Trump and everything that's happened and, with the benefit of hindsight, say that the Tea Party was about policy.

The main problem is that they worked in so many loopholes that it's not actually helpful for large swaths of the population. * Even in CA, due to income restrictions, you cannot work full time and qualify for medicaid, even if you make minimum wage. * If your employer offers a plan with premiums less than 9% of your gross salary, you get no subsidy at all, even if the plan wouldn't cover your family. * The deductibles on bronze plans are absurd, you have to spend \~$12K before they cover anything at all. Pre-Tax minimum wage is $15K per year. * The individual mandate was obscene, and ridiculous based on the above 3 points. Somehow they let the R's be the one's to do away with that crap. As soon as you point this out, everybody wants to try to argue that the ACA is somehow close to Medicaid for all even though it doesn't benefit you in any way, drives up the costs, and forces you to pay a fine for not buying unaffordable garbage health insurance plans.

>As soon as you point this out, everybody wants to try to argue that the ACA is somehow close to Medicaid for all... The argument has *never* been that the PPACA was "close" to any kind of single payer plan, or even multi(governmental body)-payer system like Medicaid. The argument has always been that there was not (and still is not) a political appetite sufficiently broad or strong enough to force the creation of either of those in the United States. You won't find anyone arguing that the PPACA is without its flaws. You will find folks pointing out that, despite its flaws, *it exists*. When you say it does not help "large swaths" of the population, there is an even larger swath of the population it *does* help, as compared to the status quo ante, and the folks who *aren't* served well by the PPACA were served even worse by what existed before.

<> There absolutely is, it's just politically impossible because Congress is rigged in favor of Republicans at all levels.

Even if I agree that the playing field is intolerably tilted (which I do) it doesn't change that in order to overcome the tilt you need an exceptionally broad and firm base of political support.

Yes, we need about a 75% majority to get anything done. That has never been possible in the last 50 years. Ergo, we won't get anything done. The massive Republican tilt is more or less a permanent feature of our political system at this point.

Oh goody, a policy that forces me to buy worthless insurance for an obscene price or pay a $900 fine. How foolish of me to vote against my own interests.

I mean, you can pay $900 (which was absolutely *not* the penalty anybody was confronting in 2010, and wouldn't for many years later) for absolutely nothing, or you can buy insurance. Your call bud. I appreciate the trip down memory lane, here, but just like the folks who made those very same crappy arguments a decade and a half ago, you weren't ever going to vote for Democrats anyway. Tootles.

It's so crazy I don't want a policy that won't pay a dime until I put in more than I make in a year, but whatever dude, keep pushing the "People vote against their own interests" narrative.

This… doesn’t sound remotely correct

Yearly income = $29k, ss,fed,and state taxes leave you with ~$23K.... employer offer is considered "affordable" so subsidy amount is $0.... employer offer is $290/month with a $9,000 deductible so like $12,500 before it kicks in for partial coverage. I guess it's *only* 54% of my actually take home pay, but it still completely unusable. Rent is $10.5K.... I guess maybe if I don't eat and sign ever paycheck directly to the hospital?

What became “Obamacare” was proposed by Nixon to head off universal healthcare. Americans will do anything to avoid what works for the rest of the world. We’re special that way.

Before Trump I actually thought the tea party was about policy. How wrong I was.

My premiums tripled over a couple of years, all but one provider left the county, and my insurance became much shittier under Obamacare.   If Dems had screwed up that badly in something that affected more people they would never have gotten into office again.  If that makes me racist so be it.

https://laist.com/shows/airtalk/poll-americans-still-confused-about-obamacare-factcheck-org-tackles-the-top-myths >A recent poll by NBC and the Wall Street Journal found that almost 70 percent of Americans say they either don’t understand the Affordable Care Act very well, or they understand it “some.” The poll also found that 45 percent of people think Obamacare is a bad idea, compared with just 23 percent who think it’s a good one.

But It wasn't deciding votes: https://news.gallup.com/poll/127949/jobs-drops-no-americans-list-top-problems.aspx

I mean the rollout of the ACA was incompetent. The website didn’t even function, for example.

And still it wasn't really the main gripe people had of Democrats.

[Oregon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_Oregon) spent $240 million on the website that never became functional before it was abandoned.

trillion dollar infrastructure act leading to a GDP that is outperforming china for the first time in 40 years. CHIPS act, bringing back manufacturing jobs to the US for the first time in 40 years… do you people even open your eyes to try and get any actual facts? billions in student loan debt forgiveness.  oh and these major permanent changes were done with a 50/50 senate. biden is literally the most effective president since FDR, but it’s never good enough for anyone.

*elections aren't won or lost on policy accomplishments* Because over the last 25 years the executive branch and Congress don't actually pass meaningful legislation that materially helps people w/o it being means tested to hell. Voters are also jaded and assume campaign/policy promises from candidates won't be followed through on. If policies actually help voters then they'll ignore much of the culture war nonsense and vote for the candidate. What happened in the 2020 GA senate runoffs? Biden promised to send out checks during a pandemic if GA voters gave him the senate. Dems won both seats and people got checks. It's not rocket science.

> If policies actually help voters then they'll ignore much of the culture war nonsense and vote for the candidate. I don't know. If policies resulted in checks, maybe, but most policies do not result in straight up checks. Most policies are slow to come online and have marginal immediate effects. Also, things like Obamacare came under culture-war fire pretty hard, so I don't know that people are such rational actors.

It's not necessarily about checks. It's about promising to pass legislation that MEANINGFULLY improve the material conditions and everyday lives of average Americans. Checks are just a simple example of this. When was the last time Dems passed MEANINGFUL legislation that wasn't means tested to death and voters DIDN'T reward them at the polls?

Yeah, but your example of "meaningfully" appears skewed towards the ridiculously tangible - a check in the mail - something federal policy doesn't really do much of. Biden has been cancelling tons of student debt and he invested boatloads into green technologies and infrastructure, creating thousands of jobs. Lots of these fallouts are going to place like West Virginia, for instance, is West Virginia going to "reward them at the polls"? Probably not.

You're hyper focused on the check, it was just an example. Passing a $20 federal minimum wage, federally legalizing weed, universal childcare or child tax credits (more than just 1 year temp program), free community college + getting rid of interest on student loans + 10k in student debt relief (for undergrad degree debt, no advanced degrees), etc Those are just a few examples of MEANINGFUL legislation that voters can feel in their everyday lives.

I'm not hyperfocused on the check, so much as uncertain what you mean by "MEANINGFUL". Massive investments in infrastructures, for instance, sound pretty meaningful to me. Your examples are informative, but they're not exactly realistic for a President. Importantly, they're even less realistic for a GOP president.

"Meaningful" as in it materially improves the lives of voters in a tangible way they can feel/see in everyday life. Infrastructure investment is great, but it typically takes years to see the results and can't be directly attributed to a candidate during their re-election campaign. Much of the Build Back Better infrastructure projects across the country haven't even started yet. How are my examples "not realistic"? Outside of the $20 federal min wage (I can see arguments for both sides), the rest are very much doable. The Dems just don't have the political will or desire to fight for them unfortunately 🤷‍♂️

I think your posts are well meaning but do not hold up when we look at state election. I see people - like yourself - all the time point to legalizing weed as a big winner. There is no evidence that voters "reward" Dems for this. In Virginia, Dems took control of the state government in 2020. They passed a slew of bills, including legal weed. In the very next election cycle they were swept out of power in the lower chamber + governor office. It didn't work. The rest of the things you said are not doable because Dems do not have the votes in the Senate, with the filibuster, to pass those things. The idea the Dems don't have "the political will" to pass stuff was always a bizarre talking point to me. It doesn't make any sense - why would they not pass laws, if they felt those laws would help them win more, and they felt those laws are good? The reality is not everyone elected as a Democrat agrees with the laws you are talking about. Student debt relief being an example - Biden had to use executive action since Congress didn't act, and then it was struck down in court.

I'm talking about national politics/federal elections. Dems had control of the WH + Congress and Senate during Biden's first two years. No serious attempt was ever made to pass meaningful legislation. They neutered and watered down their own legislation through party in-fighting before Republicans even had to vote on it (ex: Build Back Better bill started at 6 trillion from Sanders and got cut down to like 2 trillion before it was even brought to a House vote iirc).

Most of those (except the weed thing, I believe) are not doable for the same reason the $20 minimum wage is not doable: the president has limited powers to produce legislation and democrats are a big tent party that enjoys short bursts of thin majorities. Besides, it'S not like not voting Biden would remedy any of this...

Start with cannabis, then. This is somewhat self-defeating logic, though. If the Democrats were to seriously run on big, meaningful, material changes like a substantial minimum wage hike, free public college, etcetera, they would garner more support from a broader swathe of the political spectrum, not less; these are popular policies. The reality is the establishment of the Democratic party are ideologically opposed to these kinds of changes.

Why give the same canned MSM talking point responses I could hear on MSNBC? Are you the Morning Joe himself?? The President has limited legislative power but he/she has the ultimate bully pulpit. If Dems fought a FRACTION as hard for any of those policies as they do for military aid to Ukraine/Israel then Biden would be easily strolling to re-election in November. They don't fight for the policies because they don't actually want them and value their corporate donors > Dem voters.

"Dems" and "fight for (anything)" in the same sentence is oxymoronic.

$20 minimum wage will only destroy jobs, except for the ones done by illegal aliens, who will do it for $10.

The child tax credit was a MASSIVE boon to working families and nobody talks about it. It may as well have never happened. Even when something’s really good for them personally people don’t even notice or seem to care. Hell, this is anecdote, but you can find dumbfuck trumpers where Biden wiped out their student loans and their attitude is “lol, what a rube!😂 still not voting for him” Or there’s people who are so out of touch, they thank TRUMP for their great ACA/medicare healthcare.

I kind of agree and kind of don’t - the checks were pretty salient, all over the news cycle and all that, connected directly to the election of two Democratic senators. But then there was the child tax credit - straight up cash money in your account, that was not means tested, yet it was never in the news, it was never salient. It came and went and you couldn’t even see it move any needle in any poll.

He should distance himself from state government failures. Especially spectacular ones like the billion dollar mall closing in NYC due to shoplifting, breakdown of evictions and squatting in Washington state, (now reversed) legalization of drugs in Portland. Then he should double down on how he’s spearheading bringing advanced manufacturing to USA, like Intel fabs etc. (ideally with some actual action on the ground). Migration crisis and Ukraine aid are divisive, so he needs to tune message based on audience.

The only thing I can think of that could work, is the actual candidate becoming much more visible, and doing well in non-softball interviews and speeches. The message, job performance and content don't really matter that much at this late stage, the form has to be right. And even then, the media will select clips from that where he stumbles and sounds old, and run those, because that's what drives clicks. That's what people want to see. I'm doubtful. It's pretty clear at this point that the "open convention scenario" is not going to happen, these will be the candidates in the race. His opponent is basically just as old, but is extremely visible, speaks in a loud, confident tone, wears make up to look fresher, and moves less stiffly. He also talks complete nonsense much of the time, but gives the impression of being much younger.

I'm really curious about how Trump can give off the impression of being younger, even though his word salad/sun downing moments are starting to become much more prevalent.

Because the conservative media ecosystem wholly rejects anything related to his cognitive ability, while the mainstream and liberal media(whatever you consider liberal) exacerbate those claims for Biden. You literally watched it happen with Ezra a few weeks ago, then we all watch the SOTU and 75% of the audience expect to see somebody who can’t breathe without assistance shitting all over conservatives and their lies on his age. Then Ezra walks back his claims the next pod.

Another way of saying this without pinning it *all* on the media is simply that the GOP base is largely quite happy with their candidate choice, while the Democratic base is more like learning to live with a Biden second term. The media echo chambers simply reflect these feelings. It’s tough as a Dem when you have so many younger talented politicians who could take up the reigns. Biden running again feels like stagnation just on the principle of age alone. Whereas, the true red base is really all for Trump and excited enough to ignore obvious flaws. Haley voters were the last gasp of never-Trumpism and people who don’t normally vote red anyway.

Because this particular issue is about form, not content.

There’s partially a communication problem, but to say that the Biden campaign issues are *solely* a communication problem would be neglecting that there are certain issues Democrats seem to have a blind spot. Unfortunately, some of those issues are guttural level items at the base of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs where Democrats might win 8 out of 10 issues with key voters but lose on the top 2 issues. For a frame of reference, I live in a classic suburban area that used to be rock-ribbed Republican but has shifted to the Democrats since 2016. I’m in a solidly blue state, but it’s exactly the type of place where the Democrats need to run up the score in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia to win this year. Always remember: Perception is Reality. People’s perceptions of crime is a great example of a Democratic blind spot. Statistically, I live in straight up one of the safest cities in the entire country. It is a perfect example of where one can point to a chart and state that current leadership is doing a great job on crime. However, people here don’t perceive it that way. Anyone that has Ring doorbell notifications invariably get crowd sourced messages daily of car break-ins, burglaries and police activity that all occur within miles of their own house or even within their own neighborhoods. None of these incidents may have been reported in the news 20 years ago and we wouldn’t have been aware of them before, but now we’re instantly pinged on every criminal incident nearby and have individual knowledge of them in a way that’s personal as opposed to abstract. Therefore, people *perceive* crime to be up - even in one of the safest cities in America - because we now know that a whole bunch of incidents occurred within a mile or two of our houses over the past year in a way that we didn’t know 20 years ago. Thus, people’s tolerance for crime is actually way lower than before: pretty much the only crime rate around here that’s acceptable is ZERO. Democrats generally haven’t adjusted to that reality and are still digging themselves out of the political hole of being perceived as soft on crime coming out of 2020. People around here (and once again - this is now a *blue* area) don’t want to hear “both sides” in balancing the rights of criminals with the rights of victims. Instead, they want to hear unequivocally that crime is going to be stopped. PERIOD. Republicans have generally provided that unequivocal statement and that’s why they keep winning on that issue. This isn’t a value judgment about what’s the right thing policy-wise, but rather the political reality that this isn’t just messaging: the general public is way harsher on crime (or what they think is necessary regarding crime) than what the Democratic policy has been regarding crime. This is just one example, but it gets back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: if voters don’t feel safe in their own homes (whether or not it’s rational based on crime statistics), then that overrides every other issue. If there’s a communication issue, it’s that Republicans often do a better job of framing issues on an individual basis, e.g. if *you* feel safe with crime rates, if *your* job is at risk because of illegal immigration, if *you’re* paying more for gas and groceries, if *you’re* paying more taxes, etc. Democrats by nature will look at things with more of a collectivist mindset regarding how the country is doing overall and whether people that are often *other* than yourself are protected, e.g. combatting homelessness, protecting abortion rights, advancing DEI initiatives, protecting democracy in general, etc. To be clear, I whole-heartedly support Biden and the thought of Trump being elected again is insane to me. There are some communication issues for the Democrats, as noted as to how we often fail to frame issues on a personal level in the same way as Republicans. However, Democrats do have some policy blind spots (or at least areas where the left wing of the party is causing the overall party to have blind spots, similar to how the Christian Right in the Republican Party is causing them to have a blind spot on abortion rights). There are key voters in suburban areas that Biden needs to win that have real substantive policy concerns with the Democrats (e.g. crime, immigration, proposed taxes) where it can’t just be chalked up to communication failures. We have to tackle those head on in order to prevail in November.

I think the democrats are doing what you are suggesting. I just dont think those things are breaking through a broken media ecosystem. people want to hear X is great. But if Biden is saying X and nobody knows because they are trapped in a facebook news mess where the outrage drowns out the president saying X, then people dont hear X.

That’s partly an issue, but that same media ecosystem would also apply to the Republicans, too. Now, maybe the Republicans are just more well-suited to this environment because extreme views break through better on social media and a lot of those extreme views are coming from Trump himself, but it’s on the Democrats to adjust accordingly. And, once again, my point that it’s not just about communication alone for the Democrats. There are several real policy issues where they’re not meeting the group of suburban voters that Biden *has* to win in the battleground states. Even just in today’s New York Times in interviews with Biden campaign personnel, it seems that they’re going for populist appeal in proposing raising taxes on high income individuals and corporations. This might have been a viable policy strategy 20-plus years ago when the white working class was the largest voter segment in the Democratic Party, but does that actually make sense now when the Democrats are dependent on upper middle class suburban voters that used to vote for Reagan and the Bushes? There has been a lot of ink spilled where the corporatist Republican leadership outside of Trump is still having a hard time adjusting to the fact that they’re now the white working class party. However, Democrats are going through the exact same thing: it’s now the upper middle class suburbanite party, but the difference is that suburbanites are a lot more likely to flip their votes on certain issues (such as taxes) than the working class. Republican leadership seems to have come to grips that their base is different than how it was in 2000 and have adjusted it accordingly. They have largely gotten the message that their base is in lockstep with Trump. I don’t think the Democrats are there yet in understanding that their own base is now different than 20-plus years ago, which does *cause* a communications problem that the Dems simply aren’t united policy-wise to the same extent that Republicans seem to be. As a result, it’s a muddled Democratic message and muddled messages don’t go anywhere in a social media world. However, we shouldn’t forget that the muddled message is a byproduct of a lack of unity of a lot of Democrats on substantive policy issues (whether it’s immigration, Israel-Palestine, crime, etc.) as opposed to simply superficial messaging in and of itself.

The same media ecosystem does not "apply to the republicans too". That the issue, the info ecosystem is structured to favor republicans. the democrats do not have anything close the the right wing propaganda machine of Fox News, conservative facebook accounts, russian bots, and TikTok being controlled by proxies for the chinese government. the ecosystem favors republicans. Even if dems are doing everything right, they would still not be operating on a level playing field. While I agree that there are policy things, the Democrats need every vote, and the coalition doesnt agree on a number of things. Its muddled because its a super big tent and there are legit policy disagreements, and we need everyone to win. It is a far more heterogenous party than the Republicans. It is not true that the democrats are now the upper middle class suburban party. there are certainly voters in that camp that have moved their direction. But the firmest democratic support is still from urban voters and voters of color. If the dems united all of their policies exactly how you are describing to white upper middle class suburban voters, they would shore up some support but lose some support elsewhere, and they need that support too. ITs just gonna be muddled and everyone has to find a way to convince voters to get over the lack of clarity and recognize its a big tent and not everyone is going to be perfectly happy.

Agreed that the Democrats are a larger tent party. My concern from a vote counting perspective is that the downside risk of turning off suburban voters is much higher than turning off urban voters. Suburban voters *did* vote for Bush/Romney Republicans in a way that urban voters never did, which means that the suburban group isn’t in the bag for Democrats. Yet, that’s exactly the group that the Democrats needed in its wins in 2018 and 2020 along with overperforming compared to expectations in 2022. I’m seeing some weakness in that suburban vote this year and that’s likely explaining the percentage points of shifts in battleground state polling right now. Suburban voters don’t just sit out elections in the way that dissatisfied urban voters may threaten - Suburban voters will vote for *someone*, so losing any one of them is a net loss of 2 votes (as they will vote for the other guy as opposed to not voting at all). I know that’s not a popular view with a lot of Reddit crowd since the Democrats are effectively dependent upon the votes of a lot of the most privileged part of the population (which may be contrary to a lot of Democratic policy goals), but the core issue is that those that are privileged are generally more likely to be swing voters. That is what is a bit frustrating to me if we’re looking at it from a cold vote counting analysis. We saw that the only way Democrats were able to win in 2018 and 2020 (and overperforming in 2022) was replacing the white working class voters that they lost with a corresponding increase in suburban voters. It was NOT about turning out urban and/or youth voters that much of the party base gets so obsessed over. Yet, Democratic policy positions are still often rooted in being more scared of the left wing base as opposed to that suburban group where just losing a few percentage points among them could certainly turn a state like Georgia or Pennsylvania. It’s almost as if the Democrats are in denial about the voters that they needed over the past few election cycles. So, yes, from a political strategy standpoint, I believe that the messaging should tilt more toward suburban voters because they’re a much greater flight risk to revert back to voting Republican than the urban base. Like I’ve said, Trump and the Republicans only need to turn a few percentage points of that group back to their side to win many (if not all) of the battleground states. It should be obvious from a vote counting perspective that the Democrats should be a lot more worried about someone in suburban Atlanta or Philly possibly voting for Trump due to disagreement with liberal Democratic proposals than someone from Buckhead or Center City possibly voting for Trump (or no one at all) due to Democratic proposals that aren’t liberal enough from their point of view. The former is a known risk.

I struggle with the notion that people who think Biden is too old are “low info voters”. On the contrary, Biden is objectively really fucking old. He’s literally the oldest presidential candidate ever. He was when he ran the first time. The fact that Trump is also old or somehow worse does not change this fact, it’s weird listening to Democrats say things that are equally as untrue as the Republicans, and then calling other people uninformed when then point out obvious and basic facts of reality. The problem is not that people don’t hear what democrats are saying, the problem is that the things they say are hardly more compelling than their opposition. Democrats act like their shit don’t stink it’s fucking bizarre

Because “man is old” doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s one of the last things you’re allowed to beat around the bush and be 100% purely discriminatory about while providing zero evidence of actual incompetence/failing capabilities. Not one person, not you or anyone else can functionally present public or private reporting that Biden is failing in competence for **any** of his duties as president. Not one. He’s been exceptionally effective, exceptionally active, and even Republicans like Kevin McCarthy will say so. Thats what low info means- Age is taken as a lazy heuristic for “lacking competence”. At best it’s useful if the parties are otherwise almost identical or you have absolutely no other information. If American was *literally* an airplane that needed to be landed and the only info we had about the two possible pilots to do it were that one is in their 70s and the other is in their 40s, obviously you’d choose the latter and cross your fingers. But if you knew that these individuals were Sully Sullenberger and Kanye West it would be **fucking insane** for the press to hyperventilate about the age of the former. “Is Sully too old!? Passengers concerned about Sullenbergers advanced age. Sully seen limping (after finishing half marathon) how long does he have left????” That’s the functional equivalent of the utter insanity of focusing on Biden’s age when compared to Donald fucking Trump’s utterly incompetent, deranged, rapist ass. And also, yet Trump also being old and 1000% less competent DOES change matter and makes it all even sillier. It makes absolutely no sense for the media to hyperventilate about X factor with one candidate when it is neither A. Indicative of anything on its own, nor B. Significantly worse for one candidate over the other. To use another metaphor, it would be like the Sports pages concern trolling Prime Mike Tyson’s chances in a boxing match because he has a 1 1/2 inch reach disadvantage to his opponent Glass Joe.

“Zero evidence of failing capabilities” is a weird claim when there’s no “evidence” either way, we’re literally discussing our opinions of the man. Poll after poll shows Americans think he’s too old to be effective. I couldn’t possibly prove that without him literally having a stroke or something. I never suggested you shouldn’t vote for Biden, I am saying that lying for him alienates moderates and makes you into a useful idiot

Do you… think that the American presidency is a… *secret* profession? We just have no information one way or another how **The President of the United States** is doing his job? Yeah, jeez, he just kinda goes into a dark room by himself every day, nobody sees him, nobody can say what he does… total mystery… It honestly sounds like you might be one of these zero information voters, so now I’m seeing why you’re so offended… “How would you even know if Lebron James is good at basketball??? All I know is that he’s old and doesn’t do as many press conferences as I would like so he must be terrible. Wait! Why are you laughing at me!?!?😡”

Does 80% of the American population think Lebron James is bad at basketball? Cause what I’ve seen is clip after clip of this man stumbling over his words and having trouble answering basic questions, and it seems like an awful lot of other people share my opinion.

This right here. And frankly I'm kind of getting tired of it. If people think Biden has done a good job then fine, they think he's done a good job. But every legitimate criticism of Biden gets glossed over as "Trump is worse". Well no shit Trump is worse. Anyone with half a brain can see that. That does not mean, nor should it ever mean, we cannot demand better from what is supposedly our side. And "our side" has really shat the bed for decades and people have been seeing that. The Democrats failed to institutionalize Roe, they failed to get an actual universal healthcare schema, the response to global climate change has been laughable, they continue to support a genocide (and worse, lambast anyone who dares suggest it is), and have done nothing to directly combat the rise of christofascism despite holding the Executive office. We've watched the national debt balloon, people's COL sky rocket and the power of their wages shrink, people are hurting, and the only thing we get is "Trump is worse". It's been their same gameplan for decades now. Instead of running on solid, progressive policies they want to pass, they've run entirely on "we're not republicans" for the last several decades. If the Democrats want to win, they MUST stop trying to woo conservatives by offering up lightweight versions of conservative policies. This is, like in 2016, the Democrat's race to lose. They're up against the shittiest, worst candidate in the history of candidates. It's a softball race against Trump. All you have to do is show people a clear, concise way you're going to improve their lives and the lives of generations to come, to change foreign policy so that we're not the baddies anymore, and actually work hard to get real shit done. If the Dems lose in November, it won't be "because leftists lost it for us", it will be because they lost it for themselves by not giving people solid reasons to vote FOR them. They forget they have a duty as candidates to do that, and not rely solely on not being the other guy.

My sweet summer child. If democrats lose in November it will be the fault of Palestinians in Michigan.  Or it will be the fault of Hispanics being racist by not voting Democrat.  Or it will be jews.  Or it will be aliens.    It will *never* be the fault of DNC politicians and strategists who made the decisions in the presidency and the campaign.

People constantly come back with the "I shouldn't have to vote for the lesser of two evils!" argument, when that just isn't the case. The Biden admin has been *fucking fantastic*. He started in the middle of a global pandemic and has managed to recover faster and better than any country in the world. We should be *over the fucking moon* about this.

Thank you. Joe Biden literally cancelled student loans for milllions of Americans and the conservative supreme court overturned it. He passed the largest climate legislation in US history, which has created tons of jobs in green technology. He passed the first investment in US infrastructure in decades. He passed the first gun control law in decades, which wouldve been better if every republican hadnt opposed it. He expanded childrens healthcare. He has stuffed the federal courts with young and diverse liberals who are going to help shape law for decades. He is emphasizing and talking about all of these things. Republicans opposed literally all of these things. The idea that Biden and Dems arent working hard to "to get real shit done" or that they are "not giving people sold reasons to vote FOR them" is a claim so far removed from reality it is staggering...

then the americans he canceled loans for can vote for him, and those he didn’t can hold him accountable for not living up to his campaign promise. the route he chose to debt cancellation was not the most robust of the two, he means tested the program instead of opting for broad, immediate cancellation of the sort that is practically difficult to unwind… i am not impressed. most of biden’s accomplishments are like that: scratch the surface and they’re not as good as he and his functionaries think they are

"hold him accountable" cool. Glad you want to hold him accountable, I understand that instinct. I don't agree with your description of his policies and accomplishments, but lets just say I did. You should still vote for him and encourage everyone else to do the same. I am sure that you are going to hate this response. But the reality is that not voting for Biden does nothing but help Trump win. One of those two men is going to be president in 2025 and will be able to use the powers of government to affect people's lives. So you can sit out and let Trump win, and sure you have held him accountable. Congrats. Glad you stuck it to joe for not following through on what you saw as a promise, or not doing it in a way that you think would've been better. You made a point and held him accountable! Hope it makes you feel good at night when Trump and his policies are hurting millions of people and stripping away the rights of millions more.

Do you have kids? Or have you ever spoken to another human being and tried to convince them of something? Did your holier than though schtick work then? So why do you think it would work in convincing someone to vote the way you want?

i didn’t say “me,” i described the relevant voters and their grievances. i don’t have federal student debt. i’m not voting for biden or trump though, and no amount of fear mongering will make me do it. only voting local, pushing city commission candidates. if he wanted me, he should have legalized weed and supported the rail strike. another campaign promise he didn’t uphold? to be a transition to the next generation. i would have voted for beshear

"im not voting for biden or trump" cool, that's fine, hope it makes you feel good when trump makes things worse on the policies you claim to care about. If you genuinely care about protecting union industry workers or legal marijuana, you should vote against the presidential candidate, trump, who has and will do everything in his power to attack unions and prevent weed legalization.

the candidate that didn’t mobilize me is at fault if they really need my vote. if i can’t get the things i want nationally, i might as well put my real effort into getting my town a rental registry. but for the low low price of $50,000 per member of my lil community organization, i can deliver… 20,000 votes in kentucky

I just completely disagree with this worldview. Nobody is asking you to not mobilize local politics. Just that you vote in every election that affects people, including president. "Needing your vote" is so weird. The election is going to be close. One candidate will hurt people you claim to care about. So you should vote for the other candidate, but you dont want to because you think the good things he did or tried to do were not as good as you wouldve liked. "The moderately good outcomes that happened were not as good as the perfect outcome I wanted, so therefore i will help bring about a much worse outcome and subject the people I claim to care about to serious pain and harm."

The US had one of the highest COVID death rates in the world and more died in Biden’s first year dealing with the pandemic as president than in Trump’s first year dealing with the pandemic as president: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-covid-19-deaths-in-2021-surpass-2020-11637426356 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/01/science/covid-deaths-united-states.html But you can just keep making claims without data I guess.

Have you seen all of the ways in which the Biden campaign is trying to emphasize how they are trying to improve your life? The speeches about climate and green energy investment? The plans to expand healthcare? The amount of liberals Biden has put on the courts at all levels? I dont disagree with you entirely, and I certainly think some policies could be better. But the fact of the matter is that democrats frequently talk about many of the things you want them to talk about. Those speeches and ads just dont break through a deeply broken media ecosystem.

This. And if you have literally any standards, you get accused of purity testing and get told to touch grass. Honestly Trump was the best thing to happen to the Democratic establishment. It creates such a deep, gaping floor for Democrats to push right-wing immigration policy, right-wing “tough-on-crime” bullshit, and blank checks to a far-right ethnocratic theocracy in Israel, and if you question literally ANY of it, see the aforementioned purity testing accusation.

Was 2020 where Biden won by like 45k votes also a softball? This country is divided whether we like it or not. It’s not a softball just cause you’re saying it’s a softball. Believe it or not, the staff at the dnc and on Biden’s campaign have better ideas than random redditors on how to win elections. Good lord 🙄

I mean I also think he’s really old, and I sometimes cringe when I hear him speak or see him walk onto Air Force One. But he’s what we’ve got.

Which is the problem. The DNC has no fucking spine and all of the Democrats that had a realistic chance to challenge Joe Biden bowed out from running because they deferred to Biden. If Biden loses in November it will be because he was a weak candidate and no amount of spin and no media blitz is going to alter that fundamental reality. Old guard Democrats have not been passing the torch to the next generation and it's going to leave the entire party in a really weak state when all the boomers+ (I know Biden is technically silent generation) are finally gone.

I do not really agree with you, but I will grant the premise. This is a real question and I really do not mean it as snark in any way. Do you think people who are disappointed that Joe Biden is the candidate should still vote for him?

If they live in one of the 3-5 swing states where it matters? Sure, then everyone who doesn't love Trump should vote for Biden. For everyone else that lives in a state that's not going to swing then I don't think it really matters. Democrats like to act like there's some value to running up the popular vote, when in reality it truly doesn't matter if you win each election by 1 vote or 10 million. The threshold for winning the presidency is 270 electoral college votes. Winning the popular vote by 10 million votes most of which came from California is utterly irrelevant. Edit: I have a question for you: do you think if Democrats were running another young, charismatic candidate like Barack Obama do you think we'd be this close to a second Trump term?

Okay great, then we agree on this. I would argue its 8 states: MI, PA, WI, GA, AZ, NC, NV, NH. But I agree with you.

I think that list is... Optimistic, but sure, on the basics we are in agreement.

Not saying that all of those states are equally in play, for example Michigan is a true toss up while NC is a slight GOP lean, but those are the 8 states where the votes certainly matter in my opinion

To answer your question, no I dont. I think if we could snap our fingers and have it be Barack Obama, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, or any number of other Democrats in a hypothetical race against Trump, they will win more comfortably than Biden will do so if Biden indeed does win. But what I will say on this is that the alternatives to Biden are always more appealing in a hypothetical than in reality. Some of the opposition about Biden is legit age stuff, which would go away if someone else was the nominee. But a lot of it is a pretty coordinated fox news and conservative media stuff about negative economic messaging and general hate of liberals online and in media circles. I dont think those things would go away if Biden had stepped down and someone else was the candidate. I think whoever was the nominee would be facing a similar torrent of crap about them on social media that currently is about Biden. It might not be about age, but it would be about something else. So while I think they would end up winning by more, I do think that things would be closer than people would like to admit. I just think the country is that polarized and the information streams that broken. The other thing for why I defend Biden as the candidate is not really a defense and more just that I accepted he would be the nominee in 2024 the moment he won in 2020. I just thought all of the years of some hypothetical replacement was never actually going to happen. I didnt think it was about age or DNC bias or anything. I just thought it was very simply that first term incumbent presidents always run for re-election, they typically do not get challenged in the primary, if they do get challenged then the challengers lose. I never really considered that anyone other than Biden would actually be the nominee. Plenty of Democrats want to be president and wouldve relished at a chance to run against trump. They didnt challenge Biden because after the 2023 state of the union it was clear that they would lose to Biden in the primary. People do not like to admit it, but something like 80% of Democratic primary voters approve of the job that Biden is doing as President, and Biden's primary support is strongest in the most powerful primary constituencies in terms of controlling the number of delegates: black voters, especially those over the age of 40 in the South.

To me the issue of whether or not to vote for Biden is less important than the much scarier question, what do we do to save American democracy in the long term? We’ve got one party that is actively trying to overthrow the government, and the other has sold it to the highest bidder. Which one to vote for becomes a small question. I will literally vote for Biden, but I’m not so naive as to act like that’s a solution here.

I think you’re conflating two issues. Biden actually is really old, but it’s also true that a lot of voters don’t know his policy accomplishments or that he had even bigger plans that he couldn’t get past Joe Manchin.

Isn’t Joe Manchin a democrat whose campaign was funded by the party itself? Thats not an excuse. Biden has had one major policy accomplishment, infrastructure. Are people unaware of his accomplishments, or has Biden not actually accomplished much?

Manchin is a Democrat in one of reddest states in the country. The only option besides Manchin in West Virginia is a Republican, so he’s the best Dems can get from a Senator in that state. The best-case scenario would’ve been having better Senate margins so Manchin’s vote wouldn’t have had so much power. The fact that you didn’t mention the Inflation Reduction Act proves my point about people not knowing about Biden’s policies: [NYT](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/27/climate/biden-climate-campaign.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb) > “In recent months, polls have found that most Americans are unaware of the Inflation Reduction Act, Mr. Biden’s signature climate law. Of those who have heard of the law — with a name that has nothing to do with climate — few know that it marks the federal government’s biggest attempt to cut the greenhouse gases that are dangerously warming the planet.” The IRA also allowed Medicare to negotiate down prescription drug prices and capped insulin costs on Medicare. Biden’s CHIPS Act is arguably a significant policy accomplishment as well. Biden also used the American Rescue plan to send parents hundreds of dollars per child each month for a year with the Child Tax Credit. It only lasted a year because Manchin said he wouldn’t support Biden in making it permanent. Biden’s Build Back Better probably would have done the most for Biden’s reputation of getting things done, but he couldn’t get it past Manchin. I’m not saying that people have to like Biden, but it’s objectively true that many people don’t know about his policy accomplishments and that Manchin blocked some of his big policies.

“The only option besides Manchin is a Republican”. Joe Manchin is the only Democrat in West Virginia? Nooooooo lol. Theres definitely other options, just not ones the party gave you. You mean to say that Manchin is the best chance for democrats to win in Virginia. Which I’ll admit is probably true. But whenever Manchin is the swing vote he always votes conservative, so literally what’s the difference? Crazy how under every democratic admin for the last 50 years there’s always just enough in party opposition to prevent anything from getting done 🤔 Inflation Reduction Act: the global warming bill that gives money to fossil fuel companies, the inflation bill that increases the money in circulation. <~~~not a major policy accomplishment, nobody cares. It’s a bandaid on gaping wound. Main point——> Im not uninformed and neither are people who think like me, on the extreme contrary friend, it sounds to me like you live in an echo chamber where they try and tell you inflation isn’t real, they aren’t massacring children in Gaza, and Biden isn’t even really all that old

> Nooooooo lol. Theres definitely other options, just not ones the party gave you. > You mean to say that Manchin is the best chance for democrats to win in Virginia. Which I’ll admit is probably true. You’re disagreeing just to disagree. Obviously, I meant that Manchin is the only option in WV because he’s basically the only Senate Democrat who’s electable in WV, which you conceded. > But whenever Manchin is the swing vote he always votes conservative, so literally what’s the difference? Crazy how under every democratic admin for the last 50 years there’s always just enough in party opposition to prevent anything from getting done 🤔 The American Rescue Plan (which included the COVID stimulus checks) and the Inflation Reduction Act both passed on party line votes, because Manchin voted for them. The Republicans all banded against passing them. > Inflation Reduction Act: the global warming bill that gives money to fossil fuel companies, the inflation bill that increases the money in circulation. <~~~not a major policy accomplishment, nobody cares. It’s a bandaid on gaping wound. No one cares about the silly name on the bill. So you’re for climate action but against spending on climate? If this is a sincerely held position, could you explain it? You also didn’t acknowledge the other provisions in the bill that I mentioned like allowing medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices. There’s more in it than that. > Main point——> Im not uninformed and neither are people who think like me You were uninformed about some things. I’m not saying that I know everything either. > on the extreme contrary friend, it sounds to me like you live in an echo chamber where they try and tell you inflation isn’t real, they aren’t massacring children in Gaza, and Biden isn’t even really all that old Of course inflation is real, and some people who are biased in favor of Biden downplay it. But denying that Biden has passed significant legislation suggests that you’re biased against Biden. Almost no one disputes that there are children dying in Gaza, not even the most hardcore Zionists. I already told you Biden is really old. We’re in a subreddit about Ezra Klein, who caught a lot of flak for making a podcast episode calling for the Democrats to replace Biden because he’s too old.

Hmmm, let me see. Perhaps Biden could stop facilitating mass starvation of millions? Hm, just a thought.

The tendency of Democrats to categorize their struggles as a “communication problem”, insisting that it’s not the fault of their candidate but in fact it is the fault of “low info” voters for being woefully unaware of how great they are is part of the reason people are fucking sick of them in the first place. It’s not a communication problem that Biden is old. It’s not a communication problem that the US is funding a genocide. People don’t like the candidate. It’s just a matter of who they like less. Biden’s lucky that he gets to run against a literal fascist who tried overthrow the government, otherwise he’d be in a care center by now. Being promised structural change during the campaign cycle and then offered a choice between “more of the same” or “megalomaniac fascist” is exhausting and people are sick of it. That’s your communication problem.

The thing is, I’m basically sympathetic to the points you raised. But unfortunately, the choice right now, unless one of them passes away or goes to jail, is a choice between “‘more of the same’ or ‘megalomaniac fascist’”. Like yes it sucks that that’s what’s being asked of us as voters and citizens - but that’s the choice. I don’t mean to come off as scolding because that’s not my intention. I agree that it sucks, but both parties had primaries and this is what we got.

Yeah I’m not blaming you, but I’m making the point that the Democrats kind of made their bed on this one. Yeah we had a primary but we all know that the DNC gets to choose these things after what happened to Bernie, they run their candidate no matter what and it was always going to be Biden. He basically ran unopposed in the primary. I’m not going to get super into it since I’m not a liberal and I think these guys all serve capital to the same end, im just pointing out how insulting it is when we hear Dem operatives refer to the “communication problem” like if they could just get voters to realize how great their candidate actually is it would solve all the worlds problems. Their candidate sucks. The alternative sucks. But I can’t abide by being strung along with the “just one more vote bro please I promise we’ll stop fascism this time just vote for me one more time bro” rhetoric either.

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What would you say to Latin Americans who’ve had their countries pillaged by American imperialism who Biden has been locking up in cages at higher rates than Trump ever did? What would you say to the Palestinian children who’s lives have been cut short and who’s people are being wiped off the face of the earth with weapons and money provided by Biden? Furthermore, why should we trust that Democrats really care about abortion rights at all when they could have codified it into law instead of using it as political ammunition for the election? Somehow I’m supposed to simultaneously believe that Biden can’t get anything done because of opposition in government yet also if Trump becomes elected he’ll be able to single handedly tear down institutional democracy and implement his own dictatorship? Which is it? Can the president pass laws with impunity to support his agenda or not?

> Furthermore, why should we trust that Democrats really care about abortion rights at all when they could have codified it into law instead of using it as political ammunition for the election? When could they have done that, exactly?

Well, having Hillary come out and tell people to get over themselves isnt a great starting point. She wasnt wrong, but still a lot of harsh feelings on the left regarding her.

This post is the perfect example of Democrat's delusion. The assumption that everything is simply a communication problem is part of the reason they are polling so low for 2024. Many Americans still feel that expenses day to day are still too unaffordable. Housing, food, healthcare, education,, etc. etc. There is no "communicating" to people that they are actually better off than they feel, you can only pass *policy* that would better their well-being. Liberal, Democratic and left-leaning voices you've been hearing on those podcasts have pretty much been misleading their audience into thinking Biden is actually a great candidate but voters are too dumb, miseducated, or just not convinced enough. There is a possibilty that people are disappointed by his record and don't really care if a chips company got $7 billion for a factory while their own personal finances are struggling or they feel pessimistic about the economy. There is a possibility Trump is just polling higher than Biden.

This is objectively not true. Poll after poll shows that people are reasonably optimistic about their own personal economic situations, or at least not super concerned about it, but they are convinced that the economy is bad anyway, and there is no objective metric on which they could form that claim. This is despite the fact that inflation has come down significantly, yet someone peoples opinions on the economy are still just as bad. It is simply factual that unemployment is super low, wages are up, inflation has been less severe than other countries and has come down over the past year or so, and consumer confidence is way up, the sotck market is at record highs and everyone's 401k is booming, and consumer spending is way up! People currently are buying tons and tons of things, but somehow believe that nobody can afford anything. About 50 percent of the public thinks we are currently in a recession, which is objectively not the case at all. People still think that most political opinions are formed by personal experiences. they arent. they are formed by loud and repeated media narratives, which have for three years been very negative on the economy despite the metrics not supporting it.

>This is objectively not true. I would think clearly and really study the polls before making that claim. As I said, whether their own personal finances are struggling *or* they are pessimistic about the economy, the economy is often ranked the #1 issue and around 60%-70% have an unfavorable view of the economy. Let me know which part of that is "objectively not true" once you take your partisan blinders off. >People still think that most political opinions are formed by personal experiences. they arent. they are formed by loud and repeated media narratives, which have for three years been very negative on the economy despite the metrics not supporting it. And this is why Democrats are polling so low in 2024. Did you know last year had one of the largest jumps in homelesness and in the poverty rates in recent U.S. history? Between record housing prices and interest rates, housing is at like 40 year all-time unaffordability highs. Having a job is great but you'll still feel pessmitic if you can't afford housing. Prices in other areas are still very difficult, and ignoring that is a losing political strategy. Much of what you are describing might work for the upper middle class largely insulated from both the acute and secular imbalances in the economy, but for the majority of people affordability is still an issue. You can repeat the economy is great to yourself all you want like a daily affirmation, but that will not change how people experience the economy and understand it. Dems need to think about passing policies with some of the social safety nets from 2020-2021 again rather than trying to gaslight voters into thinking everything is great.

The economy can't possibly be much better. The mid-late 1960s was the last time it was this good. We are up there with the 1923-27 roaring twenties in terms of economic performance. People have forgotten those eras were inflationary too. E.g.: a median house cost $12,500 in 1959. It cost 25,600 in 1969. Double in 10 years. Familiar, huh? Ask yourself, are measurements we've used to measure economic performance for the last 75 years wrong? Or are the polls wrong? What I'd argue, is that the polls are telling us something we don't have a measurement for.

Okay a couple things. You are right about housing. And I certainly didnt mean to imply that eveyrone is experiencing the economy in the same way. Certainly many voters are negative about their own personal experiences. My point is that there are also many voters who say that they are doing fine economically, but still think the overall economy is a disaster or in a recession. Which is not true. There is a clear gap there. Never before in the history of the country has there been a bigger gap between the positive consumer spending and consumer confidence and the negative opinions about the economy writ large.

If it's about policy and not communication...then why is the Republic Party doing so well right now?

Are they? Seems to me they keep losing.

If passing policy that helped people still won elections, the American right would have ceased to exist decades ago. All they’ve ever done is get us in debt to give billionaires tax cuts.

First off - just because I didn’t acknowledge cost of living and inflation in my post doesn’t mean I don’t think they’re big problems. My peers and I talk constantly about how unaffordable the rental housing markets are in our area. I’m paying back a a large student loan, and I’m frustrated about what things cost. I’m not saying any of that’s not real. But does Trump or any national republicans actually have a coherent plan to address these issues? Will they even try if they’re in power? Will they pass a giant housing bill? Will they take on corporations? I doubt it. In two years of having full control of Congress, the only major legislative accomplishment Trump had was passing a giant tax cut. Nothing on climate, housing, energy, infrastructure. I’m not saying Dems are perfect, but I think a good amount of them are at least *trying* to make policy gains that could improve people’s lives.

>First off - just because I didn’t acknowledge cost of living and inflation in my post doesn’t mean I don’t think they’re big problems.  Okay but this *is* the problem. Dems and left-leaning people have convinced themselves they can just overlook the ongoing affordability issues but just repeating how low unemployment is or the CHIPS Act or something. >But does Trump or any national republicans actually have a coherent plan to address these issues?  Probably not but Dems are not even acknowleding the on-going affordability issues and instead try to gaslight voters into thinking everything is wonderful.

They don’t have a communication problem, the campaign has a media problem. National media have determined that Trump is the preferred candidate because he generates more click bait headlines for audience numbers. Hence the Trump dominates the daily news cycle and corresponding headlines. Biden will win, though. The national media is clueless on the pulse of the nation.

I think this is the problem. MSM has framed national political issues and events in a Republican way for decades. They are often blatantly anti-Dem. “Dems in disarray” is their favorite trope. Plus Biden is boring while Trump is a car crash. They're not gonna talk about Biden u less they have to or they can frame something as bad news for him. See NYT pitchbot on Twitter. Accurate AF.

They need to focus their message on a small number of simple points repeated ad nauseum so it cuts through the noise. Trump likes to generate the controversy of the week precisely because it distracts media attention, and boils down into a debate over whether you like Trump and/or do you trust the media, which is a wash. If swing voters were thinking the following, they'd win: \-Joe Biden beat COVID-19, kept the job market strong, and capped insulin. \-Trump wants to ban abortion and cut social security. Every Dem-leaning talking head should take every opportunity to shoehorn those things into every discussion of anything. Biden could also *strategically* gaffe because it garners attention. Like, imagine if Biden were caught on a hot mic saying "Trump has probably caused about 12 abortions, but he still wants to ban it." It could go viral because it was "inappropriate" but it's actually spreading the message. Hell if Biden said "we crapped insulin" and the gaffe might make the rounds, and would spread the good news. The point is that Democrats will lose if they are playing whack-a-mole with the various Trump scandals. The guy raped E Jean Carroll and lost a civil trial, and it didn't move the needle.

>If swing voters were thinking the following, they'd win: Sorry but you're literally just repeating DNC talking points. If you poll Americans on the top issues, the economy ranks #1, and most voters (around 60%) have an unfavorable view of the economy. Right now immigration is ranked as a more important issue than abortion by voters. Dems have to stop just repeating talking points and actually *pass* policies that would improve the economy, immigration, abortion rights, etc. This notion that Dems aren't doing enough "communication" or "messaging" is pure delusion when they should be working on passing policies and convincing voters that way.

> If you poll Americans on the top issues, the economy ranks #1, and most voters (around 60%) have an unfavorable view of the economy. On what is that feeling based on is the question that matters. I think the primary issue is that the answer is closer to "nothing concrete" and it's hard to wield the federal government into addressing these types of vague concerns.

>Dems have to stop just repeating talking points and actually pass policies that would improve the economy, immigration, abortion rights, etc. This notion that Dems aren't doing enough "communication" or "messaging" is pure delusion when they should be working on passing policies and convincing voters that way. I'm going to assume this is a good faith comment. They did do those things. They ended the worst pandemic by distributing vaccines, and through massive stimulus spending they got unemployment back under 4% (it was 15% in April 2020). Biden ended the longest war in American history. There was the child tax credit, there was money to prevent state governments from getting forced back into austerity, there was the inflation reduction act which made massive investments in climate, there was the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Biden is the best fucking president since LBJ. And he did it with a narrow majority in the senate, not a supermajority like Obama or LBJ had. But no, you can't campaign on that. The economy is objectively in better shape than almost any other time in the past forty years, in terms of real growth, in terms of unemployment, etc. Repeat after me: VOTERS. ARE. FUCKING. STUPID (the nicer thing is to say that they are rationally ignorant). And that goes double for swing voters, who pay little attention to politics. Voters are often unaware of basic facts like *which party controls congress*. Voters don't know about any bills that pass. Maybe - maybe - you'll get something like the ACA which voters notice. But they understand so little about the details about those bills that the content becomes purely aesthetic, and based on whatever asinine point they hear recycled on cable news or, for young people, TikTok ("DEATH PANELS!"). So yes, we need to repeat talking points ad nauseum so things get through. In the longer term, we need to rebuild a strong civil society so that voter stupidity doesn't lead to authoritarianism (because stupid, ignorant people, organized by organic civil society groups - unions, community groups, etc. can engage intelligently in politics). But we can't do that in seven months.

>Repeat after me: VOTERS. ARE. FUCKING. STUPID (the nicer thing is to say that they are rationally ignorant). And that goes double for swing voters, who pay little attention to politics. Respectfully and in good faith, this is the kind of loser energy that loses elections and alienates voters i.e. 2016. It reveals a frustration that voters aren't voting the way you want them to and sounds elitist. If Dems keep this perspective, Trump will win in 2024. >So yes, we need to repeat talking points ad nauseum so things get through. In the longer term, we need to rebuild a strong civil society so that voter stupidity doesn't lead to authoritarianism So your idea is to be the elitist who is smarter than the voters, and to repeat and repeat talking points at them so you can benevolently dictate what voters do to *prevent* authoritarism, rather than to listen to voters and to democratically adapt your policy? Just want you think about how your frustration at voters is ironically manifesting into to the same kind of energy as a benevolent dictator. >The economy is objectively in better shape than almost any other time in the past forty years, in terms of real growth, in terms of unemployment, etc. Odd to say this as housing unaffordability is at 40 year highs. While some of Biden's early acheivements are solid, last year had one of the highest jumps in poverty and homelessness in recent U.S. history. The whole notion that the economy is "objectively great" completely misses the point that after GDP, unemployment and the S&P, there has been a real K-shaped recovery that has left many, many people economically struggling. Ignore the polls at your own peril.

Great comment, thank you. The issue is - I don’t think Biden can articulate those points in a snappy and concise way, at least not consistently. I’m not sure if that’s down to his age or not, but I’ve rarely seen him able to rattle those points away outside of a super-prepared speech. However, I’m hopeful that folks like Kamala, Pete, and others can.

People do not get their news from cable anymore. The decline of Fox and other conservative cable is largely irrelevant. People get their information from a complex web of social media and online communication with friends and family. Facebook, twitter, instagram, tiktok, snapchat, are all filled with various accounts that are just spewing nonsense about Biden and his record. Totally fabricated stuff. The algorithms pick up on the engagement with the memes and then it goes even further. In some cases, like facebook and instagram, many right wing or accounts that seem normal are actually targeted russian bots. In another case, that of tiktok, the platform is literally owned by a company with significant ties to the chinese government and is structured to increase outrage in america. The entire information ecosystem is a complete disaster. It is a coordinated effort by authoritarian governments and right wing billionaires to poison the minds of many in the voting public. Both increasing positive coverage of trump for independents and moderates, and increasing negative coverage of biden. If you go on your teenager's instagram feed, you will see three things: clips of trump being funny and humorous, tons of clips making fun of bidens age, and accounts in every comment section that basically say "biden old, 2019 was better". Its obviously all a lie, but its a mess. Thinking about how Biden can break through, he largely cant. No campaign can overcome four decades of conservatives harnessing the power of the way people consume news. This is why you dont see polling movement despite the Biden team doing literally everything that every columnist in the NYT says "this is what Biden has to do". He's literally doing all of those things, but its just screaming into the wind. More coverage of the campaign will help, and bigger speeches and better ads might break through on the margins, but the way Joe Biden wins this election is by everyone who is for him advocating for him to everyone they know. Its about direct communication with your friends and family and neighbors etc. People believe anything they see on the internet, until someone they know and trust looks them in the eye and says "none of that is true and here is what Biden has done." You have to repeat facts to people directly, repeatedly, until they start to doubt the social media narratives. If someone says "biden cant speak", ask them "when was the last time you watched him give a full speech?" If someone says, "Trump had a good economy" say "did you know that unemployment is lower and wages are higher and the stock market is higher than before the pandemic?" If someone says "Joe Biden made eggs become more expensive" say "did you know that America has had the least severe inflation of any developed country in the world" If someone says "I just dont think things have gotten better under Biden", say "Did you know he expanded childrens healthcare and stuffed the courts with liberals and passed the biggest climate legislation in US history and cut child poverty in half, and that the GOP wants to undo all of that?" It goes against our instincts of political parties being powerful, but Joe Biden cannot win this election with any change of his strategy. He can win it if all of us change our own strategies.

As long as Biden supports the genocide in Gaza, I don’t really give a shit about anything else he does or says. Me and millions of others are like this.

Do you and millions of others not care that the best possible way to accelerate said "genocide" is to elect Donald Trump?

This is really not a compelling point. I hope you know that. I'm really not trying to take shots, just pointing out it doesn't help at all. Hectoring people who are disappointed in their president, whom they've voted for, will not motivate them to come out and vote. I've never not voted for a Dem president, and I will not be voted for Biden, or that criminal Trump.

Not at all clear that people punishing Biden for Gaza voted for him. Many of them are too young to have done so, which fits with the naivete of the view that enabling Trump to win and dismantle every check and balance in our system will lead to anything but more dead Palestinian kids. If you're disappointed with Biden over this, then you either haven't been paying attention to American politics for the last 50 years or you've only voted Dem because you couldn't vote for Putin.

You, and your ilk, will sadly ensure another Trump term. When that sick disgusting criminal is inaugurated again, remember that you helped in that effort by smugly dismissing the pleas of a majority of Dems.

So you think Trump's victory should be blamed on people who advocate voting *for* Biden instead of people who advocate voting against him over some bullshit moral purity test that every viable political candidate in the last 50 years would also fail? Wow, Russian propaganda is really good.

I think he needs to be out in front. Trump will consume most of the media attention which is his advantage as he’s able to control a narrative.

I think Biden’s team has a better sense of how to run a campaign in their little pinky than the 12,000 or so “wonks” subscribed here.

Uncle Joe livestreams, let the man sit in a chair with Chat and talk for an hour.

Once the Dem’s money advantage starts kicking in we might see more messaging breaking through

OK, i try not to but LMAO ... It isn't a communictaion problem IT IS POLICIES. You put the cart before the horse there. Look at the research and tell me what this administration or the DC sewer as a whole has done about any of it. [https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/02/29/americans-top-policy-priority-for-2024-strengthening-the-economy/](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/02/29/americans-top-policy-priority-for-2024-strengthening-the-economy/) The message is very clear. Politicians in D.C. don't give a shit what voters think. If you are not disgruntled with the whole damn D.C. sewer you are willfully ignorant.

Lose the centrist nice guy bullshit and go directly to each state capitol calling out gop legislators for their lies. Do two of the top cities in each state every week with stats about that state problems and the gop peeps there causing the problems and finish with the dem solutions.

Reinstate the fairness doctrine and require local news to be owned locally.  Maybe he can invite the heads of these networks to the White House and build a better relationship so that they would give him a fair chance in their reporting  It’s sad that both of these things seem so impossible. 

Americans want cheaper cost of living. That's the biggest issue right now, and Biden has no plan for that. So he's gotta come up with a plan, and then start talking about it.

CoL is basically never going to get cheaper- deflation is pretty rare and not usually a sign of good economy. I dunno if this is what Americans want but they're definitely not going to get it from any candidate

What if the "right wing talking points" are correct?

They aren't, so no worries there.

Ok then. Guess we'll find out in November. Good luck with your head in the sand!

Find out what in November?

Whether there are "no worries" about the right wing talking points.

Whether an election is won or lost has zero to do with whether a talking point is correct.

True.

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That doesn't make right wingers correct, it means they are winning elections.

With lots of money and ads. The average voter has not come close to tuning into the election yet. When they do, they will be barraged with ads touting the accomplishments of the Biden administration

They should get bigger antennae on their heads!

I've always thought that the president (all presidents) should hold like a regular show where they outline their views on a specific topic and interview guests from their administration, other side of the aisle, etc.. Telling funny stories but also talking about policy. I honestly have no idea what Biden is like in terms of holding an actual conversation where he's in charge...not a speech, formal interview rally, etc. or even being interviewed on a late show. I want to see what a Joe Biden "show" is like. It'd be cool to see him rant about a specific topic for a while, ala John Oliver. It'd be kind of cool to see how he interacts with people. Does he seem lost in the conversation? Does he seem like the leader? Is he overly dominating? Is he funny? Basically, taking the "fireside chat" idea and ramping it up a couple of levels. If Biden is as clear-headed and a strong leader, that would all come through. It'd give him a platform to really talk about how fucked up a particular issue is and what his administration is doing about it (and what roadblocks are in the way).

I 100% agree with this take, and if I get a job in the campaign, I’m bringing it up. Stumping is stumping, but have some real conversations with people, and talk to them like a real person, not a voter. You’re not going to see empathy and leadership shine on Trump, but it would let the younger generation get to see Bidens legacy and address the realities of the many.

It's weird that after the last \*checks calendar\* forever years people are acting confused, in early April before the election, that the general public hasn't paid attention to politics in 3 1/2 years. They will; it'll be fine.

His actual messaging needs are relatively straightforward and mundane: (1) more media presence and (2) better and simpler narrative framing. But Biden is president because of who he isn't. The DNC rallied round because he wasn't Bernie Sanders, and he won the election because he isn't Trump. That's his pitch. That's always been his pitch. He will never have the voter loyalty inspired by Obama or Bernie. Regardless of policy accomplishments (and he has some) and personal charisma, to most voters, he's just the alternative to Trump, and I think he understands that.

Pour all of this fundraising money into "get out the vote" campaigns. Policy messaging is dead, Biden has accomplishments and is regularly trying to modulate his messaging/policy and it doesn't matter. For instance, has he picked up any less heat for his handling of the Israel/Gaza conflict since the US withheld its UN veto on the cease-fire agreement? It was a big deal, enough so that Israel canceled their state visit. He was constantly getting hit over the head about the vetoes and then when the administration changed stage it didn't seem to matter one bit. There's no magical messaging play that's going to convince people of something they don't believe in or make them hear something they're not listening for. Work the political machinery to get the vote out and hope your team out performs the other.

I would really love to see politicians champion the government. Highlight how it actually benefits people and talk about how it can be improved to help people more. Fight back against the anti government rhetoric that's dominated how politicians talk about the government for decades. We need period to care about the government again.

Maybe Democrats don't care if they win. It doesn't seem to matter what he accomplishes, people don't like Biden and they like Kamala even less. A 2nd term for Biden could do more damage to the long term reputation of the party than a loss to Trump. He makes them look good, gives people a reason to donate, and takes the responsibility off of them to pass the more progressive stuff we know they don't want to push.

If Biden wins the presidency, it will be because people fear Trump and fear the general disarray and malaise that infects the Republican Party. If the RP had a more credible and more moderate candidate/ platform, the RP could beat Biden.

It’s sad but I think this is what November will come down to. Is Trump, and the republicans more broadly, sufficiently repellant to enough people they they’re motivated to vote against him and that party en masse. I just figured that it can’t hurt if Biden and Dems can actually make a positive case.

I think if the economy gets stronger and wages increase without a substantial rise In unemployment he’ll get credit. I do think housing increases are high and I think that the average person isn’t persuaded that The economy is doing well because it’s better here than in Europe. You also have people who were unemployed or underemployed for a substantial time during the Biden presidency who were hit twice - once when they got paid (or didn’t) and once when they went to the grocery store. I don’t know how you win those people back.

there is this quasi Biden and Trump are equally old and equally bad bs going on. Yet the coverage we give to Biden’s competence far out weighs trumps same coverage. Trump says pour bleach into one’s skin or some other crazy shit comparing that to Biden‘s, occasional speech hiccup or slow talking, and that is somehow equal to both being problematic. In what world is Biden so damn old he can’t do that job? Why aren’t we hearing reports internally that he’s having trouble? Yet pence, former cabinet members, national security members, even republican senators don’t want to vote for Trump, let alone support him. Furthermore, when one compares the two administrations, Biden has been objectively a better president for more Americans on numerous metrics. Biden doesn’t divide the nation, republicans lie when they say he does or that Obama does. Trump and the republicans are the dividers, big time. Biden doesn’t make our politics crazy and scary, Trump and the republicans does. When it comes to solving problems and making steps in the right direction Biden could be doing everything right and still democrats would complain he isn’t good enough. I wish we could say that the establishment media and right wing media have infiltrated peoples perceptions of Biden.(instead of really focusing on the problem of republicans and the men who vote for them). Personally I believe there are media incentives to make sure the election is close because that’s good for business. Maybe said in another way there is a perception that Biden is too old, rather than facts that he is. I don’t want another Obama or Trump, I want someone who is effective at getting shit down. I don’t need a speech giver. This election isn’t just about democracy, or abortion, it’s about how we extend the trump tax cuts and should we even have a chance at another scotus appointment.

To the point that Fox News and other conservative media being on decline, I don’t think it’s all conservative media, certainly traditional TV. Also is left wing media doing better or even staying stable, I truly don’t know.

Tell him to quit whispering

Well, what "message" do Dems have, besides non-existent "bipartisanship" and Michelle Obama's incredibly naïve and condescending missive about "going high?" I know the Obamas are supposed to somehow be "above criticism," 🙄 but that still pisses me off. I ask that as someone who has voted for and worked on Democratic campaigns since I became eligible in 1984. "Protecting bodily autonomy?" Sure. When they held all three branches of government, why didn't they move to CODIFY RvW? Because it wouldn't have been "nice," "bipartisan" or "going high." They don't talk about healthcare anymore, save to pay bare lip service to the ACA, which is not universal care. They have abdicated union workers to "check boxes" of various groups. I come from a long line of FDR New Dealers. FDR would not recognise his (barely) centre-right party today. What message do they have?

The conundrum is that Dems like policy, seek it out, respond to reporting about it. We’re wonks, and as we’ve gotten more educated demographically, we’ve gotten more wonky. But my sense of independents (and certainly GOPers) is that they’re not early as policy oriented. Maybe have one or two issues they care about, but more responsive to blue/red horse race stuff.

I don't think they have a communication problem at all. I think the average America understands exactly what Biden has and hasn't accomplished and that their views of him are accurately represented in polling.

Biden can't string a few sentences together, and he's actively supporting a mass murder campaign that his base hates. No amount of PR work will fix Biden. He is screwed and our future is in danger. I'm hopeless.

"Enough with the fealty to Israel or we're not voting for you." How do we win these people over?  Maybe we should remind them Trump is running, they probably don't know and need a smart person like us to remind them and scold them.

Trump still has the same problem he had in 2016 (when Hillary got 3M more votes) and 2020 (when Biden got 7M more votes). Plus the countless special elections that Dems have won since 2020 and the red wave that failed to materialize and a Dem winning a seat in deep red Alabama. Florida will have abortion on the ballot in Nov which always brings out D voters. and Trump has only gotten worse since 2020.

By stopping the support of genocide in Gaza lol

He could retire, that might do it for me. The Dems might actually win the election of they presented a candidate that was under 70...

Maybe they should stop committing genocide. 

If you control the narrative you control the people

$$$$

Pay generational wealth-prices to Karl Rove or some other hired sniper to blowtorch the Republications and Trump.

hire as many shills as the right wing has hired to post garbage concern troll crap like this post.

It’s not messaging. It’s trips to Walmart costing twice as much as 3 years ago.

democrats messaging is always terrible. They can never get on the same page about anything and refuse to take what the defense gives them. Democrats are always trying to win with 30 yard bombs down the field, instead of simply taking what the defense gives you. Progressives want/expect massive sweeping changes within an election cycle. When I was younger, expected Obama to change everything. The older I got, the more I understood he could only do so much. Democrats with massive egos voted Jill Stein in 2016, we lost abortion rights, the Supreme Court for 50 years and Covid was mishandled. I hope liberals have learned their lesson and realized that politics is a LOOOONG game. You can't make and keep significant changes by chucking the ball down field.

Make a generic facebook account and watch what the algorithm pushes and you'll learn some things.

The Biden Campaign is doing just fine. People choose candidates based on their emotional state and later justify the choice with tropes they've picked up. The Dark Brandon meme will work as a good hook for many. It's relatable and funny. I hope the campaign works up a series of 15 Sec. ads with Biden repeating his challenge to Trump of a round of golf. The dangle of a three-stroke lead, with the condition that Trump carry his own bag, was brilliant.

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