It’s Not About Messaging — It’s About Lazy Dem Voters and White Egos. I Have Numbers to Prove It.
I want to smack down the whole messaging thing once and for all.
The constant and repeated criticism I see is “Dems don’t know how to message that’s why they lose. Their outreach sucks (even though Dems are ALWAYS the ones pushing GOTV movements, every single election), and they don’t appeal to youth voters (let’s ignore the fact that, other than Obama, all the candidates that supposedly appealed to youth voters lost, and Bernie had fewer youth votes the second time he ran versus the first) and the youth will save us! (except as you will see, as people get older, they tend to vote conservative)
Notice the top set of numbers. The people who were 29 in 2016 would be over 30 in 2020, 49 would be over 50 now, etc. The youth vote dropped between 2018 and 2020, the 30–49 bracket got a much smaller margin of Dem lead and then the last two groups were close to the same in 2020 as they were in 2016.
Just because the youth turnout once, doesn’t mean they will do it again. Remember when Millennials were going to save us? Yeah, they showed up big in 2016 and 2018, then bailed in 2020. Notice whose numbers change the least? Boomers and Silents.
I love Pew Research, and I am going to be sharing heavily from here to showcase a point. This article compares election demographics and turnout for 2020. 2016 had a horrible turnout, 2018 had a higher turnout and 2020 was a massive turnout. Yet, demographically, not much really changed and if you all remember, electoral college wise 2020 was a squeaker of an election.
All members of the American Trends Panel who took the 2020 post-election survey, whether they voted or not, were asked which candidate they preferred in the race for president. Nonvoters, citizens for whom no record of turnout could be located or who told us they did not vote, preferred Joe Biden over Donald Trump by 15 percentage points, 50% to 35%, compared with Biden’s 4-point overall advantage among voters. (So why the fuck did they not vote? Hmm, lazy liberals strike yet again.)
Voters were nearly evenly divided on party affiliation, with 50% identifying or leaning Democratic and 48% identifying or leaning Republican, similar to the 51%-48% split in 2016. Nonvoters in 2020 were more closely divided on partisanship than they were in 2016. (Turnout does not equal massive Dem victories, contrary to what people keep saying)
Among nonvoters in 2020, 46% were Democrats or leaned Democratic, while 41% were Republicans or leaned Republican. A majority of nonvoters in 2016 (55%) were Democrats or Democratic leaners, compared with about four-in-ten (41%) who were Republicans or leaned toward the Republican Party. (LAZY ASS LIBERALS LOST US AN ELECTION, AGAIN!)
Despite notable changes in the demographics of the two candidates’ coalitions, the demographic composition of the electorate as a whole in 2020 did not differ much from that of 2016.
Although turnout was strong, stark demographic differences between voters and nonvoters similar to those seen in past U.S. elections were present in 2020, a pattern familiar to political observers.
Voters as a group were considerably older than nonvoters. Adults younger than 50 made up 45% of all voters but 68% of nonvoters — nearly identical to the pattern seen in 2016.
But generational change in the electorate was quite apparent. Very few members of Gen Z (born 1997 and later) were eligible to vote in the 2016 electorate, and they made up just 1% of all voters that year. In 2020, they were 8% of the total, though their lower rate of turnout compared with older age cohorts is reflected in the fact that they were 15% of eligible nonvoters.
At the other end of the generational spectrum, members of the Silent and Greatest generations (born 1945 and earlier) fell from 16% of all voters in 2016 to just 8% in 2020, but their turnout rates remained among the highest of all generations. (So LESS OLD PEOPLE were alive but THEY STILL HAD A HIGHER TURNOUT PERCENTAGE??? REALLY???)
Oh sure, we can bitch and moan and complain that Hillary was a shit candidate all we want. But the only reason she was is because of 25+ years of negative bullshit thrown at her from progressives and conservatives. She was actually an amazing candidate but no one “Liiiikkkeeed her” WELL TOO BAD.
We all fucking knew how bad Trump was, don’t fucking deny it but we were more pissed off that Hillary was our candidate than we were concerned about saving the country.
All the “I HATE NEOLIBERALS AND LET IT ALL BURN TO THE GROUND!” talk got us nowhere and it sure as hell wasn’t Hillary’s fault. She warned us, all the time, about how bad things were going to get. She had plans, she was experienced and talented but NOOOOOO, we took our pissed-off little “we hate centrist” selves that hated the “corrupt DNC” and stayed home.
Yet the GOP WERE, AND STILL ARE, JUST FUCKING FINE voting for a sexual assaulting serial liar. Do you know why? BECAUSE HE MAKES THEM FEEL SUPERIOR! And you cannot message that away.
ARE YOU FUCKING HAPPY NOW?? ARE YOU??
Now, let’s hop to 2018. YEAH KIDS TURNED OUT! YAAY BLUE WAVE!! What caused that??? Just a bunch of massive school shootings and the “shocking” realization that Dems couldn’t do shit with a lack of majority in the Senate and House. WHO KNEW??!!
Then what happened in 2020? What was it that gave Biden his win? It wasn’t the massive turnout or a huge flip in liberals showing up to vote, not really.
It was suburban white voters changing sides because they hated Trump. That was it.
The community profiles of Trump and Biden voters are similar in some fundamental ways to the previous two elections — but more voters who cast ballots for Biden in 2020 say they live in a suburban area compared with Clinton’s 2016 voters (These numbers are based on surveys after the election, just FYI)
Notice that the main shift in voting patterns for Dems, even though he still lost the white demographic overall was that Biden gained among whites, unfortunately, he also plummeted among Hispanics but he still won the demographic.
You can see this trend mentioned repeatedly in articles about the election.
The survey found Biden leads Trump among white suburban women, 51 percent to 44 percent.
So here’s the thing, white suburbia is not cut off from the internet like many rural areas are, which means they would be perfectly capable of researching things on their own. They’re not all stuck in Fox News World viewing unless they choose to be so saying that when Dems lose these areas it is because of shitty messaging is a weak excuse.
What changed? People started hating Trump. That was it, that was all really. How do we know that?
BECAUSE THE SUBURBAN WHITES THAT VOTED FOR BIDEN VOTED RED DOWN BALLOT.
What happened instead was a kind of duelling landslide: Biden received more votes than any Presidential candidate in U.S. history, which marks the seventh time in the past eight Presidential elections that Democrats have won the popular vote. But Donald Trump may well end up receiving the second-most votes of any candidate in history.
Because of the way that congressional seats are carved up, and the fact that Senate seats dilute the electoral power of the country’s big cities, Republicans got enough votes to stymie Democratic gains. The result is that, even as Biden is poised to expel Trump from the White House, extinguishing one crisis facing the country, Congress remains up for grabs.
And yes, I am WELL AWARE gerrymandering is a massive issue BUT…do you remember how close the Senate races for Ossof and Warnock were? Yeah. Senate seats aren’t gerrymandered like house seats are, so that’s not a valid excuse for everything.
Second, more Democrats than Republicans who voted in the presidential contest failed to vote for their party’s (down ballot) candidate, reducing their chances of prevailing in close races. (LAZY ASS DEM VOTERS AGAIN!!!)
Turnout in the 2018 mid-term election reached its highest level in more than a century. Democrats were fervently opposed to the Trump administration and turned out in droves. Compared to its performance in 2016, the party’s total House vote fell by only 2%.
Without Donald Trump at the head of the ticket, Republican voters were much less enthusiastic, and the total House vote for Republican candidates fell by nearly 20% from 2016. Democratic candidates received almost 10 million more votes than Republican candidates, a margin of 8.6%, the highest ever for a party that was previously in the minority. It was, in short, a spectacular year for House Democrats.
Against this backdrop, Democratic leaders’ expectations of additional gains in 2020 rested on improbable assumptions.
With President Trump at the top of the ticket, Republican turnout for House races was bound to increase significantly over the depressed levels of 2018. Although Democrats increased their total House votes by an estimated 16.8 million over 2018, Republicans did better, gaining an estimated 21.9 million. The Democrats’ popular vote margin in House races fell by more than half, from 8.6% to an estimated 3%. Given these results, Democrats did well to hold their seat loss to 13.
The second explanation for the House results is even more straightforward.
The total vote cast for Republican House candidates in 2020 was 1.4 million less than for President Trump, while the total vote cast for Democratic House candidates fell short of Joe Biden’s total by 3.9 million. (To sum up, far less Dem voters voted for Dem Congressional candidates)
This helps explain why Biden’s margin over Trump was 1.5 percentage points larger than House Democrats’ advantage over House Republicans. This down-ballot shortfall made it harder for Democrats to win closely contested contests. (AND I WILL SAY IT AGAIN..LAZY ASS LIBERAL VOTERS)
Don’t tell me that liberals who voted for Biden didn’t get any messaging about any of the Congressional candidates! Don’t tell me that they were somehow too damn busy to do their own research. Bullshit. They just either get sucked up in the STUPID progressive vs centrist shit where we tear our own party down and lose seats or they just hated Trump, wanted to vote him out, and didn’t give a flying fuck about the rest of the elections.
And don’t get me started on how voter suppression “hurts college kids” or white suburban voters. The same college kids that can plan for, organize and save up money to go to comic cons, concerts, and music festivals?
The same suburban families who take time off to go on vacations? Somehow they can pull that off but can’t be bothered to vote when it doesn’t even take booking a flight to do that? Really? Beyond that, if you voted for President and not for Congress you really have no excuse.
Blacks have been voter suppressed for centuries, yet they STILL TURN OUT TO VOTE DEMOCRATS IN! Whites have no damn excuse for not showing up.
Here in AZ, we had a wonderful Dem overseeing the elections here, Adrian Fontes. The elections ran flawlessly, everyone said so. Did he win re-election? Nope. It shifted to a GOP, who, to be fair, seems to be doing his job well as he stood up to all the GOP attacks trying to say AZ elections were run badly. So good on him.
Now let’s talk about why white people keep voting GOP, shall we? Sure, we can bring up racism and religion and bigotry but let’s get to the meat of it.
THE GOP PLATFORM DOESN’T HOLD HUMANS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE PROBLEMS WE ARE DEALING WITH.
Fun fact, liberals, due to our desire to fix things, at some point or another have to mention that humans are causing the problems we are facing, and that white person may, just maybe, bear a teensy weensy bit of responsibility for things like income inequality, ever-increasing droughts, and storms, polluting the environment.
How about refusing to let women and minorities into jobs, busting unions which have trashed workers’ rights, offshoring jobs in order to save millions, working to gut things like Medicare and Social Security, decreases in education, and increases in homelessness, etc?
And white people HAAAATTTTE hearing that it’s their fault. They don’t like admitting that they’re wrong about something and above all, they can’t stand being challenged by anyone.
If you didn’t pick that up in 2016 when our country went from one of the most charismatic, well-spoken, honorable, respectable men we’ve ever had running the country to Trump, then you’re not paying attention.
Yes, some of it was a backlash against Obama being black but deep down it is this massive sense of insecurity that white people, especially white Christians have that maybe they’re not special after all.
And, FYI I am white, so no, I am not being racist. I am telling the truth as is born out again and again and again in election results.
Democrats do not win amongst whites because the Democratic platform, at its core, admits that we’re doing shit wrong and we need to fix it.
How often do you read articles here and elsewhere from religious conservative types acting all victimized and weak at the knees because their actions are being questioned? There’s a constant refrain of “Whites are under attack! Christianity is under attack! Our way of life is under attack!!”
Do you know why? Because to them, admitting fault is worse than death. If you don’t think so, go look at COVID death numbers among vaxxed versus unvaxxed and which states have the highest per capita deaths.
You know how else I know it’s not a messaging issue? I follow a ton of politicians on Twitter, and let me tell you, the Dems are putting out the right message constantly. Do you know what else happens? Their comments are constantly flooded by right-wing trolls and pissy left-wingers who hate that things aren’t perfect yet. What the politicians are saying isn’t the problem.
The problems are Dems who refuse to back their party because of bullshit divisions or disappointment and then attack even the people who are working their asses off to fix the problems and white people’s egos.
That’s it in a nutshell.
Beto has visited every county in Texas multiple times over the last almost a decade now. Every time he runs he makes a point to try to reach out to everyone he can, face to face. Don’t tell me his messaging sucks.
Yet he is STILL 7 pts behind Abbott and it is the WHITE PEOPLE who are letting him down.
Again. You cannot “message” away egocentric thinking or the complete denial of reality and the refusal to admit that you’re part of the problem. Until liberal voters stop living in this goddamn dream world where “All we need to do is message better and hope the youth saves us” we will keep losing. Do you know what will save us? If white liberals get off their asses and vote.
Black people are getting tired of saving our asses, and they damn well should be.
Get your shit together white liberals or you will lose to fucking DeSantis in 2024.
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