- cross-posted to:
- usa@midwest.social
- cross-posted to:
- usa@midwest.social
Summary
Trump’s popular vote share has fallen below 50% to 49.94%, with Kamala Harris at 48.26%, narrowing his margin of victory.
Trump’s share of the popular vote is lower than Biden’s in 2020 (51.3%), Obama’s in 2012 (51.1%) and 2008 (52.9%), George W. Bush’s in 2004 (50.7%), George H.W. Bush’s in 1988 (53.2%), Reagan’s in 1984 (58.8%) and 1980 (50.7%), and Carter’s in 1976 (50.1%).
The 2024 election results highlight Trump’s narrow victory and the need for Democrats to address their mistakes and build a diverse working-class coalition.
The numbers also give Democrats a reason to push back on Trump’s mandate claims, noting most Americans did not vote for him.
The consequences of inflation had been decades in the making. Thirty years of neoliberal policies and fifty plus years of stagnation on real wages is now paying its dues, because real wages has not kept up with ever rising inflation. The working class is certainly the most affected and even experienced lower growth in real wage. While not the sole problem, it contributes to radicalising a population. The US and other parts of the word had it coming because of said policies. Prices of less valuable consumer goods have gone down, but the basic essentials and health care keeps going up and up. That being said, the overall inflation has decreased since the pandemic but basic essentials has not. Those with higher income may not feel the pinch, but the working class and many in the lower middle class certainly does. These people are brainwashed and hoodwinked to blame the wrong people like immigrants, minorities and lgbt, while the monied class gets away with it.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”- Lyndon B. Johnson
It’s not Trump apologism-- it’s reality check. The left and liberals should get out of their bubble, because they are doing the inverse of being hoodwinked by convincing them to look down on the working class as well. Who are the ones constantly blocking affordable housing in the liberal-bastion that is California? That’s right, it’s the liberals themselves, who are also rich like many conservatives are. You could easily Google the information on that one if you don’t believe me. Are you also aware that California put anti-homeless spikes and other deterents on areas where the vagabonds sleep? I’m sure many of those homeless folks came from poorer states to look for a job in California; but the lack of affordable housing and being unable to find a job with decent pay to afford rent renders them vulnerable. They did what many told them to do: move out of their shithole places and go to where there is opportunity, right?
The podcast I refered to is in my native language which is hosted by a highly-esteemed professor and political analyst who has been invited by international news outlets for interviews including The Guardian, BBC, ABC, and Al Jazeera. He is a social democrat but a critic of those from the affluent section of the left and liberals who keep putting down the working-class. Slavoj Zizek also made the same broad observation about the left and liberals-- that there is a certain naïveté among the group.
This isn’t being apologetic for Trump-- it is a wakeup call for the left, whose former base is the working-class but is now subsumed by the far-right (liberals in the classical sense have hardly been reliable as class-ally), to be aware of the blindspot and close that narrow gap of a spot. Yes, one can keep calling the working-class racist or bigoted, but they are the ones who have once voted for the left but now keep voting far-right. It is worth pointing out you seem to refuse to acknowledge that. Look around you. Look outside your home, outside your town, outside of your state, and outside of your country, the working class used to vote for the left but what happened? Look around and ask yourself that question and you will find your answer. There is no longer a version of penny auction in this generation. As in, there is no longer a class-solidarity that existed during the Depression era. The affluent today show concerns for the homeless and less fortunate, but when it is time for call to action, there is little appetite to approve alleviating the cost of living and housing crisis, and consign the working class as dumb and bigots, instead of realising these have been brainwashed to scapegoat the innocent.
Going to the Harris promise, I admire the promise to build 3 million homes but the $25,000 downpayment to buy a house as government assistance isn’t exactly appealing considering how much the average American house prices are these days. Trump promised no taxes on tips and then Harris simply copied it. Why not increase the federal wage instead? Oh that’s right, the Democratic party is in actuality a spineless center-right party who don’t want to rub their rich donors the wrong way. Unfortunately, Trump promised to re-energise the dying fossil fuel industry, which appeals to the working-class. But what have the Democrats promised as alternative in the former blue wall to dis-incentivise working in the fossil fuel industry? What have the Democrats promised to replace the old manufacturing jobs with? Can you really blame the working class for siding the Republicans with promise of re-shoring more jobs and putting tariffs on imports?
There needs to be another Roosevelt who has the spine to stand up and not be afraid of monied interests, despite coming from old money itself. Again, there is no class solidarity nowadays. The liberals and left indeed abandoned the working-class.
this one is just a demonstrably true fact, although you could argue the problem, in both directions, prices of goods are too high, pay is too low comparatively to goods. etc…
it depends on how you define the working class, and several other factors, but generally lower income households are more pressured by economic woes. And the US population voting people like trump in, who are objectively, the WRONG person, are quite literally, shooting themselves in the foot. The US historically has had a much more progressive income tax, than it does now.
Although this is also ignoring things like quality of life as well.
it’s not clear at all what this is measuring, if this accounts for inflation properly, or if this even accounts for differences in service availability. But there are a lot more things accessible to us now, than there was 20 years ago, medically. People could be getting on aggregate, more treatment now, than they were previously. It’s extremely unclear what any of this represents.
The prices of food and other essentials going up does track. Compared to consumer goods and electronics where manufacturing only gets significantly easier year over year, leading to more and more accessible technology.
inflation is a delta (change in % increase) where as actual goods are simply an value. Inflation going down doesn’t mean the price of goods goes down, that’s impossible, that’s not how inflation works. Unless you’re referring to some kind of magical “essential item” inflation that exists now, and didn’t previously.
people keep saying this, but people still manage to buy things like food, goods and services just fine, in fact if you look at black friday spending this year, it seems pretty constant with what it’s been over the past few years as well.
yeah, and they keep voting for monied people like trump, like fucking dumbasses. What do you want me to say here?
a reality check by pointing a loaded gun at your head pulling the trigger, and hoping it jams.
Yeah great fucking idea.
please demonstrate an example of liberals/lefties looking down on the working class, i myself am quite naturally a working class person, i like doing work, though i am also relatively highly educated. That’s just the nature of me, and i think humanity in general. If you don’t pursue education, and knowledge, you can only blame but yourself for the lack of it. It’s not hard to educate yourself on politics, there’s plenty of great reading, especially if you live in america, like all of the founding papers that were written throughout the years, plenty of great legal scholars have written good works, plenty of economists have written good books, people like warren buffet exists and have things you can learn from. It’s not hard, you just have to apply your ability to learn.
i don’t think anybody is doing that, i think people are calling the republican party largely racist and bigoted, which is demonstrably true. Just look at the deportation rhetoric, or the objectively racist statements about Haitians eating dogs. In fact if any group here is demonstrating an explicit aversion to another political group, it’s the right. They HATE the left, and anybody on the left, while the left does have people that hate the right, the right did inevitably do this to themselves, and they have nobody to blame but themselves for it. Even then a lot of liberals and lefties are more than willing to engage in good faith with republicans, like me. The primary problem is that republicans struggle massively to engage in a good faith manner, by virtue of living in delusion.
yeah, and they voted for biden overwhelmingly, who was an objectively good president who actually supported the working class, through things like unionization and labor rights, as well as various funding packages for things like the IRA and the infrastructure bill. Including significant tax breaks, primarily intended to benefit people of lower economic income status.
And yet these are the same people who voted for trump, someone who only cares about himself, and pretends to care about the people. It’s not hard to see that the voter base is largely uneducated and incompetent when it comes to politics, just look at history throughout the world.
literally nobody likes these polices, they are extremely unpopular.
i dont think this is even statistically supported, i would expect most homeless people be native population, at least as of recent capacity. Poor people don’t exactly have the luxury of being able to move, otherwise they wouldn’t be poor. Most of the poor population in rural states is stuck where they live because they don’t have the money to be able to move anywhere else.
also a lot of homeless people have issues with drugs, addiction and mental health, so they aren’t exactly the average working class, they’re the bottom of the barrel, cast out by society at large.
interesting, you don’t happen to be eastern european do you? Zizek is iirc, and he is also broadly known to be a philosopher, rather than a political individual, granted some of those things tend to apply across the pond so to speak.
i assume you’re talking about the depression era farm auctions, not the modern incantation which is horrid. There are two primary reasons, one, finance is a lot more complex, and people very rarely own their own homes these days, things are a lot more centralized as well. And two, there hasn’t been a need, remember during the great depression that the entire economy was fucked. This was the primary reason penny auctions were able to happen, that and lack of actual regulation.
Kamalas campaign literally ran on the housing crisis, but ok.
isn’t this explicitly for first time home buyers? Where it would be a fairly significant value of the house? even like 1/10th of the value would be significant, especially for a down payment.
do you think the trump admin tariffs on canadian import lumber have anything to do with the wild housing market we’re seeing now? I do.
what were all the first time home buyer credits for, all the tax breaks, the stuff like the IRA and the infra bill, and all of the child care credits as well? Are those not helpful? Most jobs today aren’t working at federal minimum wage, that’s not really going to do much, and economically it’s questionable whether it would be impactful in a productive manner. It might even make things like food SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive, a big concern to you, apparently.
why would you de-incentivize this when it’s broadly popular? Wouldn’t that be a bad campaign move?
brother they’re already gone, and again, the IRA, the infra bill, VA benefits, all the tax breaks. Trump is only going to make this a worse position arguably.
yes, because tariffs are in every sense of the word, in every example that’s ever happened, it doesn’t fucking work. I cannot stress this hard enough, tariffs have literally never worked.
that person was biden.
Oh come on, the “if they are so poor, how can they still afford to eat?” dismissive and condescending attitude from the left and Democrats on the working class is precisely what critics are railing against. Keep doing that and people will slowly but surely come to the throes of the far-right. You obviously did not read the links I gave you. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez herself said many Latino families are living under the same household with other families to save on rent, so that they could afford more food. People are living paycheck to paycheck and have to work two jobs to make ends meet.
The Democrats throw bones and some bread crumbs every once in a while to soothe the angst, but does not actually try to solve the underlying and long term economic woes of stagnant wages and rising inflation. So it is understandable that people are tired of spineless Democrats. The people yearn for a change! The rhetoric of being anti-establishment did not come out in of nowhere. While Democrats refuse to see it and presents itself as the party of status quo, the Republicans knew well what the people want and promises to deliver it to them-- for better or worse. Populism gets a bad rap but it still has its place in politics, especially in times of growing wealth inequality. It is a matter knowing to use it for the greater good. But Democrats refuse to be populist (obviously not to rile up their rich donors, why else have they refused Bernice Sanders twice now for the primaries despite being popular among the working class?)
If we are being pedantic, you and I are working class by virtue that we are working, but I can tell we are neither poor nor struggling because we have relatively high paying job or at the very least, having been lucky enough be born in a financially sufficient family who could provide a safety net. We are not at the lower rung of income groups but those at the bottom feel the sting of inflation and losing jobs to outsourcing. Just because you don’t feel what the poor and other financially struggling folks feel, doesn’t mean their feelings are not valid. You are already probably aware that those who are desperate are easily manipulated; they cling to anything even if at a grave cost. They are not stupid, they are manipulated. They are told that immigrants, feminists or the poor dumb Hillbillys are to blame. While people are too busy fighting culture wars, all people involved are robbed blindly by powers that be. Divide and conquer is a classic, goes back to the ancient times.
Ancient philosophers and thinkers already noted how people can be easily divided politically. Slavoj Zizek is may be a philosopher, but politics ultimately stems from philosophy. Politics still requires thinking, doesn’t it? And his analysis is incisive particularly at the rise of populism. He supports people electing Trump, not because he is a fascist (no one could accuse him of being a fascist), but because it means change could be enacted. It is not to make Democrats lose, but as a wakeup call for Democrats to pursue the same goal of change. And yet the Democratic Party never learns. What have they done? Throw bones and bread crumbs, and only say “I am not my opponent”. With the rising cost of living, it is high time that federal wages be increased to match as living wage and a fully socialised healthcare system be implemented to mitigate the rising cost of living for most people. But again, they are spineless so that they won’t agitate their rich backers (and to repeat what I said before, ordinary liberals are also to blame for blocking many progressive agenda such as building social housing). The podcaster I mentioned also share the same sentiment. Yes, people can be stupid but not that stupid. Calling people stupid will not fix the actual widening wealth inequality.
The problem is the information bubble trapping and individuals to their own little world; their egos being fed and warping their view of the real outside world. Sure, tell to people in lower income that there we are in full employment, there are plenty of online sources that will say it, but what use are the so-called happy figures if they can’t afford to buy a home, let alone rent. Food prices went up. People can’t afford healthcare. The fact that the murder of CEO of health insurance company, United Healthcare, is cheered upon says a lot. People want change. Telling people there is no problem when there, is as bad as the right wingers who are detached from reality. People can be stupid, but not that stupid. As much as you and I can be cynical of others, the difference is that I worked and interacted with both working and more affluent folks. In spite of the stereotype, the working class is just as smart if not more so than college educated individuals. While it is true that in opportunity-deprived areas can be bad, a lot of these people only want to better their lives. But they are not heeded because, let’s face it, the liberals and left became too posh for the working class, and abandoned and caricaturised them. The far right took the opportunity to exploit them. Tariffs are stupid, but for these folks whose jobs are outsourced and left with no alternatives, it made sense.
Facts don’t care about feelings, but for the marginalised-- their feelings are just as real. Their feelings are affirmed but not by the correct side of history. However, left and liberals are too buried in the sand to recognise that. Keep ignoring the working class concerns and the far right will only keep winning; no matter how much you keep berating them. The rise of Trump is not so much that he is just that good, it actually says more on the part of the Democrats that they failed as a party to enact lasting changes. There is no other Roosevelt at this day and age. You said it’s Biden, but he backtracked on so many promises. He is no Roosevelt at all, especially after Biden pardoned his own son after being sentenced, who was convicted only months ago, in spite of promise not to do so. That does not send a good message and signal that the Democrats are better, and only reinforces the “both sides are the same” narrative. That would only strengthen the Republicans and exploit it to their advantage. The Democrats need to be more radical but for the left. One of their major base was the working class after all. What happened? It is time to return to their roots if they are to actually win and stop the rise of fascism.
The Roman Republic fell because the poor were abandoned and were convinced to support a strongman who promised to stop corruption and political violence. The left and liberals are not learning from history at all (or rather abandoned it) on what keeps a healthy democracy.