By Michael Haughey<\/p>\r\n
November 12, 2024<\/p>\r\n
The Democrats are wringing their hands and analyzing exit polls to try to understand why people voted for the other candidate in the 2024 presidential election.\u00a0 They won\u2019t find the most important answers there.\u00a0 The other candidate received about the same number of votes as in his previous election loss.\u00a0 He got a little over 75 million votes in 2020 while Biden got a little over 81 million and about 51.3% of the total vote.\u00a0 So far in 2024 (as of November 8, 2024, morning news) he has a little over 74 million and Harris a little over 70 million.\u00a0 After California and Arizona finish their counts there will probably be a little over 75 million for the other candidate and a little over 73 million for Harris.\u00a0 It is very likely that the end result will be a victory for the other candidate with less than 50% of the total vote.\u00a0 That is clearly not a mandate, but more of a message to work with all sides.\u00a0 To the Democrats it is a different kind of message.\u00a0 The difference is the people who didn\u2019t vote.\u00a0 While perhaps not as easy to analyze, that is where many of the answers can be found.\u00a0 Most likely there are many reasons.<\/p>\r\n
The polls before elections tend to sample \u201clikely\u201d voters and exit polls sample those who have voted.\u00a0 But this election was lost by the non-voters who stayed home or didn\u2019t vote for president and the \u201cunlikely\u201d voters.\u00a0 It will be interesting to see the final numbers of people who voted but left the presidential selections blank.<\/p>\r\n
The answers lie in the reasons many 2020 Biden voters felt in 2024 that no candidate adequately addressed their concerns and needs.\u00a0 That apparently overrode the fact that the other candidate was and is a grifter, a felon, a narcissist, a placater, and a person of few if any moral values.<\/p>\r\n
Placing blame of course accomplishes little if anything at all.\u00a0 Understanding what happened and learning from that is important.\u00a0 No one opinion or analysis will be 100% correct, not the least this musing.\u00a0 Here it is anyway.\u00a0 While there are hundreds or more reasons for the loss, only a few will be mentioned in this overview.<\/p>\r\n
There is of course Gaza.\u00a0 Failure of Biden to put his foot down and stop sales, at the very least, of offensive weapons for the destruction of Gaza most certainly played a role.\u00a0 Harris said nothing consequential on that issue.\u00a0 Supporting the efforts of one man to prosecute a cruel war just to stay out of jail is unconscionable.\u00a0 Voters get that and a lot of them stayed home or didn\u2019t vote for any presidential candidate.<\/p>\r\n
Biden got blamed for pulling out of Afghanistan when that was set in motion by the previous administration by agreeing to a short deadline that was guaranteed to end in disaster.\u00a0 It did.<\/p>\r\n
Then there is the lack of effective messaging about what Biden did accomplish.\u00a0 He was waist deep in the swamp repairing the damage done by the previous administration and didn\u2019t have the bandwidth to toot his own horn.\u00a0 The Democratic Party could have assigned a task force to that effort years before the election.<\/p>\r\n
To be clear, the previous administration pretended that Covid-19 wasn\u2019t a big deal.\u00a0 While unpopular, quarantines are one of the methods known to slow the spread of a highly contagious disease at least until it is understood more.\u00a0 Wearing masks also had some degree of effectiveness.\u00a0 The vaccine craze is a marketing phenomenon.\u00a0 With the pharmaceutical industry advertising more than any other industry how can anyone trust them?\u00a0 The USA once had research performed in universities that was a least somewhat independent.\u00a0 Now it is almost exclusively industry grant funded.\u00a0 Saying their products are proven by the studies doesn\u2019t mean much anymore when there are essentially no independent studies.\u00a0 That\u2019s not to say that all vaccines are unnecessary \u2013 quite the contrary.\u00a0 Some can be lifesavers that justify the risks.\u00a0 Another effective strategy is healthy diets and immune strengthening.\u00a0 The right vitamins and a healthy diet can go a very long way toward reducing the severity of Covid-19 and other health maladies.\u00a0 The typical American diet is just asking for trouble.\u00a0 The bottom line is that half a million Americans died needlessly.\u00a0 How quickly we forget.<\/p>\r\n
The result of Covid-19 was a substantial slowdown in the economy worldwide.\u00a0 Demand dropped, especially for gasoline since so many people simply stayed home, resulting in essentially no inflation.\u00a0 That was Covid-19, not some accomplishment of the previous administration.\u00a0 The Biden Administration pushed an infrastructure bill that got the economy going again and better than probably any other nation.\u00a0 Joe Mansion insisted that it be named the \u201cInflation Reduction Act\u201d which was about the worst possible name.\u00a0 Infrastructure Act or Jobs Act would have been 1000 times better.\u00a0 When people went back to work and demand came back, products were now scarce.\u00a0 The unavoidable result is inflation.\u00a0 But people were working and a serious recession or depression was avoided.\u00a0 That\u2019s an accomplishment worth touting.<\/p>\r\n
Also worth noting is that Biden\u2019s accomplishments occurred in the face of an extremely obstructionist congress.\u00a0 The fact the he was able to accomplish anything at all is quite remarkable.<\/p>\r\n
Biden\u2019s age is claimed as a factor, but the other guy has his own cognitive issues.\u00a0 The debate of course revealed that Biden should have stepped down long before the Democratic primaries.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t hindsight great?<\/p>\r\n
The \u201cWoke\u201d agenda is a challenging one.\u00a0 It would be surprising if more than a few people could give a coherent and correct definition if such definition even exists.\u00a0 People tend to be scared of things they don\u2019t understand.\u00a0 A more gradual, quieter, non-insulting approach would seem to be better.\u00a0 Then there is adding pronouns to signatures which fits the weird category for many people.\u00a0 Rather than scream about it, just be it.\u00a0 Lead by example, not by insults.\u00a0 Good chance that affected the election.<\/p>\r\n
Race and ethnic tensions are more than a bit of a third rail.\u00a0 While the history is largely correct, the reality is that there will always be scapegoating as long as there is a large wealth gap.\u00a0 The wealth gap is the underlying problem regardless of race or ethnicity.\u00a0 Rather than applying the label of racism, it may be more accurate, and certainly more effective, to focus on the wealth gap issue.\u00a0 The other candidate talked to the poor white males and got their support even though his policies would do the opposite of improving their economic plight.\u00a0 There needs to be more explanation of the fact that trickle down doesn\u2019t work, giving tax breaks to megacorporations and the wealthy doesn\u2019t help reduce the wealth gap, and that voting for wealthy to be in charge does the opposite of creating opportunity for everyone else to become wealthy.\u00a0 One good example is Clarence Thomas on the Supreme court.\u00a0 Yes that is a milestone, but is certainly not an accomplishment for disadvantaged groups.<\/p>\r\n
The environment and increasingly global warming are becoming very important to most people.\u00a0 Yet politicians seem afraid of the subject because fixing problems can cost money.<\/p>\r\n
Near the end of the election campaign, partnering with and soliciting Republican politicians and voters was an odd move.\u00a0 That probably alienated more liberals than enticed conservatives.<\/p>\r\n
One message emerging from the analysis of exit polls is that Democrats need to move more to the center. \u00a0Seriously addressing environmental and global warming issues are still \u201cleft\u201d issues although there is support among some true conservatives.\u00a0 An analysis of the \u201cunlikely\u201d voters might find support for environmental and global warming issues.\u00a0 The left-right divide is getting complicated by issues like the \u201cwoke\u201d agenda.\u00a0 That has been overshadowing traditional \u201cleft\u201d interests such as social democracy that really could find more widespread support.<\/p>\r\n
The anti-government craze that gained steam during Reagan\u2019s term has hidden the fact that the policies that are so hated are driven by the megacorporations and the wealthy that fund politicians.\u00a0 The missing and obscured message is that the government is our only protection against the policies and practices of the megacorporations and the wealthy.<\/p>\r\n
Forcing Bernie Sanders out in prior years by working against him in the primaries rather than remaining neutral turned off a substantial voting bloc.<\/p>\r\n
The two party system exists for a reason.\u00a0 Both major parties are heavily pro-megacorporate.\u00a0 One is better than the other in some areas, the other better in other areas, and neither provides a real choice or a real voice.\u00a0 Multiple parties could help.\u00a0 Instant Runoff Voting, now coined as Ranked Choice Voting, could facilitate adding more voices and more opinions to the mix.\u00a0 More voices in the simplest sense means more options for better solutions.\u00a0 No more claiming that heart-felt votes somehow swayed the election the wrong way.\u00a0 Elections are largely controlled locally, so here is a real chance to have a positive effect without needing to change the national systems.<\/p>\r\n
Changing the two party system to a true multi party system will face headwinds.\u00a0 The real wealth that controls world affairs seems to like stability.\u00a0 They profit from both sides in a war.\u00a0 They will probably do whatever it takes to maintain the stability that keeps them wealthy and powerful.\u00a0 We mostly don\u2019t even know their identity.\u00a0 We know who are the wealthiest individuals, but not so much the wealthiest families.\u00a0 Maybe stability isn’t inherently bad, except when it comes at the expense of most everyone else and results in the overwhelming lack of access to a good living and all that entails.<\/p>\r\n
Open Primaries were coupled with a weird style of Ranked Choice Voting in Colorado in a ballot measure this election.\u00a0 Open Primaries would probably result in only wealthy individuals being able to run for office and would substantially reduce the ability of parties to craft a political philosophy to support different opinions and voices.\u00a0 Colorado voters turned that one down.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t mean opposition to a real and clean Ranked Choice Voting measure, just to the weird one coupled with Open Primaries.<\/p>\r\n
No discussion is complete without acknowledging the massive efforts to take away the right to vote.\u00a0 The other candidate was in a way correct that voting system is \u201crigged\u201d, but it is largely rigged in his favor.\u00a0 Probably to the tune of in excess of 6 million votes.\u00a0 Voter caging is one common method (the practice of sending mail to registered voters and challenging their eligibility to vote if the mail is returned as undeliverable or if the voter doesn\u2019t respond, and in some states automatically purging the voters).\u00a0 Another is voter purging (removing names from the voter rolls, or the list of registered voters, for a variety of questionable reasons).\u00a0 The Help America Vote Act of 2002 allows provisional ballots for voters who show up and find out that someone took their name off the voter registration.\u00a0 But it doesn\u2019t require counting of those provisional ballots.\u00a0 That is at the core of Jill Stein\u2019s lawsuits regarding the 2016 election.\u00a0 Do a deep dive on that and you will be amazed (and perhaps dejected).\u00a0 The Federal judges ultimately decided that to rule correctly and require counting of the provisional ballots at issue in those cases would overturn the election and allow the people to see the dirty laundry.\u00a0 They couldn\u2019t have that, so they ruled against democracy.\u00a0 There are many other methods of effectively taking away the right to vote, or at least making it very difficult.\u00a0 Perhaps more will be said in another musing.<\/p>\r\n
The Democratic party shot themselves in the foot by claiming that the 2020 election was fair and unbiased and so on.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t.\u00a0 The system was rigged in favor of the Republican candidate.\u00a0 Has been for some time.\u00a0 In addition to caging and purging, a number of other practices have rigged the system.\u00a0 Polling places have been closed or reduced in number in communities that lean Democratic.\u00a0 The resulting long lines and long travel distance reduces the Democratic vote.\u00a0 Until recently most voting machines were easily hacked or pre-programmed to flip votes and many had no paper trail that could be audited (black box voting).\u00a0 Many States have now fixed that problem with auditable paper ballots, and Colorado automatically does a statistical audit of the paper ballots.\u00a0 Exit polls varying dramatically from pre-vote polls are used by the USA in foreign countries to determine if an election is rigged, yet now the claim is that exit polls are no longer valid.\u00a0 Crosscheck was (is?) a program where voters of the same name, typically common minority names, were (are?) purged under the false assumption that they were all the same person.\u00a0 For example, purging everyone named Garcia.\u00a0 Gerrymandering of course gives Republicans a huge advantage since most districts are drawn by legislatures, and most legislatures are controlled by Republicans.\u00a0 There are laws requiring voting at home residence polling places which makes it difficult for students to vote.\u00a0 Then there is the Electoral College that gives a large advantage to Republicans in most presidential elections since so many lower population states are Republican even though the majority of the population is not. \u00a0Now that the other candidate has \u201cwon\u201d the Democrats will look foolish even asking for investigations into whether the 2024 election was rigged.\u00a0 To be clear, no evidence seems to have emerged to support any behind the scenes monkeying with the election machines.\u00a0 But it is curious that we have been conditioned to believe that polls are now seriously flawed.\u00a0 It is interesting at least that the polls were so far off and that both the other candidate and the other candidate funder Elon (the wealthiest individual in the world?) both had significant motives for tampering with the election machinery.\u00a0 One does have to wonder, but the Democratic Party can\u2019t because they declared that elections are fair and secure.<\/p>\r\n
Finally, and most importantly, there is money.\u00a0 The obscene amount of money in politics is unhealthy for a democracy.\u00a0 It is not just Citizens United.\u00a0 The role played by big money was monstrous long before that even though it is many times worse now.\u00a0 Public funded elections with NO private money would go a long way towards enabling a true democracy.\u00a0 Getting there is not going to be easy, particularly with the ridiculous Supreme Court ruling that corporations are \u201cpeople\u201d.\u00a0 Absurd!\u00a0 Perhaps start by not just buying the cheapest product.\u00a0 Insist on quality comparisons.\u00a0 When is the last time you saw an ad for a car that even mentioned one item of quality?\u00a0 Then pay attention to the money behind the product.\u00a0 Do profits end up in political ads or influence?\u00a0 It is the money, so consider spending yours in a way that supports your long term aspirations and philosophies.\u00a0 How we spend our money has political impact.<\/p>\r\n
The electoral college creates the illusion that there is a mandate, or widespread support for the winner.\u00a0 It is magnified by the red-blue maps that show so much red.\u00a0 But a true mandate would be more like 75% or so of eligible voters in a free and fair election with no rigging or monetary influence.\u00a0 The USA is a very long way from that.\u00a0 There are many reasons voters stayed home or didn\u2019t vote for president.\u00a0 This musing touches on a few of them.\u00a0 Lots of good articles are being written on other reasons. \u00a0It will be a challenge to separate those from the misinterpretations of the election results.\u00a0 Restoring our democracy may depend on doing that successfully. \u00a0 Copyright 2024: Creative Commons CC BY-SA<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n