24 days and the turnout gap has shrunk down to 4 million
2020:
Biden -- 81.2 million
Trump -- 74.2 million
Total -- 155.4 million
2024:
Trump -- 76.9 million
Harris -- 74.4 million
Total -- 151.3 million
A reduction in turnout of 4.1 million and a bit more than 2 and a half percent. The Census Bureau reports that total USA population grew by almost 5 million people during this time period.. I don't have the tools to suss out how much the voting age population grew from 20 to 24 -- but it is probably more than 3 million. Thus we get the ballpark figure of 7 million fewer voters -- a bit more than 4% less participation in the two-party contest.
Worth noting for a wide variety of significant considerations, but not really earth shaking, or even dramatic. The slow counting process should be reformed to get a final tally in less than a fricking month, nevertheless.
I really hate to take sides in the pooh throwing contest between Blue and Red mouthpieces, but the silliest rap I've heard so far -- among some real comedy coming from those serious-minded Dems -- is the Fox News and Fellow Travelers' characterization of the result being a LANDSLIDE.
I got into a minor quibblefest a while back on this board over whether Biden's victory in 2020 could honestly be called a landslide. He won by 7 million popular votes while squeaking out tiny margins in enough swing states to win in the Electoral College. My interlocutor made reasonable points about how the EC is inherently un-democratic and a 7 million popular vote margin constitutes a "near landslide." With respect to that long-forgotten conversation, I demur.
But I cite that discussion of where to draw the landslide line to add perspective to the galloping bullshit from the Red Liars claiming that a 1.6% victory was a landslide.
Judging by the Chicken Little panic from the Blue Drama Queens about the horror of Trump America and the concomitant gloating about from the Red Loudmouths about how "America has spoken!" -- neither branch of the uniparty wants to undermine the "mandate." The people who voted for him are the villains this go around.
As the criminal cases against The Orange Fart Cloud are going down the Memory Hole, the Story gets better and better. He gets shot on the campaign trail but keeps on.
We have seen this before withe Ronald the Raygun. He was a joke until he got elected. Then he became invincible. Looking back, it is hard to avoid paranoia about the Uniparty and its history.
How far back does it go?
Comments
The Dems lost the "swing voters."
The system, however, is so hardened into the "red state" and "blue state" division that it could remain this way for awhile, given that neither (D) nor (R) cults has anything to offer the public. The red state-blue state-swing state phenomenon is a product of the 1992 Presidential election. It didn't exist before that time, probably because the Deep South had been a (D) property and because both Reagan and Nixon were Californians.
Today the two parties are like businesses that should have declared bankruptcy long ago but which still hang on because the ownership has such deep pockets.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
another major factor
FCC Spending Reports for POTUS Campaigns
In 1984 GOP -- 77 million . Dems -- 149 million Total 226 million
In 2000 GOP -- 365 million . Dems -- 176 million Total 541 million
In 2008 GOP -- 625 million . Dems -- 1.135 billion Total 1.76 billion
In 2020 GOP -- 829 million Dems -- 3.155 billion Total 3.984 billion
Big Business moved its political base of operations from the Republicans to the Obama Democratic Party in 2008, and presidential spending per prez campaign jumped into the billions.
Clinton was the first Dem president that I opposed, but I understood what he and Gore were doing after two decades of "conservative" election dominance. They avoided being called a liberal and they shamelessly played to the racists who had fled the dems after the Civil Rights Act was passed by LBJ.
Many 21st century progressive observers correctly find fault with such pandering but fail to grasp that their bitch was not really with Slick Willie and the Inventor of the Internet --it was with the Wide swath of the American people who were not about to wake up from their creepy prejudices.
Obama was the Final Shut Up to the racist plurality, while the nature of political communication shifted from retail door knocking and personal communicationn to Paid Media -- financed by Corporate America.
Meanwhile Trump came on the scene with tons of Earned Media to rally the abandoned base of the Republican Party and he now is headed back to the White House.
Money talks and bullshit walks.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Big Money is now pissed off at Harris/ Biden
for having burned through all of THEIR money so idiotically:
So now you have rich people with crap politics, the people they were courting all this time, deserting them. And all that priceless advice they're getting! "You're not unprincipled enough!" "Run more firmly on your pointlessness!" Here we must recall that the most charismatic individual the Dem establishment could cook up in its so-called "defeat" of Bernie Sanders (most of which was accomplished through the co-optation of Sanders' staff) was Joe Biden.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Yes the dems are lousy prostitutes
But that does not say anything good about voting as an option. Nor does it address what I have asserting--- that money is the problem -- people who have lots of it buy the government so that they can get even richer. I believe you have expressed this thought more than once on this board
I said this on one of your threads:
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Now I finally grasp what Cass is advocating -- poach on allegedly disgruntled Blue State moneybags to finance a winning party that can raise Big Money.
No thank you.
I'm not so sure that the lack of "fraud!" accusations really means that the votes were counted accurately this time out. Or that the Gotrockses who run our world do not control the voting process. What a bummer to build a whole new national party and attract many millions of dollars in donations, only to wind up with yet another stolen election like 2000 and 2004.
Furthermore, I doubt that very many of the big dollar contributors to the Harris Campaign would have any interest in fundamental change from our oligarchic empire.
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If I am miconstruing your point, please let me know.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
@fire with fire I am quite certain
I am quite certain the ridiculous month-long count in this election is an attempt to make the obvious and preposterous 2020 fraud more plausible - and maybe to steal some down-ballot races. It won't matter. All of the digital fakery in 2020 has been recorded and documented. There will be a reckoning, and I am now sure of it.
Note: I became involved in the election integrity movement during the Bush years (2000 and 2004). "The Establishment" has always controlled the election machinery. In the early 2000's, the Bushes were the favored, establishment candidates; since then it has been the Dems Obama/Clinton. This has been my No. 1 issue for more than 20 years. If your vote doesn't count, the people have no say in how they are governed.
@fire with fire I am quite certain
I am quite certain the ridiculous month-long count in this election is an attempt to make the obvious and preposterous 2020 fraud more plausible - and maybe to steal some down-ballot races. It won't matter. All of the digital fakery in 2020 has been recorded and documented. There will be a reckoning, and I am now sure of it.
Note: I became involved in the election integrity movement during the Bush years (2000 and 2004). "The Establishment" has always controlled the election machinery. In the early 2000's, the Bushes were the favored, establishment candidates; since then it has been the Dems Obama/Clinton. This has been my No. 1 issue for more than 20 years. If your vote doesn't count, the people have no say in how they are governed.
you make sense about the flakiness of the "election" of 2020
We'll see what sort of reckoning may come. Color me skeptical.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Your argument is noted.
I don't think that in any sense we will be saved by disgruntled Blue State moneybags acting alone. I do, however, think that the disgruntled Blue State moneybags can be persuaded to add an element of chaos, which is to say, democracy, to the mix. And chaos, it must be noted, is what is desperately needed in a two-party system. The electoral map that decides our Presidents at this time was decided in 1992 with Clinton's victory, and has gotten harder with each successive Presidential election. This is to say that, under the conditions of two-party domination, disruptive (R) or (D) candidates can at most win elections in the swing states.
Here one thinks of the shining example of Mexico, which had to endure several stolen elections but which, in the end, went with a new party -- MORENA -- and with Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and ultimately with Claudia Sheinbaum. And it wasn't even close. Of course, large portions of Mexico, even today, are ruled by mafias. But this could also happen in the US too. Today many Americans confront newly crappy conditions with too much of a dawning recognition. That will change too.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
dawning recognition -- what does that mean?
OK, I got my clarification. I'm not buying any part of your theories. And we are arguing past each other.
My prejudice against what I call Faculty Lounge Marxism gets in the way of respectful communication. My own fault.
I'll let it go at that.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.