Americans Want Left-Wing Policies And Right-Wing Politicians And WTF Do We Do About That?
And it's partly because they really think we eat babies.
Missouri.
That’s the one I can’t get over. The state of Missouri voted to legalize abortion. They voted — overwhelmingly — to raise the minimum wage and to make it so all employees could earn paid sick days.
They also voted, very overwhelmingly, for Donald Trump.
Hell, even Nebraska (despite not passing their abortion rights ballot measure) gave workers the right to earn paid sick leave.
Alaska also voted for a higher minimum wage and earned paid sick days.
Ironically, the two states that voted against raising minimum wages were California (for all workers) and Massachusetts (for tipped workers). California also voted to make shoplifting more than once a felony, which feels very Javert of them.
To be fair, all three votes, in Florida, South Dakota, and North Dakota, for marijuana legalization failed and ballot measures calling for voter ID and “requiring US citizenship to vote” (which, by the way, is already a thing) were also very popular.
The thing I couldn’t get out of my head Tuesday night, including with the results of the exit polls, is that voters like left-wing policies, but they love Republican politicians, and that’s something we really need to start thinking about.
I get that a lot of people are tired of progressives saying that Dems would win if they actively pushed for the policies we support rather than trying to stay moderate and win over the Republicans who are “sick of the crazy.” Though let’s be real, the Dick Cheney endorsement was a bad idea, just like I said it was from the beginning. I’d really, really like it if we could just refrain from extolling endorsements from our nation’s greatest war criminals.
While I will forever stand by the fact that I believe those kinds of policies are way more popular than the milquetoast centrist policies some people think will be more appealing in their blandness, I also think it’s ridiculous to say that “Oh, well if this politician had done everything I wanted, they’d have won!” — obviously many, many politicians have won without giving me anything I wanted at all.
The thing is … I don’t think it matters. Like, I truly, truly think that the entire country could be madly in love with a Democratic platform and still vote for a Republican, still vote for Trump.
There are a few reasons for this. For one, Republicans will brag their faces off about everything they do whether it is good or not and just tell people “this is good and you love it.” Democrats will do good things for people, but they won’t brag because bragging is gauche. We don’t like it when people brag like that, it makes us uncomfortable as hell, but we are vastly outnumbered by people who do. People who need things to be that simple.
Republicans, Trump in particular, also spend a lot of time blowing smoke up their followers’ asses — telling them “Yeah, the whole world is against you, but I think you are special and wonderful!” This is something we could never copy because it would creep our existing base the fuck out. That being said, “I’m voting for Trump because these other people hate me and he thinks I’m great” (even though we hate them for good reason) is not an entirely surprising take.
Another reason is a lot more complicated. The fact is, a very, very large proportion of Americans believe that while Democrats and the Left want nice things … they want them for nefarious purposes. They think we’re the witch in Hansel and Gretel, trying to lure children in with promises of delicious candies only because we want to fatten them up and eat them. This analogy works especially well considering the fact that many of them believe we worship Satan and eat babies.
They think that the reason we pursue equality and justice for minority groups is because we want white cis able-bodied people to feel badly about themselves and get hurt economically.
So, we’ll see these polls about how a majority of Americans do want reasonable gun control — but they also frequently believe that Democrats only want gun control because they want to “control” people and also prevent them from being able to overthrow a tyrannical government (which, of course means that they are the ones who want to institute said tyrannical government).
Why do we want 15-minute walkable cities? Not because they are nicer places to live, or because they make people’s lives better, make it easier for small businesses to thrive — they think we want them because we want to take their cars away so that if we try to do tyranny to them, they won’t be able to escape.
Why do we want healthcare for everyone? Again, obviously to control them. Curiously, I do see a lot of them believing that healthcare should be free for everyone and often of the impression that this is something Donald Trump wants. Of course, they also believe that the real scam is that they are not being offered access to “medbeds” that can immediately cure everything that ails them — which they believe exist and are being kept from them by the deep state (which is, of course, all liberal).
Why do we want abortion? Child sacrifice to Satan, mostly.
Why do we want vaccines? So we can poison them.
Why do we want immigrants? So we can replace them.
Why do we want equality and fair treatment for all? To make straight white men feel like they didn’t earn their privileged status.
Why do we point out inequalities or microaggressions and what have you? Because we want them to feel uncomfortable.
Why do we want to fund education? To brainwash their children, make them hate their parents and turn them trans.
Why do we care about trans people? Because they stopped actively persecuting gay people and we just had to find another group of people to defend from their bullshit, because we had to immediately start pushing and couldn’t just let them bask in the glow of feeling like they did the right thing for a minute. Also because Satan.
Why do we want effective medicines? Because we’re lying about those medications being effective and trying to get them to stop using Ivermectin for everything. Also we want to make them feel dumb.
Why don’t we want prayer in schools, the Ten Commandments plastered everywhere or to be forced to wish everyone a Merry Christmas? Because we want them to feel bad and like they aren’t the most important people in the world. Also because of how we worship Satan.
Why do we believe in climate change and wish to do something about it? Because we want to destroy the jobs of those who work in industries that cause it, we want to take people’s cars away from them and generally want them to have a bad time.
On the other hand, when Republicans do things that we’ve done or discussed doing that have absolutely outraged the Right, they get little more than a shrug. Republicans raged for years about junk food related regulations, but as soon as RFK Jr tells them he wants Cheetos banned? They are delighted to live in a “nanny state.”
Should Trump say something they do disagree with, they will immediately change their stance and go along with it. He said it, so it must be right.
When I look at a lot of these ridiculous QAnon, far-right sites and communities, the thing I find so striking is how they are frequently not actually all that far-right on a lot of issues, most particularly when it comes to the social safety net and healthcare. They want these things, but they hate Democrats so much (partly because of the baby-eating) that they would rather vote for Trump, assuming that he will actually do some of them in a pure way, without the nefarious intentions.
We are dealing with an entire cinematic universe, with its own very complex mythology and an incredibly simple differentiation between good people and bad people. It’s a lot to overcome, especially now that we have a situation in which no one is getting the same news or living in the same reality. These people also live in rural areas where the likelihood of running into or speaking to a liberal or anyone else they hate is next-to-nil. Like the residents of Plato’s Cave, they more or less have no idea what is going on and thus have to create a fictional reality around them.
Huh.
This is good stuff. We obviously don't normally see the team doing deeper analysis (and I don't want the dick jokes and snark to go away), but this reminds me of the best parts of the WonkStream Robyn and SER would do when they got rolling.
I like it, and I agree with it as far as the analysis goes: there really are quite a few "liberal" policies that are far more popular (and thus "centrist" in a sense) that have good support on the other side. And yes, that has been a source of frustration for me in the past. I do think this is good to talk about, but I'm not at all sure there's a solution here.
I mean, maybe there is and we should talk about that more, but the need for an enemy will still be present on the right EVEN IF Trump or whomever decides that to give the righties what they want they have to throw in a bunch of policies I support.
Because let me be clear, I support good policy even when someone is doing the right thing for the wrong reason. But also, when they put me in the box car and send me off to the camp, I don't think there will be wifi and vegan noodles.
So how DO we do this? I honestly feel like right wing voters are a toddler hacking around at everything in the living room -- including people -- with a particularly sharp hatchet. Yes, in theory we don't hate them or hit them. In theory we distract them with that annoying rainbow xylophone, then slip away with the hatchet to lock it up securely.
It's a lovely metaphor, but I don't know where to find a rainbow xylophone that's big enough, and I'm not sure any rainbow xylophone could fully divert their attention from that sharp-edged axe -- not even if it had a button to push that allowed it to play Christmas carols repeatedly until its battery died.
Comparing 2020 and 2024, The Old One received 3 million fewer votes in 2024 than he did in 2020. But MVP Harris got 15 million fewer votes. 15 million Biden voters stayed home, punching The Old One's ticket for the White House. Once you get over the shock, this should serve as a confirmation of what this country is all about. America is sexist and racist to the core. That's our country.