cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22407219
this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2024
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In the context of the 2024 election, the change voters wanted was cheaper cost of living.
I see this sentiment a lot on lemmy also and it isn’t my experience irl. Democrats campaigned on taxing billionaires, addressing cost of living for the working class and rescheduling marijuana to name a few things.
Unfortunately all the inflation happened under Bidens term so it was easy to convince voters that progressive policies from Democrats were to blame for inflation. And that is still what a lot of voters think.
That’s not a message anyone would use during a campaign because it can easily be spun against them by the opposition. I don’t fault democrats for not sending that message. That just seems like common sense.
Sorry, I should have clarified that what Democrats were running on in reality versus the zeitgeist weren't the same. That's my bad.
The problem with their actual campaign promises is they weren't always self-evident to the average person why they were the things they'd want, which you touched on. "How does taxing billionaires deal with greedflation? I don't smoke weed—why should I care about that? Why are my groceries so damn expensive, now‽ I remember when gas was cheap. What were the promises, again?"
Meanwhile, Trump stayed on message. He brought out the pitchforks and torches for minorities, and he promised to deal with "government weaponization" (by weaponizing the government and which has that useful quality of meaning different things for different people), he promised to fix inflation by applying tariffs to every blessed thing (which we all know is a truly unhinged plan). Most importantly, he made the headlines.
Democrats can't play it safe the next time. They're playing ball with a cult leader, and if they want to stand any chance at midterms, they need to realize they're up against an adversary who is more than happy to twist and shape the rules to favor them.
I agree that the issue they had is their campaign promises weren’t self evident to the average person. It seems they had to choose to either A) give all of America an economics lesson so they understand their goals, or B) lie like the GOP does and make up a scapegoat to blame inflation on. A) isn’t feasible and B) makes them look untrustworthy to anyone who understands the situation enough to see they are scapegoating.
I think the real problem the Democratic Party faces is beating the GOP without becoming the GOP. There’s a lot of voices online pushing for Biden to execute Trump and do things that we would only expect Trump/GOP to do. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out those voices are bad actors trying to normalize Trumps behavior.