For Arendt, facts and opinions, “though they must be kept apart, are not antagonistic to each other; they belong to the same realm.” A fact (her example is Germany’s invasion of Belgium in August 1914) “acquires political implications only by being put in an interpretative context.” Whoever reports what happened, she wrote, “always tells a story, and in this story the particular facts lose their contingency and acquire some humanly comprehensible meaning.”
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That is what Arendt meant when she argued that organizing people together to change the world—that is to say, doing politics—requires an approach that rejects outright lying while also avoiding a complacent expectation that “the truth” will reveal itself for voters to follow. The narrative wars have begun. If Democrats are smart, they’ll opt for storytelling instead.
nope: Americans are not complicated: ITS ABOUT GAS PRICE at least for the ‘undecided’ voters.
Iran knows this and closing the straight dealt Trump his biggest existential blow yet.
thats not why Biden/Harris lost the presidential though is it. And they had abysmal approval ratings amongst dem voters. Dont we need to pay some attention to those issues too? Ignoring them wont make them go away.
Per SRSS voter poll from the election:
Yes, the economy is the biggest thing they had but also coming in second is the state of democracy and corruption was high on the list too.
And as the author stated:
Democratic leadership, if they were smart and effective, would be talking about the war in Iran, ending it, investigating it, hold Republicans responsible for the the war and the prices at the pump, effectively taking care of both issues of the economy and democracy in one go. That would have made those Independents and Demorcrats and Progressives happy.
But no, we didn’t get that at all from leadership.
I’m pleased that Dem voters have connected all of our problems to the astonishing MAGA corruption. Hopefully, this will be the motivation to finally pursue a true reform agenda.
The Dems do have a shortcut, though. MAGA is fully supportive of unlimited, unregulated Data Center construction EVERYWHERE, and nobody wants it, from Reps to Dems to Indies. Dems could run on one issue - “No AI Data Centers” - and win every election.
I disagree with your assessment reading the topline data.
It was the economy. Republicans and Indepentens make up 85% of that concern.
That is what got people to either stay home or vote blue.
For the blue side though, yes specifically the state of the democracy. But that is more “trump motivated me to go out and vote” and less “my parties platform made me go out and vote.”
First, you can’t just add the percentages from two groups without knowing the raw numbers and call it the total percentage. That’s not how percentages work.
Second, my point isn’t that corruption was the thing that was driving the vote, it’s that it is also a major concern for the Independent voters too. You’re looking at the whole group of polled Independent voters who answered 44% said economy, so yes, we agree that the major driver is the economy, no argument here. You also had 28% of them say democracy/corruption was their major driver.
That’s not a insignificant percentage.
Source if you want to look at the breakdowns yourself.
Exactly. One thing we have learned from the USA in the last 2 years is not only do some people profit from the corruption, but others, MANY MANY MANY MORE others actively chose to ignore the corruption if it does not personally affect them.
This is why Cypher is the true enemy in the Matrix, not Smith or even the machines. Cypher knows is in a position where he can help millions of people, but he STILL chooses ignorance, just like the avg 'murican. ITS BLISS
Panem et circenses.
Gas prices were an important factor, but not nearly the only one. He betrayed nearly every one of the demographic groups that MAGA carefully recruited so effectively, it was like he was trying to hurt them.
He swore no new wars, then started the stupidest war in history, led by the stupidest leader in history. This one also betrayed the young men who voted for him, who will now have to be the ones to die in that stupid war.
He betrayed the Epstein Files Voters, who were sure he was going to expose all the pervy Dems, only to find out they were all pervy MAGAs, including Trump.
MAGA fully supports total unregulated data centers, which 85% of the country opposes.
He even betrayed Farmers, again, with his tariffs, AND his diesel prices.
And he betrayed the rank & file MAGA supporters by doing everything he could to raise, rather than lower prices.
Then there is the breath-taking open corruption that EVERYONE can see.
And a million other betrayals, and exploitations, and lies, and crimes, etc.
If gas prices had been under $3, we still would have had the same election. The American people have had their fill of MAGA.