December 6, 2023

"Trump and the Republicans held leads on... being for working people (a 7-point advantage), standing up to elites (8 points)..."

"... being able to get things done for the American people (12 points), feeling safe (12 points) and keeping wages and salaries up with the cost of living (17 points)... [and] patriotism (11 points), crime (17 points), immigration (20 points) and border security (22 points)... [and] opposing extremism (3 points), getting beyond the chaos (6 points) and protecting the Constitution (8 points)."
 
Writes Thomas Edsall, in "'This Is Grim,' One Democratic Pollster Says" (NYT), reporting the results of a poll of voters in battleground states and competitive House Districts. The poll was done by James Carville's group, Democracy Corps.

Biden and the Democrats only came out ahead on "women’s rights (ahead by 17 points), climate change (15 points), addressing racial inequality (10 points), health care (3 points), the president will not be an autocrat (plus 2) and protecting Democracy (plus 1)." 

Edsall quotes various pundits, but let me highlight one, Will Marshall, "president and founder of the center-left Public Policy Institute think tank":
Biden’s basic problem is that the Democratic Party keeps shrinking, leaving it with a drastically slender margin of error. It’s losing working class voters — whites — by enormous, 30-point margins — but nonwhites without college degrees are slipping away too.

[White, college-educated liberals have] pushed Democrats far to the dogmatic left, even as their base grows smaller. Young progressives have identified the party with stances on immigration, crime, gender, climate change and Palestinian resistance that are so far from mainstream sentiment that they can even eclipse MAGA extremism....

I'd like to see pollsters ask young people, black people, and working class people what "MAGA extremism" means and invite them to be specific. The NYT seems to assume that its readers easily swallow the phrase "even eclipse MAGA extremism" whole. Look at that poll and tell me what aspects of this "MAGA extremism" are not "mainstream sentiment." Democrats are too heavily dependent on characterizing Trump as a monster to acknowledge my questions.

And that's where Edsall ends up. His last paragraph:

The one ace in the hole for Democrats is Donald Trump himself. As the center of attention in the elections of 2018, 2020 and even 2022, Trump was the key to Democratic victory. Trump is doing all he can to become the focus in 2024, but the question remains whether the Democrats, with Biden at the top of the ticket, can successfully demonize him again.

How about not subjecting us to the politics of demonization? Wouldn't it be amazing if Democrats treated Trump as a legitimate candidate and engaged with him on the issues? Edsall doesn't even see that possibility. He's just brooding about whether Biden is a good enough demonizer. 

50 comments:

Rhonda said...

Biden as Demonizer-in-Chief. No one can hurl false charges and statements like Scranton Joe. Why engage on the issues since you know you won’t win that argument?

tim in vermont said...

The reason that the Democrats can't engage on the issues is that they they know for a fact that their policies are unpopular.

I know that Obamacare is supposed to be popular, but I don't recall all of the complaints about American health care, not from the media, but from people I know in real life you actually use it, before the government put the screws to health plans, and health plans took over medical treatment decisions from doctors.

Obviously electric cars are not going to work for most people in America, and the Democrats know it, and still they try to jam them down our throats.

Look what happens when the massive numbers of "asylum seekers" show up in the areas, like NYC, that votes to keep the borders wide open.

War is actually unpopular with the people who are going to be sending their children to fight, especially after Biden squandered the sacrifice of so many in Afghanistan, and the Democrats are the part of war now.

Chuck Schumer just came out and said that the Republicans were terrorists, basically "hostage takers" was his phrase, because Republicans are demanding that the border issues be addressed before we send another $100 billion to fight in a war between commies and nazis, a war that is none of our business.

I just don't see how, no matter how many sock puppets the Democrats train using government personnel and money, that they can put that much lipstick on the pig.

Kai Akker said...

---How about not subjecting us to the politics of demonization? Wouldn't it be amazing if Democrats treated Trump as a legitimate candidate

It would be amazing. FDR demonized Republicans and the wealthy successfully in most of his presidential campaigns. When he won in 1932, it was not just a victory over the GOP but "a call to arms." And the same theme has been used over and over ever since. All emotion, no thought.

Enigma said...

When -- if ever -- does the "women's rights" crowd politically snap over transgender disputes? As far as I recall, transgenderism became a big deal after intersexed Caster Semenya (XY chromosomes) won medals in the 2012 and 2016 Olympics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_Semenya

Compassion in Caster's tough and ambiguous case rapidly morphed into all sorts of actions that are outright hostile to bio females, even as many bio females exhibit routine female compassion and as they sacrifice their dreams for others. Female identities as a social construct? Nope. Female behavior as routine mammalian parenting and group support. Yep.

Maybe I answered my own question. This ends when the female self-sacrifices are all killed on altars and their hearts are cut out. Dead people can't vote for their abusers or "stand by their abusive man" or stand by co-dependent enabler governments.

rehajm said...

Wouldn't it be amazing if Democrats treated Trump as a legitimate candidate and engaged with him on the issues?

They know they would lose big time so they are the 'pound the table'[ party...

rehajm said...

The Democrats haven't lost college 'educated' white Karens yet, so they've got that going for them...which is nice.

iowan2 said...

The NYT seems to assume that its readers easily swallow the phrase "even eclipse MAGA extremism" whole. Look at that poll and tell me what aspects of this "MAGA extremism" are not "mainstream sentiment

Yes, I caught this phraseology immediately.

But. You, our host, already know the answer. Because you are MAGA extremism. You defend reason, logic, facts. You defend the written Constitution, you defend the rule of law.
For your actions you are labeled a MAGA extremist. You, Alan Dirschowitz, Jonathan Turley, and others, get labeled an extremist for defending the fundamental values of the United States, as laid out in Our Nations Founding Documents.

tim in vermont said...

I just had dinner out last night, in Vermont, of course, and at the next table sat four Democrats, I presume, and the topic of conversation was how terrible Elon Musk is, and "why did I buy a Tesla?" I can't imagine spending my evening with friends talking politics, but I think that being Democrats is how they bond with each other. They seek reassurance from each other that they all hate the right people. My next door neighbor had spent good money on a Trump punching bag, I can't imagine buying a Joe Biden punching bag, and I doubt that he loathes Trump more than I loathe Biden, but I would see it as a victory for Biden, if he were living in my head like that. So maybe if he needs to think about Trump that much, he does loathe Trump more.

tim in vermont said...

"The Democrats haven't lost college 'educated' white Karens yet,"

Do you actually know any Gen-Z college educated women? The Democrats haven't lost them, but Joe Biden has. I wouldn't put it past the Democrats to include clothespins for the nose with the absentee ballots they send out.

The Crack Emcee said...

"Democrats are too heavily dependent on characterizing Trump as a monster to acknowledge my questions,...How about not subjecting us to the politics of demonization? Wouldn't it be amazing if Democrats treated Trump as a legitimate candidate and engaged with him on the issues? Edsall doesn't even see that possibility. He's just brooding about whether Biden is a good enough demonizer."

Like America's "animal" and "savage" yelling Netanyahu fans, it's all about dehumanizing somebody, so badly, they can wreck them without debating what it is they're doing. If Hamas is ISIS, or the Nazis, who questions bombing the Palestinians to get to them? But, if Christians, Jews, and whites can live and work amongst Hamas (which they can't under ISIS) and they haven't killed 10,000 Jews a day (like Adolf) then what-the-Hell is Bibi doing slaughtering civilians by the thousands? I'll tell you: after his own catastrophic failure, he's trying to hang onto his job for as long as he can - through killing - that's what.

We can be glad, at least, the Democrats settled on dehumanization to cover for mere slow-rolling banana republic-type corruption.

Considering how much "war is politics by other means" their other possibilities are unnerving to consider.

The Crack Emcee said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dave Begley said...

Biden will quit the campaign. For the Dems to win, they just need someone who is not Biden and is not senile or obviously bribed.

It will be Mark Cuban or Gavin Newsome.

The Dems vote rigging in key states will be enough to win the race.

Cuban might not be half bad if he can get the nomination.

JAORE said...

"...the question remains whether the Democrats, with Biden at the top of the ticket, can successfully demonize him again".

For a substantial number the DJT as evil incarnate is already baked in. Rather like Saint George Floyd. Or that January 6 was when we were almost destroyed as a nation. Evidence be damned. They know Trump is (fill in the blank with every bad thing you can think of).

Major news media beat tat drum daily, hell, hourly. Nope media doesn't take sides. Nope, nope, nope.

RideSpaceMountain said...

"When -- if ever -- does the "women's rights" crowd politically snap over transgender disputes?"

Never. It will never happen. It will certainly not be le stronk independant womenz who initiate it. Such snapping will happen outside le stronk sisterhood, maybe even initiated by a dude or former dude in a dress...how's that for irony.

Mark my words, le stronk women would gladly give up every victory for le stronk womenz rightz of the past 180 years of liberalization than admit they were wrong to le evil white menz about this issue. They will gladly wear the handmaid tale garb only if it was le stunning & bravez transsexuals telling them to do it.

Dudez finally found a way to get women to do what they tell them, and all they had to do was put on a dress. We've been doing it wrong the whole time.

tim in vermont said...

"The wave [immigration] will continue; it's not gonna stop, nor should it... At some point whites are going to be an absolute minority, and that's a good thing." - Joe Biden

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1732375870713577574

How the hell is Biden supposed to run openly on what he believes? BTW, Mayorkas is right at his side smiling and nodding his approval. And DON"T FORGET, noticing this is racist. If you think that the "fundamental transformation" of your country is perhaps something we ought to openly debate, you are a nazi.

Howard said...

Keeping Trump in all the headlines is Nancy Pelosi's and Church Schumer's only hope. Otherwise the kids take over the DNC. This is a generational war over power and control.

It's classical human psychology manipulation 101. Create a boogieman, inflate his danger, offer the only viable antidote.

tim in vermont said...

Not to worry! Taylor Swift has signed on to promote Biden and after that, Time has named her "Person of the Year." So Biden has it in the bag.

Kevin said...

It’s not the ace in the hole but the five in the sleeve that worry me.

You know, the ones placed there “for the integrity of the game”.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

Many people who have been proudly liberal are going to be attacked by the woke sooner or later. Low-skilled blacks are hurt by open borders, and Dems do very little for them, yet so far they remain loyally D. The Dems know how to say soothing words? Educated white women are a different matter. Dems are objectively more likely to be pro-choice. But aren't white women being discriminated against alongside white men?

Liberal Jews have generally been all for open borders and multi-culturalism, a point I believe Musk was trying to make. Why? Perhaps a hope that secular post-Christianity would be better for the Jews (and others) than Christianity. Now there are huge mobs of murderous Jew-haters in Western countries, roughly woke or on the left. Perhaps some Muslims will accept new views of sex, but not the existence of Israel.

Jersey Fled said...

“I'd like to see pollsters ask young people, black people, and working class people what "MAGA extremism" means and invite them to be specific.”

Hell, I’ve been asking our Lefty friends here to explain why they claim Trump is a racist for eight years now and all I get is a reference to a march in Charlottesville where they have to misquote him to make their point.

tim in vermont said...

Either Meade took the keys to the blog, or the Democrats have lost Althouse and Jonathon Haidt on the same day.

https://twitter.com/JonHaidt/status/1732389011983900857

tim in vermont said...

"It's classical human psychology manipulation 101. Create a boogieman, inflate his danger, offer the only viable antidote."

This is also US foreign policy. They use it because it works.

"If a country suddenly stops getting along with a neighbor, and violent conflict arises, one of those countries has a large US Embassy complex." - Old Irish Proverb (OK, I made that up, the actual Irish proverb speaks of the visit of an Englishman.)

Virgil Hilts said...

This post is why this blog remains one of the best. My daughter is a well known political activist. That Trump is a demon is her lode star. It immunizes them from having to engage in policy debates. You might as well be saying “Satan’s” when you try and defend “Trump’s” policies as better for the country.

Bob Boyd said...

The Democratic Party will interpret these results as a successful deception of the stupid voters by the Nazis. They will go even further to prevent the will of the stupid, duped voters from being carried out and thereby save democracy.
Just as Fauci believed he was Science, Democrats believe they are Democracy.

tim in vermont said...

You forgot the best part, that tRump's approval is higher among traditional (and critical) Democratic constituencies than Biden's. Biden's approval is at 33%. Satan probably is at 29%.

Aggie said...

One of the worst things about Marxist principles is that it's always the Stupid People that seize power, and then brutishly misinterpret them. It always ends up with displays of 'Right Thinking' and purity testing - thus, the shrinking base of the Democrat party.

A useful quotation, seen yesterday: “To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.” - Thomas Paine

RideSpaceMountain said...

@Howard

Who are you, and what have you done with Howard?

Aggie said...

@Enigma said:"Dead people can't vote for their abusers...."

Ha, ha, ha. Never been to Chicago, have you? Dead people have all kinds of voting opportunities in certain, reliable precincts. Well.......not all kinds.

Dave Begley said...

Virgil Hilts.

So true. The Dems just run on the Trump-is-Hitler narrative.

I just wrote on X that both Vivek and Dean Phillips should promise to impose a federal limit on credit card interest rates and make student loans discharable in BK.

Vivek has plenty of issues, but Dean is running on "I'm not old and senile like Biden."

I hope my ideas get some traction.

gilbar said...

Virgil Hilts said...
might as well be saying “Satan’s” when you try and defend “Trump’s” policies as better for the country

Actually, NO.. The woke ADORE Satan
Cosmopolitan magazine shares steps for how to have a 'Satanic Abortion Ceremony'

Cosmopolitan: What’s it like to have a Satanic abortion?

tim in vermont said...

It's so grim, that even life long Republicans are turning on Biden.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

It's so grim, that even life long Republicans are turning on Biden. A classically witty take from tim in vermont. Dittos dude.

Kevin said...

Biden is also -7 in "not being Trump".

Rusty said...

Blogger tim in vermont said...
"It's so grim, that even life long Republicans are turning on Biden."
Thread winner!

Iman said...

Biden is a Stage 4 cancer on the body politic.

hombre said...

Sounds like Republicans have an opportunity to snatch defeat from victory again.

wendybar said...

Monica Crowley
@MonicaCrowley
Republicans bounced George Santos.

Kevin McCarthy is leaving this month.

Bill Johnson is retiring.

This will leave the GOP with a ONE-SEAT majority.

Democrats would never do their voters like this.

These people don’t give a sh!t about us or the country. In fact, they revel in sticking it to us and the country.

Disgusting.
12:05 PM · Dec 6, 2023

Original Mike said...

"Wouldn't it be amazing if Democrats treated Trump as a legitimate candidate and engaged with him on the issues? Edsall doesn't even see that possibility."

He sees it (assuming he's not an idiot). But his goal is not the best policies for the country. His goal is not the wellbeing of its citizens. His goal is winning. Presumably because that's what he's paid to do. I wonder if he can sleep at night.

JK Brown said...

"... being able to get things done for the American people (12 points), feeling safe (12 points) and keeping wages and salaries up with the cost of living (17 points)... [and] patriotism (11 points), crime (17 points), immigration (20 points) and border security (22 points)... [and] opposing extremism (3 points), getting beyond the chaos (6 points) and protecting the Constitution (8 points)."

Fixing those may be hard even if Trump wins. Remember, ALL the SES (Senior Executive Service) is in active opposition to the Trump as president, along with a multitude of the GS, especially in the DOJ.

However, those things are only likely to get far worse under the Democrats in the White House (titular head Biden, or even Harris). So 8 years of decline on the Democrat doorstep. And a lame duck in the White House, so opening up the civil war in the Democratic party that is going hot over anti-semitism now in the open.

Of course, under a Democrat regime, a hot war is likely to start, but all those young men might just refuse to be enslaved in a Draft to execute the failing foreign policy of Ivy League globalists. And certainly, they'd have to draft young women or see "women's equality" take a serious blow.

And if Democrats go for dictatorship, well, sides will have to be chosen and America will be gone. Imagine a world with the US in civil war.

JK Brown said...

The Democrats haven't lost college 'educated' white Karens yet, so they've got that going for them...which is nice.

Privately, the Dem politicians admit that the single, college-edumedicated women are easily manipulated. They vote for only their interests and see older people and men should keep them up as their useless fathers trained them to expect. As they age without children, they become Code Pink in hopes of having some meaning in their life as their professors indoctrinated them to find meaning in activism.

On the other hand, those that marry and have children are starting to show up in "activism" as moms as school board meetings and decidedly not compliant NPC as their professor hoped.

n.n said...

intersexed Caster Semenya (XY chromosomes)

Male sex and physiological advantages. The dispute was about the ambiguity of methods of identification and the social status of self-identification.

n.n said...

In the worst case, women have six weeks to commit planned parenthood before neural activity. #NoJudgment #NoLabels

With rare exception, even the most liberal jurisdictions enforce a limit of woman's right to choose death to several months following conception, several months before birth.

Equity, no. Equal in rights and complementary in Nature.

n.n said...

The woke ADORE Satan
Cosmopolitan magazine shares steps for how to have a 'Satanic Abortion Ceremony'


Human rites performed for social, clinical, criminal, political, and fair weather progress.

n.n said...

“Engaging in Personalities”: Rep. Summer Lee’s Curious View of Free Speech

Rep. Summer Lee (D., Pa.) has long been a voice for censorship, attacking those who seek to restore free speech on social media. Lee’s curious view of free speech was on display this week when she attacked witnesses, including Riley Gaines, as hateful and transphobic but then tried to censor Gaines when she responded to Lee’s attack as misogynistic.

Can they abort the baby, cannibalize her profitable parts, sequester her carbon, and have her, too?

Life imitates the outer limits.

Jon Burack said...

Ann,

This by Salon's Amanda Marcotti deserves the treatment I know you are capable of, though you may consider the stupidity of it not even worth the time.

https://www.salon.com/2023/12/06/is-hiding-his-fascist-plans-in-plain-sight/

In a nutshell, she says Trump is hiding plans for a fascist takeover in plain sight by publishing the plans (an "ominously named," she says Project 2025) in the New York Times where no voter who might be open to him is likely to see it and tremble in fear. Yeah, go figure. But the fascinating thing about the article is that, except for making a deal about Trump's use of the word "vermin" Marcotti offers not one single detail about the nefarious Trump plot, I swear. If anyone can find even one actual detail, I say more power to you. (Well, she does link to a story about the Heritage Foundation creating a list of possible appointees to a future Trump government. Wow, how ominous.) The entire article is really meant to convey only that her readers (and the readers of the NYTs and WaPo) are so smart and all the rest so dumb.

Drago said...

Boy, you can really tell how much Hamas 7th Century Death Cult Fanboy Crack wants in on the terror/murder/rape of his Hamas genocidal sicko ops.

Unfortunately Crack, to participate you would actually have to go to the Middle East and operate with your heroes to gain the particular "fringe benefits" you seek and given you are a classic lazy bones non-self-starter you'll simply have to make due with the gang rape and mutilation, child murder and beheadings videos made by your very own Hamas Nazi heroes.

Drago said...

The GOPe is pulling out the Paul Ryan 2018 playbook where they got record numbers of republicans to retire and drop out to hand the House to the dems.

The reason? To ensure impeachment would occur in 2019/2020.

Then, Ryan in the House and McConnnell in the Senate, and Gov Ducey as head of the Republican National Gov Association, set funding priorities to actually harm many GOP candidates.

McConnell even handed $10M to Murkowski to attack the actual republican Senate candidate after helping to ensure rank choice voting that also handed the congressional seat to the minority vote getting dem.

We are watching another massive betrayal of the republican base by the GOPe again...after all the other times.

And all the Usual GOPe Althouse commenter suckups will find a way to blame Trump.

Two-eyed Jack said...

"MAGA extremism in defense of liberty is no vice."

Rusty said...

Wewndy @ 12:05
He lost control of the graft. It's never been about the peope. Only about control of the money.

Bunkypotatohead said...

HaHa. Trump is an autocrat and Biden is only 2 points less of one. I wouldn't use that as bragging rights, Joe.

But it's moot. Biden will be the next president and Trump will be in prison. President Harris' final act before leaving office in 12 years will be to pardon his corpse.