I hate to say it, but voting against the other guy has been going on a long time, and I think it has a lot to do with why we find ourselves in this situation. “Vote for me because I’m not the other guy” is one of the oldest political strategies there is, and Democrats have been using it for a long time; even going so far as to donate to the campaigns of the most extremist candidates in their race to set themselves up with an easy win.
However, as my boss when I was a teenager would say - and my grandfather decades before him - “I’m a Republican. I vote for the nominee.” There’s a core block of Republicans who don’t care who the Republican candidate is. They’re gonna vote for him regardless of his policies just because he’s the Republican. He could be Trump, Biden, Putin, or Stalin himself, risen from the grave to destroy the specter of capitalism once and for all. And the Democrats have never accounted for these people voting against them rather than voting for a candidate they like, which has led to this slide further and further towards right-wing extremism as the craziest candidates get propped up by Democrats looking for an easy win - to the point that even the old Republicans have lost control of this core group of voters who became the MAGA cultists, and the party as a whole along with them.
It’s unfortunate, but all we can do at this point is vote against the crazies and hope that the Republicans clean out their party of extremists. But I don’t think we’ll see that happen any time soon. The rot is rampant.
I was wondering about that. I’m in California, and there are basically no political signs this year. I figured it was because they thought we would forget whose signs were in their yards in 2016 and 2020
Yep.
I’m in a red state full of Trumpers.
It doesn’t even feel like an election year. There’s no signs or new bumper stickers like the last two. But they all still hate Biden.
A lot of people are just voting against the other candidate this year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_partisanship
I hate to say it, but voting against the other guy has been going on a long time, and I think it has a lot to do with why we find ourselves in this situation. “Vote for me because I’m not the other guy” is one of the oldest political strategies there is, and Democrats have been using it for a long time; even going so far as to donate to the campaigns of the most extremist candidates in their race to set themselves up with an easy win.
However, as my boss when I was a teenager would say - and my grandfather decades before him - “I’m a Republican. I vote for the nominee.” There’s a core block of Republicans who don’t care who the Republican candidate is. They’re gonna vote for him regardless of his policies just because he’s the Republican. He could be Trump, Biden, Putin, or Stalin himself, risen from the grave to destroy the specter of capitalism once and for all. And the Democrats have never accounted for these people voting against them rather than voting for a candidate they like, which has led to this slide further and further towards right-wing extremism as the craziest candidates get propped up by Democrats looking for an easy win - to the point that even the old Republicans have lost control of this core group of voters who became the MAGA cultists, and the party as a whole along with them.
It’s unfortunate, but all we can do at this point is vote against the crazies and hope that the Republicans clean out their party of extremists. But I don’t think we’ll see that happen any time soon. The rot is rampant.
I was wondering about that. I’m in California, and there are basically no political signs this year. I figured it was because they thought we would forget whose signs were in their yards in 2016 and 2020
Nope, they’re pretty much over trump.
The danger is they vote against Biden.