6th November 2024, 2:52 PM
Well that went horribly. I can't say that I'm surprised, though... I wanted to believe that we could win and that the Harris campaign was right, but really I never thought she could win, somehow the idea of Harris being president never really felt real... though I couldn't imagine Trump actually being President (again) either, though I guess we have to now. How horrible. But yeah, as soon as Biden withdrew from the race I thought it was probably over for us -- not that he would have won, his approval numbers were even worse -- but that between the economic fundamentals and the sexism and racism we were probably going to lose, and unfortunately that's how it ended up. I never thought that Trump would actually win the popular vote, though, but he has.
The thing about that though is that he's winning with a similar number of votes to what he got in 2020. The problem is that Harris is going to get about ten million fewer votes than Biden. The American people SHOULD have rejected the fascist and his racism, but weren't bothered enough by any of that to go and vote based on anything other than the economy. It is a condemnation of this nation that that is the case, but that's how it is.
But ultimately, nothing either campaign did affected the outcome. It came down to the fundamental fact that inflation destroys governments in power. That is the explanation for this result: it's all because of the inflation. The list of incumbent governments around the world that have either lost or fallen significantly short of their prior numbers within the past year or so is long indeed. The US SHOULDN'T have been a part of that list because thanks to Bidens' masterful management we avoided a recession and have one of the best economies in the world right now, but unfortunately all that mattered really was inflation, particularly food prices, and not that we only had that inflation because of how we successfully averted economic collapse after Covid started. But yeah, this inflation has taken out or reduced margins for government after government around the world, from the UK to Japan to many other countries. That list will surely get longer in the future too, it's hard to imagine Canada re-electing Trudeau with his approval ratings for instance.
Probably the most interesting outcome of this election is that for the first time in a long time now, there wasn't a gap between the raw vote totals and the electoral college. Because of Trump doing significantly better in blue states than he did before while the key deciding states stayed close, the deciding states went for Trump by amounts quite similar to the overall national margin. And Georgia and North Carolina voted to the left of where they did in previous elections when compared to the national average, which is important for the future.
And also... while Trump won, he hasn't had massive downballot coattails. Right now it looks like the most likely Senate result is 53R-47D. It's awful that we're probably very narrowly losing the PA Senate seat, but holding three and probably four of the five Senate seats up this year in the key deciding purple states is pretty decent really, particularly when Trump won all of those states! Because of how bad the map is it's still a four seat gain for Republicans, but still... it could be a lot worse. And in the House, the most likely result is basically a like maybe one seat gain for the Republicans, so they will probably keep the House, horribly, but again by an extremely small, chaos-is-certain majority. There wasn't a wave in the House at all.
The thing about that though is that he's winning with a similar number of votes to what he got in 2020. The problem is that Harris is going to get about ten million fewer votes than Biden. The American people SHOULD have rejected the fascist and his racism, but weren't bothered enough by any of that to go and vote based on anything other than the economy. It is a condemnation of this nation that that is the case, but that's how it is.
But ultimately, nothing either campaign did affected the outcome. It came down to the fundamental fact that inflation destroys governments in power. That is the explanation for this result: it's all because of the inflation. The list of incumbent governments around the world that have either lost or fallen significantly short of their prior numbers within the past year or so is long indeed. The US SHOULDN'T have been a part of that list because thanks to Bidens' masterful management we avoided a recession and have one of the best economies in the world right now, but unfortunately all that mattered really was inflation, particularly food prices, and not that we only had that inflation because of how we successfully averted economic collapse after Covid started. But yeah, this inflation has taken out or reduced margins for government after government around the world, from the UK to Japan to many other countries. That list will surely get longer in the future too, it's hard to imagine Canada re-electing Trudeau with his approval ratings for instance.
Probably the most interesting outcome of this election is that for the first time in a long time now, there wasn't a gap between the raw vote totals and the electoral college. Because of Trump doing significantly better in blue states than he did before while the key deciding states stayed close, the deciding states went for Trump by amounts quite similar to the overall national margin. And Georgia and North Carolina voted to the left of where they did in previous elections when compared to the national average, which is important for the future.
And also... while Trump won, he hasn't had massive downballot coattails. Right now it looks like the most likely Senate result is 53R-47D. It's awful that we're probably very narrowly losing the PA Senate seat, but holding three and probably four of the five Senate seats up this year in the key deciding purple states is pretty decent really, particularly when Trump won all of those states! Because of how bad the map is it's still a four seat gain for Republicans, but still... it could be a lot worse. And in the House, the most likely result is basically a like maybe one seat gain for the Republicans, so they will probably keep the House, horribly, but again by an extremely small, chaos-is-certain majority. There wasn't a wave in the House at all.
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