(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
An Honest Look at Political Ignorance, Voting Strategies and their Consequences [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-08-31
Mutual Demonizing the Opposition, a Dangerous Strategy
News is now largely controlled by the billionaire class, whose task is putting Americans to sleep while their throats are cut.
Personally fulminating against two time, die hard Trump voters for their racial bias, “cruel intentions”, political and class ignorance, or all four, may make us feel better. But it does little to lessen the threat their ignorance is posing to the Republic.
The Republican habit of demonizing their opponents has also been practice by the Democrats. You may argue that there’s much more truth in this regarding the Republican threat, but is it a helpful electoral strategy with so many poorly informed, irrational voters?
It seems to me that as much as 90% of electoral campaigning is negative in general on both sides. Does that extreme of an imbalance really always favor the progressive side of politics? Certainly not in Trump’s history. In a very real sense, it seems to play right into Trump’s hands, who benefits greatly the most from this type of campaigning in a now badly divided America. This should not be thought of as a political position against any negative campaigning, just the excessive amount of it may not be helping us.
No More Excuses
Diatribes, some quite personal, that periodically savage Trump voters appear regularly in publications like KOS and other left sources. It tends to lower morale more than boost it. Hopeless polarization is the manna that feeds Trump and lowers our morale, in additional to greasy cheese burger deluxes. It is also used to blame the election loss totally on the Trump voters without owning up to strategic as well as very basic errors made by Democratic leadership. “Perfect” campaigns do not lose elections to criminal and treasonous fascists.
Fighting Words and Open Resistance
Sanders and Ocasio
We need fighting words not a demoralizing assessment of the people that may be taking us off to the camps one day. While the bond between Trump and his supporters seems unbreakable, it is far from that. It’s in the beginning stages of breaking like a bent straw at present. The door must not be closed to disillusionment. When it comes it may be sudden.
MAGAs and Trump voters are already simmering, and it’s clear that Trump now fears the worst, that the bond with his followers is beginning to shatter and that simmering disappointment is starting to be directed at him. I don’t expect many Trump voters and MAGites to join the resistance, but their rejecting him is now in the cards and we should act accordingly.
Why Were They “Unreachable”?
Trump zealots literally frothing at the mouth on January 6th.
They were unreachable in past in large part because the Democratic leadership spit the bit a long time ago, conceding the Southern states and many others when the Democratic Party began to support the Civil Rights struggle for black Americans.
Just note the large rallies earlier this year headed by Ocasio and Sanders and you can see the door to resistance and change has always remained open. It was a door that the old guard Democratic leadership did not wish to go through. Why is a subject for a different article.
Neutralizing Them is Worth the Effort
It seems as though many elements in the Democratic leadership and the left are clueless as to how to approach Trump voting states, having written them off semi-permanently. As Ocasio and Sanders demonstrated, they aroused significant support in red states and few if any counter protests. Seems to me the policy of writing off neutralizing if not winning over Trump voters at this stage is suicidal to resistance efforts. And I’m not talking so much about Trump voter conversions in those states, but providing Democratic voters in those states a platform and morale to show their support at the poles for vanquishing the Trump cabal of evil. A disillusioned if not converted Trump voter is manner from heaven for the resistance.
What it Takes to Vote Intelligently
To be able to vote intelligently is no easy task in America. Many here at KOS seem to not disbelieve this. Previous civic schooling and watching traditional T.V. news coverage for a scant few minutes a day does not distinguish critical candidate differences. Or increase understanding of what politics represents, or teach people how to vote for their class interests. Nor do they often know, or even care, who’s lying or telling the truth.
Rural Areas: A Progressive News Blackout
Far too many vote on irrelevant emotional factors.
Many people that do grasp politics to a greater degree were radicalized in the 50s through 80s period or broke free from rural propaganda when they moved to the more liberal cities. To them, politics was demystified.
In rural areas, years of political alienation, unresolved racism and mistrust of both Parties left many open for a perceived hustler/grifter/racist panderer like Trump. He attacked most politicians, even some Republicans, most of whom they already hated or mistrusted to begin with. He spoke to them in a crude, biased form of gutter street language they were familiar with. They fell into a non-thinking cult like trance, feeling they were listened to and liberated from trying to understand politics. They stopped paying any attention to anyone else and elevated him to a bullet proof, god-like figure and savior. His appeal is equivalent to someone controlled by cult like or religious dogma.
Voting for a Winner?
General George Patton
Many Americans want to believe they are voting for a winner, regardless of policy and politics. That nationalist aggression, authoritarian appeal and imperial bullying has always had a significant following for many American voters. Perhaps some will remember this famous quote featured in the 1970s movie about Gen. George Patton many years latter. It goes like:
“Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. All real Americans love the sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and pities the loser.” Gen. George Patton
Countless Americans still vote for such reasons, disregarding all other possibilities. Trump portrays this image well, even if he’s totally fraudulent and repulsive.
Losing the Propaganda Wars to the Republicans
One of many brutal attempts to squash the Civil Rights movement.
The conditions for fascism have been developing for some time. Two bitterly divided countries had been forming since LBJ signed the Civil Right Bill. Which succeeded thanks mostly to the two decades of moral resistance and struggles by African Americans. The worst extremist elements in ruling circles were then on the defensive and relegated to minority status ideologically before this.
Long Term Republican Reaction
Close to half country gradually fell under the spell of the Republicans, which pandered and greatly aggravated already existing expressions of racism, misogyny, anti-gay and anti-immigrant sentiment.
Centrism and the Flaw in Naming States Red or Blue
Former President Bill Clinton.
Democratic leadership seemed to have little concern for losing so many states to the vicious Republican hate juggernaut, and has seemingly abandoned most of them, perhaps not including Obama’s 50 state strategy, for which he won the White House twice!
An abandonment symbolized by the division of state names into either the color Red or Blue. They might as well have called them Union or Confederate states. It was not a strategically smart idea for whomever first thought up this color coding states up!
Feeding Civil War
In only feeds the country’s/voter’s conscious feeling of being divided. In practice it pits states against each other and demonstrates a basic weakness in Democratic party “us against them” electoral strategy. I’m convinced that it loses as least as many votes as it wins.
Winning by being slightly less unpopular than the Republicans became the “Centrist Bill Clinton strategy” for the Party leadership. One that survived and thrived long after Clinton was gone and eventually blew up in their faces last year in 2024.
Reaction Goes Critical Mass
Under Trump these factors reached critical mass and cult-like MAGA support — the first president to openly embrace and literally bless their prejudices and dictatorial leanings and offer “red meat bias” and not just meaningless rhetoric.
Schumer led, billionaire dependent Democratic leadership must be replaced. []
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/8/31/2339145/-An-Honest-Look-at-Political-Ignorance-Voting-Strategies-and-their-Consequences?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
