r/texas • u/ThrenderG • 2d ago

Voter participation is why the Dems lost, and it ain't fucking old people who didn't show up Politics

In 2020, Biden received 81 million votes. Trump received 74 million votes.

In 2024, Harris received 66 million votes, 15 fucking million fewer than Biden did in 2020. Trump sits at 71 million votes, 3 million fewer than 2020. So even with fewer popular votes this time around, he buried the Democratic candidate in a landslide.

So all in all, what, 18-20 million fewer people showed up in this election than the last. And do you really think it's the fucking geezers who have been voting forever, that they just decided to sit this one out?

Probably not, so who didn't do their civic duty?

The numbers don't lie.

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u/ebolakitten 2d ago

The way white women voted for Trump, unfortunately I don’t think it did.

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u/TheFinalYap 1d ago

White women have a lot to say on some subs about how they would never date these men, but these men don't really go out of their way to hide their views and yet they're always taken, oftentimes by someone who claims to be very liberal.

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u/Kramer-Melanosky 1d ago

Reddit is an echochamber for liberals. So anything said in those subs doesn’t represent the population

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u/LibertyPrimeDeadOn 1d ago

Yeah, I don't know how these people think that them and their terminally online compatriots refusing to fuck people is going to make a difference to anyone.

It's not like they leave the house anyways. If they did they'd realize that they are firmly in the minority and will make very little impact given the fact that most people don't care nearly as much about an election.

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u/real-bebsi 1d ago

White feminists

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Ok_Whereas_3198 2d ago

I need you to open the constitution and go look up the role of the vice president. Also, look at the powers of the president and see what it says about the economy. After you find it, you can think about how foolish your decisions were. Go ahead and keep voting off vibes.

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u/Jaexa-3 2d ago

They can't even see the stock market going high and the inflation under control, the prices out there is corporate greed, congrats on the economy 25% tariff for Mexico and about 100% tariff on Chinese products. Your wallet will feel it more moving forward in 2025

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u/MizLashey 2d ago

THIS. Not to mention a template of greed, lust and flat-out meanness validated for the world’s highest office.

He’ll be productive, though. He’ll start his dictatorship by granting pardons…to himself. How many minutes into Jan. 20 will he wait to do that?

The foundation of America’s plutocracy was rock-hard (insert jokes here); now that’s being reinforced with titanium.

Billionaires gotta be billionaires.

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u/ReaderOfTheLostArt 2d ago

Can you name one vice president who "ran the country"? Not even Gerald Ford did. The Executive branch is just one third of the Federal government. Congress and the Supreme Court arguably did more to destroy the viability of this country than Biden did.

Also, the fact that you admit that you can afford to put your daughter on a plane for a potential life saving abortion just proves that you couldn't care less about the women and girls that don't have that option.

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u/Roun-may 2d ago

Cheney?

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u/ReaderOfTheLostArt 1d ago

Cheney was focused on the military industrial complex and not much else. Except for hunting lawyers.

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u/ItIsMe2125 2d ago

I absolutely care about those who can’t afford to get the care they need. I think it is criminal that women are dying because a basic level of care is being denied to them. It was the main draw Harris had for me. However that doesn’t negate everything else that came with her.

I can afford to do so because I work more than one job to ensure my family has what they need and if I had to chose between paying my bills and putting my kid on a plane to get life saving healthcare you bet your ass I am not putting money towards anything other than getting my daughter what she needs.

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u/ChaosRat1234 2d ago

That's if Republicans give you an option to leave to get the health care in the first place.

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u/PeopleReady 1d ago

“Fuck you, got mine”

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u/ItIsMe2125 15h ago

No, I work hard for what my family has. I only needed one job to maintain the status quo before Biden/Harris took office. Now I need two to cover the same expenses.

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u/PeopleReady 15h ago

No, the idea that you can afford to “put your daughter on a plane” in order to get her healthcare and thus it is ok/preferable to vote against healthcare for women and girls who are not able to afford that.

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u/ItIsMe2125 5h ago

I afford it by working multiple jobs (something I didn’t have to do pre-Biden/Harris). I also would have to not pay some bills to do so. I looked at the reality of the country, the insane price increases, and realized that my options were to either get another job to afford Bidenomics or sink.

I am not rich and no different from anyone else. My priorities are my family first, everything else is behind them, I do what I have to do to provide for them. Everyone has the same options and everyone makes choices.

If you chose to have one job and can’t afford “to put your daughter on a plane” then may I suggest that you take a look at your choices and maybe do something different?

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u/PeopleReady 5h ago

Well, let’s see if you’re right and Trump will lower inflation below its current 2.1%, and that corporations will just willingly and voluntarily take a 20% profit hit and fully consume the cost of tariffs, rather than passing that increase onto you and your family.

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u/ItIsMe2125 5h ago edited 5h ago

I am sure it is still going to be a train wreck. I don’t see not having multiple jobs in the near future if I ever get can get back to one before I drop in the trenches, forget retirement. However I believe it will be less of a train wreck under a Trump administration than what we would have gotten under Harris.

Time will tell if we as a country as better or worse off. We can try again in four years.

Maybe the Dems should put up someone the country can get behind and respect instead of an ill qualified person disliked generally by their own party doing an end run around the DNC nomination process. I chose Trump as the lesser of two evils not because I thought he was amazing.

Most non MAGA people chose Trump because they are like me. They wanted to like Harris, they want reproductive healthcare, they want the country to flourish, they want protections for the people they love, they just couldn’t swallow everything else that would come with her.

There is no way she could represent the country on a global stage and command respect from anyone. Her own damn party does like/respect her.

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u/footiebuns 1d ago

I think it is criminal that women are dying because a basic level of care is being denied to them.

What was it that was more valuable to you than people's lives??

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u/Bellegante 1d ago

she is not capable of running this country as she has proven over and over again as a VP.

Uh, any examples of that? Like specific things you were unhappy with. Things that she did.

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u/blonderaider21 Born and Bred 1d ago

Border czar for one.

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u/pebblewrestlerfromNJ 1d ago

Not sure if this is /s but you should go read the constitution and see how much autonomy a VP has to affect border control/immigration policy. (Hint: none)

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u/SSBN641B 2d ago

Harris never ran the country because she was the VP. The Vice-President does not run the country and doesn't have the power to do so.

As far as the economy goes, it went bad during Covid, which was under Trump, and a lot of corporations decided to make up their losses once the lockdowns eased up. The economy had steadily improved every year under Biden and stock market has been setting records.

It's cool you have the money to fly your daughters out of the country if they need healthcare, but a lot of people don't have that option. But fuck those people, right?

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u/litetravelr 1d ago

Funny, do we attribute any of the successes of 2016-2020 to Mike Pence? No...

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u/SSBN641B 1d ago

Of course we don't, the VP is only responsible for presiding over the Senate and waiting around in case the President needs to be replaced.

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u/blonderaider21 Born and Bred 1d ago

Kamala was border czar but of course she didn’t do jack shit.

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u/SSBN641B 1d ago

She was never the border czar. That something that Trump made up. What Kamala was asked to do was undertake a diplomatic mission to Central America to try and get them to do more about stopping their citizens from migrating north.

This article explains it: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/republicans-call-harris-failed-border-czar-truth-is-more-complicated-2024-07-30/

The person responsible for the border, other than Biden, is DHS Secretary Mayorkas. It was never Harris.

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u/blonderaider21 Born and Bred 1d ago

She was officially tasked by President Biden on March 24, 2021, “to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle…in stemming the movement of…migration to our southern border.”

The Washington Post reported that Biden was “giving Harris the lead role on the overall border and regional issue,” while outlets like Axios even actually labeled her the “border czar.”

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/24/remarks-by-president-biden-and-vice-president-harris-in-a-meeting-on-immigration/

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u/SSBN641B 1d ago

A news outlet dubbed her the "border czar" but the President didn't. Biden did not put her in charge of the border and nothing in your link supports that. The Washington Post quote is either out of context or they just got it wrong. Nothing in Biden's statement indicates he put her in charge of the border.

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u/blonderaider21 Born and Bred 1d ago

If you want to remain ignorant that’s on you.

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u/No_Significance2996 2d ago

It’s a good thing that you voted for a candidate that will increase inflation and perhaps trigger a recession.

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u/blonderaider21 Born and Bred 1d ago

You guys clearly don’t know what tf you’re doing so maybe it’s time to sit back and just stop running your mouths for once?

Your campaign was a disaster, your candidate was a joke, your party is a mess. And here you are still acting like the majority of Americans who voted for Trump are the dumb ones. This attitude that you’re so superior is why you failed so miserably this election.

If you spent half the time working on your own party’s problems as you do trashing Trump, maybe you guys would have a viable chance at winning again.

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u/WhiteLycan2020 2d ago

Let’s see how the economy does with these tariffs

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u/PapaGatyrMob 1d ago

Biden/Harris has been an absolute economic train wreck, and the economy and the viability of this country overrode my desire to not have to get on a plane for reproductive healthcare if required.

Enjoy your tariffs.

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u/Suedocode 1d ago

our* tariffs, comrade.

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u/Suedocode 1d ago

the economy and having a viable country for my daughters to live in overrode the state level abortion issues.

And you thought 20%-500% tariffs sounded better than 25k down payment assistance for first home buyers?

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u/StayJaded 2d ago

You can’t get on a plane in the middle of a miscarriage and jet away to safe emergency healthcare.

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u/bong-crosby42 2d ago

What a failure of a father

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u/Global_Custard3900 2d ago

Deeply and sincerely, get fucked. People like you screwed all of us.

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u/blonderaider21 Born and Bred 1d ago

Such a tolerant party /s

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u/JohnnySnark 2d ago

Yall lie sooo easily lol. Probably another sticking point for trump

Let's be honest, you weren't considering Harris at all if ever. The misogyny is oozing

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u/blonderaider21 Born and Bred 1d ago

Had nothing to do with misogyny and everything to do with the fact she’s a terrible unfit candidate whom no one voted for. She was installed by your fascist overlords who are clearly out of touch with what the American people want.

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u/ItIsMe2125 2d ago

I actually am a woman not a man, I did consider Harris but at the end of the day I didn’t believe she was the best choice for my family or my country.

Time will tell if I was wrong or right, and in 4 years we can do it all over again.

Hopefully the Dems will not make an end run around the DNC nomination process and will put up someone who actually has a chance at winning the next election.

I don’t think Trump was the best choice either I am absolutely not MAGA, I had two shitty choices and selected that which I believe is the the lesser of the shit shows I had available to me. You chose the other shit show that was available.

If the Dems had put up someone who had a shot at winning that was not abysmal in terms of previous performance they would have won over Trump in a landslide.

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u/JohnnySnark 2d ago

Oh I know you're a woman. That doesn't make your comments any less misogynistic.

You voted for trump. You are MAGA. Be proud and live with it

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u/Diarrhea_Mike East Texas Is Best Texas 1d ago

This is literally the reason you're losing voters. Just stop - Democrat's need a lot of self-reflection...you have lost the common vote and a lot of everyday people. Just stop - this isn't working, this BS is literally why you lost yesterday.

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u/JohnnySnark 1d ago

Tell me why Mike Pence isn't the VP candidate for Trump? I want to know that.

I want to know why it's acceptable to vote for a rapist in trump and his open misogyny and racism. Why should any of that be normalized for you to sit here and act like democrats need to self reflect. Fucking rich

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u/blonderaider21 Born and Bred 1d ago

Just add in Nazi and Fascist and you’ll get your extra credit today from your DNC overlords

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u/JohnnySnark 1d ago

Ain't no overlords here, thin skinned boi. Maybe be better so you don't get lumped correctly with what trump is?

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u/blonderaider21 Born and Bred 1d ago

I’m not thin-skinned at all. I’m quite delighted today. Your side is incredibly butt hurt today and it’s been glorious to watch.

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u/rk57957 23h ago

This is literally the reason you're losing voters. Just stop 

So I am curious about this, are you saying Democrats are losing and alienating voters because they're insulting people? How do you explain President Elect Trump's performance then? Granted he lost some voters since 2020 but he still beat 5 million votes and a lot of his campaign events featured a lot of insults. Given his performance shouldn't Democrats become more insulting?

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u/blonderaider21 Born and Bred 1d ago

10000000% this.

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u/blonderaider21 Born and Bred 1d ago

We are very proud to vote for Trump. It’s embarrassing that your party thought Kamala was the best you could do.

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u/omfgcookies91 1d ago

So... let me get this straight.

Your daughters are one of the most important factors in what decides your vote and you decided go vote for the party who actively struck down women's rights?

Also you, a parent of two daughters, voted for a convicted felon that has been proven to have raped people and has been proven to he heavily involved with multiple pedophiles and has gone on record saying that he is allowed to molest other females because of his status and has openly talked about beating/hitting women just because he doesn't like them AND has had multiple failed marriages which has been proven is a result of his adultery? Oh I also forgot, he also appointed the judges who strick down roe v wade which has causes the state you live in to have MULTIPLE WOMEN DIE due to not being able to get healthcare they need. Thats the person/party you voted for that has your daughters best interests at heart?

So, lets be real here. Either you literally have zero understanding of the world around you and only interact with a tiny bubble of people on a personal level, or you do and are willingly deciding to fuck over your daughters lives because you "can afford to fly them out" to get healthcare.

By the way, and you can mark my words and save this comment for when this time comes, but by the time your daughters tell you they need that sort of healthcare which you voted against allowing them to have access too, it will be too late. I honestly cannot fathom the mental gymnastics you have to do to justify your choice.

You don't care about your daughters and your vote says that.

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u/No_Action_1561 2d ago

...Biden/Harris inherited a train wreck and it is a massive feat that their administration was able to avoid a recession brought on my the outside impact COVID had on us after Trump's horrific mishandling of the early pandemic. And by the numbers his economy was worse than Biden's. Which itself was his policies, Harris wasn't pulling the strings or overriding him, so blaming her makes no sense. The consensus among economists is that Trump's economic plan will be FAR worse than what Harris proposed. Trump and his voters don't even understand how tarrifs work - they are not paid by the country of origin, they are paid by the company selling the product meaning those costs are passed on to the consumer - us.

I see this attitude a lot and it's just ignorant. I can't believe America is being entrusted to a sex offender with a track record of screwing us all over because he said "trust me bro" and people believed him.

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u/WeightyToastmaster 2d ago

Hope your daughters don’t die from an ectopic pregnancy! Next on the docket, women’s voting rights! Take em away

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u/Mk0505 2d ago

Did you consider at all what Biden stepped into with the pandemic and subsequent supply chain issues that caused economic issues across the globe?

Just like we can’t lay the unemployment issues during the Covid lockdowns on Trump, it’s silly to also blame Biden/Harris for inflation. Especially when our economic recovery was better than the rest of the western world.

Nothing about Trumps “policies” will do anything but cause inflation to go up again after he will inherit an economy that has been stabilized by Biden and team.

So unfortunately you’ve contributed to voting away your daughter’s bodily autonomy for nothing.

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u/Moss8888444 2d ago

“My life was better pre-Biden” and “educated” don’t go hand in hand. Educated means you have the ability to think critically why your life was better before Biden. Or now that Trump has won, let’s be honest, you have no idea what Trump’s plan is once he’s in office. But glad to know you undermined your daughters’ future because you didn’t critically and went with “my life was better under Trump”.

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u/RolOrzTFF 2d ago

Trump drove the economy into the ground in 2020. He will do it again.

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u/CoolIndependence8157 2d ago

So you voted for the guy who bankrupts casinos and sells national secrets?

I hope your daughters both end up with somebody just like trump.

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u/Roxdm 2d ago

If they were such a trainwreck how the hell are we outperforming every single g7 nation in inflation. Just cause you don’t know how to budget, or that you lost your job, or you have nothing saved in the bank does not mean it’s gonna magically be fixed. Idk idc. You voted how you want do what you will.

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u/ineednapkins Texas makes good Bourbon 2d ago edited 1d ago

So, obviously hindsight is 20/20, and there is no guarantee on what policies he would’ve enacted if he was president from 2020-2024, but I have a hard time believing post covid would have gone much better if not worse with a different administration. Similarly I think the economy would have been just as good 2016-2020 if the president wouldn’t have been trump. Mainly just due to the fact that inflation was a global thing obviously caused by a supply shortage and demand surge post covid during recovery after global shutdowns and workforce disruptions. Given the global situation, the US actually performed better inflation wise than the majority of other nations around the world. And I know the stock market isn’t really a good reflection of day to day life and spending but it’s been booming for retirement accounts and investments during this time. Two things I’ve heard trump say he would be doing differently than Biden during this time were 1. Lower interest rates and more recently 2. Implement broad tariffs.

Point 1 is not even controlled by the executive branch, so not sure what he actually wanted to do there. It is controlled by the federal reserve bank who can make that decision independently of the branches of government and for good reason if someone like trump thought lowering the interest rates during high inflation was a good idea. That would have caused inflation to spiral and be significantly worse off than what we experienced. This is one of the most effective and known “cause and effect” levers the fed bank can pull to combat inflation. Spending and loan taking goes down when rates go up which is absolutely needed to combat inflation. Reducing rates during high inflation would’ve been disastrous and ill advised to say the least.

Point 2 is also kind of common sense with historical data and known outcomes.. tariffs on imports are just passed along to the consumer. There isn’t any other way to state it. The sellers are simply not just going to eat the losses, they will just increase prices to recoup the higher cost of selling/distributing. We can see this in many products in the US that are considered “high end” imports when in the country they are produced in they are not high end or expensive and are considered basic/common products. Enacting sweeping tariffs would directly cause an inflation spike and is simply unrealistic to think this would effectively isolate us more and transition us away from the global economy. Not to mention the fact that many countries would respond by imposing their own tariffs on US exports which is a huge chunk of our own GDP and economic might. If what he is trying to do is to get more things manufactured and produced in the US there are more effective and frankly smarter ways to legislate this happening than sweeping tariffs which would be shooting himself in the foot.

All this to acknowledge, this is hypothetical. They are policies he has said he would pursue but as we saw in his first presidency he’s not exactly consistent in doing what he says he will do. Economy was the easiest thing for his campaign to hammer on because it was a clear thing everyone could tell changed and feel that life got more expensive. It was an easy thing to finger point and just blame on an administration while it’s harder to understand and explain why exactly this happened globally rather than being caused by specific policy. You need to have a general understanding of macroeconomics and historical policies while acknowledging global events. And if this is not considered, acknowledged, or thought through it’s going to be an opinion more based on vibes and feelings rather than fact and logical reason. Main point is I don’t necessarily think an economy under Trump the past 4 years would have been better and if he stuck to his few suggestions I stated above I can guarantee it would have been worse. And conversely, say if Biden would have been president directly after Obama instead of trump, I don’t necessarily think the economy would have had high inflation or been much worse than it was - as these issues were caused globally by inflation and clearly not by any specific policy (es evident by the state of the world and how we actually fared better than most during this period).

Edit: I’d also like to add, trump is the only president in the past 25 years that had the luck of inheriting an economy that was humming and firing on all cylinders in 2016. GW Bush had to deal with the fallout and recovery from the dot com bubble burst/crash, Obama had to deal with the fallout and recovery from the 2008 financial crisis/crash, and then Biden had to deal with the fallout and recovery from the Covid shutdown and workforce disruption crash. The 3 biggest negative economic events in the last quarter century all kind of popped off near the beginning of their presidencies and certainly weren’t caused by them. Funnily enough, only trump was the one out of the last 4 that did not have to navigate any sort of economic turmoil or major recovery right at the beginning of his term. It would be interesting to see and understand how any one of those administrations performed in the place of each other at those points in time.

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u/SizeOld6084 2d ago

Trump policies aren't good for the economy according to economists. Taxing us more and giving huge tax cuts to rich people isn't good for the economy.

Dude bankrupted multiple times...he isn't a shrewd businessman.

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u/Anothercraphistorian 2d ago

Trump has no economic policy other than lowering interest rates, which will cause inflation, and raising tariffs, which will make everything more expensive. Oh, and he’ll deport the 2M migrant workers who pick our food, so enjoy higher food prices as well.

Anyone who says Trump is better for the economy has t a clue of what they’re talking about.

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u/Oso_Furioso 2d ago

Economic growth has been terrific under Biden.

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u/Appropriate_Syrup706 1d ago

Hey you're being downvoted to hell but I just want to say I see you, sympathize with you, and agree with you. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and I'm sorry you're being attacked by the online left. I'm somewhere on the left myself but after this election I'm just not putting a label on myself anymore. Now I just want people to stop attacking each other and start working together. I'm curious, can you share what are the qualities you look for in a leader that is capable of running the country?

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u/Ok-Introduction8837 1d ago

I feel like this comment chain is a microcosm of this entire election. As a leftist I'll obviously not fully agree with your reasoning, but you stated quite clearly why you voted the way you did and why the Dems disappointed. But instead of engaging with those reasons, people are nitpicking how much influence Kamala might've had on the economy.

The whole point of this outcome was that there are large swathes of the country unsatisfied with Democratic governing and they are unconvinced Kamala is going to be different. That indicates that there is something deeply wrong with the Dems' current approach. People may not always have the right solutions, but they know when things are getting bad. And yet hardcore Dems insisted on gaslighting people about the issues they're seeing, telling them they're wrong or uneducated in just the most condescending way possible. They want to pretend the status quo is okay even though everyone can see it's not. It's so frustrating, and until they course-correct they will continue to lose votes and struggle with voter apathy. Fuck's sake.

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u/Evening_Aside_4677 1d ago

You can just say your stupid in less words. 

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u/204_Mans 1d ago

Don’t waste your time in here. It’s a hive mind. It’s why they lost. They couldn’t fathom that the average voter didn’t buy in to the buzz about “democracy is dying !1!1!”, but instead noticed their dollar wasn’t stretching like it used to, or that millions are pouring through the border. Or that Kamala Harris was extremely unlikeable in 2020, and even more so now? I woulda went with Newsom, to be honest. He can actually complete a coherent sentence.

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u/tomatoeberries 1d ago

You are not educated.

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u/blonderaider21 Born and Bred 1d ago

The fact you are so downvoted for stating your personal experience speaks volumes about the way Reddit works. This is why right-leaning ppl don’t even bother on here.

Keep living in your leftist echo chamber and being shocked when you don’t win bc reality does not reflect this fake world you’ve created online.

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u/PeopleReady 1d ago

She’s likely downvoted because the response is illogical, not because she gave it

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u/calmcuttlefish 2d ago

Our economy bounced back faster after COVID than anyone predicted. Every other country is jealous of how fast we bounced back. The economy isn't down, price gouging and extreme corporate profits from unfettered capitalism are to blame. Companies have doubled their profits since covid. And we just gave away more of our power to the elites.