I’ve decided undecided voters have low critical thinking skills and/or are attention seekers
Last night’s CNN interviews with undecided PA voters made me want to weep for the electorate.
So many of them really were clueless.
For what it’s worth, there’s been talk that they’re really having to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find true undecided voters willing to go on TV and be part of these panels. That’s unfortunate in the sense that it suggests there aren’t many actually-persuadable voters out there, but these clowns aren’t especially representative of the general electorate, either.
It seemed like a couple of Trump plants who ignored what they just watched.
I can’t imagine how anyone looks at Trump, and who he is as a person, then compares to Harris and still can’t decide. The choice is so painfully clear, it’s not even a choice. Trump isn’t fit for office at any level, let alone the highest office in the land.
I can’t imagine how people could see the dip right after she took back all progressive stances and not understand the easy solution is moving to the left…
But here we are bro
It’s 2024 and people constantly do irrational stuff.
She’s not going to gain any trump voters, there’s zero logical reason for Dems to move to the right. Except they think they can get away with being more to the right.
If they just wanted to win the election, Kamala would be out there for M4A, legal weed, affordable college plan that fixes the flawed system, and some good ole tax raises for the rich.
It’s literally that easy.
Obama wasn’t near that progressive, and he got a landslide and carried House and Senate.
I think it’s a bit more nuanced than that. At least some of these undecided voters seem like they’d otherwise be left leaning but they have the one issue (bad experience with abortion that they want to impose on everyone, or really don’t wanna give up their gun, etc) which is holding them back.
Of course it’s not like it’s the same one issue holding them all back - each one is different from the rest. Hence going more left and liberal - it feels right to us, but likely risk is that doing so could very well push some of these folks away.
That’s all and well in a normal election but - well, i think it’s obvious most of us regulars here that this election year is not that.
She’s not going to gain any trump voters, there’s zero logical reason for Dems to move to the right. Except they think they can get away with being more to the right.
While I can’t speak on the effectiveness of the strategy, I would point out that Harris et al. aren’t really aiming to recruit Trump voters. They’re more aiming for more traditional Reaganite Republicans, the “never Trump” people. Think of the type of Republicans like Dick Cheney. That’s the type of Republican they’re aiming for. They’re not aiming to convince an active Trump supporter to flip to Harris. They’re trying to get Republicans who don’t want to vote for Trump, who would otherwise stay at home, to instead vote for Harris.
My own parents fit into this mold. They’re in their sixties and voted for Republicans their entire adult lives, up until 2016. They voted third party in 2016, and in 2020 they switched over to supporting Biden, and now they support Harris and are voting for Democrats across the board.
Whether appealing to voters like my parents or trying to appeal to younger, more disaffected progressive voters is a better strategy, I can’t say. But the perennial problem of appealing to hard-core progressive voters is that they are incredibly fickle and often engage in self-destructive purity testing. Look at the leftist voters refusing to vote for Harris over the Palestine issue. Far-left voters have a tendency to find any excuse not to vote for a candidate. It’s Palestine this time around, but it could easily be something else. There’s always some issue that the main Democratic candidate has that some leftists will cite as a reason not to vote for the mainline Democratic candidate.
The reason Democrats often tilt to the right is that voters on the far left side of things are often short-sighted and incredibly fickle. They’re not reliable voters.
To be fair, it’s hard to criticise leftists for not voting reliably for the Dems if they keep moving right. I imagine your parents didn’t really become leftists, it’s just that Dems moved to where the Reps were decades ago.
Supporting a Holocaust-sized genocide is not really “any issue” either. The reason why it still makes sense to vote for Harris is not because that genocide does not matter, it’s that Trump would start another one on American soil while endorsing the former as well.
You’ve basically got the Goldman Sachs candidate, or Hitler from Wish. I hope people turn out for Goldman Sachs-lady, for all our sakes in the world.
I hope people turn out for Goldman Sachs-lady, for all our sakes in the world.
Same here.
To be fair, it’s hard to criticise leftists for not voting reliably for the Dems if they keep moving right.
Agreed. But also see above.
I imagine your parents didn’t really become leftists, it’s just that Dems moved to where the Reps were decades ago.
I feel like it’s an issue with the political system as a whole that it’s ended up like this, though…
In court there’s such a thing as a directed verdict, and also ruling on an issue as a matter of law. Basically where there’s no reasonable jury that could decide otherwise, the judge directs the decision.
That’s kind of how I feel - not removing the democratic process obviously, but this is a situation you can be for Trump or reasonable, not both.
I can’t imagine how anyone looks at Trump,
the people ‘undecided’ arent looking at anything. they just dont consume media in the same manner, if at all, as the rest of us. there are humans who actively avoid all politics, and in the united states this is actually very easy to do.
we have bred an entire class of humans who just do not give a shit, and its hard to get them to suddenly care ‘this cycle’
In other words, morons.
Some of them are also “goldfish voters.” These people only engage with whatever political message has been delivered to them most recently. They literally can go from D to R and back again bumper sticker to bumper sticker.
Then there are the obligate ego independents. Their only political belief is that they must vote for both parties some of the time. If they voted D last time then they will probably vote R this time. Because their identity is “independent” so they must manifest that, all reason be damned.
They actually just don’t believe the media that goes against what they believe, and at this point I can hardly blame them. There are enough lies, distortions, out of context quotes and mischaracterizations that it is pretty easy to simply disregard things that other people accept as truth. Political season in the United States has a huge cloud, a fog of war, and whoever says their “truth” the loudest and most persistently controls public perception, the narrative. It’s discouraging and overwhelming to try to sort out the real truth because there is a rapid and continuous stream of propaganda that can’t possibly be investigated and verified. So people go back to their instincts, which are mostly guided by their friends, social groups, and their self-curated media feed. Everything else is disregarded as fake news.
there are humans who actively avoid all politics, and in the united states this is actually very easy to do.
Man, I dont even live in the US, and US politics is inescapable. Of course Canada’s political climate is directly affected by what’s going on down there, so It’s probably harder to avoid here than somewhere across an ocean.
I don’t understand why anyone cares about the “undecideds”. These people sound like morons who wouldn’t listen to reason anyway.
Stop begging for scraps. These people make up about three percent of potential voters, and I doubt most of them even bother to go to the polls anyway.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/poll-three-percent-voters-still-035900135.html
in a world where the winner is decided by < 5%, 3% is quite a bit.
The implication is that 100% of that 3% votes one way.
in a world where the winner is decided by < 5%
It’s a false analysis to claim that. Using that same reasoning, you could as credibly claim that any election is decided by a single vote, the one that gives the winner the majority (or plurality). But that’s not actionable information in any way, it’s just tautologically true, as is any salami-slicing analysis.
Literally every election is decided by the “undecided”. Democrats vote democrat and republicans vote republican. It rare that anyone changes party. What determines elections is if democrats can get people who wouldn’t otherwise vote to vote. Every time people turn out, democrats win. When people are uninterested they lose. Those ~50k people in suburbs of swing states are not unimportant, they are the only thing that matters.
This premise gets thrown around a lot but I actually disagree. “Every time people turn out” is always also thrown in there like some arbitrary thing–when I think the past several election cycles have shown that when there are younger, more progress candidates who make it past the primaries turnout shoots up. Courting the 3% uninformed flip-floppers by moving right is a losing strategy when you could be motivating your own party to turn out by moving left and driving turnout up. There’s no money in that though, so dumb centrists get wooed
When/if democrats can Energize the base, they don’t need to give a shit about undecideds. but until then, we are stuck pandering to the people we know will actually show up to and wait at the voting booth
It’s also a mistruth that people don’t change their minds. Look at the rise and fall of any brand, religion or cult - some people had to change their minds.
Or some people died off, and new suckers fell for new, different marketing.
Advertising wouldn’t work if there was need to wait for generations to pass.
Literally every election is decided by the “undecided
That and voter suppression. If everybody could vote easily, the GOP would never win an election.
It’s absolutely voter suppression. Every election we have 1/3 of the electorate that doesn’t cast a vote. We could court these couple million undecideds or we could fix the system and have automatic registration and even compulsory voting. And then, you’re absolutely right, Republicans would never win again.
No, every election is decided by the majority of those who did decide.
Trump isn’t fit for office at any level, let alone the highest office in the land.
Maybe a job at the DMV? It is an office building, does that count? He might be fit for that
He could never exist in a setting where there wasn’t a staff dedicated to him at all times
If he weren’t so obese, he could be paved over and used as a speed bump.
If you’re still undecided at this point, you don’t deserve to vote.
I mean , sometimes SNL is truer to life than is comfortable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAG37Kw1-aw
Holy hell those three people are infuriating.
“Yeah, he’s a racist and a bigot, but my pocketbook…” Lady, unless you make enough that it doesn’t matter, he’s not going to help your pocketbook.
I guarantee that woman has been registered R her entire life, sees why he is problematic on a very superficial level, and is still going to AT BEST abstain from voting but more likely vote for him anyhow.
Lynne Kelleher, a registered Republican who voted for Trump in 2016 and for the libertarian candidate in 2020, believes this election comes down to a choice: “Do you vote your pocketbook or do you vote your morals?”
Pretty much.
Not at all. Projections from people who know indicate that the economy would do better under Harris, and I don’t think there’s anyone who could credibly argue that Trump is the more moral candidate.
Sorry, I meant pretty much to ThunderWhiskers’ comment about her being a Republican that realizes how problematic Trump is.
The biggest miss at the debate was Harris not reminding everyone how Trump was bullying the fed chair on Twitter when everyone said it was time to start raising interest rates.
In general, the distinction between populism and technocracy needs to be front and center. This is a very easy example.
I highly doubt most voters even know what the fed does, let alone that theyre supposed to be independent.
She’s a moron.
Be careful to identify the antecedent to your pronouns.
I think the context makes it clear.
Economists are predicting a recession if trump is elected
He’s going to hurt your pocketbook*
Let’s be real here.
Need to stop focusing on undecidedvoters and get people that don’t (consistently) vote to vote. If they aren’t decided by now wouldn’t count on them.
Only way you could be undecided is if you are lying about supporting Trump because you are ashamed to be associated with his name.
Or if you’re considering voting for a different candidate altogether
They are trump voters who don’t want to admit it.
The younger woman absolutely was not. The third guy seemed like a toss up for me. I would bet he self-identities as “libertarian”.
If you are openly struggling to decide between Trump and Harris, I’d personally assume you are a closet racist at the least. But maybe these people have just been exposed to Trump and his campaign or got in the wrong crowd a bit, maybe they are now struggling to leave that camp but want to. Maybe they want to vote Trump for whatever fucking reason, but they know he is vile really, so won’t publicly admit it. Who knows.
So, having actually watched the interviews with these people, I’m pretty comfortable saying the younger woman is not a Trump supporter. She seemed to maybe not be the most intelligent person, but that’s not a super fair assessment from a few brief Q&As. She was becoming visibly upset by some of his rhetoric, abortion related in particular.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if they were led to an answer of “we’re still undecided” by the interviewers in conclusion to broadcast a non-partisan appearance.
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I just can’t make up my mind on this one… should I eat a salad, or light my testicles on fire? I mean, it’s not that I want my testicles on fire, it’s just that I’m really not in the mood for salad.
Six one, half dozen the other, ya know?!
Wrestling with the hardest decision since cake or death.
Election 2024: High five vs kick in the nuts
Yes, but surely he wouldn’t kick ME in the nuts… just those people I don’t like, right? Why would I want someone to high five THEM?
Jesus. That Andrew Wallace guy is a dumb motherfucker lol.
To see that lump of shit Trump laid on the stage last night and go “Yeah, I’m a Democrat and all, but that’s my guy right there!!”
That dude is a republican just like that last asshole that conned his way into CNNs “undecided voters” bullshit.
I’ve never understood how some 70 million Americans watched Trump speak and said “aaah, THIS is my president”. You have to have some mental disability to actually choose this dude. Or you’re just an evil asshole who wants personal gains.
My best guess is they’re a combination of rich people, racist people, and religious people with plenty of overlap between groups.
This sounded weirdly accurate in my head. You fucking nailed it
Most are probably some combination of both evil and stupid.
Considering I was seriously interested in how the debate would go and had to turn it off only half way through, I think it’s highly likely that 70 million Americans waited for Fox to feed them the Cliff’s Notes version.
I know that there are a number of people who simply don’t pay attention and suddenly realize that they have no idea what’s going on when election time comes around. THEY are the undecided voters.
What you see in the media, however, does not convince me that they are genuinely undecided. I believe that a lot of people claim it for the attention they get. Then we have examples of people pretending even though they are actually part of someone’s campaign.
I find it hard to believe in these circumstances there are truly undecided. trump was president for four years and there was so much crazy. If someone saw and agree if it was crazy I can’t see them voting for him and if someone did not see or did not agree it was crazy then I think its likely they will vote for him.
