People of the left, can we learn some lessons from Trump's win please?

[Outandinbout]

And other things, like Brexit, the disaster that was Jeremy Corbyn and his campaign.

Whilst there will be multi-factorial reasons for the way all these votes went, one of the reason, imo, is that far too many people on the left think anyone who disagrees with them is thick and racist. Do you remember that mock advert for Labour during JCs campaign? ' You are thick and racist - Vote Labour!'. That raised laughs because it resonated with how people felt about the Left.

Just stop being so bloody certain you are right and everyone else is wrong and start bloody listening to people who voted the way you don't want them to. Figure out why that is. Realise they actually have some legitimate concerns. Find ways to address these.

Because, and I can't believe I actually have to point this out, insulting people is not the way to win them over. Addressing their concerns is.

Because its not smart to sit there smugly thinking you are always right, even when voters are repeatedly disagreeing with you. It feels nice to think that, yes. But all that means is that you lack the courage to move yourself out of your psychological comfort zone. Its lazy, not smart. And it shows a distinct lack of intellectual curiosity.

I'm pretty pissed at Trump winning as I support Ukraine. I think the Left in America needs to look pretty hard at itself as to why a candidate such as Trump has won. And the left in the UK has lessons to learn too.

I disagree. She made it about her policies but they were ignored. No one listened.

I think he is a vile monster. And anyone who voted for him is a non person in my book.

@Noisylass

It doesn't matter to the Republicans, because they live in a world of conspiracy theories, emotions and basically they live in a Non truth world.

The problem with that way of thinking is that it's easy to see the other side's faulty thinking, much harder to see one's own.

The US progressive left have plenty of fact-free beliefs too, and mainstream Democrats are expected to profess them or be shunned.

@Foxblue

why people in right wing circles, when faced with facts that counter their argument or asked to provide evidence, deflect/ignore

I'm curious what things you are thinking of. I feel I could easily write a list of a dozen topics/facts that are taboo in US left wing circles, but I struggle to think of a single one that is genuinely taboo in right wing circles.

I'm not saying there aren't any, but which are you thinking of?

She should have made them
listen. She wasn’t a good candidate if she wasn’t able to.

She should have used all the opportunities. She didn’t.

Trump is a disaster, but she’s part of why he is the president now.

Oh here we go, anyone who doesn’t agree with you is now not a human 🤣

I don’t really care about any political candidate’s personal attributes or stuff they’ve done wrong in the past, if their policies are good. I’d probably vote for Jack the Ripper at this point if they sorted out inflation, public transport, the NHS, the economy, crime, education, housing and immigration 🤷‍♀️

You can't make people listen, much less change minds... or as the saying goes.. "Lead a horse to water...."

Sky just interviewed a lady in America, pro choice, knew all about Abortion, the issues and problems women face BUT voted Trump.

When you re faced with that, it doesn't matter what is said or done.... they have their views and feelings and thats that.

However, i'm hoping Trump will remain a US problem and not a European/global one.

Yes you can make people listen.

A good leader can.

She should have been able to put her points across, so that the voters could engage with her. She didn’t. She falters, she meanders, she is someone who struggles to express herself in public. She did not sit down with Joe Rogan, it was seen as running scared.

How come Trump could make his voters listen?

As for hoping he will reman a US problem only, I can only hope you are right. But I worry about Europe.

Well I can imagine Trump being a bully, he isn't a nice man.

When I read that one of the Harris ex staff members say that they were having to bolster the ego of someone bullying them, I believed them.

Harris finds herself hilarious, she speaks slowly as if what she is saying is profound then laughs. She is a very odd woman.

She isn't worth listening to. Maybe once she was smart, something isn't quite all there with her now, as with Biden.

Trump has been in sales his entire life, selling people what they want.... its a mystery to me why people listen to him, some of the stuff he came out with was insane.
I wouldn't want Politics to become like selling a timeshare.

But still people listened and supported Trump, not me though, i followed the election quite closely and though Harris came across really well.

Then again, i did like Corbyn.... and i'm not American.

Like i said, i think the US wanted change and Trump was it.

That was her job as a candidate, selling ideas to the voters.

It’s what politics is.

Yes you are right. She tried to sell the Democrats with Oprah style platitudes and celebrities

It didn't work. It's quite interesting how some got it wrong, the historian and a few polls, the Iowa one late in the day

There in lies the problem, does a politician say whatever they think the electorate want to hear or do they stick to their principals?

Ideas like economics, human rights, bond yields or S&P values are all pretty boring compared to blaming migrants/deporting them, eating cats and dogs, being shot and rising from the ashes.....

Trump did well by lying about the economy and blaming recent inflation on migrants, he also then courted the religious right and sanctity of life.

I mean how do you cut across to voters who believe its a good idea to deport 14m people, who want huge tariffs on imports & who do not want women to have autonomy over their own bodies, inc women.

Politics is/should be ,more than selling a timeshare or a car but for Trump its clearly not.

Of course she should stick to her principles. she just should have been better at reaching out to the voters.

I notice you keep switching the conversation to Trump all the time and you are blaming the voters for going along with his ideas. That’s politics. Kamala knew how to play the game, she’s done it before and she has won in the past.

Keep blaming the voters and you will keep losing.

I thought this was about lessons to be learned, not just shifting the blame.

@Alexandra2001

There in lies the problem, does a politician say whatever they think the electorate want to hear or do they stick to their principals?

Politicians with particularly strong, unpopular principles shouldn't be leader as, realistically, they're never going to win, so actually damage their party by standing as leader in elections etc.

There's a place for strong principles, but that's more in the background as advocates and influencers, i.e. in the UK there are lots of active backbenchers who are involved in lots of committees and maybe even minor ministerial roles, but never stand for leadership and never get the top ministerial positions - for very good reasons!

Leaders need to control themselves and steer a "centrist" path - as we keep seeing in the UK, US and other countries, it's nearly always the "middle" ground people who swing elections, i.e. the average floating voter or as Blair coined it "Mondeo Man".

There really isn't any point in having strong principals if you never get a sniff of power to actually achieve anything. It's a bit like wetting yourself in a dark suit - you may get a warm feeling but no one else notices!

Plus side though - neither of them are convicted felons who talk about grabbing women by the pussy, and lock kids in cages. But, you do you!

At least no one will be eating the cats and dogs.

Oh, one last thing. He was in power 2016 - 2020 - but didn’t seem to deliver all those magical promises?

In my defence, when i switched it to UK, i got flamed for that ....

I just don't believe, in this case, there are lessons to be learned, other than don't have someone with perceived mental decline to hang on..... though Trump is hardly coherent either!

The Americans clearly wanted change, the electorate weren't ever going to listen, much less change their minds...

Similar to Leaver voters, anyone can see the damage done to the UK but have many changed their minds? no.

For Labour, after 2019 and their shift to UK "far left" policies, though not far left in a european context, the lessons were clear, the UK voter/media will never accept these sorts of ideas, given our FPTP system, which the USA uses a form of too.

So @taxguru i agree, off centre views dont normally, win elections but look at Harris? she is hardly a "leftie" is she?
Whereas Trump is extreme but didn't do him any harm, so should Harris have pivoted and out Trumped Trump and gone for mass deportations too but added in relatives with documentation?
or Imprisoned women who had had abortions and gone for even higher tariffs...

On the contrary the left actually try to govern and legislate to improve the things people are concerned about. But after all the listening they aren't going to become right wing otherwise what is the point of being left wing? The right don't listen to me and what I want as a lefty either! There are fundamental differences in left and right now and at the moment the US population doesn't seem to want the left wing approach to government right now.

Trump/Farage etc just use what people are concerned about to whip up hatred and division - they pretend they will fix things in order to get into power. I mean they'll do some of the things like the deportations etc. But I don't think that will improve life for poor Americans.

People who vote right wing like to tell the left wing it's our fault they do because the left "don't listen"! Just own the fact you want what the right wing offer. That's on you as a voter. Whatever Trump does in the next 4 years and what ever he sets up moving forward is on everyone who voted for him.

It is not on the left wing for somehow "not listening" to them enough for so they had to vote for a rapist felon instead.
The right wing don't listen to me and what i want either but if the left had a rapist criminal running for PM I'd not vote for them. But I'd not vote for the tories either.

And when things are awful in 4 years in the US maybe they'll vote differently.

But maybe they voted the Trump because things have been awful for the past years? Maybe this is the “differently” you suggested.

People want better lives. This is why they vote the way they do.

They did not trust one of the candidates.

To claim this was because that millions of voters are thick and racist, is lazy and dangerous.

A lot of people had an awful 4 year and voted differently to the last time, hence the party in power changing.

When people feel desperate they do extreme things.

If you voted for Trump because you blame Biden for Russia invading Ukraine and Covid, causing the COL crisis, then you probably aren't the sharpest knife in the draw.

But i think it was more than this, Trump captured peoples minds, see women who strongly support abortion rights voted for him...

I see leading Democrats are saying Biden should have stepped down far earlier but thats not down on Harris or anything she could have said.

Or over here, friends of ours who did all they could to have a good secure retirement, voted for Brexit even though their dream was to move to France.

They still they think they were correct in their choice and have even said "the 90/180 rule would have come in regardless....."

Its not a topic we ever discuss now.

Is the problem that all oft the mainstream politics of the USA is so right wing? that there’s nothing much on offer to vote for, no help, hope or aspiration in their offer for lower income families? No unifying or aspirational vision of what’s to come for better off voters? That the fear mongering put about by the right wing media wasn’t sufficiently addressed?

Their Democrats are much closer to our Tories, and our Labour Party would be seen as dangerous radicals if they ran for election in the US. The politics and the problems in the U.S. are not in parallel to here so hard for us in the UK to extrapolate from our own politics.

I don’t think the voters are thick but they’re desperate, naive or both because essentially by voting Trump they’ve rejected one of the oldest democracies and been taken in by the authoritarian strongman appeal. Around the world we can see strongmen are dangerous. They’re not in general known to improve the lives of low income or working people but once they’re in, they make it too dangerous to complain.

So this is very dangerous stuff. It’s the fault of the democrats for not offering a decent alternative and the fault of the republicans for allowing an individual criminal backed by an extremist authoritarian faction to become their brand.

Teumps government is the ‘fault’ of an electorate who are economically desperate in parts, economically secure but frightened in other parts, because they’ve been whipped up by parts of the media to blame and fear others, and who are not feeling democracy brings them much and are aspirational to the apparent promise of security and wealth and all the other strongman’s solutions that in reality he will never fulfil. Democracy as a principle hasn’t failed here but the quality of all major political parties and the bias of parts of the US media has failed I think. Plus active disinformation rife on social media.

Remind me. How many women have been POTUS? How many people of colour (color)?

All the evidence is entirely supports my conclusion.

It is wilfully ignoring it (as your post does) that has led the Democrats to where they are today.

I do not think Harris was a weak candidate. Her problem was her party ran a totally shambolic campaign starting with a candidate who should never have been on the ticket, a ludicrous change of horses in mid-stream, no open primary to select a fresh candidate, a total lack of any policies that resonated with the demographics that mattered and, worst of all (to my mind) a positive refusal to admit that to most Americans the financial situation had got worse under Biden than better - in spite of all the stats. to the contrary that were trotted out.

Will the Democrats learn from this. No, of course not. If I were J D Pence I'd be telling Mrs Pence to start selecting her outfit for the 2028 Inauguration.

I really struggle to understand the mentality in the US.

The unequal access to healthcare for example, leading to the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world.

You’ve got billionaires like musk, hoarding unimaginable wealth that they will never spend in their lifetimes, and yet somehow they are no seen as the psychopaths. Could you sit on $390,000,000,000 whilst watching people die?

Instead people would rather blame poor migrants, who have very little influence.

Sorry, Labour did not win. The Tories lost.

Lol.... and people say the Left need to Learn!!!

Labour took on board the Corbyn years, learnt from them and won in July.

The Tories will need to do the same & accept that more people voted Labour than Tory and stop rubbishing their win with beliefs like this.

The Tories however have a huge advantage in that the media will be attacking Labour for the next 5 years, whilst "forgetting" why we are in such a mess.