politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Historically speaking, 2016 would have been the BLM election. The upswell of police violence aimed at minority-majority neighborhoods under Obama, combined with the economic drag of the '14 downturn, collapsed support for his successor. And while I wouldn't call Trump "pro-Israeli", he'd surrounded himself with so many neocons that it was a moot point.
I'd call 2020 the "COVID election", as the defining issue of that period was how to respond to the pandemic. Dems would have still won in a landslide without a BLM movement, in the same way Obama won in 2008, and for much the same reasons. The economic downturn pumped up angry anti-incumbent voters and turned out more apathetic centrists for Biden than MAGA shitheads. Israel was barely on the radar.
That's the fucking truth. From Green Energy politics to Anti-Gun parent movements to Civil Rights marches, you always seem to find a corporate Democrat willing to put on the merch and lead the parade, then vanish back into the crowd when it comes time to put anything into practice.
I think you bring up some good points, but it wasn't COVID putting hundreds of thousands into the streets on a weekly basis. But also, it kind-of was, in that there was at least some financial support people were getting for a brief period of time, and this allowed them to fully express their politics. The amount of 2016 versus 2020 BLM protests; its not even comparable. 2016 BLM was still coming together as a movement; it built its strongest momentum from 2017-19, and 2020 it peaked. Those politics directly translated into what issues were being discussed during the primary, and subsequently the national campaign. It was the 2020 election where BLM's set of grievances found their way into campaigns as campaign promises/ discussion points on debate stages/ etc.
Without BLM providing outside pressure in the form of movement politics, I don't think Dem's win in 2020. I also don't think Dem's win in 2020 without Trumps utterly failed COVID response. If they (T*) would have just, not been so fucking stupid/ hamfisted by leaning into the anti-vax shit, inject bleach shit, they could have taken credit for the CDC rapid response; even a barely competent political actor should have been able to manage this.
TLDR, the Dem's barely won in 2020 and without BOTH COVID and BLM, there is no practical way they could have won. Even with both in play, Trumps own incompetence could arguably have been the most impactful factor.
It absolutely was. The skyrocketing unemployment - nearly 15% at its peak - left millions of people with nothing to do but protest. Unemployment waves and protest movements are practically joined at the hip.
The right-wing anti-vax movement got similar energy off a bunch of newly-unemployed reactionaries, angry at the "lockdown" (more just one more excuse for police to harass unemployed people out in public), and jelling together through online discussion groups. J6 was the direct result of a bunch of small business owners with too much time on their hands.
The Ferguson and Baltimore protests were in 2014 and 2015, culminating in a massive police crackdown in both instances. These protests also followed an ugly downturn following the 2013 Government Shutdown and the sudden stoppage of federal money into a still-recovering post-Great Recession economy. If you go back to '07/'08, you'll find another wave of civil rights protests that largely emerged in the wake of police crack downs on a newly unemployed and unhoused population on the eve of the Great Recession.
But these are symptomatic. The real underlying groundswell of opposition comes from the spike in unemployment, not the protest movement that arises from a bunch of unemployed people with nothing to do.
The Dems saw a tsunami of turnout that crested in the bluest states. MAGA saw a similar swell in turnout, cresting in redder states. They met each other note-for-note in the battleground states, resulting in some very close calls across the Midwest and Atlantic Coast.
This wasn't a close election in terms of gross seats won or votes cast. Just the marginal wins in a few swing states. Had Republicans not also seen a spike in turnout from 2016, all those gerrymandered districts would have bit them in the ass (as happened in '08, '18, and what seems likely in '26). I would give BLM far more credit for the first Trump midterm than the Biden win.
I might argue that the anti-Vax movement saved Republicans more than BLM won it for Democrats.
Yeah but the point is the movement those people funneled into ended up being BLM (or BLM adjacent), because BLM was at its peak in terms of growth and organizing. Had it been 2009, maybe those same people funnel into Occupy Wallstreet. Call it happenstance of history, and I'm not saying that BLM was borne of a whistle and milk from a thistle at twilight the year of 2019. But it was present when people had the time to take to the streets. And my point that the BLM agenda didn't find its way into electoralism until ~2018-2020 is the primary point. It took 10 years, but in 2020, it became a central primary issue among Democrats. The points of grievance found their way into the presidential platform in the 2020 election.
I think to be charitable we'd have to call it a wash. It was practically the same forces funneling people into both movements, and like you said, in-spite of both sides getting more turnout, the resulting victories were marginal. So I come back to the first point, that Trumps government and management of COVID becomes the theme. And if they had just.. not been such moron, if they had even been nominally competent, I think Trump wins the 2020 election handily.