Turnout Myths Are the Democrats' Drug of Choice

[Celerity]

Anything To Avoid Having To Actually Persuade Voters

https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/turnout-myths-are-the-democrats-drug

Turnout myths die hard. In fact they don’t seem to die at all. That is particularly the case in Democratic circles. You don’t have to talk to a typical Democrat for any length of time before they evince their touching faith in the wonder-working powers of high voter turnout. Interrogate them a little further and it turns out what they really mean is that the stark choices presented to the electorate by Democrats’ progressive policies and Republicans’ reactionary ones will, if presented forcefully enough, produce massive turnout by Democratic-leaning constituencies (non-whites, young voters, etc) that will neutralize Republican advantages.

We can see the latest example of this in how many Democrats are approaching the 2022 elections. The giant hole the Democrats are now in is hard to deny. Biden’s approval rating, a key indicator of midterm outcomes, is now below 40 per cent in the 538 rolling average and below where Trump’s was at this point in the 2018 cycle. Republicans are comfortably ahead on the generic Congressional ballot, which typically underestimates their chances and augurs a big election for them. Gallup just released a comprehensive historical review of midterm indicators (Presidential and Congressional approval, satisfaction with the direction of the country, views on economic conditions) which shows the Democrats’ current situation to be exceptionally grim.

Democrats’ approach to digging out of this hole relies heavily on turnout. Either implicitly or explicitly, Democrats think of issues like abortion, guns, “MAGA Republicans” and, of course, January 6th mostly as ways of motivating their base to turn out at higher levels in the current dismal political environment. In a typical example, Robert Kuttner in an article “Democracy Summer” in The American Prospect stated: ¨The survival of Democrats in 2022 will depend heavily on turnout. Though Donald Trump will not be on the ballot, he will be our not-so-secret weapon….America today has few swing voters, but dozens of swing districts where turnout will determine the winner. If Democratic voters turn out, Democrats win.

There are, however, a number of reasons why this turnout fix is highly unlikely to work and, in fact, borders on the delusional.

1. Some Simple Math. Start with this: when Democrats persuade a voter to switch sides, that nets two votes for the Democrats (one less for the Republicans, one more for the Democrats). When Democrats turn out one more voter to vote Democratic that is, of course, a net of only one vote for them. But it’s really worse than that. Typically, Democrats think of increased base turnout in terms of turning out more voters from various pro-Democratic demographic groups—young voters, black voters, Hispanic voters, college-educated whites, whatever. But not all the voters in these groups favor the Democrats so mobilization of more voters from a given group may well net less than one vote per additional voter. For example, looking at current Congressional ballot preferences, Democrats might net only a third of a vote for every additional Hispanic or young voter, six-tenths of a vote from every additional black voter and just a sixth of a vote from every additional college-educated white voter.

snip

[Sympthsical]

1. Yes to all of that

I keep saying, people think these hearings are going to magically turn November around while downplaying inflation. People are just not that politically interested in these things.

What I really wanted to highlight was this:

"Democrats tend to assume that nonvoters from a given demographic are the same politically as voters from the same group."

See: Any conversation about Latinos in our spaces over the past two or three years.

[Fiendish Thingy]

2. Traditional electoral paradigms will likely not apply this cycle. Nt

[LW1977]

3. Thread trashed!

[TigressDem]

4. Simple Math. MOST people aren't rich enough to be Republican.

That is why Rethugs do the Abortion and Gun thing.

But turnout is harder to manage for people who actually WORK 40+ hours or two jobs to make ends meet.

People need to be convinced that America ITSELF is on the line as the leaders of the REICH WING will stop at NOTHING even stealing an election to win.

DEMs are NOT like the R's. We don't just do what we are told.

AND we aren't hiding a racist group that still wants to take back the South and make everyone work for slave wages to pay for it.



AND if you're just going to SHIT on DEMS, why don't you go somewhere OTHER than DU?

We get enough of that from the other side.