Carl Gibson,
AlterNet
November 9, 2024
President Joe Biden (AFP)
Democrats and pundits have offered a multitude of explanations to try to explain Vice Presidet Kamala Harris' loss to President-elect Donald Trump this week. But one political data expert is offering a different take on why so many voters rejected Harris.
In a Saturday essay for the Guardian, Ben Davis — who worked on the data side of Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vermont) 2020 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination — argued that all of the current explanations for Trump's rout are incomplete. He noted that while the prevailing consensus is that Trump had the better economic message and Democrats were too focused on identity politics, Harris' campaign was actually laser-focused on kitchen-table issues while identity was rarely discussed.
Rather, Davis opined that President Joe Biden's decision to quietly sunset pandemic-era safety net programs may have been what stuck out the most in voters' memories of Biden's economic oversight. He wrote that when programs that helped prevent Americans from being evicted, provided them with direct financial assistance and granted them other emergency benefits colored voters' perceptions of the economy more than anything else. And when they were suddenly taken away, it paved the way to Trump's eventual victory.
"The massive, almost overnight expansion of the social safety net and its rapid, almost overnight rollback are materially one of the biggest policy changes in American history," Davis wrote. "For a brief period, and for the first time in history, Americans had a robust safety net: strong protections for workers and tenants, extremely generous unemployment benefits, rent control and direct cash transfers from the American government."
Davis went on to explain how, despite the ongoing mass death and isolation associated with the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, "Americans briefly experienced the freedom of social democracy." He noted that laid-off workers "had enough liquid money to plan long term and make spending decisions for their own pleasure rather than just to survive," and that pandemic-era safety nets allowed them "to look for the jobs they wanted rather than feel stuck in the jobs they had."
"At the end of Trump’s term, the American standard of living and the amount of economic security and freedom Americans had was higher than when it started, and, with the loss of this expanded welfare state, it was worse when Biden left office, despite his real policy wins for workers and unions," Davis wrote. "This is why voters view Trump as a better shepherd of the economy."
In the first weeks after Covid-19 was designated as a global pandemic, millions of American workers lost their jobs after businesses shut down due to the public health emergency. Congress passed several emergency measures aimed at helping workers like the eviction moratorium, extended unemployment assistance and an expansion of the child tax credit, among other things that Trump signed into law. But Davis observed that Biden had no "political pathway" to justify keeping these programs in place after ending the federal Covid-19 emergency, meaning many Americans were stripped of safety nets they had grown accustomed to.
"[T]he material reality is that when Trump left office, this safety net existed, and by the time of the 2024 election, it had evaporated," David wrote. "How could Democrats have countered this? One way was by making it a central issue, fighting publicly and openly to keep these protections and messaging heavily and constantly that Republicans were taking them away while Biden fought for them. An enormous body of research has established that social programs, when implemented, are difficult and highly unpopular to take away. These were universal programs, beneficial at all income levels."
"The political miscalculation the Biden administration made was that, lacking the political ability to implement these policies permanently, it was best to have them expire quietly and avoid the public backlash of gutting welfare programs and the black mark of taking a public political loss," he added. "This was a grave miscalculation."
Click here to read Davis' essay in full.
November 9, 2024
President Joe Biden (AFP)
Democrats and pundits have offered a multitude of explanations to try to explain Vice Presidet Kamala Harris' loss to President-elect Donald Trump this week. But one political data expert is offering a different take on why so many voters rejected Harris.
In a Saturday essay for the Guardian, Ben Davis — who worked on the data side of Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vermont) 2020 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination — argued that all of the current explanations for Trump's rout are incomplete. He noted that while the prevailing consensus is that Trump had the better economic message and Democrats were too focused on identity politics, Harris' campaign was actually laser-focused on kitchen-table issues while identity was rarely discussed.
Rather, Davis opined that President Joe Biden's decision to quietly sunset pandemic-era safety net programs may have been what stuck out the most in voters' memories of Biden's economic oversight. He wrote that when programs that helped prevent Americans from being evicted, provided them with direct financial assistance and granted them other emergency benefits colored voters' perceptions of the economy more than anything else. And when they were suddenly taken away, it paved the way to Trump's eventual victory.
"The massive, almost overnight expansion of the social safety net and its rapid, almost overnight rollback are materially one of the biggest policy changes in American history," Davis wrote. "For a brief period, and for the first time in history, Americans had a robust safety net: strong protections for workers and tenants, extremely generous unemployment benefits, rent control and direct cash transfers from the American government."
Davis went on to explain how, despite the ongoing mass death and isolation associated with the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, "Americans briefly experienced the freedom of social democracy." He noted that laid-off workers "had enough liquid money to plan long term and make spending decisions for their own pleasure rather than just to survive," and that pandemic-era safety nets allowed them "to look for the jobs they wanted rather than feel stuck in the jobs they had."
"At the end of Trump’s term, the American standard of living and the amount of economic security and freedom Americans had was higher than when it started, and, with the loss of this expanded welfare state, it was worse when Biden left office, despite his real policy wins for workers and unions," Davis wrote. "This is why voters view Trump as a better shepherd of the economy."
In the first weeks after Covid-19 was designated as a global pandemic, millions of American workers lost their jobs after businesses shut down due to the public health emergency. Congress passed several emergency measures aimed at helping workers like the eviction moratorium, extended unemployment assistance and an expansion of the child tax credit, among other things that Trump signed into law. But Davis observed that Biden had no "political pathway" to justify keeping these programs in place after ending the federal Covid-19 emergency, meaning many Americans were stripped of safety nets they had grown accustomed to.
"[T]he material reality is that when Trump left office, this safety net existed, and by the time of the 2024 election, it had evaporated," David wrote. "How could Democrats have countered this? One way was by making it a central issue, fighting publicly and openly to keep these protections and messaging heavily and constantly that Republicans were taking them away while Biden fought for them. An enormous body of research has established that social programs, when implemented, are difficult and highly unpopular to take away. These were universal programs, beneficial at all income levels."
"The political miscalculation the Biden administration made was that, lacking the political ability to implement these policies permanently, it was best to have them expire quietly and avoid the public backlash of gutting welfare programs and the black mark of taking a public political loss," he added. "This was a grave miscalculation."
Click here to read Davis' essay in full.
'Biggest change in our political world': Expert says 'key' election factor being ignored
RAW STORY
November 9, 2024
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris (AFP)
Most people analyzing the 2024 election results are ignoring a "key factor," a news expert said on Saturday.
Steven Waldman, chair of the Rebuild Local News Coalition, wrote a piece for Politico over the weekend in which he argues that most post-election "post-mortems" are ignoring a "key factor" in how people vote.
"Latinos, young men, non-college-educated white people, suburban women. The exit polls and political analysis invariably focuses on the changing behavior of demographic groups," Waldman said.
The expert then continued:
"That ignores a big determinant of political behavior: where people get their news and information. It’s odd how little attention has been given to this, given that in the past decade we’ve had a revolution in how information flows."
Waldman went on to say, "The exit polls did not ask about media consumption, so we need to look for indirect clues."
"NBC asked the question in April when President Joe Biden was still in the race, and the results were dramatic. Among people who got their news from 'newspapers,' Biden was winning 70-21. Among people who got their news from 'YouTube/Google,' Trump led 55-39," he wrote in the news article. "The exit polls this week did show that some of the biggest shifts in voting patterns came among young people and Latinos, two groups whose media consumption differs from the national average."
Other evidence includes that "Biden won 18- to 21-year-olds by 60-36 percent; Harris won only 55-42 percent."
"There’s no group where the information consumption has changed more than young people. While 3 percent of seniors get their information from social media, 46 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds do," Waldman wrote.
Waldman shared the article on social media, saying, "My piece in politico points to the biggest change in our political world: how information flows."
"Latinos and young people, who shift led right, disproportionately get news from social media," Waldman added.
Read the report here.
November 9, 2024
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris (AFP)
Most people analyzing the 2024 election results are ignoring a "key factor," a news expert said on Saturday.
Steven Waldman, chair of the Rebuild Local News Coalition, wrote a piece for Politico over the weekend in which he argues that most post-election "post-mortems" are ignoring a "key factor" in how people vote.
"Latinos, young men, non-college-educated white people, suburban women. The exit polls and political analysis invariably focuses on the changing behavior of demographic groups," Waldman said.
The expert then continued:
"That ignores a big determinant of political behavior: where people get their news and information. It’s odd how little attention has been given to this, given that in the past decade we’ve had a revolution in how information flows."
Waldman went on to say, "The exit polls did not ask about media consumption, so we need to look for indirect clues."
"NBC asked the question in April when President Joe Biden was still in the race, and the results were dramatic. Among people who got their news from 'newspapers,' Biden was winning 70-21. Among people who got their news from 'YouTube/Google,' Trump led 55-39," he wrote in the news article. "The exit polls this week did show that some of the biggest shifts in voting patterns came among young people and Latinos, two groups whose media consumption differs from the national average."
Other evidence includes that "Biden won 18- to 21-year-olds by 60-36 percent; Harris won only 55-42 percent."
"There’s no group where the information consumption has changed more than young people. While 3 percent of seniors get their information from social media, 46 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds do," Waldman wrote.
Waldman shared the article on social media, saying, "My piece in politico points to the biggest change in our political world: how information flows."
"Latinos and young people, who shift led right, disproportionately get news from social media," Waldman added.
Read the report here.
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