Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
The electorate decisively rejected the extremism that Trump kept on display this weekend as he continued to issue one diabolically false claim after another to discredit an election that he lost. Biden rebuilt the Democrats’ blue wall even as he extended the party’s reach in the South and Southwest.
It was, as Biden has said more colorfully in other contexts, a big deal.
But because Democrats did not win all they hoped for in the House, Senate and state legislative races, the magnitude of what happened last Tuesday is being defined down. And so many who oppose Trump simply can’t believe that more than 70 million of their fellow citizens would vote to reelect such a profoundly flawed man.
This is understandable, but it also feeds a double standard that distorts our view of the decision the country made.
Consider that in 2016, Trump won only 46 percent of the popular vote, losing it to Hillary Clinton by nearly 2.9 million ballots. He carried the three key states by minuscule margins — Michigan by 10,704, Wisconsin by 22,748 and Pennsylvania by 44,292.
Yet conservative commentators used this flimsy victory to insist that the media, liberals, academics and “coastal people” bow before the altar of “the Trump voter.” (As it happens, most Democrats, and particularly Biden, needed no lessons in empathy for working-class voters — of all races.) A thuggish Republican whose share of the vote was barely larger than John McCain’s in 2008 and smaller than Mitt Romney’s in 2012 was suddenly the prophet of a new age.
Now, look at what Biden achieved. He won the vote with 75 million ballots — more than any presidential candidate in history — and enjoys a lead of more than 4 million that is likely to grow substantially.
Biden’s margins in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are comparable to Trump’s in 2016 while his margin in Michigan is more than 10 times larger. The former vice president could win as many as 306 electoral votes, exactly Trump’s 2016 haul.
Yet there is no clamor for Republicans to get to know “the Biden voter,” no call on conservatives to be more in touch with the country they live in.
Comments
Story is wrong about Wisconsin and you are wrong to underestimate the number of swing voters there who voted for Obama and then Trump. There were 23 WI counties that did that in 2016. Trump won 17 of those counties this time by higher margins. Biden only flipped 2 of them back to Dem:
People who voted for Obama and then Trump are not racists. (Unless Obama had some magical power to turn people who voted for him racist?
by artappraiser on Tue, 11/10/2020 - 1:44am
You forget, by definition ppl who vote for Trump are racist, Q.E.D, ipso facto and all that rubbish
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 11/10/2020 - 4:03am