Most of the folks who say they’re unaffiliated or moderates or open to voting for either party in fact vote exactly like a self-reported partisan. They just don’t like the label.
Lots of crappy reporting doesn’t differentiate between self-reported swing/moderates and true swing.
GOTV matters more. Do your people show up at the polls?
We've seen repeatedly that Democrats going to the middle are met with supposedly moderate Republicans saying, "But not like that."
But both options kinda suck. No minimum wage when wages can be depressed below CoL creates a decay in its own way.
My preferred ideal is setting minimum wage not by rule but via a standing government work program available to anyone that pays above CoL for the area. Then private employers can compete on price or by offering easier less-stressful work.
Republicans are the party of “yeah, but…”
We need both types of thinking, and it’s a shame there isn’t a party that actually merges the two instead of this crappy tug of war we have going on. Practical progressivism, or something.
Republicans just like to put debt into different things, like tax cuts for the rich.
Plus a good deal of the “wouldn’t it be nice…” is real-world tested and proven and the “yeah, but…” is nonsense.
[edit] this notion is a hold-over from when it was sorta, kinda true, when both parties were still basically trying to make government work well and largely working toward similar goals and differed largely on approach—but that was more than 50 years ago. Reagan’s campaign is the demarcation line.
[edit] one of the funniest ones is foreign aid. It’s commonly supposed to be way higher than it actually is (you’ll get answers like 5%, 10% of the budget, wildly wrong stuff) so you can consistently get people to agree that a “cut” to double what it actually is would be a great thing for a fiscally responsible candidate to propose.
[edit edit] so point is the vast majority of voters have no clue what it is they’re opposing when they say they’re against lots of things they’re against. Describe it, and they’re on board. They don’t actually know what it is.
I've seen the same and done similar. I'm now in the unhappy position of voting against instead of voting for.
Hopefully Trump's loss will be the final nail in the coffin for MAGA.
People keep repeating this like it's some kind of obvious basic fact and I get more and more confused each time.
How much more "center" can you get than Joe Biden? Or Hillary Clinton? Or Kamala Harris? As far as I know, they're all in favor of arresting illegal immigrants, using military power to further foreign policies, moderate taxation, little to no drug legalization, mass incarceration for felons, barely any gun control, etc, etc.
What exactly is the "center-right" looking for that they're not getting?
Every time the media (and social media) brings up self-described right wing desires, they're pretty much entirely culture war issues, is that what you mean?
Honestly, just like undecided voters, they are either a myth or complete idiots.
It's just the label and tribalism I reject, not their stances or some desire for a mythical "middle path".
I have no idea how common this is in the "unaffiliated base" but I'd be willing to wager it's fairly common.
They’ve spent nearly a decade isolating themselves in an algorithm fueled mirror room, while disassociating from everyone that doesn't already agree with them 100%
instead of any color coded “wave” occurring despite their recurring delusions, there’s gridlock in the senate, no filibuster proof majority, they’ve lost affiliation and independents are the largest political affiliation in the country now with almost zero representation
I read something a few years ago that said moderates/non-affiliated make up the majority of voters with only a smaller percentage on left and right tied to the parties (somewhere maybe in 15% to 20% range on each side, can't remember exactly).
So it seems like a good mix of moderate could possibly win, especially when the other candidate is so polarizing.