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Re:Venezuela's capital hit by explosions, smoke seen by sjsdaiuasgdia on Saturday January 03, 2026 @12:42PM (#46479386)
Never forget that the largest share of the 2024 US voting-eligible population went to "did not vote".

Harris received 97% of Trump's vote count.

There is not that strong a popular mandate for Trump, which shows in his approval ratings.

Re:Venezuela's capital hit by explosions, smoke seen by Loudergood on Saturday January 03, 2026 @11:00PM (#46484745)
They made their choice. It's damning for the Democrats that they couldn't engage more of them.
Re:Venezuela's capital hit by explosions, smoke seen by LanceH on Sunday January 04, 2026 @01:07AM (#46485427)
You could start with none of them voting for their presidential candidate to be nominated.

The Democratic Party is at odds with Democrats, in my opinion. They just don't want to let anyone but the party itself pick the candidate, then are surprised when their own voters don't feel the candidate is theirs.

Obama was nominated in spite of the party, and people showed up for him.

Trump is awful, but losing to him twice is unfathomably stupid.

Re:Venezuela's capital hit by explosions, smoke seen by stodor89 on Sunday January 04, 2026 @02:46PM (#46491472)
The US must end the bipartisan model before the bipartisan model ends the US.

There, I said it.

Re:Venezuela's capital hit by explosions, smoke seen by rayiner on Sunday January 04, 2026 @07:57AM (#46487499)
Multiple polls have found that Trump would have won by an even larger margin if those people had voted.

https://www.npr.org/2025/06/26/nx-s1-5447450/trump-2024-elec...

https://data.blueroseresearch.org/hubfs/2024%20Blue%20Rose%2...

Re:Venezuela's capital hit by explosions, smoke seen by sjsdaiuasgdia on Sunday January 04, 2026 @11:37AM (#46489572)
And yet, they did not vote. People often say things in polls that don't align to their actions.
Re:Venezuela's capital hit by explosions, smoke seen by rayiner on Sunday January 04, 2026 @03:05PM (#46491648)
Sure. But polling has consistently underestimated Trump voters, including in this most recent election.
Re:Venezuela's capital hit by explosions, smoke seen by sjsdaiuasgdia on Sunday January 04, 2026 @08:51PM (#46494475)
Yeah, polls are limited in a variety of ways. The election results at least represent when someone took some amount of effort to vote.

2024 eligible voters: 244,666,890

2024 ballots cast: 156,766,239. 64% of eligible voters cast a vote

Trump votes: 77,284,118. 49.2% of votes cast, 31.6% of eligible voters

Harris votes: 74,999,166. 47.8% of votes cast, 30.6% of eligible voters

Trump got 1% more of the eligible voting population to go through the effort of casting a vote. That's not nothing, and it put him in office, but it's not a landslide that grants him an unquestionable public mandate.

Re:Venezuela's capital hit by explosions, smoke seen by rayiner on Sunday January 04, 2026 @09:07PM (#46494573)
I didn't say it was a landslide. The electorate is closely divided. But saying "most people didn't vote for Trump" makes it seem like they wouldn't have voted for him if they had to choose. And the data we have points in exactly the opposite direction. The pool of non-voters is low trust and cynical about American institutions. In that regard, they are more Trumpy than the electorate as a whole. In the Blue Rose study, Harris would have won if only 2022 midterm voters had voted in 2024. And if everyone had voted, Trump would have won by almost 5 points.

Making assumptions that non-voters would or would not support particular policies is erroneous. Harvard-Harris did a poll question on this last month, and found that 76% of Americans supported the U.S. arresting Maduro and bringing him to stand trial in the U.S.: https://harvardharrispoll.com/press-release-december-2025. That means most Americans are further to the right on this issue than a bunch of isolationist conservatives who voted for Trump.

Re:Venezuela's capital hit by explosions, smoke seen by bborud on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @10:49AM (#46513809)
Well, then I'd first have to ask how you define "communist" or "quasi-communist" to understand what you mean. The term "communist" means different things depending on the context of the person who uses that term.