So....as the data on how people voted in 2026 comes out, the message is clear, the public wants change and what drove democrats to victory was enthusiasm. A huge wave of voters who didnt vote in 2024 came out to support democrats, while republicans were relatively demotivated and stayed home.
This isnt super surprising given my analysis of previous elections. Wave elections tend to involve that. The base in power stays home, and the base out of power comes out in large numbers against the opposition. And we had a lot of people who stayed out in 2024 who came out this year. And they're PISSED.
Why do I mention this? Because I've seen this happen before. People came out in massive numbers in 2008 for Barack Obama, but then they stayed home in subsequent elections, with democrats ignoring them and going in the direction of appealing to high propensity moderates who they believed to be more reliable. Of course, this strategy was a failure and just demotivated the lower propensity voters. But now with Trump screwing up THIS BADLY people came out in DROVES.
And I just wanna say this. My thesis here is the same as it was during the Obama era. If democrats want to remain top dog, they have to do what the people want. Their governance has to be popular. They cant just sit on their hands and do nothing and then scold people for not turning out. You want these people out every election? You gotta do what they want. That means getting cost of living down, fixing the economy (including healthcare!), and holding the Trump administration accountable for crimes. Rolling back disastrous immigration enforcement, without being for "open borders." You need to keep these people invested so they come out again and again. Thats what Obama didnt do. When 2008 happened, he forgave the bankers who caused it, implemented mild reforms that only kinda sorta solved the problems. And then that massive wave Obama had evaporated and republicans came out and voted AGAINST Obama.
We can say "well those people need to come out and vote every time", but think of it from the perspective of people seeing coming out as an inconvenience. It takes time and energy to come out and vote. People arent going to do it if they dont feel invested or they feel like both sides suck and nothing is gonna change because it's all corrupt. What's driving this wave is that Trump is just SO FRICKING AWFUL that people who dont normally come out and coming out to stop him and to fix the economy at least somewhat. But if democrats wanna KEEP those voters, they gotta actually do what they want them to do. And they gotta make it EASIER to vote, not harder. Republicans wanna make it harder because they WANT to demotivate people, the lower turnout, the better they do. Democrats need to expand voting to make it easy and convenient, and they gotta give people a reason to support them. That's how things work. This is human nature. You can scold people all you want, but you gotta motivate people and democrats suck at it. Democracy belongs to the voters, not to the party and the politicians. They're our SERVANTS. We are their BOSSES. We just fired a bunch of republicans and hired a bunch of democrats. But democrats gotta perform or the people will fire them again. It's that simple.
So I hope democrats actually do things with their power. Dont just sit on their hands and let bygones be bygones. REIN. TRUMP. IN. FIX. HIS. CRAP. And fix the other stuff we've BEEN complaining about while were at it. It's that simple.
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