In 2024, veterans voted Trump
Some say Harris's attempt to embrace old Iraq War hawks may have had the opposite effect

According exit polls on Election Day, 12% of the voters in this presidential election had served in the U.S. military and 65% of them said they voted for Donald Trump, while 34% said they voted for Kamala Harris.

We still need a breakdown of age to see if this was generational. Some suggest that younger Republicans, especially more recent veterans, are among the biggest resisters to the War Party orthodoxies on Capitol Hill, including now-Vice President-elect JD Vance, who served as a Marine in Iraq. Former Democratic Congresswoman and Iraq War veteran, Tulsi Gabbard, who campaigned for Trump and recently turned Republican, has also been a fierce critic of Biden's Ukraine War policy and Washington's militarism overall.

In the last weeks of the campaign Trump dusted off his 2016 case against forever wars, criticizing Harris for embracing Iraq war supporters, particularly Liz Cheney.

Tuesday's results are certainly not an anomaly. According to a report issued by the Pew Research Center in September, about 61% of registered voters who said they had served in the military or military reserves were planning to vote for Trump while 37% backed Harris. This tracks with past elections. According to Pew, 60% of veterans voted for Trump in 2020, while 39% backed President Joe Biden. (...)

Christoper Moore:

I voted for Godzilla because his destruction will only affect the people in Tokyo I disagree with.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote:

IIRC Harris's line of question during the Kavanaugh hearing related to whether Kavanaugh had had ex parte discussions with one side in a litigation over which Kavanaugh presided. He tried very hard to play dumb, asking her to be more specific about the person or the matter discussed. My guess is that she didn't have sufficient evidence to accuse him explicitly of unethical behavior but that she'd heard strong rumors. 

"She is absolutely incapable of answering a question without vacillating or just adding a ton of extra layers."

I seriously doubt this. Harris is a smart woman. It's more likely that she got caught up in following campaign advisers's words of caution and nuance. Try not to sound too angry, people don't like angry women. Don't be bold in your words, you'll get crucified for being too liberal or preachy. 

Yes, she should have separated herself from Biden more. She should have talked up her plans to help struggling Americans, eg. the tax credit for childcare,  the extension of Medicare to help cover costs of senior care, the $25,000 down payment support for first-time home buyers, etc. 

But would that have made any difference? Trump in contrast offered word salad about helping the average American and tipped his hand about the punitive restrictions he was going to impose on people with Project 2025. So I'm sure people were angry with Biden/Harris, but where was the practical appeal of voting for Trump? How is going to make their lives better? Getting rid of all the immigrants isn't going to lower prices (it may very likely raise them) or make houses more affordable (again, likely to raise prices due to insufficient cheap workers in construction) or make America safer (the vast majority of crimes are committed by native Americans). 

So yeah, the Democrats have to show they're the party supporting working Americans with a better, more affordable way of life. But you can't brush aside the very real possibility that a lot of the reasons being offered by pundits are secondary to the reluctance/unwillingness of Americans to elect a black woman as president. 

We now have the sad remnant of an alpha male—senile, aging badly, a felon and rapist who tried to overthrow our government. America's choice of Trump feels like a fatalistic choice of self-destruction and suicide as a democracy. 

 Beaker wrote:

Yes but no one asked Scott. Going with Kamala was fine. Was there someone else who could have answered that question on the View? Sure, probably, but the powers in the party again thought Trump was a sitting duck so they pushed her, even though we all know that being a woman was going to cost her. Anyway. She proved to me that she was full of shit during the Kavanaugh hearings, when she kept implying that she had some dirt on him but wouldn't say what it was, and he just sat there going "wha?" and she smirked at him. But that was scripted. A decent lawyer sticks to a script, and she is not practiced at speaking off the cuff, IMO. She is absolutely incapable of answering a question without vacillating or just adding a ton of extra layers. 

But she still did better than Biden did, I think. Biden only won last time because the horribleness of Trump was so fresh in our minds. But time heals all wounds and people forgot what a 24-hour clown show it was.

But we should have chosen someone younger and more fun. Shapiro maybe? Yeah.

The Dems are getting hammered from all sides.  From long-time Dem operative James Carville, to Bernie.  And they're not wrong.

Beyond out of touch.

Here's another take.

NSFW
.

Boy I have never seen a more appropriate venue than here to drop this: 

Drop-Off in Democratic Votes Ignites Conspiracy Theories on Left and Right
There is nothing suspicious about the shift in Democratic fortunes. But partisans from across the spectrum are questioning the results, for different reasons.

When President-elect Donald J. Trump was announced the winner of this year’s presidential contest on Wednesday, the vote tallies initially suggested a sharp drop-off of millions of Democratic votes compared with the results in 2020.

To some Republicans, that slump was evidence that the 2020 election had been fraudulent, that Democrats had somehow conjured millions of phantom votes that year — despite repeated confirmation from election officials, statewide audits and courts that nothing nefarious had occurred.

The shortfall also set off doubts among the internet’s left flank, but for different reasons. Hundreds of thousands of posts on social media implored Vice President Kamala Harris to avoid conceding over suspicions that millions of votes were somehow “missing” this year — despite assurances from federal agencies that the election was safe and secure.

Though it is unusual for opposing political camps to create conspiracy theories from the same material, supporters of both candidates have fixated on Democrats’ underperformance this year as a central narrative. The conversation online highlights the appeal that election fraud stories have to partisans of all stripes — especially those facing electoral defeat — and the power of social media to help those ideas go viral, despite ample evidence that the concerns are meritless. (...)

 Beaker wrote:

Responses like yours are why most of us don't give a crap about what you think or repeat. 

Maybe you were shilling too hard during the campaign but the vast majority of Trump's former cabinet members essentially agree with the costume. 

I do hope Elon and Trump paid you in advance. They've been known to stiff employees. 

Muslim-Americans favored Jill Stein in 2024
Trump and Harris fought for second place according to recent polling

The results stand in stark contrast to results from previous cycles. CAIR found that in 2020 President Biden had support from 69% of those surveyed, with Trump earning 17%, and other candidates 3%. Additionally, a study released in October of 2016 found that 72% of Muslim-American voters supported Hillary Clinton, while 4% voted for Trump, and 5% chose other candidates.

 islander wrote:

That was as rational a response as inserting an argument for why Aunt Jemima should be represented on packaging by a they/them identifying as 2slgbtqrxyz+ .  But you do you.

 Beaker wrote:

Sorry, you don't get to spread your bullshit without a rational response here and there.

If you didn't support the candidate that won,
Don't let this election get you down.
I'm not saying don't grieve.

Just stop following the circus. You know every single thing you need to know about him.
Don't give him more of your peace than he's already taken. We know the unraveling is to come.
But you don't have to listen to him crow; or his cronies either.

Don't let them steal your energy. Don't let them distract you. Your personal peace is the only thing you have control over.
You are allowed to walk away. You are allowed to close the door. 
You are allowed to put space around you. And if you can't, you are allowed to let the words and the hate roll off your back.

Don't feed the Schadenfreude.

 ColdMiser wrote:

Responses like this are why we can't have anything nice on this forum.

 Beaker wrote:

 ScottFromWyoming wrote:

Followup:

FEMA employee removed from role after telling relief team to skip houses with Trump signs after Florida hurricane

“While we believe this is an isolated incident, we have taken measures to remove the employee from their role and are investigating the matter to prevent this from happening ever again. The employee who issued this guidance had no authority and was given no direction to tell teams to avoid these homes and we are reaching out to the people who may have not been reached as a result of this incident,” the spokesperson said.

...four years ago.

 black321 wrote: 
The plan you mentioned included among other things, putting into formal law, allowing 5,000 unvetted and illegal border crossings per day and a pathway to citizenship for these illegal immigrants.

Once made into law, something like that will never be undone.

And the other flaw is to assume that any democrat administration would follow a specific law to begin with.  Look at Biden and tuition.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote:

Not sure if you intended it, but essentially you've just said all Trump voters are quite likely to shoot at you (FEMA worker).  Or something.