!

In the south the I's get purged from the rolls less often. But, the R's started registering I also.

There is there is no way that at the last moment we can see the kind of turnaround that gave Trump. This alleged win without some outside interference.

If one notes that the number of independent voters surpassed both the republican and Democratic parties in recent years, this comes as no surprise.

One thing that (especially) younger voters don't pay attention to is the party platform.

I first saw the difference between the 2004 and 2008 elections when Washington still had caucuses. In 2004, turnout was larger than I had seen in earlier years, but everyone engaged in voting on the platform.

In 2008, there were a ton of voters, but they had zero interest in voting for the platform. In fact, in my precinct, they didn't. They skipped it entirely even though it was in the rules that we were supposed to vote for it, and the people running the precinct let that stand for some reason. We just skipped to the vote.

The platform represents everything young voters say they want, including efforts to save the environment, and affordable healthcare. Yet they don't pay attention to it and most of them probably have never heard of it.

I think we were a better country with stronger parties and stronger party identification.

and apathetic about everything unless it pertains directly to each individual.
Hard to believe that those in rural America who have very little and especially small farmers, don't realize they're going to have even less and the Republicans will switch the blame to Democrats.
I got mine, you get yours.
And greed is good (but only for those who have or think they have).

Gordon Gecko for the win.

And no surprise, coming from you. And you bring up extremely important points -- ones that every Democrat needs to understand.

We are in an era that is very different than anyone has experienced. It is not like when Democrats alone could win elections ...... and although it has been that way since the felon's era began, to paraphase LBJ, we have to change our thinking in order to master the changing circumstances.

I don't think it strengthened the Democratic party itself. Even his own voters abandoned him in the 2008 special election and in the 2010 midterms. They elected him, but didn't give him the tools to work with. That mystified me, but the lesson was that people were ignoring actual issues to some extent. They share the same values, they want the same things, but seem unwilling to commit their vote beyond the Presidential election year or to understand how government works.

Also, I appreciate your kind words, very much needed today.

President Obama said, "Make me do it." But once he was elected, good people seemed to sit back, satisfied that he could accomplish anything and everything. And that created a vacumm which was immediately filled by the tea party. And that degenerated into the maga cult that has become the republican party.

who just don't want to admit they are fascist, racist pigs like those who admit they are Republicans.

I just figured many of them would be never-Trumpers

that mean more people would be registered republicans instead of registered democrats. Democrats have a branding problem?

nt

I know there’s lots of votes still being counted on the west coast, but the last popular vote update I saw - 66 million for Harris, 71 million for Trump- seems way lower than 2020, by like 20 million.

Maybe I'll lay them out later. There will be a postmortem, but today's not my day for it.

Were all those young people independents?

Too many were purged off the voter rolls this election cycle. Add that to voter apathy and you get what we saw last night.

This is one result of FAFO, or Stay Home and Find Out.

a rapidly increasing number of young people register as independents.

We do not have registration. The only time we have to declare at all is when we vote in a primary, and it does not obligate us in the general.

Do other states have to register by party to vote??

I smell BS on this.

usually about one third, who can't be bothered to vote as long as they get their hamberders and sportsball.

Ignorance and apathy are the Achilles' heels of democracy and in the US both ignorance of issues and apathy towards politics are considered cool.

The Republicans are now Maga. A few more cycles and it will all be Maga. No D, no R simply MAGA hail it the king. Think of the money that will be saved on campaigns. The effort and time saved will allow everyone to have a hobby or study something interesting or attend therapy.

Not sure why? Gaza maybe