11 Comments
Mar 16Liked by James J. Heaney

Not short, but well worth the time.

One minor typo: In second sentence of footnote 14, second "Trump" should be "Biden."

Among Republican politicians, being "defensive" on abortion may be an understatement. On allowing grieving parents to sue negligent IVF clinics for allowing their embryonic children to be dropped on the floor and killed, Republicans were quickly stampeded into supporting an outrageous grant of absolute immunity to the clinics in Alabama regardless of how irresponsibly or maliciously they kill embryos. The media, always ready to salute the anti-life flag, generally reported this as "protecting parents and clinics" from legal liability, when what it did was protect the clinics FROM parents. I expect the media bias to continue and grow in this election year.

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Mar 16Liked by James J. Heaney

The beginning of the article really confused me because I know a lot of people that switched from Biden to Trump but no one who switched from Trump to Biden. But of course, in the end you are right. Iā€™m Hispanic, and so is everyone I know who switched from Biden to Trump.

IMO, based on conversations with those people, the biggest factor was that in 2020, we disliked Trump and were neutral to Biden. Based on Bidenā€™s performance, we now dislike both, and itā€™s a hard choice for many. This is why we are supporting Haley as something different. (This honestly includes myself. Iā€™m switching from Biden to Third party, but thatā€™s because I moved from a swing state to a Biden state, largely because the Republican governor. Of course my move also strengthens Trumps lead in swing states.)

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Mar 17Liked by James J. Heaney

Ha! I started this read while on vacay and got some side-eye looks from my family about having my nose in my phone. ā€œNo itā€™s only a short one Iā€™ll be done soon!ā€ ā€¦ lies!! ;) very worthy read though

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Mar 17Liked by James J. Heaney

A trend which I've been hearing is that there is a massive split between the male vote and the female vote. (Something along the lines that if only one gender voted tomorrow, opposite candidates would win in blowouts) It seems that, from what I've heard, all of the conservative gains among blacks, for example, are among male black voters. I've not heard any chatter about other minorities, but I wonder if it is similar?

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Non-whites hate illegal immigrants.

For some reason Democrats think that "immigrants" are a race with solidarity. In reality if your a Cuban born in America with full citizenship and someone from Costa Rica hopes the border on an asylum claim and is crowding your kids school and hospital you have no solidarity with him at all just because both of you are tan.

Trump speaking out against immigration is helping, not hurting, him with non-whites. It's only whites that feel super guilty about it (RACIST!).

Also, the economy isn't that strong. Larry Summers has a piece noting that when you include the cost of money (interest rates) inflation is even worse then everyone thinks. Nobody can buy a house at 7% 30 year rates, and young non-whites and shut out of the expensive first house they can't afford.

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Apr 4Liked by James J. Heaney

An important factor might be the profound extent to which Biden has failed the progressives of color who got out the vote for him. You're exposed to right-wing media that depicts Biden as left-wing, and he simply isn't. He was picked as Obama's running mate as a reassuringly stable and centrist presence among the Democrats, and he defeated everyone to his left in the 2020 Democratic primary, with practically no one to his right. His tendency to shift rhetoric to whatever is popular can give him the appearance of leaning left, but in terms of the policies that BIPOC progressives wanted, he mostly hasn't achieved or hasn't even attempted them. Then as we enter the election year, Biden's unwavering material support for Israel has dealt a killing blow for his support with these groups, at least in my feed. The people who previously might have said, "We all need to vote for Democrats even if they're flawed," lack any incentive to keep saying that.

These progressives aren't among the people who have switched to Trump. But if no one in your circle is emphasizing how we have to stick with Democrats anymore, you might feel fewer compunctions about switching.

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