TheDemonBuer

The Democrats are definitely the party of elites: celebrities, experts, academics, artists, and intellectuals. While many of these people are relatively wealthy, their status as an elite is not defined by their wealth. Unlike the Republicans who prioritize wealth over essentially all else. But it does not necessarily require great expertise, academic success, or intellect to become very wealthy. The Democrats are the smart, cool, accomplished, and popular kids, the Republicans are the ultra rich weirdos.

I don't think the "average" person really likes either of these groups. The Democrats are the party of the people who think they are the smartest and most important people in the room, and they may be right but that attitude is very off-putting. And, again, the Republicans are extremely rich and they are insane.

I don't understand at all why anyone would want to vote for the ultra rich weirdos, but I do understand why people wouldn't want to vote for someone who thinks they are more beautiful, more talented, more successful, more intelligent, and more accomplished than you, even if it is true.

Only sometimes?

I seriously doubt left wingers were the difference in this election. I doubt there are significant enough numbers of far left people in Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, and Wisconsin for it to have made any real difference.

Conservatives tend to have more kids than liberals. Maybe that has something to do with it. Seems to me, people are often heavily influenced by their parents when it comes to politics.

People can feel whatever they want about the economy.

Yes, that's true.

The question is, should they feel that way?

You're making a normative claim. It's the is/ought distinction. There is no objectively true way to determine how someone ought to feel. You think they shouldn't feel that way. Yet, they feel that way regardless. It's not up to you, you are not an all powerful god who gets to decide how people should feel.

Or to put it another way, if I asked you why you feel the economy is bad, and you can't point to anything to explain that it is (or flatly refuse to accept any explanation) that I give, then you should rightly be told you're wrong, because you are.

I'm sure if you asked them they would give you a number of reasons for why they feel the economy isn't doing well. They might say they feel housing prices are too high, or that they're struggling to pay their bills, or that they feel pessimistic about their employment prospects, or that they're worried they won't be able to save enough for retirement, or that healthcare costs are too high, etc, etc.

Thank you for proving my point better than I ever could.

You've proven nothing. Feelings are not hypotheses that can be tested through experimentation or research. There is no objectively right or correct emotional reaction to a situation or experience. If someone feels anxiety or stress about their economic situation, there is no objective, verifiable way of proving that feeling is "factually wrong."

That's not a feeling, that's a claim or an hypothesis. Such claims can be based on feelings, but the claims themselves can be empirically tested. What can't be empirically proven or disproven, however, is whether or not someone's subjective feelings about something are "right" or "wrong." So, if you ask someone how they feel about the economy, and they say, "I don't feel good about it," there is no way to prove that feeling is factually "wrong."

I don't know what messaging would have worked better, and I don't know why people chose Trump over Kamala. I don't believe Trump will make their situations better, in fact I think he likely will make them worse, but a majority of voters didn't see it that way. Again, I don't know why that is, other than at some point it became a popular idea that Trump was simply "better on the economy."

What I really, really want people to understand is that while I don't understand why people chose Trump that doesn't mean the economic anxieties that drove them to do it are not real. They are real, and their feelings about the economy should not be dismissed because they don't necessarily align with what the economic indicators seem to be telling us.

But a person's feelings about their economic and financial situation is not something that can be proven "wrong" empirically. If a person feels stressed about making rent, or frustrated about higher grocery prices, or pessimistic about their job prospects, there is no study or experiment you can conduct that can empirically prove those feelings or anxieties are "wrong."

It's not so much that people are claiming that the economic indicators are false or incorrect, because that is something that can be definitely disproven, it's that they don't feel great about the economy DESPITE the indicators being good, which means the economic indicators might not be very good at actually indicating how people are going to feel about the economy.

And how do you explain to someone that how they "feel" about the economy is factually wrong?

There is no such thing as a factually wrong feeling. This is everything that's wrong with the liberal elites. The people say they don't feel great about things and the elites simply look down their nose at them and say, "you're factually wrong."

all indicators show a healthy economy

Fuck.Your.Indicators.

If a majority of people don't FEEL like the economy is doing well, then it's not doing well. Period.

The economy right now is doing very well...

And yet the economy, and people's fears about it, were the main reason Trump won. Until liberal elites like this guy get it through their thick fucking skulls that how the majority of people FEEL about the economy is INFINITELY more important than what the economic indicators say, they will continue to lose. If people tell you they don't feel good about the state of the economy, believe them. Don't ignore them, don't wave them off, don't dismiss them as ignorant morons, believe them and listen to them.