I'd say a second piece of this is to remember there are two sides to this issue. When Democrats are soft on crime, they feel they are being compassionate to the "marginized" (ie criminals), Republicans usually view them as being cruel to the victims. Both of these things can be true at the same time, because a lot of these issues are zero sum. Add favored minorities at elite schools (blacks) at the expense of disfavored minorities (Asians)... there are a certain number of slots so you add one by taking from another. Adding biological men to female only spaces takes those female only spaces from women and gives them to men, and framing it as a civil rights issue means those women don't have a choice in that.
Worse, these issues that Democrats are on the wrong side of the American public on (really world wide public in the issues that aren't local like trans-rights and crime/public order) are framed as moral issues, as you're doing here, and then that judgement is applied in a maximalist fashion that even the most ideological of Mao's Red Guards would admire. This is how you get "workers parties" that no longer represent even a bare majority of the working class throughout the west.
I don’t think the immigration approval is a mystery: Democrats insisted nothing could or should be done about border crossings for a decade, which was WAY different from the majority opinion. Voters don’t have to agree with Trump 100%; they just side with him more than the Democrats’ (extremist) position.
This is all well said. I think that over the past twelve years ago, the American left came to take an extremely unhealthy inward-looking view that condemned even its own people like Natalie Wynn as being insufficiently pure. That's no way to get popular support for your positions, especially in a country as overall right-leaning as the US is, and I think we're paying the price for it now. We need to work with people we disagree with about some things, in order to achieve the biggest goals.
I appreciate the thoughtful analysis. Thank you for stating truths plainly, ex: "Convincing voters to alter their positions is extremely difficult, and not a role that campaigns and parties are well suited to." I can think of a lot of issues where this applies.
With immigration, maybe more so than other issues (?), the information environment seems like such a factor. Harris emphasized her support for Biden policies of deporting undocumented people. I wonder how many people favoring Trump on "deportation of everyone who is in the country without legal status" (adding "Mass" makes tilts the question toward Trump) think that this is a shift from the Biden Administration. I also hopefully wonder what would happen if the myth of lawless immigrants founders on the rocks of reality. It seems to be an easier fiction to maintain when ICE is not publicly grabbing so many obviously non-threatening people.
I'd say a second piece of this is to remember there are two sides to this issue. When Democrats are soft on crime, they feel they are being compassionate to the "marginized" (ie criminals), Republicans usually view them as being cruel to the victims. Both of these things can be true at the same time, because a lot of these issues are zero sum. Add favored minorities at elite schools (blacks) at the expense of disfavored minorities (Asians)... there are a certain number of slots so you add one by taking from another. Adding biological men to female only spaces takes those female only spaces from women and gives them to men, and framing it as a civil rights issue means those women don't have a choice in that.
Worse, these issues that Democrats are on the wrong side of the American public on (really world wide public in the issues that aren't local like trans-rights and crime/public order) are framed as moral issues, as you're doing here, and then that judgement is applied in a maximalist fashion that even the most ideological of Mao's Red Guards would admire. This is how you get "workers parties" that no longer represent even a bare majority of the working class throughout the west.
I don’t think the immigration approval is a mystery: Democrats insisted nothing could or should be done about border crossings for a decade, which was WAY different from the majority opinion. Voters don’t have to agree with Trump 100%; they just side with him more than the Democrats’ (extremist) position.
This is all well said. I think that over the past twelve years ago, the American left came to take an extremely unhealthy inward-looking view that condemned even its own people like Natalie Wynn as being insufficiently pure. That's no way to get popular support for your positions, especially in a country as overall right-leaning as the US is, and I think we're paying the price for it now. We need to work with people we disagree with about some things, in order to achieve the biggest goals.
I appreciate the thoughtful analysis. Thank you for stating truths plainly, ex: "Convincing voters to alter their positions is extremely difficult, and not a role that campaigns and parties are well suited to." I can think of a lot of issues where this applies.
With immigration, maybe more so than other issues (?), the information environment seems like such a factor. Harris emphasized her support for Biden policies of deporting undocumented people. I wonder how many people favoring Trump on "deportation of everyone who is in the country without legal status" (adding "Mass" makes tilts the question toward Trump) think that this is a shift from the Biden Administration. I also hopefully wonder what would happen if the myth of lawless immigrants founders on the rocks of reality. It seems to be an easier fiction to maintain when ICE is not publicly grabbing so many obviously non-threatening people.