Why do people keep voting for the far right?
Posted by Prestigious_Cap3511@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 106 comments
They said it was only white people voting for them, but a lot of minorities did as well. They said it was only men voting for them, but a lot of women voted for them as well. They said it was only the uneducated voting for them, but people like Elon Musk or Joe Rogan voted for them too. What I don’t get is: what turns half the country off from voting for the Democrats? What is the real truth here? This current government is a disaster, but a lot of people feel they're the lesser evil. Why?
bloon18@reddit
Democrats are too focused on social issues and didn't hold a primary for Kamala who was a weak candidate in a lot of people's eyes. A lot of moderates and conservatives alike are also tired of being called nazis/fascists/racists/bigots/etc for voting for the right which pushes them further right at the same time.
MajesticBread9147@reddit
Why is it on the left to stop calling a spade a spade to avoid hurting people's feelings?
Like if you're voting for the group of people that's blaming immigrants for everything, things transgender people are the end of society, and only relatively recently started accepting gay marriage, you may not be a bigot, but your leaders bring them certainty isn't a deal breaker for you.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
A lot of this can be solved by simply talking to the people who think these things instead of jumping to conclusions as to why they think these things. Someone who disagrees with you likely still has nuanced opinions that go further than “them dirty x,y,z”.
Not many people blame immigrants for everything. Most right leaning people I know just don’t want illegal immigrants coming in because there’s no way to stop criminals (almost entirely sex traffickers and drug traffickers). In fact, most right leaning people I know support open borders, as long as people immigrate legally.
Transgender stuff is a whole can of worms with so many facets that I can’t hope to explain the nuances in opinion of people on the right here. Just know a lot of it is more about wanting to protect women and children than hating transgenders.
DEI stuff is just stupid. Who cares what color your skin is? People on the right just want people who are qualified instead of people who got their positions because an arbitrary factor they don’t control gave them unearned bonus points. The current trump administration overcorrected in a lot of ways, sure, but a lot of that is also media exaggeration and they really bad stuff that got removed is being put back because the methodology of “fixing” dei was garbage.
And yeah, Trump is a deal breaker for a lot more people in the right than you think. But most people look at trump, then look at Kamala, and have to pick which is worse. Whether you agree or not, people on the right don’t like their options any more than you do.
Argo505@reddit
Dude, you're in this thread pushing outright disinformation about cities that you disagree with politically. Cut the "let's just have a conversation" crap.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
Nothing I said about Seattle was wrong. There are dangerous parts and there are safe parts. I’ve personally experienced the dangerous parts, and I’ve seen plenty of people who have also experienced the dangerous parts. The CHAZ stuff wasn’t wrong either.
MajesticBread9147@reddit
CHAZ had free food distribution, poetry readings, and an area for people to express their grievances with the status quo. It was started by anarchists lol.
I don't know why people think it was a threat to anyone.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
They looted and cleared out the entire block of business, mostly small, privately owned businesses, and occupied it for a month before it collapsed because the whole premise was flawed, to say the least. The property damage alone was a threat, and that’s not even considering when it was literally taken over by wannabe gangsters. The whole thing was a literal dumpster fire with zero redeeming qualities. A lot of the food, by the way, was stolen from the surrounding business or provided by people on the outside, kind of defeating the point. Sure, it had “poetry readings” and a “grievance area.” Whoop de do. You’re still illegally squatting and vandalizing public and private property.
Argo505@reddit
Sure it was. You said CHAZ "took over downtown". That was a lie. You said "Seattle is unsafe". That was a lie. You said the crime rate was increasing. That was a lie. You said that everyone has to leave their car windows down so they don't get smashed. Again, a lie.
Did you forget that real people live in Seattle who can actually call you out on this BS?
MajesticBread9147@reddit
Even illegal immigrants have lower crime rates than the general population, every statistic who says they have a higher crime rate includes "illegal entry" in the statistic which is kind of misleading. So anybody who says they are against undocumented immigrants because of crime is either dishonest or misinformed.
Like with the previous issue, there is no evidence that transgender people are any more dangerous than the general population. So anybody claiming it's about safety is misinformed.
Who is getting "unearned bonus points"? Is that happening in any meaningful capacity? If so why do so many women and people of color continue to face discrimination and on average have lower wages?
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
It’s really, really hard to track statistics of undocumented immigrants. They’re undocumented. We don’t even know how many of them there are. And even if they have lower crime rates, the criminals who are coming through illegally are doing things that absolutely need to be stopped, like drug trafficking and human trafficking (you know, literal slavery?).
With transgender stuff, yeah, those people are misinformed. We all are, because those of us who get information from the news are getting it from organizations that sell ads to get clicks and don’t care about the truth, and the rest of us get our information from social media like good little social experiments. But again I reiterate, the transgender issue is WAY more than just safety stuff and everyone I know has a different opinion for different reasons. It really isn’t worth getting into here.
I want to use a real world example with the DEI thing. I just graduated high school, so let’s use college admissions. Harvard, one of the most respected, prestigious universities in the world, literally gave major preference to minority applicants, turning down better qualified applicants purely based on gender and skin color. This isn’t contested information, it is well documented and easily googleable, and is prominent in a majority of public colleges and universities. That’s the kind of DEI republicans are fighting against.
Argo505@reddit
> I just graduated high school
Of fucking course.
bloon18@reddit
well put
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
Thank you
AdmiralAkbar1@reddit
I mean, the left certainly doesn't have to. But if their goal is to get these people to like them and vote for them, writing them off as irredeemable bigots typically doesn't translate to electoral success.
bloon18@reddit
And to further prove my point, 2 out of the 8 comments on this post so far are calling the right racists, idiots, or a nazis.
I also fully acknowledge that a good portion of these commentors are bots to divide us as a nation
Vidistis@reddit
I mean, have you seen what this administration and the vast, vast majority of Republican politicians are in favor of? Because yeah, they're acting like idiotic, bigoted fascists.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
I can assure you that the vast majority of republicans are not in favor of the big beautiful bill
kaimcdragonfist@reddit
I don’t think it can be overstated how much Democrats screwed themselves by not having a primary for Kamala. It’s not a good look for the party that’s all about saving democracy to do something so undemocratic
bloon18@reddit
Agreed. I remember it all happened so fast that I was genuinely confused and didn't even think it was possible to push a candidate forward like that. Coupled with Biden being either too power hungry/stubborn to give the reigns to another candidate to begin with when he, his cabinet, and a good portion of Americans were well aware of his cognitive decline.
kaimcdragonfist@reddit
It’s just an observation I noticed around the time of the No Kings protests when a lot of my right leaning friends and family pointed it out. Like, I dunno if they’re going to recover from that any time soon, though to be fair I haven’t seen as many center or left leaning friends and family acknowledge it
bloon18@reddit
Yeah, a bit ironic that there's a no kings protest for the current administration when the other side undemocratically selected a candidate to run for president. The democratic party needs to be shuttered and replaced with a new party on the left that puts the social issues on the backburner and gets back to the reality of what most Americans want, such as fixing our economic issues, a strong border, political forms, etc.
HambugerBurglarizer@reddit
Not a word of criticism towards the Republican Party.
HambugerBurglarizer@reddit
Talk about Trump's cognitive decline. Go ahead. Let's hear it.
winteriscoming9099@reddit
Yep. I didn’t prefer Harris relative to other potential candidates and I was a bit dismayed when she was pretty much shooed into the spot without any chance for anyone else.
whosudady@reddit
She would have lost anyway. She got beat so badly, nothing would have helped.
zedazeni@reddit
I one heard the phrase “it takes 1000 green lights to approve a project, but one red one to stop it” in relation to construction permits, specifically, why it’s so hard to build new housing in America. The “process” has become too Byzantine, and instead of fixing it. Democrats are trying to work within the Byzantine system to allow everyone to have a stake in the Byzantine system. The far right comes in waving a chainsaw on stage creaming “cut cut cut” like getting rid of things won’t cause any negative repercussions. Get rid of undesirable people, get rid of entire government departments. That’ll fix things.
Sure, you amputating your entire leg will indeed rid you of your ingrown toenail, but is it worth it? No. Do most people understand why and how ingrown toenails form and how long they last? No. Which of these two “no”s will win? Clearly the latter one, because humanity has done this multiple times in multiple countries across multiple centuries.
KentuckyWildAss@reddit
It's because they're fucking stupid. Also, if they don't like the name calling, then maybe they should stop acting like nazis, fascists, racists, bigots, etc?
shelwood46@reddit
This will almost certainly get deleted, but I need you to know how much it amused me that you called Joe Rogan "educated", that's hilarious, thank you.
whosudady@reddit
His IQ is higher than yours….even when hes stoned. You know it.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
That isn’t how IQ works
HambugerBurglarizer@reddit
We live among assholes. Republicans are fucking pieces of shit.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
Ironically, this is the answer to their question, but not in the way you’d think.
The far left is all about acceptance until someone disagrees with them. Then they are all “fucking pieces of shit.” No exceptions. Sure, there are far right people who think and act the same way, but the ratio of “angry-at-everyone far right” to “normal right” is a whole lot lower than “angry-at-everyone far left” to “normal left,” and a lot of the “normal left” see this and start to lean right because of it.
Vidistis@reddit
Intolerance can't be tolerated, otherwise you become a part of that intolerance and the suppprt of it.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
But how do you define intolerance? Because a lot of the radical left thing anyone who doesn’t agree with them to the letter is therefore intolerant, and that just isn’t true.
For example, I am a Christian. A relatively conservative Christian. I’m not some bible thumping, fire and brimstone, thou shalt burn in hell cause your gay Christian, and I have had some pretty detailed arguements with those kind of people. I still hold conservative ideals and beliefs, but I don’t hate anyone for it. I don’t think that people should be banned for what they do with their life, even if I disagree with them. Certain things I think shouldn’t be as accepted as they are, and some things I don’t think should be legal (virtually entirely in relation to children, mind you).
My philosophy is basically this: You do what you want as an adult, that’s your decision, not mine. As long as what you do doesn’t interfere with other people, you do what you please. I might say what you’re doing is wrong, but if you aren’t affecting anyone else, that’s entirely on you.
Does that make me intolerant? Is it on par with the radical extremists who genuinely hate gay people and say they deserve to die? Where do you draw the line?
Because somewhere, that intolerance of intolerance meets tolerance of tolerance, and it’s going to be some level of tolerance of intolerance. Other wise, the only thing you tolerate is people exactly like you, and that’s the furthest thing from tolerance.
HambugerBurglarizer@reddit
I've never once been "accepting" of Republican fucks. I absolutely don't "accept" fascists. I'm never going to be fucking nice to these assholes. I don't know where any morons got the impression that we were going to put up with these sacks of shit. I fucking despise conservatives and I don't care how much they cry about it. You're shit. You're assholes. Fuck your beliefs.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
I don’t know a single regular person, right or left, who doesn’t despise the BBB.
I don’t accept fascists either. What makes you think I’m a fascist? Why are you so sure everyone who doesn’t think like you is evil? I honestly don’t get it. I’m trying to be nice but you spit in my face and blame me for it.
HambugerBurglarizer@reddit
You aren't nice.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
I’m trying to be as nice as possible. You’re the one calling me an asshole. What have I done that isn’t nice?
HambugerBurglarizer@reddit
You started pissing and moaning about abortion, for absolutely no reason. That's an asshole move. That isn't nice. It's literally none of your fucking business if someone gets an abortion.
Argo505@reddit
Lying about things like "Seattle being burned down" and "Downtown Seattle being taken over" is a weird way of being polite.
Argo505@reddit
>I don’t know a single regular person, right or left, who doesn’t despise the BBB.
And yet you keep voting for the people who pass nonsense like this. Why?
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
I turned 18 after trump was elected. Also, the BBB has a lot of stuff that Trump never talked about or even contradicted what he said he wanted.
Believe it or not, people didn’t know this was going to happen when they voted. They rolled the dice, hoping the evil the picked was going to be slightly less worse than the evil they discarded. Even though I didn’t get to cast those dice, I still am not sure which one would be worse. Trust me, trump sucks absolute balls and I wish he wasn’t our president.
Argo505@reddit
>Believe it or not, people didn’t know this was going to happen when they voted.
Why not? This is all pretty much in line with Project 2025. It was outlined pretty clearly.
Sad_Lab_229@reddit
You sound like a hateful fucking piece of shit.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
If you want a genuine answer, a lot of it is really because the Democratic Party is an absolute dumpster fire and the far left is just flat out hateful. People joke about the “tolerant left,” but it’s funny because it’s true. Right leaning people are generally far more accepting of other people and often get along with people they don’t agree with on everything. The far left, on the other hand, is militant in their beliefs and will verbally abuse anyone who says anything they don’t like. Again, large generalization here, but that’s the jist of it.
If you want a real world example, compare the riots in LA, Seattle, or any other major blue stronghold city to how red towns and cities respond to things they disagree with. Rural America isn’t burning itself, but big liberal cities are tearing themselves apart in the name of social justice, and the regular Joe Schmoe looks at the difference between the two and chooses the one that won’t literally attack him for a few opposing ideals.
moonwalkinginlowes@reddit
That’s a crazy take considering most southern red states still don’t even acknowledge that the civil war was about slavery, and the far right is literally where all of the white supremacist groups land. As someone who was raised as a fundamentalist conservative Christian my entire life, I can say with 100% certainty that the most hateful, violent people I know are evangelical Christians. This is also backed up historically since Republican conservatives Christians have opposed women’s rights, civil rights, gay rights, desegregation of schools, etc etc
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
The lost cause was started because the confederate south realized they were losing a war they couldn’t win while the North turned the whole thing into a moral war rather than an economic one. They panicked and started sanitizing everything, and did a pretty good job considering the prevalence of the lost cause in the south today. The fact of the matter is, this has little to do with modern politics. Some, sure, but only a bit.
If you really want to get technical, the south was the Democratic Party and seceded because Abe Lincoln, the republican, anti slavery candidate, was elected. The KKK was largely tied to the Democratic Party throughout its several iterations until the early to mid 20th century. But literally none of that matters because none of those people are still around today, so why would I hold that against the democrats?
As for the hateful “Christians,” yes they definitely exist. But for every hateful, seething, Westboro Baptist-esque conservative there are a dozen conservatives and Christians alike who look at them and wish they would just stop for once. Also, for every seething hateful “Christian,” there is plenty of seething hateful liberals who only want to see the right wing world burn. There are several of them in the comment section here, they’re pretty easy to spot. I think I’ve seen one of the hateful conservatives so far, but then again there are a lot less conservatives on mainstream Reddit so that could also just be availability bias.
winteriscoming9099@reddit
Wouldn’t say I agree with the first paragraph because the right is just as capable and frequently does shun people for not accepting their beliefs. I will say it’s funny that LWers pretend they don’t do it though, as a center-left myself.
I do mostly agree with the second one. LW leadership of cities has been largely atrocious (I’ve lived in Chicago, Brandon Johnson is horrific) and voters will look there (not helped by RW media effectively capitalizing on these struggles) and compare it to their own lives.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
Oh yeah, there are absolutely spiteful, angry people on the right who just want to see the left wing world burn. And I can’t stand those people. I wish they weren’t even taken into consideration in politics, because they make everyone look bad. It’s just that the same kind of people on the left tend to be even louder and even more hateful, somehow, and seem to be more prominent in their party than in the right wing party.
winteriscoming9099@reddit
They do seem to be made into more effective portraits of the party on the LW side, true. Probably due to a mix of LWers being unwilling to distance themselves and RW media doing a great job on capitalizing and saying “look how stupid this is” (without any supporting context). Generally I think Dem’s unwillingness to deviate from this and from generally unpopular positions has screwed then over, as a Democrat myself.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
That’s exactly what’s happening.
Btw, it’s a breath of fresh air to talk to someone civilly here lol, some of these people man.
Argo505@reddit
The key to being well received is to not push things that are verifiably false.
Miserable_Smoke@reddit
If their families were being rounded up, they wouldn't be sitting in a town hall talking about it.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
Can you be more specific? I’m not sure who “they” is in this sentence, and it could honestly refer to a few different people given your political stance.
Argo505@reddit
>big liberal cities are tearing themselves apart in the name of social justice
Damn, I must have overslept and missed Seattle "tearing itself apart" again.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
The police department is entirely incapable of doing anything about crime, at all. Seattle has become a genuinely dangerous place to be, particularly downtown. People have to completely empty out their cars and leaves the doors unlocked with the windows down with signs saying “please don’t break anything, there’s nothing of value.” Far left rioters/protesters literally tried to cecede from the United States by taking over downtown (the part filled with small businesses they destroyed).
Argo505@reddit
> Seattle has become a genuinely dangerous place to be
This is absolute nonsense, man. But hey, what would I know? It's not like I, you know, live here or anything.
HambugerBurglarizer@reddit
He's your typical conservative dipshit, he's constantly scared. He's a weak, ineffectual manchild who's terminally terrified of cities.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
I live in the biggest city in Montana (admittedly, pretty tiny, but still). I’m not scared, but I am worried about things like the BBB passing, or abortion being legalized in a future administration. I doubt it would be the end of the world, but things are gonna suck, hard. But of course, I’m just a man child scared of people with blue hair.
Argo505@reddit
I mean, you said it, not me...
HambugerBurglarizer@reddit
Somehow he started screeching about abortion there, even though that has nothing to do with anything that was being discussed here
We're dealing with a sad virgin who hates women.
Argo505@reddit
There's nothing I love more than being lectured on what life is like in the city I live in by a fucking high schooler.
HambugerBurglarizer@reddit
Looks like Junior got banned! Lmao
Seattle is fucking awesome. I honestly don't get up there enough. What's a cool spot I've probably missed?
HambugerBurglarizer@reddit
You hate women, but I already knew this before you started screeching about abortion.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
They occupation was called CHAZ, or “Capitol Hill autonomous zone.” The whole point was to be an autonomous, self sustaining communist utopia free from the oppression of the United States, or something to that effect. And yeah. They were all idiots, but how come nobody stopped them? They were there for a MONTH. An entire MONTH. That doesn’t happen in a safe place to live.
And I’ve been there, recently. I’ve seen the crime rate statistics, I’ve seen the drug addicts and homeless camps strewn throughout the streets. Seattle is huge, of course not all of it is dangerous, but the significant portions of it that are dangerously are not like that by coincidence.
Argo505@reddit
I'm aware of what it was called, buddy.
>That doesn’t happen in a safe place to live.
How did that make the rest of Seattle unsafe?
>And I’ve been there, recently.
Congrats! So have I, since, again, I live here.
>I’ve seen the crime rate statistics
The ones that show crime rates dropping? Me too! Not sure why that would upset you.
HambugerBurglarizer@reddit
You're scared of everything all the time and you're making up bullshit. You're very weak.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
What exactly am I scared of?
HambugerBurglarizer@reddit
Everything? You're crying about how terrified you are of Seattle. You're weak. What was I supposed to think?
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
I live in Montana. Why would I be scared of Seattle? I was simply using the riots there as examples of how the general public sees the far left.
HambugerBurglarizer@reddit
You've spent zero time in Seattle and it's very obvious. Stop talking.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
Look, Im going to tell you the same thing I told the other guy, who decided to DM me for some reason. I’ve tried to explain my point, why I said what I said, and you two keep ignoring me and refuse to actually participate in the discussion in a civil manner. I don’t have the time or the energy to argue with you because it isn’t going to go anywhere, so I’m going to block you simply to avoid blowing up my notifications with things I won’t respond to.
Genuinely, have a good night, God bless.
eagles_jesse@reddit
I’m 26, I’m part of the growing “far right”, which apparently now just means being further right than Trump. We are a most younger group, none of us watch Fox News or anything like that. Fox News is strictly for boomers who don’t understand it’s propaganda. It’s the same as CNN/MSNBC, but just Republican flavored. The far right recognizes that, and we get our news pretty much strictly online, from all sources. For me, Trump got me into politics for my first time I could ever vote. I went down the Trump, Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens, etc pipeline. And I recognized that this party was 100% more aligned with my beliefs and values than Democrats.
Over the last 8-9 years, I’ve only become more interested in politics and more informed, which has led me to become further and further right.
Vidistis@reddit
I love my country, I love my state of TEXAS, I believe that we are one of the greatest countries in history, and that our foundational principles in the constitution and being a melting pot of cultures is the direction humanity should push for. I believe we could be THE greateat country in history if it weren't for being held back by conservative views.
What you consider to be "open communism" is wanting to raise the base standards of living, aid the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups so that they have the same fair opportunities as others, and to protect the common people from poorly regulated corporations and billionaires. You know, things we strived for with one of our best Presidents, Teddy Roosevelt and before one of our worst Presidents, Ronald Reagan.
I'm all for capitalism and people climbing the economic ladder through own hardwork and means, but I'm for safety nets and ensuring that it isn't rigged in favor for those already at the top.
Aside from the economical standpoint, the right is full of people who are morally bankrupt. They stand against our American values, they do not care for the law and constitution, they do not care about protecting other people's rights and freedoms, they take away people's options so that only their way can exist. They're the ones pushing for Christianity in schools, they're the ones who want to extinguish abortion. It's okay to be Christian, it's okay to be against abortion, but it is not okay to want to take away the option from others. That isn't freedom, it's control. Not every republican may be a bigoted nazi, but the party that is full of bigoted nazis who wave around the confederate flag and swastikas like the proud boys are Republicans. The confederates were traitors and the nazis were our enemies, and the Republicans, or at least Trump, are more aligned with Russia.
Also this is the modern era, we are living in a global, connected economy. Good economics involves specialization, having power and influence involves protecting and aiding others. Safe and timely trade includes providing protection of the seas. Thomas Jefferson, who famously wanted the US to be isolationists, realized that it wouldn't work out.
BornWalrus8557@reddit
Because they are immoral and evil.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
Who is “they?”
BornWalrus8557@reddit
People who vote Republican.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
So more people vote far right because the far right is evil, or because more people are evil for being republican? Either way, that really fines answer OP’s question.
BornWalrus8557@reddit
Evil and immoral people vote for the far right. OP asked why they do it. It's because they are trash. Why do murderers murder? Why do rapists tape? Because they're awful people.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
OP was asking why more people (aka centrists and left leaning people) are voting right. That negates the entire premise of your rather biased answer
cmhoughton@reddit
Kamala ran a horrible campaign. Like Hilary before her, she didn’t hit Trump on his record. From his terrible foreign policy, to his insane ideas on extending billionaires more tax breaks they don’t need, and his horrible business record. Who the hell bankrupts a Casino? Much less does that more than once?
And he’s been sued thousands of times for breaking contracts or not paying his vendors or stiffing employees out of their pay. He doesn’t keep his promises. He’s probably the worst businessman ever. Yet her ads didn’t mention any of that.
And her ads also didn’t make clear tariffs are essentially a tax that would increase prices for everything. And they have.
FilthyFreeaboo@reddit
The political and cultural left lost touch with reality and became mind-numbingly incompetent and incestuously corrupt. They have locked themselves in academic echo chambers to the extent that they cannot acknowledge basic realities of the real world or fall on the majority side of an 80/20 issue. They absolutely MUST choose the worst possible person/cause to openly throw their support behind. The Democrat party has become a party of virtue-signaling Karens that think up is down and milk is racist.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
Trust me, the whole Lost Cause thing is one of my biggest peeves ever. But that has far less to do with politics and far more to do with historical revisionism going all the way back to the confederacy trying to bleach their history once they realized Lincoln turn the war into a moral thing instead of an economic thing and started winning.
Yes, there are hateful people on the far right. There’s a lot of them. And they’re very vocal. But for every hate filled right winger, there are as many hate filled left wingers and even more regular people who happen to lean right wondering what the hell is going on and why everything thinks they’re suddenly a part of Westboro Baptist.
Also the whole lost cause thing with slavery and all that is entirely a Democratic Party thing, but I’m not holding that against the modern Democratic Party because none of those people are alive right now. yeah, one of my ancestors might’ve wronged one of your ancestors. Why are we arguing about this? I did nothing to you.
coccopuffs606@reddit
People are tribal; they vote for whatever their party says to vote for.
Also, the average American adult reads and speaks at what is equivalent to sixth grade (age 11) standards. That doesn’t exactly help with media literacy
winteriscoming9099@reddit
Democrats are more known for their generally unpopular social positions that they’re holding fast to, and most people don’t pay attention to politics enough to think more than: republicans good for economy, prices went up with Biden in office, Kamala is basically biden, and she also wants some unpopular social stuff. The average voter doesn’t put a lot of thought into their vote - also, the RW media is a lot more effective at reaching them.
I think dems would be more successful if they had more effective messaging vs the RW, a more successful incumbency economically, and didn’t shoot themselves in the foot by walking themselves into RW talking points.
whosudady@reddit
Many of us didn’t like Kamalas priorities. Trump was lesser evil.
RoyalInsurance594@reddit
I find it hilarious that it took Elon so long to realize that Trump has no power at all. There are some foreign trolls here who are fomenting division.
soapyshinobi@reddit
Once again people fail to realize that most Americans do not vote and the remaining 40-50% have voted almost a 50/50 Republican/Democrats split for decades. So the millions of people voting for the right are actually closer to a quarter of eligible voters.
minneyar@reddit
"They" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your post. Here's some actual demographics for you: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patterns-in-the-2024-election/
In no case is any demographic "only" voting for them. Christian white men overwhelmingly favor Republicans. White womena and Hispanic men also favor Republicans, but every other demographic is left-leaning. The Christian white men bloc is enough to tilt the scales, though.
This is a very complex issue and there's a lot of reasons for it. Most Americans are pretty ignorant of what politicians actually do, and there's a huge amount of the population that is completely disenfranchised and doesn't vote at all, but the big reason is racism. Assuming you're not an American, I cannot emphasize enough how deeply systemic racism is embedded in American culture. There is a very large number of people who hate immigrants of any sort, and reactionary figures, both politicians and billionaires, are eager to take advantage of that hate and fear in order to rally people under them. I mean, we've literally got secret police who are kidnapping people off the streets with no warrant and then sending them to foreign labor camps.
This has been going on for a while, though, and it's worth noting that the issue that tipped the balance in the most recent presidential election was the Israeli genocide. The Democratic party's support of Isreal is vastly unpopular among the left in America, and quite a bit of polling has indicated that Harris' support of it is probably what cost her the election. It is worth noting that the Democratic party is by no means left-leaning; the left tends to vote for them because they're the "lesser evil" alternative to the Republicans, but the Democrats are a centrist party that try (often unsuccessfully) to appeal to the right. Again, this comes back to racism; Palestinians are Muslim and that means they deserve anything that happens to them, according to the far right.
Ok_Motor_3069@reddit
They don’t, what is now labeled far right is pretty moderate.
Pleased_Bees@reddit
The country is full of idiots and racists. Both kinds vote right.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
How many racist people have you met on the right? I know a lot of republicans/right leaning people, and only a couple are genuinely racist, and they’re the ones nobody else likes.
erraticerratum@reddit
Propaganda. Fox News is a big one.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
And so is CNN. The big difference is that both media outlets are full of money grubbing scum bags who twist the truth to make a clickbait polarizing headline because polarized means angry and angry means clicks and clicks means money.
zedazeni@reddit
The far right tends doing well during poor economic times is a global phenomenon. Propaganda and a lack of education are the two biggest factors. The right-wing propaganda machine has always been the same: “the wrong people are taking advantage of us.”
Its very easy for the average person to look around and see “others” (Jews, black people, Latin American immigrants, LGBT people) as somehow infringing on their own rights, and therefore having manipulated the system and creating this economic downturn. It’s visible. People can see that illegal immigrants are working. People can see the pride flags and see articles about pride parades. Etc…
What people can’t see is the inequality. The left has a notoriously bad information machine. Ask Biden and now Lula. Both presidents have policies that alone are very popular, yet the public hated them. Why? Because they never owned their policies, and the people who needed to hear about them the most generally don’t have the education to allow them to critically think about why they’re in the position they are. So, when a right-wing propagandist comes along and says your poor because and illegal immigrants are competing with you for your job, that’s far easier to understand than the centuries of policy making made by the elites to intentionally siphon political power toward the top at the expense of the poor.
TLDR: It’s always been a class war, most people don’t have the attention span or critical thinking ability to see this, so they fall for the right wing’s easy-fix propaganda instead.
LucidLeviathan@reddit
The far right likes to sell the idea that they are taking the unpleasant choices that other people are too scared to do.
In reality, they are just taking those unpleasant choices because they don't like the people that are harmed by those choices.
But, to those not familiar with the system as it is practiced, it sounds like a competent strategy.
PETEthePyrotechnic@reddit
Do you have an example of these choices? Not looking to come off argumentative, I enjoy discussion.
JonOrangeElise@reddit
The cost of living sucked and low-information, essentially apolitical swing voters pivoted to Trump. The Dems ran an impossibly bad candidate in a sundown syndrome Biden, then Harris carried the stink of Biden. She couldn’t even explain what she would do differently!
greysonhackett@reddit
The answer is bigotry and/or misogyny. There is a strong bias towards a white male in the US. He's a disaster, but he looks more like me is the prevailing mindset here.
s001196@reddit
I think the real fundamental reason is that people are just really dissatisfied with the status quo. They want radical change. The pandemic was an important catalyst. And it’s important to bear in mind that incumbents the world over were all voted against due to measures taken by them during the pandemic.
They see Democrats I think as the party of the status quo. And depending on the context, that can be either really good or really bad for your campaign. They see people like Joe Biden or Kamala Harris as figures who merely represented the status quo that seemed not to be working for them in whatever sense that was, but especially economically speaking. And I think there’s clear evidence that change was what people wanted and still want. I think Mamdani’s win in the mayoral primary is a good case study for this. And it’s not that people are necessarily far right because they want far right politics. Like Wisconsin voted for Trump in the election, but when the special election for the state Supreme Court seat happened and Trump/Elon tried to back their candidate, the voter backlash was very pronounced and they voted for the liberal judge by a double digit margin.
visitor987@reddit
The majority of states are conservative states Just west coast and the Metro areas of Northeast coast are progressive.
Progressive LA county has a population greater than 41 states. https://www.laalmanac.com/population/po04a.php
chivopi@reddit
Not to say the left/dems have been beacons of intellect recently, but it seems like it genuinely comes down to people not being aware of what they vote for. If they had the reading comprehension, or desire, to read the things ‘their’ candidates are pushing, no way they’d all agree. It’s marketing.
Miserable_Smoke@reddit
I don't have an answer to that. Keep in mind though, that everyone is encouraged to go to college, even if it means taking on massive debt, and even if they're terrible students. Educated vs non-educated isn't really about learning anything, it's about where you sit socioeconomically. We are a country that doesn't really value knowledge and wisdom, and a lot of our older population was poisoned by lead for a long time.
Individualchaotin@reddit
Trump and Nazis tell simple lies that are easy to remember and spread.
obtusername@reddit
You can’t really vote for the “far” right; there’s generally just two candidates, one left (Democrats) and one right (Republican). The Republican candidate themself may be far right, sure, but republican voters will choose them over the Democrats because “lesser of two evils” or w/e
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