What the heck happened to our votes in November? I am still trying to figure it out. There are approximately 245 million eligible voters in the United States. Of those about 155 million actually voted in 2024. There was no overwhelming surge of women to vote for Kamala Harris and thus preserve their own rights to bodily autonomy. Why the heck not?? I am still gobsmacked.
The 19th reported on an AARP analysis of women’s lack of enthusiasm for voting for VP Harris. Interestingly, women over 65 DID vote more heavily for Kamala Harris. All other age groups were more likely to vote for $Rump than they were in 2020. About 57% of women voted for Biden in 2020 and about 42% of women voted for $Rump then. In 2024, about 53% of women voted for Harris and 45% of women voted for $Rump.
Voters surveyed stated that their priority issues included abortion, immigration, the economy, jobs, inflation, and Social Security. In addition, women over 65 were more concerned about protecting democracy and caregiving, in addition to having more concern about Social Security. Those stronger concerns were apparently determinative for the average older female voter.
This suggests, then, that a major problem is disinformation, since Democrats are better on all these issues. We have featured all these issues in WOW columns and others on the DKos site and around the liberal blogosphere. So I think one thing that we have to do now is to broaden our reach. Consider republishing any columns you might write on major issues to national newspapers or blogs, or reword them into letters to editors. In particular if we want to influence high-income individuals who might be inclined to help if they are persuaded, we have to go where they are, which are the traditional national newspapers.
In addition, this article about disinformation amongst foreign-language speakers in America came across my feed. WhatsApp and similar social media apps that are more accessible than the Internet for some have been spreading massive amounts of disinformation without pushback from the left. And fact checking is more difficult than simply reading information provided. There are also few translations and we have not prioritized translations. Similarly, Facebook does not provide much fact checking in other languages. Been wondering why so many immigrants voted against their best interests? Disinformation without pushback is probably a big part of the reason.
We need to do much, much better, meet people where they live, and grab their attention. We need widespread commitment to women’s and all the civil rights issues. To do that, we need to spend less time preaching to the choir and more time reaching out across all communication methods online and offline.
Please discuss! And please add news items in the comments. We are still stronger together!
I have somewhere I have to be at 8 PM, but will return to respond to comments as soon as I can. Please have a lively discussion amongst yourselves in the meantime!