| DarthMetalliCube said: My take as a former Democrat voter (Kerry '04, Obama in '08): It's a combination of Trump himself - the give no fucks, celebrity/president cult of personality type who represents a backlash to ultra Political Correctness and this sort of modern strain of Neo-Puritanism that is running rampant in America (and yet funny enough I think most Americans, even many liberals, are more than sick of) ..coupled with - zero enthusiasm or real substance by most of the Dem candidates. Many are either the lame, old breed of Dems like Biden who's basically a centrist neolib/Corporatist types with no new or exciting ideas, or the nuttier Bernie/Warren new-school types who may have some interesting ideas but have something of a limited appeal with how far left they lean. Most of them seem to be running on a campaign of negativity in one way or another, with a focus on Trump hysteria rather than focusing on actual ideas to move America forward or how to cater to most Americans. Trump on the other hand DOES present this message (whether true, bullshit, or somewhere in between) and people are drawn to that. (1) You're not going to garner much support placing so much emphasis on negativity and essentially what amounts to "Just vote for me so this guy who's worse than me doesn't win again!" WHY should we vote for you, specifically? What will you do better as president? I fail to see most of these candidates answering these questions. So I feel it's just like you've got a couple corporatist neolib Hilary types at the top (Biden and Harris, maybe Booker? namely) who don't generate much excitement, and in the far left camp or newer breed "AOC" school of Democrats, you've got a highly crowded arena of candidates cutting into eachother's bases and pandering to the same audience. And all in this camp seem to be trying to "out liberal" the next guy, as many seem to be adopting increasingly odd and extremist views and policies that are just never going to have a massive appeal in the US. (2) I DO think Bernie seems to draw a similar amount of enthusiasm as Trump (he's sort of the anti-establishment left candidate toTrump's anti-establishment RIGHT candidate), but the media oddly seems to not care much for him, so he's largely ignored or at least others are given favoritism over him. |
I do agree with parts of what you say. Especially (1). It is completely true that some candidates only define themself as the lesser evil compared to Trump. A strategy and a political vision that is completely lacking anything to go forward in the future. The Bidens and Bookers and Buttigiegs and whatnot. Some candidates though have something to talk about, especially in my opinion Warren, Sanders, Yang and Gabbard. They decide to talk against Trump - because they obviously have different positions - but most of the time they talk about what they want to accomplish.
For (2) the answer is as often in your sig. As shown by the movie, the media is part of a overarching narrative that wants to keep things as they are. It is pretty simple: the media is owned by people who are successful in our current system. So sure as hell they don't want changes to the system. Covering Trump is mostly secure in this regard, as he has great showmanship, but his policies are more superficial and don't cut deep. Bernie on the other hand would change a lot (at least if he acts the way he talks). So they are very cautious about him.
