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Which is why I don't understand why the Democrats seem to so heavily target these mythical independents. Feels like the Republicans have completely stopped catering to anyone other than their base, meanwhile Democrats seem to ignore their base or compromise their own values for voters that don't even exist. To me it's the strongest argument for the whole theory of controlled opposition, even if I don't really believe in that.
It is because our elections are not won by large margins. The difference between winning and losing is often decided less than 3% of the vote. While people who register for them, are basically locked in, with more nuance I am not getting into now, there still is about 3 percent of independent voters that do seem to vacillate between parties. With independent voters making up 42% of registered voters that amount can win, or lose, them the election.
Ok so 3% of the 42% of independent voters are truly undecided. Why spend the effort on them, vs actually motivating the roughly 50% of your base + independents who are actually Democrats that just don't show up.
It feels like by doggedly pursuing this tiny fraction of 3% undecided voters, they disillusion a much higher percentage of their own already locked in supporters from actually showing up. If they spent their efforts on targeting supporters that just don't vote, could they get 5% more votes? 10? 15?
Time and time again it feels that the side that wins isn't the one that flipped a vote, but rather the side that was more excited and engaged. Someone the Republicans seem to have figured out and work heavily towards.
It is a lot harder to get a large percent of your voting base behind a single person when it is the de facto party for anyone left of autocratic, right wing, authoritarianism. Meanwhile a republican can just belligerently spout bigotry, play a "strong man" leader, and pay lip service to theocrats, and a small handful of single issues, and activate a base who will vote for them like it is a religious decree.
It is that simple. Roughly 1/3 of the population want fascism, or something is the same wheelhouse. A little more do not necessarily want that, but are unconcerned with it happening as long as they get to own a gun, or whatever their single issue may be. Everyone who thinks this is bad is stuck with the democrats, and most people are to physically comfortable to truly risk anything for the large systemic changes needed to fix this. At least not the will to sustain it for the multiple generations it will take to see the fruits of that labor.
I mean exactly? Why are Democrats courting the people flirting with fascists instead of at least the broad, varied base of their own group. The could cater to the conservative Democrats and still come out ahead.
Because it has a history of not working as well as holding the larger, more cohesive, status quo and target a much smaller group of people to sway.