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460 sats \ 3 replies \ @k00b 6 Nov \ parent \ on: The US elections offer many lessons Politics_And_Law
Once the CNN panel realized Trump was likely to win, Van Jones' reaction was to grieve for a bunch of identities, black women "whose head will be held lower tomorrow" because they continue to not be seen and trans kids. Not escalations of war or economic issues. The identity stuff isn't irrelevant, but expecting the federal government to fix whatever plight black women experience is off base, and giving it maximal priority is out of touch.
Another democratic panelist mentioned that their party believed abortion rights would carry the election. Maybe when you're so privileged that the economy doesn't impact you, or you're confident your money and connections will allow you to escape the impact of all of our wars, abortion is your chief concern. But come the fuck on.
There's a concept in economics called "lexicographic preferences". It's basically when someone has such a strong preference for something that they won't make any tradeoffs regarding that thing: i.e. they'll take whatever amount of that thing they can and then move on to their less preferred goods.
My sense is that many women have a lexicographic preference for pro-abortion policies and they'll vote for the pro-abortion option, regardless of what else it's bundled with.
I don't know how the left achieved this trick, but it's a very strong political force. Where I think they may have screwed up this election is allowing abortion protections onto state ballots. That allowed women to separate their abortion preference from Kamala. They could secure the abortion policy they wanted, without having to opt into all the other bad economic and social policies that normally come with it.