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This weekend, I witnessed the Vibe Shift firsthand.
When we met for lunch, my mother’s first topic was the DNC. Who spoke and how great they sounded. How excited she was about the whole thing. She corrected me on “Comma-lah’s” name, which I’d apparently been mispronouncing, and used that as a springboard to discuss Kamala t-shirts. She didn’t mention that watching the DNC had been inspiring enough to get her volunteering to write postcards and stuff mailers. It was clear that she was all-in on the program without ever discussing policy—or even Donald Trump.
Dad chimed in a couple times to note that the overall messaging was much more positive, except for Bernie Sanders, who sounded unchanged from the last ten years. He appreciated this. I’d say he represents a section of the populace with immense distaste for Trump, but a comparable disdain for politicians who spend too much time talking about the man.
I had been under no illusions that Mom would vote anything but Democrat. Dad, not so sure; I’d have given good odds of a protest vote if the Libertarian candidate wasn’t such a non-entity. More likely that he abstained. But the last couple weeks appear to have left him much more comfortable voting D. The same has to be true for Mom, too, as I never saw this level of enthusiasm for anything Biden did or said.
That’s the Vibe Shift: apathy to enthusiasm.
It doesn’t take a coordinated blitz of friendly op-eds, since my parents were getting this straight from the TV. It doesn’t take an iron grip on that TV presentation; the DNC herds their cats, but they can’t convince Bill Clinton to get off stage. And it doesn’t even take a winning policy slate. The Democrat base, the casual never-Trumpers, maybe even the grillpillers? They’re just glad to have a candidate under the retirement age.
It would seem obvious to me that there are, in fact, a lot of Americans who like what the Democratic Party has on offer - obviously! A party can't survive for ages if no-one likes what it has on offer! - and are happy to have it represented by what has always seemed to me a basically (though not expectionally) competent politician (competent at politics, that is) who happened to have an off-season in 2020 and doesn't have an off-season now. Thus, there is not anything particularly special to what is happening now.
What I wonder about is how hard it seems to be for American conservatives to believe that there exists a non-astroturf sentiment (and what does astroturf even mean these days, anyway? Both major parties have well-honed political machines to make basically literally any movement existing within their purview at least partly astroturf if you choose to look at it that way) supporting American liberalism organically. Why wouldn't there be? The last four years have seemed to be quite good for a fair few Americans, materially, especially compared to what is the most natural comparison to me - Europe's continuing malaise and doldrums.
I have no trouble acknowledging that there are many people that support a bunch of Democrat policies that I don't like much. If, for example, someone just doesn't think they should have to pay their student loans, they're probably going to vote Democrat.
On the flip side, the enthusiasm for Harris is genuinely hard to understand. I accept that the firmware update worked as intended and people really mean it, but it is genuinely puzzling to me what they're seeing that they're excited about. The answer is apparently as simple as the fact that she's 60 and lucid rather than 80 and comatose, which is fine as far as it goes, but doesn't really get me to understanding excitement.
As a bit of an extra point, I think if you'd told me this was how it was going to go down a few years ago, I would have thought a bunch of Democrats would be annoyed that they didn't get a say in picking their candidate. Instead, everyone just happily agreed that they're coconut-pilled now, that they're not going back, and that it's time embrace what can be, unburdened by what has been. That, above all else, is why I can't stop thinking of the situation as embodying the NPC meme. It is very hard for me to believe that people authentically watched some teleprompter speech and thought, "wow, now I can't wait to get out there and campaign"; I don't think it was astroturfed, but I do think that this is almost entirely an exercise in groupthink.
You make the mistake of the intelligent.
Politics are not really about policy. Kamala has a poor track record and every policy she's advocating is, at least in its current form, going to be disastrous in concept or execution. This has not tamped down the enthusiasm for her any.
She is photogenic, she smiles for photos, she looks attractive for her age and isn't obviously decrepit. Trump looks like a shriveled tangerine. America lies about a lot of things, in particular, that they don't care about looks. Obama wouldn't have gotten anywhere near the electoral success he did had he been unattractive. Don't hate the player, hate the game. The meta in American presidential politics is to run a supermodel or attractive actor who will say the right things. They can be more easily understood as a figurehead for what will let Americans feel good about themselves.
I hate Kamala, but she's definitely got a shot as America's president given that she is an accurate representation of what one half of America believes itself to be. Attractive, opportunistic, professionally presentable and economically illiterate.
There's also the side factor that - well, teenagers who only remember Trump and then Biden as president see a chance for Hope and Change in their generation. They haven't had that yet. Older people got their Hope and Change, when's their turn? Older people got their Vietnam to feel good about, why can't they get to feel good about Israel?
Men 18-29 are now a Trump-leaning demographic.
Men 18-29 have always been a Trump-leaning demographic. His brand is winning bigly and actually putting up a fight on behalf of red team. The newer, younger ones, though... those guys have seen him win, fail to achieve many of his right wing aims or win the culture war while in office, then lose, whine about losing, and get a clown invasion of capitol hill condemned as an insurrection. How much impact he had on each one of those outcomes is limited, but people like winners.
Young men, a Trump-leaning demographic, are not switching to Kamala Harris. The suggestion is preposterous. It can only be made in the fatalistic Motte fantasy world where people continue to not know anything real about Donald Trump.
Fight! Fight! Fight!
They can also abstain from voting or go third-party, which is positive for Kamala.
I don't detect the energy that Trump's campaign had in 2016 in 2024. He's a known quantity now and he didn't actually "drain the swamp", "lock her up", or do any of the things that young men actually wanted.
You seem to assume that the Motte is fatalistic because it lives in a fantasy world. In fact, the Motte is fatalistic because both sides of the political fence have failed to make a cogent argument for rationality and truth-seeking order. Both sides are retreating from this; some are even loudly claiming that this is the dead end the Enlightenment tradition has led us into. The entire COVID debacle had people here very loudly slashing their wrists over the mass denial, the reaction, the overreaction, the bad science, and the memory-holing. Even the most pure of quokkas would, having being equipped with basic powers of observation, have felt a collapse akin to finding out how stupid and apathetic people really are about being at war with
racists who think COVID is a big dealanti-vaxxers who believe COVID isn't a big dealpeople who refuse to isolate people who refuse to wear chin diaperspeople who think it's bad to campaign publicly for BLM during social distancingpeople who don't social distanceEurasiaEastasiaconspiracy theoristspeople who think COVID spending is a bad ideapeople who think COVID didn't disproportionately hurt black people[software update pending, please hold, fill in the blank as you wish depending on what the people in power want you to hate].This place doesn't have many shared values anymore but one of the very few is a desire for truth seeking out of a belief it produces better outcomes and that houses built on sand cannot stand. Finding out that the truth is like poetry, and that most people fucking hate poetry, even if it can recognizably produce better outcomes, is like finding out the Earth is flat and that proving it isn't makes you into the lunatic they burn at the stake.
Call it learned helplessness it you want, I prefer the pithy "Oh shit, people really are that stupid and easily led" and "if they could mindfuck millions of people into doublethink this easily, what else are they mindfucking us into?" Older people remember the Iraq war, maybe next time the powers that be will pick a juicier target.
Trump is polling higher than he ever has before. A month ago he was shot in the head and dodged a bullet. Then he got on his feet and started a fight chant.
The people saying they don't feel 2016 energy are all people who, in 2016, were certain that he was going to lose and could never possibly win. This time 2016 the Republican party was abandoning him in droves, "grab them by the pussy" was coming out and convinced everyone that this campaign was finished, and Hillary was giving interviews about how far ahead she was. This feels some some new meme fatalist consensus: but the same doomsayers were doomsaying then too.
People aren't satisfied with Trump? After 4 years of Biden Trump looks better than ever before. People remember peace and a stronger economy and groceries that didn't triple in price. He didn't drain the swamp? Gee, yeah, I wonder what happened.
This is what I'm talking about: the fatalism here is people who don't like Trump and never liked Trump rationalizing increasingly desperate forms of depression. What on earth does this have to do with the Enlightenment? The average poster here is pretty smart, but I doubt 1 in 10 could give a coherent definition of that period of time without consulting Google. Desire for truth? Maybe in principle, but I see bullshit repeated here all the time.
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