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Notes -
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.
The view from my neck of the woods (western Montgomery County, PA, which went handily for Biden in 2020) is that Trump signs outnumber Harris/Biden signs 100+:1. In 2020 there was more parity in comparison to the lopsidedness this year. In my neighborhood of 70 some homes I count 8 homes with Trump signs out front and no signs for anyone else. At minimum I take this as a sign for greater enthusiasm for Trump.
This is contradicted in my own home where one member who voted for Trump last time almost certainly will not this time due to Dobbs.
So far in my SEC college town one could be forgiven for not knowing that an election is happening at all. I've seen one Harris bumper sticker, while Biden had a fair amount in 2020 and Bernie had an overwhelming amount back in '16. There are Trump stickers and signs, but not as many as in '16 or '20 so much as just the normal level of background noise.
Then again, there isn't a Senate election (and Doug Jones' campaign did far more than the necrotizing corpse that is the Alabama Democratic Party), there isn't going to be a single competitive House election, and Trump is going to win the state by something like 20 points (My only object of curiosity is how many counties he can break 90% of the vote in.) so neither party is spending any money (and they're probably both depleted after litigating over whether or not to impose another VRA minority opportunity district upon the state).
It's nice in the sense that I'd really rather not talk about politics with normies when I'm out at the bar (Thankfully, we have football to keep us distracted throughout the election cycle.), but it makes for a weird bubble that along with being overly online makes it difficult to have any sort of intuition as to what people are thinking out in the real world.
I'm in PA, purple part of a purple county, and out and about this is closer to my experience. TV and my mailbox are another matter. Enthusiasm just seems to be low all around.
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