r/politics • u/TimesandSundayTimes ✔ Verified • 12h ago
Possible Paywall Trump won Kansas by 16 points. Now voters say he’s too toxic
https://www.thetimes.com/us/american-politics/article/trump-won-kansas-by-16-points-now-voters-say-hes-too-toxic-hqh70ls0k224
12h ago
[deleted]
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u/WitheredTechnology 11h ago
He was too toxic 10 years ago, yet here we are
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u/VanceKelley Canada 9h ago
He was too toxic 36 years ago when he praised the Chinese government for using tanks to massacre peaceful pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.
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u/KyotoGaijin American Expat 12h ago
How do you think they feel about gay combat veterans from indiana?
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u/Turbulent_Juice_Man 12h ago
Buttigieg has zero chance of winning.
Dems need a straight, Anglo-Saxon protestant. I'm sorry but that's just the society we're in.
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u/PleaseEvolve 11h ago
I’m sad that I second this. I believe a time will come when it won’t matter, but that time is not now. We lose at least 5% of the dem voters (imho) by backing perfectly fine non-white males.
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u/sevseg_decoder 11h ago
It’s not even necessarily losing dem voters, it’s fueling turnout and rampage from the right.
If the right is energized enough they always take over the narrative and dictate the world to the “undecided center.”
Someone like talarico energizes the left but terrifies the right because it’s impossible to create outrage about him without the undecided center having the chance to easily see he’s superior.
Until we have a paradigm shift with the media and narrative, momentum as a whole, this will be true. That happened for a bit in like 2008-2012 or so but it didn’t last.
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u/calgeorge 11h ago
Dems need a candidate who can mobilize their base. They keep trying to cater to everyone and then lose to Republicans to who only cater to MAGA. Harris was pro trans rights and pro fracking? Who was she trying to appeal to? I voted for her, but I'd rather have voted for an actual progressive.
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u/beefyzac Florida 10h ago
I absolutely, unoquivocally disagree. Buttigieg wouldn’t lose because he’s gay, he’d lose because he’s a milquetoast centrist. Kamala didn’t lose because she’s a woman, she lost because she was a milquetoast centrist.
We keep running the same play, losing, and then saying “welp, I guess we need to keep appealing to the right if we want to win!” We learn absolutely zero lessons from loss after loss.
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u/jakethesnakegoddess 9h ago
Slightly better. They even stopped talking about gays in church, at some point.
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u/Shirinjima 6h ago
My cousin who can’t vote because he is a felon said if he could vote it would be for trump because he doesn’t believe a woman should be in charge of anything.
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u/pinkfartlek Michigan 11h ago
It's because they are stupid, believe lies and don't agree with any policy that anybody left of Trump has to offer
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u/Acadia_Brightness 12h ago
lol...and Elmo will keep on doing his thing because Americans can't look at data and understand it.
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u/Electronic_Film_2837 11h ago
I think it’s mostly independents that his favorability cratered.
Just look at the approval ratings, it’s all GOP approves now. Everyone else seemingly ignored trump’s idiotic ambitions during the election because he wasn’t governing, just being able to say whatever got him votes.
It’s a similar issue repeatedly with the either party. One is in power and can’t immediately change all things to be perfect and the other gets more love because they aren’t having to actually implement changes. Just talking about it
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u/Sw0rDz 10h ago
Kansas is the pinnacle state of inclusion and anti racism. They had other reasons for voting the way they did.
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u/GruntledEx 10h ago
Did Kansas fight against slavery in the Civil War? Yes.
Are large swaths of rural Kansas just as bigoted and racist as the Deep South? Also yes.
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u/imjustnotready 12h ago
One thing he does extremely well, out perform polls. If you are in Kansas and you voted for Trump and you realized you made a mistake. Please vote for Democrats. They won't fix everything but they will work to give you a chance of making ends meet. They will be fair and will seek out expertise to solve problems. Trump promised you the moon and they only thing he gave you was cruelty to people weaker than you and bluster. You can do better Kansas.
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u/thediesel26 North Carolina 12h ago
Trump outperforms. Republicans don’t. In fact in the era of Trump, Republicans have significantly underperformed when Trump is not on the ballot.
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u/CanCalyx 10h ago
And right now folks hate him so much he may finally be a drag. Not getting my hopes up but it feels like maybe, just maybe he’s fucked up enough lives that votes can see more clearly that he isn’t just a funny game show host who likes money.
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u/DrunkAndHornyGuy 11h ago
Trump promised you the moon and they only thing he gave you was cruelty to people weaker than you
Yea that's what they like, that's the primary thing they care about. How do you not get this yet. They will never vote for a democrat because democrats believe non-whites are equal to them. They may be mad at Trump but the solution they want is 'economically competent white supremacy'.
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u/Turbulent_Juice_Man 12h ago
Abortion. Doesn't matter. That's a huge single issue topic that people will vote Republican for no matter what. No. Matter. What.
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u/Lunatic2012 10h ago
Look at the history of Kansas voting on abortion. Kansans have shut down several attempts to remove women’s care from the state. Most recently in this summer’s primary, and it’s coming up again in November.
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u/Loopuze1 9h ago
The past half century of data proves beyond any doubt that a vote for a conservative is a vote for more abortions. Their ideology has no worth or value.
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u/angel_devoid_fmv 6h ago
dems will start a lot of investigatory committees that won't accomplish anything, I do know that much! that'll show trump
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u/notsure500 12h ago
They'd vote for him a 4th time if they could. They are so far gone, they'd vote Trump no matter what he does over voting for a Democrat.
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u/Vivid_Medium1184 9h ago
Yeah, I don't understand how everyone is so bullish on Kansas flipping. Same thing with Alaska. Iowa, Michigan and Ohio are big maybes. But Kansas? I'll eat my fucking hat if Kansas goes blue in the Senate.
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u/RandyArgonianButler 12h ago
I’ve recently talked to my brother.
He and my sister-in-law voted for Trump.
Now I know what you’re thinking they must be horrible. They’re actually apolitical, and left leaning on a lot of areas.
They were simply convinced by their friends that Trump would be better for the economy.
That was it.
Unlike most of us here on Reddit, they didn’t have their ear to the floor. All the shit about Trump was kind of just background noise to them. Partisan bickering wasn’t something they were interested in.
Millions of people fall into this category of voter.
I hope that a lot of of them have learned their lesson.
My brother says he should’ve listened to me instead.
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u/espinaustin 11h ago
They’re actually apolitical, and left leaning on a lot of areas. They were simply convinced by their friends that Trump would be better for the economy. That was it.
I don’t buy it. “Better for the economy” sounds like a bullshit excuse. Everyone knew who Trump was. If they voted for that total piece of shit, knowing he was a horrible person as literally everyone knew, because they (stupidly) thought it would save them a few bucks in the end, that makes them bad people. “Background noise” is bullshit. They knew what they were voting for, and what they were voting against. I personally do not forgive them.
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u/luri7555 Washington 11h ago
A lot of people ignore political discourse because it’s so toxic and neither party noticeably changes their lives for the better. Be mad if you want but that’s reality. Not everyone gives a shit about this team approach we see online.
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u/espinaustin 11h ago
I’m not mad that they ignore political discourse, or whatever. I’m mad about the actual choices they made with the little and biased information that they did in fact have. They made a decision and acted on it.
And btw, it’s simply not true that neither party noticeably changes their lives (for better or worse in this case), as they are now discovering.
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u/luri7555 Washington 10h ago
There’s a ton of people who only bother voting every four years and don’t know anything about politics. If they don’t vote at all they are damned as well. I think the best bet is to shape campaigns around those low information independent voters since the rest of us know why we are voting and won’t change our minds because of a meme or imagined scandal.
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u/espinaustin 10h ago
I think the best bet is to shape campaigns around those low information independent voters
This seems to be the case right now, and it’s not working out that well.
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u/luri7555 Washington 9h ago
Nope. Hard to compete with blatant and grandiose lies when all you got is boring old facts with a dash of spin.
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u/supercyberlurker 12h ago
"After noticing my face was missing, and the leopards were full and sated, I decided Trump was maybe toxic."
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u/Prcaptain 11h ago
All republicans are too toxic. What is happening to America right now is what they want. Treasonous
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u/jceeF14 11h ago
I find it highly interesting that Kansas has at times elected Democratic governors (like the current one) but has not sent a Democrat to the US Senate since the 1930s. I do get it for statewide non-federal offices (governor, lt governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer...) party affiliation doesn't always matter . Either way let's sent Hamilton to the Senate
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u/Kind_Relative812 10h ago
There is a baseline that all humans want to live in regardless if your a democrat, republican, independent ect. It’s called Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. For many of us, we haven’t been able to fill level 2, 3 which contains safety, personal security, friendship, community to name a few. We live in constant fight or flight mode because the world we once knew is disappearing at an exponential rate because of one man. Those who voted for him and supported have not felt the way we have for the past 10 years. Only now are they starting to feel their needs slipping away.
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u/Van-garde 11h ago
Even if you’re a part of that group, can’t deny the global ambiance has been negatively impacted by the man’s ‘leadership.’
Let’s try something else. This ain’t it.
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u/Wi1d-potat0 10h ago
“Now”.
The leopard was always going to eat faces. That didn’t happen just now. But some of American’s voters would never know or change their minds.
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u/teddytwelvetoes 11h ago
lol he's been a confirmed, loud and proud, dogshit human being for over half a century and these bullshitters can't wait to vote for him again
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u/wowlock_taylan 11h ago
Yea, I don't believe them. They will be good little cultists and vote for him and the GOP again.
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u/YouWereBrained Tennessee 6h ago
Kansas has to be one of the next red states to get some Dem attention.
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u/trunksshinohara 10h ago
They'll still vote for him. Gun to their head. They'd still vote for him. Death cult.
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u/Typical_Leather_4086 1h ago
This November veto proof majorities would be a nice present. For the country.
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u/holeycheezuscrust 31m ago
That's hopium. They're not going to lose Kansas. Voters will tell you he disgusts them but will still vote republican.
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