The Daily Populous Sunday January 5th, 2025 evening edition
Authored by huffpost.com and submitted by Background-War9535

WASHINGTON ― Donald Trump instigated a violent attack on the Capitol, was impeached for it by the House, was criminally indicted for it, but in the end was given a pass for it by key voters in the seven swing states, new polling confirms, because they were more concerned about inflation and other pocketbook issues.

“It’s clear that voters were thinking about their economic situation,” said Nick Ahamed from Priorities USA, a Democratic-aligned group that on Thursday released a post-election survey to quantify why Vice President Kamala Harris lost to a man who attempted a coup to remain in power the last time he held the White House.

Ahamed said voters were not necessarily making a conscious tradeoff between democracy and lower living costs. It’s more that they largely did not believe that Trump represents a continued threat to democracy, despite his history.

Even worse for Harris’ campaign, the voters she most needed to hang on to, those who flipped from Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 to Trump in 2024, were even less likely to see Trump as a danger to the republic than the average voter.

Only 24% of voters in Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina believe that Trump is “very likely” to overturn the Constitution to remain in power ― which is still higher than the 18% of Biden-to-Trump voters who believe that. And while just 29% of voters thought it’s very likely that Trump would try to use the U.S. military to go after his political opponents and critics, among Biden-to-Trump voters that figure is just 24%.

While both the Harris campaign and outside groups helping her focused on economic issues, the limited attempt to warn voters about Trump’s autocratic tendencies failed, Ahamed acknowledged.

“We didn’t connect Trump’s authoritarian behavior and what it would mean for them in the next year and in the next four years,” he said.

Open Image Modal Former President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. Evan Vucci via Associated Press

A more basic problem Democratic campaign operatives had, Ahamed added, is the assumption that most Americans saw Trump the same way they did.

“Themes like ‘stronger together,’ ‘restore the soul of the nation,’ ‘we’re not going back,’ all are predicated on a hatred of Donald Trump that voters … and the voters specifically that we lost, don’t necessarily feel,” he said.

Polling, for example, showed Trump’s continued success at pushing the image that made him famous: his portrayal of a genius billionaire businessman on the television game show “The Apprentice.”

Among Black men between 18 and 44, a full 38% like Trump because he “tells it like it is,” even though the former president has been a notorious liar his entire adult life, while 35% believe he is a “successful businessman and entrepreneur,” even though he inherited his wealth, and his business record includes bankrupting casinos.

The poll also had warnings for Democrats about opposing “cultural heroes” of those voters they need to win over to win elections.

Billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk, for instance, is liked and disliked about equally among all voters. Among those who voted for Biden in 2020 but for Trump in 2024, he is seen favorably by 64% and unfavorably by only 20%.

Democracy advocates, including anti-Trump Republicans, warned months ahead of the election that Jan. 6 was not likely to work as a campaign issue in 2024 because Trump successfully made his lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him, and his follow-up claim that those arrested for their participation in the Capitol attack were “political prisoners” and “hostages” that deserved pardons, articles of faith within the Republican Party.

While public opinion in the days and weeks after Jan. 6 ran overwhelmingly against the attack and Trump, those numbers began to shift over the months as Trump and pro-Trump media pushed conspiracy theories about the election as well as the violence on that day.

The need to avoid alienating Trump’s hard-core supporters, in fact, in February 2021 led to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and most Republicans refusing to convict Trump on his impeachment, which would have led to his prohibition from holding federal office again.

Za_Lords_Guard on January 5th, 2025 at 14:32 UTC »

They saw the DOJ basically whiff it in every single case... Not that they lost or he wasn't guilty AF, but if the people who prosecute this shit can't be arsed to carry any of the cases over the finish line. They even saw the slam dunk case get dismissed (incorrectly, but it happened).

This gave the right all the latitude they needed to message that Trump was persecuted and their viewers ate it up. Then you have the non-political voters who really don't pay attention, but if he is still running, it couldn't have been that serious, right? At least that's how many read it.

The failures that led to this were so many in so many ways that the only way to sum it up briefly is America played itself and lost... and here we are with a criminal who thinks he is king and 30% of the country believing it, another 30% that doesn't really care and the rest of us who are mad enough to eat their shoes, but feel helpless at this point since the people with the power to stop it all went for performative tactics or were unable to gain enough traction to be effective (examples: J6 committee and Jack Smith both faced a headwind that they could not ultimately surmount).

HeyYes7776 on January 5th, 2025 at 14:32 UTC »

Fam - let’s be real. The politicians in the room didn’t take it seriously after they got out of harms way.

This was a fucking insurrection. Should have taken all the GOP out of office day fucking one.

blues111 on January 5th, 2025 at 13:59 UTC »

Yep, and even more egregious they did not give 2 fucks about the false electors scheme

They can try and argue that jan 6th was just "protesting gone wrong" (it wasnt) but the false electors scheme is most solid tangible evidence of Trumps attempt to overthrow the government...his co-conspirators are still being indicted and Trump only recieved indictment in Georgia as well as by Jack Smith federally which is now going nowhere, despicable

he should be impeached and convicted in the senate the second he is inaugurated on this alone even beyond what happend Jan 6th (wont happen though piece of shit republicans)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot