[tvc015]

Swing voters are always underestimated. But can the left run moderate candidates that appeal to the Bill Ackman types? I wish they could but I suspect they can’t and won’t. Their recent track record is how we’re here.

[AnimalMuppet]

I don't know. I hold out hope that the Democrats are capable of thinking and learning, but their actions after the 2024 election haven't given much evidence of that...

[lapcat]

> But can the left run moderate candidates that appeal to the Bill Ackman types?

What type is that, billionaire hedge fund managers voting in a solid blue state? Who cares? The voters who matter are in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania.

In general, swing voters are nonpartisan, not "moderate". Trump is certainly not moderate, yet they voted for him anyway. Indeed, polls show that independents prefer Bernie Sanders over any Democrat.

Partisans want to define all politics on ideological lines, but that's not the way nonpartisans think and behave.

The billionaires probably backed Trump because they loved the tax cuts of his first administration and were expecting basically more of the same. Tax cuts and deregulation, the standard agenda of that type. (A Biden and/or Harris administration was likely to result in higher taxes for them and more regulation.) They failed to anticipate what Trump would be like unrestrained, emboldened by a popular vote win, unburdened by reelection concerns, surviving impeachment and felony conviction, surviving an assassination attempt, and having purged all dissenters from his party and now from the federal government. Trump is probably feeling like king of the world at this moment, as if every other country will bow down to him (and many will).