Dr. Strangelove
New member
I'm making this post both as a prediction - but also as a discussion topic.
I believe that Democrats are going to do very well in the midterms, pick up a lot of House seats (30-40?) and 1-2 Senate seats. I make this prediction with similar confidence when I predicted that Trump was going to win in 2020... that is it's sort of easy to see coming, and it has little to do with Trump. In fact, any generic Republican President would likely suffer the same fate. This is because of a political phenomenon known as Thermostatic Public Opinion.
You should really think of the public as being in mostly perpetual dissatisfaction with the government, no matter what. Doing anything causes the public to turn against you. Thermostatic Public Opinion means that if a Left government is elected and starts doing left wing stuff, the public gets angry and moves to the Right. They then elect a Right Wing government who starts doing right wing stuff and then they get really angry and then they elect a Left wing government. And then the cycle continues. What determines the level of backlash is how much the government in charge does stuff, and how motivated voters are. Democrats are now the party of highly motivated elections that benefit from low voter turnout. Republicans are going to do well in Presidential years, unless they collapse when Trump is no longer on the ticket.
While this phenomenon has held true for decades, I do think there's a chance we could be entering a new era where Thermostatic Public Opinion could be put to the test. Namely, the way individuals consume news has changed dramatically over the last few years. Voters go to Tik Tok, pod casts, and partisan news channels which, inaccurately, shapes their view of the world. In other words, public opinion which is historically Thermostatic may revert away from this in time simply because media consumption will shape the views of the public for them instead of organically defaulting to Thermostatic.
Lastly, I discussed in a thread with @Archy1221 that if the Trump Administration was smart, they would inherit the economy - do nothing - and claim victory. That would probably be their best chance to maintain MASSIVE Republican gains across nearly all demographics. But because Trump immediately started doing stuff (A lot of stuff) his public opinion will rapidly nosedive, probably by March. I'd be curious what Conservative posters hope what stuff the Republican Party should do before the public probably turns against them?
I believe that Democrats are going to do very well in the midterms, pick up a lot of House seats (30-40?) and 1-2 Senate seats. I make this prediction with similar confidence when I predicted that Trump was going to win in 2020... that is it's sort of easy to see coming, and it has little to do with Trump. In fact, any generic Republican President would likely suffer the same fate. This is because of a political phenomenon known as Thermostatic Public Opinion.
You should really think of the public as being in mostly perpetual dissatisfaction with the government, no matter what. Doing anything causes the public to turn against you. Thermostatic Public Opinion means that if a Left government is elected and starts doing left wing stuff, the public gets angry and moves to the Right. They then elect a Right Wing government who starts doing right wing stuff and then they get really angry and then they elect a Left wing government. And then the cycle continues. What determines the level of backlash is how much the government in charge does stuff, and how motivated voters are. Democrats are now the party of highly motivated elections that benefit from low voter turnout. Republicans are going to do well in Presidential years, unless they collapse when Trump is no longer on the ticket.
While this phenomenon has held true for decades, I do think there's a chance we could be entering a new era where Thermostatic Public Opinion could be put to the test. Namely, the way individuals consume news has changed dramatically over the last few years. Voters go to Tik Tok, pod casts, and partisan news channels which, inaccurately, shapes their view of the world. In other words, public opinion which is historically Thermostatic may revert away from this in time simply because media consumption will shape the views of the public for them instead of organically defaulting to Thermostatic.
Lastly, I discussed in a thread with @Archy1221 that if the Trump Administration was smart, they would inherit the economy - do nothing - and claim victory. That would probably be their best chance to maintain MASSIVE Republican gains across nearly all demographics. But because Trump immediately started doing stuff (A lot of stuff) his public opinion will rapidly nosedive, probably by March. I'd be curious what Conservative posters hope what stuff the Republican Party should do before the public probably turns against them?
