Y’all can be furious with this guy if you want, but he’s probably the most important person to be listening to. The block that determines elections has always been the sizable mass of extremely low information voters who don’t have any strong political affiliations and vote mainly because of some vague sense of civic duty.
They aren’t interested in economic and foreign policy debates. They don’t care about intangibles like democratic norms and the rule of law. They don’t want to hear your class analysis or how qualified you are to give it. The only question they’re considering is “Has life been going well for me and the people in my community that I care about?” That’s it. It’s a vibe check.
Good vibes? Vote for those in power. Bad vibes? Vote against those in power.
This is the voter you need to convince if you want to win.
Like I said, be mad if you want. Doesn’t change anything. His vote still counts the same as mine and everybody else’s. You still live in a world where you need that guy to be on your side. You can either shout at the wind that the world isn’t the way you think it should be or figure out how to improve the world that is actually in front of you.
Guy isn’t trying to ingratiate himself with anybody. He just told you what he was trying to do—make the world better for himself and his family. In particular, he wants to spend less on groceries. Low information voters might not be able to connect the dots between supreme court nominations, monetary policy, and broad economic trends, but they will unfailingly notice they’re spending 20% more on groceries than they did four years ago. You want to point out that it’s not the Democrats fault inflation ballooned out of control? I’m right there with you. I voted that way in Pennsylvania. That guy doesn’t care. He voted the other way because he wants cheaper groceries and as far as he can tell, Democrats didn’t get it done. Calling him a moron and Nazi ally isn’t going to change that.