I agree that the price of groceries probably decided the election. But I don't see how Trump had any "strong policy that people can believe in". There was just anti-status-quo amongst the 10% of votes that are up-for-grabs at this point.

I agree but the point is: democracy mandates all candidates strenuously pursue the 5% in 7 states. The Republican Party has a better model of their psyche. I think you and I agree it’s a cynical model, but the Democratic Party doesn’t get results with theirs.

The Democratic Party can't win with those tactics anyways. If it imitates the Republicans more and more, everyone will just slide further right. It should've taken a different stance and hard-lined on it. Trying to appeal to voters within the existing, rigged game is a nice show of bravado but not going to get results.

Yet the success of Republicans is that it’s easier to convince stupid people than it is to convince smart people. I’m open to other theories of tactics, if you want to elaborate.

This seems like you're agreeing that policies don't matter? Trump's policies are actively hostile to decreasing grocery prices.

I think what you're saying here is that neither policies nor personalities matter as much as outcomes. And yep, that seems right.

And Trump owns those outcomes now for the next few years, for better or worse.

Why didn't they focus on that? I think the average person would care a lot more about that fact than Trump being convicted on 34 counts of not properly filing business records. Since inflation actually affects them. Yet the convictions took up no shortage of airtime in attack ads.

I think this part changes the context: 34 counts of not properly filing business records in order to hide the fact that he paid a porn star to keep quiet about their affair in order to hide this information from voters before an election…

But it seems nobody cared anyways, he didn’t need to hide it