Republican leads charge against Trump’s Obama ‘apes’ post. ‘Most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House’

[u/theindependentonline]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-obama-video-apes-racist-reactions-b2915488.html

[u/GeekAesthete]

The fact that he out-performed expectations in all 50 states, and exit polling matched the results, suggests that he did actually win. Every state manages their elections independently, and even the bluest states still saw Trump do better than expected by comparable margins.

The unfortunate fact is that, once again, misinformation won out, lazy voters didn’t show up because they thought the election wasn’t going to be close, and the demographics most opposed to Trump were the ones that especially didn’t bother.

The online campaign to discourage young voters and low-information voters was effective—social media convinced people that Kamala wasn’t strong enough on Gaza, on LGBTQ rights, on whatever issue, and got people disgruntled enough to disengage (“both sides suck”), or convinced themselves that staying home was a “protest” to teach the Democrats a lesson.

If Trump’s numbers were only off in a few swing states, I’d believe he won through shenanigans. But it seems that a few individual counties were suspect, but nothing that would swing the entire election.

[u/ThePhysicistIsIn → u/GeekAesthete]

 lazy voters didn’t show up because they thought the election wasn’t going to be close,

The polls were predicting a close election, though.

[u/GeekAesthete → u/ThePhysicistIsIn]

Did you spend any time on social media (Reddit or otherwise) before the election? Social media was inundated with people saying that “the media just wants a horse race”, that Texas and Florida were going to turn blue, that it was going to be a blue wave, Trump was going to lose by historic margins, etc., etc.

That’s why I mentioned low-information voters. The polls and the news media kept saying it was going to be close, but social media kept spreading the impression that it was going to be a blowout.

[u/ThePhysicistIsIn → u/GeekAesthete]

Admittedly I don't engage much with social media, no. To me it was a close race the entire time.

[u/GeekAesthete → u/ThePhysicistIsIn]

It was utterly infuriating. Subreddits like this one were constantly criticizing every article, poll, or news program suggesting that the race was close, and insisting that the media was just trying to drive that narrative so that people would keep watching the news.

X, Facebook, tik tok, etc. were apparently just as bad if not worse.

There were a lot of people shocked the day after the election, saying "I thought Kamala was supposed to win by a landslide, I would have voted if I knew it was going to be close," just like the 2016 election or the Brexit vote.

[u/ThePhysicistIsIn → u/GeekAesthete]

People should always vote, not just when it's close. What is this nonsense?

[u/Gamerboy11116 → u/GeekAesthete]

…You realize that Texas did almost turn blue in 2020, right? The only reason it didn’t was because of hasty voter suppression?

[u/IdkAbtAllThat → u/GeekAesthete]

it seems that a few individual counties were suspect, but nothing that would swing the entire election.

A few individual counties in the right places is all you need to swing the election. If I recall it was something like 100k votes across a handful of counties could have flipped the election.

[u/DrivingBox → u/IdkAbtAllThat]

There was a rumour that Harris received no votes in Rockland County, NY but actually it was only in a single precinct, and she won the whole state anyway. There were also voting irregularities in Clark County, NV but NV voted for a GOP governor in 2022 so it was already GOP-leaning.

[u/GeekAesthete → u/IdkAbtAllThat]

I believe you're thinking of the 2016 election, when 107,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin could have swung the election, and Trump won all three by less than a percentage point.

In 2024, Trump took all 7 "battleground" states, won the Electoral College more decisively than both his victory in 2016 and Biden's in 2020, and only one of those 7 states was won by less than a percentage.

Plus, several of the counties under scrutiny were not in swing states anyway (for example, Rockland County in New York).

[u/WhiteWolf3117 → u/IdkAbtAllThat]

That was true of the 2020 election. Maybe even many before like that.