• finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    It might have been the largest turnout at the time, but the largest so far currently is 2020 with 158,427,986 votes, which is almost 30 million more than 2012.

    Biden had the biggest turnout and lead of all time.

    • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 days ago

      Did you mean 2020 or 2024? I think you’re right that 2020 was the largest turnout ever, and we can only assume why, but the jump from 2004 to 2008 and then 2012 was massive, and the drop from 2020 to 2024 was massive as well. They were all in the figures of tens of millions of voters shifting one way or the other in almost every election from 2008 to 2024 except for Hillary vs. Trump, if I remember correctly.

      My point is that Republicans campaign on change and appeal to emotion, and the last time we saw a Democrat campaign on a similar message, we saw some of the largest turnouts in US history. The facts are that the country consistently does better under Democrats than Republicans, but Republicans appeal to emotion in a way that Democrats don’t. Biden added, what, 500 million jobs to the economy in the past 4 years? But the majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck - even some of those making six-figure salaries - and so the lack of an appeal to their daily struggles disincentivizes them from supporting Democrats. The Republicans promise change, and even if it’s a bold-faced lie, people eat it up because the issues they face every day seem to fall upon deaf ears.