Democrats trounced Trump with their Musk-focused playbook in Wisconsin
Democrats trounced Trump with their Musk-focused playbook in Wisconsin
Democrats just won their biggest electoral victory of the second Trump era. And Elon Musk lost big.
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I know that Americans are starved for good news, but Democrats didn't "trounce" anybody. They kept a majority they already had, which is nice but not impressive. This isn't the start of a glorious counterattack against the forces of reaction.
Edit: To explain a little what I mean, think of the amount of information you get from the event that a fair die rolls a number less than 5 once. Even if something good happened because of that result, it's still nothing to be surprised at. I'm saying that this election victory is like rolling a die and getting a number less than 5; it tells you nothing about the die. For all you know it's still a fair die—rather than, say, a die that's more likely to output a one than a six.
But it is a refute to the idea that there is a "voter mandate" for Trump. This was a state wide election that just a few months ago voted for Trump. It also isn't as simple as the democrats keeping their seat. The incumbent left, so the seat was vacant. Not a "trouncing," but you're downplaying it too much.
I mean Wisconsin voted for Trump, but it leans blue for other offices no? The fact that they voted for Trump in November is more an indictment of the DNC than anything to do with Wisconsin itself. That aside what I'm trying to say is that this result doesn't tell us anything new; it's nice but like I said isn't the result of conservatives turning on Trump. Democrats keeping that seat was expected, likely even.
Wisconsin as a whole does tend to lean blue. The margins aren't large though. Last mid term Evers (D) won for governor but the same election Johnson (R) won for senate. The Democrat opposition for that election was Barnes, who was definitely progressive leaning, but ran a terrible campaign that the DNC didn't help until it was too late. We are still a swing state.
isn't the result of conservatives turning on Trump
Nobody is saying it is. It's that group of swing voters that have immediately changed from liking Trump to rejecting Elon and Trump. You'll never turn his cult base, but you also don't have to.
Nobody is saying it is. It's that group of swing voters that have immediately changed from liking Trump to rejecting Elon and Trump.
I'm trying to say that rather than that being the case Democrats were just more successful in their campaign and therefore managed to push the result in their favor. As you said Wisconsin is a blue-leaning swing state, so Democrats winning a few offices doesn't indicate much in terms of nationwide voter sentiment. If you correct for Trump outperforming other conservatives in your calculations this is the likely result.
The entire state shifted blue. Crawford won by 10%. If you look at this link at the bottom, https://apnews.com/projects/election-results-2025/wisconsin/?r=50888 you can select different categories and you will see that the entire voting from 2024 to this election people shifted towards blue.
Hmm... I see. Yeah that makes sense.
You're still underplaying what happened.
It's really just more proof that the election was rigged, like Trump confessed to on air.
Unless I see some hard evidence, this take just seems like liberal qanon BS.
Trump had a lot of social media help (Elon, benzos, Zuckerberg) and money to help him win the election.
I agree with you, but I do need to point out that for years Republicans have been screaming election interference just so when it happens against Democrats, it looks petty and not serious. I haven't dove down the rabbit hole, but it does sound like there has been evidence suggesting maleficence.
It's kind of a catch 22... In order to investigate potential evidence of election interference, you have to first put on the tin foil hat and believe that it was possible and worth investigating in the first place, which in itself aligns with "qanon BS".
I disagree with your catch 22 statement, my understanding of how our elections work is that Democrats would have lawyers/representatives at locations to verify result as they come in to centralized hubs and also sent out. Especially in hotly contested areas. Voting is so decentralized, there would need to be large swaths of people involved on both the republican and democrat side to allow for vote manipulation. All this is to say, you don't need to look for election fraud in this situation, it would become apparent when vote tallies are not adding up, and surprising voting numbers are coming from only certain areas. I have found no reliable new organization discussing evidence of election fraud in the form of vote manipulation and if you have a source, I'd be interested in reading about it. Unless I see any evidence, it just seems like left wing conspiracy thinking that does a good job at distracting people and normalizing vote manipulation when there's already real issues in front of us ( Musk paying people to vote, areas not providing sufficient voting booths for populations making for longer vote times, voter ID laws, etc).
Yeah, it's pretty naive to think that the party of, "every accusation is a confession," who screamed about election fraud for 4 years didn't commit election fraud.
Musk lotteries, bullet ballots being orders of magnitude higher than previous years only in swing states, bomb threats in blue areas and judges not extending voting times to accommodate, Trump saying Musk was going to help him out and voting machines using Starlink internet, etc.
I feel it's also pretty naive to believe generalizations such as "every accusations is a confession" are perfectly representative. Sure that saying applies a lot to Republicans, but it doesn't mean its a rule.
I will admit, when I hear election fraud I understand the term to mean, directly subverting election rules. This would entail: changing votes, tallying votes incorrectly, accepting fraudulent votes willingly etc. I don't believe Trump and company did any of these things, or if they did, not enough to make an impact on the election. I'm willing to accept evidence to the contrary.
Reading the definition of election fraud, it also can include the examples you mentioned (which i would say isn't in my original and incorrect understanding of election fraud). I do agree that Trump and his team did do many things that subvert a free election including some that you said such as the Musk lotteries, the bomb threats in blue areas, allowing laws that make voting harder in blue areas, etc.
The reason I'm expanding on what kind of election fraud I believe Trump committed is because some of it has evidence, and others (Trump/Musk directly changing votes/not counting votes) just doesn't have any evidence. I would imagine Democrats and reporters would be very eager to publish this kind of evidence if it existed, but I don't know of any reliable news organization talking about this. I feel it ultimately servers as a distraction and actually normalizes the idea of election fraud in the form of changing votes.
He literally said, "They rigged the election and now I'm president again."
I mean Trump says a lot of things that are outright lies. That's not very convincing honestly.
Outright lies like, "I'll be a dictator on day 1," or, "If I win you'll never have to vote again?"
What would he possibly gain by lying in this case?
He's a pathological liar is the best case. Worst case is he does want to do those things, and this is how he pitches the idea to see if they gain traction. Day 1 dictator didn't exactly happen, bue he's definitely trying to get there as soon as he can.
At least in my area of Wisconsin all but one of the items on my ballot didn’t go the way I hoped it would. And that was the state constitution amendment which was deliberately written to manipulate voters. Jill Underly held her office as state superintendent of public instruction, the school referendum passed and Susan Crawford won a vacant supreme court seat. So while not wins all the way down they are very important regardless
Do you mean that only one didn't go the way you'd hoped it would? Either way I'm not saying these wins aren't important, but rather that they're not unexpected. It doesn't give us any new information (such as "Conservatives are starting to sour on Trump's agenda"), but is rather well within the realm of expectations in the same way tossing a coin and getting heads once doesn't tell you much about the coin.