[flagged]
Looking at how the incentive structures are laid out, it's clear there's no incentive to be honest to normal people. They need the advertising dollars to exist, and we are suppose to trust big pharma's enormous advertising budget doesn't impact the business decisions at media companies? That's just big pharma, who else is playing the game?
There's no medical test to diagnose depression, all you can do is observe behavior and talk about it
Seeing bad behavior and lies over and over, decade after decade erodes trust and reveals the kind of people they are, if it was some radical group with no real power there would be less concern, but they have a tremendous amount of money and influence
They also shilled for Trump relentlessly, without pretense. But that's beside the point. The left should accept that they no longer represent the aspirations and priorities of the mainstream or even of ethnic minorities, and the right should stop with the underdog charade. They've swapped sides. Of course, neither side will make that admission anytime soon.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_media_endorsements_in_t...
Articles like these are predictable and a meme
https://www.axios.com/2024/11/05/presidential-election-newsp...
The bias is calling him an agent of russia, a fascist, a dictator, a nazi, and a threat to democracy for 8 years
It's calling him crazy about Hydroxychloroquine and then 6 months later saying the same thing
The bias is blatantly miss quoting him with what he said about Liz Cheney
The bias is only fact checking one candidate in a debate
The bias is associating a trump rally where Israeli flags were flying in MSG with a nazi rally in the 30s
The bias is suggesting that we are suppose to think he wants to put his daughter in a gas chamber who converted to judaism
Then there's the work of Robert Epstein: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Epstein%20Tes...
So who is saying you're supposed to think that, actually?
And you actually think they're important enough to pay any attention to?
It was just a bad strategy in every way: it reduced their odds of winning the election, and if they were right it won't matter because there will be no election. If they were wrong, then they burned a whole bunch of credibility pushing what turned out to be a conspiracy theory.
And if both parties are conspiracy theory parties, the moderate voter can't use that as a razor.
In any case we're entering the find out phase.
My point is not that they're wrong and Trump won't successfully end democracy (I think the odds are low but non-zero), my point is that the strategy blew up in the DNC's faces and should have been identified as a terrible plan from the start.
Being a Cassandra is not a winning playbook. Being able to say "I told you so" is small comfort, and that's the package they chose when they decided to make themselves look crazy to the electorate. If they believed democracy to be in danger the correct move was to nominate an electable candidate last year, not wait until Biden turned out to be unelectable and then start screaming about the end of democracy.
It's not very good messaging at its core. You can't say something is an existential crisis, and then spend 4 years doing absolutely nothing about that crisis other than to say "vote for me again so that won't happen this time."
You mean like passing "The Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022"? That was literally written to support democracy and prevent another Jan 6.
Obviously you can't write legislation to stop Trump winning democratically while still supporting democracy.
Dems have at least shown they're the party of supporting real democracy.
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/22/1139951463/electoral-count-ac...
1. Impeachment 2. Congressional Acts 3. Independent action from the Department of Justice 4. Individual states attempted to get him off their ballots for treason
How about you describe what they should have done?
This is a lie.
> I guess now we'll all get to see if the dire warnings were at all founded in reality
So, if he was lying or telling the truth?
> If they were wrong, then they burned a whole bunch of credibility pushing what turned out to be a conspiracy theory.
No they didn't. Republicans run the same claims every election and they win off it.
> the moderate voter can't use that as a razor.
Any informed voter would now Kamala offered more then "this line about democracy ending." Anyone who thinks this was "all she could offer as a reason to vote for her," you are really just saying "I was not informed."
There. All is said. No need for further debate.
Is there a reason why this has been glossed over? I thought that would surely be a red line for many of his supporters.
To me this all feels like a far fetched tv drama became reality. It goes beyond any human understanding.
I didn't vote for Trump but these are the fundamental truths the democrats keep on missing. This is what Americans care about.
When you blather on about the other guy being Hitler instead of presenting real policy that people want, people are just gonna ignore you.
Democrats got their chance the last 4 years and instead of making the lives of U.S. Citizens better, they made it much worse, and shoved social justice issues down their throats that they didn’t want.
Cop on.
This sounds British. Are you American or British?
I think your view is also largely hyperbole. It is a nice vote winning narrative to suggest that democrats did nothing but shove social justice issues down people's throats, but like you, I'm not American and I suspect that is just as much hyperbole as "Trump is literally Hitler".
You're part of the division of hate that you seem like you're raging against, using messaging like that.
My guess is that the worries on democracy have nothing to do with regular Americans getting riled up when their candidate lost (jan 6), and more to do with the entire political machine coming down on Trump after his loss in an attempt to take his wealth and imprison him in politically motivated lawsuits with made up charges.
It does sound harsh, and it is. We (people on HN), tend to talk about both candidates as if it was some equal comparison.
However, this is adamantly not the case. Trump is not like any candidate America has voted for in living memmory. He is SO outside of bounds, that frankly we collectively fail to understand him, and have to substitute some "default republican" candidate in our minds to deal with it.
Even in your comment - "it was a critical mistake to turn up the rhetoric so hot", even you will agree that Trump is incredibly toxic and out there in his comments.
Yet, you will genuinely feel that Harris/dems turned up the rhetoric. Not just this, there are a million places where blame is placed at the feet of Dems, for things that Trump or the GOP has done.
Nothing the dems can do will make a difference, because the Republicans have the superior model. Republicans can focus entirely on psychology, without having to worry about being called out on it, because Trump is simply causing an overflow whenever anyone has to deal with him.
We all just end up "ignoring" whatever new incendiary thing he has done, and instead deal with the office/position of either "candidate" or "president", because those make sense.
The dire warnings are literally founded in documents that are going to be enacted, based on what people are actively building teams for and recruiting.
However, there is no measure of evidence, including action that has happened, that will move the needle. It simply wont, because its not what people care about.
Some group will go to Reddit, to console themselves, the other group will go to Fox and the Consvervative bubble to reassure themselves. They will be given the same info that sells, and then they will learn to ignore everything that causes cognitive dissonance.
The best thing Kamala could have done is to downplay that rhetoric and focus on issues. If she did that, I believe she wouldve won. But you can hardly blame her to go with the grain.
The 13 Keys to the White House model finally failed. I don't think it's because of the subjective keys, but rather the objective keys don't match what people actually believe about the world. Again, Democrats lost the marketing battle somehow.
Given all the buzz around Project 2025, thats certainly not perceptually true _even to democrats_.
If Trump really had less comprehensive policy positions, then why did the media go on for months about this 1000-page policy document?
You cant have your cake and eat it too.
Of course, Trump did distance himself from Project 2025, right? He clearly didn't like sharing the spotlight. How do we get to a situation where a candidate disavows knowledge of their presumptive policy paper, yet all the voters still believe that's his policy? Seems like an even more absurd example having your cake and eating it too.
> It’s true, because we have to get the vote out. Christians are not known as a big voting group, they don’t vote. And I’m explaining that to them. You never vote. This time, vote. I’ll straighten out the country, you won’t have to vote any more, I won’t need your vote any more, you can go back to not voting.
I hate Trump as much as anyone, but deliberately misconstruing every word he says is part of what cost Democrats the election. People saw through it.
People don't like being told "here is what was said, here is what was MEANT because you're not educated enough and can't possibly understand" did Harris zero favors.
I added my thoughts on why people would take that statement and infer some other meaning than his literal words, since those words are said as part of a broader context. This says nothing about the people who didn't do so.
So, you starting a comment with "No" but then not addressing any point I made is confusing to me.
We just saw a national rejection of progressive politicians. To the extent she screwed up, it was in having a numpty VP instead of Shapiro and declining to be more specific on policies that would offend the left wing of the base. We’ll probably see a midterm backlash, however, so the message isn’t “everyone tack right.”
The only leftwing policy she adopted was abortion. Otherwise, she ran on being tough on the border, upholding the 2nd amendment, and being an awesome cop. Her platform silently dumped policies like the death penalty.
Another was student loan modifications. This transferred wealth from non-college taxpayers to college graduates.
+ the fact that they had no brand power and marketing. Trump in a garbage truck is great marketing.
The example they gave is Trump in a garbage truck, but that's just one way in which Trump made himself enormously appealing to the non-elite.
The #1 exercise Democratic politicians should do over the next 4 years is to spend hours and hours and hours actually listening to working-class people in flyover country and trying to really understand them. They just don't get it yet.
What has any Democrat done fro me, the poor and suffering?
Give me a break. Obama Pulled a Lucy with Medicare for all and I hate him for it.
A specific example for this particular comment would be ideal, as even their reply doesn't illuminate the value of mentioning Obama despite referring to it and attempting to justify it.
I brought up Obama's actions because it was just the ongoing legacy of neoliberalism that started under Clinton. They thought they would win elections by "going to the middle", and this is what happened.
Obama was also campaigning for Harris.
The Democrats are now the part of war and corporations and I was just done with it all.
So you voted Green, or Libertarian?
Because if it was Trump, I have bad news on all that stuff, including healthcare…
That is a very good point
Is it conceivable that Republicans will be any better?
The hold big business has on the mechanisms of state in your country, that is the problem IMO
Yes, there's still work to be done, but the real inflamers of the nation are the mainstream media. Luckily they're slowly going away, and uniting figures like Musk, Rogan, etc are taking their place.
Also, he overwhelmingly wins with hispanic men (55-45). He is walking away with hispanics overall in many swing states. Black men are now 25% in his favor. Basically every single minority margin has shifted towards president trump (Including women). At this rate he will succesfully unite the country in a few more years as the remaining stragglers come over to see common sense.
Such a uniter, that South African emerald mine owner.
I'm glad the great uniters of Musk and Rogan can take the reins in delivering high-quality information to our nation. Maybe in a few years, we will all agree on which conspiracy theories we should all believe.
One man's conspiracist is another man's freedom fighters. You can't honestly tell me that mainstream outlets were free of conspiracies the last few years? Remember Russia?
I guess there isn't a problem.
I certainly didn't mention Rogan—I'm aware of his existence, but I've actually never heard him speak nor seen any transcripts of anything he's said. But trying to minimize the flood of absolute obvious shit that comes from right-wing outlets by choosing to point to Rogan specifically is a bit telling.
Anyone and everyone should be called out for lies they manufacture or spread. This includes lies on the left, lest you think I'm granting one side a pass.
Biden (and Harris) have been no more "inclusive" of other political positions than Trump was.
That's all changed since he's spent a considerable amount of time removing anyone who disagrees with him, threatening those who would dare to, installing people who will do what he wants including the judges who have granted him total immunity which he didn't have before. I think we can expect things this time to be very different.
Remember the children in cages?
Remember that a crook will cultivate your trust and lower your defenses before pulling a fast one on you?
> It’s true, because we have to get the vote out. Christians are not known as a big voting group, they don’t vote. And I’m explaining that to them. You never vote. This time, vote. I’ll straighten out the country, you won’t have to vote any more, I won’t need your vote any more, you can go back to not voting.
It was stupid phrasing and might have been a Freudian slip, but his explanation also makes sense. "The country is on the brink of {insert terrible fears here}, but we'll fix it up this term and you won't have to worry about it for a while." The man isn't known for his well-thought-out speeches, his entire schtick is speaking off the cuff, and most voters don't hold that against him.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/30/dona...
What do the people who are voting get?
I'd guess they get a government that via the Supreme court, gerrymandering, voter suppression, cowed media, doesn't represent their democratic interests.
Which is a bad thing.
There's abortion votes that passed the other day at state levels that will not be put into practice because Republicans don't want to.
What are some other perspectives or predictions regarding how things will go under this current Trump admin; namely foreign policy, global stability, and school system reform?
Does he really intend to do the things he says he will or it just fun rhetoric for the base?
I'd say if it doesn't happen he failed to deliver on an election promise.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-tells-christians-they...
https://apnews.com/general-news-domestic-news-domestic-news-...
I despise Trump, but it's really disheartening to see how the elite doesn't realize that they actually lost the election in part because they lost credibility by fighting dirty. The ends do not justify the means, and the means were deliberate distortions, out of context quotes, and politically-motivated prosecutions.
I held my nose and voted KH because I think Trump actually managed to be even worse, but I can hardly fault other voters for deciding that the Democrats had it coming to them after all the intentional distortions.
If Trump wants to stay in office after this term is finished, all that matters are what the voters think. The supreme court will likely side with him and find an interpretation of the constitution that makes it work. But even if they don't, so what? The court doesn't have an army. Even if they did, if the voters want a king, that is what they will get. The republic is a reflection of our collective will and we can destroy it if we so choose.
> "in four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote."
One can reasonably interpret that as meaning that in the next 4 years, Trump and his party are going to fix the country so much and so well that Christians won't have to go out to vote next time.
I think there are reasons to have arrived at that place (Jan 6th), but this quote is not evidence for it unless wildly misinterpreted.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/30/dona...
You know, the people who see him as a threat to democracy are not just putting words in his mouth. Maybe they just listen to what he says, and believe him. Is that unreasonable?
How about the innumerable times he claimed the election was rigged despite lacking any evidence to support it? Does denying that free and fair elections exist not count pretty specifically as being a threat to democracy?
I totally get that he has an artful way of making alarming statements over and over, but doing it with just a hint of humor, so that his supporters can claim it was all just a joke. In your view, at what point do we get to take a politician at their word?
Bullshit. I'm as anti-Trump as they come, but I don't let that blind me to reality. What he meant is obvious to anyone who isn't already looking for proof of their preconceived ideas.
I'm not even arguing that he's not a major threat to democracy—I think he is! I disagree that that quote is useful as evidence of that fact, and I disagree with the tactic that the left intentionally adopted of twisting the truth to make a point. People saw through that tactic and it contributed to Trump's victory.
The facts about Trump are scary enough, there was no need to twist his words.
Makes me feel like I'm on crazy pills that this guy was electable after this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_memos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Raffensperger_ph...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempts_to_overturn_the_2020_...
I’m not trying to be flippant, that’s genuinely the answer to your question. Trump is literally being dramatic and funny by putting it like that. And you’re taking the bait and missing the joke.
I know I sound like the enemy and I dislike including this paragraph: But keep in mind, I can’t stand Donald Trump and didn’t vote for him.
Here is the Full quote so everyone can see it. He even explains in the end what he means.
> "And again, Christians: Get out and vote! Just this time. You won't have to do it anymore! Four more years, you know what? It'll be fixed, it'll be fine, you won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians, I love you Christians, I'm not Christian, I love you, get out, you gotta get and vote. In four years you don't have to vote again, we'll have it fixed so good you're not gonna have to vote."
From Snopes:
Which is it?
That's not how language works. There's a whole field of linguistics called pragmatics that is about how context contributes to meaning [0].
You're taking a few seconds of his words, joining them to all of your priors, and interpreting them in that context.
His original listeners were taking his words in the context of the whole speech, joining them to their priors, and interpreting them in that context.
It's entirely expected that your interpretation would be different than theirs given that disconnect, and the most reliable way to interpret meaning is to look at who the audience was and how they would have interpreted it, because the speaker chose their words for that context, not for yours.
> It’s true, because we have to get the vote out. Christians are not known as a big voting group, they don’t vote. And I’m explaining that to them. You never vote. This time, vote. I’ll straighten out the country, you won’t have to vote any more, I won’t need your vote any more, you can go back to not voting.
Basically "the country is screwed up right now because ${reasons}, if you get out and vote I'll fix it for you for good and you can go back to not voting again". It's more or less the same line that politicians say every election to try to motivate the less-likely-voters in their base, just said in Trump's classic meandering way and with explicit permission to vote only this once if you want.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/30/dona...
But you kinda skipped past what I was asking. How and what do those voters think he was going to fix for good? And do they perceive themselves as being politically inactive except for just this once?
It sounds like you're just giving him a pass because hey, all politicians lie to get people to vote. At that point, why do we even care what a politician says, whether we agree with them or not?
It does not even matter than there was no rigging, no illegals voting, no shenanigans. The truth has never been an effective counter to rhetoric, I get that. But it's an entirely plausible explanation for what a supporter would think.
But after yesterday, maybe we will all agree together than the elections are rigged? ;-). You guys can't put that genie back in the bottle. Everyone thinks it's totally cool until the other side uses it right back.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/19/trum...
he has vowed to be dictator on day one
https://apnews.com/article/trump-hannity-dictator-authoritar...
On February 27th-the Reichstag in Berlin was set on fire. 4 weeks before, Hitler was appointed to chancellor. Hitler placed an urgency regulation to ban all political activities. He destroyed democracy in one month. Trump can now do it one day.
he is definitely signaling something, whether it will come true or not is another question.
It's not guaranteed, no, and I sincerely doubt we are going to see Trump literally cancel elections, but it's a very reasonable assumption that they are going to do what they've said they'll do and tried to do: install judges that will swing things their ways, suppress voters who don't support them, punish anyone who opposes them, inspire and promote political violence against anyone who opposes them, and gerrymander as much as possible. That's enough to functionally end US democracy if they do it well.
That's not some wild prediction or unlikely outcome, it's the logical continuation of their previous actions. Someone attempting something they tried before isn't unexpected. He actively tried to subvert democracy and the public have rewarded him, why would he not?
That's the key observation.
Here is evidence he told the protestors to be peaceful: https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1346912780700577792
He never said "Storm the Capitol!!" or anything like that.
The logical path here is for red states to cancel elections and appoint electors to send in January 2029. The feds cannot do it themselves, but they do not need to.
The elections clause of the constitution does not apply to presidential elections, and all the constitution says about that is that the states may choose how to appoint electors, as long as it all happens on the same day.
All due respect, I'm curious as to what these signs actually are for Trump. Everything I've seen and heard has been horrifyingly taken out of context -- "dictator on day one" and "you won't need to vote in four years" and "he'll prosecute his political enemies", or exaggerated past the point of recognition, like "he tried to steal an election" or "he wants to put journalists in jail".
Under the Biden administration, we have seen actual criminal charges against Trump. Not theoretical, not threats, not innuendo, but actual criminal charges for trivial administrative offenses. We have seen extensive media collaboration with the administration (and the opposition when Trump was in office) in an attempt to distort Trump's words to portray him as being dangerous.
I do not agree that the US, under Harris or Trump, is at any risk of becoming an authoritarian nation. The "signs" here from both sides are all imaginary trivial things and political rhetoric. But if the watchword is "any signs" then I've got to say that I don't see how you can vote for anyone but Trump.
My forlorn hope is that people who think that Trump represents a threat of authoritarian backsliding can, in four years, revisit their assumptions and realize that the markers they have chosen to represent that threat are all wrong. They're just incorrect. Update your priors.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/19/trum...
he has vowed to be dictator on day one
https://apnews.com/article/trump-hannity-dictator-authoritar...
On February 27th-the Reichstag in Berlin was set on fire. 4 weeks before, Hitler was appointed to chancellor. Hitler placed an urgency regulation to ban all political activities. He destroyed democracy in one month. Trump can now do it one day.
he is definitely signaling something, whether it will come true or not is another question.
You will have your banana elections for your banana Republic all right.
I agree, however, most people separate one from the other sparingly.
People complain about people not hating Trump on this board. Ostensibly forgetting that some people here are very rich.
[1] https://www.fool.com/retirement/2024/05/27/heres-how-many-mi...
That's just my personal opinion and prediction. I hope I'm wrong but in any case it makes no sense to discuss it now. We'll have to wait 2 years or so and see.
It's just too easy to pretend it is not your fault if your society, the one that you are building with your neighbours, ended up giving you bad choices.
Now that the man made a choice, what do you think will happen next time? This election just demonstrated that lying and using fear and hatred is working very well. Do you think that someone "normal" will invest in this knowing they will lose for sure?
Daniel Boorstin observed the Kennedy administration and predicted in 1963 that it was just a matter of time before TV stars would dominate conventional politics.
Plus he is spineless, lying, rapist.. well, sure it is a kind of a charisma. One fitting for some video game villain.
I do remember that debate with Kamala were Trump came across as unhinged with that "eating cats and dogs" thing but I think one reason why he might have won was revealed in Harris's waffling around the issue of climate change where her answer was "drill baby drill", pandering to the Pennsylvania market.
People who want to see climate action are discouraged by this but people who want "drill baby drill" don't believe she in sincere and think that she is pandering. So talking that way she just loses people she doesn't win them.
When you observe a system like that it’s reasonable to ask if you can improve the system. Imagine this was a football game and not politics. It would be reasonable to talk about how we can make the football league more interesting.
It’s the man’s fault because We Live in a Society? Maybe you ought to evoke the Butterfly Effect as well, it’s all connected. The butterfly in Africa is probably also complicit in this Trump win.
The Donor Class decided that this was the two options you had. I hope that I don’t have to explain that the Democrats and Republicans are not grassroots, democratic institutions.
Trump is the candidate of the reactionary petite bourgeoisie.[1] These are not part of the Donor Class but they have enough power to, when times are “bad” for the lamestream candidates, elbow in their candidate.
[1] The mainstream media likes to say that he is the “working class candidate” without any seeming basis in reality
After a quick lookup, it seems like roughly 10% of Americans own a small business. (I'm assuming a relatively large portion is a side-hustle.) I don't know that I would say they have enough power (by themselves) to select a candidate.
Where’s your refutation? “I don’t know that I would say”… okay.
You think 10% is too small? What percentage of the country is the Donor Class?
My refutation about the “donor class” stems from the fact that Trump raised relatively little money compared to his rivals in 2016 yet still won. If the donor class wielded all the power, that couldn’t happen. “Big money” actively supported his opponents in the primaries. I don’t know the stats for this year, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if a similar dynamic happened.
I already told you to google it.
> My refutation about the “donor class” stems from the fact that Trump raised relatively little money compared to his rivals in 2016 yet still won. If the donor class wielded all the power, that couldn’t happen.
?
We’ve been over this. They don’t wield all the power.
You didn't, but you did take the weak position of saying your definition is "whatever" is defined elsewhere. I tried to be generous and expand it to a larger group than you suggested because I don't think the size of the "petite bourgeoisie" is large enough to define an election. You seemed to balk at that definition, so we're left back with an unsubstantiated argument that sole proprietors and artisans select the candidates but you didn't explain why such a small group would be able to wield that amount of power.
>They don’t wield all the power.
Nobody is claiming they wield all the power. I do think they have more influence than the "petite bourgeoisie", but also that it's more complicated than whomever gets the most money wins. You also seem to think influence only means votes.
My refutation statement was related to the OP that said the donor class determines the candidates, which is the original point. You seemed determined to shoehorn Marxism into the discussion. Unfortunately, your claim doesn't seem to hold water, unless you redefine the terminology you’re using.
Counterpoint: R's perceive (sometimes not incorrectly) that lying is a "both sides" thing, and it's indisputable that the D's ran largely on fear/hatred this time (which clearly did not get the D voterbase out where it counted).
Lying is a politician thing. Anyone who thinks that any one politician or political party has a monopoly on lying is deluding themselves. Trump lies through his teeth, Biden lies through his teeth, Obama did, Bush did, Clinton did, etc. Honest politicians simply do not exist.
And to be clear I think we should absolutely criticize our politicians for it. What I object to is this framing like only one particular politician is a liar. Bullshit, they all are liars to the same degree.
There are plenty of theories of what happened. For example, Harris did target the center and the not-convinced-by-Trump republicans a lot, which is probably what alienated her voter base more than saying something that was already said during Biden election and did not alienate them.
I really doubt you can seriously pretend that the Democrats would have done better without their share of lying. Maybe yes, but maybe no, and concluding one of the two is just as valid as the any other conclusion. One may can even argue that they did not lie enough, as the lies on the Republican side did helped them a lot (unless we consider that republican voters are intrinsically more morally bankrupted than the democrat ones, and that republican voters like lies while democrat voters don't).
As for the fear/hatred, it's a funny thing. If you put one liar and one honest person in the same room, one will say "the other one is the liar" and the other one will say ... "the other one is the liar". It's funny that if you put someone who want to use fear and hatred for their own profit and someone who don't, the first one will say "if you vote for my opponent, it will be very dangerous because their are pushing for fear and hatred" and the second one will say the same.
All I heard from anyone left leaning (on this site or otherwise) in the last year is that we have to stop Trump because he's going to literally destroy democracy. That, too, is using fear and hatred. Don't act like only one political faction does it. We are trapped in a vortex of shit where both sides are using fear and hatred, and we need to criticize everyone for it.
You are making it even clearer to demonstrate that all is reduced to framing "you are either democrat or republican".
The man is entirely responsible for this situation he finds himself in unfortunately. Also, if the man selected feces the first time round, and suffered for it, then maybe the deadly poisonous bark is the only other logical choice, if only to stop the torture?
EDIT: MY guess is Biden is smarter than he lets on, and secretly supports Trump / hates the dems for what they did to him. I wouldn't be surprised if that comment was purposeful. It seemed a bit contrived.
Did Jill Biden wear a red dress to the polls on accident? Do we credit the idea that she, the First Lady, didn't look in the mirror and think about the political implications of primary colors in the USA?
It's not really "what America wants". You are drastically overestimating how democratic the US system is if you think the fact that a very narrow majority picked one of the preselected candidates means that candidate has any kind of broad popular mandate.
It's probably what a double-digit percentage of Americans want, but certainly not the majority, and only barely the majority preferred it over the other extremely unpopular candidate.
And all-in-all, that's fair play. The GOP and DNC are private entities and they get to choose who they put forward as a candidate in the manner they choose. Voting in presidential primaries is fairly recent. The DNC picked Harris, as is their right.
I held my nose as I voted for Biden in the primary, but I don't even recall anybody else being on the ballot. I was elated that he stepped down and endorsed his VP.
Admittedly, it sets a scary precedent, I certainly won't disagree. But setting the implications aside, was it really the wrong choice? Did Biden really fare better than Harris in the general? I certainly don't think he would have. I think Trump's margin of victory would have been even higher against Biden.
Probably not, but does it matter? Biden was also not chosen in anything resembling a democratic way. US political primaries are not democratic.
The general population being presented a choice between two options that were selected by two ultra-partisan entrenched entities is not democracy.
To have a system somewhat resembling democracy you would have to either (1) open primaries to everyone regardless of party registration with no control by partisan organizations over who gets nominated or supported (which would mostly defeat the point of having political parties at all) or (2) have a more proportional system where it is meaningfully possible to create new political parties that gain a nonzero share of representation.
Primaries where party members vote seems very much more democratic, than having the party elite decide in some meeting.
It only seems that way to you because it's practically impossible for there to be more than two parties with significant representation. If anyone could start a party and gain support, you would have enough parties to choose from that it's much more likely you'd find one who matches your beliefs, regardless of how they choose their candidates.
An important thing to keep in mind in American politics is the massive amount of voter suppression. Not voting doesn't inherently mean you were lazy or apathetic. It may well mean your vote was suppressed by any of a hundred tactics. Closing polling places in blue regions, requiring in-person voting on-the-day, restricting early voting, restricting vote by mail, failing at sending people ballots, spuriously dropping voter registrations...
Exactly three states don't offer early voting to all voters [1] and none of those three were battleground states.
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/map-early-voting-mail-ballot-st...
It does not explain however why almost all the swing states aligned with Trump this time.
I've voted Dem all my life (since 1988), and while my preferred candidate has won several of those races, my actual VOTE never helped them because I voted in Mississippi (88), Alabama (92), and Texas (96 & thereafter) -- all of which have been GOP strongholds for a long, long time. (Texas, for example, hasn't gone for the Democrats since Carter v. Ford in 1976.)
It's easy to imagine that a feeling of despair about the efficacy of one's vote would drive someone to stay home.
That's true, but I don't think Democrats had a feeling of despair before the results came in. It seems like most Democrats are shocked that the election turned out this way.
Personally, I realized last week that I had no reliable way to know what to expect. There was ample data to support predicting any outcome.
Blue voters in states that are absolutely going Blue may also stay home.
The electoral college - and the Senate - were intended to explicitly put power in the hands of the states, as equals, without regard for population. The House of Representatives was intended to be the counterbalancing voice of the People.
I can totally understand disagreeing with the concept, but to say it's stupid tells me you likely don't understand its purpose and how it fits into the overall system.
US States are not meaningful cultural units -- people in Philadelphia are much more like people in NYC than either are like those of the rural hinterlands of their respective states.
> The US is a federal system. It serves the interests of the states, not the People.
Indeed, and that's a bad system that makes no sense in 2024. Disliking it doesn't mean one doesn't understand how it came to be this way.
(Tangentially related aside: plenty of federal systems have much fairer systems for election to federal office than the US does. For example Germany.)
Maybe it's my lack of sleep from staying until until 7am watching election news, but I honestly can't see how this is applicable. My comment was explicit about why the system was set up that way.
> US States are not meaningful cultural units
I very strongly disagree.
The next time you meet a Texan, ask them if they think they are "meaningfully" culturally distinct from Californians.
Texas is a cherry-picked example of one of the states with the strongest specific identities. Most states are not like this.
Ask someone from Phoenix to explain how they are meaningfully different from someone from Denver and they will struggle.
Texas is the one that comes to mind as the strongest, but it's far from unique in that regard. Louisiana pops to mind next. Other examples of states with very strong cultural identities off the top of my head: Oregon, Utah, Tennessee, Florida, West Virginia, Michigan, Maine, Vermont, New York, Illinois... you get the idea.
I'd say about the half the states have a strong, unique identity. The remainder are similar to their neighbors but the farther you travel the more apparent the differences.
Well, yes. The differentiation is both dumb and well-reasoned, depending on your ethics.
However at least germany and austria have meaningfully distinct languages or dialects and many centuries more to marinade in their differences. Texan and californian aren't distinct enough to produce nationalities that are clearly distinct (aside from arbitrary pride!) and they regularly swap populations sufficient enough to provide cultural osmosis that keeps the two cultures tied together.
Having lived in both places I can confidently say "not as much as either party would like to think". There are far, far, far more similarities than differences, especially because the population of either place doesn't tend to interact with their natural environment. Both simply have strong sense of nationalistic pride (however dumb this is).
The U.N. doesn't directly elect the general secretary.
Not saying it's great, but maybe it's not too dissimilar from some other systems?
It’s not how most of the actually well-run parliamentary systems work, because those have elements of proportional representation.
If DJT ends up with a final popular vote advantage, though, it'll be the first time that a Republican has taken the Oval Office AND the popular vote since 1988.
2016 had the DNC force a terrible candidate down our throats because the establishment was more concerned in measuring offices in the West Wing that listening to voters. It was a spectacular failure and we got Trump as a result. The DNC did their utmost to ensure people didn't get a voice in the process.
2020 was unique for many reasons. Many, including me, said choosing Biden was a bad idea. He was even then so old that the DNC was giving up the incumbents advantage in 2024, partly driven by Biden alluding to him not wanting to run for re-election. Did the people choose Biden? Well, not really. Jim Clyburn did [1].
People didn't choose Biden's "bearhug strategy". Biden, against all the cries not to, decided to seek re-election despite showing signs of cognitive decline a year ago. So there was no real primary process, no chance for the people to have a voice. The people also didn't choose for the DNC to burn to the ground young voter support (eg college protest response), the Arab-American vote (ie Gaza) or the Latino vote (with an immigration policy to the right of Ronald Reagan).
If the DNC had listened to the voters, Bernie Sanders would've handily beat Donald Trump in 2016 and we wouldn't be here.
Yet...
If I lived in a swing state, I would probably vote.
That's not "America" for two reasons: "the majority of the population who were eligible to vote, and actually decided to vote" is not the same thing as "Americans", and choosing which option you prefer in a binary choice (where you have no influence on the two options) does not mean you like the choice you made.
The fact is America would be happy with no one. But we got who America wanted -- even if its not who I wanted.
Because they're not. It's virtually impossible to start a meaningful new party in the US due to the FPTP system, so you are stuck with whoever the two legacy parties decide to nominate according to their own rules.
Compare Germany: nine parties represented in the federal parliament, a proportional system ensuring that getting 50%+1 of the vote doesn't mean you get 100% of the power, and relative ease of splitting and fusing parties making it so that previously unrepresented political views can easily gain representation (e.g. the socially conservative Russophilic left-wing party "BSW" recently splitting from the standard left-wing party).
> Who else beats Trump?
Most people selected out of the telephone directory at random could have beaten Trump. No, this probably doesn't include Pete Buttigieg.
> The fact is America would be happy with no one. But we got who America wanted
These two sentences contradict each other.
I just see no appetite for a 3rd party, much less nine in the US. It was amazing how people would complain that Harris provided no details about her plans, when 15 minutes on her website provided more detail than most people would care for (although certainly not at the level of detail any wonk would want). Do you think people are really going investigate nine candidates?
> Most people selected out of the telephone directory at random could have beaten Trump. No, this probably doesn't include Pete Buttigieg.
Given that every Republican can't seem to beat him there must be some odd bias in the phone books you have.
> These two sentences contradict each other.
They don't. We got who we wanted -- we just aren't happy with it. And wouldn't be happy with anyone. No contradiction.
* CDU - center-right, active everywhere except Bavaria
* CSU - permanent ally of CDU, active only in Bavaria
* SDP - center-left
* Greens - center, ecology
* FDP - pro-business, what Europeans call "liberal" and Americans would call something like "fiscally conservative" or "moderate libertarian"
* AfD - right-wing populist, socially conservative, anti-immigration (closest analogue to Trump)
* die Linke - Left (originally evolved from the totalitarian ruling party in East Germany, has since become much more moderate and accepted democracy)
* BSW - Left on economic issues, conservative on social/cultural issues
* SSW - Tiny regional party, irrelevant at the national level
The current governing coalition is SPD - Greens - FDP although there are severe tensions between them currently and they will probably break up soon.
I think it's relatively easy for most people to understand at this level of detail, and if the US had a working democratic system where getting X% of the vote roughly translates to getting X% of the influence and power, we probably would have at least the following:
* "Trump party" - Right-wing populist, skeptical or openly hostile to democratic norms
* anti-Trump right - Bush, etc.
* Centrist mainstream liberals - Biden, etc.
* Left-wing - Bernie, AOC, etc. Possibly split into two parties, one that cares more about economic issues and one that cares more about progressive social issues.
* Maybe some random minor parties like "Texas independence party" or similar.
In such a system I really doubt that the "Trump party" would get more than 30% of the vote.
So I think it's unfair to say that "Americans wanted Trump" when under a fairer political system he would not come close to a majority.
> Given that every Republican can't seem to beat him there must be some odd bias in the phone books you have.
No Republican has ever run against Trump in a fair democratic election. They ran against him in the partisan Republican primary, whose voters do not come close to reflecting "Americans" in general. I very strongly suspect that e.g. Nikki Haley could have beaten Trump in a head-to-head nationwide general election.
Primaries have low turnout: Most elections are between two unpopular candidates who are chosen from vocal political minorities.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Republican_Party_presiden..., there were ~22 million voters in the Republican presidential primary, ~17 million voted for Trump. (~17 million voted in the democratic primary)
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia..., there were ~139 million voters in the main election.
So roughly 12% of voters got Trump to be the candidate. What if the other 72% showed up to the primaries and got different candidates?
If true, this is not really a democratic country and should stop lecturing the world about democracy.
if the federal government wasn't so large but rather a looser organization such as the EU, then each state would be a sovereign entity and the presidency wouldn't matter so much. then you would have 50 or more choices (50x2=100)
It just feels better to live here for many reasons (safety, culture, nature, walkability, quality of restaurants and clubs and overall you don’t see many poor people around). Europe has economic issues but the quality of life is very high most of the time.
There are wait time problems in US too but maybe not as common.
If you have health insurance it's not going to bankrupt you.
I know plenty of people without a job and are poor in the US... guess what? They get free healthcare. They don't pay a penny. You can even give birth and not pay a penny out of pocket if you are on Medical.
The US has a large population on free healthcare. California actually has quite a large "socialist" state. Lots of things are free or near free for people people. Similar to Canada or Europe. No one talks about it though.
Make below 40k or whatever the threshold is and you get Medical in California. It's basically free healthcare.
And if you have a job.. well then you have health insurance, and you won't go bankrupt because of it. And you get much better quality healthcare than in Canada.
I'm making well over six figures a year (and not in the Bay Area, for reference) in my 30s and have top quality healthcare supplied by my job. The last time I talked to a doctor, I had to schedule an appointment six months out just for a routine examination and blood work. The labs I reached out to for getting sleep studies done (which, for reference, I would've needed to pay out of pocket entirely) said they'd need similarly as long.
Can you convince me that our healthcare system is not broken? Ostensibly the person in your argument that is supposed to benefit the most from it?
The conclusion of that experiment was that half of the country would gladly go to war to force the other half to stay as one country. I don't think that has changed. Especially given that the primary political divisions aren't between state lines; They are rural and urban divisions.
The man was basically finished politically when he left office and not very far from actually ending up in jail. Most were pretty sure of that.
So what happened?
Not only did that not come to pass, he's the next U.S. president now. Out of all the detractors, who is still laughing now?
As someone who is part of the non-USA world, I'm fine with it.
> He says on a US made phone and computer
All phones and ~all computers are made in China.
> using a currency tightly correlated to the US dollar
Many currencies in the world are strong and independent of the US dollar.
> in a country which imports most of its services from the US
[citation needed]. What sort of services? I’ve never heard of offshoring to the US, but I have heard of offshoring to places like India.
> speaking English out of necessity not just courtesy
Well, those guys from England surely have done a lot of conquering.
My computers are running Windows, sure, but my most used software would be Firefox, built by people from all over the world. Second place would probably belong to JetBrains Rider, made by a company headquartered in Czechia.
5/12
Promoting hatred & violence, justifying fraud as being normal, neglecting environmental damage for our children to solve, has won.
It doesn't represent what 'America' wants. Elections are dispute resolution mechanisms so people can move forward and get something done, but the dispute remains the same today as it did on Monday.
On the other hand, do you think the world deserves that doctors like Jay Bhattacharya was blacklisted for simply raising questions about how school lockdowns might affect the nation's children.
I'm not so sure.
COVID response seems like the biggest mistake, but that was a never before seen global pandemic, and it isn't clear to me that anyone else in office could have handled it differently.
it's a very fucking slippery slope and everyone is too concerned with "but muh gas prices!" to think critically about the macro situation.
I think every little life saved is an absolute victory, and many people (as demonstrated) share my sentiment.
Abortion is not a religious issue, it is an ethical issue. Some religious people are fine with abortion, some atheists oppose it.
> If you disagree with abortion that is fine, but your opinion/stance should not be projected on everyone else in the country. The problem with this situation is religious folks are so brainwashed they can't even comprehend a situation where "live and let live" is possible, because you all think that your way is right and everyone else is wrong.
This argument is a completely unworkable argument and I have no idea why people think it will hold water. Abortion opponents believe that abortion is literal murder. You can't simply go "it's fine if you don't want to murder, but you shouldn't stop other people from murdering". I understand you disagree with the idea that abortion is murder, but you need to take that idea on directly rather than trying to paper it over and say "you need to live and let live".
Says you. I see nothing ethically wrong with abortion.
Virtually every species of animal is known to kill their own young from time to time. Why should humans be held to a different standard? The earth is already overpopulated as-is.
Every person I have interacted with in nearly half a century who has expressed support for the criminalization of all or most abortions believes in the existence of souls and believes that human fetuses have souls and that it's the presence of a soul that is the basis for personhood and a right to life. Please direct me to a real person who supports the criminalization of all or most abortions and who does not believe in souls because I want them to explain to me why an unintelligent human fetus that lacks a fully formed central nervous system and any activity in its cerebral cortex has personhood and a right to life while a pig does not.
By the way, it's funny how people who say that opposition to abortion has nothing to do with religion are always religious:
Wow. Talk about projection. Roe, a case where the woman involved later admitted to lying about being raped, that case, the repeal of that case moves the opinion/stance back to the states, where it should be.
> they can't even comprehend a situation where "live and let live" is possible
Funny someone in the "I NEED TO KILL MY BABY" crowd would write something like this. You people really have zero self awareness.
If you really do believe this you are an outlier, and 99% of the population do not agree with you and would not want you setting any policy.
Am I missing something?
- Forcibly separating children from parents, with no plan to reunite them. There are still children missing, who were spirited off $deity-knows-where. If criminals do it, we call it kidnapping and people-trafficking, but this was official government policy
- Let's focus on those kids, who were locked up in prisons, had any medication they were on confiscated, and we're not just talking teenagers here, some of those kids were under 5.
- The conditions they were held in would make a grown man weep, held in iron cages, kids defecating and vomiting in the heat. Staff wouldn't help small children, it was left to other children to try and keep the infants well.
- Routine use of pyschotropic drugs to act as "chemical straitjackets" on older children, so they would be usefully docile while being caged like animals
- Sexual assault on these unresisting, drugged children. That's rape. Of children - usually girls but not always. Under government supervision.
Personally I don't support the rape of children, but more than half the voting public seem to be "just fine" with it.
They're not just saying they're "just fine" with it. They are enthusiastically voting for it.
We have to come to terms with the fact that very clear, consistent campaign themes of cruelty and selfishness won over a majority of voters. Deep, country-wide introspection is needed.
It's the only way it all makes sense. I don't think that all those voters who vote for Trump and Putin and Erdogan and all the other autocrats think they'll have a better life. But they know that all those other people are going to suffer, and it makes them feel a bit better.
The most dangerous man (or woman) is someone who thinks they have nothing to lose.
People feel dispair, and therefore they vote for people who will make others suffer.
... But in the conventional sense of increasing state autonomy, no. :p
Until then, it's a state's rights issue.
Alas, if/when the Republican party gathers enough power to finally pass a federal abortion ban (or an indirect Fugitive Pregnancy Act) that "principle" will vanish into the memory-hole with all the rest. The minority who sincerely held the belief will be sidelined, again.
Another manifestation would be if state personnel and courts get conscripted into enforcing federal immigration policies.
There's literally dozens of people who worked for Trump during his previous administration that have come out against him since then.
Personally, when I read about the alternate elector scheme and the attempt to prevent Pence from certifying the 2020 election, that was sufficient to convince me that Trump poses a real risk.
[1] https://time.com/6972022/donald-trump-transcript-2024-electi...
Trump fired national security officials in charge of handling pandemics. Trump repeatedly claimed that covid was not a problem, and that it wouldn't come to the US, and then that it would disappear by April, and then easter, and so forth. He fought the CDC, NIAID. As we know now, he also sent test machines to Putin for his personal use while they were in short supply in the United States.
This pandemic was rightfully and widely compared to the 1920 pandemic, as well as the SARS scare in the 00s. We are very, very lucky that the SARS scare got a lot of the legwork done in advance on the RNA vaccines.
It's hard to imagine any United States candidate handling it worse.
Attempted disassembly of EPA and FDA in attempts to raise employment in exchange for consumer safety.
Sale of federal lands that were preserves for future generations.
Picking a Supreme Court based on politics rather than law.
Preferring Totalitarian regimes when it came to diplomacy and snubbing our allies.
Trying to use the FBI as his personal attack dogs.
At least off the top of my head. Last term his goal was to undo a hundred years of progress as a constitutional progress.
This term? I have no clue what his goals are. I just hope he lives because the VP Vance appears to support that project 2025.
It is a peculiar lack of votes, isn't it?
What it seems to have done is convinced a subset of Kamala voters that they didn’t need to go and stand in a 2 hour queue to vote because it was already won, which of course now we know to be very untrue.
People assume that the bot armies are only pumping out pro-Trump propaganda. However, they only need to convince the Dems not to vote.
That's still historically high
Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from some other reality.
They come from American parents, American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses, American universities, and they’re elected by American citizens.
This is the best we can do, folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces. Garbage in…garbage out.
If you have selfish, ignorant citizens…if you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re gunna get selfish, ignorant leaders. And term limits ain’t gunna do ya any good. You’re just gunna wind up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans [leaders].
So, maybe…maybe…maybe it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here. Like…the public. Yeah, the public sucks! That’s a nice campaign slogan for somebody: “The public sucks! Fuck hope! Fuck hope!”
- George CarlinThat's the problem. Lots of people who don't have any say in this are going to get hurt. Ukraine first. Possibly the Baltics next? And then there are things like climate change: Trump's going to "drill baby, drill" and basically defund anything to do with climate change.
We saw firsthand what a Trump presidency was like. He wasn’t Hitler, despite what many in the political establishment would like you to believe. We saw firsthand what a Harris vice presidency was like, and for most Americans, it did not inspire confidence in a Harris presidency. More broadly, the Democratic Party has become weirdly fixated on policies that are more in tune with Reddit than with the average American, and that’s a losing strategy.
I've had a great 4 years, economically speaking, and I'm worried about the future a lot right now just in case Trump actually gets the competence to go along with his rhetoric. Hopefully he will be just as ineffectual as he was in his last term.
Trump is just...he says a lot of bad stuff, but he doesn't seem to be in Hitler's realm of competence. My beef with Trump is his simple non-understanding of economics, wanting to tariff everyone and expecting that they won't tariff us back, and wanting to juice interest rates by politicizing the fed, and then claiming that this will somehow reduce inflation, rather than cause it to explode. Trump, in that regard, is more Gustav Stresemann than Hitler.
This is something that I don't understand coming from the Trump camp. Concerns about Trump are dismissed as unsubstantiated despite the fact fact that Mike Pence, Mike Esper, John Kelly, and Mark Milley have all called Trump a threat to US democracy. These are people who held positions of power in his first admin and they warned us that the second one would be worse. Maybe you could reasonably dismiss the opinion of one, but all four? When does the weight of the evidence tip the scales?
I think what's going on is that trump supporters don't quite take him literally on the details of what he says.
Now, as to whether Trump will or won't do more damage in this term, that really depends on whether this time the people around him will stop him or whether he will choose people who will be more loyal.
So, I'm right and the other party is wrong? No questions asked.
A more useful thing would be: WHY did people vote for Trump? They are surely intentional as you observe. What gave them this intention? Was it DEI? Did they like Trump's hair?
I share exhibit A: a BBC interview with an "undecided voter". Excerpt:
"I have no freaking clue man. It's so hard. When I voted for Trump, it came down to who would I trust with my kid alone and it wasn't [President Joe] Biden.
I'm still undecided.
All of my family is voting for Kamala and my friends are voting for Trump.
I'm going to vote for one of them. I've got no idea which one.
I'm still super-duper undecided. I think I'm leaning toward Kamala over Trump, if I think about who I would trust alone in a room with my daughter.
I'm going to make up my mind when I go into the ballot booth."
I share this, not to lampoon this human being, but to correct any misconceptions that human voters always have a rational model of who to vote for, and why.
- Forced vaccine mandates that have workers fired from their jobs if they do not comply even though it was obvious at the time that getting a covid vaccine does not prevent the spread of the virus(9/2021).
- Huge payouts to illegal immigrants on the order of $450k per family(11/2021)
- Homelessness at record high (12% increase from 2022 to 2023).
- Botched rollout from Afghanistan that humiliated the US and led to 13 US service members deaths and lasting shame for the country on the world stage. (8/2021)
- Housing affordability hits record low in 2023 - 98.2 (only 15% of homes for sale are affordable to the average household. (2023)
- Biden shocks the nation and viewers and says behind a blood red facade that republicans are a threat to democracy (9/2022)
- Colorado and a few other Dem states try to get Trump taken off the ballot in what is deemed a affront to any reasonable democracy and is swatted down 9-0 by a united supreme court (12/2023)
- Legal warfare with anyone who disagrees with the sitting administration see Eric Adams Dem NYC mayor who complains about immigrants "will destroy NYC"(9/2023) and then the FBI then launches a full scale investigation into his administration(9/2024). Also see a myriad of accusations against Trump by Alvin Bragg who when running for office is running on the platform of "getting Trump"(12/2021). This is stuff that is typically seen in a totalitarian regime and it has shocked Americans from both political spectrums.