Crazy how for a guy so obsessed with self image and legacy, Trump is leaving behind a world where he'll be known for making everything shit that it was before him. Amazing. How does this happen?
'In the country' being 'in the USA'.
Everybody else outside the boarders of the USA is thinking "how the mighty have fallen".
It is also exactly these same people of the USA whose thinking is going to matter for determining what happens next, not anyone else. It is immaterial what "everyone else outside the borders of the USA" thinks in the context of the country.
The nation that owns the majority of nukes is run by an actual idiot with dementia, and his corrupt picks.
The nation with the majority of aircraft carriers and submarines...
The nation with the largest GDP...
The nation that makes the tech most of the world runs on...
It is terrifying, the international implications that a collapse of my country would cause, but even that pales to the malicious damage it can cause.
So, yes, all of this was painfully obvious. But here we are.
Are we as small savers just idiots feeding this idiot machine?
Yes. 401k should never have been the main retirement plan.
There is, of course, taxpayer funded retirement benefits, but that is just taking from others’ kids.
https://apnews.com/article/biden-business-united-states-gove...
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/covid-relief-bill-gives-86-b...
If federal taxpayers are going to bail out old people, might as well be the whole stock market so it’s not just a few politically influential unions that get bailed out.
Union members not in an insufficiently influential union can have their benefits cut:
https://www.pbgc.gov/employers-practitioners/multiemployer/i...
The stock market is rigged in favor of corporations and wealth.
Pensions are useful to individuals, because they support you until you die (while your 401K will either run out before you die, or will 'waste' money in the bank if you die before it runs out). But they aren't a magic money tree. They are the exact same formula. Money in, money out, it just gets distributed a little better.
So desperate to be valued and liked, that he desperately grabs at anything and everything to get the acclaim that, under normal circumstances, would signify that.
His besetting character flaws foreclose any possibility of attaining the actual approval he seeks.
And so, with his misguided approaches to getting praise and love, the harder he tries the further they are from his reach.
Adding to that tragedy is that a 180-degree U-turn is still within his reach. He could do it today, and probably get some of what he most deeply wants. But I think the most likely outcome is that he'll keep his current trajectory for the rest of his life.
I also don't think changing his behavior is within reach. His narcissism prevents him from growth and, like the scorpion in the tale, he can't help but sting.
My only point was that so much of this suffering, both for himself and others, could be avoided but for his choices and flaws.
Like all billionaires, he is an empty void that can never be filled. To borrow a phrase, he is a hungry ghost.
After his first million he needed more, then after a billion he saw that it was not enough, then after becoming president... he is, was, and always will be an empty hole of a person who can never feel satiated and who can consequently never feel genuine happiness.
He is not just a bad person, his is a bad soul.
You can't become one as a person with basic empathy. To do so is a moral failing.
To be clear, there are some who turn Capitalism into a religion (objectivists, and the like), and to them it can be moral. They at least seek to serve a moral good, even if I disagree about the means I can appreciate that their goal is still to make the world a better place.
Trump is not one though. He is utterly devoid of morality and seeks only to fill an endless black need for external validation.
Yes if only he had the heart/insight to make that 180 U-turn. It’d bring him some peace at last.
Well, you see a black man became president. And what's worse, he was a really good one, articulate, kind, humble, and emodied all the values we cherish. And that broke people so much they would rather burn everything down than build on what he did.
Don't forgot how long Trump and other republicans went on about "birth certificates" during Obama's first term.
It was clear that Biden was mentally slipping. Even if you were a fan of his general politics, 4 additional years of mental decline while in office was a scary prospect.
And then Kamala Harris was given very little time to sell herself to the voters.
I'm wondering if Trump would have won had the Democrats presented someone more appealing earlier in the campaign.
But America still likes him. The only thing that's tarnished him is that it costs a little more to drive a gas guzzler
I like that—wherever it came from. (And inanimate strangely sells it even harder.)
A big reason for Trump's success despite his polarizing nature is the polarizing effects of the platforms of our two parties, which distinguish themselves on "culture war" issues such as abortion, gun rights, immigration, LGBT+ rights, and race relations. There are many Americans who love the MAGA agenda, and there are also many Americans who are not in 100% agreement with MAGA but who'd never vote for a Democrat since they feel that a candidate with the opposite cultural views is anathema. If third parties were more viable in America, the latter group of voters could vote for a candidate that is more to their temperament instead of voting for whomever the GOP nominee is.
(by "Trump" and "him" I mean the person himself plus his symbiotic ecosystem of enablers and followers)
I’m so excited for the future where nobody apparently voted for Trump and never backed him, the same way everyone mysteriously didn’t vote for GWB after his fuckups got too big to ignore
Oh please.
Are you seriously comparing the disaster that is Mango Mussolini to the likes of (practically any) alternative candidate?
The sad reality is that the American people wanted Trump and _voted_ for him. TWICE! The rest of the world has come to terms with this and knows there is no going back to the old hegemony (put simply, the American people may vote for another Trump; we now know the USA can no longer be trusted as a good faith partner). The world has changed, and many in the USA who didn't vote for Trump have yet to realise this and still think they can go back.
Besides, if all candidates are crap, you vote for the one that will do least harm. And then look at reforming a political system which leaves voters with such a poor choice.
Women candidates?
Because I am sad to admit that is my takeaway: a significant part of the U.S. appears to be sexist (and plenty of women voters included).
Or are you misreading the actual argument?
My stupidity and failed parsing.
In my opinion, Clinton’s and Harris’ losses had less to do with their gender and more to do with the candidates themselves:
1. Clinton was facing strong anti-establishment headwinds, and Clinton is a very establishment politician. Many people in 2016 were piping mad at establishment politicians. Trump was able to win the GOP nomination on a platform of “draining the swamp” and pursuing an aggressively right-wing agenda compared to more moderate Republicans, and Sanders, who also had an anti-establishment platform, proved to be a formidable opponent to Clinton. Despite Clinton’s loss, she was still able to win the popular vote. Perhaps had there been less anti-establishment sentiment, it would have been a Clinton vs Jeb Bush election, and I believe Clinton would have won that race.
2. Harris never won a presidential primary election. The only reason she ended up becoming the nominee is because Biden dropped out of the race after his disastrous debate performance against Trump, which occurred after the primaries. Since it was too late to have the voters decide on a replacement for Biden, the Democratic Party selected a replacement: Harris. She only had a few months to campaign, whereas Trump had virtually campaigned his entire time out of office.
3. Let’s not forget the Trump factor in 2024. During Biden’s entire presidency, Trump was able to consolidate his hold on the GOP and his voting base, and in some ways he even expanded his base. The conservative media was filled with defenses of January 6, and Trump was able to convince enough Americans that he and his supporters were persecuted in the aftermath of the 2020 election and January 6.
What I meant was Biden and then Harris.
I'm not a politico, but IMHO Harris didn't have enough time to clarify her positions, and to address the points raised by her opposition.
Also, I wonder if the way she was chosen by the Democratic Party rubbed some people the wrong way enough for them to abstain from voting as a form of protest.
I suppose the point still stands though with regard to Harris and Clinton.
"We" did not vote for him. Some of y'all did.