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They could use ignorance as an excuse the first time, but only those who were too young to see the first term can use it now.

One of the failures of the US media is to continue allowing these voters to hide behind such plausible deniability. They knew what they were asking for and they need to be understood as people who wanted this outcome.

I was about to say, we are over a decade now into "the Trump show," any excuses about his outsider status or not knowing stuff is gone. Trump is the establishment. These people voted for The Man and his plans. Then when we say "look what he did" (assuming they can even acknowledge a critique is valid) they go "well you made us vote for him." I swear I'll lose it if another Romney-Republican who believes this is a blip or whatever shares me yet another Peggy Noonan piece.

It's ridiculous. No responsibility taken.

It’s futile to rationalize a cult without acknowledging it’s a cult. The pundits who don’t are grifting or part of the cult themselves.

People said the same thing about Obama (cult of personality), who was also elected for a second term despite a number of big broken promises, including closing Guantanamo Bay, cutting the national deficit, passing cap and trade, creating a public health insurance option in the ACA, comprehensive immigration reform, and fostering bipartisanship

If you want to compare Obama and Trump insofar as “presidents generally don’t do 90% of what they say” that is valid but to imply their admins are/were anything alike beyond that would be ridiculous. I’m assuming that’s not what you mean but I just need to throw that out there.

The only other obvious comparison is the typical expansion of executive power we’ve (unfortunately) come to expect, though like the previous comparison, with Trump it’s different by orders of magnitude.

>If you want to compare Obama and Trump insofar as “presidents generally don’t do 90% of what they say” that is valid but to imply their admins are/were anything alike beyond that would be ridiculous. I’m assuming that’s not what you mean but I just need to throw that out there.

Yes you're right, I absolutely did not mean to imply that. I just forgot to say "orange man bad" as a signoff. Thanks

You’re welcome.

Trump was, and is, very explicit about his hatred of science, research, and the entire left in general. He ran on discrediting anyone who was slightly left leaning. Oh, it’s all fake news, Fauci is a murderer, etc.

So no, they knew, they just didn’t care. Or thought he was lying. Why would you ever vote for someone under the hope they’re lying? I don’t know, but they did. That’s, like, trump defense 101. He’s a liar, and somehow that makes him good? Shh shh shh… don’t question it too much.

Really all Americans want the same things, the things you’ve listed and more. The problem is the republicans would sooner die than give us any of that. In my state, the republicans have spent the last decade systematically destroying public school. You see public school is free, so we can’t have that. They’d rather fuck over hundreds of thousands of children’s futures than give poor people free education. It’s all about fucking over the poor, the black, the gay, the immigrants. Anyone else caught in that line of fire is collateral damage. Oops!

He also ran on releasing the Epstein files, let's make sure to remind folks of that at every turn.

"The most transparent" president.

> My understanding is at least a portion of the people who voted for Trump did not vote for reactionary fascism, but for what he publicly said/says he'll stand for: standing up for the little guy against ruling elites, stopping imperialist wars, boosting the economy and giving people the famous "tariff checks", etc.

these people are either rubes, or else they heard the subtle dog whistles that implied other things, and thought the wink wink was for them and not the billionaire class.