Also, the DNC should really stop forcing unwanted candidates down people's throats. It doesn't work, even when you spam social platforms with your narrative.
Non-american here, but I feel pretty much the same way. I also do niche research in computer science. People working in the supermarket, people driving trains and busses, medicine workers, construction workers, they all do work that is vastly more important to society than mine. A single educator in my child's kindergarten most likely does work that is orders of magnitude more important to society than mine is. Maybe this attitude comes from the fact that both of my parents never set a foot into higher education, but it is something I feel very strongly, and which is quite humbling.
I remember my father predicting in the early 2000s that the academic elite was increasingly crippling the country by adding more and more non-pragmatic rules in seek of some idealistic utopia, and that they would lose the support of the masses pretty soon. As a young teenager, I did not believe him, and in my arrogance of youth, I also dismissed it as the ramblings of an uneducated worker. But sure enough, most of the things he feared back then turned out to come true.
Today, for sure. I think it's far more nuanced in the long term. Most of these jobs would be non-existent without the researchers of yesterday.
Of course, if you disregard today completely for building the tomorrow, a lot of people who don't get access to wealth today will be pissed. Which is very roughly what's happening in the USA. "What we have now is perfect, and can sustain forever, stop with the progressive BS", chant the conservatives.
It's a hard balance. Dems messed it up, Reps will mess it up further, I bet.
I'm just observing from an another continent.
The research of yesterday was on another level than most of what is done today. Not to say that it's worthless, pursuit of knowledge is always worth it.
My perspective is European & Australian, so I wonder if that skews it.
"far right" and "far left" are terms for contextualizing a political stance, based on the world view and actions. It's doesn't matter where the majority of people stands, they can be all far right or far left or in the center, it wouldn't change the definitions.
If you think a party is ticking many boxes, you may label it as "far-right".
> nationalism, authoritarianism
Sure, you could say he supports this.
> anti-socialism
Not a fair right position. This I'd what anybody who is right of the center left position thinks.
> economic libertarianism
Trump doesn't support this. He wants all sorts of tariffs and the like.
> racial and gender hierarchies
I haven't seen any proof he supports such a thing.
> anti-establishment sentiments.
This is not a far right position. This is a populist position.
The US left (federally, not talking Alabama dems here) is generally more left on immigration, abortion and LGBTQ+ and affirmative action type policies than Europe, broadly speaking. Drug policy is a wash IMO. There's a lot more variation in Europe because the EU doesn't arbitrate social issues the way the US federal government does.
This is what's crippling them. We initially built the social security net to counter this issue. Then we increased employee rights to maximum levels. I think one of either would be beneficial, but not both.
As an Alabama Dem, this is something that is just so disappointing to see when we're assumed to be not "generally more left"
There are so many here supporting and doing good, hard work with things like the Yellowhammer Fund, ¡HICA!, and Magic City Acceptance Center and Academy but we have to fight for any acknowledgement. We had more people vote for Kamala than several states but they amount to nothing in the public eye. It's so deflating and discouraging
It is not the best
Sorry if that feels like a strawman, but I find the idea of using popularity to determining what counts as "far" stupid and dangerous.
They are not centrist by any stretch of the imagination.
It's a bit more complicated than that. Gender is a social construct, mostly determined by genes & genitalia. It's not quite enough to believe you're a woman, other people have to believe it too. Another issue at play is that there are far more "intersex" people (who have some characteristics of the opposite sex, sometimes to the point doctors don't quite know whether to list them as male or female), and from what I've heard trans people often (possibly generally) are "intersex" in a way that wasn't visible at birth. The idea of a female's brain in a male's body isn't that far fetched.
> They believe in censorship.
I believe this one is more popular in the far right (when in power) than in the far left (when in power)
> They believe in supporting and growing the military industrial complex.
Militarism sounds like it's more popular on the right. Though it can be more complicated: military backed imperialism can indeed support stuff like welfare at home.
---
Now the elephant in the room: last time I checked, democrats were firmly capitalists: they believe the means of production should be owned privately. Even if you exclude actual communism from acceptable discourse, they're fairly poor at public services and keeping inequality in check.
How could it possibly be a female brain if it's part of a male body?
Sure I can: "mass deportation now"
If you think you’re exceptional, vote Gorgoiler ‘28!
Some definitions are not opinions.
The definition of "far right" is an opinion. Failing to define it in discourse will inevitably result in a lack of positive outcome.
If they’re asking for a definition, it’s likely because they already know it and just want you to fall into a “gotcha” they can then divert discussion toward in their favor. It’s cheap theatrics.
At a quick glance, I found 10 definitions of far right that differ slightly. An assumption of malice here fails. Remarkably so.
First of all I dislike Trump and for sure have liberal views in lot of aspects. And say even if I have malice intent and I am a hardcore Trump supporter, comments like yours wouldn't have changed my mind. Assuming you want to change people's side, it is not the reply that would change it.
Digging into the page for radical conservatism, "Elements of ultraconservatism typically rely on cultural crisis; they frequently support anti-globalism – adopting stances of anti-immigration, nationalism, and sovereignty – use populism and political polarization, with in-group and out-group practices.[3][4][5][6] The primary economic ideology for most ultraconservatives is neoliberalism.[6] The use of conspiracy theories is also common amongst ultraconservatives.".
Trump is well-known for his populist, anti-globalist, anti-immigration, and pro-nationalist rhetoric. He has also promulgated conspiarcy theories such as the Obama birther conspiracy and claims of stolen elections.
As for authoritarian, Trump forms a textbook example of a personality cult. He frequently attacks existing institutions and an independent media, undermining trust in a free democratic process. He frequently issues positive messages about authoritarian dictators in other countries such as Bolsonaro, Orban and Putin.
>>Trump is well-known for his populist, anti-globalist, anti-immigration, and pro-nationalist rhetoric. He has also promulgated conspiarcy theories such as the Obama birther conspiracy and claims of stolen elections.
You can be patriotic and anti-immigration without being far right. I think the claims of a stolen election are yet to be properly investigated. I'd welcome a truly impartial look into all the covid postal vote shenanigans last time.
>>As for authoritarian, Trump forms a textbook example of a personality cult. He frequently attacks existing institutions and an independent media, undermining trust in a free democratic process. He frequently issues positive messages about authoritarian dictators in other countries such as Bolsonaro, Orban and Putin.
You can criticise institutions now? And I'm sure he'd be in favour of an indepenndent media if America had one.
Putin is a obviously a dictator. Bolsonaro and Orban not so much (especially Bolsonaro as he was, er, voted out which would seem to automatically disqualify him from being a dictator).
It's not just
"there's something wrong in our society"
it's
"there's an insidious dark force at work, it's brought us down from our glorious past, these groups of people are involved, violence against this threat is understandable, only a few men are strong and capable enough to lead us out of this...".
In 1930s Germany and Italy the "groups of people" were marxists, jews, gypsies, homosexuals and a few others. In modern Russia it's LGBT, central Asians, objectors to the war, and various religious groups like Jehovah's Witnesses. For Trump and a lot of Europe's right-wing it's LGBT, immigrants, intellectuals, and liberals (though he calls them communists).
So they would kinda feel feel far-rightish to us only because the democrats are more conservative than ours
Were they conservative? No, they wanted to upend society and create one that is nothing like anything ever seen before. They were also anti-religion. In many ways, they were anti-tradition, and I wouldn't consider their obsession with bringing back dead traditions to be traditional.
Were they hateful, racist, etc.? Yes, up to you if that's considered 'right'.
Were they, like how American political parties are, friends of big business? Not really, they wanted to sponsor monopolies and whatnot but also wanted the businesses to have no influence over the state, rather the other way around, the state can force the big business to do what they want. As far as if it actually worked that way when they were in power, I'm not sure.
They don't believe in climate change, want zero controls on guns, are generally anti-immigrant - even the legal immigrants are lied about e.g. Haitians in Springfield, don't believe women should have certain rights concerning their own healthcare, want to keep cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations, etc.
They are impenetrable. Yes they'd claim I'm unwilling to compromise but we're talking about different starting points - I have to get them to accept certain actual real-world events and facts as true before starting a meaningful conversation.
I don’t believe (1). The other two would mean our kids’ life expectancies just halved.
- Gutting the health care industry? That's not necessarily a bad thing. Wasteful health care administration (passing the buck) was something like 30% of health care costs pre-ACA, and health care is now 17.3% of GDP. Shedding 1/3 of health care costs would bring our health care expenses to the same ratio of GDP as the UK. Of course it would also cause an unemployment crisis...
Do you have any data (except for interpersonal psychology) on whether letting fascism slide or calling it out ultimately makes the situation worse? At what point do you call fascism fascism? When it's too late?
Separating children from parents at the border, reverting hard fought women's right to their own body, that is the stirring of fascist behaviour.
That wasn't his main intention. It was to stop the flow of illegal immigration into the country. And after popular criticism, he reversed that policy and never enacted it again. That doesn't sound authoritarian/fascist to me. It sounds more like bending to the will of the people you govern.
> reverting hard fought women's right to their own body
And a large swath of the country believes abortion is murder. I guess for that, they are fascists in your eyes?
The term really has lost it's meaning and is just used by the Left to demonize the other side.
> The term fascist has been used as a pejorative,[74] regarding varying movements across the far right of the political spectrum. George Orwell noted in 1944 that the term had been used to denigrate diverse positions "in internal politics". Orwell said that while fascism is "a political and economic system" that was inconvenient to define, "as used, the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless. ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist'",[75] and in 1946 wrote that '"Fascism' has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies something not desirable."[76] Richard Griffiths of the University of Wales wrote in 2000 that "fascism" is the "most misused, and over-used word, of our times".[77]: 1
I fail to see how the Republican party is fascist. I think it's a term the Left uses to demonize their opposition. Ironically, that is kind of fascist-like.
> The term fascist has been used as a pejorative,[74] regarding varying movements across the far right of the political spectrum. George Orwell noted in 1944 that the term had been used to denigrate diverse positions "in internal politics". Orwell said that while fascism is "a political and economic system" that was inconvenient to define, "as used, the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless. ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist'",[75] and in 1946 wrote that '"Fascism' has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies something not desirable."[76] Richard Griffiths of the University of Wales wrote in 2000 that "fascism" is the "most misused, and over-used word, of our times".[77]: 1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
I assume you have good reasons to believe Republicans are fascist. I'm simply asking you and any others who believe this to share your reasons. Is that not reasonable?
Like right now, by editing your comment you're desperately trying to pose there is no accepted definition of fascism. Dismissing definitions only fits the bill.
> you’d simply dismiss them
I'm a random internet stranger. How could you possibility know me so well? Again, it's just a blanket stereotyping and demonization of people who have different beliefs that you do. A mass ad hominem attack. That attitude is a root of many problems in the political arena. I expect that kind of rhetoric on Reddit, but am disappointed to encounter it here.
> Even if I listed all reasons
I'm a busy person and I assume you are too. Why don't you list one and we'll go from there?
In this discussion, we've already defined it? where? That's news to me that I can dismiss something that I wasn't aware of.
> Do you think you sound like a person that is welcoming criticism
I am very welcoming of criticism of my party and the one I voted for. Trump can be a bombastic jerk. I voted for him because his policies align more with my values than Harris'. He was the lesser (much lesser) of two evils. I didn't vote for him in the primaries and I wish he wouldn't have won them.
Anyway, you continue to make assumptions about me rather than discuss/debate the issue of why you think Trump is a fascist. It's not much of a discussion and so I'll opt out now. All the best to you.
We don't have to define it. That's the point. It's already been done for us.
It's the same with asking me to list reasons or sources that explain the republican parties fascist tendencies, while that's been done thousands of times through the course of their campaign. If you were truly curious as to why people might feel that way, you could have done so at any point during the last few months.
You did't accept the definition you bothered to look up and you didn't accept the valid concerns people had during the campaign.
The real reason you're walking away from this conversation is because you don't care if I am right.
You're not afraid of fascism, because you think you're in the right group.
If you replace nationalism with partisanship, in very many ways the modern left is far more closely aligned with the vile components of fascism than the republican party, or even Trump supporters. The left have done everything they can do vilify anyone who disagrees with their core beliefs, which they hold are a matter of morale superiority and to which, in their minds, no person of moral substance could ever find disagreeable.
By very definition, conservatives are conservative. When they disagree with someone, they continue to treat them respectfully and move on with their lives, comfortable in the reality that there exists people around them with very different beliefs than their own. The left, on the other hand, do no such thing and yet look in the mirror and convince themselves that they're the better people in all this.
Trump less won this election than the democrats did lose it by arrogantly putting up a candidate with strong ties to the current unpopular administration and whose other policies and attributes did not appeal to the swing voter.
And I'm factually correct when I say that Trump’s rhetoric is dangerous. He has motivated even a reasonable person like you to defend him vehemently. He made you part of his group, and by the looks of it you’re already starting to hate those who are not in it.
I do commonly see “fascist” used to describe things in similar ways where the person seems to be expressing a general disdain for something. They do successfully convey some meaning but it’s very non-specific. Just food for thought for readers who want their opinions heard more than they want to hem and haw over the specific meanings of words.
1. Rhetoric of an "enemy within". Trump has already made it clear that he intends to use the US military to "clean out" our country.
2. Supreme consolidation of power. Trump plans to re-enact Schedule F. Tens of thousands of federal workers will be fired, and their replacements will be required to vocalize their devotion to Trump. The bureau meritocracy system, which has been in place since the 1800s, will be removed completely. In its place, a system of political loyalty.
3. Supreme avoidance of the law. Trump is completely immune to any criminal prosecution while president, and he has made it clear he plans to use this newfound power "very aggressively".
4. Desecration of education. Within the first 100 days, the department of education will be dissolved. States will pivot to ahistorical pro-conservative education, if they provide any public education at all.
The counter-argument is that a culture of violent police suppression is just modern America, and it’s not fair to tar one particular party with that particular brush.
This has happened at Harris rallies as well.
It's a fact that Trump shared and promoted these. It's a fact that they are conspiracy theories.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/24/trump-fascis...
Am I crazy to think that?
The voters made their choice clear, and those of us most impacted by GOP authoritarian policies now get to spend the next four years (at least) trying to make sure we survive attacks against us while also maybe still salvaging this grand democratic experiment.
So no, you can take that “find common ground” and shove it. We adhered to decorum for decades, even as the GOP marched ever further right and ignored, plowed through, or destroyed any and every uncrossable line or improper decorum in their path. You don’t get to try and apologize on behalf of an electorate that willfully has chosen violence, nor should we (those affected by said violence) have to tolerate their excuses.
Who's in charge now are not republicans. Now it's just far right believing in genius and ability of their cartoonish leader.
They claim "harm reduction" but that's not how just not voting works, 95% is still a super majority and anything you "win" is just tokenism at the end of the day.
Nobody is calling anyone stupid just because of the lack of education.
However the lack of education makes people gullible and easy to manipulate. From bleach as a Covid remedy to marginal tax as a grave danger to working people - you don't have to go far for examples. And when someone does believe this sort of blatant bullshit, then, yeah, they don't come across as particularly bright individuals.
> However the lack of education makes people gullible and easy to manipulate. From bleach as a Covid remedy...
You may not realize you said it, but you said it.
If not that, then what were you trying to say?
These are morons you read about in your news bubble. The average American is not like them.
- Trump floated bleach as a covid remedy
- Bleach as a covid remedy is obviously stupid (we should both be agreeing on this one)
- Trump supporters support such statements from trump
- But pointing that out is "calling them stupid" and thus we shouldn't do it?
I'm genuinely curious about this because it makes up so many discussions with trump supporters in a nut shell. I don't want to condescend to them, but I also shouldn't be pointing out things that genuinely are stupid about trump, because doing so would offend them too? What should I do, just pretend all the dumb things Trump does (and that his supporters support him for) don't exist? Just so I can find common ground? (I mean, strictly speaking this is exactly what I do in polite company with trump supporters. I just pretend all the really dumb shit doesn't exist and just talk to them about policy and stuff, and in the end I end up finding that we agree on 90% of stuff and we go on our way. And they continue to support trump for reasons I don't understand.)
> Trump supporters support such statements from trump
Did you ever meet a Trump supporter who used bleach? Did you ever meet a Trump supporter who thinks bleach for covid is a good idea?
If you're being honest with yourself, can you even imagine a middle-aged man drinking bleach to get rid of covid?
almost everyone I know voted for Trump, I know a lot of people, none of them ever drank bleach (as I'm writing this, I remembered I know someone who drank bleach as a little kid and had to go to the hospital, my point stands though)
This premise isn't even true. Trump did NOT float this idea.
This is something Democrats believe though. Which says a lot more about Democrats than it does about Trump supporters.
As someone replied to you: No Trump supporters actually believe in bleach as a remedy, but tons of Democrats do. What does that tell you about their respective intelligence or education?
I can find you dozens of examples right now, in the press, from today. That the entire election is the fault of uneducated people.
He didn't.
Seems to me you need to look in a mirror.
Objectively, they are stupid, even the ones who went to college.
I don't see any policy there, just platitudes.
Trump's plan for grocery prices is to put massive tariffs on grocery imports and to deport millions of workers. There is no one with a functioning logic cortex who doesn't see the problem with this plan. But at least they can rest comfortably knowing that the Musks, Sacks and Bezos' of the world will get a killer tax break for their next yacht.
American elections are the guy in the big suburban house complaining that filling up his F350 costs a little more than it did during COVID shutdowns and thinking that somehow the guy floating insane plans is going to fix it. It's bizarre.
In the interest of full disclosure I am totally guessing that neither did anything to materially improve the lives and fortunes of working-class Americans and neither Donald Trump will, nor would Kamala Harris. Working people in the US, as in the rest of the world seem to me to be shafted for good, by all sorts of economic forces that they have no control over. I'm speaking in this as a current academic but one-time unskilled, immigrant worker.
It used to be that you could feed yourself and your family with "the sweat of your brow". Not any more. Who is working to change that?
Uneducated working class folks compete with illegal immigrants for jobs and cheap housing. During his presidency illegal immigration was lower and wages rose for the working class and housing costs were relatively stable. He’s also positioned himself as the “law and order” candidate, and crime tends to impact the working class much more than the middle/upper classes.
Mostly folks who voted for him voted on the premise that their experience of the economy was better when he was president rather than on the basis of individual policies.
Is that true? Legal immigration was lower especially during the lockdown (for obvious reasons). But the number of deportations of illegal immigrants barely changed, e.g. https://www.cato.org/blog/president-trump-reduced-legal-immi...
> wages rose for the working class
That happened. And it happened even faster under Biden.
> He’s also positioned himself as the “law and order” candidate
And yet the murder rate rose to the highest level since 1997.
> their experience of the economy was better when he was president
I feel like it might be more accurate to say "perception" than "experience".
I do not trust political sciences or humanities at all. There is little to no valid method to most things they publish. And I'm not alone in that opinion in my circle.
But it’s not like that is why someone votes for Trump, right? It’s maybe more of a way to disincentivize conversions back.
I… really wish there had been a primary though. Biden deserves to be hated for the rest of his life for this (along with all of his other decision making)
Having said that, it's hard as an outsider to look at the things Trump is campaigning on and not see that as not just calling "non-educated" people stupid, but he is literally relying upon it. Either his voters are extremely ill-educated, or they simply don't believe a word he says and actually make his lying a feature of his candidacy. Either aren't great.
When just about every economist says that the US economy -- quite literally the best economy on the planet -- is going to implode under the policies Trump has stated (even just the tariff proposal, not even getting into the crackpot "abolish the IRS and write on a piece of paper that crypto wipes out the debt", or Elon magically cutting 2/3rds of the federal budget, etc.), for people to then vote for Trump to "fix" the economy is not educated. Being isolationist in one of the greatest eras of peace in human history will not bring peace to Earth, it's literally guaranteed to bring war that will end up on your doorstep, etc. Nuclear non-proliferation dies with this election, and there are a lot of powers that existed under the US umbrella that are going to fire up a nuclear program, covertly or not.
I fear that many Americans just have no idea how much they have to lose. There is a sense of comfort and complacency to assume that this is the baseline. But it isn't. It can get much, much worse, very quickly.
How does the hatred for the Democrats get so big?
Trump is just Trump. A rhetorically violent, deeply unpleasant convicted rapist, but not the vanguard of an explicitly misognist movement. At least not one thats culturally hegemonic. So while American progressives may label Trump voters sexist or racist, the overwhelming majority of them don't see themselves that way. Meanwhile, a highly vocal minority of progressives do actively demean men, while people, straight people etc, and have for a decade. They've enacted DEI practices, and scholarship and funding practices that exclude men from fair participation in the workforce, education and the arts. As efforts to correct historic imbalances in that participation. At the same time, they've ignored how male participation in higher education has dropped off, the epidemics of alienation and underemployment affecting men.
Edit: Just to clarify I'm addressing the question - not advocating Trump, or suggesting that life for men or white people or straight people is in fact materially worse. Just pointing out people strongly dislike being disliked, actively biased against and demeaned and this does in fact affect their voting preferences.
You may think you mean, or maybe you did not, the accurate description: adjudicated rapist. And that difference right there, between adjudicated and convicted, and all of the other ambient hoaxes, is in big part what the referendum yesterday was about.
Ask yourself how long it was between late 2017 and when you found out the "fine people" hoax was actually a hoax. Or if just now, whether you knew that even Snopes confirmed the hoax that Kamala wantonly repeated (as if it were true) in the debate is indeed a hoax.
Most normal people don't see the difference between adjudicated rapist and convicted rapist as an innocent mistake but as something that those who push such hoaxes -- rather than innocently parrot them out of ignorance -- should be put behind bars for in response to the damage they do this great union of states.
He is everything people claim and nothing at all. He says so much bullshit constantly that you have to just ignoring or discounting shit he says. So he reflects what you believe.
America started when it rebelled against being ruled. I'd say that's not entirely off the table. First it has to become clear that we're getting ruled, not represented.
> but at the same time Trump says much worse things about women than Harris about men
One would think so, but Trump's talk about women is just how society in general talks about women. As sad as it is, women are used to that rhetoric.
> How does the hatred for the Democrats get so big?
Multiple high profile members of the Democratic Party actively demonize rural Americans and especially men.
What about the rest of the world who've also been experiencing the same?
It's a very shortsighted take, and we've seen the same in the UK where Liz Truss 6 weeks as PM has taken the blame for global inflation in the court of popular opinion
This is why we call Trump's voters "stupid", the US is still under Trump's tax plan until 1/2025. So if someone has an issue with taxes, it's not Biden's fault even though he is in office.
I know this and I'm not even American
I doubt it. Think about how connected the world is, you can't even apply for jobs without the internet.
Both jobs are equally important. The main difference is that you can get started doing construction without many pre-qualifications, while a construction worker may take a year or more to get the basics of computer engineering down.
Worse: many different and mutually incompatible fantasy futures, which they denied ahead of the referendum, and which after the referendum became a source of infighting that made all possible Brexits impossible to get past Westminster until Johnson came along and lied to everyone to get enough support to actually close a deal.
(The only time I can think of when digging a deeper hole got anywhere, even if the where was a… I guess in this metaphor: a disused basement where the stairs were missing?)
Judging by this thread, it's still not possible to have a discussion on this...
Which is also why Republicans calling Democrats childish names such as "Dummy-crat" or saying "socialist" (or "commie") for all things to the left of their Overton Window doesn't convince any to their left to change their minds rightward.
I'm not ignoring that Starmer got elected by keeping his mouth shut and his hands behind his back, but the Tories' smash-mouth politics did not win the day anyway. What I can see from where I am is that Brexit was a very special case and it's all gone back to normal now.
What happens is that Conservatives voters voted for someone else, mostly Reform UK. And the reasons have been the same as what's been festering since Brexit with the added factor that the Conservatives increased immigration to record level...
I was under the impression that the Dems were doing more for the working class, and that Trump was alienating women.
Costed policies that are feasible and attainable in one-term? Boring
Promises of fantastic wealth and glory? Much more appealing
Same thing the Brexit campaign failed on.
Any chance you know where to find some more?
It's a handout to anyone buying those services and a loss to anyone selling them (trade workers).
Companies can't "just hire" illegal immigrants in most states - the majority of the ones Trump won.
At the end of the day, "it's the economy, stupid".
Project 2025 also helped, since Democrats answered it with shock and horror instead of countering with their own improved version. Say what you will about the depravity contained within those pages, but Trump voters hold it up as "at least it's a plan" without having read it, much like their other beloved book, The Bible. Knowing that, it was quite easy for the Trump campaign to whip up support.
As much as I want to end with some pithy comment like "manipulation is a hell of drug," I can't. Half the country just got permission to put their ugly truths on display and they certainly did not disappoint. I have trouble laughing about that anymore.
Isn't it the Democrats who sling words like nazi, fascist, racist, deplorable, trash?
Trump is the incarnation of a thin-skinned bully, he allows himself the worst but will cry as loud as possible on the first sign of a backslash.
If people who voted for him are not stupid, they certainly act like it.
> If people who voted for him are not stupid, they certainly act like it.
This attitude of "you must be stupid if you don't see things my way" I expect on Reddit, but am disappointed to see it here.
Being stupid is not a prerequisite to being apathetic.
COVID stimulus and an economic slowdown from 2020 caused four years of inflation in the entire world, and people see the price of milk going up and punish the incumbent (not even the person who was in charge in 2020.
At which point, it doesn't matter how you campaign, or if the opposing candidate is actual Satan, nobody's going to vote for the incumbent.
It also doesn't help that the press normalized actual insanity that would not have been tolerated from anyone else, and collectively pretended that it's normal and reasonable behavior.
As a species we took on some climate debt to improve our standard of living, and we’ve been talking bigger loans every year. Those loans are coming due in the form of larger and more frequent weather-based disasters as well as health problems for millions. If we start paying off the loan more aggressively now, we can help prevent harsher payment plans for the next 50 years.
You don’t pay off a house all at once, but you’ll thank your future self for paying it off earlier rather than later.
> I don't see why current generations' lives should be tougher just to help out future generations.
Most people want a good life not only for them but also for their children, and their children's children. I don't have children, but I still want a good life for future generations. Is that not simple basic human decency?
Note that the longer we wait, the more difficult we make it ourselves to change things, and the more tough even our own lives are going to be, even ignoring future generations.
> There needs to be a healthy balance.
Yes. The status quo is not a healthy balance (or arguably any kind of balance).
Missouri and Florida were won by Trump and both passed constitutional amendments to guarantee abortion access.
> think vaccines cause autism
I don't think this is a partisan issue. I've spoken to plenty of liberals who believe similar things. Basically the "crunchy mom" stereotype.
Oh god, you're one of them, aren't you?
It's not like there's literally decades of evidence showing climate change to be objective truth...
Sigh.
Great job.
We know, with absolute certainty for an undeniable fact, that Exxon's own climate scientists skillfully and accurately predicted climate change as a result of increasing fossil fuel use [1].
And we know that Exxon's response to that was to systematically sow doubt for decades, using tobacco-lobby style FUD tactics.
And yet you want us to err on the side of apocalypse. "What if we create a better world, and it was all for nothing".
You've been conned. I know how difficult it is to show someone they've been made a fool of, and I won't try. In fact, I agree with you that in many cases science ought to be questioned - lobotomies, mockery of germ theory, racism presented as science based, Daszak's infamous Lancet paper, etc.
On climate change though, there's very little to respect on the side of deniers. I would argue that, at this point, denying anthropogenic climate change amounts to treason against life.
0 - https://phys.org/news/2021-10-humans-climate.html
1 - https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-a...
How is that avoidable?
200,000 BC, were we still humans? 2 mya? 20?
Or for individuals, why care about a fertilised egg rather than (as per Monty Python) "every sperm is scared"?
No matter what we pick, it's arbitrary.
Also, why is bacteria life on mars but a clump of cells is not life on earth? ;p
There's no winning this. That's why it's actually smart to let the states decide this - that way Trump has no say in it.
That is conflating life (the ability is eat, shit, reproduce, and the potential to late become sentient) with actual sentient life, which is not correct.
Also, no one is planning to ban antibiotics because bacteria is considered life so we can't do anything to save the host by killing it.
Because the bacteria on Mars would plausibly exist on it's own. On a different planet.
“Can the fetus survive without the host body?”
That’s a medical question that will slowly move toward not aborting ever. And it solves the medical issues as well. “This fetus is killing the host” always allows for removal, because we can either keep them alive, or it can’t survive.
Then the folks who want more babies to reach term can focus on improving medical technology instead of getting involved with the mess that is people’s love lives.
pretty much the democratic party has to introspect and stop blaming voters for their failed campaign.
> The Democratic Party.. lied to the American people about the cognitive health and fitness of the president. It prevented, threatened, litigated and otherwise eliminated the ability of other [Democratic] candidates for the primary to compete, to get on ballots, and to even participate in a debate.
A large percentage of Americans aren't interested in what the Democratic Party is selling. The party can either stick to their policies and live with these kinds of showing, or take some time to really think about what the American voter is looking for.
America isn't an idea any more than England is an idea. We're a specific group of people with a specific heritage.
What does it say about Trump that so many of his lawyers and advisors ended up in jail and that so few former cabinet members endorsed him? What does it say about his supporters who cared not that he raped children with his pal Epstein?
Remember when Cruz and Lindsey Graham spoke honestly about Trump just before November 2016? Recall what they said then to what they say now. It’s a cult.
Maybe you're too young to remember Bill Clinton?
He was accused of sexual harassment by a number of women (including a rape). His relationship with Lewinsky (22 years old), is highly exploitive in terms of the power he held over her career. While he might have supported women's right politically, he was certainly exploitive in his personal life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_sexual_assault_an...
There were also a number of "questionable business dealings" in his past. Arkansas land deals, Whitewater, almost impeached by Congress for lying.
But I'm sure you'll say "oh, those were just trumped up charges by the Republicans". Ok, then don't blame Trump voters when they think "oh, those were just trumped up charges by the Democrats".
So while people got worked up, he got re-elected handily.
It's funny to me when people entirely overlooked Clinton's life because they liked him as a President and they liked his policies.
You'd think the Democrats would know this.
It would benefit humanity if people were taught to be consistent in their views. If they understood that extremism is when the cause is more important than the truth.
You’d be wrong. I don’t have your apparent level of inconsistency.
Maybe I'm a bit too optimistic, but rather than "people want Trump" I read all this debacle as "people want something different from the Democrats".
Democrats still play by the rules for some reason and don't call out the shit done by the other party with simple enough terms.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/01/politics/donald-trump-liz-che...
Next time, run a 6’2” white guy with good hair.
shrugs
Obviously, I don't think 50% of the population is stupid, but every time I try to "understand" it's becoming increasingly clear it's about his "charisma" and "our team" and less about hard policies.
People out here voting against their own interests or blaming things on ignorance (inflation, etc.).
That would be the charitable interpretation, the alternate is that they are knowingly misogynistic, deeply racist and have strong fascist leanings to follow a flawed corrupt politician with cult-like devotion.
Shitting on your voter base is no way to win sympathy.
If you talk to the median voter their thinking will be like "something happened three years ago I was mad about" or "my husband wants us to vote this way because he saw it on TV" or "the Democrats want to legalize incest" or "I like voting for whoever I think is going to win" (and yes these are all real.) They especially do not have coherent opinions on economic policy.
Mainly the problem is the US doesn't have a coherent media ecosystem anymore and Republicans were better aligned with newer media, ie Facebook posts and bro-y podcasts like Rogan. So TV ads and "ground game" don't work.
Part of the reason why political media has seen such a decline in quality is because of that fundamental lack of understanding by the people. Neutral nuanced analysis doesn’t resonate because that’s some combination of too incomprehensible and not entertaining enough, which has led to the media landscape we have now where it’s turned to the televised version of junk food: hyper-processed with lots of salt and sugar and practically zero nutritional value.
That said, to some degree I don’t place fault on the people for this. A lot of it comes down to inadequacies in the education system when it comes to civics, wherein young people are not well equipped to become highly functional, fully conscious voting adults.
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Economic vibes with simplistic immediate effects if truly were a major factor then 2020 Biden would have won with bigger margins than Reagan did .
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Countries with far poorer literacy and school attendance rates and patchy education systems vote quite well informed.
In India for example every candidate (party or independent) must have a simple symbol because many voters cannot read, yet nobody is saying Modi wins because of lack of awareness or good understanding of his Hindu nationalist agenda or extreme right wing policies.
It is the third election for both, voters have had a decade to see the effect of the policies have had first hand no matter what they have been told
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Body electorates aren’t as dumb as we like to explain away.
Education, economics, even disinformation (foreign and local) all play marginal role, but can’t explain the core
At some point we have to accept that this is a deeply racist(who come in all colors) misogynist society with facist Christo white nationalism deeply ingrained.
There are aspects where we can compromise, or empathize and learn to live together on such as economy or immigration, basic human decency and healthcare are not it.
Also bit rich that we have to listen to their grievances, they haven't afforded anyone that courtesy, or respected the process of democracy.
If the results were other way round, we would be hearing conspiracy theories about election interference non stop. You can only compromise with people acting in good faith, it is clear that majority of Americans don't want to do that.
Misogynistic was my first qualifier, it is not an coincidence that Trump has won only against women twice, and it is not an oversight that in 250 years America is nowhere close to electing a woman president.
misogyny is hardly the only factor but if there was woman on the top of the ticket than it absolutely seem to be number one factor .
You have to keep in mind it just wasn’t symbolic like in 2016. There are real tangible immediate threats to reproductive healthcare that this election also represented.
You're going to need to show your working here. How'd you get to this conclusion?
Echo chambers like HN or typical workplace of typical HN user give skewed image how much rational folks out there generally are. Most people that I ever met are trivially susceptible to smart manipulation via emotions, even to the point of shooting their own foot.
However we don’t get to use manipulation foreign, partisan or otherwise as crutch or excuse, post 2016 was full of that: oh there was Russian influence, he didn’t get popular vote or we didn’t know what MAGA stood for, as am sure there will be blame now on Biden not stepping down, Harris not having a primary, Gaza and inflation and dozen other things, and the platform would shift even more to right chasing the non existent center, instead of resetting to the left. The right has figured it out there is no centre and it is pointless to try to aim for it.
Bottom line is this is who Americans are , maybe the country can change and be better maybe not , but denying reality of is not the place to start.
I can't see how anyone else in her position would have done much better. I don't blame Harris much.
There was a massive international financial crisis that outed the Labour government and brought in a Tory/Lib Dem coalition government based on promises of government austerity.
There was an independence referendum in Scotland where the main campaign point for staying with England was to ensure they stayed in the EU etc.
Then the Tories managed to pin the blame for the failings of the coalition on the minor partner and drew a line under that for the next election.
Then there's brexit, which was really a vote to put an end to bickering inside the Tory party. But the population, narrowly voted to leave the EU! This was very much a protest vote.
Then there's a utter crazy story of quick rotation of prime ministers and scandal and sleeze and very very poorly-received budgets and things.
So then this year Labour are back, and their main strategy was 'at least we're not the Tories'. They are not popular, but they are not the incumbents.
And then there's Nigel.
... yeah, fuck it.
in reality this was maybe priority #10
the main campaign point was currency
What is that? Supply chains have improved. The labor force has expanded, partly due to increased immigration, and that's helped to take some of the edge off of the supply-and-demand imbalances that we had when inflation was very high two years ago." https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/examining-how-economic-pla...
Immigration: "After hitting a record high in December 2023, the numbers of migrants crossing the border has plummeted since then. Harris and the administration have credited their tough anti-asylum measures for stemming the flow, although increased enforcement on the Mexican side has also played a key role." https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/elections/2024/where-trum...
Abortion rights: "At one of her first campaign events, she stated that if Congress “passes a law to restore reproductive freedom, as president of the United States I will sign it into law.”" https://www.aclu.org/news/reproductive-freedom/how-kamala-ha...
If you don't like what her positions are that's your prerogative but it's just not true that she did not have answers to these questions.
I liked this podcast from Zachary Elwood:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5DYBm6we1WcTtktFpqHj7K?si=A...
They reelected the DA that's prosecuting Trump on one of the populous counties, on the same election where the state swung further towards Trump.
But they can feed themselves.
And yet they hold democratic counties hostage. Somewhat like parasites.
Outside of the urban areas even "blue" states are red, or "purple."
The reality is that America voted for this guy. It's not nearly as regionally divided as liberals in America want to think.
For me, it means not going there anymore. I just won't cross the border for any reason.
Canada is next. There’s no escape from this kind of madness.
Give them the show they want, promise them something and they happily make you their king.
They don't ask you to fulfill the promises. They just want to hear them.
That's it.
The economy might be what swung this vote, but long-term it's hard to understate how much ground the D's have lost among religious voters for "embracing sexual immorality". Believe it or not, bringing up hypocrisy does work on many of them (at least it might make them stay home) and mere apologies won't erase it. Latinos are where this jumps out in statistics, but it's far from limited to them.
Possibly the reason D's didn't do that (much) was because it would have little down-ballot effect, and no effect on future candidates?
(on another angle, we could've seen "we have reined in Trump's inflation so at least it won't get worse", "Trump gave unconditional handouts without the Democrat-recommended constraints", etc.)
I envision actual politicians and journalists calling trump what he is more rather then less.
Trump is currently leading by over 5,000,000 votes and there does not appear to be momentum to change that lead in the remaining precincts.
I’m not saying Trump will fix any of this. I’m just saying people feel like PC culture has gone over the top while a 20oz Coke has tripled in price. Harris campaigned on “we’re not going back” but a lot of people would trade Trump’s insanity for housing prices of yore.
But of course that’s far too much nuance for the average voter anywhere.
Political memories are very short. Trump can get excused for the botched Covid response because it’s ancient history, but Biden can’t get excused for global inflation which followed from the same disaster.
This comes across as very out of touch. By "navigated it" you mean brought inflation under control. But it's not like prices came down.
The $1,500 per month grocery bill that was $1,000 in 2019 is still $1,500.
People don't look at the CPI and think "phew, glad the Fed was able to get inflation back to target" they think "I remember when I used to have $1,000 left over each month".
And they remember that every single month.
Also how many people blame it on Biden while giving Trump credit for Obama's work.
The lack of basic macroeconomic education is truly becoming an ever more problem in free societies.
Living in capitalism while not really understanding basic tennents makes one ripe for manipulation and that way endangers freedoms we all cherish.
It's nonfalsifiable. People will settle on the simplest observation:
it happened under Biden
In addition, people tend to associate outcomes with the administration in power even if it’s due to a prior administration. Inflation appeared under Biden, not Trump. Inflation decreasing also does not mean prices decreasing.
Whether democrats finally learn that lesson is another thing. I am not optimistic on that.
The Democratic campaign did no such thing. Can you point to any examples? As far as I can see they went to great lengths to avoid saying anything like that.
As far as I can tell there was far more venom from the Republicans. Maybe the lesson is that a winning strategy is to be more insulting.
But calling Puerto Rico a pile of trash is okay?
Trump himself said Harris should be shot with 9 guns.
Somehow they still get elected.
They don't (in general). Some of them over-apply those words. Some of them apply them to an over-broad category ("conservatives" or whatever). Some of them apply some of those words to some Trump supporters, which is not even the same thing as Trump voters, Republicans, or conservatives. And of that sub-sub-subset, sometimes the harsh words are even understandable, considering the hideous, immoral things they are being applied in response to.
Meanwhile, Trump supporters are much harsher with their words, and use much broader strokes when applying them.
I.e. it's the opposite. One of the defining characteristic (as opposed to simply a tendency) of the speaking style of Trump supporters is mockery and provocation and insulting and name-calling and threatening. They don't all do it, but it's an undeniable part of their ideology.
The U.S. is far more right wing than people thought. That Trump got a majority of the vote is a huge win for him. No one can claim his win is because of a backward electoral system and not because he is popular. This is huge. Democrats will be dead for 2 years minimum. Trump will be able to enact whatever legislation he wants to.
He is the President we deserve. The DNC needs to be abolished. Democrats had the opportunity to reform the system. It’s been over 100 years since the number of Representatives has been updated. They could have imposed election reform. They could have gotten rid of archaic Senate rules like filibuster.
When? How? Any change like that in the last few decades would be very hard, and probably before that as well.
I don't disagree with you, I've argued "fixing the system should be #1 priority" for years, but even if the Democratic party wanted to, I don't see how they could have done so.
As much as I'd like to think the waning days of the 2022 Congress were wasted, I don't think this would have been feasible.
Manchin and Sinema refused to get rid of the filibuster. And with that in place, nothing else that you mention was possible.
> The U.S. is far more right wing than people thought.
Yup. In 2016 we thought Trump was an aberration, a temporary cultish fad. In 2020 we felt justified because he lost, but we ignored how barely he lost. And now, knowing everything about Trump there is to know, we've elected him again, and we can't even say he lost the popular vote this time. The GOP took the Senate, and may even keep hold of the House for at least the next two years. Thomas and Alito will likely retire from SCOTUS, and Trump will appoint young, carefully-chosen, extreme right-wing justices. The makeup of the court will be hard-right-majority for the rest of my life. I'm sure he'll also appoint more hard-right judges to the federal judiciary in record numbers.
This is who we are, and it's time we start accepting that. Dem leadership needs to internalize that and drastically change their strategy. I'm not sure
It is not even that since what they basically propose is to dial down the war in Eastern Europe but get more involved in the war in Middle East and possibly soon in East Asia. That stance always seemed very confusing to me as a non-US person.
More like stop trying so hard to bring us closer to a WWIII. The USA's current foreign policy is the main cause of all the turmoil we're seeing in eastern Europe and the Middle East. Anything that can change it should be welcomed by anyone with a desire to live.
It wasn't the case last time with Melania. And it won't be the case this time with Musk.
All they had to do was actually do anything about the tens of millions of immigrants coming over the board, but they ignored it and Trump used it against them.
The Democrat party is ran by a bunch of idiots. Hopefully this is a wake up call for them to get with the real world on issues.
Calling someone Hitler when they clearly aren't is also not going to help people support you especially AFTER he was president before and they experienced a presidency under him lol.
Some people are better than other people at convincing other people to do things in a certain way. Might have a little to do with genetics, probably more to do with education and size of platform, which is mostly a function of whose legs you popped out of and a little bit of whatever magic sauce makes you, you.
Most people that are good at convincing other people to do things a certain way are doing so in a way to personally enrich themselves. Sometimes they have a little more empathy, or perhaps intelligence, and know the personal enrichment can't be too flagrant, but regardless they all share that goal.
Unless one becomes too much of an outcast from the other good-convincers (think e.g. Lenin, Mao, CKS, Washington and his friends) and they convince everyone to go kill the followers of the other good-convincers until an equilibrium can be reached where either only one good-convincer is being enriched or at least both are to an acceptable degree.
This dynamic will play out eternally. Part of the mechanism of good-convincerness being sustainable is that you never disturb that equilibrium too much, so in this case to ground it, hence why the democrats tried to pivot right to fight accusations of being leftists (an ideology very much opposed to this idea of the best convincers being extremely personally enriched). In the end, they didn't really lose. Kamala will continue to likely have a powerful political career, and if not she can at least write some books and die phenomally wealthy like Hillary will. Democrats can switch from having much federal power to being an opposition party. Nothing actually changes, the message simply switches from "give us votes and money to enshrine whatever it is you care about" to "give us votes and money to fight fascism rah rah." Both messages are of course a lie, the real message is "give us votes and money in a way that allows us to continue to collect votes and money."
The message is that in the global zeitgeist, the natural human tendency among everyone, good convincer and not, for liberation, personal agency, and fulfilment, is obviously not being met when no matter where they turn there's someone telling them that if they want these things they have to all support a given good convincer. In the early Soviet Union, communist leaders too advantage of the opposite zeitgeist to achieve the same thing. Right now, the reactionaries have acquired a greater share of the zeitgeist, maybe because their messaging coincides well with several refugee crises and the inevitable climate refugee crisis.
In my personal opinion these tendencies can't be rewarded in this form of top down hierarchy where it's good-convincers pitting their supporters against each other. Imo we can overcome the nurture and saecular aspects of what makes someone a good convincer (education, self determination, material conditions provided for) to make everyone more level in their ability to convince others to do things. Early societies had this more "flat" organization, where the best convincers lived basically on raw rhetorical ability (look up some old Cherokee transcriptions for their interactions with missionaries, they were genuinely hilarious and viciously good at humiliating rhetorical opponents), and even that could only go so far.
During the Spanish civil war I believe the anarchists did a phenomenal job educating and "leveling the playing field" among an astounding number of people - off memory as I'm on my phone, something like 70% of their economy had been syndicalized. Somehow they convinced a shitload of the population to think deeply about their engagement in society and politics and become active, daily, if not hourly, participants in that process.
This fascinates me and I want to try this again. It of course involves sucking it up and talking to Trump supporters which I find very difficult because they say some very silly things, but regardless, if an alternative power structure isn't injected into the mix, the game of good-convincers playing hackey sack with the zeitgeist to maintain power will never end.
That’s a good attitude, because nothing is truly solved with a Trump presidency. His victory was always just an expression of the undercurrent. The electorate has just voiced it, for a second time, but that’s all.
What was the opposite zeitgeist?
8 years later, after all of this political baggage, prosecution, and media repudiation the Democrats managed to lose in resounding manner – not just the electoral college, but the senate, house, and popular vote.
This is after what is arguably a great Biden presidency, economy-wise. The Democrats have centered their entire identity for the last 8 years about being anti-Trump. There are no bright spots in the results for them, no messaging that they can hang their hat on, and build on going forward. From a base building perspective, this is brutal. The next election is square one for them.
No one is forcing anyone to turn any sons into daughters, are they? What you're really saying is that you don't want anyone to be allowed to change their gender. That's a quite prohibitive stance for a country that puts so much emphasis on freedom.
What's this "male perverts sharing locker room" stuff about? Who's campaigning for letting random adults into kids locker rooms?
Who's being forced to take an injection?