What scares me shitless is the idea that Trump is what the US is and what the US has earned. Who’s ready for that conversation?
100% this. Im German and I feel so strange that americans are choosing this guy for president. Not to be offensive, but damn.
As an American I feel that a majority of Americans loathe him. The issue lies in not all those people vote.
What scares me is that any Americans vote for him. How can you be so blinded and not see what a lying, cheating grifter that he is. The man is not intelligent, doesn’t read, is petty to a fault, vindictive, spiteful, narcissistic, nepotistic and just generally not a good person. Why would you choose that for a leader? It’s because you share those traits. That’s what scares me.
The issue lies in not all those people vote.
Partly. There’s also the issue with the electoral college, because that makes some votes worth more than others (depending on where you live).
Well the fact someone in Wyoming voting is worth 3.5 times someone voting in California is a huge problem I agree.
Because California is a beacon of sanity?
No, not at all. One person’s vote should not be worth more than another’s.
That’s a huuuuuuuge issue.
I don’t know that they all share those traits per se, but just as damning not only to them but to our culture as well is our tolerance and even expectations that people in charge have those traits. I saw it everywhere when I lived in a deeply conservative small city, anyone with power (including company management) was beyond reproach. The status quo was defended harshly by the overwhelming majority. We have lost our values to greed by using the american dream as a trojan horse full of awful ideals.
We can’t underestimate the hate for others that is behind these votes. It started as “owning the libs” and now is pretty much evolved to “eliminate the woke trans democrats”. That’s the part that’s scaring me these days. There is no platform for running the country, it’s all just piss off or erase the other side, figuratively and literally.
No no you don’t understand, I mean, sure the media makes him seem like he has those traits, but he’s really a great guy! I mean I guess it’s been proven he has those traits but who doesn’t right? Isn’t everyone deep down homophobic and racist and misogynist themselves?
And really if you think about it, God can use anything he wants right? So why would he pick the Catholic guy out there trying to invest in America? He definitely wants the guy who most looks like my own deep down beliefs. So no matter what you say, your argument is invalid because God is on my side.
…/s in case that was needed.
Ok this made me chuckle.
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The crazy part is they think Biden makes the US look bad. When you present evidence to the contrary they say, "who cares what other countries think. "
My aunt thinks Jill Biden is controlling the country from the shadows and wants to run in place of Joe in 2024. We are fucked
I’d vote for Doc Biden, ngl
Yeah, I’d much rather vote for Jill than Joe.
Different strokes for different folks but I do dig her
I remember people saying most similar things of Hillary Clinton during Bill’s administration.
I think it’s time to have your aunt committed
What does she think about Nancy running things for Ronnie once the Alzheimers got too bad?
That’s what I told my mother when she told me, but I doubt it’s gotten back to the source
We are fucked
more so because our only choice is between racist ultra-authoritarian con man and an opportunistic career politician that had always sided with racists and homophobes until it was politically popular.
In fairness to your aunt, I have voted for Joe 3 times (2008, 2020, 2020), and even I think Joe is pretty close to weekend at Bernie’s. He really needs to step aside for Newsom.
I wanna know if we’re going to weekend at Bernie’s someone, why not Bernie? Why has he not been on the ballot yet?
Well that’s just a stupid conspiracy theory. Well I guess they all are but this one seems particularly daft.
That was my first reaction, I didn’t even know how to respond to it because it’s patently absurd on its face. Really hoping it’s not some sort of viral right wing bullshit code that hasn’t cycled out into the mainstream yet
Fellow German and… yeah. People joke about the Hitler comparisons, but you won’t see us laughing. (I mean, in general, but that’s a different topic.)
Insert the Robin Williams joke here.
You should be offensive, we deserve it.
We picked an absolute trash human as our leader, a sizeable portion of which chose him specifically because they wanted him to hurt people (see: “he’s not hurting the right people” woman.) That same group will often cite their desired outcome for any given thing is “to see liberals cry/get mad.”
Hillary Clinton made a mistake by saying it out loud, but she was 100% correct when she said a large portion of Trump supporters are “a basket of deplorables.” They absolutely are and are deserving of scorn.
I just hate how well propaganda works and how much money a random grifting asshole can make by parroting bullshit on YouTube, they boost each other and perpetuate this garbage era we’re going through…
Please remember he never won the popular vote.
That too is scary. The guy didn’t win and still ran the country. WTF
The American political system is literally incomprehensible.
Everyone votes and then you find out who the winner is. And then, at some later point you find out who the president will be, and it’s not necessarily the same person for some reason.
And yet apparently democracy has happened so that’s all.
the american federal government is easy to understand: everything is weighed in favor of rural conservative racists because when we were first designing the thing they realized that they were in the minority but that we’d lose the revolution without them. President? Racists get more of a say due to the electoral college. Senate? Half a million conservatives in Wyoming get just as many votes as 40 million liberals in California. House? House reps are capped at 435 permanently so as areas become more populous they end up with less representation per person. SCotUS? Even when it’s running normally it’s biased because the biased president and biased Senate pick them, but since Obama now Democrats need the presidency and a majority coalition in the Senate in order to pick justices. That’s every branch of federal government, and recently they tried to make it even worse by making state legislatures (which always lean conservative because they gerrymander to hell and back) the sole authority on what constitutes a “fair” election. Given all the out and out treason that came from state legislatures after Trump got wrecked by Biden, I think we know what conservative state legislatures will do if they get to decide what constitutes “fair”.
Throw in a dash of first past the post, a pinch of gerrymandering, and baby we’ve got a minority government.
republicans haven’t wont the popular vote in several decades and if you’re only now noticing; you need to (re-)evaluate your political leanings and learnings.
I mean… It’s not like I’m American or vote in America or live in America so I guess it’s not a priority to me to evaluate how these factor in my life.
I guess it’s America’s job to do it.
Jokes and you (and everyone else); Americans aren’t going to do that. Lol
They did in 2004.
That’s once since 1992, but in that time there have been 4 republican presidential wins. it’s definitely rigged.
That means sweet fuck all when he still gets the job.
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Yes, but by the same token, you can’t honestly say that America chose him to be president. We did not. Our broken electoral system did.
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Right except that the electoral system was not designed with that in mind. We have the transcripts of the discussion. It was to keep slavery legal. The method the POTUS was picked originally was to prevent the common person from deciding and instead award the most powerful job to whom the most powerful elites thought best could do it. Which wow even being nice to the argument is pretty bad.
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the thing about tyranny of the majority is that it can’t be replaced by tyranny of the minority. it’s absolutely working as our founders intended though: racist, conservative, and biased in favor of the wealthy.
The intent was to keep a populist tyrant like Trump out of office, so it most certainly is not working as intended.
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I’m aware. I don’t approve. Know it won’t change.
^ Evergreen comment about life in America.
Same here. I think this is what happens when education is underfundet. I’m happy we’re back to G9 but we should definitely pay teachers more to counteract the lack of teachers and ensure every teacher has sufficient time to do their job well.
Otherwise people cannot be taught to think critical, question “why is he saying X?” instead of just weather it is true or not. Often understanding why somebody is saying sometimg at the time they do is much more important after all.
This idea that we are under funded is not true. Per Capita we spend more than every other country on education than any other OECD country besides Luxembourg.
We are number two world wide for funds to education per capita.
Our funding is just wasted and ineffective. We have a cultural problem with education. Not a funding problem.
Yes School boards and superintendents are extremely well funded. The fact that teachers have to struggle to scrape by while at the same time funding classroom supplies out of their own money just reeks of mis-allocated misspent funds. There’s always money for another Sports program. While science technology engineering and math extracurriculars in many districts don’t exist.
It’s a perfect mirror of our diseased American culture. Where wealth and wealth alone is Merit. And those who give the least (work) get the most.
That money goes to administrators instead of teachers.
Americans aren’t. A corrupt system is.
There are a lot of germans voting for idiots which just repeat a few Trump topics a few months later. :(
I was visiting Germany in 2016 during the spring, before the election. Several Europeans, after hearing we were from the US, asked, “What the hell is going on in your country?”
Man, we had absolutely no idea what to expect…
Yep. He is who the U.S. has become. We are an embarrassment.
No, Trump is the hail mary of the US ruling class. They are scared that the people just start ignoring the government and take power, so they give them demagogues
They’re called representatives for a reason.
well yeah we have an attempted fascist overthrow of our government about once every 100 years or so because we like to stay just this side of fascism on a normal day
We all should be. But that won’t happen if people go out there and vote, godamnit.
And don’t just vote to keep Trump out.
Vote to keep him and his party out of office.
We don’t get a vote of no confidence. There’s no box to check that says “No Trump”.
Also, Hillary got more votes than Trump did, so simply having more voters on your side doesn’t necessarily mean that Trump will lose.
So … don’t vote? There absolutely is a No Trump voting option - only one - and it’s voting for Biden. There are several Yes Trump voting options: vote for Trump specifically, vote for a third party candidate, or vote for no one. It’s not that complicated.
Do the electoral map and electoral college make this difficult to achieve? Of course. But we can only win if we vote, and are guaranteed to lose if we don’t.
The fascists love voter apathy. Don’t do their job for them.
I never said “Don’t vote”. However, I do think that we should be able to vote “no confidence”, and if “no confidence” wins, they should have to do a while new election with new candidates.
I vote for candidates who offer me something more than “I’m not a fascist”.
There absolutely is a No Trump voting option - only one - and it’s voting for Biden.
Voting for Biden is… voting for Biden. It sounds like you don’t want to improve anything, you just want to avoid it getting worse. Or, at least, have it get worse slower.
Well the fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as a “no confidence” vote. And if you don’t want Trump in office in 2024 the best thing you can do to prevent that is vote Biden. I’m not a huge Biden fan either but that’s how our system is in this country so it is what it is.
That would still be mathematical spoiler, a no confidence vote would work on a ranked choice ballot though.
If you want the world to get better, don’t expect any politicians in any party to get the job done. Don’t vote for what you want, vote for the candidate that will make your job of making the world a better place easier or even possible
If it becomes illegal to feed the poor (e.g. parts of TX and other states I too think), speak against the government, etc how much change will be possible?
Unless you’re one of those accelerationists.
counterpoint: avoiding or slowing the rate at which things get worse is a good thing, and there is no other option outside your imagination
“Not a fascist” is only a sufficient condition in this case because the other guy is a fascist. I agree that in a world which wasn’t fucking insane, both candidates would qualify as “not a fascist” and it would be immaterial.
But under these circumstances - yes. Voting “Not a fascist” is literally an imperative, if imperatives can possibly exist at all in our ethical landscape.
I get that you want another choice but this is the system we have to work within. If you really want it to be different, I recommend getting personally involved in politics.
True, but remember “did not vote” was higher then either Hillary or Trump first time around.
I was apathetic in 2016, I didn’t care enough to vote for her, or know enough to vote against Trump.
I voted against Trump on 2020, and now I’ve seen enough I will vote for Biden in 2024, assuming he is the nominee. Otherwise, it’s another vote against Trump.
My point is, there was a real disconnect back in 2016, and a lot of people just couldn’t be bothered.
Trumps base has only gotten smaller, but the people who know and want to keep him out has grown. I suspect we will see both significant turn out, and significant voter suppression in 2024.
God, I hope so hard that turnout will be good. I just worry that the more time that passes, the more “most” people will become complacent and forget. I’d certainly like to imagine that between Jan 6 and how extremely climate change has affected people the last couple of years, people are finally figuring out that they can’t just twiddle their thumbs and wait for things to blow over. Unfortunately, though, that’s something that will be shown with election results.
What is Biden planning to do about the environment?
Believing that we need to switch courses is a good first step. The other thing is that the policies he managed to get passed are moving geothermal in the right direction. I heard for the first time about ground source heat pumps because of his incentives for their installation.
There’s also funding for public transit, charging infrastructure for EVs, sunsetting incandescents, etc. It’s not perfect but it’s better than some asshole up there saying how the whole thing is a Chinese hoax and chanting drill baby drill.
…didn’t Trump get more votes in 2020 than in 2016? Has his base really gotten smaller?
Smaller as a percentage of the active electorate. Biden also got more votes than any other candidate before him… but that’s not unexpected with a positive population growth.
""In a normal society, a former president—let’s call him Donald Trump—who’s been indicted three times in under four months, on charges ranging from obstruction of justice to conspiracy to defraud the United States, would have absolutely no chance of ever being president again. It straight up would not be a scenario anyone would have to even contemplate; even if this individual were not in prison, the idea that they would be able to run for and win higher office once more would not compute.
But unfortunately, we don’t live in a normal society; instead, we live in a place in which millions of people not only still support Donald Trump, but grow fonder of him with every new criminal charge. Which means that, despite the aforementioned indictments*, the twice-impeached, thrice-indicted ex-president is dominating every other candidate for the Republican nomination, and currently looks to be the most likely GOP nominee in the 2024 general election. That, of course, scares the shit out of a lot of people—including, apparently, one Barack Obama. Whose fear, it has to be said, is extremely unsettling!
The Washington Post reports that during a private lunch with Joe Biden in late June, the 44th president “voiced concern about Donald Trump’s political strengths—including an intensely loyal following, a Trump-friendly conservative media ecosystem, and a polarized country—underlining his worry that Trump could be a more formidable candidate than many Democrats realize.” According to people familiar with the conversation, “Obama made it clear his concerns were not about Biden’s political abilities, but rather a recognition of Trump’s iron grip on the Republican Party.”
Obama’s concerns are certainly warranted: In a New York Times/Siena poll released on Monday, Trump led his closest competition, Ron DeSantis, by a whopping 37 points. An even wilder data point that seems to validate Obama’s fears was that Trump beat DeSantis even among Republicans who believe he committed “serious federal crimes.” To be clear, that means these people believe Trump is a criminal, and want him to be president anyway.
As FiveThirtyEight optimistically notes, should Trump be convicted before November 5, 2024, voters might be less inclined to cast a ballot for him, and presumably they’d be even less so if he’s sentenced to time in prison. (In the case of the most recent indictment, two of the charges carry up to 20 years behind bars, and compared to her colleagues, the judge assigned to the case has imposed the toughest sentences for January 6 defendants.) Though, who knows!
As for a potential Trump-Biden rematch, another Times/Siena Poll poll published this week put the two in a tie, with each receiving 43% of the vote—which, for people who think democracy is worth preserving, is pretty pants-shittingly scary.
In somewhat happier news, Obama reportedly promised at the same June lunch “to do all he could to help the president get reelected.” And in a statement, a spokesman for Biden’s campaign told the Post: “President Biden is grateful for his unwavering support, and looks forward to once again campaigning side-by-side with President Obama to win in 2024 and finish the job for the American people.”
*And everything else!
Mike Pence giveth and Mike Pence taketh away
Yes, he tweeted yesterday that “anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President,” but then he basically suggested today that Trump was just listening to his lawyers’ advice when he tried to overturn the election—which, coincidentally, is a defense Trump is reportedly planning to use."
Honest question, how can we ever get out of this? Is it just human nature for most of the population to not have critical thinking skills? Is it possible to reach a world where the majority of people have even just a little empathy?
It’s just so sad. It’s so clear to anyone even kinda paying attention that we possess the technical capacity as a society to meet everyone’s needs and eliminate so much human-caused suffering at the detriment to absolutely nobody. We could be working toward a society where everyone has community, safety, security, opportunity. We could do so much if all we did was kind of give a shit about each other.
But no. Let’s elect the guy who mocked a disabled reporter, encourages white supremacy, committed treason, etc.
Donald Trump is just a guy. A shitty guy, but just a guy. He’s not what is ruining the world, but the fact that so many Americans want to vote for that shitty guy as president shows that a massive portion of the population is also just some shitty person, and fuck if that doesn’t just burn up all my hope for this world.
Education is the only way to overcome this tsunami of stupidity and misinformation. But it’s slow and costly.
Conservatives with a capital “c” are not brainwashed; they’re not tricked; they’re not progressives who’ve been misinformed. Trump is who they are and what they want.
The Dominion discovery documents demonstrate that Fox News opinion hacks changed their coverage to appease the deplorables. In the case of the big lie, it was the viewers who radicalized right media, not the other way round. Maybe it’s been that way the whole time?
The deplorables number in the millions. We need a plan to defeat and marginalize them in our democracy, not fantasies about changing what they are.
i’m not so sure it’s just evil people being evil
i think it’s just us vs them, which basically has roots in greed, power over others, etc
i think you could probably overturn those things with better instilled skills of long term planning, understanding of things like game theory (sometimes giving something to someone helps both of you! it’s not rewarding laziness: it can be selfish and humane)
i just think the reasoning here doesn’t go further than the initial emotion… there’s been no reinforcement that maybe your first reaction isn’t the right one
I’m going to go ahead and assume you’re not from middle America. It’s a lot more than just shitty people being shitty. This Cracked article from 2016 explains it quite well and I can assure you, as someone who was born and raised and now lives in Trump country, it still holds up. Add seven years of aggressive propaganda and intense radicalization and here we are now. The populist to fascist pipeline is almost complete.
Thanks for reminding me of how good David Wong used to be at capturing popular thought and placing you into a certain perspective. I might not agree with some of the generalizations of that article, but it does help understand their perspective.
the fact that so many Americans want to vote for that shitty guy as president shows that a massive portion of the population is also just some shitty person
They are scared and have been convinced that he is the only one that can help them. They are not just “shitty people voting for a shitty person” they really believe that the deep state is out to get Donald and these charges are overblown and that Donald will really save America. They won’t realize that Trump only cares about Trump; even if Trump gets another term and burns down the government and fucks everyone they still will think Donald is just one week away from unveiling his plan to fix it all.
That ignorance makes them pretty shitty.
I’m not saying they’re fundamentally and permanently shitty, but they are being shitty. Refusing to become a more aware person is shitty.
They are stupid and scared and propaganda is extra powerful on people who are stupid and scared.
They are scared and have been convinced that he is the only one that can help them. They are not just “shitty people voting for a shitty person” they really believe that the deep state is out to get Donald and these charges are overblown and that Donald will really save America. They won’t realize that Trump only cares about Trump; even if Trump gets another term and burns down the government and fucks everyone they still will think Donald is just one week away from unveiling his plan to fix it all.
And that is exactly my problem with that kind of thinking (or rather: believing). How did they arrive at such conclusions? Did Trump actually do ANYTHING to make their personal lives better even for a second? How many examples are there of Mr. Ivory Tower to make even an ounce of positive difference in the lives of rural folks?
So all I can see is a gullible people following the loudest talking head on a whim. It’s really hard for me to feel pity, much less sympathy in this circumstance. Although pity is certainly appropriate.
Nationalism and nativism pops up every few generations. Always has. We beat it every time and it shuts up and the world dramatically improves for a while. As it improves, some people become nativists and nationalists, and the cycle repeats.
Google the “Know-Nothing Party.” Trump isn’t anything new at all.
Only problem is, just like a super hero, we have to win every time, and they only have to win once.
We shame them for being shitty. Don’t engage them in debate, they are used to that. Don’t try to use facts, because they don’t care about facts. Don’t try to convince them of shit.
Make them feel like outcasts and bad people. Brush off what they say when they say horrible shit. Make them have emotional responses to their shitty views. Conservative news targets these people by exploiting their emotions.
And vote. Vote for people who will fix our education system so that our next generation knows how to think for themselves.
That approach could work in the past, but it won’t now. Now we have the internet when even people shamed by their family or neighbors will find support and like-minded individuals. We are only going to be more divided in the future.
Unfortunately, you are correct. We’re doomed.
I once saw a comment where a guy said that before the internet, if someone wanted to fuck toasters and told anyone, he would be shamed and made fun of to the point where he’d never bring it up again.
With the internet, if someone wants to fuck a toaster, they can go online and find a while community of people who also enjoy fucking toasters, complete with guides and recommendations on the best toasters to fuck.
Its absurd, but it illustrates a great point. So yeah, we are fucked. Pandoras box is open.
I’m left of centre, and here’s my take - the “left” is fucking up so badly that the right is going to win.
Ever play a sport and you just trounce your opponent, but the coach says “you weren’t that good! They were just that bad tonight.”
This is the same thing. Trump and the GOP aren’t doing some amazing job of campaigning and manipulating, they’re just up against the weakest opponent who can’t stop scoring on their own fucking net.
First let me preface this by saying that I vote against Republicans as often as I get the chance to. Which on the rare occasion someone runs against them where I live. It is usually a democrat. So I am a staunch Ally of the Democrats. That being said.
I am left of center of what is generally considered left in the united states. The left isn’t fucking anything up. The Left has been cut off from having a voice for nearly the last 100 years in the united States. Since at least McCarthy. What we’ve seen is a populous that has been beholden to an incestuous right wing relationship. Between two solidly right wing pro oligarch parties. Though to Liberal Democrats credit. They give lots of lip service to the concept of social democracy. And do eventually, once it no longer takes courage or bravery, do the right thing. Once they get tired of everyone shouting at them enough.
We need the economic tools we’ve spent the last hundred years vilifying. And we need a Resurgence of Education especially economic and political. People in the United States who think they are the left, and the way we are miseducated to define left are a joke. One that is crippling us and turning us against ourselves.
We need to rip and tear the largest corporations apart. We need to nationalize basic necessities. We need to abolish private or unaccountable funding of all elections that every level. And most of all we need to empower workers. It’s only a start. But those are the things we have to do. And unfortunately my generation the Xers. All approaching 50 and 60 years old have largely abdicated and lost their chance to really impact or make a change. We need younger representatives in touch with what’s going on now to write the laws that will lead us into the future. Instead of the regulations that will hold us in some nostalgically idealized past that never existed.
Yeah the idea Dems are left is hilarious to me, social democrats in the streets, neoliberal conservatives in the sheets. The last cry of the left as a concentrated political voice was contained in aspects of the civil rights movement, but those aspects, like MLK’s socialist insistence on economic redistribution through class projects, and his identity as a labor organizer, is completely whitewashed. It’s condensed to Rosa Parks sat on a bus, MLK had a dream, LBJ passed the law.
The Dems stop at disparity frameworks because that doesn’t threaten the political economy in any meaningful way, as long as people are fucked over proportionately it’s okay. Rising income inequality, lowered standards of living, eventually something has to give to keep this speculative real estate project of a country going.
One thing the political center lacks in America - and I say center because we don’t have a truly leftist political party - is a vision for the future. They don’t want a fundamental change in how the economy and government work, they just want to keep things steady and work around the edges.
The problem is the economy and government aren’t working for most people and most people want them replaced.
Republicans have a vision. Yeah, it’s a racist, sexist vision that will drag us back to the 1950s, but it’s a vision they can communicate.
What’s the Democrats’ vision? I don’t think it’s mine, of worker cooperatives and high speed rail and free education and universal health care, paid for by shaking Bezos and Musk upside down until no more money comes out. As far as I can tell they just want to keep things going like they have since the 90s.
And then they wonder why they can’t seem to get people to get excited to vote for them.
This is certainly a part of it. In a time when Democrats should be uniting and putting forward their strongest faces to protect democracy from the GOP, they keep engaging in political gamesmanship because ‘c’mon look at this clown, there’s no way anyone will vote for him!’
Only problem is that people have, and people could once more, put this guy in the White House. And if it happens…well, everything’s fucked.
There’s no representation of the left in American politics, there’s leftist but no political power of a left movement. The closest thing is the recent wave of workers unionization efforts which is at least encouraging.
Lol. If you say so.
I do. Where is the good Dem candidate with the platform attacking high cost of living, corporate takeover of housing, backing unions, and looking at funding education, ubi, etc?
It’s be pretty easy to break this wide open and runaway with the election. If they wanted to.
The Dems aren’t going to run someone who attacks the economic base of the party is what it comes down to.
Downballot Democratic candidates? That’s where.
David Brooks wrote a good article in the New York Times today that tries to help shift perspectives a bit to understand this. I’d highly recommend reading it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/opinion/trump-meritocracy-educated.html
That is the farthest thing from a good article that I’ve read in some time. I suppose that it does give some insights to why trumpers act the way they do, however trying to align their actions with some sort of ‘we the elitists need to do a better job at not being elitist’ mentality is rather dumb at first glance, and a bit insidious upon closer examination.
To me it was helpful in trying to understand the perspective from which a group derive their actions. Much like you said. Usually a good first step in dealing with interpersonal conflict is to make an attempt to understand the other perspective. The end does seem to wander a bit, but I think there’s some truth in the general premise that a large group of people feel left behind (in various ways for various reasons).
The ideal that “we’re all in this together” was replaced with the reality that the educated class lives in a world up here, and everybody else is forced into a world down there. Members of our class are always publicly speaking out for the marginalized, but somehow we always end up building systems that serve ourselves.
I love how Brooks can talk about class without bringing labor into it. Just a great example of liberals missing the damn point.
Then he goes on to talk about “open immigration” like that’s even close to what we have.
Yeah Brooks is one of those special kind of conservatives who seems to always miss the point in the most aspirational moralized way. Like he taught a class on “humility” that included readings of… himself. I also love his ever-Freudian book title “The Second Mountain” which is about how commitment to marriage is part of a fulfilling life… after he divorced his wife and married his younger assistant.
Got any free sources?
Seems 12ft.io doesn’t work for NYT, but archive.is does:
Too much of our democracy relies on good faith
100% true.
We also like to parrot shit like “no one is above the law” while requiring perfect situations before ever questioning elected leaders like the president when they blatantly break the law. The US has inverse responsibility, where we blame the poor for being poor and give the wealthy every possible chance to buy their way out of crimes.
Except the president and police are literally above the law with the presidential pardon and qualified immunity.
Qualified immunity isn’t abused nearly as often as people think it is.
Civil asset forfeiture is the one they really abuse
They were coming to kill him, and the spinless fuck Pence can’t even stand up for himself.
Mother must be getting tired of looking at his lack of balls when they get ready to shag.
@eurekaphoenix
Wonder how these self-same Republicans would react if Obama had operated like Trump and was being indicted for the same alleged crimes? 🤔
Can confirm
Hi. Big fan. Hope you are well.
Look, anyone with a working brain should be worried about the prospect, because if he wins, then that means we’re in for the worst four years (and probably much longer than four years) of our lives here in the United States. I don’t think we come back from that.
If Trump wins re-election, I think it’s entirely non-hyperbolic to say that democracy in this country is over. Think of the things he tried to do with some, obviously-too-small, guard rails. He attempted a literal coup. Literally throw away votes. Literally has one of his chief advisors saying that if people protested said coup, they would use the insurrection act, or more directly, use the military to put down to put down those protesting the coup. There is a very small number of things that prevented this from happening, not the least of which is just a tiny handful of people being like “uh, we can’t actually do this, right?”
I don’t entirely disagree, but it’s also true that Trump exposed some serious flaws in our political system, and that serious people have been working very hard since Jan 6th to make it much harder to do what he and his cohorts did. One example would be the supreme court victory that struck down a proposed law that would have allowed state congresses to ignore election results. Not saying everything’s okay now, but maybe it’s not quite so dire. Of course, most democratic coups happen when an individual or group just decides they won’t follow the rules anymore, so there is that little problem with trying to litigate ourselves out of this mess.
We haven’t come back from his actual four years yet, and probably won’t for a very long time. The prospect of him returning to finish the country off is a nightmare.
Not just for you guys but the world. The world as we know it is at stake as USA is currently the world’s superpower.
So, so sorry about that.
Last time I checked, Trump pulled troops out of Middle East and Asia, where US destabilized many countries. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Trump is much better.
Source: Living right next to those countries and have friends who fled from such countries.
the only thing Trump did for the rest of the world was give us something to laugh at. Problem is 30% of you guys still don’t see the joke
Do you really think rest of the world isn’t laughing at you with Biden in power? There’s always something to laugh at.
I mean we really don’t laugh at Biden. he’s just some generic politician as far as we (the rest of the world) are concerned.
its just the brain-dead Trump nuts who seem to think we see him the same as those lunatics
I don’t understand the second point. Who’s seeing who like “those lunatics?”
its not that hard mate.
and case in point why we are still laughing
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Bud we were watching american politics from our respective countries, it was like a simpson episode
Exactly my point lmao.
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Which countries were better off with Trump in power?
Syria, Iran and Iraq are the ones closest to me.
Can you please provide specific items Trump did that made any of those places better.
By…, not being there? Interfering less? The worst the army did was to left behind ammunition for Taliban to take in Afghanistan.
Compare and contrast this to one of the major reasons for Syrian conflict and complete chaos it (US) brought to Iraq; that’s nothing.
Afghanistan is pretty fucked now because of the Taliban
Tribalism at its finest
So, your friends have moved back then?
No, they haven’t. It’s the thing with fucking up entire countries; they never really get healed. It’s just that less and less people are running away that it’s getting more and more stable each year.
And outside the US. With Trump, russia might even try to take a bite out of NATO
Who in their right mind isn’t? The only people that aren’t, aren’t eh brainless minions that worship the ground that coward walks on.
Vile people want a vile leader that they believe will help them remain vile without consequence. Especially vile people see the power in that, and run for government office. Or just decree they’ve got the job in this case.
I’m not scared of him being in office because I have confidence that he won’t be elected. I know the whole mindset on Reddit and Lemmy is fear of him being back in office but with more young voters who are overwhelmingly left leaning being able to vote, the Republicans shooting themselves in the foot overturning Roe V Wade, and all of the ass backwards policies they’re putting in place, more people aren’t gonna let this happen in 2024. But I understand the fear completely and it is justified
“I have confidence that he won’t be elected” I had that confidence the first go around… and that didn’t work out so well. The last election gave me a little bit of hope back, but that we’re even having this discussion in the first place, that Trump is even in the running, isn’t a good sign.
Well experts say that Biden has a good chance of winning if he runs against Trump. In fact, Allen Lichtman has predicted every election correct since 84 except Bush vs Gore. But that was due to Florida fucking with the votes. He himself says Biden has a strong chance of winning if Trump is picked as the Republican forerunner. Which they obviously will pick him.
The problem with 2016 was that Republicans clearly couldn’t take having a black president for 8 years to then go and have a woman be the next president right after that. Then Trump who just said any and everything to appease to then crazies of this country and they came out in droves. As well, Hillary just wasn’t that charismatic in her debates
Hillary had a whole lot of baggage going into that election, then the Dem primaries didn’t really do anything to strengthen her, if anything it fractured the party even more. She was an establishment candidate in a ‘change’ election, just the wrong fit for the mood.
Another big thing is that a lot of people didn’t like how the DNC snubbed Bernie. He was clearly in the lead until I think it was South Carolina? And then Hillary all of a sudden was the pick. Most people I know (and it could be cause I’m Gen Z and what I see due to my community), wanted Bernie and Bernie alone and we’re very pissed
Yea, that was a big slap in the face and I think made a lot of people realize that the fix was in, Hillary was “the anointed one” that election and wasn’t going to let another Obama come along and take the nomination away from her. I was still even holding out hope that Sanders would at least get the VP slot, just some sort of seat at the table.
Still though, anyone who just skipped voting out of spite helped hand the election over to Trump, gave Republicans all those Supreme Court Justices, which got Roe v Wade truck down, probably contributed to Russia invading Ukraine, and a host of other problems that came down from the 2016 election. I thought Bernie was the best choice by far (though maybe he still would’ve lost to Trump, who knows), but held my nose and voted for Hillary regardless because the election was more important than just getting my preferred candidate.
The issue is that the overwhelming majority of voters, including the youth vote, only pay attention to federal elections and ignore state and local elections. In the present day and age, States’ Supreme Courts are even more important for individual rights than the SCOTUS. If you’ve got a red state high court and legislature and progressive federal senators/representatives/POTUS, life will still suck bigtime in your state. And more than ever, SCOTUS is reverting to “STATES RIGHTS” like we’re back in the Jim Crow era.
It could just be me, but from what I’ve seen of those around me as I’m Gen Z myself, a lot of us ARE aware of local elections and how important they are. We actively do vote in them. It may have a much bigger impact the next go around but we’ll all have to just wait and see
Fingers crossed. I’m a x-enial and I continue to be disappointed. :)
As should we all.
I’m more surprised that he’s allowed to try for another term.
Obama has the resources to flee the country. The rest of us do not. What are we as individuals do when half of the country decides to abandon democracy and the rule of law? Asking for a friend…
America is the world’s only superpower. No matter where you run, global consequence will follow if Trump is re-elected.
Part of me, I guess the defeatist part, just kinda wants to get it over with.
I have no problem with allowing him to run (as of today) because (as of today) there’s nothing prohibiting him. I do have a problem with more than a third of this country willing to vote for him. How stupid and/or bigoted can we possibly get?
The founding fathers of this country established rules that (as of today) both ensured and prevented what’s currently transpiring. If it were the case that a subset of the government were trying to oust a political leader, The People should still have a say as to who represents them and bring “balance”(?) to the government. But also, if The People are being a bunch of idiots, the Electoral College can overrule their stupidity. It might be worth noting that the founding fathers also owned other humans as if they were livestock and didn’t believe a woman had the same rights as a man. So, to say “some mistakes were made” would be understating it. RANKED. CHOICE. VOTING.
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Who isn’t, except the dumb nutcases.
I think we should all be alarmed.
I couldn’t care less about what Obama thinks when he squandered all that hopeful energy in 2008.
Yes
we canyou could have!
I bet GWBush is scarred of it too. Even if he is a republican.
