[HN Gopher] Trump wins presidency for second time
___________________________________________________________________
Trump wins presidency for second time
Author : koolba
Score : 1529 points
Date : 2024-11-06 06:49 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thehill.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thehill.com)
| koolba wrote:
| For some of us this is not unexpected at all. But the margin and
| the likely win of the _popular_ vote should send a clear message.
| underwater wrote:
| Can you please explain to a non-America what is that message
| is? I hear this refrain all the time and all I get is a vague
| insinuation that people are not being listened to.
| CodinM wrote:
| The message is the same even for non-America - we need to
| engage with these folks and stop disparaging them. We need to
| talk to them, we need to understand where they're coming
| from, we need to help clear the air between "us and them" so
| that there won't be an "us and them" and so we can _together_
| avoid people that tell us what we want to hear.
| stavros wrote:
| That's not what the GP means, the popular vote is likely to
| be for the Democrats, as has happened basically every
| election. It's only because of the electoral college system
| that Republicans win the presidency.
| Tainnor wrote:
| The current results are unfortunately such a blowout that
| Trump may very well be winning the popular vote. I guess
| this is what OP was referring to.
| stavros wrote:
| Ah interesting, I don't know enough about which states do
| what. Is it not at the point where the states we knew the
| results of have been tallied, and the swing states are
| still unknown?
| jeffhuys wrote:
| I suggest you look for yourself at reuters or something.
| Whatever I type here, it's out-dated every 10 minutes or
| something.
| Symbiote wrote:
| You can easily look at any news site for this.
| vote4felon wrote:
| I would respectfully suggest you check the results before
| commenting, but I know reading TFA isn't all that popular
| anymore.
|
| 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.
| stavros wrote:
| I don't know how US elections work, for all I know all
| the Democrat states haven't finished being counted yet.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Won't matter. It doesn't matter if Harris beats Trump by
| a billion votes in California.
| stavros wrote:
| It will for the popular vote, the vote we're talking
| about.
| EricDeb wrote:
| it will shrink with california but yes hes on track to
| win
| ookblah wrote:
| I bought that line in 2016 and again in 2020. I'm not
| saying I'm done with trying to understand, but that level
| of fks to give is very minimal now.
|
| 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.).
| XenophileJKO wrote:
| I think the lesson is you can't win an election with
| "Well they aren't like the other guy.."
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Also can't win with substantive policies or personal
| integrity either, so what's left?
| EricDeb wrote:
| She didnt explain why inflation happened. She didnt
| explain why dems did not crack down on the border until
| right wingers made an issue out of it. She didnt distance
| herself from biden. She didnt explain how she would
| protect abortion rights. I wanted her to win but she
| didnt have answers or her messaging was not getting
| through
| a1j9o94 wrote:
| Inflation: "inflation has come down over the last two
| years, a lot of it has been from the healing of the
| supply side of the economy.
|
| 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.
| dgfitz wrote:
| > Inflation: "inflation has come down over the last two
| years, a lot of it has been from the healing of the
| supply side of the economy.
|
| I think this is one of the disconnects: inflation has
| been decreasing. What I think people hear, which is
| wrong: the prices of things are coming down.
|
| They're not coming down, they're increasing _slower_ than
| before, and before was bad. Prices for lots of things are
| much more expensive than before covid.
|
| The reason that "inflation is better now" didn't stick is
| because half the country was telling the emperor they
| were clothed, and half the country saw a naked person.
| camdenreslink wrote:
| A little bit of calculus could go a long way for
| understanding rates of change.
| dgfitz wrote:
| They teach calculus in high school, and most liberal arts
| majors don't take calculus.
|
| What is your point?
| willvarfar wrote:
| The last 20 years of the UK is an interesting
| rollercoaster.
|
| 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.
| Maken wrote:
| The UK is rapidly collapsing and at this point is a husk
| of a country in which nothing works except the City
| banking accounts.
| twixfel wrote:
| The UK is just developed country facing the same problems
| associated with an aging population as every other
| developed country (and also many developing countries--
| sucks for them...). There's absolutely nothing special
| about the UK and if the UK is a failed state then so too
| is Germany (where I live) and the rest of Europe, and the
| only "successful" countries on the planet are the US,
| Switzerland and a handful of microstates.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Well at least the trains run...
|
| ... yeah, fuck it.
| blibble wrote:
| > 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.
|
| in reality this was maybe priority #10
|
| the main campaign point was currency
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| The funny thing is that Labour is now 100% "like the
| Tories". It's the Tories who are no longer "like the
| Tories" and have morphed instead into a rabid populist
| party without real politics that bank instead on identity
| politics.
|
| And then there's Nigel.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| That's exactly how Keir Starmer's Labour won the last UK
| elections: "we're not like the Tories".
| ks2048 wrote:
| I think that's mainly why Biden won in 2020.
| manquer wrote:
| > 50% of the population is stupid
|
| 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.
| tomcam wrote:
| You are so right. Thank heavens she was defeated.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| That's why Kamala lost: they called supporters of the
| other camp racist and misogynists like you're doing right
| now instead of discussing and listening to their
| grievances.
|
| Shitting on your voter base is no way to win sympathy.
| astrange wrote:
| The marginal voter doesn't have grievances like that
| unless the country is seriously in trouble (like it was
| in 2008 and 2020.) They're not paying close enough
| attention to have them, nor do they have clear ideas
| about which piece of government is capable of addressing
| which problems. They have better things to do.
|
| 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.
| jwells89 wrote:
| Simply put, this chunk of the electorate doesn't have any
| kind of grasp on the workings of government. As you say,
| their motivations for voting are simplistic and difficult
| for campaigns to reason about because they're so
| particular to each individual.
|
| 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.
| manquer wrote:
| > don't place fault on the people for this
|
| ---
|
| Economic vibes with simplistic immediate effects if truly
| were a major factor then 2020 Biden would have won with
| bigger margins than Reagan did .
|
| ---
|
| 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
|
| ---
|
| 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.
| EricDeb wrote:
| You have no idea if thats why she lost. Thats why you
| want to believe she lost but it could be things like
| inflation, immigration, and not having clear messaging.
| Also not distinguishing herself from an otherwise
| unpopular president.
| mrkeen wrote:
| If what you say is true, that only confirms the point.
| manquer wrote:
| We should hear their grievances on our bodily autonomy
| and healthcare ?
|
| 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.
| jajko wrote:
| Maybe mankind ain't yet so developed that what you list
| isn't present in general population in large numbers,
| even majority.
|
| 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.
| conradfr wrote:
| But how Obama and Biden got elected then?
| manquer wrote:
| They were both men, it should be obvious .
|
| 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.
| conradfr wrote:
| That's a good point, although it was projected he would
| win against Biden.
| manquer wrote:
| Perhaps he may have, however June polls not a good
| indicator, it is lifetime away from November elections,
| politicians have recovered from such gaps.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| But they weren't running against women.
| manquer wrote:
| Technically Obama was running against one, McCain had
| Palin on the ticket .I don't think that made a
| difference, VPs don't .
|
| 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.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| > 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're going to need to show your working here. How'd you
| get to this conclusion?
| refurb wrote:
| "Am I out of touch? No, it's the American voter who is
| wrong"
| a2tech wrote:
| It's clear that people hunger for the lash. It's the only
| thing that makes sense.
| laborcontract wrote:
| I've read people say this over and over. And yet, I don't
| know of any single substantive position that Kamala has
| taken. She chose a vibes fight and she lost.
| j-krieger wrote:
| The common answer to that was often "just read this 90
| page document where she vaguely describes her opinions".
| This isn't how it works, people.
| therouwboat wrote:
| Do you wait for candidate to come tell you their
| position? Even in smaller elections, I feel like its my
| job to find "my candidate".
| laborcontract wrote:
| look at the comment i'm replying to. if you go to both
| candidates pages, they'll have their policy positions
| laid out. Kamala made none of them a part of her core
| message. She instead leaned bizarrely into the threat of
| fascism.
| johnny22 wrote:
| middle class taxes cuts, bringing back roe v wade.. all
| that..
| slothtrop wrote:
| She was weak on messaging, but her proposal for housing
| was good (improving affordability has appeal, but she
| failed to capitalize on it). What confounded this in part
| was that she probably meant to mostly stay in line with
| Biden's policies, and you can't connect with voters on
| that. They're concerned about inflation and the border.
| Biden's administration already fucked that up for her;
| they fixed the border, but too little too late (so what
| is there to say?), and while inflation has abated and
| wage-growth has improved, people still feel poorer than
| before 2020 (so what is there to say?).
|
| I can't see how anyone else in her position would have
| done much better. I don't blame Harris much.
| gitremote wrote:
| The problem really is that we need to accept that they
| are "stupid" but in an empathetic way, remembering that
| we were once stupid and ignorant. We took it for granted
| that other people wouldn't confuse correlation with
| causation, blaming Biden's presidency for inflation. But
| all of us thought correlation was causation at one point
| until somebody educated us on science. When a topic was
| confusing and complicated, we leaned on correlation to
| guide us until we learned better in formal education. It
| would be immensely difficult to explain to someone why
| groceries have become unaffordable without extensive
| exposition, but it's a hard problem that we should try to
| solve instead of just calling people ignorant in
| frustration.
| ks2048 wrote:
| Of course 50% of the population is not stupid. It's much
| higher than that.
| watwut wrote:
| Meh, it is clear where they care coming from and they talk
| quite clearly. What we need to do is to stop like naive
| Pollyanna's, stop relying on fact checks, stop pretending
| "both sides are equal" and engage with dirty fight they do.
| Tainnor wrote:
| What "dirty fight" are you envisioning? Prosecuting Trump
| in court doesn't appear to work and is disparaged as
| "lawfare". Biden calling Trump voters trash apparently
| backfires, but nothing Trump or his campaign says ever
| backfires.
| watwut wrote:
| Prosecuting Trump in court is not dirty fight. It is
| something that should have happen, because being
| politician should not mean being lawless.
|
| I envision actual politicians and journalists calling
| trump what he is more rather then less.
| rob74 wrote:
| > _politician should not mean being lawless_
|
| Well, the US Supreme Court decided more or less exactly
| that presidents _can_ break the law and get away with it:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czrrv8yg3nvo
|
| And "calling him what he is" has so far failed to sway
| his supporters, I don't see how it will do it now. OTOH,
| he (probably?) won't stand for election again, so the
| point is probably moot...
| watwut wrote:
| Democratic party goes out of its way to look center, be
| accommodating and non confrontial. It just does not work.
|
| I stand by "politician should not mean being lawless". US
| Supreme Court being pro lawless when it comes to GOP is
| just politics of US Supreme Court. It does not mean law
| should not matter or that trying to apply law is fighting
| dirty.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _the US Supreme Court decided more or less exactly that
| presidents can break the law and get away with it_
|
| no, they did not. The court pointed out that the remedy
| (specified in the Constitution) for a president who
| breaks the law is impeachment and conviction by the house
| and senate. After which, that former president could be
| subject to prosecution.
| rightbyte wrote:
| "Lock her up!" Wasn't that the chant from some of his
| supporters?
|
| It is funny how these things turn out and who actually
| does what in the end and how differently it is treated.
| Tainnor wrote:
| > Prosecuting Trump in court is not dirty fight. It is
| something that should have happen
|
| I agree, but I call it "dirty fight" because that's what
| it's perceived as by the Trump supporters.
| watwut wrote:
| Trump and his supporters will say anything and accepting
| their framing again and again should be already seen as
| proven failure strategy. It just does not work.
|
| It is not dirty fight, full stop. Dirty fight would be to
| act like Trump and his supporters do or approaching it.
| Tainnor wrote:
| Again, what specifically are you suggesting? To me, it
| looks as if neither the high nor the low road is working.
| watwut wrote:
| I suggest we stop with the "we need to engage with these
| folks and stop disparaging them" nonsense designed to
| create unequal situation where GOP and Trump can be
| arbitrary dirty, but everyone else needs to treat them
| with kids gloves and use euphemisms.
|
| I suggest Democratic party to become more aggressive
| rather then forever trying to paint themselves as "the
| adult ones" and forever put themselves into center. It
| just does not work and serves only to allow overtone
| window to move toward radical conservativism.
|
| I suggest we stop demanding that "both sides" are
| described in the same terms. I suggest we stop following
| nonsense:
|
| > We need to talk to them, we need to understand where
| they're coming from, we need to help clear the air
| between "us and them" so that there won't be an "us and
| them" and so we can _together_ avoid people that tell us
| what we want to hear.
|
| For example, conservative Christians are coming from the
| point of view of someone who thinks women should be
| submissive to men, should have less legal rights,
| abortion and contraception are wrong because they allow
| for safer sex.
|
| For example, quite a lot of people in GOP are coming to
| it with idea that being gay is disgrace, being trans
| deserve severe punishment and that being criminal is cool
| as long as you are rich white guy.
|
| Actually engage with these rather then euphemism them
| away.
| card_zero wrote:
| I was just thinking the exact opposite, maybe the US needs
| to split into two nations. I was drawing border lines in my
| mind around central regions and wondering how things would
| pan out if they seceded. The lack of geographic continuity
| would be a problem for the coasts, but perhaps they could
| join Canada.
| sixothree wrote:
| It might at least be the correct time for blue states to
| stop subsidizing the existence of red states.
| roenxi wrote:
| The Joye of Ye Taxes is that you cannot choose to stop
| paying them just because of a disagreement about how they
| are spent. Elections need to be won first.
| verisimi wrote:
| Didn't the south try this, before being forced back into
| the "union"?
| card_zero wrote:
| True, that was an awkward episode. Now you've got me
| reading about the motivations for the civil war. I mean
| obviously slavery, but why go to war rather than let the
| Confederacy be a separate nation? Seems the fighting was
| over the political future of yet-to-be Arizona, New
| Mexico and Oklahoma (if I've got the right territories
| there), and whether _they_ would have slavery, once
| populated.
| ncruces wrote:
| Try splitting Georgia, where Harris wins a few populous
| counties with a 30 to 70 pp margin, and Trump leads the
| lump of smaller counties with a 30 to 70 pp margin.
|
| 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.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Cross the border from here in Canada into very "blue" New
| York and you'll drive through a huge swathe of what is
| actually "red" Trump country in Western New York.
|
| 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.
| a2tech wrote:
| Rural Canadians are eating up trump style rhetoric as
| fast as it can be minted.
|
| Canada is next. There's no escape from this kind of
| madness.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Yeah I live rural Ontario. Last municipal election
| people's lawns were covered with idiotic "Stop Woke"
| signs. And my parents are in rural Alberta. Oh boy.
|
| Not with a bang but a whimper, etc. etc.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Why do you think Stop Woke" signs" are idiotic?
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Hey...
|
| Screw you, buddy.
| tstrimple wrote:
| Blue areas aren't states. They are cities. Democratic
| voting counties account for over 70% of the nations gdp.
| Conservative counties quite literally cannot support
| themselves.
| squilliam wrote:
| > Blue areas aren't states. They are cities. Democratic
| voting counties account for over 70% of the nations gdp.
| Conservative counties quite literally cannot support
| themselves.
|
| But they can feed themselves.
| a2tech wrote:
| Not without illegal labor they can't.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| > Conservative counties quite literally cannot support
| themselves.
|
| And yet they hold democratic counties hostage. Somewhat
| like parasites.
| card_zero wrote:
| It works the same way in other countries, such as the UK
| and Turkey - rural areas are where the traditionalists
| live.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| It's much worse in the US though because the gap is so
| much wider. Even in the UK or Canada or Australia, the
| right is not opposing climate change or healthcare or
| anything reasonable to the same extent as in the US.
| mrkeen wrote:
| The last time the right got voted in in Australia, they
| revoked the carbon tax that the left had recently set up.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/southern-
| crossroads/...
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| They absolutely _are_ here in Canada. _Especially_ around
| climate change because Canada is an oil exporter. And
| they will be emboldened by what just happened in the US.
|
| Alberta outright banned renewables development for 6
| months and then slapped a huge set of restrictions on
| them after that "moratorium" was lifted. A tax on
| electric car owners added. The conservative parties
| nationally are on a constant drum beat about the national
| carbon tax and it's doomed. Weak emissions caps we have
| are also doomed. Any little things that have been done
| for the last 10 years will be undone.
|
| At a recent party convention in Alberta, the ruling party
| passed a climate denial resolution as official party
| policy.
|
| Amazingly lots of people on this forum trying to sanitize
| what these people are about.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| Meanwhile the governing party in my home province in
| Canada is doing this:
|
| https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2024/11/06/UCP-Members-More-
| CO2-H...
| ruthmarx wrote:
| How on earth does anyone think that is a good idea?
|
| Sigh. It's always a minority of humanity that has to save
| the rest from themselves, as they kick and scream and
| resist every step of the way.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Conservative counties produce goods and food. Democratic
| counties produce rent, interest, financial fees,
| mortgages, insurance.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| Conservative counties produce goods and food that can be
| produced anywhere.
|
| Democratic counties produce goods that generally require
| an education and are significantly more valuable. Think
| big tech, big pharma, engineering, etc.
|
| Democratic counties would be just fine without
| conservative counties. The inverse is not true.
| carry_bit wrote:
| GDP is a flawed measure, and that's especially true when
| you look at the 70% figure in detail. For details see
| https://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/gross-domestic-fraud
| lenkite wrote:
| Won't this be impossible since you have the urban/rural
| areas of the same state belonging to these two different
| nations ? At-least impossible without a gargantuan civil
| war that makes the 1861 war look like a toddler's
| quarrel.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| That would need some population exchange.
| a2tech wrote:
| In the past, maybe. Trump won the popular vote last
| night. He swept almost everything, as painful as that is
| for me to say. There is no way to divide the country
| without mass migration which would never happen.
| astrange wrote:
| You're losing if you write like this, because this is
| liberal/left wing writing. If the voters prioritize
| strength and machismo, you should be insulting them even
| more. They don't mind, they'll just assume it's about
| someone else.
| djtango wrote:
| Yes and the media needs to stop being so obviously biased
| because it both undermines their role as the arbiters of
| truth and it undermines the party they allegedly want to
| win
|
| I liked this podcast from Zachary Elwood:
|
| https://open.spotify.com/episode/5DYBm6we1WcTtktFpqHj7K?si=
| A...
| Bost wrote:
| We need to understand that such people want to be
| distracted and entertained.
|
| 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.
| PunchTornado wrote:
| the message is: we don't want immigrants, we don't want to
| help other countries at our short term cost (even if it is a
| long term gain for us). like it or not, this is what people
| want.
| atoav wrote:
| And: we don't care about ethics or looks as long as it
| serves _us_.
| impulser_ wrote:
| It's not immigrants. It's illegal immigrants. It was very
| clear from the beginning that this is what will kill the
| democrats chances. When you have poor people that have
| lived in this country since birth not be able to get help
| from the government because the government services in
| their community are over ran due to the influx of people.
| Who do you think they are going to vote for? Why do you
| think the Republicans had an historic election with
| minority voters?
|
| 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.
| saulrh wrote:
| "Tens of millions" "coming in over the border"? Mexico
| only even has 120m people in the first place. What, you
| think that half of their population walked into Texas and
| bought a house in Dallas?
| wordofx wrote:
| It's not /only/ Mexicans crossing the border...
| bbarnett wrote:
| Even I, a Canadian, know that immigrants from all the way
| down to South America are streaming across the US border.
| bertjk wrote:
| > From 2014 to 2020, migrants from outside Mexico and
| Central America -- known as "extra-continentals" --
| accounted for 19 percent of immigration court cases.
|
| > In the last four years, those "extra-continentals" have
| risen to 53 percent of all court cases. They have arrived
| from countries such as India, China, Colombia and
| Mauritania.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/interactive/20
| 24/...
| saulrh wrote:
| Okay. Sure. Mexico only has 120m people. You think that a
| _third_ of their population walked into Texas and bought
| a house in Dallas? A _quarter_? Hell, _ten percent_?
|
| Fine. I'll bring some of my own statistics. There _might_
| be ten million undocumented immigrants living in the
| United States _total_. There are fewer than half a
| million illegal border crossings a year; if the expected
| lifespan following an illegal border crossing is, I don
| 't know, forty years, then it's obvious that the
| overwhelming majority of illegal border crossings don't
| convert to undocumented immigrants. These numbers are
| easily available on the relevant Wikipedia page: https://
| en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_Uni...,
| which itself has extensive citations from a wide variety
| of sources. Saying that there are "tens of millions
| crossing the border" is clearly and blatantly incorrect.
|
| And, of course, that's not even getting into the real
| meat of the issue, that's just sarcastically calling out
| the surface-level lies. No, what I really want to say
| about illegal immigration is that undocumented immigrants
| commit fewer crimes than either documented immigrants or
| outright citizens, that they pay more taxes than they
| cost in government spending, that they do not affect job
| access or pay of legal residents, that they prevent
| offshoring, and that they contribute to GDP via spending
| and labor. Undocumented immigrants are, as far as I can
| tell, purely positive contributors to America at every
| level I look at, for the people working alongside them
| and going to school with them all the way up to the
| grandest statistics. If we truly wanted a healthy economy
| - if we wanted more citizens to have better jobs, if we
| wanted more money for education and healthcare, if we
| wanted less crime and less exploitation of labor - we
| would legalize all of them and invite more in after them.
| carom wrote:
| 250k (recorded border patrol contacts) came across in
| December 2023 (peak), about 55k this last August. It is
| usually fewer then a million per year but still a
| significant number of people. Bad policies in 2023 led to
| an absolute flood. That is competition for American
| workers.
| saulrh wrote:
| Still not "tens of millions", don't motte-and-bailey me.
|
| Also, I thought competition was good and that we needed
| more of it. That's the usual fiscal-conservative line,
| right?
|
| I'll further note that there are more job postings open
| right now than there have been at any time since 2000,
| that unemployment right now is incredibly low considering
| the pandemic and 2008, that the unemployment that still
| exists can be fairly easily traced to the previous trump
| presidency rather than any other cause, and that multiple
| detailed studies (refer to previous Wikipedia link) fail
| to find that illegal immigrants have any effect at all on
| the jobs or pay of American workers. Having more workers
| in total increases spending which opens up more jobs, for
| example, standard jevons paradox stuff. Your conclusions
| are not supported by any kind of evidence, your models do
| not describe or provide accurate predictions of reality,
| and your proposals will not work the way you think or
| claim they will.
| wyatt_dolores wrote:
| Is it really competition? Do American workers get paid in
| cash from employers who don't ask for their Social
| Security number? Skilled jobs require documentation.
| Unskilled jobs require documentation. Working
| undocumented means being paid in cash by an employer who
| doesn't tell the IRS about you. Are citizens really
| lining up to work these jobs that undocumented immigrants
| perform? Food prices will increase again when all of the
| migrant farm workers are deported.
| nirav72 wrote:
| Most of the illegal migrants coming into the U.S are not
| from Mexico. They're from Latin American and Asia. Actual
| migration from Mexico by Mexican citizens has been on the
| decline in the past 10 years. Possibly due to Mexico's
| growing economy.
| benterix wrote:
| This has happened and is happening in Europe, too.
|
| Many people are coming in, some of them don't integrate
| and cause problems, the center says it's not a problem
| and the left says let's have more of them.
|
| More people are coming in, problems are getting worse
| (both real and imaginary), people are getting upset, the
| right realizes they can use that and they build their
| whole agenda or that and win the elections.
|
| The number of countries this has happened in increases,
| so non-right parties need to rethink their strategy if
| they want to stop losing.
| Maken wrote:
| Europe is already rethinking it. Have you heard of Sahra
| Wagenknecht?
| j-krieger wrote:
| Europe is currently experiencing a hard shift to the
| right because progressives keep lying and downplaying bad
| economy policies and illegal immigration. Yet somehow
| each party has their own scapegoat.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Europe is able to change political course much more
| gradually: the EU is 27 countries, and the EU Parliament
| is elected with proportional voting systems which leads
| to coalitions and compromise.
|
| A 10% increase in 'right' votes means roughly 10% more
| influence for the 'right' opinions.
|
| In the USA, a tiny increase in 'right' votes means 100%
| more influence.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >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.
|
| One _bigly_ reason I voted for Trump was because his
| first term was by far the most peaceful both this country
| and the world at-large ever was in my lifetime.
|
| For four years we didn't start or join _any_ new wars, we
| even flat out refused to when the military industrial
| complex begged to Trump to start one with Iran after they
| shot down one of our drones. North Korea didn 't fire a
| single missile and China wasn't anywhere as loud with
| their saber-rattling (I'm Japanese-American, I care
| deeply about Japanese security). Russia didn't invade
| Ukraine. Israel and Hamas/Hezbollah/et al. weren't
| brutally killing each other.
|
| For four god damn years life was actually peaceful, and I
| want that again.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Warring Middle East nations signed more peace treaties
| under Trump than in any other time in modern history.
| Israel signed four peace treaties with Arab Nations under
| Trump.
| korm wrote:
| > North Korea didn't fire a single missile
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_Korean_miss
| ile...
|
| > Russia didn't invade Ukraine
|
| Russia invaded in 2014 and the conflict stabilized (but
| didn't stop) in 2015.
|
| In the meantime, the Syrian civil war was raging on.
|
| Similarly, if we ignore all the events in the prelude to
| WW2, the world was a very peaceful place. According to
| Hoover, Roosevelt was a threat to world peace, not
| Hitler.
|
| I'm not implying anything with the analogy, I'm only
| trying to illustrate that the world was not peaceful
| between 2016 and 2020, despite the president's efforts.
|
| Perhaps if we had gotten 2 consecutive terms, it might
| have provided more long term stability.
| girvo wrote:
| Er, Russia was already _in_ Ukraine.
| PunchTornado wrote:
| if Biden will sign a decree to welcome everyone and every
| migrant would be legal, people still won't like it.
| people want to reduce immigration, legal or illegal.
| galfarragem wrote:
| Rephrased: we, the average tax payers, want prosperity too.
| hcfman wrote:
| Well, so long as prosperity doesn't mean cheaper TVs with
| Chinese parts in them. I guess they will have to buy
| American TVs from now on.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I've seen more than a few comments and tips on HN about
| how to keep one's TV from phoning China.
| fabioborellini wrote:
| But you aren't getting any with this ticket. There is no
| political force in the US that would question the
| trickle-down fairytales, and your broken elections system
| won't allow one to emerge.
|
| So you vote for change, yet the economics policies stay
| as unequal as always. But in the process you supported a
| rapist and a criminal who calls execution of journalists,
| suppression of women, blatant racism and just death and
| destruction of non-privileged people everywhere.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| if the genuinely unprivileged gain some consciousness of
| their condition because of Trump, there will be changed.
| You cannot claim it for them.
| twixfel wrote:
| So, accelerationism?
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| accelerationism would be launching yourself into the
| unknown and not committing to a particular political
| ideology except the continuous development of capitalism.
| This is simply working with the concrete situation: a
| Trump presidency, which clearly opens up more
| opportunities for radical action then a Harris
| presidency, since Trump will be too busy completely
| destroying the economy and the FBI, CIA, and NSA, the
| judiciary and the legal system more broadly, to be even
| capable of fighting back against resistance or even
| stopping the conditions for a popular foment. Or, maybe
| I'm wrong, who knows. But at least now we'll _get_ to
| know.
| rob74 wrote:
| That's what's the most mind-boggling for me - since when
| are the _Republicans_ the ones considered most likely to
| bring prosperity to the masses?
| galfarragem wrote:
| Since they don't promote politics that keep salaries low,
| inflate housing prices, increase external spending or
| drive criminality.
| stouset wrote:
| You may want to give Republican policies a quick double
| check.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Can you give an example of such a policy?
|
| (Not to doubt it, I just don't know as I'm on the other
| side of the world.)
| galfarragem wrote:
| Illegal immigration disregard, feeding stupid wars,
| ignoring petty crime.
| LunaSea wrote:
| Republicans started the war in Iraq and Afghanistan so
| that's not true.
|
| And Republicans are against increasing the federal
| minimum wage so that's also not true.
|
| Disinformation is what won this campaign.
| mango7283 wrote:
| Notably those wars were not started or escalated by
| Trump's republican party. While >Dick Cheney< got
| accepted by Dems now just because he is against Trump...
| LunaSea wrote:
| I see that we're already moving goalposts.
|
| Trump has a responsibility in escalating the tension
| between Israel and Palestine following the move of the
| American embassy to Jerusalem.
|
| He also escalated bombings in Syria.
|
| His terrible Afghan deal also made it so that there was
| no time or guarantees to fly Americans and people that
| helped America to the US while also leaving a lot of
| American military gear to the Talibans. This also
| ridiculed the US on the international stage.
| mango7283 wrote:
| Considering it seems Arab American voters were willing to
| punish kamala or even outright vote trump on account of
| the current administrations stance on IvP since then, it
| seems they are willing to look past the embassy issue for
| a bigger issue - the current state of affairs.
|
| Considering how the Obama administration handled Iraq and
| Afghanistan, I doubt they would have acted any
| differently wrt Syria.
|
| Alas if I recall Trump managed to have ultimate
| responsibility for that fiasco occur under Biden's watch
| on account of losing the 2020 election. Whoops.
| LunaSea wrote:
| > Alas if I recall Trump managed to have ultimate
| responsibility for that fiasco occur under Biden's watch
| on account of losing the 2020 election. Whoops.
|
| Yes, he was completely out negotiated by terrorists and
| his successor had to clean up the gigantic pile of poop
| that leaked from Trumps diaper.
|
| Not much Biden could have done about this.
| mrkeen wrote:
| > the message is: we don't want immigrants
|
| It wasn't the case last time with Melania. And it won't be
| the case this time with Musk.
| caskstrength wrote:
| > we don't want to help other countries at our short term
| cost (even if it is a long term gain for us)
|
| 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.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > That stance always seemed very confusing to me as a
| non-US person.
|
| Europeans seem to overestimate how close America is to
| Europe.
|
| If you live in the Western half of the United States,
| Asia is much closer than Eastern Europe, most US military
| deployments are in the Pacific, and most foreign trade
| the US has is with Asia.
|
| Both parties campaigned on leaving the Middle East, but
| it is difficult to disengage from the region without
| devolving power to a regional ally (similar to how the US
| historically let France take the reigns on African
| relations). Historically, that ally has been Israel and
| Turkiye, but relations between the US and them have
| fallen precipitously.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| it's actually really interesting, Trump already modified
| his rhetoric. In the rallies in the last week and in his
| acceptance speech he has suddenly talked about how they
| want immigrants to come in legally - even went out of his
| way to talk about "geninuses" in the acceptance speech.
| Pretty clear here that people like Musk have been heavily
| exerting influence to shape his viewpoint towards favouring
| immigration that allows high skilled workers in.
| ossobuco wrote:
| > we don't want to help other countries at our short term
| cost (even if it is a long term gain for us)
|
| 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.
| gmueckl wrote:
| The game theoretic irony is that peace can often only be
| achieved by building up the military strength to deter
| potential attackers. There are a few places in the world
| where US involvement can lead tonkore stability.
|
| Faltering US support for the Ukraine will tempt Russia
| into more territorial expansion towards or even into
| NATO.
|
| China will probably ramp up aggression against Taiwan and
| against the Philippines. It is a minor miracle that no
| lethal shots have yet been fired in the persistent and
| aggressive military incursions into Philippines
| territorial waters. Several navy vessels have already
| been damaged this year.
|
| I believe that the best way to release tensions in the
| Middle East would be by improving relations with Iran -
| but Trump bombed the deal that would have enabled that.
| The relqtive economic stength of the US could have been a
| good motivatir. Now Iran is aligning itself with Russia.
| ossobuco wrote:
| > The game theoretic irony is that peace can often only
| be achieved by building up the military strength to deter
| potential attackers.
|
| Nobody has attacked the USA since Pearl Harbor. Military
| strength has been used to impose hegemony over other
| parts of the world, not to protect the nation.
|
| > There are a few places in the world where US
| involvement can lead tonkore stability.
|
| How can you say that after the countless deaths, pain,
| and strife caused by the USA in the Middle East, Asia,
| and South America?
| nullocator wrote:
| > Nobody has attacked the USA since Pearl Harbor.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks
|
| Seems big to leave out especially since your next remark
| is about strife caused by the USA in the Middle East...
| ossobuco wrote:
| You mean the terrorist attack orchestrated by the same
| guy (Osama Bin Laden) the USA propped up in the 80s when
| he was fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan?
|
| The 11 September is the perfect example of the USA
| bringing instability to the world and giving life to
| future enemies through their reckless interference in the
| Middle East.
| xnx wrote:
| > Military strength has been used to impose hegemony over
| other parts of the world, not to protect the nation.
|
| I'm not a scholar of military history. I assumed that no
| one would dare attack the US because the US military is
| larger than the next ~dozen militaries combined?
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| >The game theoretic irony is that peace can often only be
| achieved by building up the military strength to deter
| potential attackers.
|
| But the utility of military build up is non-linear. There
| comes a point where further gains for your side are
| marginal while further losses for your adversary are
| existential. A neutral Ukraine represented a sufficiently
| balanced state of power that rendered war negative sum
| for Russia. We overextended ourselves in trying to peal
| Ukraine away from Russia's orbit. NATO in Ukraine would
| have been a strategic noose from which Russia would never
| escape. The Ukraine war is blowback for American policy
| towards Russia, i.e. expand NATO up to Russia's border,
| bait Ukraine and Georgia for NATO membership, foment
| anti-Russian movements in Ukraine that lead to the
| expulsion of the Russian-friendly president of Ukraine
| and install someone western-oriented.
| geoka9 wrote:
| > NATO in Ukraine would have been a strategic noose from
| which Russia would never escape.
|
| Reminder: Ukraine was (strongly) against NATO membership
| before Russia invaded in 2014.
|
| NATO threat is a red herring that Russia likes to dangle
| in front of the western countries to cover up its
| expansionist agenda. The only reason it's "afraid" of
| NATO is NATO can make that agenda much harder to pull
| off.
| dzonga wrote:
| don't take the voters as stupid, don't impose candidates who
| can't 1 win a 1 horse race.
|
| pretty much the democratic party has to introspect and stop
| blaming voters for their failed campaign.
| walterbell wrote:
| Bill Ackman,
| https://x.com/billackman/status/1854019674385547454
|
| _> 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._
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Isn't that sentence literally true for the Republican
| party as well? So how would it be a differentiating
| factor?
| walterbell wrote:
| There was a 2024 Republican Presidential Primary, https:/
| /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Republican_Party_presiden...
| stouset wrote:
| And it turns out the voters don't seem to actually care
| about the cognitive health of the President, nor do they
| seem to care about being lied to about it.
| walterbell wrote:
| Joe Rogan's three-hour interview of one candidate got
| 40M+ views.
| dialup_sounds wrote:
| Soon: "Terrence Howard nominated to head Department of
| Education"
| j-krieger wrote:
| The Republican Party didn't hide the President of the
| United States from the public because he was no longer
| able to speak publicly.
| vkou wrote:
| The gibberish that routinely comes out of their candidate
| barely qualifies as speech.
|
| The reality is, nobody who was wringing their hands about
| Biden's cognitive abilities, or his son's legal problems
| actually cared about either issue. If they did, they
| wouldn't have voted for an mentally declining criminal
| today.
| ks2048 wrote:
| Yes, they do hide Trump's health reports from the public
| - or rather he never releases any information like other
| presidents do. Hell, he GOT SHOT and never gave any
| details of what happened.
|
| I agree that Democrats denying Biden's cognitive decline
| was a disaster.
| aydyn wrote:
| Also don't blatantly exaggerate and lie in journalism:
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/01/politics/donald-trump-liz-
| che...
| mariusor wrote:
| I think the only lesson that Democrats can learn from the
| past three elections is that women have no chance at
| presidency. If anything, as an outsider, the campaign
| Harris led, seemed to reach vastly more people than
| Biden's.
| vundercind wrote:
| I am 100% convinced a _Republican_ woman could win. I was
| in touch with a lot of deep-red middle-of-the-country
| Republican voters _and candidates_ for state and federal
| offices when Palin was the VP pick. Shooting-stuff-in-
| political-ads sorts. It was practically all they talked
| about. They liked her a ton better than McCain. I think
| they'd have gladly voted for her at the top of the ticket
| (granted, they lost that one, but I think an R woman
| could absolutely be elected President, probably more
| easily than a Democratic one).
| mangoman wrote:
| That would be missing the forest for the trees in my
| view. I could see it having an impact, but when 60% of
| people say that the country is headed in the wrong
| direction, putting up a candidate who was in power the
| last four years just isn't going to work. Biden would not
| have won a primary, and neither would she have
| Maken wrote:
| As a foreigner, the Democratic party just lives of to
| crying wolf on the Republican party without offering any
| meaningful difference. And people have gotten tired of it,
| judging by the fact that Trump is not getting more voters
| than in 2020, but they are getting considerably less.
|
| 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".
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Nah, the problem is that Republicans have openly played a
| dirty game for almost a decade with ZERO repercussions.
| They flaunt the laws and conventions of politics and
| nothing happens.
|
| 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.
| gmueckl wrote:
| This. One side sticks to the rules and watches silently
| while the other side slowly undermines them.
|
| At the same time, the Republicans have perfected the twin
| strategies of sowing distrust in neutral media reorting
| and playing the victim card consistently to everything,
| even their own attacks.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| And Donald's first term taught them that when you lie ALL
| THE TIME, nobody can fact-check you effectively. Just
| stick to the script and talking points, no matter what
| the question.
|
| By the time the first ad-libbed bold faced lie is checked
| and sourced, he has told 42 more. It's not a game you can
| win by playing by the rules.
| skhunted wrote:
| People who vote for a sexual predator, a conman,
| pathological liar, a felon, a cheat, and a person who
| obviously has narcissistic personality disorder are stupid.
| We are living in a tyranny of the stupid. He's the
| President we deserve.
| smallstepforman wrote:
| It clearly shows how bad the D candidate/policy is, such
| that people prefered the R candidate with all the flaws
| you listed. The eye opener should be why people rejected
| the D candidates.
| skhunted wrote:
| It's a white nationalist backlash. They cared not about
| the messenger; only the message. It's also the product of
| Russian disinformation. Russia has perfected the art of
| sowing division and faux outrage. We've done it to other
| countries so we deserve it in some sense. We'll see a
| rise of toxic masculinity. Women exercising sexual
| autonomy and gaining power is not something snowflake men
| can handle.
|
| Such is my belief. I could be entirely wrong.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| It's not about policy though and it never was. There is
| no way the Democrats could have "policy-ed" themselves
| out of this.
| easterncalculus wrote:
| I'm inclined to agree with you. At the same time, I don't
| think Kamala should have spent some of the limited time
| she had cozying up to people who wouldn't vote for her,
| antagonizing her base, and for the most part sidelining
| the people she had to convince.
| vetinari wrote:
| Everyone at this level of power is either psychopath or
| sociopath. So it's not like the voters have any choice in
| that.
| skhunted wrote:
| For the most part. But one can vote for the party that is
| more supportive of human rights, the environment, etc.
| refurb wrote:
| Agree 100%. The "am I wrong? no, it's the voters who are
| wrong!" is a sure sign the next campaign will flop as well.
|
| 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.
| skhunted wrote:
| I don't believe you are correct. People who vote for a
| man as debased, self centered, sexually depraved, and
| criminally inclined as Trump are "wrong". White men
| latched onto a horrible person as their savior. If that's
| what they want then they deserve what comes. But the
| people who don't want that should stick to their
| principles.
|
| 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.
| refurb wrote:
| > People who vote for a man as debased, self centered,
| sexually depraved, and criminally inclined as Trump are
| "wrong".
|
| 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.
| skhunted wrote:
| The Clintons earned $120 million in 10 years after he was
| President. Hilary gave 30 minute speeches at Goldman
| Sachs for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Clearly these
| were payouts for repeal of Glass-Steagal and other
| policies. He was a predator and not deserving of the
| adulation he got. She became senator for New York by
| having it basically handed to her.
|
| 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.
| skhunted wrote:
| _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"._
|
| You'd be wrong. I don't have your apparent level of
| inconsistency.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I am sure you've heard the phrase "Trump with a
| dictionary"
| potato3732842 wrote:
| I never have but I think this is doubly funny since I've
| more than once heard Trump derided as "orange Bill
| Clinton" by hardline fiscal conservatives.
| philistine wrote:
| I look at the grander picture. It's not that the
| democrats aren't connected, it's that the American people
| are culturally bankrupt. The romans became decadent after
| all, culturally incapable of maintaining their empire and
| slowly declining in power and influence over Europe. The
| American idea itself is in decline.
| noworriesnate wrote:
| > The American idea itself is in decline.
|
| America isn't an idea any more than England is an idea.
| We're a specific group of people with a specific
| heritage.
| philistine wrote:
| If you want another word: American culture is in decline.
| fny wrote:
| Inflation. Record illegal immigration. Identity politics.
| Inflation. An anointed candidate. Perceived censorship.
| Inflation. Income inequality. Cover ups. Inflation.
|
| 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.
| ddorian43 wrote:
| Wasn't the inflation done by Trump though? Not allowing
| Powell to raise rates and threatening to remove him?
| fny wrote:
| I completely agree that Trump printed a ton of money, but
| Biden also continued to print a ton of money.
|
| 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.
| tomrod wrote:
| Yes. We Americans have the collective memory of a Mayfly
| and the inability to pay attention to things that drive
| actual inflation that take a lot of time to resolve, like
| bad housing policy, logistics logjams, and starving the
| beastly budget needed for oversight.
| jpamata wrote:
| Could be, or the Ukraine war, the pandemic, or some other
| policy
|
| It's nonfalsifiable. People will settle on the simplest
| observation:
|
| it happened under Biden
| EricDeb wrote:
| of course. And this was a failure of messaging by dems
| pavlov wrote:
| Inflation was global, and the USA navigated it much better
| than other Western economies.
|
| But of course that's far too much nuance for the average
| voter anywhere.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| It is _astounding_ how many people don 't get that.
|
| Also how many people blame it on Biden while giving Trump
| credit for Obama's work.
| astrange wrote:
| Funny thing is we saved ourselves from 2008-style
| economic collapse with stimulus, which partially caused
| the inflation here but also caused it in all the other
| countries. But nevertheless, all their incumbent parties
| lost over it.
| sethammons wrote:
| When you get punched in the face, the first thought is
| not who else got punched. Of course ppl will vote based
| on their own recent face punching. "I didn't get punched
| in the face when the other guy was president"
| pavlov wrote:
| Which is a bit of a weird argument because people did get
| punched hard in 2020. Things were mostly very bad during
| Trump's last year in office. Jobs were lost, millions
| died; Trump himself spent days in intensive care in
| October 2020.
|
| 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.
| crabmusket wrote:
| So what you're saying is that voters are stupid? Punch-
| drunk unable to think about the consequences of their
| actions?
| sethammons wrote:
| I wouldn't say stupid, I'd say ignorant. A more
| progressive interpretation: you can't help someone else
| until you have your own mask on. People are voting based
| on how they feel their life is compared to 4 years ago
| and apparently half of america very much recalls life
| being better then. They don't feel the need to dig any
| deeper than that; they need to get their own oxygen mask
| on.
| refurb wrote:
| > Inflation was global, and the USA navigated it much
| better than other Western economies.
|
| 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_.
| redeux wrote:
| Not only will Trump not fix these things but he's the cause
| or at least contributor to all the things you just
| mentioned. You may be right that those are the reasons
| people voted for Trump, but if they did they're naive at
| best.
| EricDeb wrote:
| Spot on. You nailed it. And dems needed to communicate why
| those things were not their fault or have answers...
| instead they tried "vibes"
| thenaturalist wrote:
| > Inflation.
|
| 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.
| laborcontract wrote:
| I agree that it's a clear message. The messaging the last
| time Trump won the election was that the electoral college
| was broken, Trump lost the popular vote, Americans deserve
| better.
|
| 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.
| stuaxo wrote:
| The Democrats never seem to do much about the system when
| in power.
| tstrimple wrote:
| My new unhealthy conspiracy theory is democrats like
| being perpetually in the minority where they can talk a
| good game but don't actually have to follow through on
| anything. That's why they always tack right and try to
| compromise with people who call them enemies and groomers
| and demons. "We'll welcome them into our cabinet" never
| sat well with me in the era of Trump.
| astrange wrote:
| Polls show voters think Harris/Walz were too liberal, not
| the other way round. They mostly haven't gone right
| either; Biden campaigned as a moderate and ran as the
| most progressive administration in my life.
|
| (Which was good! But voters hated it because they don't
| like change and don't like inflation.)
| tomrod wrote:
| You nailed my biggest complaint.
| astrange wrote:
| If they'd done something they would've lost more. Voters,
| who on average are near retirement age, hate it when you
| do anything because they think it'll affect their
| retirement.
|
| In this case they were blocked by Manchin/Sinema from
| anything like filibuster reform, but they did get some
| big important economic reforms in.
| bezier-curve wrote:
| To me it seems like Democrats just failed to listen to
| their constituents, and being one who wanted Bernie Sanders
| to have some chance at running in 2016 and 2020, I think
| this is the reckoning of that more than anything. The
| Democrats have ignored their own base and this is what
| happens when they pander to signals from everywhere else.
| oldpersonintx wrote:
| the message is America completely rejected the
| "establishment"
| komali2 wrote:
| Every individual is a rational/irrational actor. I don't know
| the split of time they're irrational vs rational. Maybe
| 50/50.
|
| 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.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| > In the early Soviet Union, communist leaders too
| advantage of the opposite zeitgeist to achieve the same
| thing.
|
| What was the opposite zeitgeist?
| bloomingkales wrote:
| _This fascinates me and I want to try this again. It of
| course involves sucking it up and talking to Trump
| supporters_
|
| 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.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Stop calling working people without a college education
| stupid and stop alienating men. "Non-educated" people work
| just as hard or harder than the rest of us. I've been to
| college and the only thing it "educated" me in is Computer
| Science, which I majored in. I'm not in any way better as a
| human being than my friends working in construction. Quite
| the contrary, their job is far more important to society than
| mine. If I stopped my niche research tomorrow, no one would
| really care. If handymen, farmers, or truckers stopped
| working, there would be riots.
|
| 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.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| What you've written is exactly what happened in the UK
| during the Brexit referendum. The lessons still haven't
| been learned.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| As in, they were right calling people bigots if they
| wanted to get out of the eu? That definitely didn't
| improve uk, I've even heard about people feeling
| "betrayed" by the now valid tariffs that damaged their UK
| business
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Working class people who, especially, wanted to control
| immigration were called bigots, uneducated, stupid,
| racist, etc and were ignored. Result is that they voted
| for Brexit. No, that didn't change anything because this
| was ignored by the establishment (both Labour and
| Conservatives) and that is still festering with the
| resulting rise of the Reform UK party (of Nigel Farage
| who's celebrating with Trump in Mar-a-Lago right now).
| imp0cat wrote:
| Here's a better analysis of the Brexit thing which was
| posted here yesterday. It was mostly decided by the fact
| that the pro-Brexit people had better marketing campaign.
|
| https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/q-and-a
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| "Better marketing" campaign is another word for saying
| that they understood people's concerns better and were
| thus able to use that to their advantage instead of
| insulting the people they were supposed to convince (as
| the Remain campaign did). This is what Cummings did to
| win.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Use that to their advantage by telling the truth or by
| lying?
| chimprich wrote:
| > instead of insulting the people they were supposed to
| convince (as the Remain campaign did)
|
| Can you point to any examples of this? I don't think the
| official Remain campaign did anything of the sort.
| Insulting the people you are trying to convert is a poor
| strategy, which is why I don't believe they did it.
|
| When you say "were called bigots, uneducated, stupid,
| racist, etc", what I think happened was that the Leave
| campaign alleged that that was what the Remainers
| thinking/saying and it gained traction.
| rgblambda wrote:
| Your "analysis" is from someone involved in the Brexit
| campaign. Of course Cummings is going to say he was
| amazing at marketing.
|
| Another argument would be that Vote Leave broke campaign
| spending rules. In countries with legally binding
| referenda, that would justify rerunning the referendum.
| But in the UK it was "only advisory".
| ben_w wrote:
| I believe the argument being made is that calling spades
| spades is bad when spade is an insult and you need to
| convince the spades to vote for you.
|
| 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.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| I think that might be the culprit, but then you have no
| escape. Some post brexit interviews have been - at least
| for an European - quite hilarious. I feel sorry for them
| tho, but it's sort of a leopards ate my face situation
| ben_w wrote:
| Indeed, and similar.
|
| I used to live in Cambridge; I knew only one person who
| was a long-time UKIP voter in EU elections, who was
| "delighted" by the result of the referendum.
|
| Even though I'd already been openly discussing moving to
| Germany ahead of the referendum, and went on an InterRail
| trip immediately before it to find a place to move to in
| the event of Leave winning, he _did not comprehend_ that
| my reaction to the result included cutting him out of my
| life entirely.
|
| He wanted the Cambridge to shrink, I left. That's his
| face leopard.
|
| (As for intelligence: he also sometimes boasted of being
| in the international maths olympiad, this was Cambridge
| after all).
| d4rti wrote:
| What happened is that the remain side had to fight on the
| side of a reality that existed and the Brexiteers made up
| a fantasy future that has failed to materialise.
| ben_w wrote:
| > Brexiteers made up a fantasy future
|
| 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?)
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Your comment somewhat illustrates the point. It
| disparages those who voted for Brexit instead of trying
| to understand them, which is a recipe for eventual
| failure as we've seen.
|
| Judging by this thread, it's still not possible to have a
| discussion on this...
| d4rti wrote:
| There was nothing coherent to understand. A rag tag
| coalition mainly built on delusional positions.
|
| - we can have all the trade benefits without freedom of
| movement (specifically denied by EU at the time, didn't
| materialise)
|
| - we will have 'more trade' afterwards (fails to
| understand how trade works)
|
| - we won't have to follow EU rules (in reality, we can't
| really diverge that much from how the EU works without
| incurring penalties)
|
| - we won't have to pay anything to them / we hold all the
| cards / ... (we did pay for our liabilities and we
| definitely didn't hold the cards)
|
| - we can become much more left wing if we leave the
| neoliberal EU (fails to account for the fact our country
| isn't particularly left wing overall)
|
| - politicians will have to take responsibility/can't
| blame the EU (brexiteers keep blaming the EU even now, BJ
| et.al. have faced minimal or no consequences for their
| actions)
|
| - we can fish again (ignores relative importance of
| fishing vs the actually productive economy, disregards
| that EU is a big market for said fish)
|
| What do you suggest we engage with?
| ozim wrote:
| Well oversight on financial institutions by EU is gone,
| yeah you still have regulations for normal business that
| you have to do with EU. But super rich and corporations
| can drop their money in UK puppet territories and EU is
| not going to have pressure points. Google "UK tax havens"
| and I bet brexiteers were handsomely paid for their
| efforts by people who want that scheme to continue
| instead of sharing any of that money with EU.
| chimprich wrote:
| > It disparages those who voted for Brexit instead of
| trying to understand them,
|
| But why? Why is it the job of the people who are on the
| side of established truth who have to understand the
| views of the fantasists? I saw more "disparagement" from
| the pro-Brexit crowd than the Remainers. Why isn't it
| their responsibility to understand the realist position?
|
| We told them Brexit would be a disaster. We were told we
| were scaremongering. It went ahead anyway, and it turned
| out to be awful. It was a stupid decision, and it was
| terrible judgment.
|
| Why can't we tell people that some proposals are stupid?
| And why can't we tell people after the fact that they
| made a stupid decision? How is it our fault that they
| make bad decisions?
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| People were concerned about loss of sovereignty and high
| immigration. These are perfectly valid concerns and the
| Leave campaign perfectly understood that when they picked
| "Take back control" as slogan.
|
| Immigration is also a big factor in the Conservatives'
| defeat in the general election. People felt cheated as
| immigration hit a record high and voted Reform UK, which
| handed Labour a huge majority despite actually getting
| fewer votes than at the previous election.
|
| So it's quite extraordinary to see the comments here with
| zero reflection on why all of this happened. This is the
| real, dangerous divide between the well-offs in and
| around London and the rest of the country.
|
| I have read that the two main issues on voters' minds in
| this American Presidential election were immigration and
| the economy, so result is not very surprising.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| What lessons haven't been learned? Keir Starmer's Labour
| won the last UK elections by a landslide and the Tories
| got the boot. I do think your analysis oversimplifies a
| complex issue.
|
| 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.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| There was no landslide. Labour actually got fewer votes
| than at the previous election when it was by Corbyn!
|
| 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...
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Labour won with 411 seats (up 211 from 2019) and 33.3% of
| the popular vote (9,708,716 votes) vs. 121 seats for the
| Conservatives (down 251) and 23.7% of the popular vote
| (6,828,925 ).
|
| YMMV but I call a lead of 290 seats and 2,879,791 votes a
| landslide.
|
| It was the Lib Dems that seem to have taken most of the
| Tories' voters: 72 seats (up 64) and 3,519,143 votes. The
| latter at least checks out. Reform was up 1 seat from
| 2019 for 5 seats total. Not quite a big splash then.
|
| Labour also won big in Scotland against the SNP for the
| first time in years (but that was rather the fault of the
| SNP).
|
| Data from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_U
| nited_Kingdom_general_el...
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| You're completely missing the point and where the votes
| went.
|
| Labour got 9,708,716 votes in 2024 vs 10,269,051 in 2019.
| Starmer and Labour did not convince voters adn lost votes
| to the Greens.
|
| What happened is that people did not vote for the
| Conservatives and instead voted Lib Dems and, especially,
| Reform UK, which got a massive 14% (3rd place and more
| than the Lib Dems). The Reform UK vote is because the
| Conservatives did not deliver on Brexit and even more
| importantly did the opposite of what they said on
| immigration, which reached record level.
|
| The number of seats to Labour is a result of the above
| (Conservatives dropped so Labour candidate was elected)
| not because people voted Labour more than before. The
| surge is Reform UK.
|
| So the same issues that have been at play in the Brexit
| referendum are still the key issues.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| This BBC article shows how seats moved between parties.
| The seats lost by the Tories mainly went to Labour and
| the Lib Dems:
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4nglegege1o
|
| Reform's seats came from the Tories, unsurprisingly, and
| like you say Reform won more of the popular vote than the
| Lib Dems (4,117,221 vs. 3,519,143; not a wide margin) but
| Reform also campaigned in many fewer constituencies where
| they didn't have to compete directly with the three
| largest parties (not to mention Lord Buckethead and the
| Monster Raving Loony party, their nemeses). So maybe they
| have lots of supporters in certain areas, but only in
| those certain areas.
|
| Reform is not a serious political force in the UK. They
| only renamed themselves from The Brexit Party, but they
| remain a single-issue party that appeals to a tiny
| minority of voters. The majority of the electorate are
| much more concerned with real issues like the economy,
| the NHS, education, law and order, and the environment.
| Brexit wasn't even a particularly big issue in the last
| elections. Even the Lib Dems, who had campaigned for a
| second referendum in 2019, laid it to rest this time and
| focused on more recent issues like sewage spills in
| rivers etc.
|
| Might I also hog the mic a little while longer to say
| that I, personally, am mostly socially conservative, and
| am absolutely appalled both at the Tories and Reform, who
| are nothing but right-wing populists and demagogues that
| do not care a jot about all the things that socially
| conservative voters care for: jobs, order, stability,
| lawfulness, the economy, family, etc. And let's not
| forget that it was Margaret Thatcher's Tories that got
| the UK into the EU, and did so because it was beneficial
| to the economy, trade, and the stability of international
| politics. Exciting the EU was exactly antithetical to
| conservative ideals: it was a radical act of self-
| mutilation.
|
| Labour are now the conservative party, the party of
| business and fiscal responsibility (and sitting on your
| hands while you kick the can down the road) and that's
| why they took all the Tories' votes: because the socially
| conservative constituency got fed up with the Tories'
| antics and, the Brexit fever having passed, wanted to go
| back to order and stability.
| dutchCourage wrote:
| Was Kamalas campaign demeaning to the working class and
| alienating men?
|
| I was under the impression that the Dems were doing more
| for the working class, and that Trump was alienating women.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| [flagged]
| abcd_f wrote:
| Yep. Hence the recent push to kneecap the education in
| States - be it book bans, forced Bible studies or other
| eye-popping regressions. Watching this unfold across the
| pond was a bewildering experience.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| I would have thought young people having access to the
| internet would have allowed them to educate themselves
| and see through bullshit, but apparently not.
|
| I really do think this is the beginning of the end for
| the US. At least I have front row tickets to the show.
| ks2048 wrote:
| I think this is the middle of the end. The beginning of
| the end was probably 2000-2001.
| synecdoche wrote:
| Who are you calling uneducated? Just because your have an
| opinion doesn't make you an authority on what people
| under other life conditions need to lead a successful
| life. Speak for yourself.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| > Just because your have an opinion doesn't make you an
| authority on what people under other life conditions need
| to lead a successful life.
|
| That has nothing to do with anything. Every single person
| voting on the economy for Trump, blaming Biden for
| inflation is an example of a lack of education. Just for
| one example.
|
| There's a reason college educated people vote so
| differently to non college educated people on average.
| synecdoche wrote:
| Again, it's an opinion. It doesn't make it so just by
| having it.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| It's an opinion the way gravity an opinion, and those who
| disagree have an opinion the way thinking the earth is
| flat is an opinion.
|
| The difference is one is backed by hard data.
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| It's a good marketing case-study.
|
| 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.
| 0xEF wrote:
| Depends on who you ask. Both sides demonize the other,
| but say they don't. Republicans are just much, much
| better at it. The ads and rhetoric are all designed to
| solicited emotional responses from the constituency,
| putting them in a very easy position to "Other" anyone
| who disagrees. If you can make your followers feel like
| they are disenfranchised then it's a simple matter to
| control them by promising to be the solution for their
| discontent.
|
| 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.
| theonething wrote:
| > Republicans are just much, much better at it.
|
| Isn't it the Democrats who sling words like nazi,
| fascist, racist, deplorable, trash?
| season2episode3 wrote:
| When one guy is talking about domestic military
| deployments and shooting his political antagonists, and
| it's not clear that the courts will stop him, then I do
| indeed think the F" word is in order.
|
| The rest of it is self evident, but I'm not going to be
| the one to say it out loud.
| vkou wrote:
| The Kamala campaign had one and only one major problem.
|
| 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.
| c22 wrote:
| It _does_ matter how you campaign. Very few people live
| without access to information beyond the price of milk.
| If you see that global inflation is a thing and that it
| is a topic of importance for potential voters you _could_
| acknowledge that it exists and work on your messaging
| /make it look like you're trying to do something to fix
| it.
| vkou wrote:
| The messaging that really gets through to people who
| can't understand that is naked, blatant lies. It worked
| with Brexit, and it worked yesterday.
| carom wrote:
| Flooding the country with millions of undocumented
| workers to compete with Americans is not a favor to the
| working class. That is a hand out to corporations.
| Olreich wrote:
| I can't find any statistical reporting to back there
| being millions more undocumented immigrants coming into
| the country in the last 4 years. Data-backed reporting
| indicates that we've had ~11 million undocumented workers
| since the 2005 with little change until 2020.
| https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-
| we-k...
|
| Any chance you know where to find some more?
| carom wrote:
| Look at monthly border patrol contacts with people
| crossing the border illegally. About 55k/mo recently with
| much higher numbers in 2023.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Ah, yes, because all those people are working at Nvidia,
| Apple, and Microsoft.
|
| 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.
| drawkward wrote:
| It seems that most undocumented workers are doing jobs
| left unfilled by Americans, for example farm labor.
| yadaeno wrote:
| They're unfilled because they don't want to pay
| competitive wages.
| drawkward wrote:
| I take no position on _why_ these jobs are unfilled by
| Americans. But trying to claim these jobs are _stolen_ or
| _taken_ by undocumented workers (as implied by the
| comment to which I originally responded) is just wrong.
| If I assume you are correct (and it is in fact a quite
| plausible theory), I would allege the jobs are being
| stolen from American workers by the employers. Certainly
| the employers are relatively more profitable as a result
| of their shenanigans, if you are correct.
| badpun wrote:
| It's also a hand out to middle class, who cosume a lot of
| services provided by illegal imigrants (landscaping,
| renovation, cooking in restaurants etc.). The Dems kept
| the price of maintaining a nice lawn low.
| thiht wrote:
| It was not, but the Trump campaign continuously lied
| about it. Trump lied and lied and lied about the
| democratic party being anti-men, anti-cis, anti-
| Christian, Kamala being low IQ, and whatever other stupid
| shit he could think about, but somehow it's Harris fault
| for being "too divisive" (not sure how).
|
| 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.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > If people who voted for him are not stupid, they
| certainly act like it.
|
| Being stupid is not a prerequisite to being apathetic.
| theonething wrote:
| And I view Kamala as a fake, policy flip-flopping,
| question dodging word salad spewer.
|
| > 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.
| pritambaral wrote:
| > if you don't see things my way
|
| This attitude of putting words in people's mouths I
| expect on Reddit, but I am disappointed to see it here.
| theonething wrote:
| They literally said anyone who voted for Trump, which
| they obviously disagree with, is stupid or acts like it
| matwood wrote:
| The working class and young men (all young people really)
| have been completely left out of the economic recovery.
| Harris saying she would change nothing about what Biden
| has been doing was a huge problem. She tried to address
| it later.
|
| At the end of the day, "it's the economy, stupid".
| nabakin wrote:
| Both represent the working class, just different subsets.
| Rural working class vs urban working class.
| EricDeb wrote:
| Yea Kamala should not have been the candidate. She was tied
| to Biden who was associated with inflation which I think
| really decided this. I'm not sure the rest of your comment
| has that much to do with it
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| > She was tied to Biden who was associated with inflation
| which I think really decided this.
|
| 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
| EricDeb wrote:
| Of course, its not logical, but voters "feel" they were
| better under trump without realizing inflation was a
| global phenomenon. This was also a failure of Dem
| messaging.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| "Associated with" not "caused by".
|
| 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
| iinnPP wrote:
| Inflation and taxes are two different things.
| vkou wrote:
| Inflation was caused by the Covid stimulus of 2020, and
| the mountains of free money printed that year (which is
| why it hit the entire world - every government did the
| exact same thing). Last I checked, Biden wasn't president
| at the time...
| iinnPP wrote:
| I merely pointed out that taxes and inflation are
| different things and that the respondent said one, where
| they were replying to the other.
|
| Making it a left or right issue makes no sense given the
| content of my post was to point out the mismatch in
| arguments.
|
| EDIT: This post is the same thing fwiw.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Given that Trump's economic policies are primarily the
| cause of inflation in the US, not sure what your point
| is. He printed and gave away 8 trillion dollars when
| combined with his tax cuts for the wealthy and people
| wonder why the cost of everything went up. Corporations
| across the planet were the beneficiaries of corporate
| welfare as governments printed money to battle COVID, and
| then they pocketed the profits and told their employees
| that they couldn't afford to give them raises.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Doing stock buybacks with government stimulus is next
| level evil shit - but there were zero penalties for doing
| it, so why not?
| rtpg wrote:
| I understand calling people stupid is not a strategy to
| convince someone.
|
| 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)
| j-krieger wrote:
| I wish there had been a primary, too. The DNC did a
| massive disservice to the American people.
| johnny22 wrote:
| there was no time to have a real primary with biden
| dropping out when he did if she still wanted to end up on
| ballots.
| pessimizer wrote:
| They should have had a primary instead of having a
| ritualistic anointing of Biden. The reason Biden had to
| drop out is because he was there when he shouldn't have
| been.
|
| I can vaguely understand fixing a primary for H. Clinton,
| but for Biden? One of the things Biden ran on in 2020 was
| a vague indication that he would leave after one term.
| notnaut wrote:
| Yes. It was Biden and his team's decision to prop him up
| til it was too late.
| drawkward wrote:
| Biden promised to be a one term president, but his ego
| craved more power. He will go down along with RBG for
| helping hand democracy to fascists.
| ninkendo wrote:
| There was a primary, Biden won it. Maybe you wanted a
| second primary after he stepped down? That would have
| been tough.
| yladiz wrote:
| Which candidate was unwanted?
| j-krieger wrote:
| Harris. She was dead last in the 2020 primary.
| lupusreal wrote:
| The one that didn't win their primaries.
| y7 wrote:
| What I don't get is how the bar for the Democrats seems to
| be so much higher than for Trump. Sure, "the typical man"
| is more easily validated by Trump than Harris, but at the
| same time Trump says much worse things about women than
| Harris about men. I can see how the Harris seems more
| "elitist" in a way than Trump, but to me that seems like a
| subtle negative versus Trump's long list of very obvious
| flaws.
|
| How does the hatred for the Democrats get so big?
| j-krieger wrote:
| Trump doesn't alienate a specific group of hardworking
| Americans who turn out to vote. The people who are turned
| off by him largely don't vote at all.
|
| > 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.
| n4r9 wrote:
| You're saying that Trump won because US society is
| misogynistic?
| j-krieger wrote:
| In essence, yes. I'm saying that Trump's narrative on
| women is no worse than societies default. Women
| experience far worse things than macho talk. It takes
| more to alienate a lot of them.
| n4r9 wrote:
| It feels like you're balancing two conflicting notions
| here:
|
| 1. Stop calling average people ignorant.
|
| 2. Average people are misogynistic.
| gitremote wrote:
| I'm politically the opposite of the person you're
| replying to, but these two notions are correct and not
| contradictory. Average people are ignorant and
| misogynist, and we should acknowledge this and talk about
| it, but not to their face. If you're not the direct
| target of the ignorance or misogyny, you should explain
| to them why their assumptions are false in a dumbed-down
| way, not using university-level language. Calling people
| ignorant directly will get them defensive and emotional.
| They will think they are being attacked because they are
| a man.
|
| Of course, for people who are directly targeted by the
| ignorance and misogyny, it's their right to directly call
| it out, but they might not call it out at all, because
| they would be targeted further.
| EraYaN wrote:
| The difference between what they are and what you should
| call them. Getting voted in asks for coddling your
| potential base.
| zip1234 wrote:
| Trump talks shit about everyone--somehow all his
| supporters ignore that he has trashed each and every one
| of them at some point
| soco wrote:
| We call that "double standard" and it's top on the list
| of common fallacies. The lack of education, whether I
| demonize it or not, definitely has a saying in its
| spread. And dismantling the department of education won't
| help getting people more educated in the following
| elections.
| dbspin wrote:
| I think the difference is that Harris (less so than
| Clinton but to some extent) was seen as representing a
| liberal consensus that men, particularly white,
| heterosexual men are 'over', that the 'future is female',
| etc.
|
| 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.
| archagon wrote:
| Yes, being a woman in power is clearly a political
| statement in this country.
| dbspin wrote:
| I'm genuinely at a loss as to how that connects to
| anything I wrote. It's not Harris' gender that was the
| issue - to the extent that the position I'm taking helped
| shift the dial. It's the perception that she would
| continue the policies and forward the ideological
| perspectives listed above. It doesn't help that she seems
| extremely disingenuous and politically opportunistic.
| Trump is of course both these things - but conservatives
| seem to care less about that, likely because of the
| redemption narrative built into Christianity. You can be
| as much of a villain as you like provided you push that
| button. It's worth noting that Obama and Bill Clinton
| both pushed their Christianity when campaigning, and that
| appeal wasn't lost on evangelicals. Progressives, it
| would be difficult not to admit, are pretty adamantly set
| against redemption currently.
| lobsterthief wrote:
| Some people definitely think it is.
| lynx23 wrote:
| I dont know about the USA. But I know from personal
| experience, that COVID politics destroyed my trust in
| left-leaning parties. I voted left until 2020. I will
| never give them my vote again, ever.
| n4r9 wrote:
| That's madness. Trump - along with several other right-
| wing figures in the US and globally - consistently
| downplayed COVID's danger, went on wild tangents about
| hydroxychloroquine, ultra-violet light, and injecting
| disinfectant, and challenged the use of effective
| measures such as face masks and social distancing.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Yes. To me, it looks like this was intentional, as a form
| of warfare against the country. I mean, it sure worked,
| and it's said that RFK Jr., a weird crank, will get put
| in charge of all healthcare. That basically means all
| medicine becomes underground, forbidden.
| d0gsg0w00f wrote:
| But most people's anecdotal experiences with COVID amount
| to "It was just like having the flu, I don't see why they
| made such a big deal about it and banned Twitter accounts
| for saying things that line up with my experience"
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| Sorry, which of those measures were effective? People
| really live in completely different world is amazing.
|
| you know that everyone is still getting Covid over and
| over and over again every year, right?
| n4r9 wrote:
| COVID has mutated to become far less fatal. At the time,
| social distancing and mask wearing were effective ways to
| reduce incidence and prevent hospitals from getting even
| more overwhelmed.
| Izkata wrote:
| Except looking at when the waves occurred and when
| measures were in place they didn't do anything.
| Izkata wrote:
| > and injecting disinfectant
|
| This one I know is a straight up lie, because I remember
| where it came from: Trump asked an expert if it was
| possible to use disinfectant inside the body, was
| immediately shut down with a simple "no", and dropped it.
| Audio of the conversation was leaked and immediately
| twisted into "drink bleach", ignoring everything else
| about the conversation.
|
| Also UV light treatment actually exists, just not for
| this purpose. It's a completely normal thing to ask once
| you learn UV kills viruses.
| Reviving1514 wrote:
| I would be interested in learning what happened during
| COVID that led to this, if you have the time to talk
| about that. No worries if not, of course.
| danmaz74 wrote:
| My impression is that it's not about what Kamala Harris
| (or most Democrats) said, but the fact that the
| Republicans were able to create the perception that there
| are strong movements which hate "whites" and which hate
| "men" (in various combinations), and that voting
| Democrats would help those movements. Apparently, they
| were able to convince enough non-white men and white
| women that Trump will be better for them.
| Applejinx wrote:
| It doesn't. Part of what you're seeing is just straight
| up cheating. Florida wouldn't allow election observers.
| It might take a little while to sink in, but American
| elections are more or less running like Russian elections
| at this point, and these results are what you get when
| it's not honest. Sometimes it's like this, and sometimes
| the leader figure is said to get like 99% of the vote,
| when he doesn't feel like playing coy about it. It's up
| to him, not you.
|
| 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.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| Wait who cheated when? Maybe you should go to the capital
| and protest
| fireflash38 wrote:
| The simple fact is, Trump is a rorschach/inkblot test.
|
| 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.
| tessierashpool9 wrote:
| But Scholz, Esken and von der Leyen are really popular! Oh
| wait, we're talking US politics here, my bad ...
| archagon wrote:
| This is all moot now. We have a far-right supermajority in
| government. America is fucked for the next few decades at
| the very least. The DNC is no longer relevant.
| carom wrote:
| Calling republicans far right is the exact rhetoric that
| alienates and divides people. Take the next four years to
| try to find some common ground with the right.
| Yaina wrote:
| Common ground. The whole democratic apparatus of the
| United States might get severely hollowed out for the
| foreseeable future, and you're talking about finding
| common ground.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| What he means is: please let us hollow out democracy
| without you interfering.
| _s wrote:
| Not at all wanting to be confrontational- genuinely
| curious; if they're not on the far right then where are
| they? The Democrats seem fairly centrist, and it's the
| more wayward independents (eg Greens) that seem to be on
| the Left.
|
| My perspective is European & Australian, so I wonder if
| that skews it.
| archagon wrote:
| They are absolutely far right, they just hate it when you
| call them that.
| stogot wrote:
| Because it's illogical. Far right implies there is an
| edge to a majority "right". Calling the entire majority
| "far right" is just lazy adhominem attacks. Calling the
| entire the democrat party far left is equally stupid.
| dns_snek wrote:
| Calling the democratic party "far left" is stupid for a
| different reason, viewed from a global perspective,
| they're probably best positioned as centre-right.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Depends what you care about. Broadly speaking the entire
| developed world is further left than the US on
| workplace/business/union policy issues.
|
| 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.
| j-krieger wrote:
| > Broadly speaking the entire developed world is further
| left than the US on workplace/business/union policy
| issues
|
| 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.
| ilikecakeandpie wrote:
| > not talking Alabama dems here
|
| 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
| potato3732842 wrote:
| I think you have to acknowledge that the democratic
| politicians that rise to prominence in your state are not
| exactly the left of the left when it comes to policy in
| the same way that Christ Christie and Charlier Baker
| aren't hardline republicans. It's just a reflection of
| the electorate, not a personal slight.
| ilikecakeandpie wrote:
| Doug Jones was our last democratic politician on the
| national stage and he voted quite liberally. We just
| don't have many anymore, due to gerrymandering and our
| electorate. I think Terri Sewell is our only non-
| Republican
|
| It is not the best
|
| https://ballotpedia.org/Doug_Jones_(Alabama)
| weberer wrote:
| Can you give some examples of what a far left country or
| government would be?
| j-krieger wrote:
| This is not true. Their identity politics stances are
| widely unpopular across the globe, and you won't find
| another country where they are represented in political
| discourse.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| Yeah, you're mixing up a couple facts with opinions here.
| stogot wrote:
| What opinions?
| slightwinder wrote:
| > Because it's illogical. Far right implies there is an
| edge to a majority "right".
|
| "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.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| No, they're relative terms. "Far right" doesn't mean
| anything in a vacuum.
| simiones wrote:
| The nazi government of Germany was "far right" even when
| a majority of the population supported it. The political
| left-right spectrum is roughly defined with socialism,
| communism on the far left, social democracy on the left,
| classical liberalism on the center-right, conservatism on
| the right, and ultra-nationalism, fascism on the far
| right.
| 56w4574 wrote:
| In America you generally only see "Far X" used as a slur
| to basically imply extremism. I'm sure a lot of people
| will have strong feelings about whether that's accurate
| or not but my point is mainly that I think it's weird
| when people in places like Europe go by the academic
| definition with regard to American politics.
| cryptonym wrote:
| Far-right is well defined globally. Few core values:
| nationalism, authoritarianism, anti-socialism, economic
| libertarianism, racial and gender hierarchies, anti-
| establishment sentiments.
|
| If you think a party is ticking many boxes, you may label
| it as "far-right".
| ImJamal wrote:
| Maybe I am missing something but Trump doesn't support
| much of that?
|
| > 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.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| By that reasoning Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy weren't
| far right, because a very significant portion of their
| population actually voted for that. Or France now, our
| "Rassemblement National" used to be far right, but now
| enough people (about a third) vote for them that they no
| longer are.
|
| Sorry if that feels like a strawman, but I find the idea
| of using popularity to determining what counts as "far"
| stupid and dangerous.
| fastball wrote:
| Maybe the problem is with all of you trying to reduce
| this to one dimension.
| carom wrote:
| They are a corporate party, just like the democrats.
| Supporting secure borders is not far right. Republicans
| have support of every race, they are not racist despite
| the media repeating that they are. Trump is very hesitant
| about getting involved in wars. I see nothing far right
| about them, maybe they are somewhat nationalistic instead
| of globalist, but the US is a diverse nation. At the end
| of the day they are just another corporate party that
| appealed more to the American people.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| Can you define far right?
| n4r9 wrote:
| According to Wikipedia, "Far-right politics ... are
| typically marked by radical conservatism,
| authoritarianism, ultra-nationalism, and nativism"
|
| 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.
| gadders wrote:
| Ah, yes. That well know impartial source of political
| facts, wikipedia.
|
| >>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).
| n4r9 wrote:
| Political ideologies are defined by a cluster of stances
| that collectively form a narrative. Those stances may
| individually have some debatable justifications, but it's
| when they're taken together that it becomes compelling.
|
| 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).
| gadders wrote:
| He's not said anything like this though:
|
| "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...".
| n4r9 wrote:
| A few examples...
|
| For insidious dark forces, he alludes to the "deep
| state", talks about an "enemy from within", and uses
| phrases like "poisoning the blood of the nation".
|
| For glorious past, there's the MAGA motto, and his
| narrative that political correctness and lefty lunatics
| have destroyed American exceptionalism.
|
| For violence, he's repeatedly threatened violence against
| protestors to his rallies, defended or refused to condemn
| violence by his own supporters, and suggested that
| political opponents deserve to have violence inflicted on
| them.
|
| For only a few men, his prodigious hyperbole about how
| he's the best at everything, and he literally describes
| himself as "I am your retribution" who will usher in a
| "new golden age". And again, he's generally praising of
| strongman authoritarians around the world
| cglace wrote:
| Let me turn the question to you. At what point would a
| politician become far right? Have you ever seen a far-
| right politician?
| gadders wrote:
| I think if they actually advocate violence against
| minority groups, start genocidal wars, cancel elections
| etc.
| cglace wrote:
| I guess everyone is moderate in your book.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| Why would you ask someone to define a known concept that
| has been around for decades? It's not like definitions
| are based on someone's opinion.
| stego-tech wrote:
| Because they're trolling, knowingly or unknowingly.
| There's a presumption here that HN commenters can operate
| a search engine and read pages of text, and are therefore
| capable of basic research.
|
| 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.
| iinnPP wrote:
| You can't be unknowingly trolling as it requires intent.
| You could argue wilfull ignorance I guess?
|
| At a quick glance, I found 10 definitions of far right
| that differ slightly. An assumption of malice here fails.
| Remarkably so.
| stego-tech wrote:
| You can miss me with that last part, because I have to
| assume malice on the part of those who try to steer
| discourse around vocabulary or policy nuance rather than
| acknowledge the binary reality of the question.
| iinnPP wrote:
| Vocabulary is what we have for textual discourse lacking
| other inputs, and clarification on terms is a basic and
| actual necessity of such. You say you "have to assume
| malice" and, in line with what I already alluded to, that
| requires malice.
|
| It's not pedantic to ask that your statements be taken
| clearly and in the right context.
|
| It's worth noting as well that in the context of
| inclusion, pointing out pedantry at all is going to
| exclude a group in the "common" understanding of
| exclusion.
|
| Most importantly, this person is trying to understand
| your perspective and instead of trying to sway their
| opinion, you criticize them. One thing that the "far
| right" has accomplished recently is an understanding that
| everyone is a person and worth respect and voice. Which
| is evidenced by the countless videos displaying such
| behaviour and the ubiquitous response of blessing
| attributed to people with such inquisition in comment
| sections everywhere.
|
| In stark contrast is the term uneducated and it's
| supposed link to intelligence. Don't they teach logical
| fallacies in college anymore?
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| I am actually not. I just don't know of any policies or
| promises of Trump that I would genuinely categorize as
| far right. Border control is not far right according to
| me.
|
| 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.
| iinnPP wrote:
| Definitions are often based on opinion. Definitions
| differ depending on many things.
|
| 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.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| That some people are born better than others and they
| deserve more in life. It's an incredibly appealing
| message.
|
| _If you think you're exceptional, vote Gorgoiler '28!_
| 3np wrote:
| That is one of infinite potential framings. It should be
| obvious it has served its usefulness and is no longer
| helpful and constructive.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Non-American here too, but since your perspective is EU,
| what is Nazi party when the Republican party is far
| right? Like, far far far right?
| wiggidy wrote:
| Depends on how you define 'right'.
|
| 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.
| jzackpete wrote:
| Can you name a policy of today's republican party that is
| further right than the republican party of 20 years ago?
| From my perspective they've ceded ground on many social
| issues. They had a porn star speak at the RNC convention
| this year. Dick Cheney, one of the people responsible for
| the "War on Terror", endorsed Kamala Harris. The idea
| that federal politics in the US has shifted right, not
| left, is baffling to me.
| blindriver wrote:
| Democrats believe a man who thinks he is a woman is
| scientifically a woman. They believe in censorship. They
| believe in supporting and growing the military industrial
| complex. They believe in a discrimination campaign
| against whites and Asians, and meanwhile allowing
| unfettered illegal immigration with the intent of giving
| amnesty to the millions that entered through the forcibly
| unguarded border.
|
| They are not centrist by any stretch of the imagination.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| > _Democrats believe a man who thinks he is a woman is
| scientifically a woman_
|
| 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.
| vergessenmir wrote:
| To give you a bit of perspective,the democrats are right
| of the Conservatives in the UK.
|
| So they would kinda feel feel far-rightish to us only
| because the democrats are more conservative than ours
| e40 wrote:
| Perhaps you haven't been listening to the rhetoric of
| republicans.
| siffin wrote:
| Why is everyone else responsible but the people
| responsible? Not calling out fascism is surely just as
| problematic.
|
| 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?
| Jensson wrote:
| > At what point do you call fascism fascism? When it's
| too late?
|
| You call it fascism when it is fascism. Once it is openly
| fascist then it is probably too late to stop, but you
| don't call it fascism until it is fascism.
| drawkward wrote:
| So, only when it is too late can you talk about it?
| theonething wrote:
| How exactly is Trump/Republican party fascist?
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| You could try to answer this yourself by looking up the
| definition and cross checking it with the rhetoric from
| the republican party during this campaign.
| theonething wrote:
| The burden of proof is with the accuser.
|
| 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?
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| Even if I listed all reasons why the rhetoric during the
| campaign reeked of fascism, you'd simply dismiss them,
| like all the times before where this has been called out
| already. This is why people rightly feel people like you
| act like they're in a cult. You can't reason someone out
| of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
|
| 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.
| theonething wrote:
| Ah yes, the "you're too stupid or unreasonable (i.e.
| deplorable or trash)" to reason with so I won't even try
| argument.
|
| > 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?
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| You already try to dismiss an accepted definition, so why
| would I bother reiterating all the easy to find articles,
| videos and podcasts that literally quote and warn of
| Trump's rhetoric? Do you think you sound like a person
| that is trying to understand criticism of his party,
| especially right after voting for them?
| theonething wrote:
| > You already try to dismiss an accepted definition
|
| 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.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| If you think every debate should first have a discussion
| on definitions, before you can get to the heart of the
| argument, you should not be debating.
|
| 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.
| somerandom2407 wrote:
| I think the other poster was just being polite, trying to
| have a discussion about the left's misuse of the term
| fascism, yet failed to account for the degree of
| intelligence required to understand such nuance. So let
| me spell it out for you all, you are misusing the term
| and on the odd occasion that one of you actually checks
| the definition, you view it through your own biased lens,
| rather than reading the complex description thoroughly.
| You cherry-pick some terms and twist others around to
| suit your own dogma, with the intended goal of using it
| to villainise the enemy.
|
| 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.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| I don't even have a dog in this fight since I'm from the
| EU. I can see why the Democrats lost. I can also see why
| Trump won.
|
| 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.
| siffin wrote:
| Let's hope we never have to find out, but so many people
| captivated by a conman while simultaneously crying about
| everyone else's position is a recipe for abuse.
|
| Separating children from parents at the border, reverting
| hard fought women's right to their own body, that is the
| stirring of fascist behaviour.
| theonething wrote:
| > Separating children from parents at the border
|
| 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
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
| n4r9 wrote:
| Advocating conspiracy theories, undermining trust in
| democratic process, pro-nationalist, racist, sympathetic
| to (if not supportive of) white supremacists, ultra-
| conservative and traditionalist, stoking unfounded fears
| of communism/marxism, etc...
| theonething wrote:
| Those items on your list are more opinions than facts.
| They are terms used by the Left to demonize their
| opposition.
| n4r9 wrote:
| Okay. Let's take conspiracy theories. Trump has promoted
| the Obama birther conspiracy, pizza gate, that the
| Clintons are responsible for the death of Epstein and
| other political opponents, that there was fraud in the
| 2012 election and various false claims about the 2016,
| 2020 and 2024 elections, various tropes about Soros
| etc...
|
| It's a fact that Trump shared and promoted these. It's a
| fact that they are conspiracy theories.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Objectively, the use of force to eject protestors at
| rallies is of the fascist mindset. Trump endorses it.
|
| 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.
| theonething wrote:
| > the use of force to eject protestors at rallies
|
| This has happened at Harris rallies as well.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I was watching a streamer who once referred to something
| as "stupid" before they corrected themselves to use a
| different word (I don't remember because it's not the
| point). The reason for their correction was that they
| believe that word to be a lazy way of describing
| something; lots of things can be considered generally
| "stupid" but there's always some underlying reason for
| that conclusion which will invariably be a more
| informative descriptor. (It takes effort to discover this
| reason, hence it's "lazy" when one does not.)
|
| 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.
| ks2048 wrote:
| You can read why Trump's former chief of staff, John
| Kelly (right wing Marine General) called him a fascist,
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/24/trump-
| fascis...
| consteval wrote:
| Many, many ways:
|
| 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.
| casey2 wrote:
| It's just the standard leftist doublethink of the past
| decade. Any realistic definition that labels 99% of
| Republicans as far right would label 95% of Democrats far
| right too. If their ideas were popular they would have
| started their own party a decade ago instead of being
| ground up in the DNC.
|
| 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.
| lobsterthief wrote:
| It seems to me like those in power should be the ones to
| attempt to find common ground with those they govern.
|
| Am I crazy to think that?
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| They like authoritarianism for a reason: they simply
| don't care about other people. The lack of empathy is
| chilling.
| j-krieger wrote:
| No, it's the people who must be wrong. Surely!
| moomin wrote:
| That really isn't the primary alienating and divisive
| rhetoric from this election. It's just the bit you didn't
| like.
| lm28469 wrote:
| I mean, they call Harris a communist so all bets are off.
| Even Sanders would barely register on the left side
| pretty much anywhere in the western world
| ChrisRR wrote:
| As a non-american, I don't see what else they could be
| defined as. Why try to seek a middle ground with the far
| right when they clearly don't want to
| gmueckl wrote:
| The positions the Republicans voiced in their campaign
| cam ony be summarized as far right. So applying the
| moniker to the party in it's current form is accurate.
| The party isn't the same as their voters/supporters.
| mbs159 wrote:
| In my country in Europe our most "right-wing" parties
| would be considered leftist in the US, so hopefully this
| brings into perspective just how extremely right-wing
| republicans are.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Which parties and country would that be?
| Applejinx wrote:
| No. Turns out I found common ground with Liz and Dick
| Cheney. Wouldn't have had that on my bingo card in 2016.
| stego-tech wrote:
| I'm sorry, but OP was right in calling the party - the
| entire party, and its supporters, and its candidates, and
| its institutions - far right. Because at the end of the
| day, many believed this was a nuanced choice about policy
| differences rather than what it really was: a binary
| choice between an imperfect Democracy, and strong man
| totalitarianism.
|
| 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.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| All of the moderate Republicans were primaried out over
| the last eight years, the senate has a few holding on but
| the house has been mostly cleared out. The party is very
| much far right. Did you not see how many Republicans
| refused to certify the election in 2021? It's only gotten
| worse since then.
| 3836293648 wrote:
| Pretending that Republicans aren't far right is just
| disingenuous. The democrats are solidly right and America
| doesn't have a left.
| kingaillas wrote:
| Common ground?
|
| 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.
| hedora wrote:
| I watched the victory speech. He promised three things
| (1) only four years of him in the White House, (2)
| appointing RFK to eliminate vaccines and gut the health
| care industry (3) end current wars, so basically give his
| boss military control of Eastern Europe.
|
| I don't believe (1). The other two would mean our kids'
| life expectancies just halved.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| The very fact he feels the need to promise (1) says it
| all.
| hyeonwho4 wrote:
| - Eliminating vaccines is a terrible idea, but public
| school vaccine requirements are state law in my state.
| RFK won't be touching them.
|
| - 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...
| j-krieger wrote:
| Legal immigrants overwhelmingly voted red. "They" are
| minorities, white people, men and women, young and old.
| BadHumans wrote:
| Common ground with people who voted for someone who
| campaigned on hate is a pretty steep hill. Funny how
| Republicans are never asked to "find common ground"
| scotty79 wrote:
| Republicans stopped existing in 2016 when they found out
| they either have to bow down to Trump or become third-
| party behind democrats and trumpists. Last meaningful
| actions of republicans was suppressing Trump during his
| 2016 reign, but those people are out now. There are no
| republicans left in power.
|
| Who's in charge now are not republicans. Now it's just
| far right believing in genius and ability of their
| cartoonish leader.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| There is not going to be a lot of important differences
| in major policies (economy, diplomacy) between the two
| parties, IMO.
| lynx23 wrote:
| I couldn't agree more. This "my political enemy is stupid"
| approach is very divisive and will not lead to good
| outcomes.
| unrealhoang wrote:
| How come? Trump's just won an election with it.
| lynx23 wrote:
| I realized the stupidity argument during covid first, and
| it all came from the left. So much contempt, a reason why
| I no longer can identify with liberals. In fact, I am
| disgusted by what I remember from 2020/21.
| camdenreslink wrote:
| There does seem to be a real double standard here.
| happyraul wrote:
| If one handyman or one farmer or one trucker stopped
| working, no one would really care. If all CS researchers
| stopped working, I'd wager people would care, just as they
| would if handymen/farmers/truckers stopped working.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| I thing OP point is that if the trucker stopped working
| people and businesses will be impacted that day (before
| he gets replaced, easy with trucker, not with labour).
| The impact will be more direct and tangible way than,
| say, a CS researcher not showing up this morning.
| lqet wrote:
| > Quite the contrary, their job is far more important to
| society than mine.
|
| 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.
| patates wrote:
| > 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.
|
| 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.
| j-krieger wrote:
| > Most of these jobs would be non-existent without the
| researchers of yesterday
|
| 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.
| patates wrote:
| > The research of yesterday was on another level than
| most of what is done today
|
| In what ways? The impact? That can't be proven until
| "tomorrow" comes, no?
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Survivorship bias
| abcd_f wrote:
| > Stop calling working people without a college education
| stupid and stop alienating men.
|
| 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.
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| > 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...
|
| You may not realize you said it, but you said it.
| ninkendo wrote:
| So what is the takeaway here? When referring to trump
| supporters, follow the line of reasoning:
|
| - 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.)
| bloopernova wrote:
| Realize that in most of those conversations, those
| actions serve to derail. That's intentional, it shuts
| down any rational discourse.
| effable wrote:
| But are you arguing that when people believe things that
| are demonstrably false, like using bleach as a Covid
| remedy, not because there is any evidence behind them but
| only because they were uttered by someone they trust
| wholeheartedly, and this person does not have any hint of
| medical training, that nobody should say they are stupid,
| but only quietly believe it in their minds?
|
| If not that, then what were you trying to say?
| j-krieger wrote:
| > But are you arguing that when people believe things
| that are demonstrably false, like using bleach as a Covid
| remedy,
|
| These are morons you read about in your news bubble. The
| average American is not like them.
| j-krieger wrote:
| > Nobody is calling anyone stupid just because of the
| lack of 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.
| eps wrote:
| Do show mainstream press examples pinning this on
| _stupid_ people.
|
| Not "uneducated", but expressly "stupid".
| j-krieger wrote:
| Let's not argue words. Other kind labels were
| deplorables, fascists, Nazis, garbage, sexists, racists,
| xenophobes and anti-American.
| ttoinou wrote:
| Overeducated people are as much manipulable, but in a
| different way
| TheHypnotist wrote:
| Do they wear diapers and garbage bags?
| slothtrop wrote:
| I've seen research shared here that suggest that more
| education scales with more radical political beliefs and
| overconfidence, for _both_ sides of the spectrum, not
| just left. So you 're right. Though of course more people
| concentrated in cosmopolitan areas with liberal cultures
| means more educated people lean left.
| ars wrote:
| You are calling other people gullible and easy to
| manipulate, and yet somehow you believe that Trump
| actually suggested bleach.
|
| He didn't.
|
| Seems to me you need to look in a mirror.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| This is an honest question, I'm not American, I don't live
| in the US and I genuinely don't know: how has Donald Trump
| served the interests of "working people without a college
| education" during the four years of his presidency? I'm
| also curious to know if the Democrats have done any
| different.
|
| 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?
| bitcurious wrote:
| > how has Donald Trump served the interests of "working
| people without a college education" during the four years
| of his presidency?
|
| 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.
| n4r9 wrote:
| > During his presidency illegal immigration was lower
|
| 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".
| bitcurious wrote:
| >https://www.statista.com/statistics/329256/alien-
| apprehensio...
|
| Trump's first term and Obama's second term were fairly
| steady, then you see a massive bump under Biden.
| n4r9 wrote:
| Border patrol apprehensions is very different from
| illegal immigration! You can't control how mnay people
| _try_ to get across.
| bitcurious wrote:
| You actually can, by working the incentives. For the
| first three years of Biden's administration one could
| show up, be apprehended, and be relatively certain that
| they would be released into the country, where you might
| be housed and fed.
|
| Under later Trump and Biden's current policy, you are
| released into Mexico.
| kgwgk wrote:
| https://x.com/SenJohnThune/status/1793001514211967288
| stillold wrote:
| They all just voted against their own economic interests to
| win their culture war.
|
| Objectively, they are stupid, even the ones who went to
| college.
| j-krieger wrote:
| On the contrary. The voted for their own economic
| interests and ignored the culture war. Economics was the
| number one issue.
| epakai wrote:
| It was a reactionary response though. The fantasy of
| going back to low grocery prices is just that. Or are we
| actually going to pursue deflation?
|
| I don't see any policy there, just platitudes.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| On every objective measure the US has the best economy it
| has had in...pretty much ever. So they voted for "their
| own economic interests" by voting in a guy with plans
| that every economist says will be absolutely disastrous
| and will not only massively spike unemployment, it will
| lead to far greater prices for American consumers.
|
| 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.
| j-krieger wrote:
| > On every objective measure the US has the best economy
| it has had in...pretty much ever.
|
| Except the one metric that really counts: People can't
| afford their basic needs.
|
| > So they voted for "their own economic interests" by
| voting in a guy with plans that every economist says
|
| You mean leftside selected economists with their own
| agenda.
|
| > will be absolutely disastrous and will not only
| massively spike unemployment, it will lead to far greater
| prices for American consumers.
|
| He had the lowest unemployment numbers in decades.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| >People can't afford their basic needs.
|
| Wage growth has far exceeded inflation in the United
| States. Americans as a whole have never, in history, been
| wealthier or consumed as much. This is one of those fun
| "you don't know what you've got until it's gone" things
| where people bought into a political narrative to such a
| degree that in their world-leading affluence they truly
| think they are hard done by and wronged. I sadly feel
| that a lot of Americans are going to learn that there is
| a long, long way to fall.
|
| >You mean leftside selected economists with their own
| agenda.
|
| If you really look at everything like this, that's
| incredibly sad and self-deluding. Trump's economic plans
| are scattered spitballing that sound like something the
| most ignorant person just randomly contrives. There is
| literally nothing Trump has proposed that would in any
| way improve the US economy or reduce prices of anything.
| But they absolutely would do the opposite. No one, ever,
| has convincingly described how Trump is going to improve
| the economy. It's just random score-settling and self-
| enriching nonsense.
|
| >He had the lowest unemployment numbers in decades.
|
| In Trump's first term he was constrained from doing much
| of anything, and actually accomplished shockingly little
| policy, just coasting on Obama's policies. In this term
| he will have zero checks. He can _actually_ do the crazy
| nonsense he has proposed, and destroy the country.
|
| There are two possible paths ahead for the United States-
|
| -economic calamity with zero upside where people learn
| that tariffs aren't some magic thing that other countries
| pay. Where inflation _truly_ starts going wild again,
| while federal services collapse and the oligarchs reap.
| Musk, Bezos and crew will never have it better. Many
| Americans will have it much worse.
|
| -...or..., and what Trump voters repeatedly reveal they
| are assuming in voting for him, he just lied about
| everything he says he's going to do to get a vote and
| actually won't do anything much at all beyond some
| corruption and self-serving.
|
| Either is pretty terrible. But here we are.
| tomp wrote:
| The entire point of being wealthy (and USA is one of the
| richest countries on earth) is to be able to afford to
| sacrifice some _extra_ wealth (e.g. by not working, or
| giving to charity, or abolishing slavery, or enforcing
| worker 's rights) to accomplish other goals (whatever you
| deem good, or moral, or just fun / entertainment).
| llm_nerd wrote:
| I get and fully understand that many Americans are angry
| and want change, and they exercised their democratic right
| and pursued that change. We all need to respect that. Many
| things are not on the right path, and I have a feeling
| "DEI" and grievance farming is going to have a rough time
| ahead. And I get it: As a white male I honestly am tired of
| government being a tool to suppress white males. I am sick
| of living in a Western country that endlessly self-
| flagellates and acts like it needs to host the world in
| some act of contrition for success.
|
| 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.
| nodra wrote:
| Well said.
| PeakKS wrote:
| I find a lot of his voters seem to respond to criticisms
| with "Oh don't worry, he's not actually going to do those
| things." I think your point about making his lying a
| feature of his candidacy is spot on. Here's to hoping
| that nothing ever happens.
| otteromkram wrote:
| > Quite the contrary, their job is far more important to
| society than mine.
|
| 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.
| v7p1Qbt1im wrote:
| That's the fault of capitalism. Which the right supports
| even harder than the democratic party (which also
| completely supports it).
| Molitor5901 wrote:
| One more to the list: Stop trying to twist science into
| conforming to political or social will.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Yes! I hate that. Also, "listen to the science" people
| are obnoxious. There are regular scandals of people in
| STEM faking their results for decades and I've seen
| garbage labelled as research more often than I can count.
|
| 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.
| braiamp wrote:
| That would be true if there was a change with that
| population. Right now the numbers are that Trump won with
| slightly less votes than when he lost in the 2020
| elections; and Kamala lost with significantly less vote
| than Biden got in the 2020 elections. There are almost 20
| million of voters that didn't show up on this year election
| that showed for the 2020.
| guappa wrote:
| Eh, if ONE builder stops working nothing happens. Likewise
| if ALL researchers stop working... we don't feel it the
| next day, but it will be felt.
| skhunted wrote:
| Obama is the only 2 term President to have gotten a majority
| of the vote both times since Ronald Reagan. Our system had
| been broken in a sense (depending on your perspective). We've
| had candidates get a plurality and some a majority of the
| vote who did not get elected. I think the electoral system
| needs to be abandoned.
|
| 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.
| arp242 wrote:
| > 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.
| skhunted wrote:
| When Obama was President his first two years Democrats
| had clear majorities of both houses. But that fool was
| obsessed with "bipartisanship". He acted as if the
| political norms of the 70s had not changed. Also, they
| haven't even tried to fight for the things I mentioned.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| In Obama's first term, the parties were not nearly as
| ideologically sorted as they were today. There was a
| Democratic majority of 257 in the House, yes, but 54 of
| those were members of the explicitly conservative Blue
| Dog Coalition. They wouldn't have agreed to vote for
| sweeping partisan reforms.
| skhunted wrote:
| I think they would have gone for updating the number of a
| Representatives. But they didn't even try to do such
| things. Obama kept trying the make a deal with
| Republicans and acted like it was the 1970s. In the end
| he saw what his efforts were worth when Republicans
| refused to even vote for his Supreme Court nominee.
| prepend wrote:
| Changing number of representatives would require a
| constitutional amendment and that wouldn't have passed
| with enough states.
|
| I don't think number of representatives matters as it's
| mostly representative of population. If the ratios are
| the same then I don't think 435 vs 4035 matters.
| skhunted wrote:
| _Changing number of representatives would require a
| constitutional amendment..._
|
| You are wrong on this. You should look up Reapportionment
| Acts. The number of Representatives does matter in an
| electoral system and for other reasons. A Representative
| from California represents far more people than one from
| North Dakota. This is a major power imbalance in both
| electoral matters and in matters of federal legislation.
|
| The number of Representatives hasn't been updated in a
| 100 years.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Changing number of representatives would require a
| constitutional amendment_
|
| No, the size of the House is determined by Congress; a
| century ago they decided to cap it at the current number,
| and never increase it since then, regardless of
| population increase.
|
| > _I don't think number of representatives matters as
| it's mostly representative of population_
|
| That's not the case, though. A quick look at constituents
| per representative across states is all it takes to see
| how stark that is.
|
| It's extra important because the number of electoral
| votes each state gets is dependent upon their number of
| representatives.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _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._
|
| 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
| skhunted wrote:
| In 2008 these things could have been changed but Obama
| was too interested in bipartisanship.
| shultays wrote:
| Don't kill squirrels just before election
| loktarogar wrote:
| The vice-president doesn't order squirrel murders.
| pabs3 wrote:
| For those who haven't heard of this:
|
| https://checkyourfact.com/2024/11/04/fact-check-did-
| trump-re...
| sethammons wrote:
| But it is a shiny example of what most sane people call
| Too Much Government.
|
| People love to hear Trump saying he will drain the swamp.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I think calling this too much government inaccurate. IMO
| it is government not doing enough what it should do, and
| putting its hands into private issues too much. So
| cutting government regulation won't work.
| sethammons wrote:
| This is a case of a home raid and tossing the house that
| resulted in the killing of a pet. If you don't think that
| is too much government power and abuse, I don't
| understand your world view.
|
| In my ideal world, a govt. rep would reach out or knock,
| even with a warrant, to do an animal wellness check and
| remove the animal in case of abuse and to cite the owner
| and specify the correct forms needed to keep the
| squirrel.
| surfingdino wrote:
| In this election, the Democrats were unable to offer the
| majority of voters the past they fondly remember or the
| future they can look forward to. It's that simple.
| prawn wrote:
| Succinct. Haven't seen a relevant explanation phrased like
| that.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| The lesson is that Reddit is not real life, and that calling
| half the country racist sexist fascist inbred stupid
| genocidal monsters turns out to not be a winning strategy.
|
| Whether democrats finally learn that lesson is another thing.
| I am not optimistic on that.
| chimprich wrote:
| > calling half the country racist sexist fascist inbred
| stupid genocidal monsters
|
| 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.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Did you miss biden calling all trump supporters
| "garbage"?
| chimprich wrote:
| It was a single remark by the outgoing president who
| wasn't standing for election, and something he quickly
| rowed back on. It was clearly something he didn't intend
| to say, but at some point in an election campaign someone
| is going to misspeak.
|
| Anyway, you're moving the goalposts. The allegation was
| "calling half the country racist sexist fascist inbred
| stupid genocidal monsters".
| mvdtnz wrote:
| You're right, he didn't call them that. He called them
| garbage.
| slothtrop wrote:
| In response to someone calling Puerto Rico garbage? It
| wasn't "all trump supporters".
| JasserInicide wrote:
| Obama was chastising black men the past couple weeks for
| not wanting to vote for Harris. And what a surprise that
| they went hard for Trump instead.
| chimprich wrote:
| > Obama was chastising black men
|
| Can you quote what Obama said that seems relevant to my
| post? I doubt he outright insulted anyone.
|
| > And what a surprise that they went hard for Trump
| instead
|
| According to an exit poll, Black voters voted 86%
| Democrat this year, compared to 87% at the 2020 election.
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
| politic...
| AnthOlei wrote:
| Oh my this is awful - could you post a source?
| ks2048 wrote:
| Have you seen how Trump describes half the country? It
| worked for him.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Voters on the left need to learn that lesson, the DNC
| already knows. Harris campaigned to the right of Biden, at
| that.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| >calling half the country racist sexist fascist inbred
| stupid genocidal monsters
|
| 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.
| p_j_w wrote:
| >calling half the country racist sexist fascist inbred
| stupid genocidal monsters turns out to not be a winning
| strategy
|
| But calling Puerto Rico a pile of trash is okay?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Hispanic and black voters won't turn out to vote for a woman,
| regardless of race.
|
| Next time, run a 6'2" white guy with good hair.
| gizzlon wrote:
| There might not be a next time
|
| _shrugs_
| prepend wrote:
| Gavin Newsom tried.
| ekam wrote:
| They turned out for Obama so it's definitely not a white
| thing, as much as people wish it was
| dheera wrote:
| The popular vote is not a good indicator. I live in a deep blue
| state, the fact that my vote doesn't actually influence the
| electoral college reduces the incentive to go vote,
| drastically.
| lpa22 wrote:
| That goes both ways. In fact, there might be more Red voters
| who think their vote is futile and don't do out to vote.
| relaxing wrote:
| There isn't. The polling and results are all out there.
| sweezyjeezy wrote:
| Exactly, unless you rerun with a "popular vote wins" election
| - it's not concrete at all. The campaigns would not have been
| run in the same way, and the people would not vote in the
| same way.
|
| I say this every election when democrats play the "but we won
| the popular vote" card as well - that wasn't the game being
| played, so it doesn't really mean that much.
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| If he didn't win it, the democrats narrative right now would
| be the electoral college is a fraudulent system and he is
| illegitimate. #notmypresident
|
| Now you can question 2nd order effects, but that's not a
| message that's easy to communicate through media.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Yeah, that the US democratic system is broken; each state
| having an equal say is not fair given the populations are far
| from equal.
| defrost wrote:
| I'm an outsider; is the US a democratic union of 50 states
| (plus districts and territories) or is it a democratic union
| of ~ 335 million individuals?
|
| Is the EU vote in Brussels passed by countries or by
| individual citizens?
|
| As I recall the current electoral system was set up to weight
| the votes of states that were members of the union .. if the
| US has moved to a single unified country of individuals then
| it might be time to reset the rules (the US founders would be
| in favour if I read their comments on evolving systems
| correctly).
|
| Perhaps 'dated' is a better description than 'broken'.
| messe wrote:
| That's a silly comparison when even the EU is a mix of by-
| country/by-population (council/parliament--and even the
| parliament is weighted toward giving smaller countries more
| representation)
| kelnos wrote:
| > _is the US a democratic union of 50 states_
|
| If you mean "state" in the sense of "nation-state", then
| no, the US is not a democratic union of 50 states. It's a
| federal republic. While each state does have its own
| identity, government, and laws, the US federal government
| has much more power over US states than the EU has over
| member countries.
|
| > _the current electoral system was set up to weight the
| votes of states that were members of the union_
|
| The current electoral system was set up to appease the
| southern slave-owning states who would have had little
| representation if the straight popular vote was used.
|
| > _Perhaps 'dated' is a better description than 'broken'._
|
| Potato, potahto. Distinction without a difference, in this
| case.
| mirthflat83 wrote:
| You do know that USA stands for United States of America,
| right?
| csomar wrote:
| He is taking the popular vote too. Have other ideas to bash
| his presidency?
| LunaSea wrote:
| He increased the deficit while supposedly raining in on
| spending?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I didn't know that at the time of writing. Anyway I don't
| need to bash his presidency, he's got that covered.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| How about some good old-fashioned respect for the office of
| President?
|
| Trump's legacy already speaks for itself.
|
| As far as Europe and other overseas countries are
| concerned, Trump's most remarkable accomplishment was quite
| some time ago when he was President the first time.
|
| He made unprecedented Presidential history already, and for
| the rest of his life (as well as the lives of millions of
| other senior citizens) he can bask in the degree of
| admiration that he brought to such an esteemed executive
| office.
|
| He clinched it like no other in over 75 years of very
| strong & respectable leadership, recognized worldwide which
| really means something to international partners of all
| kinds.
|
| He made sure that President Barack Obama will go down in
| history as the final US President to effectively be the
| "leader of the free world", in a long line of illustrious
| Republicans & Democrats who may one day regain such a level
| of respect again.
|
| Only not possible in the lifetimes of millions of people
| around the world, for whom it's just a little too late now.
| Biden couldn't recover that mantle in only 4 years unless
| he was a miracle worker of some kind, that's how elusive it
| really was.
|
| Completely eluded Trump, and once again the traditional
| American kind of world-class leadership on an international
| stage fades further into the past, with no recovery on the
| horizon any time soon.
|
| This is something that nobody can deny.
| iainmerrick wrote:
| You're confusing the electoral college with the Senate. In
| the electoral college, the states are weighted by population.
| It's a flawed system, but it's _not_ "each state having an
| equal say".
| wrasee wrote:
| But even then the weighting is _very_ uneven. The number of
| votes per elector can vary wildly by state, by as much as
| some small whole multiple. So the "weight" of one vote in
| one state can be say, four times that of another state.
|
| It's amazing to me that this can stand and efforts to
| change never seem to get very far.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| My bad, I thought it was massively unbalanced in favor of
| flyover states vs population centers.
| throwaway345725 wrote:
| Yeah. It's been scary to see how Big Tech and the media
| presented Trump as a threat to democracy and someone you cannot
| possibly vote for. It becomes dangerous when one party has that
| much power and support. It's not a democracy anymore when
| people are not presented with facts and are not allowed to
| express their opinions without getting cancelled or labeled a
| certain way. You can see it even in the comments here: "Far
| Right", "bigot", "redneck". We should acknowledge that blunt
| words like this are at a very low level of political
| discussion. "Far Right" is a particularly nasty label because
| even a liberal from 2010 would meet the definition as it's used
| today by liberals.
|
| Look at this [1] - Oprah warning women that if they don't vote
| they may lose their ability to vote. This is ridiculous. Trump
| is not a saint and January 6th was a dark moment but they (the
| Big Tech, the media, the celebrities) blown the negative image
| of Trump out of proportion and are making stuff up. Whether you
| like him or not he is the candidate of the other party. There
| is no democracy without the other party. The reality is that
| the megaphones have been cornered by a single side and are used
| in the most unfair way with additions of fake news and negative
| coloring about Trump and the "Far Right". Elon Musk saved the
| day by buying Twitter. It's the last social media platform
| where Republicans and their supporters could have any presence.
|
| There were plenty of reasons to not vote for Kamala. Perhaps
| the biggest ones are her views that align with communism. [2]
| And by the way, Merry Christmas! [3]
|
| [1] https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1853659788678156648
|
| [2] https://x.com/theconread/status/1853834480944881871
|
| [3] https://x.com/MattWallace888/status/1853234344187355332
| sumo89 wrote:
| You're complaining about how Trump was presented as a threat
| to democracy after he made a speech saying how if he wins
| you'll never have to vote again? After he lead an
| insurrection and tried to illegally overthrow the previous
| election both on paper and in person?
|
| Seen a good few Trumpers complaining about the label "far
| right". If you don't like the label that's on you, it's like
| an orange complaining about being called an orange, it's a
| fact.
| throwaway345725 wrote:
| Like I said, it was a dark moment. However, Democrats have
| been in charge for 12 out of the past 16 years and have the
| support of billionaires owning the biggest content
| platforms. Recently, they used those platforms to the
| fullest extent to drive their political agenda with the
| general message being "Democrats are the only moral
| choice". He stirred up an insurrection but like I said it's
| not just about Trump but the 2-party system that makes this
| a democracy. I would repeat the second paragraph of my
| previous comment.
|
| What am I supposed to think when I see a campaign ad like
| this? [1]
|
| [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/04/politics/video/will-
| ferre...
| happytoexplain wrote:
| >Like I said, it was a dark moment.
|
| The parent pointed out that Trump promised the same thing
| again - so not a dark moment, but a dark pattern. Very
| dark. There's not much darker than overturning the rule
| of law and creating civil unrest.
|
| >"Democrats are the only moral choice"
|
| I agree with you that Democrats are not somehow unusually
| moral, but I don't think this is the lie you are
| portraying it as (or exaggeration? It's unclear what your
| criticism is exactly). Plenty of people have been given
| plenty of concrete examples indicating that the Trump
| camp contains a significant portion of people who espouse
| unusually immoral ideologies. Maybe they're wrong, but
| they don't have to do mental gymnastics to arrive at that
| conclusion in an intellectually honest manner. And, as
| you rightly point out, there are effectively only two
| parties.
|
| >I would repeat the second paragraph
|
| Regarding that, then:
|
| >if [women] don't vote they may lose their ability to
| vote. This is ridiculous.
|
| I've heard Trump supporters say they think women
| shouldn't vote dozens of times - on the social media
| platforms you claim are (or were at the time) lacking
| conservative voices. The notion isn't ridiculous. It's
| _unlikely_. But when it comes to threats to the most
| foundational rights, "unlikely" isn't good enough for
| the voter's mind.
|
| >Whether you like him or not he is the candidate of the
| other party. There is no democracy without the other
| party.
|
| Democrats largely don't take this stance beyond petty
| disrespect like "not my president" and demanding recounts
| in very close regions. Trump supporters, on the other
| hand, explicitly do take this stance when the other
| candidate wins, as you, again, have already admitted.
|
| >Elon Musk saved the day by buying Twitter
|
| Twitter moderation under Musk is at least as right-
| leaning as it was left-leaning prior. That is to say,
| somewhat. What Musk _did_ do was declare the word "cis"
| a slur, broadly. A word I used to describe myself and my
| wife in another comment, because it was _relevant and
| correct_ (the usual comparisons are the words "Jew" or
| "gay").
|
| Republicans haven't been anywhere near absent from social
| platforms for 15 years. Underrepresented, maybe. However,
| social platforms bring out the ever-living pettiness of
| politics on _both sides_ , and the conservative flavor of
| pettiness is naturally more likely to break even the most
| politically-neutral moderation rules (or be "shouted
| down", by whatever definition you want for that) on
| social media platforms, because it is more _anti-social_
| than the liberal flavor of pettiness.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > It's been scary to see how Big Tech and the media presented
| Trump as a threat to democracy
|
| Please explain how Project 2025 (written by the Heritage
| Foundation etc etc, not big tech / the media) is not a threat
| to democracy, specifically its sections on consolidating
| power in a single person (= autocracy) and dismantling
| various federal systems of checks and balances in favor of
| loyalist political appointees.
|
| > It's the last social media platform where Republicans and
| their supporters could have any presence.
|
| Truth Social was built specifically as a safe space for
| Republicans and their views. Musk did not make Twitter a
| bastion of free speech, not when using words that personally
| offend him get you banned.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| You're claiming that the left uses more "blunt words" and
| "nasty labels" than Trump supporters.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Every time somebody wins, their supporters say it sends a clear
| message. You should consider that the message you believe is so
| clear that you've left it unsaid is demonstrably not clear.
|
| I absolutely sympathize with _individual reasons_ to vote Trump
| and don 't automatically look down on Trump voters
| (immigration, for example). But, Trump himself and explicit "
| _Trump supporters_ " (i.e. people who make it clear they
| support his general identity - negativity and all) 95% of the
| time don't leave any room for sympathy when I encounter them,
| online or in person, and they are extremely common. What the
| average liberal is shown (and I assume you care about the
| average person in each camp, since lauding the common man is a
| prominent value) is an unheard-of-in-their-lifetimes amount of
| verbal encouragement (with varying degrees of explicitness) for
| hatred of others, violence against others, imprisonment of
| others, and disrespecting of the law/constitution in the name
| of those things. It's not comparable with any past Democratic
| candidate (or Republican, for that matter).
|
| On the personal scale, my wife and I don't express anything
| close to extremist positions, or any cheerleader-type love for
| Democrats, or any name-calling of conservatives, and yet we are
| called every slur that's popular with Trump supporters. _And we
| 're white, cis Americans._ My wife, because she's so friendly
| when strangers talk to her, has been stalked by one Trump
| supporter and had another call her a slut (to another Trump
| supporter, not to her face). She's terrified of these people
| now. It's insane that they even state out loud their support
| for Trump in the short time we encounter them.
|
| You can't expect humans presented with that to think, when that
| candidate wins, "Wow, I guess political issues X, Y, and Z are
| really important to those guys. Maybe I was too harsh on them."
| They're going to think, "Wow, those guys really are leaning in
| a fascist-y direction and have a big problem with evil people
| in their ranks. I'm scared for my country, community, and
| family." I don't think that's an extreme or unnecessarily
| provocative thing to admit.
| mintplant wrote:
| I'm trans. Yeah, the message is clear, alright. This country
| either hates us _that much_ , or is just that willing to throw
| us to the wolves.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| You're not as important as you think you are
| mintplant wrote:
| Then why won't they leave us alone?
| Veen wrote:
| Bluntly, because trans activists are intent on forcing
| non-trans people to accept a fiction (people can change
| sex), deny biological reality, and overturn rights that
| women have fought for (no men in their private spaces).
| Not to mention influencing vulnerable children into
| harmful and unnecessary medical procedures. Stop doing
| that and almost everyone will happily leave you alone to
| dress and behave however you please.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| > _Stop doing that and almost everyone will happily leave
| you alone to dress and behave however you please._
|
| I'm pretty sure they won't. And for that reason alone...
| https://www.youtube.com/@TacticoolGirlfriend
| mintplant wrote:
| I can't wait for four more years and beyond of hearing
| these same talking points over and over and over again. I
| could put up an argument here, but it's been done before
| and better, and frankly, I'm just so tired today.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| >forcing non-trans people to accept a fiction (people can
| change sex)
|
| This is dishonest.
|
| Obviously, vanishingly few people disagree on basic
| reality. Undeniable facts include: Whether or not I have
| a penis; whether or not I have a Y chromosome; whether or
| not biologically male and female brains/bodies normally
| differ; whether or not I feel like a man or feel like a
| woman; whether or not that feeling is permanent (that one
| would involve predicting the future, but is still
| ultimately factual).
|
| The things people actually differ on are:
|
| - The semantics of words like man/woman. This is 99%
| identity politics - "semantic argument" is practically a
| synonym for "pointless argument". "I'm using this word in
| a new-ish way."; "No, I disagree with that usage." It's
| utterly tangential.
|
| - More relevantly: How (un)comfortable they feel about
| some of those basic realities listed above, and whether
| or not they express that using pettiness, word-bending,
| cherry-picking, physical violence, murder, etc.
|
| >influencing vulnerable children into harmful and
| unnecessary medical procedures
|
| I can't say that a "you are whatever you feel like"
| influence has literally _never_ resulted in an
| impressionable mind making a horrible decision for
| themselves, but it 's monumentally overstated by
| conservatives, which is easy to do because it's _so_
| subjective and _so_ dramatic. The line between the
| obviously correct "be who you are without fear" and the
| less prudent "wouldn't you like to be who you feel like
| you are?" can be very blurry.
|
| >Stop doing that and almost everyone will happily leave
| you alone to dress and behave however you please.
|
| Surely you can read this and see that "almost" does not
| qualify this into reasonably true territory. This is just
| not how people are.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| Because people like you are often at the forefront of
| wider social movements. Stuff like healthcare, safety
| nets, worker empowerment... Your influence goes way
| beyond gender care or women's rights. Beyond their
| bigoted sensibilities they have an incentive to shut down
| many of the wider political views you may defend.
| dartharva wrote:
| Has any of your rights or space been materially invaded
| by whoever "they" are? Or is it all just communal
| paranoia?
| mintplant wrote:
| I could literally lose my access to care over this, if
| the new administration follows through with what's been
| promised.
| xeromal wrote:
| Are you losing access to all care or free care?
| mintplant wrote:
| Care that I earn through my work that brings in more to
| my institution than it costs to have me on board. As if
| that distinction should matter.
| zo1 wrote:
| Then the trans activists (not the community) should not
| have been pushing stuff onto the kids side of things.
| That's a 100% no-go area and I don't know how anyone
| thought that was a good idea. People, all people, want
| themselves and their children to be left alone.
| Veen wrote:
| It's more likely that there is a small vocal pro-trans lobby,
| a small vocal anti-trans lobby, and almost everyone else who
| gives it no thought whatsoever.
| mintplant wrote:
| I did say "or is just that willing to throw us to the
| wolves".
|
| You can't pretend that we we haven't been forced into the
| political eye over past several years. The winning party
| has been extremely loud and extremely clear about their
| plans for us. I don't buy the ignorance argument anymore,
| not after three election cycles of this. If you voted for
| them, then you're okay with more of us dying in exchange
| for whatever you think you're getting out of the deal.
|
| (Using the nonspecific "you" here--of course I don't know
| how the person I'm replying to voted.)
| squidgedcricket wrote:
| This is a little outside my bubble - what specifically
| are you worried about?
|
| I have a couple acquaintances that are trans and they
| seem like normal happy people that aren't overtly
| oppressed. I'm under the impression that the state of
| trans rights is more or less equivalent to black rights,
| is that not the case?
| kelnos wrote:
| > _... acquaintances..._
|
| I don't think we should try to draw any conclusions about
| the mental state or hopes and fears about people who we
| consider acquaintances. We just don't know them well
| enough, and they don't know us well enough to open up
| about the hard stuff.
| consteval wrote:
| To be clear, trans people face much more violence than
| you would think. It doesn't help when the GOP runs ads
| showing "trans women" as burly grown men who beat up
| little girls. Yes, that's real.
|
| It's very difficult to not see the right's treatment of
| trans individuals as a slow genocide. Not only do they
| offer them no protections, but they also take healthcare
| rights away. But worst of all, they demonize them as
| monsters and sic their followers on them. The GOP doesn't
| actually need to kill trans people, it just needs to
| convince people to kill trans people. So far, that has
| been incredibly effective.
| wnolens wrote:
| Where/how are trans people being killed?
| ausbah wrote:
| republicans spent +$100 m on anti trans ads this cycle. it
| was a major talking point of the whole campaign. "gender
| reassignment surgeries happening in school", etc.
| nekochanwork wrote:
| Also trans. This is the beginning of the end. Do not out go
| with a whimper.
| ausbah wrote:
| sides of the same coin :[
| SpaceL10n wrote:
| It doesn't send me a clear message. Trump got fewer votes this
| time around than he did in 2020. And overall I read that 20
| million fewer voters participated this year. The message I'm
| getting is apathy.
| rdtsc wrote:
| Indeed, how the heck did the Democrats lose the popular vote?
|
| With Biden getting 80M+ votes in 2020, where did those millions
| of voters go? Harris was supposed to be Biden++
| brodouevencode wrote:
| Because Harris was such a bad candidate.
| rdtsc wrote:
| I gotta admit, I didn't see it until the last minute. I had
| family members canvassing for her Michigan and everything.
| But hindsight is 20/20.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| She seemed so fake.
| aaron695 wrote:
| Prediction markets had this a fair few hours ago, which is
| interesting.
|
| https://polymarket.com/event/presidential-election-winner-20...
|
| There was a blip with the sweep though which is also interesting
| - https://polymarket.com/event/balance-of-power-2024-election?...
| rapsey wrote:
| And the pollsters were all so wrong. I guess we are in a new
| era of prediction markets.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the pollsters were all so wrong_
|
| They were wrong by about 3 points nationally, which is a
| normal error.
| creato wrote:
| The prediction markets pretty closely tracked NYT's probability
| estimate, which seems like the best possible analysis of the
| available data (partial current results, complete past results,
| at the precinct level).
|
| Anything else would have been surprising.
| rvz wrote:
| and on track to win the popular vote with the senate and House
| all going... Red.
|
| How has this happened and what went wrong?
|
| Discuss.
|
| Edit: Flagged as usual.
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| Running a primary is like checking in code to the build. You
| learn a lot of things you cant anticipate, without engaging
| with the real world.
|
| For elections this includes all the things that people think
| about a candidate that they don't feel comfortable saying out
| loud, or even operate subconsciously.
|
| A candidate without a primary is extremely risky.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Maybe demonising major fraction of voters is not most effective
| tactic. Maybe you need to show that you actually did something
| for people in past term. Maybe you need to show that things
| that matter for many will get better. Say living conditions or
| cost of living.
| cen4 wrote:
| They could learn more from Bernie.
| 0xEF wrote:
| I've been voting in the US since the 1990's. We've never had
| a presidential candidate that won and actually delivered on
| their promises, all of which have generally hovered around
| the idea that "things will be better this time." What makes
| you think this one will be any different?
| keb_ wrote:
| Can't tell if you're criticizing the Democrats, or the
| Republicans.
| wsc981 wrote:
| From what I saw on some Twitter videos ...
|
| People claiming economy was better under Trump's first
| presidency then under Biden / Kamela's recent presidency. E.g.
| people mentioning super high inflation.
|
| There were other arguments, but it seems to me this is the
| major one.
| mejthemage wrote:
| I don't see that anything went wrong.
| grecy wrote:
| Love him or hate him, it will be fascinating to see if the
| democratic institutions of the United States can endure this. He
| has made it very clear he wants to dismantle as much as he can,
| including term limits.
|
| Time will tell if the US really is the greatest democracy and can
| withstand a wannabe dictator, or if he really can subvert it all.
| It's going to be a wild four years, and I fear more wall
| building.
| gadders wrote:
| You think congressional term limits would be a bad thing?
| bagels wrote:
| Op is saying that presidential term limits will be
| removed/ignored, following Russia's example.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Histrionic, but understandable given how many people have
| stridently compared Trump to Hitler.
|
| He's not that powerful
| miningape wrote:
| Literally, what are these people on about? He'll be out
| in 4 years chill
| LunaSea wrote:
| The entire Republican party lost their footing against
| him and were replaced.
| kzrdude wrote:
| The same thing was done in China a few years back
| sixothree wrote:
| He's 78. Trump isn't the real threat too democracy. It
| might be what he sets in motion that is.
| gadders wrote:
| JD Vance?
| gadders wrote:
| OP is inventing things. Got it.
| bagels wrote:
| The pieces are all in place. Supreme Court granted immunity,
| control of Senate and a willingness to recklessly wield power.
| scbrg wrote:
| For someone who doesn't follow US politics that closely (yes,
| we exist), in what way has he made it clear that he wants to
| dismantle democratic institutions? Any concrete examples?
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| Can the President commit crimes with impunity is pretty anti-
| democratic.
|
| Unless you think Robert Mugabe was democratic?
| bagels wrote:
| He tried to lead an insurrection four years ago. Has stated
| that if elected, you won't have to vote again. Has called for
| removal of broadcast licenses for the press. Has said he'd be
| pleased if the press were murdered.
| innocentoldguy wrote:
| The Trump-hating FBI disagrees with you.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-fbi-finds-
| scant-e...
| manquer wrote:
| > Trump-hating FBI disagrees
|
| I think citation needed here that FBI or any law
| enforcement agency for that matter is anti-trump.
|
| If anything given their deep racial history not that long
| ago, I would characterize them as very pro trump.
| innocentoldguy wrote:
| Schmidt, M. S. (2018, June 14). Top Agent Said F.B.I.
| Would Stop Trump From Becoming President. The New York
| Times.
|
| Also, whistleblowers within the FBI have come forward in
| recent years to:
|
| * Accuse Timothy Thibault of running cover on Hunter
| Biden's laptop.
|
| * Accuse the FBI of manipulating case files to inflate
| the domestic threat perception towards conservatives.
|
| * Accuse leaders within the FBI of "weaponizing" the
| agency against conservatives.
|
| * Complain about retaliation when raising concerns about
| these and other instances of bias and misconduct.
|
| Isn't this common knowledge?
| bagels wrote:
| That is a narrow finding.
| drusepth wrote:
| What makes you think the FBI hates Trump?
| cpursley wrote:
| This is exactly what Elon was talking about how so many
| people still believe the multitude of hoaxes which have
| been thoroughly and objectively disproved. It's as if
| people were OK with just going with the original drive-by
| media headline and never looking into the details or
| following up.
| bagels wrote:
| None of these are hoaxes. Did you look in to the fake
| elector plot, which people have pled guilty to?
|
| I think a lot of people give Trump benefit of doubt when
| he says these things, but he literally said them.
| Paradigma11 wrote:
| So explain to me how it would have played out if Pence
| would have gone along with the fake elector plot?
|
| Aside from Trump not many people deny Biden won 2020. How
| would Biden have become president?
| huhkerrf wrote:
| I hate when people make me defend Trump.
|
| The "you won't have to vote again" was clearly him saying
| that he didn't care if the people vote again, because it
| won't benefit him.
|
| He didn't say that he'd be pleased if the press was
| murdered, in those words. Though I agree that what he said
| was awful.
|
| This is the thing about Trump. He says things that are dumb
| or incendiary, then his opponents make it sound 100x. Then
| people who aren't terminally online see it and think, "is
| that all there is?" and it makes them think that he's not
| that bad, ignoring the actual bad things he's saying.
| kernal wrote:
| >He tried to lead an insurrection four years ago. Has
| stated that if elected, you won't have to vote again. Has
| called for removal of broadcast licenses for the press. Has
| said he'd be pleased if the press were murdered.
|
| The rhetoric and lies you've repeatedly said about Trump is
| exactly the reason your party was so soundly rejected in
| the landslide electoral college, the popular vote, the
| senate, and the house. Your lies and hoaxes don't work
| anymore.
| bagels wrote:
| It's not my party, I just think Trump is uniquely
| unqualified for office.
| bloomingkales wrote:
| None really. He's pissed about his court cases and wants to
| investigate or appoint new judges. People that believe in the
| dictator narrative don't appreciate the limits of the
| Executive branch.
|
| Every executive order can get erased wholesale by the next
| President, and Trump only has 4 years.
|
| We'll live.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Kindly review the new definition of "official acts"
| bagels wrote:
| That's best case scenario. He's a criminal with newly
| granted immunity. It's going to be worse than last time.
| bloomingkales wrote:
| I don't know, I guess? If you want to, you can hold just
| about any president under some criminal wrong doing. For
| whatever reason ( _certainly not political_ ) we really
| needed to go after his overvaluing of real estate, and
| asking of recounts in a close election ( _why would he
| ever think a recount is worth it, it's not like he could
| win the popular vote and all swing states_ ). In
| retrospect, one could actually now make the argument that
| his hunch was right in questioning such a narrow election
| with an unprecedented voting pattern (Covid era mail in,
| it was quite new). I do sit here in awe and find myself
| saying "hmm, maybe he did have 25,000 votes somewhere
| this whole time, sure as hell found them tonight". Makes
| you wonder.
|
| He's gonna do his tit for tat because he's a simple man,
| not a great one, and certainly not an epic dictator.
|
| I'm not defending him, I just think the grand dictator
| spin has always been nutty.
| thefounder wrote:
| He could try to do something like Putin and extend the limit
| of 2 terms (just to keep America Great a bit more)and later
| declare himself dictator for life like Xi Jinping. You could
| look at Hitler as example how to become absolute dictator. "
| news is that at the end of 6 years, after America has been
| made GREAT again and I leave the beautiful White House (do
| you think the people would demand that I stay longer? KEEP
| AMERICA GREAT), both of these horrible papers will quickly go
| out of business & be forever gone!
|
| "
|
| https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1140252528304631808
| TrackerFF wrote:
| On the positive side, Americans are nowhere near as
| politically apathetic as Russians are, nor have they grown
| up under a single-party rule their whole loves, as the
| Chinese have.
|
| Not saying that this won't stop MAGA from trying - but at
| least there's a cultural element to this, that will stop
| the American people from just folding over and accepting
| dictatorship.
| 50208 wrote:
| And they'll do ... what? Keep watching football, scroll
| their phones? Pick up a burrito at Chipotle? The new
| Russian model of disaffection can (and is) working just
| fine in the US.
| nmeagent wrote:
| They'll write several angry comments to social media,
| then retire to the couch after a job well done.
| Tainnor wrote:
| In 2020, he told his then vice president Mike Pence not to
| certify the electoral vote count which gave Joe Biden the
| victory in the presidential race. Pence ignored this order.
| Had he not done so, it would have meant a constitutional
| crisis at the very least.
| bdcp wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot
|
| It's a crazy read
| dragonwriter wrote:
| What he has actually been mroe explicit about wanting to
| dismantle (and what his faction has made considerable
| progress dismantling in his favor already) is not as much
| "democratic institutions" as "the rule of law", though his
| most dramatic failed attempt to dismantle that was also
| directed at democratic institutions (the set of schemes
| including the false electors gambit, attempte to get the VP
| to reject proper electoral votes, and instigating the mob
| attack on the capitol when it was clear the VP would not do
| so.)
| 50208 wrote:
| SCBRG ... you should seriously be ashamed of yourself.
| LunaSea wrote:
| Being a traitor working for Russia might be one of them
| TomK32 wrote:
| Worst-case we finally find out what Godel's loophole is
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_Loophole
| Blammar wrote:
| Jesus fucking christ don't give them ideas.
| rkagerer wrote:
| So this guy supposedly found a loophole in the Constitution
| that would facilitate a legal transformation of the US into a
| dictatorship, and talked to Einstein about it, but the
| specific loophole/concern has never actually been published?
|
| Sounds like clickbait was already alive and well in the
| 1940's.
| cardboard9926 wrote:
| "This guy" revolutionized mathematics and logic by proving
| Incompleteness Theorems
| timomaxgalvin wrote:
| He was also completely mental.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Depression as Godel did suffer from and developed massive
| anxiety after the murder of Moritz Schlick, deserves a
| little more respect and above all help. Calling him
| "completely mental" doesn't help at all.
| defrost wrote:
| It's had a good run to date, perhaps even longer than expected.
| and I believe farther that this is likely to be well
| administred for a Course of Years, and can only end in
| Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People
| shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being
| incapable of any other.
|
| ~ Benjamin Franklin, _Closing Speech at the Constitutional
| Convention_ (1787)
| lawn wrote:
| > Time will tell if the US really is the greatest democracy
|
| The US voting scheme is far from being the most democratic.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| I think when they say USA is the greatest democracy they re
| speaking of its size, land size.
|
| It's always been a kind of mix between an oligarchy and
| democracy, just look at the 2 party voting system, extreme
| wealth required to candidate and the lobbies expenditures.
|
| That's very close to the antiquity democracy, they just need
| to remove woman right to vote (next one after abortion).
|
| At least with trump we will have a good laugh once again.
| postingawayonhn wrote:
| > I think when they say USA is the greatest democracy they
| re speaking of its size, land size.
|
| I would say it's the greatest based on how long it has
| endured for and the impact it has had on the world.
| mbg721 wrote:
| The things he says he wants to dismantle are bloated executive-
| branch bureaucracies. If he actually manages to do it (which he
| didn't during his first term), it would be traumatic for a lot
| of federal employees, but not exactly the death of democracy.
| defrost wrote:
| He's also clearly stated he wants to remove the licences from
| media companies that have been critical of him.
|
| There's a check list of similar statements he's on record
| making.
| mbg721 wrote:
| If he removed licenses from media companies that were
| critical of him, there would be approximately 0 media
| companies, and yet he's on track to win. One of the biggest
| takeaways from this election is that the populace largely
| doesn't trust the media.
| defrost wrote:
| Do you support the dismantling of a free press?
| mbg721 wrote:
| Of course not. He was president for four years and yet
| the press remains what it is. Why do you think he would
| destroy the free press?
| 50208 wrote:
| Hey man ... just asking questions, right?
| bagels wrote:
| Because he said he would. Hopefully that was a lie too,
| but I guess we get to find out.
| LunaSea wrote:
| He also promised a wall that never materialized so ...
| lazyeye wrote:
| Nobody cares about the free press, their content is, for
| the most part, garbage. I think this election has
| signalled the death of the mainstream media, and the rise
| of independent media. I find this absolutely wonderful.
| johngladtj wrote:
| If you need a license to operate you're not free.
| kam wrote:
| The license is for the use of the broadcast spectrum (a
| scarce, shared resource), not practicing journalism.
| sixothree wrote:
| They definitely trust the media. Otherwise he would have
| been elected.
| briandear wrote:
| False. Did you see what CBS did to the Harris interview?
| That behavior is explicitly what he was talking about. CBS
| edited an interview under the guise of their news
| department to switch answers to questions with other
| answers. It wasn't that CBS was critical of Trump, it's
| that they engaged in outright fraud using publicly licensed
| airwaves. That's against FCC rules. What CBS did wasn't
| disinformation -- it was fraud.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Perhaps a sanity check at those media companies would help.
| They've been broadcasting propaganda non-stop and you've
| witnessed a colony collapse just today.
| watwut wrote:
| He wants to destroy democracy itself. It is literal explicit
| goal.
| mbg721 wrote:
| What? I would love to hear how that's true (although voting
| is over), but I suspect it's not.
| watwut wrote:
| He literally said that. He said that if he wins, these
| are the last elections. He said that he wants to remove
| license to media that are critical of him. Trump said
| quite a lot. All it takes is to listen to what he is
| saying.
|
| And the other thing to listen to what his primary voters
| - conservative evangelical Christians were saying they
| want for years. It is literally ridiculous how these
| people are saying exactly what they want, then they
| literally do what they said they will do, again and
| again. But somehow, I am supposed to assume they don't
| mean it, this time for a change.
| mlnj wrote:
| @mbg721, you seem to be willfully ignorant of anything
| this man has said and the dangers everyone is talking
| about. You seem to be completely missing any ideas on his
| policy and the changes he wants to being to the
| government and the democratic process.
|
| Please stop commenting "Where?", "What?", "How?" to
| everyone in the comments here. They do not add any value
| to the conversation.
| mbg721 wrote:
| I don't see any clear articulation of the dangers, other
| than that he's a convicted criminal, which I argue is for
| purely political reasons. Republican candidates have been
| labeled "HITLER 2" since Goldwater. I'm not cheerleading,
| but rather am trying to make policy arguments that add as
| much value as possible.
| 50208 wrote:
| Oh no, not cheerleading ... just wanting to talk
| "policy", for purely political reasons. No doubt.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Can you explain why his conviction is relevant? As it
| stands, the facts are that it was for hush-money paid to
| Stormy Daniels, but it's clearly viewed as political by
| voters. I would agree that it was a grave matter if his
| felony were an unrelated murder or something, but that's
| not the situation, and again, voters are not stupid.
| mlnj wrote:
| I believe you'd make the same excuses in his defense even
| if the conviction was for 'murder or something'.
|
| Everything from quoting Mein Kampf to praising Hitler's
| generals to using Nazi rhetoric has been done in the last
| few months.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-
| says-im... https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/2024/oct/27/trump-madiso...
|
| But I've come to believe that folks like you will
| continue to make excuses no matter how low he stoops.
|
| "and again, voters are not stupid." Isn't it?
| 50208 wrote:
| Just asking questions ... questions questions questions.
| gushogg-blake wrote:
| https://x.com/Acyn/status/1817007890496102490
|
| According to Snopes[0] he claims he was urging Christians
| specifically (who don't usually vote in high numbers) to
| vote "just this time", then they wouldn't have to vote
| anymore for four more years, or something (which they
| wouldn't anyway...)
|
| He was definitely addressing Christians (he repeats it
| several times) but at the end of the video he says "[...]
| we'll have it fixed so good you're not gonna have to
| vote", which does sound a bit suspect to me, even in
| context and taking into account the fact that he's often
| loose with his choice of words and phrasing.
|
| [0]: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/vote-four-years/
| nwienert wrote:
| Classic example of how the media and the uninformed
| combine to take him out of context / in bad faith.
|
| The absolutely true fact is that that statement had
| nothing, even so much as a hint of a dog whistle, to do
| with that you're saying. Like not even a shred.
|
| He was speaking to a populace that doesn't typically
| vote. So he's saying that they can just vote this one
| election, because it's important for them to for their
| own good. Then, he's saying "just this once" because,
| again, they typically don't vote. And again - after that
| he says "I'll fix it so good you won't have to again" -
| this is in reference to him fixing the government so well
| that they won't need to vote again since it will be so
| well-functioning.
|
| By the way, this was my take originally, on first listen.
| It was reinforced further my listening to it again. It's
| completely clearly the true take, and I think if you have
| trouble accepting that it's because you're disturbingly
| mislead by bias, probably not your own fault entirely,
| but undeniably so.
| gushogg-blake wrote:
| I agree that he probably wasn't talking about getting rid
| of voting altogether, but I'm still not sure on the logic
| of him getting the government into such good shape that
| Christians wouldn't need to vote anymore -- surely it
| would still be possible for the populace to vote in a
| terrible government that would undo all his improvements
| after his 4 years? But yeah, I suppose he could simply be
| saying that with his improvements, things would be
| stabilised and the stakes wouldn't be so high for the
| next election.
| watwut wrote:
| How does him addressing it to Christians makes anything
| better? Like, yes, hardcore Christians are his fans,
| because they want to get rid of abortions, liberals and
| generally resent anyone but themselves.
| gushogg-blake wrote:
| The fact that Christians generally don't like to vote
| (which I wasn't aware of until just now) is relevant to
| the question of why he said "we'll fix it so good, you
| won't have to vote".
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Because it's not true that Christians don't like to vote.
| You're just believing the back spin after he said it and
| was called out for it.
| watwut wrote:
| Christians do vote and see voting as a way to push for
| the legal restrictions they want. Them not having to vote
| anymore, because the rest of us cant get abortion,
| anticonception whatever else allowed through political
| process anymore is literally definition of "going away
| with democracy".
|
| Which is actual political goal of radical evangelical
| christians, if you actually read what they write and
| listen what they say. It is not about them being allowed
| to be lazy, it is about them successfully creating
| religious state.
| anabab wrote:
| Like that pandemic responce unit dismantled in 2018?
| innocentoldguy wrote:
| You mean this one?
|
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/10/fa
| c...
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Your link entirely agrees with the statement that Trump
| disbanded the pandemic response team. What it calls false
| is that the members were fired from government completely
| instead of shuffled around into other non pandemic
| related departments.
|
| So yes, that one. Did you actually read your link? Or did
| you get duped by the headline?
|
| > Based on our research, the claim that President Trump
| fired the "entire" pandemic response team is PARTLY
| FALSE. The Directorate of Global Health Security and
| Biodefense was disbanded under Trump's then-national
| security adviser John Bolton. But Trump didn't fire its
| members. Some resigned, and others moved to different
| units on the National Security Council.
| innocentoldguy wrote:
| Did you read it? It clearly says the team was far too
| big, and that even members of Obama's team felt it was
| too large, so Trump shrunk and reorganized it.
| ghssds wrote:
| USA's clear separation of powers is a liability in this case.
| In parliamentary system, where executive and legislative
| branches are not that well separated, if the executive branch
| misbehave, a simple vote from the parliament can disband the
| government. In USA, the impeachment process is lengthy and hard
| to apply.
| m11a wrote:
| In a typical British parliamentary system, the executive also
| has majority in Parliament. If the executive doesn't have
| parliament, they lose the executive.
|
| 'Impeachment' in Parliament systems only works when MPs are
| willing to think for themselves.
| ghssds wrote:
| > If the executive doesn't have parliament, they lose the
| executive.
|
| Not automatically. A minority government of course more at
| risk of losing the confidence of parliament but it's also a
| powerful incentive for such a government that want to
| survive to use cooperation and compromise with the
| opposition.
| mbg721 wrote:
| In a British system, isn't the head of state hereditary,
| and in theory has no majority or minority because they have
| a divine right to be there?
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Which they are apparently are, given how many chancellors
| the UK went through. Thinking for yourself is a lot easier
| if the guy you're thinking about is removed from power when
| you've finished your thoughts.
| dingdingdang wrote:
| "and I fear more wall building." - more wall building was
| instigated under Biden, this is practical reality rearing it's
| head not the political left/right.
|
| *https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67015137
| vote4felon wrote:
| We've had four years of this man as President. This seems like
| FUD?
| xenospn wrote:
| America as we know it had a good run. But nothing lasts
| forever.
| rapsey wrote:
| Removing Lina Khan and Gary Gensler from their positions will do
| wonders for the tech industry.
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| Won't be great for consumers though, at least Khan.
| jarbus wrote:
| Lina Khan has been fantastic imo, even for tech. I think she
| forces companies to compete where we actually want competition,
| and not let us rely on insane levels of lock in
| lynndotpy wrote:
| Yeah. Tech employees and tech companies themselves are
| consumers of other tech. Lina Khan was what we needed for a
| long time, and it's a bad thing for everyone that she will be
| unable to finish what she started.
| rapsey wrote:
| Her strategy denies liquidity in the startup ecosystem. The
| very thing that enabled sillicon valley to become what it is.
| Generations of founders moving on and create new companies in
| new markets.
|
| If you disagree what are the examples?
| nsokolsky wrote:
| Such as preventing Microsoft from buying Blizzard to prevent
| a monopoly on _checks notes_... video games? :-)
|
| If you're worried about a 'monopoly' on Call of Duty, then I
| guess it's great. Otherwise I sincerely don't understand why
| the tech community would be supporting the FTC policies of
| the past 4 years.
| Quothling wrote:
| It'll be interesting to see what this will mean for European
| dependence on US tech companies. I'm not personally against
| companies like Microsoft as such, in fact I think they are one of
| the better IT business partners for non-tech Enterprise. Often
| what they sell is vastly underestimated by their critics within
| the EU, not that I disagree with the problematic nature of
| depending on foreign tech companies either. With the proposed
| deregulation of US tech and their "freeing", however, I wonder if
| a lot of organisations will be capable of continuing using US
| tech services or it'll move in the direction of how Chinese (and
| other) services aren't legally available for a lot of things.
| physicsguy wrote:
| I work for a European company and we already have strict rules
| about what data we're allowed to remit into the US. Typically
| we're only allowed to use cloud products hosted within UK + EU.
| It's actually causing problems for us now with some of the
| generative AI stuff since the Azure offering doesn't match
| fully the APIs of OpenAI for e.g.
| Quothling wrote:
| It's similar for us. Since I work in the energy industry
| we're required to have plans for how to exit Microsoft if the
| EU deems it too dangerous for too much of the energy industry
| to be reliant on Microsoft. Which is part of why I worry,
| because we honestly can't. We can leave Azure, but we can't
| easily leave the 365 platform. By easily I mean that we may
| not survive as a company if we have to do it. It can
| obviously be done, we just don't have the resources required
| to do it.
| GTP wrote:
| I'm genuinely curious to hear why it would be so hard to
| leave the Office 365 platform, to the point that it could
| mean have to shut down the company. I know it isn't
| something that can be done overnight, but this is on a
| whole different level than what I assumed the case to be.
| To make my question more concrete, let's say the EU gives
| you two years to move away from Office 365, why would this
| jeopardize your company?
| margorczynski wrote:
| Most corpos and banks are basically built on Excel,
| Outlook, Teams, Sharepoint, etc.
|
| If you pluck that out it completely freezes 50%+ of their
| operations, people really don't get how much stuff in
| modern companies is reliant on MS stuff (and thus why
| they are one of the richest companies on the globe)
| GTP wrote:
| Yes, but there are comparable alternatives. Sure, the
| transition requires resources and effort, but to the
| point of making a company bankrupt?
| margorczynski wrote:
| In some cases I would say yes if there was a hard limit
| (even few years) to migrate. Again, most people that
| didn't work in many really big corpos and banks don't
| comprehend how reliant those businesses are on the MS
| office stack.
| the5avage wrote:
| One very mundane reason a company I had worked for
| switched to Office365, was that emails from our own
| domain would often end up in the spam filter. It can cost
| a lot when that happens.
| GTP wrote:
| I see this being a problem in the current situation,
| where most businesses use either Google or Microsoft for
| their emails. But in the case of an EU-wide change, I
| think the situation would be different. Plus, there are
| other providers that could be used that aren't blocked by
| MS' and Google's spam filters.
| octacat wrote:
| yeah, the real selling point of the google mail is that
| they have the power to just remove mail from other
| providers. Or the risk of removing is enough motivation
| of using gmail only. And as a major mail provider, they
| could change the ways we handle mail (to make it more
| reliable), they just choose not to.
| the5avage wrote:
| It is really f up but there are so many worse things that
| I just dont have the energy to feel angry about this one.
| Quothling wrote:
| > Office 365 platform
|
| Moving away from that would be a massive change
| management undertaking, but it's not the "Office" part
| which is our primary challenge. To be fair, I'm not sure
| we could actually survive the change management required
| to leave the Office and Windows part, as it would be
| completely unfamiliar territory for like 95% of our
| employees, but the collective we at least think that we
| can. We have quite a lot of Business Central 365
| instances, the realistic alternative to those would be
| Excel (but not Excel). SharePoint is also a semi-massive
| part of our business as it's basically our "Document
| Warehouse".
|
| I guess maybe I'm using the 365 term wrong?
| GTP wrote:
| I didn't know about business central, a quick Google
| search tells me it's an ERP. There are alternatives, but
| migrating an ERP is definitely more problematic than
| changing document storage and the applications you use to
| read and write documents. But if it's an ERP, I wouldn't
| say an electronic sheet like Excel would be an
| alternative. Or am I missing something?
| junto wrote:
| At enterprise scale migrating to SAP is a 2-3 year
| project. Most of which is planning, discovery, business
| analysis and process modeling.
| casey2 wrote:
| They just mean that they would have to do real work and
| not just sit on their ass goofing off on the internet all
| day. Real work is something the last few generations are
| "allergic" to, it gives them the "ick". They somehow got
| it into their head that doing work is bad and that you
| should only rely on other peoples work, I blame Gates and
| public education.
| GTP wrote:
| I don't agree with this view. Saying that new generations
| are lazy compared to the previous ones is a complain as
| old as humanity itself, there are ancient writers that
| made the same complains centuries ago. Either you know
| their situation and you can provide some more detailed
| argument, or you are just assuming things you don't know.
| onli wrote:
| Which is a nonsensical policy of course, since the US made
| clear in the past that regardless of where the server is
| located, US companies have to give access to data. See the
| CLOUD act.
| amai wrote:
| My experience is that most companies in Europe just don't
| care about data privacy and continue to use whatever
| Microsoft sells them. Vendor-Lockin is a huge issue.
| RickarySanchez wrote:
| European wise I think we're really failing to build significant
| homegrown tech companies. I'm not sure of the exact reason
| although I've heard that startup support it low and too much
| regulation / diversity of regulation are issues.
| xnorswap wrote:
| It's a like a paradox of tolerance issue.
|
| You have countries that are willing to turn a blind eye
| toward their tech companies when those companies ignore laws
| to grow.
|
| In some ways it's "obvious" they'll outgrow companies from
| countries which have a culture of corporate adherence to
| laws.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >I'm not sure of the exact reason
|
| Left wing politics doesn't promote economic growth.
| maccard wrote:
| What European country would you describe as having a left
| wing party in power over the last decade?
| nicce wrote:
| GDPR et. al. does not fit for the US big tech since you
| need to respect the user.
| Tainnor wrote:
| Spain has had a left-wing government for a while, and the
| current German one could maybe be described as centre-
| left.
|
| Agreeing with you though that the EU as a whole isn't
| really "left-wing".
| j-krieger wrote:
| Germany just suffered 3 years of a left-leaning coalition
| that is just now imploding.
| maccard wrote:
| Germany was who I had in mind - you can't blame the lack
| of eu tech boom over the last 16 years on the last 3
| years of a centre-left coalition.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Yeah, I agree. However, I can blame them on making things
| worse when I specifically elected them to make things
| better. Instead of solving Germany's issues, they are
| infighting and spending money on social programs and on
| illegal migrants. Next year, every single tax,
| healthcare, and social security rate is going up.
|
| Furthermore, the Greens are blocking real progress in the
| name of NIMBY-ism. The current government is actively
| killing markets by introducing harmful policies.
| maccard wrote:
| My experience is that it's much simpler than that - all the
| money is in the Bay Area. Follow the money.
| jopsen wrote:
| Yeah, many successful startups regardless of where they
| start become Bay Area startups as they scale :)
|
| And for the most part it doesn't matter, nor should it.
| goethes_kind wrote:
| There is just no upside to founding your tech startup in
| the EU. You'll just be at a disadvantage. And as long as we
| have a unified US/EU market, this is not something that can
| be fixed. This has always been the downside of any kind of
| trade agreement that opened up the markets to foreign
| competition. Typically, the two parties pick winners and
| losers. Europeans export cheese and wine and Americans
| export Google and Facebook.
| maccard wrote:
| Other than the fact that I don't want to move to the US,
| I completely agree with you.
| Tainnor wrote:
| Diversity of regulation and different languages/cultures. The
| US is a single, huge market with a largely shared culture and
| the same language. By contrast, an app that takes off in
| Germany has no guarantee of doing so in Italy or Slovakia.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| America is a single massive low-regulation market. And a
| wealthy one. Tech products require high fixed cost to write
| the code/build the product, but then low ongoing cost to
| provide a service. Less regulation means lower complexity in
| building a product. A big market without a lot of regulation
| is a great way to amortize the high cost across a lot of
| people, while a wealthy market can support a lot of products.
| And of course a lot of investor cash to push around. Even
| using a single language and having mostly overlapping customs
| means that one product works for millions of people.
|
| There are plenty of European customs and views that make
| developing these companies unpopular (eg data collection and
| privacy) but the single-massive-market is the economic reason
| why the US is so powerful.
| darkstar_16 wrote:
| That's not the only reason in my opinion. It's way easier
| for European graduates to find a job and cruise on to
| retirement. The govt takes care of them for life and so the
| do or die attitude needed to start a company just isn't
| there in most countries. This is a consequence of the
| welfare state most of Europe has become.
| nvegater wrote:
| I see this as oversimplification. US Tech faces hard
| regulations too (fintech, healthcare etc...). Also
| Regulation is not that big of a bump in EU. GDPR simplified
| rules across 27 different national laws and forced new
| innovations in privacy. Also Spotify, SAP, Adyen all
| started in small markets, as counterexamples. The main
| reasons why USA is ahead I think are the historical
| advantages (internet, personal computer), the network
| effects created by the historical advantages and the VC
| ecosystem. Also the culture for risk tolerance.
| user90131313 wrote:
| Also USA gets best of the talent from entire world, USA is
| almost always the first choice. But rest of the world gets
| what's behind mostly. So a lot bigger talent pool.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| Actually I think it's more that Americans just have a
| higher cultural tolerance for risk. It takes a certain
| unusual kind of person to jump off a cliff and try to
| assemble a plane on the way down, and for some cultural
| reason, America generates more of those people.
|
| To even have a shot at getting a successful startup off the
| ground, you need to a assemble a whole team of those
| people, which is still much more difficult in Europe
| (though things may be starting to change).
| j-krieger wrote:
| Overregulation and taxation is the major issue. I can only
| speak for Germany. Low worker rights in the US make for
| healthy companies that can grow and shrink as needed. You
| can't just fire people in Germany, even though you pay
| horrendous amouns for social security.
| lrip13 wrote:
| It's quite simple actually: - many different regulatory
| policies to follow in order to sell accross the EU -
| different languages / culture - risk averse culture in
| investments and business (Americans go all-in and do not fear
| to fail fast) - lot of lobbying from already established
| compagnies (which are often state-backed which doesn't help)
| - no start-up culture basically. Contrary to the US,
| regulatory entities expect the same from a 10 000 people org
| and a 15 people start-up. It completely kills most startups.
|
| In the end all these regulations allow Europeans to have
| access to "safe" products but it kills most of our
| innovations in favor of the US or China.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| If Trump goes through with his wide-sweeping tariffs, there
| will be trade wars. That goes for tech, too.
|
| And keep in mind, if he installs nothing but loyalists and
| sycophants, who's to stop him from these half-baked ideas?
| briandear wrote:
| Are you aware of the tariffs other countries have?
|
| Try importing California wine into France or Spain as an
| example. Try importing American cars into China or South
| Korea.
|
| There is also the de facto tariffs from Chinese currency
| manipulation.
|
| Hard to be intellectually honest about tariffs without
| looking what much of the rest of the world already does.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Tariffs can work well. Sometimes you want to have tariffs,
| depending on the functionalities and industries you want to
| keep domestic.
|
| But imposing all-encompassing tariffs is just plain
| nonsense. It is dangerous nonsense. Replacing federal taxes
| with those tariffs is even worse.
|
| Again, Trump is fixated with tariffs. At least his idea of
| it. The last time he tried, ask farmers how that went.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| The EU beaurocracy is into self sabotage.
|
| They don't promote a climate where European tech companies can
| grow and they hamper the usage of US tech companies products.
| vixen99 wrote:
| Absolutely undeniable. I wish those 'not liking' your comment
| would say why they do not agree.
|
| I'm not innocent of knee-jerk down-voting but I would like to
| cure myself of the habit. I wonder to what extent the extreme
| political and cultural polarization that prevails in the West
| results from a general reluctance on the part of adherents to
| engage in debate. At least that's my impression.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Europe is still very much pro-American:
| https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/06/27/overall-opinio...
|
| However, the numbers are much worse than before and on the
| previous Trump presidency they crashed(recovered with Biden but
| crashed again):
| https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/06/11/appendix-a-fav...
|
| The anti-establishment movements in EU are also predominantly
| anti-US, leftists are often anti-US too.
|
| I got the impression of many Americans online believing that
| Europeans are tech and progress loving, bureaucracy hating
| people under tyranny of EU which is a building in Brussels that
| churns rules and regulations.
|
| However that's not true, most Europeans love the big government
| hate new tech and prefer the slow and worry free life over the
| daily hustling.
|
| If Trump follows up with its promises, I only imagine EU
| parting with US on more stuff. I also see many Americans
| apparently believing that EU is mostly museums and there's no
| technology. Also not true, EU is made of countries that are
| traditionally tool-makers and Europeans are anti-tech and anti-
| change only when it comes to adoption of tech into their daily
| lives, not when creating tools and machines. ASML is not a
| coincidence, all kind of precision tooling and machinery is the
| bread and butter of European industry.
|
| So, if EU parts with US, I imagine that American stuff will be
| quickly replaced with European made stuff. The dominance of
| American tech in the daily lives is mostly due to network
| effect, a forced change will result in what resulted in Russia
| and China: local alternatives.
|
| Europe is worse off than the US only in Energy and
| demographics. Two massive issues but there are no quick-fixes
| for those, so they are European realities with or without the
| US.
| ttepasse wrote:
| > I imagine that American stuff will be quickly replaced with
| European made stuff.
|
| I am in the process of (very slowly) decluttering my life.
| One weird observation that I had, is that I have very few
| _hardware_ from the USA, even when I think liberally about
| "from" as designed and not just manufactured. I found a
| (crappy) HP printer, (wonderful) Apple hardware and two
| Zippos. There may be more, but it's not obvious labelled.
|
| Software and some online services on the other hand are
| different.
|
| From this European perspective the USA is very much a service
| export and not a stuff export economy.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I agree. The software is also possible to replace if
| forced.
|
| US invested huge piles of money on the computer age and
| they cornered the web and software markets and now
| extracting grotesque profits from it mostly because its a
| winner takes it all industry. It's not that Europeans don't
| know how to write software, it's that it doesn't make
| business sense to go after the established American
| companies. Linux is invented in Europe, just as the Web but
| the American entrepreneurs were those who turned these
| technologies into great businesses. If forced by blocking,
| it wouldn't take much time to create European alternatives
| as the hard work of discovering what works and what doesn't
| is already established. In fact, during the internet age
| there were many European alternatives for most of it,
| there's still local alternatives to many.
|
| Take Uber for example, it's not anything special. In places
| where it's banned, local entrepreneurs quickly made local
| alternatives.
|
| There's of course industrial software, gaming etc and
| that's also plenty in EU. It wouldn't take much time to
| replace everything.
|
| There are plenty of examples from the last 10-20 years
| where embargoes simply propelled local alternatives even in
| the most improvised countries.
|
| Americans will have to be stupid to ban software to EU, so
| it will have to be the EU who bans American software and
| that probably wouldn't happen until things get really bad.
| elminjo wrote:
| The first time Trump was elected was a shock, but now we
| understand. It wasn't a simple mistake. I have only few
| customers who use Google Workspace for their emails and only
| one who uses Dropbox for files. Initially (about 2002)
| companies moved away from U.S.-based cloud services. However,
| now I have an increasing number of customers who want to cancel
| cloud services entirely. But for my customers, there is no
| alternative to Windows.
| Molitor5901 wrote:
| I'm more curious about the NYT tech union strike. They went
| forward with the strike and.. it doesn't appear anything bad
| happened. That might completely undermine the union's
| arguments...
| TrackerFF wrote:
| This election has been a testament to the complete and utter
| obliviousness of the American voter, as far as economics goes.
|
| All polls have indicated that economy and inflation was the
| number 1 issue that voters on the right cared about, and yet they
| haven't flinched at the proposals that Trump have laid out. Musk
| even said it in clear language, that there will be "austerity"
| moving forward.
|
| The greatest grift in modern times - and the people that stood
| most to lose walked straight into it, cheering.
|
| I guess the only hope is that the economy is fine, and improving
| - which makes any radical changes much more visible and risky. If
| Trump and Musk want to set off the bomb and likely crater it,
| then they'll own that mess. But hopefully they'll just do
| nothing, and try to take credit for the trajectory they've
| inherited - for the sake of your average citizen.
|
| But the courts will be screwed for decades.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Harris proposed peacetime price controls, an idea that hasn't
| been tried since Nixon, and for good reason. I don't think
| Democrats have the high ground on economics.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Let's see how the trade war of all trade wars will play out
| for average Joe down in Mississippi. All while social safety
| nets are disintegrating underneath his feet.
|
| What's dangerous about this is not the plan itself, but that
| there won't be anyone to confront Trump about his half-baked,
| or downright disastrous plans.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Maybe? Democrats had the chance to propose something
| better, but they decided to prop up a geriatric puppet
| until they couldn't, and then were forced to prop up his
| widely unpopular VP. I'll take trade war over domestic
| goods shortages, which is what price caps inevitably
| create.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| This is the core problem:
|
| The economy isn't shit. The economy is booming. Job
| growth has been good, summer consumer spending was good.
| Real wage growth has outpaced inflation the past 18
| months.
|
| Inflation is going down. Interest rates are going down.
|
| America came out of this victorious, compared to other
| countries that faced the exact same post-COVID woes.
|
| The problem is that democrats couldn't convey this
| stronger. Republicans managed to spread the doom and
| gloom more than facts.
|
| Now it's going to be trade wars, tax cuts for the
| wealthy, more crony capitalism. Trump is fixated with
| tariffs, because in his mind, deal-making comes down to
| strong-arming the other party. Trump seems to be
| oblivious of the soft power the US has wielded for
| decades. That's also about to get flushed down the toilet
| - all countries in the world are embracing for Trump-
| style "negotiations".
|
| I know it is not good to engage in victim blaming...but
| maybe the voters do get what they deserve?
| vdqtp3 wrote:
| Perhaps the economy as a whole is doing great, but the
| facets that impact the individuals across the nation are
| not. Many/most people feel that they have less in their
| pocket AND their refrigerator at the end of the month
| than ever before.
| mbg721 wrote:
| What you call victim-blaming may be mixing up cause and
| effect. Voters aren't stupid. They hear "the economy is
| doing great!" but they see their grocery bills. Maybe the
| victims are just tired of being victims and voted
| accordingly?
| mbg721 wrote:
| Maybe another perspective on this is that Democrats were
| preaching to the upper arm of the K-shaped recovery that
| everything is fine with their bureaucracy in charge
| (because nobody actually cares about Biden or Kamala
| personally), and the people on the lower arm voted on
| "Hell no, it's not!" This was the Springfield, OH thing,
| where the media tried to laugh it off as a few racists
| claiming pet-eating, but a small town was truly stretched
| beyond its limits through illegal immigration.
| Clubber wrote:
| The economy is great for about 20% of the population,
| maybe 30%. Take a drive down no-where town anywhere in
| the US and you'll see the economy doesn't work for most
| people. All of middle America (geographically) has been
| absolutely gutted by globalism, among other things.
|
| Peter Santenello has a good YouTube channel where he goes
| around the country (and world) and interviews regular
| people. It will give you some insight on the economy for
| the remaining 70%.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@PeterSantenello
| Spivak wrote:
| I genuinely hope Trump's plan works to alleviate this but
| I don't think even rampant protectionism can put the cat
| back in the bag for the heyday of American manufacturing.
| I expect it to go about as well as it did for the
| Soviet's insular economy.
| aurareturn wrote:
| Based on this video, it seems like the problem there is
| social security checks given to young people and drugs,
| and not the lack of jobs.
| cpursley wrote:
| For one, hopefully the good folks of Mississippi will get
| some of their cotton growing and ship building jobs back.
| j-krieger wrote:
| You are _severely_ underestimating the American ability to
| strong-arm other nations in their economic favor.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Last time Trump tried, it ended up costing farmers tens
| of billions. That time (2018) the tariffs were under 30%,
| this time around, he's promised 60%.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| You are quite plainly lying.
|
| She proposed controls on gouging, which is already codified
| in even the reddest of red states.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| This is the attitude that leads to Democrats losing. People
| were not obvious.
|
| Biden is wildly unpopular. People are extremely unhappy with
| his management of the economy, immigration, etc.
|
| Democrats could have changed directions. Instead they doubled
| down on Biden. Harris said she would do nothing different. So
| people didn't vote for her. That's very logical.
|
| That's not to say that Trump will do a good job or that his
| policies are better. They're worse and he's a crook. But voters
| everywhere made this sentiment clear for an entire year and
| were totally ignored by the Democratic party.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| They tried to get a border deal, which was stopped / blocked
| at the behest of Trump.
|
| The economy has been on a up-swing for a good year now, and
| things have improved all-over. People can't live under a rock
| and think that a global pandemic wasn't a huge part of this -
| most countries experienced the very same economic effects.
|
| But, again, Trump laying out his disastrous tariff plans is
| the canary in the coalmine - that his voters either don't
| understand economics, or simply chose to live in a make-
| believe world where they imagine Trump will just "fix"
| things.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| The border deal was a hail mary 3 years into a presidency.
| They should have done something about the border years
| earlier when voters started to complain about it if they
| wanted to.
|
| It doesn't matter what some economist says the economy is
| doing. Most people are be unhappy with the economy. That's
| what matters. Democrats listened to economists instead of
| voters.
|
| Of course Trump's votes don't understand economics. Why do
| you think overwhelmingly we see educated people now vote
| Democrats and non educated people vote for Trump?
|
| Trust us some economist says we're doing a good job was a
| crappy message. This was an own goal.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Point still stands on the border deal. They wanted
| something, but through Trump, it was derailed - for no
| other reason that it was detrimental to his campaign.
|
| Reagan had a plaque at the oval office that said: "There
| is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he
| doesn't mind who gets the credit"
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| And Truman had a plaque that said "The buck stops here".
| I don't buy these lame excuses.
|
| Biden should have used executive orders to deal with the
| border. Just like Trump did. Biden didn't because he
| didn't care that voters were extremely upset about the
| border. Now we get to "enjoy" Trump again.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > This election has been a testament to the complete and utter
| obliviousness of the American voter,
|
| My reading is "This election has been a testament to the
| complete and utter obliviousness of the Dems to the American
| voter".
|
| Seriously, politicians who are out of touch with their
| constituencies should not really be expecting to win.
| svara wrote:
| This European travels to the US all the time, having probably
| spent an average of 1-2 months or so there yearly over the past
| couple years.
|
| With very few exceptions I've never met people there who
| outwardly seemed like they'd like someone as a leader who
| habitually lies and tries to usurp democratic institutions for
| personal gain.
|
| What the hell is going on there guys? Are you just voting for the
| person who promises the most "interesting" times, for better or
| for worse?
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| He's promising reindustrialisation to a bunch of the Midwest
| and less competition for jobs to a bunch of poorer people. It's
| sort of rational, even though I disagree.
| kzrdude wrote:
| He is not trustworthy with either facts or consistent
| opinions, so voting for him for something he's /said/ he
| would do is the stupidest thing anyone could do.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| I didn't say I thought it was a good idea, but clearly a
| lot of American voters think this is worth trying.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Biden delivered and he'll take the credit
| hoten wrote:
| do you have reason to believe you are socializing with a
| representative slice of Americans?
| stavros wrote:
| Representative enough to elect Trump for president, looks
| like.
| svara wrote:
| No, of course not. But my sample seems to be so starkly
| different from the election results that that in itself is
| puzzling. He's picking up a sizable fraction of the votes
| even in blue states, after all.
| innocentdang wrote:
| No, just a massive failure by the Democrats who decided too
| late to run Harris. Any candidate who won a party primary would
| have beaten Trump today. Harris lost because she wasn't popular
| enough with her own party's voters to win.
| bagels wrote:
| Definitely some merit to this. Biden was obviously too old in
| 2020 and didn't have the good sense to pass the torch last
| year.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Trump is older than 2020 Biden.
| bagels wrote:
| Yes. Trump was too old in 2016 too.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Yet Trump went on multi-hour podcasts while the current
| sitting president of the US hasn't been seen in weeks.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Trump will be older and weaker than Biden today in 2028.
|
| JD Vance hopefully can 25th Amendment the Trump before
| senile behavior wrecks the office. But I'm worried that
| Trump stays in all 4 years and does irreparable harm.
|
| 25th Amendment powers have never been used before. So
| it's not clear how far Trump will degrade while still
| holding onto power.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > Trump stays in all 4 years and does irreparable harm.
|
| That's the preferable option to letting Vance near the
| presidency, sadly.
| TomK32 wrote:
| "who habitually lies"
|
| More like a Fortunate Son who's an adulterer, felon and burried
| his ex wife somewhere in the backyard.
| bantunes wrote:
| You're not meeting the people hurt really bad by the system who
| stopped giving a shit, and a lot of people that vote for Trump
| had Harris/Waltz signs on their lawns but really want to pay
| less in taxes and don't like transgender people.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > but really want to pay less in taxes and don't like
| transgender people.
|
| I think that this election almost definitively demonstrates
| that trans issues are not important to the voters.
|
| Or abortion, or misogyny, or social justice, etc.
|
| There was a big turnout, after all.
| justin66 wrote:
| This is really counterfactual.
|
| > I think that this election almost definitively
| demonstrates that trans issues are not important to the
| voters.
|
| I don't know about the politics of your state, but in mine
| over half the ad campaign of the Republican senator who
| just won was focused on transgender issues. His losing
| Democratic opponent did not touch that issue.
|
| > Or abortion
|
| Statewide ballot measures aimed at abortion rights
| succeeded even in many states where Democrats lost.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > Statewide ballot measures aimed at abortion rights
| succeeded even in many states where Democrats lost.
|
| Then maybe the Dems shouldn't have run on that as their
| major platform?
|
| I mean, the message "Elect Me Because $ABORTION_RIGHTS"
| is pointless if the states are going to get their
| abortion rights anyway.
| justin66 wrote:
| Running on the portions of one's platform which are _not_
| popular is a thing a politician could do, yes.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > What the hell is going on there guys? Are you just voting for
| the person who promises the most "interesting" times, for
| better or for worse?
|
| I think the name-calling really hurt them.
|
| Calling half the voting population bigots of some type just
| makes that half dig their heels in to give you a bloody nose.
|
| If your main priorities, when running in a political race, does
| not match the main priorities of the voting masses, it's easier
| to change your main priorities than to change the main
| priorities of the voting masses.
|
| For a long time now, the Dems have been trying to change the
| priorities of the voting masses instead of aligning with them.
|
| They are so used to preaching at their voter base ("This is
| what a real man is, not what you think it is") that they forgot
| what the aim of running is - to win.
| atoav wrote:
| Dictator on day one in the land of the free with the biggest
| military of the world -- but on the other hand the libs were
| really mad, so that was worth it, right?
| alt227 wrote:
| Good on the Dems for trying to change the world instead of
| accepting the hateful and unfair place it is. Hopefully they
| will get somewhere eventually.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > Good on the Dems for trying to change the world instead
| of accepting the hateful and unfair place it is.
|
| You can't change the world by losing.
|
| Their primary goal should have been to win. The primary way
| to do that is to (ugh) pander to the voters' will.
|
| It's _because_ they are so out of touch that we are seeing
| the result that we see. Politicians that are disconnected
| and disengaged from the voting masses _deserve_ to lose.
| richrichardsson wrote:
| > I think the name-calling really hurt them.
|
| This was also the biggest problem of the Remain camp pre-
| Brexit.
|
| It was too easy to label Leavers as stupid/racist/xenophobic,
| and that was a _huge_ mistake.
| bogle wrote:
| Not everyone who voted for Brexit was a racist, but every
| racist voted for Brexit. - Bill Bragg
|
| Pretty sure this would work with "Trump" instead of
| "Brexit".
| lelanthran wrote:
| > Pretty sure this would work with "Trump" instead of
| "Brexit".
|
| What do you want racists to do? Not vote? They're gonna
| vote for _somebody_ after all.
| bogle wrote:
| No, they get a vote, obviously. You've focussed on the
| vote part of the quote when the important information was
| in the racism. It's racism that must be constantly
| pointed out, that people must be educated about, and
| racism should be rooted out when found. I'm not saying
| you support racism in any way, of course, I really don't
| think that. I just think you misunderstood what needs
| doing to prevent these unforced errors (Brexit was an
| unforced error of the UK government).
| lelanthran wrote:
| > It's racism that must be constantly pointed out, that
| people must be educated about, and racism should be
| rooted out when found.
|
| As I pointed out in a different post, trying to shame
| people into silence doesn't magically change their vote.
|
| Unfortunately, when you are going to call every Rep
| supporter a racist with no evidence other than who they
| voted for, they are going to stop answering your polls
| honestly.
|
| Still not gonna change their vote though...
| bogle wrote:
| Racists don't need shaming into silence. They need to
| understand what's wrong with their beliefs.
|
| Going back to the original quote, you need to see that
| it's _not_ calling all voters a particular thing. There
| 's a simple Venn diagram, one circle of racists inside a
| larger circle of a particular block of voters.
|
| Educating people out of racism, and removing racism from
| your society, _will_ change votes as racism is only one
| aspect of a person 's beliefs.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > Racists don't need shaming into silence. They need to
| understand what's wrong with their beliefs.
|
| They already know, they don't care, because that specific
| belief is not rooted in reason or rationality.
|
| > Going back to the original quote, you need to see that
| it's not calling all voters a particular thing. There's a
| simple Venn diagram, one circle of racists inside a
| larger circle of a particular block of voters.
|
| > Educating people out of racism, and removing racism
| from your society, will change votes as racism is only
| one aspect of a person's beliefs.
|
| I somewhat agree with the first part[1], but vehemently
| disagree with the second: I _don 't_ think that
| eradicating racist thoughts will move the needle on who
| gets elected, as there are, IMO, simply too few racists
| around to influence an election.[2]
|
| [1] IOW, I don't believe that education will change a
| racist's belief, but I do see value to society in
| eradicating discriminatory stereotypes and discriminatory
| actions, of which racism is merely one.
|
| [2] There aren't even enough racists to form a party of
| their own, so I doubt that them moving from red to blue
| is going to be any difference from statistical noise.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Turns out people don't like it when the sitting American
| president calls them "garbage" or when they are called
| deplorable.
| Shawnj2 wrote:
| The people in cities vote blue, and people in rural areas vote
| red. I doubt you're meeting the latter on trips
| a_victorp wrote:
| Around 1 in 5 Americans live in rural areas. It's not enough
| to win the election
| fzeroracer wrote:
| I think the ultimate answer as an American is that policy
| simply does not matter. For reference, here's a couple
| conflicting data points:
|
| * Voters approved measures that would protect abortion in their
| state (with the exception of Florida, which only got 58% out of
| the 60%) needed. Said voters did not consistently vote for
| Kamala Harris.
|
| * Another set of voters thought Kamala Harris was too
| progressive, and had no opinion on Donald Trump
|
| * But at the same time, in local elections democratic
| candidates generally sweeped the ballots
|
| I think ultimately the presidency is just an election purely on
| the basis of 'vibes' and whatever is directly in front of you.
| It doesn't matter if you can achieve your promises nor do said
| promises even really matter. And people vibe more with the
| reality TV president because they've already forgotten
| 2016-2020. Maybe Trump directly crashing the economy will be
| the thing to snap people out of it, maybe not.
| plasticeagle wrote:
| I've also spent plenty of time there over the years, and while
| most people I interacted with did seem perfectly fine, there
| were glimpses of something quite wrong.
|
| A woman who worked at the hotel I was staying at had never
| visited the centre of the city the lived in, because she was
| afraid of being "knifed". This was Dayton, Ohio. Downtown
| Dayton is lovely.
|
| A colleague who appeared reasonably intelligent and competent
| absolutely did not believe that Evolution occurred. I explained
| that this while this view might be common in the US - and it is
| - the rest of the world mostly considers this settled science.
|
| Religion is absolutely far too influential a force in people's
| lives. This is decreasing, but it's still problematic I
| believe.
|
| The Armed Forces are idolised. Airports have special lines for
| service personnel. You get to board early if you're in uniform.
| This is almost unique in the world, to the best of my
| knowledge.
| sixothree wrote:
| It can be explained by Fox News. Whatever issue is spouted
| there is the issue of the day for republicans.
| notadoomer236 wrote:
| Trump says things people directionally agree with, and they
| forgive the details.
|
| When your border is wide open allowing millions of people in
| each year, you don't care as much about the political circus.
|
| When your grocery bills 3x, you don't care as much about the
| loose speech.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| As a Pole I'm very afraid what this will mean for my region.
|
| With Trump wanting to support Russia over Ukraine and his talk
| about leaving NATO, yeah.
| jpmoral wrote:
| The West's drip-feeding of support and arbitrary restrictions
| on the use of weapons was a disaster.
| cpursley wrote:
| Avoiding nuclear holocaust was a disaster?
| bogle wrote:
| MAD. It actually works. Putin has had his bluff called on
| this.
| cpursley wrote:
| Nonsense, there was no call.
|
| Blowing some shit up in the grey zone (or even Kursk) is
| one thing - his state hasn't been threatened in any real
| way (which is their nuke threshold policy).
|
| However, lobbing western made (and make no mistake,
| western operated) weapons into their internationally
| recognized territory is an entirely different ballgame.
| bogle wrote:
| Reuters [1]. Don't be an idiot.
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/has-putin-
| threatened-us...
| cpursley wrote:
| That's a typical drive-by headline. Did you even read the
| article? Or the first hand sources? Putin never once
| threatened using nukes out of the blue like some kind of
| madman - only reinstated their pretty bog standard
| nuclear defense policy when asked about it. Context is
| important, don't be an idiot.
| nmeagent wrote:
| We have been very lucky[1]. Do you really want to push
| that luck?
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_close_calls
| jpmoral wrote:
| Were nukes launched after the Kursk offensive? That eas a
| bright red line if Russia ever had one.
| cpursley wrote:
| Kursk, while embarrassing as hell, is not an actual
| threat to Russian statehood in the military sense.
| konart wrote:
| It is not even as embarrassing as some people think.
|
| Ukraine send well trained troops there while they were
| needed in the east. Now they are loosing the ground there
| but cant really pull out. While loosing trained soldiers
| as well.
|
| If anything this played quite well for Russia.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| That this kind of rhetoric completely devoid of
| historical knowledge and common sense is so widespread
| tells me so many people have a completely broken model of
| Putin's motivations. Unfortunately it is these same
| people that are pushing hard for escalation. It's strange
| to see people's opinions be so completely disconnected
| from reality while also being correlated to such a high
| degree.
|
| No, the fact that Russia didn't use nukes in response to
| Kursk incursion says nothing about his willingness to use
| nukes when the security of the state is actually at risk.
| Nuclear weapons will change the complexion of this war in
| ways that neither side can fully predict. It is rational
| to avoid moving the war to an unpredictable stage when
| the current stage is manageable in your favor. Not every
| border skirmish is created equal. They do not all
| rationally warrant the use of nuclear weapons.
| Maken wrote:
| Restrictions on the use of weapons are reasonable. The non-
| nuclear proliferation efforts were the real disaster. They
| clearly failed.
| jpmoral wrote:
| I don't agree it was reasonable that Ukraine couldn't
| strike airbases when it had the chance. Meanwhile it's
| Russia that is escalating: targeting civilians on a mass
| and individual scale, torturing and murdering POWs, using
| gas. They know there will only be condemnation and hand-
| wringing but no action.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Trump will try to strong-arm more NATO countries, but the 2%
| GDP spending goal is well within reach for most NATO members.
|
| With that said, NATO members (France, UK) have nukes. That's a
| line Putin can't cross.
| manquer wrote:
| He is not attacking them directly though, UK is pretty
| internally focused and won't really do much if the Ukraine
| operations expand and include to say other former soviet
| block countries.
|
| In mainland Europe, France with La-Penne and Germany with AfD
| and now Sarah Wagenknecht[1] have far-right problems of their
| own and don't have political will for anti Russia stance so
| they won't be able do much either, rest of Europe are minor
| players or far-right governments like in Hungary under Orban.
|
| [1] I refuse to call her party far left, now matter how she
| is described in media.
| pferde wrote:
| I guess that's the best case scenario right now. The worst
| case scenario is Trump pulling out of NATO completely, and
| (effectively or officially) allying with Russia.
|
| I really hope I'm just not seeing all the pieces, and that
| such option is not even remotely viable, but it would be bad.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Regarding the last point:
|
| I'm quite sure the US will see a military coup, in the
| event that Trump tries to ally with Russia and become
| enemies with NATO countries. I mean, I don't think it is
| possible for Trump to pull out of NATO. Worst case is he
| simply decides to shut off all funding.
|
| Politicians are short term, military officers are life-long
| and ideological.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| Eastern Europe countries do have more than 2% GDP - and I
| don't think Trump will care about that.
| bagels wrote:
| Europe is going to have to meet the challenge alone.
| elorant wrote:
| We Europeans have to start developing our own defense strategy
| independently of US influence.
| verisimi wrote:
| What are your thoughts?
| StefanBatory wrote:
| It should have been done eight years ago, alas... :|
| 4ad wrote:
| No, it should have been done over 70 years ago.
| waihtis wrote:
| As an european how about we take responsibility for our own
| countries instead of outsourcing it to america?
| tankenmate wrote:
| Indeed an EU nuclear weapons program is now a strong
| possibility.
| Maken wrote:
| Or just everyone joining the French one. They already have
| supersonic ICBMs.
| tankenmate wrote:
| The EU will most likely move towards developing a nuclear force
| of their own (as opposed to France only (the UK no longer being
| a member of the EU)).
|
| If the EU declines to do this then the Polish government and
| possibly the Swedes will do it. It's a toss up whether Germany
| will in my estimation.
|
| Nuclear proliferation incoming.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > The EU will most likely move towards developing a nuclear
| force of their own (as opposed to France only (the UK no
| longer being a member of the EU)).
|
| The EU has no army. NATO (which UK is part of) is still in
| effect and it is not going to change.
| tankenmate wrote:
| Trump has pushed to extricate the US from NATO, and as De
| Niro said in Ronin; "if there's doubt then there is no
| doubt".
|
| If you want security can you really rely on someone who may
| or may not have your back, especially if they have a policy
| of transactionalism?
|
| So, the EU needs to look to their own security, and the
| ultimate deterrence is nuclear weapons. And if the EU
| doesn't take up the mantle then the Poles will definitely
| do it, and probably Sweden, and possibly Finland / Germany.
| And so the EU needs to figure out if they are happy with a
| fragmented nuclear policy or not.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > Trump has pushed to extricate the US from NATO, and as
| De Niro said in Ronin; "if there's doubt then there is no
| doubt".
|
| Nothing is going to happen to NATO.
|
| Hollywood's opinion has been proven worthless and have no
| influence on elections.
| ben_w wrote:
| Russia denied there was going to be an invasion of
| Ukraine even the day before it started.
|
| In 2014, nothing was going to threaten the UK's
| membership of the EU.
|
| In 1989, the Berlin Wall was going to stay put for
| another 50-100 years.
|
| In 1938, the UK Prime Minister waved paper promising
| peace in our time.
|
| Nobody saw the Great Depression coming in January 1929.
|
| The mesh of treaties including the Triple Entente was
| supposed to prevent WW1.
|
| The southern states were convinced they had both legal
| right to secede and the economic support and military
| power that the north wouldn't try to keep them.
|
| The British were convinced that democracy was a stupid
| idea and that the 13 colonies would come crawling back
| when they realised they needed some proper aristocrats to
| govern.
|
| The world doesn't much care about things like this, pro
| or con.
| Maken wrote:
| Sadly, it is time for the EU to develop its own coordinated
| army. I think in the long term it will be better if we are able
| to have our own geopolitical interests, instead of having to
| follow the USA in everything because they are our bodyguard.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| Absolutely.
|
| That being said I don't see EU being able to develop a
| consensus on this - even if just because of Orban and Fico
| being Trump allies.
|
| Can't mess with them or Trump will raise hell.
| kaon_ wrote:
| Here's a European perspective that is somewhat pro-Trump,
| surprising as it may sound. I am Dutch and if someone would come
| along and promise the following:
|
| "We're gonna lower your taxes so you have more money to spend"
| "We're gonna take a sledge hammer to bloated policies so
| everything will run smoothly. Then we will build a million houses
| per year"
|
| I would very much consider voting for that person. That said,
| Trump is a madman, he lies all the time, is a danger to
| institutions etc. At the same time, I am so disgruntled by the
| current system and by not a single politician tackling or even
| speaking about relevant issues that I am easily swayed.
| Etheryte wrote:
| I think this is highly relatable, especially in the Netherlands
| where the housing situation is beyond bonkers. The protest vote
| is strong and/or gaining strength in many countries across the
| world to reflect this fact: the quality of life for the average
| person has either stagnated or fallen in many places, and
| that's a very strong rally point on election day.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Yeah but whose fault is that? A vote for the right is a vote
| for the rich, the very same that hovered up and concentrated
| all the newly gained wealth because any taxation has been
| dropped or they found ways to avoid paying taxes altogether,
| thus preventing the redistribution of generated wealth.
|
| But this is the doublethink that the right-wing is somehow
| able to pull off. They aren't promising that people will be
| better off, that wealth will be distributed. Instead they're
| pointing at even poorer people like immigrants and saying
| "they're taking your jobs".
|
| Yeah the quality of life for the average person is
| stagnating, but that's down to politicians and the rich, not
| to whatever boogeyman they're pushing.
| Etheryte wrote:
| I think this misses the point entirely. It's not about
| blame, or promises of this or that, it's about hope for
| change. Whether that will be a positive change or not
| remains to be seen, but if your life is shit, any change
| can feel better than no change, because at least there's
| hope that it might be better.
| ptman wrote:
| Actions, not words. He has shown what he does as a president.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| He's had a "concept of a plan" for over 8 years regarding
| health-care reform.
|
| What makes you think he'll have anything ready this time?
| redeux wrote:
| Watch TV, drink diet cokes, eat hamburgers, rage at
| minorities, foment insurrections, raise taxes, and just
| generally crap all over the place? Those are the actions I
| saw.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| Turn the supreme court partisan and overturn principles
| that had been valid for decades.
|
| I remember an interview at a large evangelical event about
| how they could vote for the decidedly un-Christian liar,
| fraudster, etc.. Their answer was that a "deal with the
| devil" is okay as long he delivers on supreme court
| justices. That was their literal phrasing.
| skwee357 wrote:
| And this is the problem we have with democracy, and why it's
| doomed to, eventually, die. People tend to believe words. I
| guess it fine when words are the only thing you can rely on,
| but in this case, we have history and past performance. And as
| someone who is not that interested in US politics, from my
| understanding, his past performance is terrible by all
| measures.
|
| But I guess this is something that will never change. The older
| I become, the more apparently I see that it does not matter
| WHAT you do, it only matters how you SPEAK about what you
| (will) do, whether it be in politics or in a corporate
| environment. I'm not the kind of person who regrets things in
| life, but if I could travel back in time and give my younger
| self one advice, it would be "focus on becoming a great
| orator", as this opens any door regardless of the level of
| experience.
|
| Edit: to clarify, in order to not reply to each comment
| individually, I might have used the word "terrible" harshly.
| The thing with politics is that as a complete outsider to the
| US, I don't have a reliable way to know what policies were
| proposed and what were adopted/rejected, nor the long term
| effect of them on the country. The only thing I can rely on, is
| information available online. His track record is not covered
| in a good light online.
|
| Sure, you can say that information online is skewed in one
| direction, but this is true to an insider, as some comments
| have demonstrated. The results of a particular policy and its
| application are subjective rather than objective. My entire
| premise was to demonstrate that actions are meaningless in the
| eye of the public.
|
| Theoretically, this means that you get a "get out of jail" card
| no matter what you do in life, as longs as you can articulate
| your words properly.
| Tainnor wrote:
| > his past performance is terrible by all measures.
|
| Which was partially a good thing, since he failed to
| dismantle Obamacare or build a wall at the Mexican border,
| even though those were two very explicit campaign promises.
|
| Who knows what he'll do or not do this time around.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| Hopefully more golf that taxpayers pay hundreds of millions
| for just like last time: https://www.usatoday.com/story/new
| s/factcheck/2020/10/31/fac...
| e40 wrote:
| Remember when he campaigned on criticizing Obama for
| playing so much golf?
| dgellow wrote:
| We do know what he will do. It's pretty much guaranteed he
| will pick even more Supreme Court justices, making it even
| more right wing than it currently is. That will have a
| lasting multi-decades impact. He will nominate more federal
| judges. He will cancel any investigation in his own crimes.
|
| Remember that Obamacare was saved by a single vote from
| McCain, who is now dead.
| notadoomer236 wrote:
| Abraham accords. Isis. Tax cuts. Booming economy of
| 2018-2020. Remain in Mexico. Far lower illegal immigration.
| People remember the actions too.
|
| "From my understanding, his past performance was terrible
| too"
|
| Depends on what you focus on. If you listen to soundbites it
| sounds like a circus. There's a lot of drama displacing and
| stepping on toes of the entrenched players in the system.
| ejstronge wrote:
| > ISIS
|
| Are we remembering the same 2010s?
|
| Also, all of what you're quoting stemmed from the Obama era
| (except the moving of the US embassy)
| redeux wrote:
| Trump raised taxes on the middle class. The economy was
| substantially worse under Trump - he spoiled the
| opportunity Obama gave him. He killed a lot of people with
| his COVID response. Our debt and deficits spiked under
| Trump as he drained tax dollars into the wealthy's pockets.
|
| It's not so much that people remember the actions, it's
| that they remember the right's white washing of those
| actions.
| LunaSea wrote:
| > Isis
|
| Isis was already losing in 2017 after they lost Raqqa and
| Mosul. Trump played no part in it.
|
| > Tax cuts
|
| America is already stacked with an insane deficit and
| debts. Tax cuts don't see like a good thing in that
| situation.
|
| > Booming economy
|
| Yes, the economy he inherited from Obama and perpetuated by
| spending ever more public money and increasing the deficit.
|
| > Remain in Mexico
|
| This only concerns 35k people which is a laughable amount.
|
| > Far lower illegal immigrantion
|
| Not if you compare to the end of Bidens term.
|
| We're also still waiting for that wall to happen. Another
| lie of course.
|
| Republicans also voted against a bi-partisan bill to reduce
| immigration.
|
| > If you listen to soundbites it sound like a circus
|
| Fucking a pornstar while you're wife is at home with your
| newly born kid that might also play a role. But somehow the
| party of the nuclear family doesn't see a problem with
| that.
| zpeti wrote:
| > his past performance is terrible by all measures.
|
| What was terrible for you? He didn't start new wars, he did
| the abraham accords. He put in a policy of -2 regulations for
| every new regulation. He was much better on spending UP UNTIL
| COVID than Biden was.
|
| What was so bad? He might speak like a crazy person, but his
| policies weren't that bad.
| Mechanical9 wrote:
| His policies were terrible. He broke off several key
| international treaties. He instituted the family separation
| policy. He broke down federal institutions that could have
| helped fight COVID.
|
| In what way was he better on spending? He managed to
| increase the deficit every single year, even before COVID.
|
| > He might speak like a crazy person.
|
| He does speak like a crazy person. He advocates for crazy
| policies. People from his administration are crazy people
| and advocate for crazy policies.
| mettamage wrote:
| This is what the election is teaching me: people don't care a
| lot about what you do, they care much more about what you
| say. You just have to make people feel good.
| e40 wrote:
| This is precisely why the word stupid is thrown around. It
| never helps to call a stupid person stupid, because they
| invariably double down.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| He spoke simple slogans at a 3rd grade speaking level to a
| crowd of people with similar intelligence.
|
| It's simple marketing and if there's something he's good at is
| that.
|
| Harris was trying to appeal to people's intelligence with
| complex answers and arguments, they just tuned out and went
| "lol, weird laugh".
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Yeah but you're speaking as someone who actually pays taxes (I
| presume) and feels like you're not getting any benefits from
| it. But when you (or I) were growing up and enjoying an
| education paid for by the government, or when you lose your
| job, or when you retire, or when you need a doctor / the
| hospital, etc, you'll be grateful that there is a system in
| place to keep it affordable.
|
| But this is another example of a string of selfishness in
| modern politics; it's a "got mine, fuck you" line of thinking.
| Whereas post-WW2 there was much more of a cooperative mindset,
| collective national or european-wide trauma, and a drive to
| cooperate to help each other out, regardless of their
| employment status. But WW2 has been forgotten and both Europe
| and the US are shifting back to the right-wing, because there's
| immigrants after your jobs, benefits and women apparently.
| astrange wrote:
| > Then we will build a million houses per year
|
| He actually promised the opposite of this last time, because
| suburbanites don't want any new housing built. I haven't
| checked what he said this time around.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I do think catering to nimbys was the democrat's original sin
| in some respects. Housing unaffordability makes everything else
| worse and blue areas are especially bad.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| Especially in CA where the Reagan Tax Revolt lives on in CA
| Prop 13, where boomers sitting on $2m+ properties that they
| bought in 1978 for $40k pay <$1k/year in prop taxes while
| their new neighbors pay $40k/yr in addition to their 8%
| mortgage while the boomers vote down any new housing
| developments or zoning changes.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| " I wanna do infrastructure. I wanna do it more than you want
| to do it. I'd be really good at that, that's what I do."
|
| And then his party reminded him that that is specifically NOT
| what they do. They like to let the private sector handle
| everything, because that's who funds them and how they get rich
| too.
| sanderjd wrote:
| This is not in any way a description of Trump's platform...
| kelnos wrote:
| That's the thing, though. If you hear someone say those things
| -- attractive as they sound -- and then blindly believe them
| without asking _how_ they intend to accomplish those things,
| then you are an irresponsible, ignorant voter.
| wyattblue wrote:
| Reasons I think why Trump won:
|
| - Biden's Inflation
|
| - Fortunate timing - Donald Trump is not too too
| old - Israel/Gaza split Democratic Base -
| Harris underestimated the podcasting world
| foldr wrote:
| > Biden's Inflation
|
| An international perspective is useful here:
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/15/in-the-u-...
| JSDevOps wrote:
| You know also immigration, price at the supermarket which yes
| is part of Biden inflation and also the assignation attempts.
| How quickly we forget.
| anshumankmr wrote:
| Trump also campaigned as firmly against progressive causes.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| Is there some statistical analysis on the reason people vote
| trump ? I refuse to believe the narrative that Americans are just
| a bunch of redneck retarded bigots.
|
| Tried to Google it but all I find is a bunch of American news
| website like CNN and website like
| https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/the-five-types-t...
|
| I'm trying to look beyond the propaganda, any idea if there has
| been scientific studies or anything remotely credible ?
| svara wrote:
| If you have access to the Economist this selection of reader's
| letters in response to their endorsement of Harris is quite
| enlightening.
|
| https://www.economist.com/letters/2024/11/04/letters-to-the-...
| MaKey wrote:
| Non-paywalled link: https://archive.is/QRAyX
| nosianu wrote:
| I just did. Unfortunately I did not learn much. The first few
| letters were pro-Trump, but with for me unconvincing
| reasoning, I think OP asked for something better - and I read
| it because I too wanted to hear something with more
| substance. Most letters were even against Trump.
|
| Most pro Trump arguments seem to be some vague statements
| about freedom of speech and "weaponizing of the Justice
| Department", which I find unconvincing given the things Trump
| said several times during the last few months, indicating he
| would do exactly that and worse.
|
| The letters are as vague as this example:
|
| > _My concern is that Ms Harris will at a minimum continue
| the leftist direction of America that has been pursued, or at
| least tolerated, by Joe Biden. Not to mention the violation
| of basic constitutional rights that the president tried to
| introduce with his vaccine mandate during the pandemic._
|
| or
|
| > _Mr Trump will cut bureaucracy and regulations to unleash
| creativity and productivity in the American economy,
| especially manufacturing. Ms Harris will inflict taxes and
| spending that will spur higher deficits and inflation._
|
| or
|
| > _You overlooked the unacceptable risks posed by the
| Democratic Party and Vice-President Harris. These include
| support for censorship, political correctness, selective
| prosecution and soft totalitarianism. The Republicans spend
| more, impose tariffs, and obsess on immigration whereas the
| Democrats tax more, regulate more and censor. Neither party
| confronts the hard choices required to limit monetary
| expansion, deficits and entitlements that gnaw at the dollar.
| I choose the Republicans because I value freedom of speech
| and oppose the totalitarianism implied in weaponising the
| Justice Department._
|
| and that's most of the pro-Trump statements already.
|
| I have no doubt the arguments exist, and those I wanted to
| hear, because I too share OPs question.
| gwd wrote:
| > My concern is that Ms Harris will at a minimum continue
| the leftist direction of America that has been pursued, or
| at least tolerated, by Joe Biden.
|
| Well there's this sort of thing:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/colorado-baker-
| lose...
|
| If you think there are plenty of places out there to get a
| wedding cake or a gender transition cake, and people should
| just leave people alone whom they disagree with, who do you
| vote for?
| svara wrote:
| I think you're dismissing their points too easily.
|
| You may think they're wrong, but I find it entirely
| plausible and convincing that that is just exactly what
| they believe.
| nosianu wrote:
| Wrong? I made no such statement! I was talking about the
| _quality_ of the argument, not about the direction.
|
| I'm not "dismissing" anything either. I have no opinion
| on Trump vs. Harris, as strange as that sounds to those
| with strong believes.
|
| I merely observe that OP asked for arguments, and that
| link points to opinion letters that don't even attempt to
| make one. Which is fine for them - this is about this
| sub-thread's context. OP asked for arguments and the link
| does not provide them, this is _not_ a dismissal of
| whatever is going on in that linked page itself, only
| whether it serves to satisfy OPs request _here_.
| stuaxo wrote:
| Oligarchs owning most of the media has to be a factor in voting
| in all this.
|
| (Why else would they own such "lossmaking" businesses).
| sumo89 wrote:
| Not just generic oligarchs but specifically Fox.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| ... and the network formerly known as Twitter.
| hughesjj wrote:
| You know, nothing gives me competence in my incompetence
| than seeing just how fucking successful Trump and Elon
| have been despite their lack of competence
| cogman10 wrote:
| It really isn't just fox.
|
| You especially see it if you pay attention to framing. On
| every mainstream platform, social issues are always first
| and foremost framed as "how can we afford this expensive
| social program!?!". It's always business friendly and
| worker hostile.
| lawn wrote:
| Have you read the New York Times, CNN, or Washington Post
| for instance?
|
| It was a _major_ deal that Biden 's health was declining
| and he showed signs of dementia. But when Trump displays
| similar symptoms there's dead silence.
|
| There's a consistent "sane washing" of the crazy things
| Trump says across nearly all media and the double standard
| is unreal.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| I swear that has been something that, as an European
| person, left me quite speechless. We've heard a lot about
| Biden mental situation, but nothing about the other guy
| struggling as well
| pseudo0 wrote:
| He's nowhere near as bad as Biden. The media downplayed
| Biden's senility until the disastrous debate made it
| impossible. Americans got to see both candidates talk
| without a teleprompter for a couple hours, and Trump was
| able to handle it easily, while Biden exhibited clear
| signs of mental decline.
|
| Trump has a rambling oratory style, but that is more of a
| stylistic affection.
| lawn wrote:
| Why deflect towards Biden?
|
| The question isn't if he's better or worse than Biden,
| the question is if he's well enough for the presidency.
| And he's shown very clear signs of mental decline the
| last months.
|
| Neither Trump nor Biden should have been chosen as
| candidates, yet _all_ the focus has been on Biden.
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| Musk, Bezos and Murdoch are three that come to mind. Two are
| legacy media. Between Fox and Washington Post that surely is
| not even half of the 'mainstream media'. What other oligarchs
| are there that I'm overlooking?
| canucker2016 wrote:
| - Mark Zuckerberg owns Facebook/Instagram (issued the
| statements in late Aug 2024 about Biden administration
| pressuring about censoring Covid-related info)
|
| - Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of LA Times/San Diego Union
| Tribune, and other newspapers, LA Lakers, billionaire
| biotech person
|
| - Marc Benioff, Salesforce CEO, owner of Time magazine
|
| - Laurene Powell Jobs, billionaire widow of Steve Jobs,
| owns The Atlantic Monthly
|
| - Masayoshi Son, Softbank CEO, USA Today/Gannet media group
| owned by New Media Investment Group via Fortress Investment
| group via Softbank
|
| [edit - added below]
|
| - Michael Bloomberg (former mayor of New York city) owns
| Bloomberg
|
| - Sumner Redstone owns Paramount/Viacom/CBS
|
| - Thomson family (Canada) owns Thomson Reuters via
| Woodbridge Company
|
| - Brain L. Roberts, CEO Comcast, son of company founder,
| NBCUniversal, Sky Group, owned via 33% controlling
| supershares
|
| - Donald Newhouse, son of company founder, Conde Nast (New
| Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue), newspapers, controlling stake
| in Discovery Comms.
|
| - John Malone, former CEO of TCI cable, largest shareholder
| of Liberty Media, et al.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| You mean the same majority of the major media outlets of all
| types that has been consistently hostile to Trump for many
| years?
|
| If it's the oligarchs in the media who were a factor in this
| second victory, then it was through one truly spectacular
| mass-scale reverse psychology of getting exactly the opposite
| of the narrative they almost consistently pushed. That would
| be one very interesting story if it were at all true.
|
| More realistically: to a very big (and apparently growing)
| swathe of the American voting public, the kind of shit that
| mattered most was what much of the media and their
| progressive political supporters in the major cities derided
| enough for all those millions of voters to dig in their heels
| and ignore them. Trump symbolically and often also literally,
| vocally represents this resistance to that media narrative,
| and thus he won again.
| fny wrote:
| Housing prices and rent.
| n2d4 wrote:
| It's anecdotal, but the easiest way to understand them is to
| just travel to a conservative state and talk to them. Even if
| you won't agree, you'll see that they exist
| delichon wrote:
| In the bluest district of the bluest state you still don't
| have to leave the neighborhood to find them. And visa versa.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| To be fair, that is not easy in any practical sense of the
| word for most of us.
| lazyeye wrote:
| lol...
| imoverclocked wrote:
| I live outside the SF Bay Area in the hills. I'll vouch for
| the thought here.
|
| Several of my neighbors wear Trump's mark.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Even in Harlem you'd probably don't have to walk more than 50
| yards to talk to someone.
|
| It is strange how there is this superficial notion that areas
| are 'Blu' or 'Red'.
| n2d4 wrote:
| I thought the implicit assumption in their comment was that
| OP/grandparent isn't American.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Oh. Makes sense.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| And I would add, _listen_. Don 't immediately check out
| mentally because you disagree with what they are saying,
| don't argue, simply listen and try to understand. It's really
| hard for humans to do, but it's important. You cannot hope to
| change minds or appeal to voters if you don't understand what
| motivates them in the first place.
|
| And when I say you have to understand people I mean truly
| understand, not intellectually lazy crap like "oh they're
| just stupid" or "they're racist" like you already see in this
| thread. Stupid/racist/etc people do exist, but that isn't
| most people and it isn't most Trump voters either. They are
| normal people with real concerns and needs, not caricatures
| of evil.
| gwd wrote:
| I do try. The problem is, a lot of times what they're
| saying is just nonsense.
|
| "The economy is terrible" -- well, no it's not. We had some
| inflation a few years ago, but _so did every other country
| in the world_ , and the US has had _far lower_ than most
| other places. The Biden administration has been doing a
| great job with the economy. And you know those business
| people who want Trump to win because they want lower
| regulations? Yeah, they 're not on _your_ side -- they 're
| trying to _screw you over_. You feel economic pressure, and
| so you 're going to vote someone who's going to make it
| worse?
|
| "Libs are weaponizing the justice department" -- People who
| have flagrantly tried to flout laws and undermine our
| democracy need to be held accountable. I mean yeah, "Always
| prosecute the outgoing party" is something we want to
| avoid, but "Never prosecute anything any politician does"
| is just as bad, if not worse. And at any rate, if that's
| something you're actually concerned about, why is your
| solution to vote for "LOCK HER UP!" Trump?
|
| "Biden / Harris are just as bad" -- I mean, no? Trump
| literally sent an armed mob to attack his own vice
| president. Nothing you think the alleged "Biden crime
| family" comes anywhere close (and BTW there is no "Biden
| crime family").
|
| "Immigrant gangs are invading our country" -- I mean, just
| no.
|
| Not everyone is like this, but a lot of people are just
| living in a fictional reality constructed by Fox, Newsmax,
| and now Musk.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| Try to listen to why they are saying these things. Find
| where you are similar not where you differ.
|
| Often I have found the same fears, desires and hopes in
| my opponents as myself. For example: "I want my children
| to grow up happy"
|
| From that level of similarity we can reach people. It
| takes effort.
| latentcall wrote:
| Yes, this. If you really listen to people, both sides
| care about the same things they're just drinking
| different flavors of kool aid.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| > " _...so did every other country in the world, and the
| US has had far lower than most other places..._ "
|
| And you fail to see why that might be uninteresting and
| unconvincing to a low income voter struggling even harder
| to make ends meet? Maybe even infuriating enough to vote
| against whoever said it?
| gwd wrote:
| I'm trying to treat people like adults. They're suffering
| because of worldwide macroeconomic conditions that are
| out of Biden's control, but Biden's administration has
| managed to make the suffering less than in other places.
| Other sources of suffering include policies which the
| Republicans themselves have been pursuing.
|
| Imagine someone buys a Kia hoping to reduce how much they
| pay in gasoline; but then the price of gasoline doubles,
| and they end up paying more than they were before anyway;
| and so they say, "Kia is a terrible car, it's so
| expensive to fill up, I'm going to buy a Hummer instead".
|
| That's what voting for Trump in this situation is like:
| at minimum he's going to enable rich oligarchs to squeeze
| low-income voters even harder, and at worst he's going to
| trash the economy by raising tariffs, deporting working
| immigrants, and politicizing the federal reserve
| (lowering interest rates and triggering even more
| inflation).
|
| I think normal voters are perfectly capable of
| understanding this. It's you who seem to be saying that
| low income voters are incapable of understanding this and
| should instead be lied to.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| > " _I think normal voters are perfectly capable of
| understanding this. It 's you who seem to be saying that
| low income voters are incapable of understanding this and
| should instead be lied to._"
|
| I offer in rebuttal the election results (which, to be
| clear, I myself am not happy about).
|
| The Democrats could have promised a lot more programs and
| initiatives to relieve the pain of the working class than
| they did. They could have made economic relief a lot more
| central to their advertising. People want their pain
| acknowledged and sympathized with, not waved away with an
| airy "it's not so bad".
| gwd wrote:
| I think we basically agree then. As far as I'm aware, the
| Democrats didn't attempt even to make the "making the
| best of a bad hand" argument, much less make a case for
| how they were going to address the situation.
|
| One thing that Trump is incredibly talented at at is
| getting _everyone_ to talk about him. I 've always
| thought that the way to get him beat wasn't to trash him,
| but to talk about the great things about the alternate
| candidate. So I made it a point to avoid talking about
| Trump on my social media. After the DNC, I thought we
| were going to get the same thing from the Harris campaign
| -- but it seems like in the last few weeks, Harris went
| hard on attacking Trump, hoping to get women out to vote
| for reproductive rights, leaving me nothing really to
| share or talk about on FB.
|
| Trump, on the other hand, went hard on getting young
| adult males, who typically don't vote at all, to come out
| and vote for him. Both efforts had their effect, but
| Trump's bet seems to have paid off more, and put him back
| in the white house.
| justin66 wrote:
| Well that's all wrong. You don't need to _travel_ to find a
| Trump voter. And merely talking to them is not going to be
| sufficient to truly "understand" them. If only.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| Talking to a person should be at least one thing to try to
| do to understand another person.
|
| It's not wrong to try to understand another.
| justin66 wrote:
| Maybe it's just cope for the massive disappointment I'm
| feeling about the state of my country, but I'm somehow
| _also_ disappointed that you could somehow read my
| comment and misunderstand it so badly. Of course I wasn
| 't arguing that people should not talk to one another.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| This is the best that I've seen
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/03/opinion/election-focus-gr...
|
| Biden is wildly unpopular, Harris is his right hand, she didn't
| get put up by any competitive process, and she never promised
| change to a country that very much wants it. The nyt always
| considered her the worst possible option from day 1, aside from
| Biden. This shouldn't be a surprise.
| Gasp0de wrote:
| Unfortunately, it seems the article can't be viewed without
| signing up.
| mportela wrote:
| https://archive.is/DFbWQ
| hughesjj wrote:
| DNC really channeling that "don't get fired" energy
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| That's actually interesting, thank you.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Time and time again, polls have showed that "economy and
| inflation" was the leading cause. After that immigration.
| atoav wrote:
| Yeah, but you have to be somewhat deranged to trust a
| multiple bancrupt and proven grifter with that -- especially
| since the economic record of his last administration hasn't
| been stellar at all.
|
| But if you are lucky he will allow you vote for the other
| side in 4 years again and then you will vote republicans
| after and back and forth we go.
| seb1204 wrote:
| In school back then I learned about the American melting pot
| of people from everywhere. Is this no longer the case?
| thebigspacefuck wrote:
| Recently there's been an influx of illegal immigrants from
| Venezuela including some associated with Tren de Aragua
| that have been highly publicized and politicized. While
| most people do want America to be a melting pot of people
| from everywhere, whether you want your borders so wide open
| to allow criminals and gangs to sneak in is another
| question, and also probably something we all agree on, but
| in this case one candidate has been in power and has
| appeared to have not solved the problems.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Honestly, Americans don't like modern feminism and anything
| related to trans ideologies. High inflation played a role too.
| It was pretty effectively curtailed but not fast enough to
| directly affect people's lives before the election.
| panick21_ wrote:
| In tons of the non-Trump races the anti-trans and anti-
| feminist ads have not worked well.
| major505 wrote:
| Is not only americans. Is most people, but they are afraid to
| tell and being labeled as biggots.
|
| Is a lot a things, economy for sure, but the demiocrafts
| passed 4 years calling half the country nazis and facists,
| and denying things that everyone could see like Biden health
| issues. This comes with a price.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > Honestly, Americans don't like modern feminism and anything
| related to trans ideologies.
|
| I doubt most people like those two things. The difference is,
| they get insulted, shamed and targeted for social
| ostracisation if they let on what they don't like.
|
| Which results in the election results that you see - just
| because you've successfully silenced someone from expressing
| their opinion, that doesn't mean that you changed their vote.
| j-krieger wrote:
| > Honestly, Americans don't like modern feminism and anything
| related to trans ideologies
|
| Americans (and people in general) do not care about social
| issues when they are hurting financially.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Oh yeah, but there were plenty of groups on the margins
| that voted along social lines.
| clumsysmurf wrote:
| You might find some insight here:
| https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/11/trump-voters-li...
|
| They discuss a paper "The Authentic Appeal of the Lying
| Demagogue: Proclaiming the Deeper Truth About Political
| Illegitimacy."
|
| Which asks the Q:
|
| "H]ow can a constituency of voters find a candidate
| 'authentically appealing' (i.e., view him positively as
| authentic) even though he is a 'lying demagogue' (someone who
| deliberately tells lies and appeals to non-normative private
| prejudices)?"
|
| one A is:
|
| "Trump's boldly false proclamations--about himself, about his
| rivals and critics, about the world--are not a bug. They're a
| feature. They demonstrate he is sticking it to the other side.
| To the elites, the media, the establishment, the government,
| academia, Hollywood, the libs, the woke crowd, the minorities,
| the...whoever it is his supporters resent, despise, or
| disregard."
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| That's also why in 2016, a year's worth of "Trump is
| terrible" articles only helped him - because the actual
| received message was "we, the people you despise, really
| would hate if Trump was elected". It's a sign of
| authenticity. Trump _couldn 't_ betray them, because he very
| evidently had nowhere else to go.
| djtango wrote:
| Aka polarisation. When Trump first won I conceptualised it
| as him arbitraging humanity/democracy's lack of
| preparedness for social media and the internet upending
| established flows of information.
|
| The solution at its heart is to reduce conflict and bridge
| the gap. I have enjoyed Zachary Elwoods most recent podcast
| episode showing how Trump is misquoted by traditional media
| outlets which has the negative effect of furthering the
| perception of bias.
| melodyogonna wrote:
| If you use Twitter you would know. People hate the
| lackadaisical attitude to illegal immigration, the inflation in
| the economy, and the idealogy-centered government (yes, this
| has been a popular sore point).
| x3ro wrote:
| I find it hilarious when people say democrats are "idealogy-
| centered government" [sic], but Trump isn't. What do those
| words mean to you? Are you saying that Trump has no
| ideology?..
| chaos_emergent wrote:
| As someone who voted for Harris, I'd say trump is less
| ideologically driven than democratic candidates. He's
| insane and erratic, which don't follow ideology.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| Oh, he definitely has an ideology if you've ever read
| about project 2025
| j-krieger wrote:
| But he doesn't openly argue for that. And that's all
| politics is. Optics.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| Then Idk, he openly says that government agencies should
| have less power (epa, fda...). I mean, he doesn't sponsor
| this view, but he openly said he'll make musk give less
| and less agency to gov. Companies that aren't deemed
| worth of it, whatever it means
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Generally, they mean promoting DIE rather than merit and
| national interest.
| jyounker wrote:
| Which of course actually means nothing. Being against DEI
| is just a coded way of saying, "we don't want to compete
| with women and non-white people".
| medvezhenok wrote:
| Bullshit.
|
| It's framed as an equality movement whereas it takes as
| an axiom that society is built on systemic oppression -
| that's the unquestionable tenet. And then the
| prescription is using governments power to impose
| "preferred" outcomes, no matter the cost.
|
| Thanks, but no thanks - I prefer to live in a
| meritocracy.
|
| Also my personal pet peeve - having a cultural preference
| is not racism, god damn it! Not all cultures are the
| same, and we should be allowed to state and fight for our
| preferences! (Unlike discriminating on the basis of
| physical appearance or features, which is actual racism).
|
| The fact that America equates the two is asinine to me
| (as an immigrant)
| crabmusket wrote:
| > whereas it takes as an axiom that society is built on
| systemic oppression - that's the unquestionable tenet
|
| You didn't say, but I think strongly implied, this is
| untrue. Why do you think so?
| lelanthran wrote:
| > Are you saying that Trump has no ideology?..
|
| Well, maybe he has, but he aligns his campaign to match the
| voters' will instead of trying to change the will of the
| voters' to match his campaign.
|
| Dems: _" Listen up: these are the issues that are important
| to you."_
|
| Trump: _" That's important to you? Well, in that case it's
| important to me too!"_
|
| You can't expect to win if you are out of touch with what
| the voters want.
| melodyogonna wrote:
| I think this is it. Trump knows how to repeat what people
| say to themselves
| dartharva wrote:
| > Are you saying that Trump has no ideology?..
|
| It.. unironically seems so? Not long ago Trump used to be a
| Democrat. He has often backtracked and tweaked his public
| ideology to whatever gets the most populist support, e.g.
| Abortions.
| tzs wrote:
| Yet the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill earlier
| this year that basically had nearly everything Republicans
| asked for, and the House wouldn't even take it up because
| Trump didn't want to lose immigration as an issue.
|
| And inflation is almost down to normal levels, and Trump is
| promising wide ranging and massive tariffs that it is hard to
| see not causing a significant rise in inflation.
|
| So its hard to see how people who are concerned about those
| issues would vote for Trump.
|
| Even if they don't like Democrat approaches to those issues,
| or really dislike Democrat ideology which might explain
| voting for Trump now when the only real choices were Trump
| and Harris, what about during the Republican primaries?
|
| Republicans used to have many reasonably competent people in
| the primaries. How the heck could they not find anyone better
| than Trump?
| LunaSea wrote:
| FYI the inflation was in large part generated by Trump
| guerrilla wrote:
| > I refuse to believe the narrative that Americans are just a
| bunch of redneck retarded bigots.
|
| Why would you refuse to believe that? Have you ever been to
| America or even watched American TV?
| fastasucan wrote:
| This is my conclusion as well. In many other western
| countries Donald Trump is a badly written movie charagter. In
| the US he is their best option for a president. "What about
| those that didnt vote for him" people may ask, but the fact
| that the democrats isnt able to provide an alternative better
| than Trump, and haven't been able to provide better politics
| than Trump says everything.
|
| 50% of the voting mass look at Trump and say "that is my
| president!", and millions cant even be bothered to show up to
| vote for someone else. This is America.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Trying to apply that stereotype to Elon Musk and Tulsi
| Gabbard seems awkward -- both of whom endorsed Trump.
| m2024 wrote:
| [flagged]
| Tainnor wrote:
| I honestly think that Elon Musk is just on a personal
| vendetta against anyone who bruised his ego. He can't stand
| that he was called out for his Thai diver "pedophile"
| comment or that his trans daughter openly disavows him. He
| specifically blames the "woke mindset" for the latter. So
| for him, it's probably just a "stick it to the libs" kind
| of thing.
| melodyogonna wrote:
| I don't think it was any of those, Elon and his mother
| have regularly referenced Tesla being snubbed at an EV
| Summit, and GM being praised as leading the EV transition
| in a quarter they (GM) delivered 42 electric cars to
| Tesla's 300,000. It is still a matter of bruised ego
| though, I think Elon Musk takes things like this very
| seriously.
| willvarfar wrote:
| My take is that the democrats are being blamed for the ever
| higher cost of living.
|
| There are people who vote because they want the insular America
| and to bring jobs back from China/Mexico/etc, those who vote to
| burn down 'the establishment' because they feel no hope, and
| those who just hope that any change means cost of living drops.
| seb1204 wrote:
| Maybe I would like this too but there are still more steps to
| go to then believe that a proven liar will give it to them.
| fastasucan wrote:
| After seeing this guy become elected for the second time I have
| come to the opposite conclusion. This is what America wants,
| and this is what America is. The rest of the world should
| acknowledge this and act accordingly, and the people of the US,
| especially the Democrats, should as well.
|
| Pretending like "this isn't us", "this isnt real america" is
| just keeping them from doing any real introspection.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| In particular, I believe the economic rhetoric Trump used
| worked very well with many lower income people. I don't
| remember Harris taking any strong stances there, or maybe
| what she had I store was not communicated well.
| bruxis wrote:
| I think this is accurate, a big chunk of the vote seems to
| be "my bills/food/rent went up when Blue in office, Red
| says they _will_ fix it, so let's try Red"
|
| Of course not statistical, but seems to be a large trend in
| discussion
| iainmerrick wrote:
| Yeah, I think that's it, or at least a large part of it.
| People were unhappy and when you're unhappy you vote out
| the incumbent (and in a two-party system there's only one
| other choice).
|
| I also think that's the same reason the exact same guy
| was voted _out_ four years ago. Pretty bizarre if true,
| so it 's probably not the whole story.
| gebruikersnaam wrote:
| Harris promised raising the minimum wage and down payment
| support for first-time buyers.
|
| Americans (with the help of the media) are just plain
| stupid and vote against their own interests.
| mrkeen wrote:
| Promises from an incumbent can hit differently. If
| Democrats were willing and able, they should have done it
| in the last 4 years. If not, then why promise?
| gebruikersnaam wrote:
| The Biden administration did a lot of student debt
| relief.
|
| But in the end that doesn't matter is the media isn't
| willing to talk about that. And people keep listening to
| those media.
|
| Remember age didn't matter anymore once Biden dropped
| out? If the NYT hammered Trump the same way they did
| Biden, the outcome would be different.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| I have no doubt Harris would have delivered on improving
| the conditions for the poor. Unfortunately Trumps
| rhetoric was simply too effective, perhaps because of
| what you say in the second sentence.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Harris had no strong stances. At all. Her only one was "I'm
| not Trump". Which is kind of a loosing strategy when people
| seem to like him.
| slater wrote:
| *losing
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| This is the challenge that the Democrats have; the
| Republicans have a policy that appeals to a significant
| enough percentage of the population, while the Democrats
| have to try and appeal to "everyone else". A two-party
| system is not a democracy, it's a compromise, and only a
| political revolution will fix it.
|
| Of course, that's also what the Republicans / Heritage
| Foundation are aiming for, if they have their way they will
| do away with democracy. Which isn't exactly what I was
| thinking of.
| ravroid wrote:
| Important to note that it's not what _all_ of us Americans
| want, it 's just what a little over half of the voting
| population voted for.
| tomrod wrote:
| Half the voting population who chose to vote voted for.
| dartharva wrote:
| "A little over half of the voting population" is literally
| all that matters here! The levels of cope here are
| astounding.
| justin66 wrote:
| > all that matters!
|
| Some perspective is called for.
| josephg wrote:
| It's all that matters in the presidential race. But
| barely over half of the population wanted him as
| president. The other side doesn't disappear just because
| they lost an election.
| dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
| Talk about really problems with 'democracy' where 51%
| decides decides to thrust their views on the rest 49% .
| The concept is fundamentally flawed.
| LunaSea wrote:
| Well in 2020 it apparently didn't matter so you should
| try and stay consistent.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| This is what rural USA wants.
| trynumber9 wrote:
| What makes rural America so numerous?
| truckerbill wrote:
| electoral college
| ptman wrote:
| It's not that it's numerous (it's not). It's that they
| have a lot weight because of how the electoral college
| works.
| iainmerrick wrote:
| I think you're confusing the electoral college with the
| Senate.
|
| There are two senators per state regardless of
| population, so low-population rural states have an
| outsized influence in the Senate.
|
| In the electoral college, each state is weighted by
| population. It's unavoidably biased (just by the nature
| of chunking votes into seats and states) but it doesn't
| consistently favor either side.
| geoffpado wrote:
| Each state gets a number of electors equal to their
| Congressional delegation: Representatives *and* Senators.
| So the overweighting of small states in the Senate does,
| to a smaller degree, affect the Electoral College as well
| (as every state gets two "free" electors).
| iainmerrick wrote:
| Good point! I overlooked that. On the other hand, the
| larger states having large bloc votes plays in their
| favor.
| tstrimple wrote:
| The electoral college for one. Massively oversized
| benefit, especially since the house size has been frozen.
| Basically every level of our government is designed to
| give small rural areas the advantage. It's no wonder we
| are the only prosperous nation without universal
| healthcare and post secondary education. We give the
| people who contribute the least to our society free rein
| to run it.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| No, basically every level of our country is designed to
| balance the voices of heavily populated areas with rural
| areas. It's completely ignorant of the history of our
| nation to claim it's intended to give rural areas an
| advantage, when in fact it is an attempt at compromise.
| And let's not forget: without that compromise our nation
| _literally would not exist_ , as the large and small
| states wouldn't have come to an agreement otherwise.
| Lanolderen wrote:
| I wouldn't say people in rural areas do the least for
| society.
| mportela wrote:
| For one, the population is way more spread out in the US
| than in other countries. There are only 9 cities with
| more than 1 million people in a country of 350 million
| inhabitants.
| jltsiren wrote:
| Those are local administrative areas, not cities. Using
| any reasonable functional definition of a city, the
| number of cities with a population >1 million is around
| 50.
| gwd wrote:
| They're not so numerous; due to the way the system is set
| up, they have outsized impact. Wyoming with 500k people
| has the same amount of influence in the Senate as
| California with 38 million people.
|
| That said, so far she hasn't won the popular vote either,
| so that's not what we should be blaming in this election.
| user90131313 wrote:
| My question is, why can't democrats see how bad and
| average intell. their candidate is? Trump can at least
| talk, give interviews and all. But other one???
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| > But other one???
|
| is not a sentence.
| user90131313 wrote:
| OK.
| hughesjj wrote:
| I think they just have a higher reproduction rate.
| Shorter generations and wider ones too.
|
| Hell I'm from a rural family that voted majority trump.
| I'm a bud not a stem. I'm also 33 with no kids.
| lancesells wrote:
| This is also what billionaires and the rich want, which is
| how you can tell rural USA isn't going to gain anything.
| But they'll blame immigration or some other issue instead
| of the people swimming in gold coins, making them work
| harder for less money year over year.
| adamors wrote:
| No, urban areas voted Democrat once again. If anything, 2024
| has really showed the widening divide between urban and rural
| areas, both in the US and in Europe. Probably everywhere else
| as well.
| agent86 wrote:
| While it is true that democrats carried urban centers it is
| worth noting that their support appears to have eroded
| somewhat in these areas. Republicans picked up a
| statistically relevant number of votes there.
| ziml77 wrote:
| If I were a betting man I'd wager that switches like that
| are purely due to inflation. Shit's too expensive and
| people think that changing the party they vote into the
| seat of the presidency is going to change that.
| e40 wrote:
| Which is incredibly stupid given Elon just said in the
| last month that Trump's policies would cause inflation.
| black_13 wrote:
| That us how i feel as well the US will finally get what it
| deserves.
| LeChuck wrote:
| See also this article from 2004:
|
| http://exiledonline.com/we-the-spiteful/
|
| >The left won't accept this awful truth about the American
| soul, a beast that they believe they can fix "if only the
| people knew the Truth."
|
| >But what if the Truth is that Americans don't want to know
| the Truth? What if Americans consciously choose lies over
| truth when given the chance-and not even very interesting
| lies, but rather the blandest, dumbest and meanest lies? What
| if Americans are not a likeable people? The left's wires
| short-circuit when confronted with this terrible possibility;
| the right, on the other hand, warmly embraces Middle
| America's rank soul and exploits it to their full advantage.
| The Republicans know Americans better than the left. They
| know that it's not so much Goering's famous "bigger lie" that
| works here, but the dumber and meaner the lie, the more the
| public wants to hear it repeated.
| Maken wrote:
| This is quite bleak.
| ziml77 wrote:
| Holy cow, 20 years later and it's all still accurate. You
| could swap some names and post it today.
| johndunne wrote:
| I'm in the UK and I was just listening to Andrew Neil, a
| political commentator over here, and he mentioned something
| interesting. There was apparently a 3 to 2 ratio of
| Hispanic/Black voters voting FOR Trump. A possible
| explanation is that the border policies have had an impact on
| minimum wage workers, of which Hispanic and Black voters are
| disproportionately a category of. The Democratic Party will
| have to do a post mortem, but there's likely to be many
| issues found where the Democrats failed their voters.
| runarberg wrote:
| Your refusal to believe that is apt. People are not nearly as
| dumb as this narrative puts them out to be. This mindset is at
| best elitism, and ignores human agency.
|
| In reality every Trump voter has their own reason to behave
| this way. And their behavior is perfectly rational according to
| their own beliefs. My personal theory is that we have been
| grossly underestimating the potency of misinformation and
| disinformation propaganda on social media. Especially those
| which weaponizes peoples actual grievances with authority, and
| directs them in this way. Anybody can be a victim of
| misinformation (we see this in action with people that fall
| victims to scam), the misinformation you personally don't fall
| victim to was probably not directed at you (see e.g. the
| Nigerian Prince filter for wire fraud scams).
|
| I think that even though humans are smart, and we have our own
| agency, there are also number of ways which our intelligence
| can be exploited. This is the case for scams, but also for
| misinformation propaganda. I think the real lesson here is in
| the failures of our democratic institutions to protect us from
| this exploitation.
| lazyeye wrote:
| You start off by saying these people arent stupid, then go on
| to suggest they are easily manipulated by (what you think is)
| misinformation. Just not smart, like you I guess? Honestly, I
| think the kind of people you are sneering at are actually
| smarter than you as they would never make the kind of stupid,
| ignorant comment you've made here.
| runarberg wrote:
| Being susceptible to propaganda (or a scam for that matter)
| isn't stupidity. We are all susceptible to it. It just
| varies which propaganda and to what degree.
|
| I never called Trump voters stupid. I think there may be a
| misunderstanding here because traditional discourse has
| people believe that only stupid people fall for
| misinformation propaganda (or a scam). I was explicitly
| rejecting that.
| lazyeye wrote:
| Is it possible that you are the one that has been
| manipulated by misinformation? Is it possible that people
| can disagree with you without "misinformation" being
| involved?
| runarberg wrote:
| Oh, there is no doubt in my mind that I'm susceptible to
| propaganda, including misinformation campaigns.
|
| However misinformation campaigns are a fact of social
| media. There are several documented cases of
| misinformation spreading. It is possible that I have just
| been lied to about that the media et.all lied about the
| scale and severity of misinformation and I believed it
| (although, wouldn't that be a misinformation campaign
| which proofs their existence?)
| vdqtp3 wrote:
| You have two options. If you listen to the American left and
| most media outlets, it's because Trump voters hate women, gays,
| foreigners, blacks, trans people, and progress - and to be
| fair, some do. If you listen to the people actually voting for
| Trump, it's because they fundamentally disagree with the basis
| for Harris' policies (and Clinton's before her) or the outcomes
| thereof.
| tmountain wrote:
| Many have a very shallow understanding of policy and have
| also had their perspectives heavily influenced by propaganda
| from Fox News, etc. Ask the average Trump supporter how
| tarrifs work for a good example of what I'm describing.
| dartharva wrote:
| Are you implying that the average Harris supporter will
| fare better against such questions?
| hughesjj wrote:
| I think they're rebutting that an actual understanding of
| policy enters the equation at all
| tmountain wrote:
| Correct, most voters are making decisions based on
| emotions, and those emotions are heavily influenced by
| their information sources.
| bagels wrote:
| The few policies that were campaigned on are going to be
| harmful and counterproductive. I'm inclined to agree with
| the propaganda angle.
| atoav wrote:
| Not from the US, but I really wonder: Do you guys got not
| feel shame if a person with _that_ character and _that_ track
| record runs your country?
|
| I mean sure: depending on your media diet you might find all
| his flaws acceptable, but ask yourself if Obama (or any other
| candidate) displayed the very same flaws if that would cause
| you outrage. If yes, you might need some introspection.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > Do you guys got not feel shame if a person with that
| character and that track record runs your country?
|
| You don't get to be president without being a pathological
| liar who only cares about themselves and not the people.
| I'm not saying this to excuse Trump, far from it. I _am_
| ashamed to have him as a president (to the extent I 'm
| ashamed of anything outside my control anyways). But I've
| been just as ashamed to have Biden, Obama, and Bush as the
| president too.
| carry_bit wrote:
| > Do you guys got not feel shame if a person with that
| character and that track record runs your country?
|
| The Donald Trump that your media reports on isn't the real
| Donald Trump, or at the very least the one his supporters
| see.
|
| Example: Trump talks to a group of people who normally
| don't vote, and asks them to make an exception and vote
| this time, noting that this will be the last time he runs,
| and so they won't need to vote for him again. The media
| then takes "you won't need to vote for me again" out of
| context and uses it to claim that Trump will end elections
| in the US. People who only listen to the media see one
| thing, and his supporters (who are aware of the context)
| see another.
| benjaminwootton wrote:
| Everyone is throwing ideas, excuses and explanations into the
| mix, but maybe people just want what he's proposing - strict
| border control, low regulation, small government, low taxes,
| free speech etc.
|
| Im not American and barely engaged with politics at all but all
| of that sounds like a pretty good idea to me without looking at
| any stats or trying to find out why my fellow citizens were
| confused into making the wrong choice.
| anon22981 wrote:
| It isn't about why his promises appeal to some people. The
| question is why people buy the "free ice cream for all every
| day if I'm elected class president!" from a pedophile-rapist
| criminal. And instead of class presidency it's real
| presidency.
|
| I wouldn't trust literally anything in this guys hands' and
| even less a country.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Except they're lies or false promises; low regulation is only
| for companies, allowing them to infringe on workers' rights,
| increase poverty, etc, which goes towards oligarchy. Small
| government means more power to less people, which goes
| towards autocracy. Low taxes means less money to social
| programs, which means people will literally die from being
| unable to afford health care, which is eugenics. Free speech
| for me but not for thee, it's Musk's flavour of free speech
| where words like "cis" are banned.
|
| But sure, on the surface they sound good I suppose.
| mrweasel wrote:
| A friend of mine just sent me an article from a Danish
| newspaper where they cover the reasons as to why people would
| want to vote for someone like Trump. They interview Arlie
| Russell Hochschild who has written two books on the topic:
| "Strangers in Their Own Land" and "Stolen Pride".
|
| One explanation from Hochschild is that you have a group of
| disenfranchised votes, who see "everyone else" get to "jump the
| line" for help. Not only do they get to jump the line, they see
| the president (Obama back then) help these other people
| (immigrants, women, people of color, LGBTQ, an so on) move
| ahead of the line, while they are left behind to fend for
| themselves.
|
| I haven't read the books yet, but I definitely plan to. From
| the article it certainly sound like it would help me understand
| why some Americans vote the way they do.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Bigotry is unpopular with Americans.
|
| Even if you claim it's noble bigotry because you're
| discriminating against people with evil ancestors or who
| happen to share a sex with bad people.
| rendall wrote:
| > _" A friend of mine just sent me an article from a Danish
| newspaper where they cover the reasons as to why people would
| want to vote for someone like Trump...."_
|
| And this illustrates the problem. Hochschild is a professor
| emeritus of sociology at Berkeley. Why in heaven's name would
| you think that good insights will be garnered by reading a
| Danish article about a book written by a Blue professor about
| another group of Red people... when you can go on x dot com
| and read for yourself why people voted as they did?
|
| I can say for certain - from reading and listening to what
| Trump voters have said themselves - that Trump voters are
| absolutely done with this kind of framing.
| mrweasel wrote:
| If your own political conviction influence your works as a
| professor, then you're perhaps not that great a professor,
| but if you do good work, then maybe you have the tools to
| write about that work and target it to a group of like
| minded people, communicating in a why that they/I better
| understand.
|
| Personally I'm not interested in going on Twitter, or
| Facebook, because those are going to be the most extreme
| people, at both ends. I'm also no prepared to do the
| filtering required to identify trolls or propaganda. My
| interest is in the vast majority of people who don't really
| have a voice online. I can't go out and talk to them, I'm
| on the other side of the planet. I'd still like to know why
| they vote the way they do, because I'm directly affected by
| how rural America votes. I wish I weren't, so I guess
| that's one opinion I share with Trump.
| rendall wrote:
| As someone who has listened to both (or _many_ , since
| there are not just _two_ ) sides, I can say for certain
| there is a severe disconnect between what Team Red says
| and what Team Blue writes about what Team Red says. If
| you are really interested in what Team Red says, do not
| listen to Team Blue at all about it. Not CNN, not Harris,
| not Blue politicians, not Blue journalists.
|
| > _If your own political conviction influence your works
| as a professor, then you 're perhaps not that great a
| professor_
|
| Indeed. This is a major ongoing crisis in academe. And
| journalism.
|
| As a self check, if you think that Trump's "very fine
| people on both sides" remark referred to white
| supremacists as "very fine people", then you need to
| upgrade your sources. Find the extended _original_ video.
| It is hard to do! If you give up, let me know and I will
| send you a link. The search is instructive, however.
| calf wrote:
| Do you hold this standard for Team Red? Do you tell them
| to use their listening skills too?
| rendall wrote:
| I did not say "use listening skills".
|
| If you go back and read carefully, I suggested going
| directly to the source because we live in an age of
| unprecedented direct access, and it is no longer
| necessary to have same-side "explainers" about what the
| other side thinks and says.
|
| To hear what Team Blue thinks, I'd recommend Team Red
| simply read the New York Times, the Washington Post, the
| New Yorker, Time Magazine, et. al. Or watch CNN, MSNBC,
| BBC America, network news... Even Wikipedia.
| ookblah wrote:
| I mean, I grew up in a conservative state and a small/medium
| sized city that has always been red. Not every one is a
| "redneck retarded bigot". I don't think most of them aren't as
| openly racist as made out to be. Outside of politics you
| wouldn't even think anything was too out of the ordinary.
|
| That said, I'm not sure stuff like "He's annointed by God", "He
| tells it like it is/Isn't afraid to speak his mind", "Liberals
| are evil/devil/<insert literally any reason to hate them> " is
| stuff you want to hear, but it does represent a somewhat
| overall sentiment (generalized of course).
|
| More centered around ignorance and perceived old "conservative
| values". I find very few people actually able to articulate
| their points.
| lazyeye wrote:
| The reason people vote for Trump is because of people like
| you...really, exactly like you.
| throwaway65432 wrote:
| "The thing that baffles me is that good and serious people have
| seen versions of what happened tonight in the US for eight
| years and are still surprised that people don't see the world
| as they do.
|
| 1) Voters think "the economy" is "can I afford to live" NOT "we
| are doing better nationally than others". Inflation is
| politically more important than GDP
|
| 2) Immigration matters, both the sense of control/uncontrolled
| and the raw numbers, particularly when money is tight. See 1
|
| 3) Don't take voters for fools: in this case don't insist a
| clearly gaga leader is up to the job
|
| 4) Don't try to fight a charismatic opponent with someone who
| can't answer basic questions about why they want to be in
| charge. The ability to communicate is not an optional extra for
| politicians, it is a core part of the job description
|
| 5) Go woke, go politically broke
|
| 6) What the metro elites regard as an illogical vote is not
| necessarily illogical for people who are struggling and angry -
| see 1,2,3,4,5 Personally I think democracy matters very much
| and some/much of what Trump says is appalling but until his
| opponents learn the lessons above, voters will keep voting for
| someone who manages to encapsulate what they feel"
|
| https://x.com/ShippersUnbound/status/1854055061925560448
| j-krieger wrote:
| > Voters think "the economy" is "can I afford to live" NOT
| "we are doing better nationally than others".
|
| They think correct, in the only sense that matters.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > I refuse to believe the narrative that Americans are just a
| bunch of redneck retarded bigots.
|
| They aren't, really. That's just what a vocal minority calls
| them, said minority actually deluding themselves into thinking
| that they are the majority.
| sensanaty wrote:
| You ever stop to think that maybe calling ~50% of the
| population of your country "a bunch of redneck retarded bigots"
| could perhaps have some part in it? The media pushing that
| narrative everywhere certainly doesn't help either.
|
| I'm not a Yank nor do I vote or care to ever vote, but if I
| were and all I ever saw was every mainstream source of news and
| media, including sites like Reddit and apparently even HN,
| calling me a retard (which funnily enough is a pretty bigoted
| insult coming from the supposed moral & good side) and a bigot
| non-stop I'd probably say "fuck it" and vote for the guy too.
|
| From where I'm sitting across the pond, the Republicans want
| stricter border control, smaller government, lower taxes, free
| speech (which itself is a loaded term that means different
| things depending on who's saying/hearing it), which is
| basically what the populist parties across the EU are promising
| as well.
| miningape wrote:
| Yep exactly, this is what won him the 2016 election and the
| meltdowns were amazing. This time around the dems have also
| had the economy making them look bad, not to mention the
| illegal immigration issue finally making it to "big blue"
| cities like New York.
|
| So it's not really surprising he won, and the margin isn't
| surprising either.
| josephg wrote:
| The us economy has grown at an unprecedented rate over the
| last few years. I wish my home of Australia had such a
| dynamic economy.
|
| (I suspect the problem, of course, is that the newfound
| prosperity is not shared evenly amongst the population.)
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| You suspect correctly. Its been a great economy for
| yuppies with college degrees, not so much for everyone
| else. And everyone else is the majority.
| Spivak wrote:
| I suppose but I'm not really sure if the GOP has anything
| on offer that will actually help. I hope they do because
| we're gonna be living in it but nothing thus far proposed
| has been said to be good for the economy.
| LunaSea wrote:
| Can't wait for America to become the coal mining capital
| of the world. Such a forward thinking strategy.
| __alias wrote:
| See this is what surprises me. I would have thought
| voting for a more regular market with higher taxes to the
| elite would be favourable to the majority non-tech
| workers, rather than the billionaires which play the
| puppeteers to trump
| galfarragem wrote:
| Not a single penny of that "extra tax money from tech
| workers" would go to the average Joe. That's the problem.
| It would go straight for the lowest classes or overseas.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| I would hope you realize that the average joe _is_ a
| member of the lowest classes; but yes, neaeshoring
| certainly would've continued under Harris.
| spbaar wrote:
| Actually i think it's the bottom fifth that have
| benefited the most from wage growth, with the low-six
| figure crowd getting the short end of the stick and
| having to pay more for burgers with the tight service
| labor market.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| Yes, and it appears the non-college folks in the suburbs
| (who've been having to pay more for their burgers) were
| the biggest shift this election, not the burger flippers
| themselves.
| dartharva wrote:
| > You ever stop to think that maybe calling ~50% of the
| population of your country "a bunch of redneck retarded
| bigots" could perhaps have some part in it? The media pushing
| that narrative everywhere certainly doesn't help either.
|
| Yep, it's an own goal. Similar shit has led to the rise of
| right-wing populism all across the world, time and again. Yet
| they never learn. They never realize that shitting on the
| average Joe is not how you get power in a democratic setup.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Turns out, the average Joe is a poor, working dude. He is
| not a sexist colonialist or any other -ism. Yet the
| Democratic Party will not stop alienating men.
| ziml77 wrote:
| Namecalling and shit slinging is exactly what Trump and his
| supporters do and it seems to work out well for them. They
| love thinking about people crying over their insults and
| whatnot. But they also complain loudly if anyone turns the
| same against them.
| max51 wrote:
| Trump is namecalling mostly politicians. The Dems are
| namecalling voters.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's not 50% though; in 2020, only ~240 million people were
| eligible to vote (out of 330 million, so about 72% of
| people); only ~158 million people actualy voted (48%).
| Oversimplifying, only 25% of the population of the US voted
| for Trump, and it's probably even less due to the system of
| electors.
|
| This is why democracy is broken, because not everyone gets a
| voice.
| s0fa37 wrote:
| I've never understood this argument. When performing
| scientific studies, there is a sample size of n = x
| hundred/thousand, and we then generalise the result across
| the entire population. Having 48% of the population
| participate in this "study" is likely to be very indicative
| of the likely voting choice for the remainder of the
| population, right? You really think that the proportion of
| votes for each party for those people that haven't voted
| would be any significant difference from those that did?
| wezdog1 wrote:
| You're assuming the population is homogeneous
| shkkmo wrote:
| > Having 48% of the population participate in this
| "study" is likely to be very indicative of the likely
| voting choice for the remainder of the population, right?
|
| That isn't how statistics work. Sample size reduces your
| error relative to the population you are randomly
| sampling from.
|
| When you don't have a random sampling, then you sampling
| method is what determines how generalizable your findings
| are. A good sample size with a bad sampling method tells
| us little to nothing about the general population and
| only informs us about the specific sub population for
| which the sample can be considered a random selection
| from.
|
| With significant differences in voting rates across many
| different demographics, votes are absolutely not a
| representative sample of the overall population.
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| those people don't care, in fact they embrace the identity
| throwaway665345 wrote:
| You're experiencing an illusion. The few who do embrace the
| identity of "redneck retarded bigot" will wear the identity
| openly. The majority who do not embrace that identity will
| diplomatically avoid discussing their true political
| opinions with you and you'll just assume their democrats
| because they're intelligent and sensible, and then you'll
| be flabbergasted when things like last night happen.
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| what? plenty of intelligent and sensible people have told
| me point blank that they're voting for Trump. I'm not
| surprised in the slightest that he won.
| jeffhuys wrote:
| It's also the (trying to be) misleading mainstream media.
| Stuff like "he wants to deport all immigrants" being uttered
| until the last day - without specifying it's just the illegal
| ones, which is a very important distinction.
|
| And there are many examples like these, where he's quoted WAY
| out of context, and that kind of stuff. If you believe that
| for years and at one point learn that it's actually bs and he
| didn't say that or the context reveals he was quoting someone
| else, or negates the comment the next sentence, etc, you
| start to question ALL your beliefs.
|
| They pushed too far, fabricated just a BIT too much, and
| people caught on.
| timomaxgalvin wrote:
| That's not what the said. They said the opposite.
| shlant wrote:
| > and a bigot non-stop I'd probably say "fuck it" and vote
| for the guy too.
|
| And most people would say that would categorize you as
| mentally deficient. Voting against your own best interests
| because you feel people are mean to you isn't usually seen as
| very intelligent.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| Just so you know, i wasn't quoting what I think but what
| mainstream media says 'indirectly' here in Europe.
|
| Obviously I don't buy it, hence the reason I asked if studies
| had been made.
|
| It surprises me that I see so many different reason here in
| the comment why people think others chose trump, when it's
| clearly their own reasoning.
|
| You say they voted trump because they are fed up of being
| called bigot, just like YOU would do. Well that's the issue,
| some Americans might have say fuck them I vote trump but I
| honestly believe it is marginal.
|
| I believe most cared about the election economy first, but I
| could be biased and that's literally the reason I asked if
| studies had been done, beyond the usual blablah.
| briandear wrote:
| I can give you my anecdote:
|
| I worked for Best Buy. They fired us and hired an Indian
| offshore team. They had H1B representatives in the U.S. that I
| had to spend three months training to do my job.
|
| H1B is supposed to be to fill critical shortages. There wasn't
| a critical shortage because I existed and my entire team
| existed.
|
| Best Buy's CEO preaches "inclusivity" and "the value of each
| employee" -- while simultaneously firing Americans (and
| permanent residents) to lower costs -- while making the vast
| majority of their profit selling products to Americans.
|
| The other reason I voted Trump was the Covid lockdowns and the
| attempted vaccine mandates. Blue states such as California had
| schools closed for over a year, while red states such as Texas
| and Florida quickly reopened. The type of government that would
| arrest a person surfing off of Santa Cruz is a government that
| has lost their mind. And anyone Dr Sarah Cody of Santa Clara
| county would support, I'm going to support the opposite.
|
| On a more subjective level -- anyone that the establishment
| tries so hard to oppose-arrest-bankrupt-kill is worthy of my
| vote. When Dick Cheney endorsed Harris, the decision got really
| easy to support Trump. Also, see the Abraham Accords for why
| many support Trump on a foreign policy level.
|
| I don't care about engaging in a debate and plenty will
| downvote simply because I'm not in their tribe -- but while you
| asked for a scientific study, there isn't one yet, but there
| are tens of millions of anecdotes like mine which should give
| you a good start.
|
| Not that it matters -- my wife is an immigrant from Mexico and
| her entire family in the U.S. (who are all first generation
| citizens) -- all voted Trump as well. Some make the mistake of
| assuming "immigrants" are all "undocumented." There's a huge
| difference in being anti-immigrant and anti-illegal-immigrant.
| The left-wing media fails to make the distinction. Also have a
| look at the so-called "Black" vote -- they have a lot more
| nuance than the media would have you believe.
| notadoomer236 wrote:
| This is a great example, and you're downvoted because
| liberals don't like to hear the criticisms of their tribe.
| They ask why people would vote for Trump, you explain your
| anecdote, and they downvote you. Classic blue tribe behavior.
| j-krieger wrote:
| I agree fully with your points. Covid restrictions were
| insane and will change my voting habits forever. What
| happened to "personal responsibility" in that time??
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I'm convinced that inclusivity and DEI is really just a way
| to get cheaper labor as you describe.
| cruffle_duffle wrote:
| > The other reason I voted Trump was the Covid lockdowns and
| the attempted vaccine mandates. Blue states such as
| California had schools closed for over a year, while red
| states such as Texas and Florida quickly reopened. The type
| of government that would arrest a person surfing off of Santa
| Cruz is a government that has lost their mind. And anyone Dr
| Sarah Cody of Santa Clara county would support, I'm going to
| support the opposite.
|
| Bingo. All of the "my body my choice" rhetoric rings very
| hollow when you need to show proof of vaccination to sit down
| at a Starbucks to drink your $4.69 Americano (and still be
| required to wear a mask, despite being vaccinated twice in a
| state with something like a 90% vaccination rate).
|
| And calling republicans facist and anti-democracy after
| closing small businesses, schools, playgrounds, etc. setting
| up phone numbers to dime out your neighbors?
|
| Saying you are anti-1% when your covid policies directly
| enrich the 1%? Saying you are anti-racism when your covid
| policies directly hurt those without?
|
| And then the massive economic fall out after when surprise
| surprise, doing all that will fuck shit up?
|
| I was a loyal democrat my entire life before 2020. Never
| again.
| senda wrote:
| It's almost definitely the Bidens administration perceived
| failings to deal with inflation.
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| Also add illegal immigration. People are seriously pissed off
| about it. My working theory is that this all stems from fear
| of foreigners/ xenophobia.
| keiferski wrote:
| Basically it's this:
|
| - The economy is what ultimately matters to many people, and
| the impression is that the economy has been bad for the last 4
| years under Biden but was better under Trump. The actual data
| is more unclear and confusing, but the average person has this
| impression.
|
| - Harris wasn't likable/charismatic enough to many people, and
| was largely supported for her policies first and her
| personality second. Trump, on the other hand, went on a lot of
| longform podcasts, worked at McDonalds for a few hours, and
| generally seems more "human" to the average person.
|
| - A general sense of rage/dislike/push-back at "elites" in
| Washington DC, the coasts, the mainstream media organizations,
| etc. If you google "trust in government" or "trust in media",
| they will elaborate on this issue. Trump, although a
| billionaire from NYC, is generally disliked there and is
| perceived as being an outsider and rebel vs. the elite group
| mentioned.
|
| - Some protectionist policies Trump claims to support will
| benefit people in key battleground states like Ohio,
| Pennsylvania, Michigan, etc
|
| Ultimately it comes down to two things, IMO: personal charisma
| and the economy. Everything else is only relevant in close
| elections.
| notadoomer236 wrote:
| Harris wasn't just unlikeable. She came across as downright
| incompetent, a mediocrity elevated to the highest positions
| by the exact sort of identify focused criteria voters don't
| want.
| jemmyw wrote:
| > Harris wasn't likable/charismatic enough to many people,
| and was largely supported for her policies first and her
| personality second. Trump, on the other hand, went on a lot
| of longform podcasts, worked at McDonalds for a few hours,
| and generally seems more "human" to the average person.
|
| I would argue it was the other way round. They both went on
| podcasts etc and I'm debate and in rallies Trump was verging
| on incoherent and boring his own supporters. But on policy he
| was far stronger. I'm not American and I'm left wing but the
| trade and tax policies he's proposing do speak to traditional
| left wing, trade union workers: put up barriers to lower cost
| countries undercutting American workers. I don't know what
| Harris vision is, it seems she has trouble articulating it
| clearly.
| keiferski wrote:
| Trump went on quite a few _very_ popular podcasts like Joe
| Rogan and Theo Von, but Harris didn 't.
|
| IMO the average voter is quite in-line with Rogan and Theo
| Von culturally (more than they are with Trump or Harris,
| for that matter) and so for Harris to skip those was a
| major misstep that just further made her seem like an aloof
| member of the DC/Coastal elite.
|
| Biden didn't have this problem because he was more of a
| blue collar/middle class guy from Scranton and despite his
| gaffes, was more likable by the average person.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Rogan alone has more daily listeners than left leaning
| news shows have people watching in a week. I think it was
| something like 11 million per day. Big mistake to not
| show up there.
| keiferski wrote:
| Absolutely - if you look on YouTube alone, the view
| counts on interviews/podcasts between Trump/Vance and
| Harris/Walz are dramatically different. For better or
| worse, people increasingly get their information and news
| from videos, and to skip that was a major
| misunderstanding of the cultural landscape.
| ctchocula wrote:
| Idk about Theo Von, but Rogan put his thumb on the scale
| when he refused to interview Harris even though he
| interviewed Trump.
| keiferski wrote:
| From what I have read/watched, Rogan didn't refuse to
| interview Harris and offered to do the same multi-hour
| interview he does with every guest.
|
| Harris just wanted him to fly to another city and do a
| 1-hour interview in their studio. To make an exception
| for a single guest seems unfair and I don't blame Rogan
| for not agreeing.
|
| https://youtu.be/_aT2grMe1I4?si=jMtsUggT2eaOZdpo
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/29/joe-
| rogan-ka...
| ctchocula wrote:
| The truth will come out eventually, but this article
| suggests Rogan stiffed her on purpose.
|
| https://newrepublic.com/post/187601/fox-news-joe-rogan-
| donal...
| keiferski wrote:
| Did you read that link? It has no information other than
| a vague speculation.
| laurels-marts wrote:
| > refused to interview Harris
|
| Why spread misinformation?
| j-krieger wrote:
| > under Biden but was better under Trump.
|
| Rich people getting richer doesn't matter if your rent goes
| up.
|
| > Trump, on the other hand, went on a lot of longform
| podcasts,
|
| Harris sure does have the time to go on Rogan now...
| zmgsabst wrote:
| This interview between Elon Musk and Joe Rogan explains --
| though I'm not sure the timestamp.
|
| Joe Rogan found it convincing enough to endorse Trump
| afterwards.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qZl_5xHoBw
|
| You could also watch the episode interviewing Trump.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBMoPUAeLnY
|
| Or his VP, Vance.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRyyTAs1XY8
|
| Presumably the majority are people who agree with the message
| conveyed during such interviews.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Jason Pargin (author of John Dies at the End et al.) is pretty
| insightful on the perspective of Americans in dying small
| towns.
| loehnsberg wrote:
| What's most striking is that a sober dialogue on opposing
| views/ideas has been replaced by partisanship and hatred of the
| othet side, whatever the subject. What do we need to do to get
| out of this mess?
| account42 wrote:
| > What do we need to do to get out of this mess?
|
| Ban short form media.
| daniel_iversen wrote:
| I don't think there's a great mystery - what could possibly be
| the secret for why people voted for Trump you say? Probably the
| same reason why people vote for any other political candidate,
| right? Surely the simplest explanation is the most likely; they
| preferred him to the other candidate in some combination of
| what he brings vs. the other candidate? Some people are
| lifelong affiliates of a political party, sure, and that's less
| interesting and fruitful TBH, but for the "undecided" or "open-
| minded" voters I don't see how it's more complex Than they
| decided it based on the information at hand. Question is
| whether they were misinformed and how much the positive
| messages ("This is what we'll do") draws vs. "The other person
| will end the world" rhetoric. Thoughts?
| ctchocula wrote:
| You have to understand American politics behind the rise of
| Trump. Since the 1980s and Reagan, Democrats had broken with
| their New Deal era coalition composed of union workers.
| Instead, Democrats have aligned with middle class knowledge
| workers, and pushed for neoliberal policy that have offshored
| many manufacturing jobs. This was seen as a betrayal to the
| working class. That has left many working class whites with
| high school degrees with low-paying service jobs, that gave
| them a lower standard of living compared to the union jobs
| their parents worked.
|
| This continued from Clinton to the Obama era. While Obamacare
| was a step in the right direction, it was seen as too little
| too late. It also had unintended consequences. For example,
| some of my part-time service job colleagues reported that pre-
| Obamacare, the employer could have them work 40 hours a week,
| because they weren't forced to provide them health insurance
| that met some minimum standard. However post-Obamacare, their
| hours were limited at 29 hours, which made it much harder to
| make a living.
|
| By 2016, there was an opioid addiction crisis composing largely
| of working whites with only a high school degree, and the
| economy was still suffering from the slower-than-possible
| recovery from the Great Recession. (Economists say it would've
| been faster with more stimulus, but Obama was cowed by his
| neoliberal econ advisors). Due to gridlock in the political
| system, immigration system reform was impossible, and
| Presidents could only use Executive Orders to try to mitigate
| (but not solve) the problem of an increasing number of illegal
| immigrants from the Southern border.
|
| All the pieces were in place:
|
| - Scapegoat: illegal immigrants
|
| - Weak economy: check
|
| - Disgruntled populace: check
|
| Feeling abandoned by both parties, the electorate went with an
| anti-establishment strongman demagogue who preyed on their
| hopes and fears. It's almost identical to the political
| environment that gave rise to Hitler and Mussolini.
|
| The saving grace for the US during Trump's first term has been
| her strong democratic institutions. Pray they hold up during
| his second and hopefully final term.
| hughesjj wrote:
| Biden has been the most pro union president since the new
| deal though
|
| Totally agreed that neoliberalism is a cancer though
| j-krieger wrote:
| The american academic elite is a tiny minority who think they
| know best. They received a reality check today.
| mellosouls wrote:
| _' m trying to look beyond the propaganda, any idea if there
| has been scientific studies or anything remotely credible ?_
|
| I'm afraid this is the problem - your implication is that Trump
| voters need explaining using scientific analysis as some sort
| of aberration.
|
| One day, there _will_ hopefully be an analysis - but it will be
| of how among huge parts of the media and establishment this
| ideological view became the null hypothesis to the extent that
| people - in good faith - thought they were looking beyond the
| propoganda while asking questions like yours.
| sakopov wrote:
| This kind of commentary just boggles my mind. I voted for both
| Republicans and Democrats in my lifetime and I have never had
| any problems identifying the reasons why anyone would vote
| either way. And I consider myself a very casual political
| observer. The fact that people believe that Trump won because
| people are retarded bigoted rednecks just tells me you live in
| a fucking bubble under a rock in a deep forest. How do you go
| through life living so isolated from anyone who doesn't think
| like you?
| thegabriele wrote:
| Becauase Trump is the champion of the name-calling politics and
| here we are in your comment, still playing his game.
| vixen99 wrote:
| Why not ask some of the distinguished conservative academics
| who support the likely (as I write) next President? By the way,
| how about turning the question round? I hope you do not think
| that's unthinkable.
| beltsazar wrote:
| You're asking as if the other candidate is a no-brainer choice.
| If the other candidate were Kennedy, then sure--but they were
| not. In this case, many would be undecided and would vote not
| the best candidate, but the least bad one.
| gregwebs wrote:
| Get out of your bubble and listen to people. Hacker News is
| part of your bubble.
|
| The majority of people have picked a side long ago and are
| sticking to it. You want to talk to independents or people that
| have changed sides recently.
|
| The interesting thing for me was seeing the blowback from the
| woke movement. People I know that were raised Democrats and
| supported gay rights could no longer identify with the party
| supporting a movement that appeared to be telling them that
| they are racist (and BTW be careful or you might get cancelled)
| and that it would be great if their kids changed genders. This
| led them away from legacy media and towards opposite points of
| view.
|
| I am not claiming this was the decisive reason- just pointing
| out something that I don't see talked about much. Listen to
| people and you will find other reasons.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| My theory is that a good portion of people didn't vote for
| "Trump", they voted for their party. That's the end of their
| thought process.
|
| Party affiliation is a huge part of people's culture and
| personality in the US, "We are a Republican family" is
| something people outside of the US wouldn't say out loud. They
| have always voted Republican and will always vote Republican
| even if it's against their interests.
| csomar wrote:
| > Tried to Google it but all I find is a bunch of American news
| website like CNN and website like
| https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/the-five-types-t...
|
| > I'm trying to look beyond the propaganda, any idea if there
| has been scientific studies or anything remotely credible ?
|
| Exactly, they "propaganded" so hard that they created a
| narrative that they are the definitive winners. So you bought
| into their propaganda and now you are surprised. The reality is
| that the democrats are not that good and the people voted.
| dools wrote:
| The only reason people vote for conservatives is because
| they're selfish or ignorant. This is obvious because there are
| 2 things in the economy: labour and capital. It is no coindence
| then that democracies invariably develop 2 parties. One of
| those parties ostensibly represents the intrests of labour. As
| such the other must represent the interests of capital. But how
| could a party that benefits so few, ever win a majority? Well,
| a combination of selfish people (those who benefit directly
| from the policies) and ignorant people (those who have been
| convinced by any number of falsehoods to vote against their own
| economic interests).
| zulban wrote:
| Watch some long form right leaning podcasts.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > Is there some statistical analysis on the reason people vote
| trump ?
|
| You could try to ask HN'ers who voted Trump why they did ...
| statistically speaking, folks on HN do not exactly strike me as
| fitting the "bunch of redneck retarded bigots" profile.
|
| Oh but wait, that would only be possible if admitting on HN
| that you supported Trump was not guaranteed to have the
| following effect: - starting flamewars, which
| might get you banned - being ostracized and
| attacked
|
| And turns out HN is IMO a reflection of what happens in US
| society at large: in the non-"bunch of redneck retarded bigots"
| social circles, telling people that you support Trump is
| career/social suicide.
|
| Except that more than half of the country supports him, so if
| you pick 100 people, even in the non-"bunch of redneck retarded
| bigots" circles, chances are, you know ...
|
| There is something deeply dysfunctional about a society where
| you have to hide your democratic choice for fear of being
| socially destroyed.
| melodyogonna wrote:
| Ah, so Twitter had the more quality real-world signal; who would
| have thought? It seems "hate and disinformation" are just what
| people were feeling, and what they were thinking.
| TheAlchemist wrote:
| How so ? This is Brexit all over again.
| manquer wrote:
| Don't think so, the Tory leadership at the time did not
| really want to leave, but it was a useful rabble rousing
| position to energize their base. Ideally just falling short
| was the best scenario they wished, so they could keep blaming
| Europe for everything but not really face the consequences of
| the exit they are facing now.
|
| Trump voters are not casting a protest vote, how much ever
| now it is going to be retconned as disinformation, stupidity
| or anti Gaza vote, the reality is they fully expected to win
| if not democratically then by force.
| melodyogonna wrote:
| I wouldn't know about that, I was not on Twitter when Brexit
| was being campaigned. What I do know is that, unlike possibly
| every other platform, on Twitter, it always felt like Trump
| would win.
| bdcp wrote:
| I'm convinced Twitter single-handedly won the election.
| Everyone that are pro Trump seems to be coming from
| Twitter, with the same talking points as Musk. Elon sure
| got it's money's worth.
| TheAlchemist wrote:
| Is it surprising ? Twitter is owned by a guy* who fully
| backed Trump and thrown a ton of money behind.
|
| *Which also happen to be a guy that needs a 'get out of
| jail free' card, that Trump can offer
| melodyogonna wrote:
| In 2020 it also looked like Biden would win after Trump
| botched America's Covid response.
|
| Due to how Twitter works I think it generally better
| reflects how people are feeling, especially these days
| with many filters removed.
| bdcp wrote:
| I think people underestimate the impact of misinformation
| platforms like Twitter and TikTok.
| cryptozeus wrote:
| Twitter is no way similar to tiktok, I have so much meaningful
| conversation there with new strangers. You are in a bubble
| bdcp wrote:
| Really I'm in a bubble because i don't use Twitter? Damn
| cpursley wrote:
| You don't use Twitter, but you're absolutely convinced with
| religious convention that Twitter is a misinformation
| platform?
|
| I don't know about you, but I quite like the first
| amendment right that guarantees safe spaces to speak our
| minds.
| bdcp wrote:
| I did use it a lot. Have you considered Twitter might be
| an information bubble?
|
| Musk says sensible stuff. But his actions are completely
| opposite.
|
| "Free speech is essential to democracy" OF COURSE
|
| No one is taking that away. They said the same thing
| before Biden won. It's just fear mongering and people eat
| it up.
|
| He talks free speech and then buys Twitter and removes
| community notes from his account just to push his agenda.
| It's free speech but it's all fabricated propaganda.
|
| Trump on jan 6th commanded his goons in the bubble to try
| to steal the election with the fake electoral plot. Look
| it up. No mention of that on free Twitter. They are
| literally trying to install Trump as dictator under your
| nose. While you fight here about free speech. It's
| ridiculous, and people eat it up.
| cpursley wrote:
| Speaking of bubbles...
| cryptozeus wrote:
| Musk gets community notes all the time if he lies, ever
| seen this happen on any other platforms?
| j-krieger wrote:
| There is _no way_ "misinformation" caused 80 million people to
| vote as they did.
| bdcp wrote:
| Obviously not 80m of them lmao. But sure has an impact
| Xortl wrote:
| 70% of Republicans think Trump was the real winner of the
| 2020 election and that's hardly the only misinformation they
| have. It's hard to imagine that that wasn't a huge factor in
| the election.
| conradfr wrote:
| It's true for Twitter (I don't use TikTok so I'll take your
| word for it) but what about Reddit that was very anti-Trump?
| blashyrk wrote:
| But not Reddit, Bluesky or the MSM? Huh.
| xenospn wrote:
| Very happy I visited Ukraine earlier this year. Won't be much
| left soon, unfortunately.
| throwaway-153 wrote:
| As a European, knowing Eastern Europe, this is extremely
| insulting:
|
| Both Putin and Trump will together(!!) -- can't emphasise that
| enough -- together(!!!) rebuild Ukraine.
|
| Please come back to this comment in a year from now -- you will
| see it confirmed.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| "Putin and Trump will together"
|
| Joking?
|
| So if Trump forces Ukraine to surrender by withdrawing aid,
| that is a 'working together'? That is peace?
|
| Russia is still the main enemy, right?
| sirbutters wrote:
| shhh, let the russian bot die in peace.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Man. You think?? So easy to get pulled in and think it is
| a person.
| lancebeet wrote:
| It's interesting how bad the democrats seem to be at the game of
| winning elections. They continuously seem to pick bad candidates
| and poor strategies resulting in them losing the election when
| they seem to have had the general conditions for winning. This
| time, the elephant in the room is of course the late ousting of
| Joe Biden, but there were similar issues that (in hindsight at
| least) were obvious in the Clinton 2016 campaign. This pattern
| can be seen in other countries as well, where it's clear that one
| group knows how to play the game while other groups don't, but
| it's surprising to me that a massive organization like the
| democratic party wouldn't have streamlined this process.
|
| It would be interesting to hear from someone more familiar with
| the inner workings of the democratic party why this is. I.e., if
| it's a cultural issue in the party, if it's economical, or if my
| view on this is completely off.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| The Democrats are somewhat hampered by their focus on facts and
| rationality ("play fair") rather than spouting bullshit,
| conspiracy theories, and whatever bigotry is currently hot
| ("win at all costs").
| komali2 wrote:
| Also by the fact that their unwillingness to turn on their
| capital sponsors, who don't really care whose in power and
| whose needs are ostensibly better met by republicans (so long
| as republicans don't start a trade war...)
|
| Dems will continue to make the mistake of coasting deeper
| into the right wing, picking up 0 voters in doing so (why
| would I vote for a "tough on immigration" candidate when I
| can vote for the one who gleefully promises to deport all the
| browns?), meanwhile disenfranchising any left wing voters
| left in the USA and creating no new left wing voter bloc by
| presenting a coherent alternative to the reactionaries.
|
| The same mistake is being made by neo liberal parties across
| the world.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| Good thing they'll all cease to exist very soon.
| poincaredisk wrote:
| >why would I vote for a "tough on immigration" candidate
| when I can vote for the one who gleefully promises to
| deport all the browns?
|
| I'm always surprised by how bipolar US politics is. There's
| no place for nuance or third options, it's always one or
| second extreme. In this case, to answer your question,
| maybe you want to limit an influx of new people into your
| country (for ideological, or economical, or whatever
| reasons) but don't want a full on ethnic cleansing. That's
| OK, people don't have to only hold extreme opinions.
| komali2 wrote:
| > In this case, to answer your question, maybe you want
| to limit an influx of new people into your country (for
| ideological, or economical, or whatever reasons) but
| don't want a full on ethnic cleansing.
|
| As this election shows, then, you would vote for Trump,
| who is "better on immigration." You would tell yourself,
| as many Trump supporters demonstrate in interviews, that
| "he wouldn't actually do that."
| lifty wrote:
| Did Trump say that he will "deport all brown people"? Or
| that he will do a "full ethnic cleansing"?
| a1j9o94 wrote:
| If you're looking for a quote of him saying that word for
| word, no. But it is not an unreasonable interpretation of
| the things he has said he wants to do. Especially when
| he's used language saying immigrants are "poisoning the
| blood of our country" and makes up lies about immigrants
| eating pets.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/inside-trumps-plan-mass-
| dep...
| lifty wrote:
| It sounds to me that this is crass exaggeration and one
| of the many reasons why there is such a big divide
| between supporters of both factions. The whole
| exaggerated narrative and associations to nazism is
| definitely off putting.
| komali2 wrote:
| I understand you think people are exaggerating. You
| probably roll your eyes when people say Trump is a
| fascist, I imagine?
|
| Can I ask - let's say before 2028 the democrat party gets
| tea partied and gets a genuine fascist candidate. What
| would that candidate say? What would their policies be?
| Can you do the same thought experiment for the Republican
| party? Or do you, unfairly, believe it's simply
| impossible for one, or the other, party to become
| genuinely fascistic? Perhaps you even believe fascism was
| permanently defeated when Mussolini was hanged? I would
| admire such an optimistic view!
|
| Just in case you're genuinely curious why people say
| these things, it's not like we're all just making it up.
| Trump's rhetoric simply, to one who studies history,
| sounds very similar to Hitler's. It doesn't mean he's as
| bad as Hitler, it just means he talks like Hitler talked.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trum
| p-a...
|
| As for hitlerian policy, there is simply no way to deport
| the millions he has promised to deport that doesn't
| involve roundups, trains, and concentration camps. It's a
| physical impossibility to achieve otherwise. Do you
| disagree? Will he not follow through on his campaign
| promise to deport every undocumented immigrant?
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| >You probably roll your eyes when people say Trump is a
| fascist, I imagine?
|
| Not really, I don't even give it that energy anymore.
|
| I just move on to the next lunatic overreacting and
| stomping their feet.
|
| The majority of Americans are tired of "everyone I don't
| like is a fascist". You have four years to learn that I
| guess.
| komali2 wrote:
| I see you're unwilling to engage with the topic, though I
| try to in good faith. This makes me sad and frustrated.
| The key thing about British and American political
| discourse seems to be a disengagement from political
| education and reality. The reactionaries are actually
| "moderates," the guy speaking eerily similar to passages
| of mein Kampf is not hitlerian, center-right are actually
| communists, etc.
| tzs wrote:
| You don't see any similarity between immigrants are
| "poisoning the blood of our country" (from Trump) and
| "Look at the ravages from which our people are suffering
| daily as a result of being contaminated with Jewish
| blood" (from James Murphy's English translation of _Mein
| Kampf_?
| a1j9o94 wrote:
| I didn't say anything about Nazism in my comment.
|
| Those are words Trump has used. He said the eating pets
| thing during the debate.
| kelnos wrote:
| What, and Trump repeatedly uttering Nazi rhetoric isn't
| off putting?
|
| It's not exaggerated. These are literally things he has
| said, word for word, over and over.
| a1j9o94 wrote:
| How is ideological not wanting some level ethnic
| cleansing?
| kelnos wrote:
| > _... but don 't want a full on ethnic cleansing_
|
| That's what Trump's circle wants, though. They want to
| deport 25M immigrants. Generously, the number of people
| here illegally is only half that. They don't care if
| people here legally get caught up in it and deported as
| well.
|
| Deporting even a couple million people will require mass
| raids, round-ups, and the construction of concentration
| camps. It is physically impossible to deport that many
| people quickly or quietly or efficiently.
|
| They're afraid of losing the white majority, plain and
| simple. The sad thing is so many non-white people don't
| see this and voted for him.
| j-krieger wrote:
| > ("play fair")
|
| Which is why they forced an unpopular, unelected candidate? I
| don't see it.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| They planned poorly with their candidacy; Biden and Harris
| were the obvious candidates being president and vice-
| president, respectively, but Biden was too old and they
| couldn't find a different candidate that wasn't as well
| known as Harris quick enough.
|
| That said, the Republicans would have the same problem if
| Trump dropped out or if that bullet didn't miss.
| ejstronge wrote:
| Within the contexts of their written rules...
|
| And maybe you've forgotten how the RNC rules were changed
| to support their candidate?
| j-krieger wrote:
| > Within the contexts of their written rules...
|
| Well these rules surely benefitted them.
| rightbyte wrote:
| It is some sort of tribalism. Believers can't see it. E.g.
| we gotta remember that people were gaslighting eachother
| into pretending Biden is not what could charitably be
| described as about to be senile.
|
| Refusing to see one self as part of the problem,
| fundamentally.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Unironically yes. You have to meet the median voter where
| they're at, even if you find some of their positions dumb or
| bigoted. That's why Obama spent the 2008 election cycle
| pretending to be opposed to gay marriage.
|
| The party has evolved an idea that you can do away with those
| kind of dirty political shenanigans, and construct a rational
| fact-based proof that will leave voters no choice but to
| support you, and I think that pretty clearly doesn't work.
| Prbeek wrote:
| "interesting how bad the democrats seem to be at the game of
| winning elections" Since 1992, haven't democrats had power for
| over 20 years as opposed to GOP's 12 ?
| j-krieger wrote:
| Yea, but the game's changed. The Republican Party has figured
| out how to rally millions behind charismatic candidates. I
| wouldn't be surprised if we were in for a couple more years
| of Republican leadership.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Charismatic or populist? Same thing in effect, but the
| latter has a bit more weight / context to politics.
|
| Also if they're having their way, they will break the
| current system; Trump has said people would never need to
| vote again if he wins, and Project 2025 aims to give much
| more power to the president (autocracy):
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
| Prbeek wrote:
| Given what democrats stand for, you don't even have to be
| charismatic to push them into a corner. Any candidate who
| will shout anti trans anti illegal immigrantion talking
| points will always carry the day
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Trump literally said "you won't have to vote again".
|
| And if the Project 2025 plan works as they planned it,
| that's the truth. America will become a single party state
| and that won't change without a civil war.
|
| They will stack the courts and every appointable position
| with pro-Trump (not Republican) people who will make sure
| every election goes their way in the future.
| user90131313 wrote:
| Oh people already say civil war? lol.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Nah, nobody is saying it, and it's not happening because
| the party with all the gun-nuts and survivalists won.
|
| I _personally_ can 't see any other way out unless Team
| Donald messes up badly enough to make their own people
| shun them.
| meowster wrote:
| People won't have to vote for him again because he can't
| be voted for again due to the two-term-limit.
|
| !RemindMe in four years
| EricDeb wrote:
| it remains to be seen whether they can find the next trump
| hes unique
| rpmisms wrote:
| JD Vance is extremely likeable, and much less polarizing
| than Trump. The "weird" attack on him died the moment
| people heard him speak.
| some-guy wrote:
| I wouldn't call him "much less" polarizing than Trump, he
| still is more unfavored than favored: https://projects.fi
| vethirtyeight.com/polls/favorability/jd-v...
| meowster wrote:
| Is that just due to his association with Trump?
| vdvsvwvwvwvwv wrote:
| A charismatic candidate figured out how to hijack the
| Republican party more like. Who is the other charismatic
| candidate up their sleeve?
| StrauXX wrote:
| Ron DeSantis comes to mind
| seanw444 wrote:
| I wouldn't say charismatic, but he's solid. I think
| people mistake charismatic for blunt. Trump is more blunt
| than he is charismatic. That makes him appear like less
| of an NPC compared to other politicians, and people
| actually like that.
| ericmcer wrote:
| You specifically chose a range of dates to make this as
| dramatic as possible. Could easily say GOP has 24 to 20 since
| 1980, or 16 to 12 since 2000, or 8 to 4 since 2016.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Doesn't this just demonstrate that the parties have both
| been very competitive in the contemporary era?
| kelnos wrote:
| It does, but that doesn't seem to be the argument the
| commenter upthread was making.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Agreed.
| xyzsparetimexyz wrote:
| My view since 2016 has been that winning elections in the US is
| about telling a good story. Whether you're trueful or not
| doesn't really matter as long as people believe it.
|
| Trump's story is pretty ridiculous, there's no way that his
| plans on how to fix the economy or the border or the whole
| department of efficiency thing work anywhere close to as well
| as he says. Regardless, his demographic believes it.
|
| Kamala's story was a lot weaker, involved a ton of hard truths
| and concessions about things that people in her base care about
| such as Gaza. Additionally her story on the border was mostly
| the same thing as Trump's. If you like the border story, why
| not go for the guy pushing it harder?
|
| Obama had a pretty good story in 2008 (the whole hope thing).
| Dems need to get back to that.
| EricDeb wrote:
| great point I agree
| bertjk wrote:
| It would have been pretty silly for Harris to campaign on a
| Hope and Change(tm) platform, since that would imply she is
| doing a very poor job as incumbent.
| xyzsparetimexyz wrote:
| Well she lost anyway. Bidens policies were generally
| unpopular, it would have made sense for her to distance
| herself from them.
| walthamstow wrote:
| They regularly win presidential elections by the most obvious
| definition, the popular vote, but lose them on the EC, which is
| what actually counts.
|
| The fact remains that more Americans vote Democratic than vote
| Republican, those votes are just badly distributed for the EC
| system.
| svara wrote:
| It remains to be seen whether that will be true this time
| around.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Sure, but it's true of 7 of the last 8 elections.
| oaththrowaway wrote:
| If elections were decided by popular vote campaigns would run
| differently though
| 23B1 wrote:
| Impossible to get a group of people that large to behave
| strategically.
|
| So you're asking the wrong questions.
|
| What about the democrats _ideology_ is unpopular? Because that
| is what people are voting on, not strategy.
| neuralzen wrote:
| I think it is because people who think or say "what about
| me?" hear "what about me?" from others as if it's support of
| their own view, when really their core issues could be
| totally different. "Yeah, what about us?"
|
| As opposed to "we need to help everyone, especially highly
| victimized groups". And then people infight over which groups
| require more attention vs everyone else.
| corpMaverick wrote:
| There is the LGBT. Specially the T part. The right thing is
| to do is support their rights, and it is very hard not to do
| the right thing when you know what the right thing is.
| However, the republicans have weaponized it against the
| democrats. They call them radical left and they campaign
| saying things like the want to convert your sons in girls and
| other awful things. It is an imposible choice because it can
| cost you the election.
| mnau wrote:
| Except both sides disagree on the "right thing."
|
| It's same for both sides. Pro-life stance cost them a lot
| of votes and could easily cost them election.
| andrewclunn wrote:
| What I always find interesting is how Democrats insist their
| failure is due to a lack of sound strategy. That is of course a
| strategy in and of itself to NEVER admit that it might be a
| refutation of their policies or (gasp) their values. Telling
| yourself you just lost because you didn't "play the game" is a
| cope. It serves its purpose though, as it allows ardent
| followers to avoid actual self reflection.
| a1j9o94 wrote:
| Agree. American's hate out groups and want to punish them.
| This just shows who people really are.
| itomato wrote:
| There is no Democratic Power Play.
|
| There is not the same opportunity to exploit human weaknesses
| for Gain.
|
| That's the issue. When Dems control the amygdala they might
| have a shot.
| _ink_ wrote:
| The argument of the GOP was, Trump is better because the
| inflation was lower during his term. How are you supposed to
| counter this?
| kelnos wrote:
| Right, and economics as a field is difficult to understand
| for most people.
|
| Presidents can't in reality take all that much credit or
| blame for the economy. A lot of it is out of their hands, and
| many economic shifts take longer than a presidential term to
| play out. But of course presidents will try, and succeed,
| because most people don't understand this.
|
| On top of that, the GOP complains about how much money Biden
| "printed" during the pandemic, but Trump did his fair share
| of that in the first year of it as well. They just make
| dishonest arguments.
|
| I really don't know how you counter this.
| bantunes wrote:
| The Dems exist to give you an illusion of choice. This has gone
| down exactly as planned, or why do you think rich donors play
| both sides? Do you really think the Dems are this naive and
| keep messing up without it being on purpose?
|
| The opinion makers know if it wasn't this close there'd be
| visible backlash.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| While I agree there is a UniParty, I also assert that Trump
| is not in it.
|
| If you think Trump, Vance, Vivek, Tulsi, RFK and the just the
| same but newer versions of Trump, Cheney, Rove, McConnell,
| Romney, McCain...
|
| Well... I guess we have four more years to see about that.
| sanderjd wrote:
| I don't think "have had the general conditions for winning" is
| at all accurate this time around. It was clear ahead of time,
| and much ink was spilled on it, but it's even more clear in
| hindsight that this cycle was always going to be a giant uphill
| battle. Incumbent parties all over the world have been and are
| having the same issue. We're all still going through a hangover
| from the pandemic.
| greatpatton wrote:
| The Republican party is also flipping seats in the Senate and
| the House, yet you seem focused on Harris. It's not that people
| are voting for other Democratic candidates, the country is
| simply becoming more conservative as people leaning on left are
| simply not voting.
| bell-cot wrote:
| My impression is that the current-day Dem's are, in "actions
| speak louder than words" terms, simply not all that interested
| in winning elections. Stuff like not bothering to do even the
| most basic of opposition research on George Santos (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Santos ). Not carefully
| checking that Biden's marbles were all still there 12+ months
| before the election. Their slow and half-hearted (at best)
| response to the RealPage (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RealPage ) rent-jacking scandal.
| Etc., etc.
| Signor65 wrote:
| Either way it goes, all I can say is "Good Luck everybody"
| TinkersW wrote:
| Not a Trump voter so can't say exactly why they vote for him, but
| my guess would be the rather toxic race/sexism obsessed narrative
| the far left pushes. Every article nowadays rambles on about it,
| ever book/tv show also, it is tiresome and self defeating. Also
| so much negativity directed at males, especially white ones. The
| trans stuff is also a factor I'd guess, even as someone who voted
| for Harris I don't care for this level of anti science belief
| that a guy is now a women just because they say so.
|
| Harris didn't really push this narrative as far as I can tell,
| but unfortunately some of her supporters do(and the media outlets
| they run).
|
| Or perhaps the Trump voters actually believe he can somehow lower
| grocery store costs, though to me this seems like it would
| require some real mental gymnastics to believe, or deep
| ignorance.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| There is no "far left" in the United States electoral system,
| get a grip.
| rightbyte wrote:
| There is no left either. At least in any meaningful
| definition of the term. Maybe you could say there always is a
| 'more left' party. But that is not very usefull.
| blashyrk wrote:
| On the right you mostly have "proper" religion, mainly
| Christianity (in the western world at least), while on the left
| you have the church of identity politics.
|
| Everyone seems to be laughing at centrists nowadays, ya know
| the "enlightened centrist" meme, but it's the only truly
| secular position today.
|
| The left remains stubborn in persecuting even an ounce of
| independent thought (or any thought that goes against the
| established dogma) on topics related to gender/race/identity
| and dismissing people with different opinions as "bigots". And
| then they wonder why people simply stop expressing their
| opinions loudly and opt to express them via voting instead.
|
| And then when the voting results come in, they double down: "I
| can't believe 50+% of the population is RACIST, SEXIST,
| BIGOTED, UNEDUCATED, STUPID!"
|
| It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, really.
| pferde wrote:
| So you're saying "be nice to people different from you,
| otherwise you're a scum" is too unacceptable for half of the
| USA? Not anything to be proud of.
| moffkalast wrote:
| I think "be nice" is already the unacceptable bit, you don't
| have to go any further.
| lordfrito wrote:
| I can't tell if this comment is aimed at reds or blues...
|
| Both sides are guilty of not being nice to the otherside, and
| calling them scum. That seems to be the problem right now,
| we've stopped listening to each other.
| audunw wrote:
| First I'll just say that I do agree that the left has a big
| problem with negativity towards - or just simply ignoring -
| young men's problems. I don't believe in the solutions the
| right prescribes, but yeah, the left desperately needs to come
| up with its own productive solutions that young men can believe
| in. And a world view in which young men feel valued.
|
| It's not "anti-science" to say gender is fundamentally non-
| binary. Yes, reproduction is _very_ binary but you don't stop
| being a man or woman if you become sterile.
|
| Biologically, gender is determined by a dozen of various
| factors during the child's development. All of which can go
| wrong. Especially now that we are surrounded by so many hormone
| disrupting chemicals.
|
| How is it so hard for people to imagine even the possibility
| that the development of the brain can be affected towards a
| different gender than what your genes or genitalia indicate?
| Biology is not a perfect machine. Not even remotely.
|
| And is it so incredibly hard to acknowledge that it's easier to
| fix the appearance of your genitalia and some letters on some
| paper, than trying to force your brain to rewire itself to a
| different gender than what every neuron and synapse of their
| brain has been wired for during development? If you actually
| spend a minute really listening to a transgender person it will
| become very clear that switching gender isn't something they do
| just because it's like.. you know.. kinda fun and exciting to
| be a different gender. No. Not at all.
|
| Tech people especially, should recognise that "binary" is an
| illusion. We say that bits are binary but anyone that has
| worked on chips or read about ECC understands that it's not how
| physical bits actually behave. Biological gender is similar.
|
| Honestly, that so many people on all sides still don't see this
| is a worrying sign of societies lack of empathy. We don't want
| to spend even a little bit of time to understand other people.
| And yes, to circle back, for the left this means they should
| truly understand and speak to young men in the working class.
| Sure they have some nice words about supporting unions and
| such... but it's not believable.
| sanderjd wrote:
| This was in no way the narrative of this campaign. It's a stale
| talking point.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Look, Trump supporters stormed the capitol. If we're going to
| hold people responsible for the actions of their supporters,
| let's start there.
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| Thank you american people for not letting the religion on envy to
| take power and regulate population's behavior to the last detail.
|
| Make Orwell Fiction Again.
|
| https://youtu.be/X_AUQ-nfifk?si=m-hmvVfxNgHygOtU
| major505 wrote:
| Well, we gonna have 4 years of amazing memes.
| jajko wrote:
| I wonder how mr musk will handle and use his (unfortunately
| correct) bet.
| soco wrote:
| If you invest millions and your entire time it's not a "bet"
| it's a business plan.
| agent86 wrote:
| The more interesting thing to consider is that Trump has said
| Elon will have an active role in his administration. How is
| he going to do that on top of everything else? How are Tesla
| investors going to feel about this?
| major505 wrote:
| I think for most of his business he already have other
| peiple he trust in charge of them. Its impossible to manage
| so many companies and he seens to spend more effort in
| Space X than Tesla, starking, etc...
| badpun wrote:
| The CEO of a company being one of most powerful people in
| government is excellent for Tesla investors. Much less so
| for the general population, as the conflict of interests is
| obvious.
| corpMaverick wrote:
| Perhaps, but a lot of potencial customers will be pissed
| at him.
| jajko wrote:
| Especially outside US - if next government will ignore
| world or start doing some serious harm (ie by being too
| friendly with putin), tesla drivers will be frowned upon
| universally and very few new sales can be expected, more
| like a lot of vandalism on cars.
|
| I guess China is a gone market for tesla at this point.
| major505 wrote:
| I mean, arent they already? Remember all the crying when
| he brought Twitter? (fuck I will not call it X).
| conradfr wrote:
| It will cut into his Diablo playing time.
| rkagerer wrote:
| It'll be interesting to see if he's able to become an
| effective beurocrat.
| bagels wrote:
| Gut sec and fcc. That is his motivation.
| xyst wrote:
| Enrich oneself, obviously. Funnel public funds through
| companies via inflated contracts. No accountability.
|
| A classic kleptocracy.
| pyrale wrote:
| For some people, the consequences won't be as benign.
| major505 wrote:
| yeah, they will now scream for 4 years and have sore throats.
| catlifeonmars wrote:
| And others will die in wars they want no part of. So...
| yeah.
| account42 wrote:
| So just like the last four years then?
| major505 wrote:
| Trump did not started any war in his last term... cant
| say much about the last 2 democracts that where in the
| White House.
| bigodbiel wrote:
| For the world the consequences will be horrible
| timomaxgalvin wrote:
| What examples do we have where US interventionism has been
| positive?
| account42 wrote:
| Because the world ended the last time Trump was in office?
| drawkward wrote:
| Trump faced comparatively more headwinds in his first
| administration.
| bakugo wrote:
| Don't really care much about this election since I'm not a US
| citizen, but I decided to check out Bluesky as the results were
| coming in and it confirmed my long-time suspicion that roughly
| 99% of its users are far left American political activists.
|
| Literally the entire discovery feed was post after post of said
| activists apparently suffering from legitimate mental breakdowns
| as if the entire world was crumbling around them.
| bogle wrote:
| Hold that thought. HN Commentators, feel free to correct me if
| I've mis-read the room, but I think there are very few here who
| do not realise that Trump's presidency will go poorly for the
| USA and the rest of the world's democracies.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I think in fact you'll find there's been a huge rightward
| shift in the tech sector in the US and HN reflects that.
| Tainnor wrote:
| 800 VCs backed Kamala Harris. There has been some rightward
| shift, yes, but probably not enough to offset the general
| vibe.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Should be interesting to see how those folks are treated
| by the Musk-Vance-Thiel axis that just took power in the
| Whitehouse.
| maxehmookau wrote:
| The rightward shift in the tech sector seems to only apply
| to executives. ICs seem to be as lefty as they always have
| been.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Wish I could agree. I've seen a marked shift in tone.
|
| What I'd say is that there is a significant number of
| "libertarians" whose "liberty" veneer is scratching off
| and the authoritarian conservative body underneath is
| starting to show through, as it always does.
|
| Also, most "lefty" US tech workers are "lefty" only on
| social/cultural issues -- and would not be broadly in
| favour of socialist or social democratic economic
| policy... which I guess describes Democrats in the US
| generally.
| maxehmookau wrote:
| This is probably partially cultural. My experience is
| with the UK admittedly.
| sumo89 wrote:
| Absolutely. This comment section shows it as good as any.
| HN used to be about intellectual curiosity, now you get
| people complaining about pronouns.
| bakugo wrote:
| Yes, yes, we know. Democracy is over, America is doomed, he's
| going to start a nuclear war and kill us all, etc.
|
| That's what you all said the last time he was elected.
| bogle wrote:
| Your hyperbole aside, you imply that his last term was
| good, rather than poor. I'm asking about HN's collective
| opinion, which you've contributed to, thank you, but not,
| perhaps, in the way you thought you were.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > there are very few here who do not realise
|
| Double negatives ought to be illegal, they make muh head hurt
| arp242 wrote:
| Which is not really very strange, or unreasonable. I felt this
| was a fairly good article on that:
| https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/boilingfrogs/liberal-tear...
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| That seems very astute to me. As a Canadian I'm not having a
| breakdown, but the turmoil and conflict in the USA is
| seriously troubling. I would hate to be immersed in it.
| arp242 wrote:
| I'm in Europe so I'm not having an "identity crisis"
| either. My views on the US have long been somewhat mixed,
| but there's definitely a "I thought you were better than
| that" feeling. Our friendship with the US was always a bit
| mixed and there were ups and downs, but this feels like a
| "I don't know if I can ever trust you again" moment. Or at
| least, it will take a long time to rebuild the trust.
|
| Basically this:
|
| _" A Trump victory will be akin to the moment in an
| unhappy marriage where the spouses are arguing again and
| one hauls off and hits the other. It might not mean that
| the marriage is over--but it'll never be the same. Both
| partners will have learned something hard about what one is
| capable of and that will inform their future interactions
| forever."_
| carapace wrote:
| This. It feels like USA just lost the Cold War.
|
| > Tens of millions of people are going to wake up [this
| morning] to find that they don't live in the country they
| thought they did. Liberals, classical and otherwise, will
| discover overnight that they're now outnumbered by a
| coalition of earnest fascists, partisan Republicans who'll
| rationalize literally anything, and millions upon millions of
| less tribal voters who don't care how corrupt Trump is or
| which laws he breaks or whether he overturns elections or not
| so long as they get the results on their pet issues that
| they're hoping for.
|
| > That's an identity crisis. A big one. And a lot of people
| are going to be having it at the same time.
| remram wrote:
| What's "far left"? Communism?
| andy_ppp wrote:
| My theory: people are just hacked off that life is getting worse
| for most people while billionaires get richer and richer. Every
| disaster the wealthy get handouts while the poor have to pay for
| them. Government can no longer afford anything because all of its
| assets have been sold and rented back at a profit.
|
| I don't think either campaign made any difference to the outcome
| of this election at all.
|
| In conclusion it might be an amazing economy on the high level
| averages but when inflation caused by COVID handouts (I'm reading
| $16 TRILLION, but that can't be real surely?) is always going to
| lose you an election badly.
| porbelm wrote:
| But... but... Trump's policies are even more tax breaks for the
| rich and tariffs on everything, do people not understand this?
| andy_ppp wrote:
| I think they just assume things can't get worse so f** it.
| Most people only vaguely know policies and are voting based
| on feelings.
| justin66 wrote:
| Narrator: _people did not understand this_
| mbg721 wrote:
| It's pretty hard to run a campaign on "change" when you're
| the incumbent and nobody voted for you.
| Veen wrote:
| Yes, but voters are forced to choose between the fuckers who
| screwed them yesterday and the fuckers who will screw them
| tomorrow.
| tjpnz wrote:
| We'll have to wait and see re: tariffs, but the democrats are
| no different on tax breaks for the rich.
| jampekka wrote:
| Biden was all in on tariffs too.
| EricDeb wrote:
| Didnt Biden want to raise taxes on those making more than
| 400k a year or something?
| a1j9o94 wrote:
| Harris' plan lowered taxes for everyone making less than
| 900K per year
|
| https://itep.org/kamala-harris-donald-trump-tax-plans/
| jampekka wrote:
| Plenty of people have good reasons to support tariffs. Free
| trade destroyed a lot of industries and adjanced communities
| and the free trade fans didn't give a damn about them.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| Do...people really think that prices will go _down_ when
| cheap foreign labor is off the table? Do they think we can
| establish replacement infrastructure at comparable costs in
| months or a couple of years? Will they want to work those
| jobs for comparable pay to keep the costs of goods stable?
| jampekka wrote:
| Probably more like wages will go up when cheap foreign
| labor is off the table. Higher income offsets higher
| prices for industries where wages rise. For the currently
| well paid the purchasing power may drop.
|
| Silicon Valley didn't care about the rust belt, so why
| should the rust belt care about SV?
| gizzlon wrote:
| Will the wages increase more than the prices?
|
| Aren't most things Americans buy imported or contain
| imported parts (for example all electronics)?
|
| Won't a decrease in exports, because of other nations ti-
| for-tat tariffs, decrease wages for many US workers?
| jampekka wrote:
| In aggregate things will get more expensive, but
| purchasing power of some will increase. Or at least
| that's the idea.
| kelnos wrote:
| That "some" probably won't include most Trump supporters.
| consteval wrote:
| The fallacy here is that US industries will even be able
| to compete with 200% tariffs.
|
| They won't, and they can't, and they certainly can't do
| it immediately. It takes decades to build up the
| manufacturing efficiency and processes to compete with
| China. We lost all of it.
|
| We will continue to buy from China because it will STILL
| be cheaper. And your goods will be 3x more expensive, and
| that's the best-case scenario for a lot of goods.
| hackerNoose wrote:
| Cheap foreign labour is good for rich people but bad for
| poor people that they compete with, at least in the short
| term.
| j-krieger wrote:
| "America first" includes economic policies that drive up
| commerce, even at the cost of our allies. German news is full
| of VW and other auto executives wanting to leave for
| production in the US. Trump's tariffs mean companies will
| just want to produce _in_ the US and export outside it. And
| it 's working.
|
| Do people not understand this?
| andy_ppp wrote:
| The idea that you're going to be producing iPhones or other
| mobile phones in the US (for example) is extremely unlikely
| in the next decade. It will be interesting to see the chaos
| he causes if he goes through with this and the plan to
| deport 20 million people.
| j-krieger wrote:
| I'm not talking iPhones, I'm talking "luxury" commodities
| like cars and other expensive equipment where quality
| counts.
| Maken wrote:
| While I'm also skeptical, production could be moved from
| the US and other Western countries into Asia thanks to
| the "correct" economical incentives. There is no reason
| it can be moved again. But we all know it will be moved
| to Africa and Southeast Asia, but still.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| I'm sure there will be masses of folks moving to rural
| areas to pick up those sweet, sweet agricultural jobs
| that pay $5/hr under the table, or do repetitive
| precision PCB assembly all day for $1.25/hr and 80hr
| 6-day work weeks.
| wil421 wrote:
| Who said anything about iPhones? Last time a president
| spoke about it was Obama and he said those jobs are never
| coming back.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| I thought Trump said putting tariffs on everything
| imported from China would lead to jobs coming back to the
| US? So Trump said it not me. It's just an example of
| where this policy is unworkable is my point.
| tomrod wrote:
| Tariffs are an unnecessary price increase. To use your
| example, there will be some modest net growth of
| manufacturing at the expense of higher prices for everyone,
| typically dominating any net growth in jobs.
| j-krieger wrote:
| There are no tariff price increases for cars/ other goods
| produced in the US. Companies will build a manufacturing
| plant in the US to access the market. They will in turn
| benefit from low regulation and less strict worker
| rights.
| tomrod wrote:
| Correct. Tariffs increase the prices needed to purchase
| cars generally, not just those produced in the US.
| Perhaps that is what you're missing in your analysis. If
| the market rate for a car is P, which is below what
| America can produce the cars for, P_America, then the
| only way for domestic production to be competitive at an
| equivalent quality is for a tariff to balance P_America
| <= P+Tariff. So while folks prefer to purchase at price
| P, which a free and non-tariffed market would prefer and
| would give consumers a better price overall, we instead
| rely on a distortionary tariff and pay P_America,
| ultimately hurting consumers. In this Econ 201, this
| results in dead weight loss. Hacker News would benefit
| from image inserts here, so indirect you to wiki instead
| to understand the topic better. This is an inefficiency,
| meaning that tariffs in imported autos are driving a jobs
| program without real economic benefit to all (but a minor
| benefit to folks that are working in an industry doomed
| to fail after the tariff is removed by a more savvy
| political party who understands you can't infant-industry
| your way out of offshored industry).
| j-krieger wrote:
| It's not my analysis. I'm quoting car manufacturing
| CEO's, as per German national TV.
| tomrod wrote:
| Ah. Yes. They are kissing the ring and making plans on
| how to survive.
| j-krieger wrote:
| They are actively leaving and my home state's economy is
| in real danger of collapsing. I think I'm correct in
| being afraid.
| tomrod wrote:
| https://wits.worldbank.org/wits/wits/witshelp/Content/SMA
| RT/...
| astrange wrote:
| Tariffs will make this much worse for two reasons:
|
| 1. importing your inputs becomes more expensive.
|
| 2. other countries will impose retaliatory tariffs on your
| exports.
|
| This is not how to do economic development; Asian countries
| instead used export promotion. (...And wage suppression and
| currency weakening.)
| redeux wrote:
| We lack the critical infrastructure and skills to produce a
| lot of these things, so it won't just magically restore
| jobs but it will increase taxes for the foreseeable future.
| lynndotpy wrote:
| I'm not sure if you're being rhetorical, but people in the
| United States generally do not understand this. Even among
| those who are pro-Democrat, the differences in tax and tariff
| policy are usually not the top three issues.
| fny wrote:
| Go look at a chart of income inequality. It hasn't improved
| under any administration. So why do they still feel Trump is
| the answer? Inflation.
| astrange wrote:
| Income inequality hasn't increased in the US since 2014,
| and sharply /decreased/ since 2019. The current
| administration did an amazing job at improving it!
|
| https://recruitonomics.com/the-unexpected-wage-compression/
|
| (Note this is about wage inequality, which strictly
| speaking isn't income inequality. The best policy for
| income inequality would be bringing back the expanded CTC.)
|
| But the median voter doesn't actually like this, because
| they have above-median income due to being older, and this
| means service workers got more expensive.
| fny wrote:
| Do you hear yourself? In one breath you agree with me
| that income inequality is rising, and then say it's bad
| for service workers to have higher wages.
| astrange wrote:
| No, I said 1. income inequality stopped increasing in
| 2014. 2. wage inequality is /falling/. 2. median voters
| (who are upper-middle-class) want it to go back up.
|
| Income inequality is stalled because some benefits from
| 2020 expired, namely the expanded CTC, and we should
| really fix that.
| Urahandystar wrote:
| He gave out money during covid that reasonates.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| You mean: "He put his name on checks sent out" - it wasn't
| his money and it would've gone out anyway.
| kelnos wrote:
| Many people in the US believe that the target country is the
| one who pays the tariffs, and don't understand that _they_
| pay for them, at the cash register.
| svara wrote:
| And yet the US economy is doing great, much better than most
| developed countries, and most of those countries are not going
| off the rails to quite the same extent.
|
| Inflation is probably relevant, since even though it's down by
| a lot, the sticker shock so to speak lingers for a while.
| drawkward wrote:
| Doing great for whom?
| kelnos wrote:
| The US economy is doing great for the people already with
| money. Everyday people who need to buy groceries and gas are
| getting pinched just as hard as ever.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| How did the COVID handouts cause inflation? It was only a small
| amount. Isn't inflation caused by macro-economic forces, e.g.
| interest, international policy / stability, and free market
| somethings?
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| And don't forget all those PPP loans that Congress persons
| didn't have to pay back https://fortune.com/2020/07/08/ppp-
| loan-recipients-members-o...
| dgfitz wrote:
| Yes as a person you got a modest check. You don't remember
| all the fraudulent "loans" than have been prosecuted? Most of
| the money went to !individual people.
| aeyes wrote:
| 5 Trillion added to the Fed balance sheet is not a small
| handout. They didn't o ly hand out money to individuals but
| also gave to businesses and propped up the bond market.
| kelnos wrote:
| Let's not forget, though, that Trump is the one who kicked
| this off: he signed the first COVID-related stimulus
| package ad the end of March 2020, to the tune of $2
| trillion.
|
| Given that he was only in office for the first year of the
| pandemic, it seems reasonable that Biden signed another $3
| trillion away. If all that caused inflation, Trump and
| Biden deserve the blame together.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| If you print money to pay for things generally that causes
| inflation, it's one of the few clear facts economists will
| tell you they 100% know.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| The reason COVID handouts caused inflation while the '08
| handouts didn't is that the COVID handouts went to regular
| people who spent the money while the '08 was wasted on
| bailing out the 1%, who spent it on assets that regular
| people don't buy every week.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > people are just hacked off that life is getting worse for
| most people while billionaires get richer and richer.
|
| So their answer is to vote precisely for a representative of
| that class (supported by richest guy in the world). And at the
| same time, the same electors have a strong disdain for anything
| remotely socialistic such as free health care and education for
| all.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| Cockroaches for Raid(r)
| intellix wrote:
| I know you're not advocating for it but it doesn't make sense
| to essentially vote in 2x billionaires into office.
|
| I'm just disappointed we may never know what Russia has on
| Musk. He went from being an avid atheist Democrat to pretending
| to be a Christian and pushing for Republican like his life
| depended on it. What is he hiding? Why was he so afraid?
|
| You might as well empty Arkham Asylum whilst all the pardons
| for crimes are being dished out.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > He went from being an avid atheist Democrat to pretending
| to be a Christian and pushing for Republican like his life
| depended on it.
|
| > What is he hiding?
|
| I'd go for a more obvious explanation. It's not uncommon for
| people to adopt more extreme and conservative POV as they get
| older. Social networks don't help.
| drawkward wrote:
| I'd go with occams razor: in this case, it is just political
| opportunism. Musk saw a dumb, easily flattered guy who would
| give him a very powerful position in government, which Musk
| can wield to his own financial benefit. Musk has already
| tweeted that Lina Khan's days are numbered. That sounds like
| it is potentially worth millions to Elon.
| vardump wrote:
| I think it's pretty obvious -- Russia has ASAT weapons and
| tested them in 2021.
|
| You would not need much to destroy a whole Starlink orbit.
| roca wrote:
| Life is not getting worse for most people, at least not
| economically. See for example
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N --- median
| real (i.e. inflation-adjusted) household income in the USA is
| at an all-time high, even though we had a pandemic.
|
| I don't know why people believe otherwise. Maybe it's just
| rising expectations, fueled by rising inequality?
| maratc wrote:
| Aka "let them eat inflation adjusted household income
| reports"
| ftlio wrote:
| Yeah this trope won't die. You can win an internet thread
| with data that tells people they don't know they're better
| off, but you can't win an election when they don't believe
| it.
|
| "Nobody likes my product because they are stupid".
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Again this is averages, tell me what happened to the bottom
| 40% inflation adjusted?
| CaptainFever wrote:
| I know that your comment implies that the bottom 40%'s
| income went downwards, but just because variance
| (inequality) increased doesn't mean that must have
| happened. It could have also went upwards (income
| increased), just slower than the top.
|
| Some data would be good here. I don't have any, but if you
| want to imply that the bottom 40% went downwards, please
| show some data instead of insinuating it.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Even if people got pay rises they see the headline price
| of food (if they are poor) going up by in some cases >
| 50% as well as rents going up dramatically (ironically
| caused by increasing interest rates) and even if they got
| a great raise (and are in theory better off) you are not
| feeling it, hence the result. Gas prices too.
|
| As ever it's a multivariate problem but the biggest part
| of it is being promised jam tomorrow and even worse being
| told things are going great when you see evidence they
| are not. She should have thrown Joe under a bus.
|
| This isn't just a problem in the US the whole West is
| ungovernable and we will see most governments getting one
| term assuming that they don't turn into Victor Orban's
| Hungary.
| kelnos wrote:
| The data was provided over the past 24 hours or so: the
| electorate believes they are worse off due to inflation,
| and that their wages haven't increased to offset it.
| roca wrote:
| From 2022 to 2023 they got the biggest real income bump of
| any group: https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-
| materials/2024/09/10/...
| pbmonster wrote:
| > Maybe it's just rising expectations, fueled by rising
| inequality?
|
| Rising inequality is entirely enough to explain the whole
| thing. The bottom two quintiles saw their cost of living
| absolutely explode, and their salaries not keeping up. Median
| real income will never reflect something like that.
|
| And that's a lot of people.
| roca wrote:
| Real income (i.e. inflation-adjusted) actually increased
| the most for the lowest-percentile households from 2022 to
| 2023. https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-
| materials/2024/09/10/...
| humanrebar wrote:
| Housing isn't any cheaper. Basics like groceries aren't
| either. If someone is struggling to own a clean and safe
| home, pointing at averages isn't convincing.
|
| Many people don't trust that math.
| roca wrote:
| Yes, I understand that some people actually are worse off,
| and a much larger group of people incorrectly believe they
| are worse off.
| left-struck wrote:
| I think there's this massive negative bias in a lot of our
| media, by our I mean globally. Social media and news. So I
| think you're right, life is generally getting better for most
| people, COVID was a temporary blip in that trend. However...
| Inequality is growing rapidly between the middle class and
| the ultra rich, and the middle class in many developed
| countries is being squeezed due to cost of living issues, I
| think that's a a part of the reason for this result. Also
| median income alone is useless, it has to be compared against
| cost of living. A measure of a middle class family's ability
| to grow wealth is the difference between their income and
| their essential expenses. That is what matters.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| People feel otherwise because sticker prices went up. Why did
| this need explained?
| junto wrote:
| Sticker prices don't come down. Deflation is the boogeyman
| of economists.
| John23832 wrote:
| > My theory: people are just hacked off that life is getting
| worse for most people while billionaires get richer and richer.
| Every disaster the wealthy get handouts while the poor have to
| pay for them. Government can no longer afford anything because
| all of its assets have been sold and rented back at a profit.
|
| So they support the candidate with the billionares bankrolling
| him and and doing "million dollar sweepstakes". Give me a
| break.
| tessierashpool9 wrote:
| the dems don't have billionaires bankrolling them? if two
| assholes compete, the asshole who's honest about being an
| asshole is going to be more popular than the asshole who
| pretends to be such a nice guy.
| John23832 wrote:
| Trump is the only candidate to advertise himself as a
| billionaire.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| Since COVID food prices went up around 50% on many items that I
| pay attention to. (Example: meat & fish) For many Americans,
| messaging about the "great economy" does not match their lived
| experience.
| class3shock wrote:
| This is the answer. When you have one candidate saying things
| are bad and he will make them better and another saying
| things are great when things for most people are not great,
| it should be pretty obvious who people will resonate with.
| patatero wrote:
| Inflation were caused by mass factories shutdown in China and
| South East Asia. When they reopen they got so many orders that
| they simply increase their prices.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Do you have any references for that? I think it could be part
| of the story but I still think printing trillions of dollars
| will make things more expensive, especially when you consider
| where this money went!
| Havoc wrote:
| > people are just hacked off that life is getting worse for
| most people
|
| Yeah that's my read on it too.
|
| Rather unfortunate that the response was to elect someone
| that's more showman/ego trip than leader with technocratic
| skills
| tchock23 wrote:
| Weren't most of the COVID handouts done under Trump? I recall
| people getting up in arms because Trump wanted his signature on
| the handouts.
| kelnos wrote:
| Trump signed the first relief package, $2 trillion worth, at
| the end of March 2020. That wasn't "most", but it was a
| significant chunk of it.
| ericmcer wrote:
| I think this is kind of it for me, I didn't want Kamala to win
| at all, but I also didn't want Trump to be president.
|
| It feels like we have been on this march for the last 40+ years
| of eroding working class leverage and handing power over to
| politicians and giant corporations.
|
| Dems have been struggling because they keep putting out the
| same lifetime politicians who promise to play ball and keep
| moving us down this road. They need someone who promises actual
| change, someone who is a threat to entrenched power structures.
| Bernie 100% was that guy for the Dems and they buried him...
| twice... He was the last time I was remotely excited for an
| election.
| ramoz wrote:
| As an American who grew from nothing, served in the military, and
| expanded in my career -
|
| I find the concerns for Democracy comical.
|
| Most of you do not understand the type of people that built and
| fought for democracy. There is no real fear amongst these same
| type of people in modern America.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Hopefully, the economy will recover with him as president.
| pavlov wrote:
| Recover? It's better than ever on every actual metric.
|
| But I do look forward to February 2025, when journalists will
| once again travel to rural Pennsylvania to interview Trump
| voters in diners who will say that the economy is amazing now
| that the Great Man has been in power for a whole week. The
| magic of recovery!
| e40 wrote:
| This will absolutely happen. Within days of taking office
| he will take credit for the "great" economy and his
| followers will eat it up.
| xnx wrote:
| I disagree. He will start taking credit for anything good
| that happens in the economy now, and blame anything bad
| that happens in the economy on Biden.
| j-krieger wrote:
| > Recover? It's better than ever on every actual metric.
|
| Except for all metrics that matter. People are on average
| much poorer.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Yes, the economy is incredible but wealth disparity is
| too. The average person isn't winning. Trump's proposed
| economic changes appear to make that much worse, as well.
| jkubicek wrote:
| So much of this election has been utterly perplexing, but
| probably the most confusing part is how many people have
| legitimate gripes about how the economy is serving them,
| yet are voting for someone who has plans to make their
| situation worse.
|
| "He said he'll decrease inflation!"
|
| "But his plans for tariffs will make inflation much much
| worse!"
|
| ".... but he said he'll decrease inflation"
| 9dev wrote:
| Yes, voting for a bunch of corrupt billionaires and their
| friends will surely fix the wealth distribution issue. A
| sound plan, for sure!
| TheAlchemist wrote:
| Can you explain a bit ?
|
| As somebody not living in US, that's surprising. My opinion is
| that Democrats did a really shit job - focusing on wrong
| problems, promoting stuff nobody cares about etc. Trump / Musk
| did appeal to a lot of people for different reasons, some of
| which I can understand. But both are grifters and very
| dangerous in my view.
| julkali wrote:
| As a non-American, my personal concern for Democracy in regards
| to the USA is the questionable system of the electoral college
| which, in my opinion, is one of the worst forms of
| representative democracy on the planet and certainly not apt
| for a country so proud of its democratic values.
|
| This also goes hand-in-hand with the black-white thinking of a
| two-party-system.
| briandear wrote:
| Is the EU president elected by popular vote?
| simonask wrote:
| There is no president of the EU.
|
| There is a President of the European Council (Charles
| Michel, elected by member countries' heads of state), there
| is a President of the European Commission (Ursula von der
| Leyen, elected by the European Parliament), and there is a
| President of the European Parliament (Roberta Metsola,
| elected by the members of the parliament).
|
| Seats in the European Parliament are not proportionally
| allocated (small countries have more seats per capita), and
| member countries have different systems for allocating
| their seats among representatives, but nobody uses first-
| past-the-post, maybe except Hungary (debatably - their
| system is weird).
|
| So, no, none of the "EU presidents" are elected by popular
| vote strictly speaking, and none of them have a role that
| is even remotely similar to the US presidency.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| A good dive into the history of the electoral college can be
| found at https://www.hks.harvard.edu/more/policycast/if-
| electoral-col...
| arp242 wrote:
| I don't disagree, but Trump won the popular vote by a decent
| margin.
| grahamj wrote:
| As incredibly disappointing as that is to me, the fact is
| this is only the 2nd time the Reps have won the popular
| vote.
|
| In other words the US leans left and Reps only win because
| of the electoral system.
| arp242 wrote:
| I would argue the Democratic Party is hardly "left-wing".
| The old joke is that the US has two parties: the right
| wing party and the very right wing party. They have moved
| a bit to the left though, but many "left wing" policies
| they support have broad universal support among the left
| and right in Europe. Today it's more the centre/centre-
| right party and the monster raving looney party.
|
| But yes, the system is not great. This matters even more
| in the senate elections by the way, where every state
| gets two senators regardless of population size. I get
| the argument that you don't want densely populated cities
| dominating large swaths of rural areas, but 1) elections
| are about people and not trees, and 2) now it's the
| reverse where sparsely populated rural areas dominate.
| So...
| 015a wrote:
| All true, and I feel there's hope that this is the wake-
| up call the American left needs; that if they keep
| playing the role of the centrist establishment what they
| end up crafting is a super boring campaign that no one
| feels the passion to get out and vote for. Total voter
| turnout this election is shaping up to be significantly
| lower on the left (-15M currently) versus the right (-3M)
| as compared to 2020.
|
| I think the takes that this is the right taking over
| America etc are super doomerist. The more accurate story
| is: The left put up a really boring, bad candidate. The
| only campaign the left has figured out how to run for
| literally the past three elections is "stop Trump", and
| its not even resonating with their own voters anymore.
| What are they going to run on in 2028 when there isn't a
| Trump to stop anymore?
|
| The left needs to wake up and have a Trump moment of
| their own.
| drawkward wrote:
| Progressive policies are broadly popular; inevitably,
| some totalitarian and intolerant wokeists always end up
| hijacking the progressive wing, driving the center
| rightward.
| arp242 wrote:
| Trump is incredibly boring. All he does is throw insults
| and is obsessed with personal loyalty. He has barely any
| meaningful ideas at all, and has very little interesting
| to say. It's almost all just politics of grievances and
| whipped up anger, at times based on abject malicious
| lies.
|
| That really is the problem: one side runs a nihilistic
| campaign completely unencumbered by any truth, morality,
| or any sense of decency, and the side, well, doesn't.
| There are two sets of rules and two games being played
| here. That much has been obvious for almost a decade now.
| So how do you counter that? Well, no one really knows.
| 9dev wrote:
| The little he has to say still got him the most powerful
| position in the world, which is a problem. I am
| thoroughly afraid of his capability to destroy and
| deceive.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| They also have broad support in the US, but once a policy
| gets the socialism word attached to it it loses
| popularity.
|
| For example, the ACA is very popular. Obamacare is not.
| It's all about the messaging.
| echoangle wrote:
| > the fact is this is only the 2nd time the Reps have won
| the popular vote.
|
| Definitely not, where did you get that?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presi
| den...
| grahamj wrote:
| hmm I read that somewhere this morning but it seems to be
| way off. I stand corrected.
| tech_ken wrote:
| Second time in the current millennium is probably the
| talking point you saw; Reagan was the the last Rep
| president to win two terms with a popular vote majority.
| lavezzi wrote:
| Just a reminder that not all votes have been counted yet.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Yeah, if we talk about it, counting votes for days/weeks,
| and no ID laws are ridiculous.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Counting for days is ok. Having fights about it for a
| week or two is also ok. None of those break anything.
|
| The no ID culture and everything around it... I honestly
| can't understand it.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Counting votes for days/weeks. No ID laws. States not
| allowing pre-counting votes. States not allowing early
| voting. Having to wait 7 hours to vote at some polling
| locations vs 10 minutes at others. Allowing some forms of
| state agency issued ID to vote but not others.
|
| I'm sure everyone from every side can come up with their
| own list. How about we solve it all once and for all.
| arp242 wrote:
| The margin is so large that it doesn't matter (I did
| check before commenting). Something truly spectacular and
| unprecedented needs to happen for Harris to win the
| popular vote.
| culi wrote:
| This is completely untrue. While Trump is favored, there
| are around 7 million votes left to count in California
| alone. Predominantly from major cities. Harris is
| expected to gain a net of almost 3 million from that
| JeremyHoward wrote:
| No it's not. Harris has less than a 1% chance of winning
| the popular vote at this stage. You can put $100 on her
| right now and make $20K when she wins.
| arp242 wrote:
| That's not how I read it when I looked earilier, but
| we'll see how it turns out. I can't be bothered to check
| again, and I don't think it's an important point to argue
| right now. For what it's worth, I _hope_ you 're right
| and I'll gladly be wrong here.
| xnx wrote:
| The popular vote would be very different if it weren't for
| the electoral college.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| States elect Presidents, not the People. If you knew anything
| about why states exist at all, and their history in
| Constitutional law, and that they have far greater
| sovereignty than any other country's sub-national political
| division, you'd understand why the electoral college system
| exists.
| bluecalm wrote:
| If my village forms a union with your village and both our
| villages have 1000 inhabitants at the time I don't want your
| village to be able to dictate our common policy just because
| you have more children or more people died in my village 20
| years from now. Thus when we are forming a union we stipulate
| that we have equal voting rights.
|
| It's going to happen in EU in some form as well (assuming EU
| goes into closer integration direction) because there is no
| way small countries accept closer union without a mechanism
| similar to electoral college.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| I'm sorry but... WTF?
|
| The US voting system doesn't even solve that one "problem"
| you are presenting. The number of districts and votes are
| constantly adjusted to population.
| saghm wrote:
| > If my village forms a union with your village and both
| our villages have 1000 inhabitants at the time I don't want
| your village to be able to dictate our common policy just
| because you have more children or more people died in my
| village 20 years from now. Thus when we are forming a union
| we stipulate that we have equal voting rights.
|
| That's not how the electoral college works. The electoral
| college equivalent would be one village with 1000 people,
| the second with 2000, and the third with 4000, and each
| village getting "electoral votes" proportional to their
| population that gets awarded entirely to the candidate with
| the majority vote in that village. The entirety of the
| first two villages vote for candidate A, which awards 1
| electoral vote for the first village and 2 electoral votes
| for the second. In the third village, which has 4 electoral
| votes, candidate A only gets 1999 votes, whereas candidate
| B gets 2001 votes, so they win the electoral vote 4-3 and
| become the leader despite only winning 2001 votes overall
| out of 7000.
|
| The reason that the analogy needs to be this complicated is
| because the electoral college isn't some sort of common-
| sense system that happens to occasionally produce quirky
| results; it's an extremely contrived system that produces
| equally contrived results, which shouldn't be remotely
| surprising.
| i_love_limes wrote:
| Other high ranking military officers that have worked closely
| with Trump disagree. I might be inclined to believe them over
| you, unless you've also worked with Trump? Or are you just
| someone that he would call a 'sucker'?
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/us/politics/john-kelly-tr...
| ramoz wrote:
| Yes you should listen to an actual grift and live in fear.
|
| People like me won't. You not being able to resonate is what
| makes you and I different - and one of us capable of
| defending freedom and the other not.
| mlnj wrote:
| > and one of us capable of defending freedom and the other
| not.
|
| Did you just imply that these high ranking military
| officers are not the ones actually defending everyone's
| freedoms?
|
| Please stop with the talking points and actually think
| about what you are repeating again and again.
| arp242 wrote:
| Ah, so he's a person who built and fought for democracy,
| but not the _right person_ who built and fought for
| democracy.
|
| And it's really not hard to find more veterans supporting
| Harris; just the top two search results:
|
| https://commondefense.us/vets-for-harris
|
| https://votevets.org/press-releases/votevets-makes-
| historic-...
| aibrahem wrote:
| As someone who spent most of his life in a dictatorship, I
| don't think you appreciate how easily a society can slide into
| a totalitarian state and how apathetic most of the population
| can become.
|
| It's also interesting that you served in the U.S. military and
| didn't recognize how self-serving and institutionally corrupt
| it is. I come from a country with an oversized military
| relative to its government, and the parallels I can draw
| between its behavior and that of the U.S. Army are uncanny.
| ramoz wrote:
| I appreciate what you've been through.
|
| However, comparing American society with one of the Middle
| East does not resonate with me. That goes hand in hand with
| comparing a military of a dictatorship with one of a
| democracy.
| mlnj wrote:
| Trump has already floated
|
| - Imprisoning criticizers
|
| - Removing the broadcast licenses of news network that
| questions him. He's been calling them fake news for years.
|
| - More power to the rich buddies. Not just more money, now
| they get more control over government affairs. Musk and
| Thiel are frothing over this.
|
| - Control over women and minorities.
|
| - More power to the theists.
|
| Looks like "comparing American society with one of the
| Middle East does not resonate with me." will soon become
| apparent as the parallels start to be clearer.
| ramoz wrote:
| Right, you'd be better off without any media that
| convinces you of this fear. /s
| greenie_beans wrote:
| nobody needs media to tell them this. it comes directly
| from his mouth. it's hilarious that you think people get
| their opinions from media. no, just listen to what the
| politicians say. he said he's gonna do mass deportations?
| believe him
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| Lmao how? To where?
| swifthesitation wrote:
| I urge you to read this:
|
| https://acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-
| the-...
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| I guess repeating his words are a bigger sin than
| speaking them in the first place.
| aibrahem wrote:
| There is nothing inherently special about Americans that
| makes them more democratic. I agree we shouldn't compare
| the U.S. with Middle Eastern countries; they were never
| democratic in the first place. A more appropriate
| comparison would be with the German Weimar Republic, where
| a charismatic leader managed to overthrow democracy.
|
| Many people raised in democratic societies don't fully
| understand the intricacies of the relationship between the
| military and dictatorships; they see the military as a tool
| in the dictator's hand to wield at will. This couldn't be
| further from the truth. A (strong) military in a
| dictatorship is its own institution, largely isolated from
| the rest of society and granted its own perks and benefits.
| The dictator can wield the military only to the extent that
| it aligns with the institution's goals. Competent ones try
| to align the military's goals with their own; incompetent
| ones get overthrown.
|
| Because of this isolation from broader society, the
| officers and soldiers believe that what is good for the
| institution is good for the country. They're not
| suppressing their citizens; they believe they are
| protecting the republic.
|
| The U.S. Army is already operating as an isolated entity
| from broader U.S. society. Monetary corruption is quite
| substantial--consider the medium- to high-ranking officers
| and their relationships and revolving doors with defense
| contractors.
|
| I'm not saying the U.S. is going to become - _insert non-
| democratic country here_ -, but if we ignore the usual
| Western caricature of Stalinist-style dictatorships and
| realize that there are multiple forms of eroding democracy,
| you'll start to understand why it's not such a far-fetched
| idea.
| prepend wrote:
| > A more appropriate comparison would be with the German
| Weimar Republic, where a charismatic leader managed to
| overthrow democracy
|
| This doesn't resonate to me. The conditions in the US are
| so different than the German Weimar Republic. I mean sure
| it's possible but without a compelling reason I kind of
| discard those arguments. The US has had lots of
| charismatic leaders screwing stuff up and yet still
| survived.
|
| More importantly, American Exceptionalism is deeply
| ingrained in our philosophy. I think we're wrong, but it
| exists. So the general populace doesn't believe this
| stuff and just makes people sound out of touch. I think
| when someone is thinking about inflation and rent and
| mortgages, the idea that they should care about an
| existential threat to democracy doesn't seem to matter
| much. That's a rich person's worry.
| sensanaty wrote:
| Comparisons to Weimar Germany are ridiculous because the
| state of the two countries are vastly, VASTLY different.
| Nevermind the fact that we're also in a different, much
| more interconnected and mixed world than back then.
|
| On the one hand you have a once-proud and powerful state
| recovering from _the_ most devastating war humanity has
| ever waged (by that point) that it lost in, which
| subsequently forced them into paying back massive
| reparations, sanctions and economic and military limits
| imposed on it by the victors of said war. Of _course_ a
| charismatic, populist leader who gives the resentful
| nation a boogeyman to fight against is going to win.
|
| On the other you have the de facto #1 world power with
| the most cartoonishly powerful military on the planet
| that has their fingers involved in every single pie on
| the planet, which was founded on the principle of
| democracy some 200 years ago, with strong safeguards put
| in place to prevent the exact thing that happened with
| the Weimar republic.
|
| Even pretending like the Weimer Republic's military was
| anything even resembling what the US military is is
| ridiculous.
| palata wrote:
| > On the other you have the de facto #1 world power
|
| Wasn't always the case, and honestly it's hard to tell
| where China stands right now, and it seems like it's not
| slowing down... if you look at e.g. robotics or drones...
|
| > which was founded on the principle of democracy some
| 200 years ago
|
| Didn't it need a civil war to actually become a
| democracy? My understanding was that it was not exactly
| founded as a democracy. But maybe I'm being pedantic
| there.
|
| > with strong safeguards put in place to prevent the
| exact thing that happened with the Weimar republic.
|
| Genuinely interested! What are those safeguards and what
| do they prevent that happened with the Weimar republic?
| shkkmo wrote:
| With the Weimar Republic, it was specifically section 48
| of their constitution which granted emergency powers to
| pass laws and the normalization of its invocation, paired
| with a dysfuctional legistlative body that was the only
| check on that power, that allowed the measures to be
| taken that culminated in probably unconstitutional
| passage of the Enalbing Act that killed the republic.
| palata wrote:
| So the "strong safeguards put in place to prevent the
| exact thing that happened with the Weimar republic" would
| be the absence of section 48?
| sensanaty wrote:
| > Wasn't always the case...
|
| Sure, but it has been for the better part of a few
| decades. The whole reason US hegemony has spread so far
| and wide is due to this.
|
| > Genuinely interested! What are those safeguards and
| what do they prevent that happened with the Weimar
| republic?
|
| I'm not American so I'm probably getting the tiny details
| wrong here so please correct me if I'm wrong on any
| points. A lot of this is going off my memory, so I'm
| probably getting some dates and such details wrong as
| well. I'm definitely not including a very comprehensive
| answer here, as it's a complex topic with a lot of
| history attached that I don't know too much myself. I'm
| mostly just a nerd who finds this kinda stuff
| fascinating, not any kind of expert :)
|
| The big sticking points for the Weimar were that the
| president wielded _much_ more legislative and executive
| power than US presidents do. Article 48 let the
| Reichspresident call a state of emergency without ever
| involving the Reichstag (Parliament) which basically
| enabled them to become dictators whenever they wanted.
| Article 48 was one of the early keys Hitler used to seize
| power, as a fire in the Reichstag parliament house gave
| him an excuse to call a state of emergency because of a
| supposed Communist uprising. He used Article 48 to arrest
| Communists en-masse on the basis of the Reichstag Fire
| Decree which was signed shortly after the fire, which
| also included many provisions that restricted free
| speech, movement and other similar civil liberties. I 'd
| recommend further reading up on the Fire Decree yourself,
| as it's quite interesting as a key turning point in the
| Weimar turning into Nazi Germany.
|
| In contrast, US presidents _cannot_ supersede congress
| and decrees are subject to congressional oversight (there
| probably exist exceptions, so take my words here with a
| grain of salt). Even emergency powers (such as the ones
| Hitler used) are much weaker for US presidents and have
| to go through congressional approval. Even if every
| single member of congress is a republican, republicans
| are _not_ a completely united party. A lot of them
| dislike Trump and have their own agendas they 'd prefer
| to be pushed, and ultimately they have no real reason to
| bow to the president since they are elected in completely
| different timeframes, wield different but almost equal
| power and are also competing with every other member of
| congress. For example the fear mongering about leaving
| NATO, there's basically a 0% chance of that happening
| because it requires a supermajority from congress,
| despite whatever the President might want. It's a pretty
| common reason why things like the recently proposed
| student loan debt forgiveness never end up happening, the
| president can't just will it to happen.
|
| Another big one is that the militaries work under
| different philosophies and circumstances between the two,
| and you can't have a takeover without military backing.
| The Weimar military was still pretty loyal to the old
| monarchists and viewed Weimar as a forced state that they
| were put into under pressure after losing WW1. You have
| to understand that the whole "democracy" idea was a
| pretty fresh one at that time for Germany, they only
| switched from monarchism to republicanism in 1918 after
| the November revolution.
|
| By contrast, US military as far as I understand it isn't
| really all that loyal to whoever the current president
| is, but rather to the constitution. The president might
| be commander-in-chief, but that doesn't mean he can tell
| the military to do whatever they want. They still wield
| power over the military of course, but it's a _lot_ less
| pronounced than it was in Germany, because the military
| _were_ loyal to Hitler. If the military leaders who are
| ultimately the ones commanding the troops don 't like the
| president, there isn't much they can do. Even the
| national guard is interesting, since it's a split
| responsibility between states and the federal government.
| And, again, congress also has a say in many military
| things, though my knowledge there is for sure lacking so
| I'd recommend you do your own reading up there.
|
| An example there of the limited power of the president
| was when Nixon was getting the boot, the secretary of
| defence James Schlesinger at the time instructed military
| leaders to run Nixon's order by either him or the
| secretary of state, because he was worried about Nixon's
| reaction.
|
| And again, the economic and social situation in Germany
| at the time cannot be overstated. People were _miserable_
| , the country was massively poor and were in a major
| demographic problem due to the war. Their industry was
| quickly stagnating due to the aftermath of WW1 and there
| was a lot of resentment building up in Germany for what
| they considered to be unfair and harsh treatment from the
| Allies. They were, to put it charitably, extremely
| unstable times and it was a matter of time before all of
| it exploded like it did. If it wasn't Hitler, it would've
| been the next charismatic leader promising to take
| revenge on the people who ruined the country (which is
| massively oversimplifying things of course, but you get
| the gist)
| kfajdsl wrote:
| > Didn't it need a civil war to actually become a
| democracy? My understanding was that it was not exactly
| founded as a democracy. But maybe I'm being pedantic
| there.
|
| Definitely think you are being pedantic. By that
| standard, we're not a "real" democracy right now with
| felons not being able to vote in many states. That's a
| valid position to have, but imo not really useful for
| this discussion.
| palata wrote:
| I'm saying that because I recently read somewhere that it
| needed a civil war to modify the Constitution and make it
| a democracy. The article was making the point that it was
| purposely not designed as a democracy at first.
|
| Which I found interesting, but admittedly not necessarily
| useful here.
| shkkmo wrote:
| There are real, significant between Weimar, Italy 10
| years before and the USA today.
|
| However the explanation for the rise of Hitler you allude
| to is woefully incomplete. Hitler and his party didn't
| get into power by winning the majory popular vote.
| Instead the Hitler and the Nazis formed a coalition with
| the monarchists and convinced Hindenburg that they would
| help restore the Monarchy if Hindenburg helped them take
| power and granted them new powers.
|
| I'm not going to claim we are necessarily in the same
| situation today, but I do think it is worth being aware
| of how this kind of thing can happen.
|
| We should be extremely wary about giving a charismatic
| leader extraordinary powers, even if that leader promises
| that power will only be used to accomplish your goals.
| sensanaty wrote:
| You're 100% right, my comment was definitely not meant to
| imply that the Nazi party's takeover was a simple affair
| that was as cut and dry as Hitler winning the vote and
| turning the country into Nazi Germany.
|
| However the way I see it, people (not you, I just mean in
| general people who seem to believe Trump will bring about
| the 5th Reich) are probably out of ignorance of the
| history there also massively oversimplifying and
| overestimating how much power the president ultimately
| wields, especially when compared to Weimer-era Germany.
| People aren't aware that there _are_ safety mechanisms in
| the US that didn 't exist in the Weimar Republic, and as
| such simply bringing up that "This is exactly what
| happened with Nazi Germany!" is massively oversimplifying
| things as well from the other side.
|
| The comment my comment was replying to did this exact
| thing, in fact, where they equated the election of a
| charismatic leader to what happened with the Nazis.
|
| I do agree with you though, I personally tend to align
| with Frank Herbert when it comes to people who want to
| wield power and rule over others, in that they should be
| studied and watched closely and carefully and disposed of
| swiftly if they pull any Hitler-tier shenanigans
| dalmo3 wrote:
| > I don't think you appreciate how easily a society can slide
| into a totalitarian state and how apathetic most of the
| population can become.
|
| We all lived through 2020-22, yes.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| Im not even a trump supporter but last night he said he was
| leaving the white house after this term on live TV, so i
| think the whole trump-wanna-be-dictator thing goes out the
| window - no ?
| okdood64 wrote:
| I think the concerns about him trying to stay on a third
| term are way overblown, but outside of that: you can't
| trust what he says versus to what he will do later.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| Not picking a side here, but didn't he say if he lost 2020
| we'd never hear from him again?
| maksimur wrote:
| He's not the first leader of a democratic country to claim
| it will be his last term, only to have another term
| thereafter.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| He would need to change the US constitution to do that.
| rcpt wrote:
| tbf he looks nothing like the guy he was in 2016 and it's
| not like he signed up to a relaxing job
| dudefeliciano wrote:
| he has proven to be a man of his word
| joshlemer wrote:
| "Don't worry, man who famously lies every single time he
| opens his mouth about even basic objective facts before
| everyone's eyes, says he won't abuse his powers, so there's
| nothing to fear!"
|
| Also even going by his own words, what about his "dictator
| on day one" comments?
| TrackerFF wrote:
| See, this is a real problem in the US.
|
| People assume that there's going to be some grand take-over
| event, a third-world coup d'etat if you will.
|
| In reality, modern democracies die slowly. Russia was once a
| democracy, now it's democracy on paper only. What will
| Americans do, when their courts are infringing their freedom?
|
| Again, it happens slowly. Bit by bit, in the boring court
| rooms.
| ramoz wrote:
| What Russia are you talking about?
|
| The brief highly instable 1990s after the Soviet collapse
| that was followed by Putin's rapid consolidation of power?
| e40 wrote:
| This is why people don't fear what is coming, they have no
| clue about history.
| mlnj wrote:
| Decades of defunding and weakening education does that to
| you.
| ramoz wrote:
| This is a false history narrative about Russia. Your
| insight is tarnished.
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| I agree with your general point, but the comparisons to
| Russia don't work.
|
| Russia was barely a functioning democracy in the 1990s and
| had no democratic tradition before that, just different
| flavors of authoritarianism for centuries.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| The problem is the US only really has traditions. We were
| hardly a democracy at our founding in the modern sense of
| the word and as such the guard rails are fairly weak. The
| electoral college wasn't established in some brilliant
| attempt to moderate the votes of states, it was so rich
| land owners could control who ran the country.
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| Yeah, ok? I'm not sure what your point is.
|
| At the time of founding the USA was probably still the
| most liberal and democratic government in history of the
| world.
| bigodbiel wrote:
| America joined the ranks of Russia and China. If you think
| Democracy isn't threatened, then you believe it never existed
| consteval wrote:
| > I find the concerns for Democracy comical
|
| Trump has explicitly and clearly stated he plans to fill the
| supreme court with cronies, and then dissolve massive parts of
| the bureaucracy to instead divert that power to the president.
| Keep in mind, on top of this, he is also now completely immune
| from all crimes.
|
| This new-found concentration of power in the president has
| never before been seen in American politics. It is genuinely
| worrying, even if you believe Trump will use his new powers in
| benevolent ways.
| bamboozled wrote:
| The other problem now is that, whoever succeeds him instantly
| gets the same power, it's actually fucking wild.
| consteval wrote:
| This is working under the assumption a succession will be
| like the one's we're typically used to. With this newfound
| power, that might not be the case. At the expense of
| sounding like a doomer, I think there is a possibility the
| next president won't be democratically elected.
| DinoDad13 wrote:
| The winner of this election tried to overthrow the government.
| You are delusional.
| tootie wrote:
| Since last time, he survived two impeachments for which he was
| dead to rights and had the SC declare he has near total
| immunity for official acts. With a senate majority he knows
| that he can now operate with total impunity. He can cancel
| Congressional appropriations, cancel investigations, direct
| prosecutions and it doesn't matter if he does that illegally
| and he knows it.
| d_burfoot wrote:
| +1. America has immense sociopolitical inertia. It is
| absolutely incomparable to societies like 1930s Germany, 1910s
| Russia, or post-war China that gave rise to the brutal
| dictatorships of the 20th century. This a blessing if you are
| worried about totalitarianism, and a curse if you are hoping
| for deep structural reform.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| A reasonable worry is not that America is going to become
| just like China, Russia, or Nazi Germany, but that it will
| become a bit more like them in some ways. Which I think would
| be bad.
| evantbyrne wrote:
| Read They Thought They Were Free. People who vote for dictators
| _rarely_ view themselves as enablers of the bad things that
| come afterwards, even though they are an essential part of the
| process. Supporters choose to ignore the bad stuff. Let's hope
| the worst of it is just hot air, but I'm not giving people a
| pass this time around personally because it's way too dark.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| How did Ashli Babbitt die? She was shot in the head, on January
| 6th, at point blank range, by the secret service, because she
| was trying to break through a barrier that was protecting the
| vice president of the United States, the man whose job it was
| to certify the election. Why was she there? Because from the
| top of the Republican party down, they spread a lie that the
| election was stolen because they devoid of morals and they knew
| their followers would believe them. The concerns about
| democracy are very real.
| culi wrote:
| In Florida 10% of adults are not allowed to vote. In
| Mississippi, 15% of all black people are not allowed to vote
|
| Florida is particularly bitter because Floridians voted to give
| back felon voting rights and DeSantis and the judicial branch
| he controls just declared it unconstitutional
| culi wrote:
| You should check out the It Could Happen Here podcast!
| ausbah wrote:
| behind the bastards is a great series as well
| holtkam2 wrote:
| I find it less comical. I don't think my friends or family care
| that much about democracy... they just want their guy in
| charge.
| 4fterd4rk wrote:
| "Average Joe" thinks he knows more political science than
| people who went to school. Inadvertently demonstrates why it's
| so easy to manipulate the public into voting against their own
| self interests while convincing them they're somehow smarter
| than the "elites", who are really just educated people trying
| to save them.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| As I get older, I grow increasingly weary of this kind of
| condescending rhetoric. As an example, where were these
| educated saviors when there were calls to "defund the
| police"? Most low-income neighbourhoods want _more_ police
| presence[1], not less because crime _hurts them personally_
| and not just in an abstract way on some spreadsheet.
|
| You can't "save" someone without understanding what their day
| to day problems are.
|
| [1] https://www.usnews.com/news/cities/articles/2019-06-04/ga
| llu...
| jkubicek wrote:
| > Most of you do not understand the type of people that built
| and fought for democracy.
|
| I AM the type of people that built and fought for democracy. My
| people donate to the ACLU and drive people to the polls. We
| marched for civil rights and women's rights. We fight voter
| disenfranchisement and poll intimidators and insurrections.
|
| This is EXACLY why I'm concerned for Democracy.
| csa wrote:
| Nice anecdotes you have there, but history suggests that you
| might have a bit of myopia.
|
| 1. Abraham Lincoln said "America will never be destroyed from
| the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be
| because we destroyed ourselves." Whether you agree or not, some
| people think we may be at that inflection point right now. If
| you think American citizens haven't lost substantial freedoms
| in the recent past, then you haven't been paying attention. Is
| it at the level of "destroying ourselves"? To be determined,
| but the potential is there, and some folks really aren't shy
| about trying to implement that a policy of reduced freedoms.
|
| 2. There are many cases in the last 100 years or so of
| authoritarian regimes rising because people want order during a
| time of distress -- Saddam, Hitler, Mao, Lenin, and others rose
| to authoritarian power by offering stability during unstable
| times. They were welcomed with open arms, and often times
| people (including and especially the military) were willing to
| give up their freedoms for this potential for stability. Some
| folks think that the US is one big destabilizing event from
| welcoming an authoritarian. You may think this way of thinking
| is hubris, but none of us will know that it happened until
| after it has occurred.
|
| I'm glad things have worked out for you, but I hope you have
| open eyes about how things can go south, as they have in the
| past.
| Whatarethese wrote:
| Sounds like the government had been subsidizing your life for
| quite some time.
| haunter wrote:
| How did polls go so wrong? "gold standard" Ann Selzer predicted
| +3 Harris in Iowa and it became +14 Trump. That's an incredible
| miss from a pollster.
| acdha wrote:
| That's one poll and there are always outliers, but the averages
| were pretty accurate - roughly a tossup based on turnout, with
| error rates around the 2-3% we saw. As with 2016, those
| correlated in the same direction so the polling industry still
| hasn't figured out how to weight Trump's impact on turnout.
| athrowaway3z wrote:
| My guess: Goodhart's law
|
| > Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse
| once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.
| kelnos wrote:
| The polls, in aggregate, were fairly accurate: 50/50 chance for
| the most part. The Selzer Iowa poll felt like false hope to me
| immediately.
| ArtTimeInvestor wrote:
| From my perspective, Harris mostly failed to convey what her
| agenda is.
|
| The way I inform myself about politicians is by typing "<name>
| interview" into YouTube and listen to a few hours of interviews
| with them.
|
| With Harris, nothing stuck except that she is pro taxing the
| rich.
|
| With Trump, what stuck is that he is pro border, pro Bitcoin, pro
| tariffs and pro Tesla.
| lom wrote:
| If you had actually done this you would've realized that Trump
| has "concepts of a plan" for childcare and healthcare. Despite
| promising us his plans for 8 years now.
| ArtTimeInvestor wrote:
| This seems to be a misunderstanding.
|
| With "stuck" I mean information about the candidate that
| stuck with me.
| the5avage wrote:
| Is there some analysis why the polls didn't correctly predict the
| result?
|
| A failure in representative polls like this should be avoided
| with statistical methods.
| astrange wrote:
| The polls all said it was 50/50. They seem to be very accurate
| so far.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Trump seemed to have a head start early on, it really didn't
| feel like a close call somehow.
| vdvsvwvwvwvwv wrote:
| Do you mean early in the counting? Surely thay doesn't
| matter.
| agumonkey wrote:
| yeah it's was a fuzzy comment, i guess you mean the
| important/big states are always known last, but he really
| was ahead all along with a comfortable margin
| drawkward wrote:
| The order in which the votes are counted dows not matter!
| rightbyte wrote:
| He should have written "If it is a close race the order
| matter for the perception of who will win".
| Hasnep wrote:
| But it wasn't actually a race, the votes were all finished
| being cast and were just being counted, so concepts like
| "having a head start" or "being ahead" don't really apply.
| lolinder wrote:
| The live-feed counting process really messes with
| people's heads. Trump used this confusion to great effect
| in creating the conspiracy theory about election stealing
| ("we were winning"), but it's not only the right wing
| that gets it confused.
|
| It feels like there has to be a better way to present the
| data to make it more obvious what's actually happening.
| odo1242 wrote:
| Yeah, I personally believe that states should agree to
| collectively wait till the day after to release all
| election results at once. That way there's not as much
| confusion.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| If you look at the polls, they were incredibly close. This
| result is totally consistent with the polls, given the margin
| of error.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| Harris won by around 5 points in NJ, Biden won NJ in 2020 by
| 16 points. That is a far wider swing than any poll predicted.
| mbg721 wrote:
| People in a non-swing state figure "yolo" and vote for
| their emotional favorite, because they're dissatisfied with
| the status quo and have no other way to express it?
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| Well, it was close enough that it should worry the Dems
| and put NJ in play for Republics in the near future. NJ
| has not always voted consistently for democrats.
| manquer wrote:
| The question is not why there was a swing, any number of
| reasons can be attributed ex post facto.
|
| The point is no poll caught any of the swings at all. To
| win with this margin Trump the polls can hardly be tied
| and be called accurate.
|
| The result is not a close at all, and it is not about
| swing states and electoral college swings. Trump is
| winning the popular vote by a large margin something he
| has never be able to do so before.
| hartator wrote:
| Virginia was +5 Harris rcp averages.
|
| This is outside of the margin of error.
| codexb wrote:
| Iowa was polling at +3 Harris. Trump won it +13. Not even
| close to margin of error.
| delecti wrote:
| That was one poll which was wildly out of line with all
| other polls.
|
| All of the polls had Trump ahead there.
| https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-
| general... (No intended endorsement of 538, they're just a
| convenient list of polls)
| trynumber9 wrote:
| I checked 538 before the election and they had Trump winning
| more often than not, but very close.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| Yes, polls often tend to privilege the privileged, Harris
| voters skewed greatly towards higher average incomes and
| college education. And also, according to an exit poll, that
| the majority of Trump's voters decided to vote for him within
| the past week. It's generally been the case that populist
| politicians are underestimated by polling because they can't
| control for these factors.
| fcanesin wrote:
| AtlasIntel did. I met Thiago (CTO) in Rio and Boston while he
| was doing his math PhD at Harvard, he is nice person and a fine
| mathematician: their methodology uses online polling on social
| media with micro-targeting. I only assume competitors are not
| leveraging social media as well as they are. Roman, the CEO,
| said they will donate all their raw data from the final polls
| to Roper Center at Cornell for academic research[1].
|
| [1] https://x.com/andrei__roman/status/1854051400273244534
| fernandotakai wrote:
| atlas intel has got so many elections correctly that i really
| don't understand why other pollsters are not copying their
| methodologies.
|
| even nate silver called then the most accurate pollster
| during the 2020 race.
| fcanesin wrote:
| Voce sabe porque Fernando:
| https://x.com/ajlamesa/status/1854037599641313366
| fernandotakai wrote:
| engracado, eu acabei de ver esse post no reddit: https://
| www.reddit.com/r/fivethirtyeight/comments/1gkq7k7/at...
| everdrive wrote:
| What I heard recently is that the 2020 polls were actually less
| accurate than the 2016 polls. (the 2020 polls simply accurately
| predicted the winner, so there wasn't so much controversy.)
| From that standpoint, it's not clear that polling has had very
| good accuracy from 2016. What I'm not sure about is why
| pollsters are not able to adjust their models towards more
| accuracy, but it does seem to be a longitudinal problem.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| The polls were actually surprisingly close. The final margin
| between the candidates in key states will be smaller than a
| reasonable margin of error for any poll.
|
| The margin in Pennsylvania will continue to shrink, as the only
| place with lots of votes left to count is Philadelphia.
| Michigan might still flip blue, because the only place with
| votes to count is Detroit. Arizona is still a total coin toss,
| with 51k vote difference and >1200k votes left to count.
| Wisconsin is going to be close too, although it will likely
| stay red.
|
| None of that matters when there are less ballots left to count
| than the margin in PA, but still, the message from the polls
| before election was "this will be a nailbiter", and it kind of
| was.
| avazhi wrote:
| Same exact thing that happened in 2016: if you repeatedly
| demonise a section of the population, don't expect that section
| of the population to be honest with you about its opinions when
| those opinions are what led you to demonise it in the first
| place.
| MrScruff wrote:
| I would say from the outside American politics seems to have
| devolved into this ultra-polarised culture war/identity
| politics that doesn't seem to benefit the left at all
| electorally. It probably helps the biggest proponents of it
| (on either side) in terms of playing to their base, but it
| feels like it's overall a net win for the right.
|
| But I don't know how big a factor this is in reality versus
| the economy.
| iainmerrick wrote:
| What are you talking about?
|
| In 2016, the majority of outlets gave Clinton a 90% chance or
| more. This time almost everyone said it was 50:50. The result
| is somewhat similar, the predictions could hardly be more
| different.
| SilverBirch wrote:
| Whilst this is objectively true - this result is basically
| within the margin of error of most polls. I highly doubt
| this argument is going to be accepted by most people. It'll
| be exactly like Nate Silver screaming into the void for the
| last 8 years pointing out he gave Trump a ~30% chance of
| winning and that happens... 30% of the time!
| FireBeyond wrote:
| No, they didn't.
|
| For one, they said Clinton had a 70% chance of winning.
|
| But perhaps more importantly, people's poor understanding
| of stats meant that many people interpreted that as "She's
| going to get 70% of the vote" (i.e., a landslide, "and so I
| don't need to vote").
| kgwgk wrote:
| > they said Clinton had a 70% chance of winning.
|
| No, they didn't.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/upshot/president
| ial...
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/world/clinton-
| has-90-percent...
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| It's more than that. Trump demonized sections of the
| population. I don't know where this lie is coming from that
| it's only the Democrats who did that.
| morkalork wrote:
| It doesn't count. It will never count. Even if they see it,
| they won't acknowledge it. It's not hypocrisy, it's
| loyalty. The only real sin is disobeying the hierarchy or
| breaking the chain of command, which is what calling it out
| would be for them.
| fastball wrote:
| Did Palmer Luckey get fired from Meta/Oculus for being a
| Clinton or a Trump supporter?
| lolinder wrote:
| "You" in this case is "the people taking the polls". The
| media is only trusted by 12% of Republicans and 27% of
| Independents [0]. Right or wrong, most pollsters will be
| treated as belonging to "the media", and the lack of trust
| will almost certainly show in the polls. "The media"
| demonized the right wing, so "the media" can't expect to
| have people self-identify as such to them.
|
| Democrats were absolutely demonized by Trump, but their
| trust in the media is double that of Independents and
| quadruple that of Republicans. So to the extent that
| pollsters are treated as part of the media, they'll get
| more accurate answers out of Democrats.
|
| [0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/651977/americans-trust-
| media-re...
| arp242 wrote:
| Eh? All the polls basically said "we don't know, either can
| win", maybe followed with "X is slightly more likely to win".
|
| Also note that a "90% / 10% change to win" is not necessarily
| "wrong" if the 10% candidate wins. Anyone who has played an RPG
| will tell you that 90% chance to hit is far from certain. Maybe
| if there had been 100 elections, Clinton would have won 90 of
| them.
| getnormality wrote:
| Polling has fundamental issues that can't be solved with
| statistics. The biggest one is the unknown difference between
| who responds to the poll and who votes. And poll response areas
| are very low these days - I've heard well under 1% is common
| (that is, less than 1 out of 100 individuals contacted by the
| pollster answer the questions).
|
| Nate Silver nailed this in the 2016 election. He said Trump's
| victory there was consistent with historically normal polling
| errors.
|
| What may have been less widely appreciated is these errors are
| not related to causes like limited sample size that are
| straightforwardly amenable to statistical analysis. They come
| from the deeper problems with polling and the way those
| problems shift under our feet a little bit with each election.
| atoav wrote:
| One experience I had (coming from an Austrian right wing
| province) is that a significant share of polled people will not
| reveal to the pollster they are voting for the xenophobic
| candidate, because they don't want to be seen as a bigot.
|
| It is like when your doctor is asking you if you eat fast food
| -- some people will downplay it because they know it is wrong,
| but do it anyways in a "weak" moment when nobody is looking.
|
| So suddenly in my village where I know everybody 56% voted for
| the right wing candidate, yet everybody1 claimed not to do that
| when asked before or after.
|
| 1: except one or two open Nazis
| lmz wrote:
| This has a name:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shy_Tory_factor
| the5avage wrote:
| This is the most likely explaination imo. But even then it
| should be possible to use bayes rule to price it into the
| result.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| This is the way it was with Nixon.
|
| After he was finally disgraced fully enough to resign with
| some remaining dignity, you couldn't find anybody who
| admitted to voting for him.
|
| And he had been _re-elected_ to a second term !
| agumonkey wrote:
| Even outside the polls. Trump rallies really started to empty
| out in the last weeks.
| tessierashpool9 wrote:
| "the polls" are often just part of a narrative to influence the
| outcome.
| eigenspace wrote:
| You didn't listen to what the pollsters were saying.
|
| What they said was that they could not predict the outcome, and
| were giving basically 50/50 odds of either candidate winning,
| which is essentially just another way of saying "I have no
| idea".
|
| Just because their odds were 50/50 though, does not mean the
| outcome would be close. The pollsters were all warning that the
| swing states would likely be strongly correlated, so if a
| candidate performed strongly in one swing state, they'd
| probably perform strongly in all of them.
| mike_hearn wrote:
| the5avage is asking why the polls 'failed', that is, could
| not predict the result despite the clarity of the outcome.
| Being unable to compute an answer is the same thing as
| failing for pollsters.
| joelthelion wrote:
| I disagree. There's a big difference between saying "kamala
| will win, it's certain", and "we don't know".
| mike_hearn wrote:
| That's true, lacking confidence is less of a failure than
| confidently getting it wrong. But they weren't actually
| saying "we don't know". They were predicting a split
| election. Do pollsters even have a way to report that
| they lack enough confidence to give a prediction? I
| rarely see CIs on reported poll results so presumably
| they'd have to just refuse to publish any prediction at
| all, which clearly, they weren't doing.
|
| Nate Silver has recently written about the clear problems
| in polling, and in particular the herd-like way they were
| reporting implausible numbers:
|
| https://www.natesilver.net/p/theres-more-herding-in-
| swing-st...
| iainmerrick wrote:
| What sources are you thinking of? Everywhere I looked, I
| saw "the polls are very close, the result probably won't
| be so close but we don't know which way it will go". I
| don't recall seeing anyone outright predicting a very
| tight result (beyond "here's what happens if there's a
| tie" articles -- background info rather than prediction).
| theurerjohn3 wrote:
| I dont belive that claim is actually true?
|
| the most likely result predicted by 538 was 312 for trump
| [0]
|
| the issue with the model was the 2nd most likely result
| was 319 for harris.
|
| they thought the odds of a recount being decisive was
| around 10%.
|
| That hardly seems evidence of "predicting a split
| election". which prediction are you thinking of?
|
| [0] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-
| forecast/
| ecshafer wrote:
| 538 is not longer run by Nate Silver, he runs the silver
| bulletin on substack now.
| theurerjohn3 wrote:
| Apologies if you thought I meant this. I was using them
| as a reference for what people modeling the election from
| polls were predicting!
|
| I don't know what Nate Silver was predicting. Was he
| predicting a near-split election or the situation where
| "someone is decently likely to win decisively, but we
| don't know who"?
| ecshafer wrote:
| Fair enough. Nate Silver was predicting a toss up, but
| was upfront that the model uses many simulations. Since
| the GP mentioned Nate Silver, I mistakenly took your
| comment about 538 as disagreeing with that since Silver
| did used to run 538.
| drawkward wrote:
| >They were predicting a split election.
|
| Who was? A 50% chance to win does not imply that the vote
| count will be close.
|
| Also: statistical uncertainty is a feature not a bug. A
| lot of the idea behind statistics is the ability to
| quantify the certainty of the point estimate. As another
| commenter put it: a statistically sound "idk" is a better
| result than a confidently incorrect estimate, from a
| statistical standpoint.
| fernandopj wrote:
| That's an amazing analysis on systematic bias!
|
| The data he has to back up his "too close results to be
| true random polls" is fantastic.
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| That's fundamental to this election mode. Most swing states
| were within the predicted range, they just happen to all be
| correlated (which is expected) and swung in the same
| direction having a huge effect on the electoral college.
| mbesto wrote:
| First, the words predict and forecast are not
| interchangeable. Polls do not predict outcomes, they merely
| forecast them. Since predictions are purely subjective,
| saying they 'failed' is inappropriate. You can disagree
| with a subjective prediction, but you can't really say they
| failed. Forecasting relies on historic data to extrapolate.
| That same data basically said "its a 50/50 coin toss" so
| the polls did not, in fact, fail. You just thought they
| failed because the precise poll value was not 50/50, but
| rather 49.xx/51.xx which does not account for statistical
| variances.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| The pollsters were predicting a close election. That was
| universally the message. It was unambiguous. I'm sorry if you
| somehow missed that but that's what it was.
| odo1242 wrote:
| They were predicting 50% odds of each candidate winning
| swing states, but with the results for the swing states
| being correlated with each other. This isn't the same as a
| close election, it just means the result can't be predicted
| confidently. It's also worth noting that each individual
| state and the popular vote were within error margins on the
| result.
| oersted wrote:
| Indeed, 538's model showed ~50 out of 100 wins for either
| side, when running simulations. But that doesn't mean that
| they were predicting a 50/50 split, a significant number of
| simulation results showed a large vote margin for one side,
| it was just equally likely which side it would be.
|
| Although I don't actually think it was equally likely like
| that, we are missing something to make all this analysis
| actually informative rather than a "all I know is that I
| don't know anything". We had mountains of evidence indicating
| that it was totally unclear, so frustrating. Perhaps that's
| how the probabilities actually were, but somehow guts pointed
| to Trump much more regardless of personal bias, and in
| hindsight it feels rather obvious. Confirmation bias I guess,
| I still want trust all the expert analysis.
| qrybam wrote:
| Would it be fair to say that Zuck had some idea (and for some
| time)? Otherwise he'd have no reason to write the letter
| about interference.
| DrBazza wrote:
| I guess the US has it's own version of 'Shy Tories' where
| right-leaning voters aren't inclined to share their views
| (truthfully or otherwise) with polls.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shy_Tory_factor
| eigenspace wrote:
| I think it has less to do with shyness and more the fact
| that almost nobody speaks to pollsters on either side of
| the isle. Most polling is done by phone call. When was the
| last time you answered a call from an unknown number?
| odo1242 wrote:
| They do adjust for this when doing the polls. The Shy Tory
| factor was relevant in 2016, though.
| chippiewill wrote:
| I don't think Republican voters are shy.
|
| It's just incredibly hard to build a representative sample
| of the population.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| It absolutely does. You can generally count on anyone who
| describes themselves as "Centrist" or "Apolitical" (doubly
| so if you're on a dating site) to be more to the right.
|
| It used to be "Libertarian" which for a subset was "I'm a
| Republican who likes to smoke weed".
| okdood64 wrote:
| > The pollsters were all warning that the swing states would
| likely be strongly correlated, so if a candidate performed
| strongly in one swing state, they'd probably perform strongly
| in all of them.
|
| Source?
| codexb wrote:
| The last poll for Iowa, from the highest rated pollster for
| Nate Silver, had Harris +3 and Trump won Iowa +13.
|
| The polls were better but still consistently underestimated
| Trumps support by a lot. Basically, the weighting they do for
| the polls now basically just guarantees that they converge on
| the results of the last election.
| red_admiral wrote:
| It seems prediction markets did better on this one:
| https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/prediction-markets-suggest-...
|
| (and this was while Biden was still in the race)
| csomar wrote:
| Heavy partisan bias. Polymarket predict this quite well.
| Putting your money on the line is still a thing.
| vdvsvwvwvwvwv wrote:
| Only if this attracts professional punters. I imagine pros
| prefer to punt on preductible things like 1000 soccer games
| they modelled using a million datapoints rather than 1 hard
| to predict election. A combination of vast predictive data
| and Kelly Criterion. I imagine the election money was dumb.
| It may have happen to be right.
| tomohawk wrote:
| People no longer feel comfortable telling the truth about their
| votes.
|
| https://www.axios.com/2024/10/30/election-gen-z-voting-lies
| raldi wrote:
| The polls predict chance of winning, not share of the vote.
|
| If I predict a coin toss to be 50/50 that doesn't mean I expect
| it to land on its side.
| dotancohen wrote:
| All models are wrong. Some models are useful.
|
| That pool was apparently more the former than the later.
| refurb wrote:
| They weren't that far off. Most were hovering around a tie with
| a margin of error of +/- 2-3%.
|
| Trump won many of those states by 2-3%.
| the5avage wrote:
| Yes but when the result is always skewed to one side then -
| even if the result is within the margin - the predicted mean
| is wrong.
|
| Otherwise the real result would be distributed around the
| mean within the margin of error.
|
| There is some bias and the polls did not correctly factor
| that into their statistical model.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| I guess dead squirrel changed public opinion enough.
| smallstepforman wrote:
| Busy people have no time to answer polsters. When you heavily
| critisize one group of supporters (and the social stigma
| associated with it), dont be suprised that in private they
| think differently. Finally, intentionally fabricating wrong
| poll results can psychologically influence weak minded (due to
| group think and our desire to comply with social norms). So it
| is immature to accept polls as a real indicator of what people
| think (especially in controversial political environment).
|
| In reality, a lot more people have traditional values when it
| comes to race, LGBT whatever, sexism, spiritual values,
| opinions on Russia, Israel etc. However in public they may be
| scared to voice their true opinions.
| ianhawes wrote:
| Most polls are conducted via text message now and have fairly
| robust screening to weed out fake responses.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| The polling margins were razor-thin.
|
| Pollsters such as Nate Silver were giving gut-takes of Red over
| Blue, e.g.:
|
| "Nate Silver: Here's What My Gut Says About the Election, but
| Don't Trust Anyone's Gut, Even Mine" (Oct. 23, 2024)
|
| <https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/opinion/election-polls-
| re...>
|
| I've done a somewhat half-assed take tonight of comparing
| actual returns to latest pre-election polling by state
|
| Why that is, isn't clear. Political pollsters have been
| struggling for years with accuracy issues, particularly as
| landline usage falls (it's <20% in most states now), and
| unknown-caller blocking is more widely used (both on landlines
| and mobile devices).
|
| Polling _does_ have periodic calibration events (we call those
| "elections"), but whatever biases the polls seem to experience
| in the US, it's apparently systemically exceeding adjustment
| factors.
|
| Polls / votes and deltas: QC State EV BP RP
| BV RV Bd Rd 4: AL 9 36 64 32 65 -4
| 1 4: AK 3 45 55 0 0 4: AZ 11
| 49 51 49 50 0 -1 4: AR 6 36 64 34 64
| -2 0 4: CA 54 63 37 60 37 -3 0
| 4: CO 10 56 44 55 43 -1 -1 4: CT 7
| 59 41 54 44 -5 3 4: DC 3 92 7 90 7
| -2 0 4: DE 3 58 42 56 42 -2 0
| 4: FL 30 47 53 43 56 -4 3 4: GA 16
| 49 51 48 51 -1 0 4: HI 4 64 36 0 0
| 4: ID 4 33 67 33 64 0 -3 4: IL 19
| 57 43 52 47 -5 4 4: IN 11 41 57 39 59
| -2 2 4: IA 6 46 54 42 56 -4 2
| 4: KS 6 42 51 41 57 -1 6 4: KY 8
| 36 64 34 64 -2 0 4: LA 8 40 60 38 60
| -2 0 4: ME 2 54 46 0 0 4: ME-1
| 1 61 39 0 0 4: ME-2 1 47 53 0 0
| 4: MD 10 64 36 60 37 -4 1 4: MA 11
| 64 36 62 35 -2 -1 4: MI 15 50 49 0 0
| 4: MN 10 53 47 0 0 4: MS 6 40 60 37
| 62 -3 2 4: MO 10 43 57 42 56 -1 -1
| 4: MT 4 41 59 33 64 -8 5 4: NE 4
| 41 59 42 56 1 -3 4: NE-2 1 54 46 0 0
| 4: NM 5 54 46 51 47 -3 1 4: NV 6
| 50 50 0 0 4: NH 4 53 47 52 47 -1 0
| 4: NJ 14 57 43 51 46 -6 3 4: NY 28
| 59 41 55 44 -4 3 4: NC 16 49 51 48 51
| -1 0 4: ND 3 33 67 31 67 -2 0
| 4: OH 17 46 54 44 55 -2 1 4: OK 7
| 33 67 32 66 -1 -1 4: OR 8 56 44 55 43
| -1 -1 4: PA 19 50 50 0 0 4: RI
| 4 58 42 55 42 -3 0 4: SC 9 44 56 40
| 58 -4 2 4: SD 3 36 64 29 69 -7 5
| 4: TN 11 38 62 34 64 -4 2 4: TX 40
| 46 54 42 57 -4 3 4: UT 6 39 61 43 54
| 4 -7 4: VT 3 67 34 64 32 -3 -2
| 4: VA 13 53 47 51 47 -2 0 4: WA 12
| 59 41 58 39 -1 -2 4: WV 4 30 70 28 70
| -2 0 4: WI 10 50 49 0 0 4: WY
| 3 73 27 70 28 -3 1 Blue votes:
| 43 Red votes: 43 Blue delta: -2.49
| Red delta: 0.63
|
| Key:
|
| - QC: A parsing QC value (number of raw fields)
|
| - State: 2-char state code, dash-number indicates individual
| EVs for NE and ME.
|
| - EV: Electoral votes
|
| - BP: Blue polling
|
| - RP: Red polling
|
| - BV: Blue vote return
|
| - RV: Red vote return
|
| - Bd: Blue delta (vote - poll)
|
| - Rd: Red delta (vote - poll)
|
| The last two results are the cumulative average deltas. Blue
| consistently performed ~2.5 points below polls, red performed
| ~0.6 points _above_ polls.
|
| Data are rounded to nearest whole percent (I'd like to re-enter
| data to 0.1% precision and re-run, though overall effect should
| be similar). Deltas are computed only where voting returns are
| >0.
|
| Data are hand-entered from 538 and ABC returns pages.
|
| Blue consistently polled slightly higher than performance.
| Polls don't seem to include third parties (mostly Green, some
| state returns include RFK or others).
|
| There are all but certainly coding/data entry errors here,
| though for illustration the point should hold.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| NB: If anyone knows a source that has tabular formatted
| polling and election data, that would make it a lot easier to
| compute this than hand-entering.
|
| With updated (and 0.1% decimal precision) election returns,
| Harris's polling delta falls to -2.25% (Orange is unchanged).
| The overall advantage of her opponent over polling data is
| 2.89%. Which is a lot.
|
| Still want to get more precise polling numbers in there, but
| again, it's not shifting a lot. Law of Large Numbers dictates
| that, as multiple rounded numbers tend to even out the
| precision distinction.
|
| I've just re-run my analysis with higher precision on the
| deltas. _Harris performed worse in every single race save DC
| than projected._ Orange performed better in a majority of
| races, by as much as 5+ percent.
|
| (I still need more accurate data for polling, I'll add a
| comment when I've updated that.)
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Updated values, all to 0.1% precision. State
| EV Poll (D/R) Vote (D/R) Delta (D/R) Win AL
| 9 36.1 63.9 34.2 64.8 -1.9 0.9 R AK
| 3 45.1 54.9 40.4 55.6 -4.7 0.7 R AZ
| 11 49.0 51.0 47.2 51.9 -1.8 0.9 R AR
| 6 35.7 64.3 33.6 64.2 -2.1 -0.1 R CA
| 54 62.7 37.3 57.4 40.0 -5.3 2.7 D CO
| 10 56.2 43.8 54.6 43.1 -1.6 -0.7 D CT
| 7 58.7 41.3 54.5 43.8 -4.2 2.5 D DC
| 3 92.4 7.6 92.4 6.7 0.0 -0.9 D DE
| 3 58.1 41.9 56.5 42.0 -1.6 0.1 D FL
| 30 47.0 53.1 43.0 56.1 -4.0 3.0 R GA
| 16 49.4 50.6 48.5 50.8 -0.9 0.2 R HI
| 4 63.7 36.3 62.2 36.1 -1.5 -0.2 D ID
| 4 33.2 66.8 30.7 66.5 -2.5 -0.3 R IL
| 19 57.4 42.6 53.3 45.3 -4.1 2.7 D IN
| 11 41.4 58.6 39.2 59.1 -2.2 0.5 R IA
| 6 46.4 53.7 42.3 56.3 -4.1 2.6 R KS
| 6 41.9 58.1 40.8 57.4 -1.1 -0.7 R KY
| 8 36.0 64.0 33.9 64.6 -2.1 0.6 R LA
| 8 39.6 60.4 38.2 60.2 -1.4 -0.2 R ME
| 2 54.3 45.7 53.1 44.3 -1.2 -1.4 D ME-1
| 1 61.2 38.8 60.4 33.6 -0.8 -5.2 D ME-2
| 1 46.9 53.1 45.0 52.9 -1.9 -0.2 R MD
| 10 64.2 35.8 60.2 37.3 -4.0 1.5 D MA
| 11 64.0 36.0 61.9 35.9 -2.1 -0.1 D MI
| 15 50.6 49.4 48.2 49.8 -2.4 0.4 R MN
| 10 52.9 47.1 51.1 46.8 -1.8 -0.3 D MS
| 6 40.5 59.5 37.7 61.1 -2.8 1.6 R MO
| 10 42.9 57.2 40.1 58.5 -2.8 1.3 R MT
| 4 41.0 59.0 38.4 58.5 -2.6 -0.5 R NE
| 4 41.3 58.7 38.5 60.2 -2.8 1.5 R NE-1
| 1 41.6 58.4 42.4 56.3 0.8 -2.1 R NE-2
| 1 53.5 46.5 51.2 47.5 -2.3 1.0 D NE-3
| 1 22.6 77.4 22.5 76.3 -0.1 -1.1 R NM
| 5 53.7 46.3 51.6 46.1 -2.1 -0.2 D NV
| 6 50.0 50.0 46.8 51.5 -3.2 1.5 R NH
| 4 53.0 47.0 51.0 48.0 -2.0 1.0 D NJ
| 14 56.9 43.2 51.5 46.6 -5.4 3.4 D NY
| 28 58.9 41.5 55.4 44.6 -3.5 3.1 D NC
| 16 49.4 50.6 47.7 51.1 -1.7 0.5 R ND
| 3 33.3 66.7 30.8 67.5 -2.5 0.8 R OH
| 17 45.8 54.2 43.9 55.2 -1.9 1.0 R OK
| 7 33.2 66.8 31.9 66.2 -1.3 -0.6 R OR
| 8 56.5 43.6 54.9 42.5 -1.6 -1.1 D PA
| 19 50.0 50.0 48.4 50.7 -1.6 0.7 R RI
| 4 58.4 41.7 55.5 42.4 -2.9 0.7 D SC
| 9 43.7 56.3 40.5 58.1 -3.2 1.8 R SD
| 3 36.0 64.0 33.0 64.7 -3.0 0.7 R TN
| 11 38.1 61.9 34.4 64.3 -3.7 2.4 R TX
| 40 46.3 53.7 42.4 56.3 -3.9 2.6 R UT
| 6 38.9 61.1 38.9 58.9 0.0 -2.2 R VT
| 3 66.5 33.5 64.3 32.6 -2.2 -0.9 D VA
| 13 53.4 46.6 51.8 46.6 -1.6 0.0 D WA
| 12 58.9 41.1 58.6 39.1 -0.3 -2.0 D WV
| 4 29.8 70.2 27.9 70.2 -1.9 0.0 R WI
| 10 50.6 49.5 48.8 49.7 -1.8 0.2 R WY
| 3 27.4 72.6 26.1 72.3 -1.3 -0.3 R
| Blue votes: 56 Red votes: 56 Blue delta:
| -2.26 Red delta: 0.42
|
| Observations:
|
| - Harris did more poorly than forecast _in all but three
| races_ : DC, UT, and NE-1.
|
| - Her opponent did _better_ than forecast in 32 races.
|
| - Many of Harris's bigger under-performances were in races
| she _won_ , notably CA. FL and TX are losses with far worse-
| than-polled returns.
|
| Net average polling bias is 2.68 points favouring the GOP
| across 56 contests.
| Izkata wrote:
| > The last two results are the cumulative average deltas.
| Blue consistently performed ~2.5 points below polls, red
| performed ~0.6 points above polls.
|
| So basically consistent with 2016 and 2020: Most polls have a
| 2-5 point bias in favor of Democrats. Maybe a bit improved
| from previous elections.
| davedx wrote:
| If you read on the methodology of some of these 'election
| models', you'll understand there's a lot of narrative chasing
| that goes on (or even just "herding towards the least
| controversial number").
|
| For example, from Nate Silver's blog:
|
| > The Silver Bulletin polling averages are a little fancy. They
| adjust for whether polls are conducted among registered or
| likely voters and house effects. They weight more reliable
| polls more heavily. And they use national polls to make
| inferences about state polls and vice versa. It requires a few
| extra CPU cycles -- but the reward is a more stable average
| that doesn't get psyched out by outliers.
|
| All this weighting and massaging and inferencing results in
| results that are basically wrong.
|
| Come Election Night he basically threw the whole thing in the
| trash too!
| kragen wrote:
| The polls were predicting a near-tie for months. That was the
| correct prediction.
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| Did they get an unlucky dice roll then?
| kragen wrote:
| Unlucky in the sense that it would have been less bad if
| Trump had lost?
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| Im suggesting an election is not a random event. Sampling
| error terminology is being mistaken for probability of
| the underlying thing.
|
| There was no 50/50 chance of the voter base waking up and
| instead voting for Kamala yesterday.
| kragen wrote:
| Are you coming at this from a frequentist perspective, a
| Bayesian perspective, or some other formulation of
| probability?
|
| From a frequentist perspective, it makes no sense to talk
| about probabilities of the outcomes of processes that
| can't be repeated, such as elections. So the question is
| then, "Why couldn't the polls predict a result?" And we
| know the answer: because the polls weren't precise
| enough. We already knew that.
|
| From a Bayesian perspective, lack of knowledge is the
| same thing as nondeterminism in the underlying processes.
| So, to a Bayesian, you're just wrong; there _was_ a 52
| /48 chance of the voter base waking up and instead voting
| for Kamala yesterday.
|
| If from some other formulation, which?
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| > From a frequentist perspective
|
| This is so confused. The probability models are designed
| to describe situations where cause and effect is not
| known.causes still exist whether you can repeat them in
| an experiment,
|
| You are confusing logical models with real world
| decisions and actions.
| kragen wrote:
| I'm asking what you mean by "probability" and "chance",
| but it sounds like the answer is that you don't have any
| idea, because you've never studied statistics even to the
| point of taking an introductory class. At this point
| you've explicitly rejected foundational axioms of both
| frequentist probability and Bayesian probability, with no
| apparent awareness that this means you have rejected the
| entire field of statistics.
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| You're missing the point. Axiomatic systems aim to be
| internally consistent. The question is whether they are
| good model of a real life situation. Your technical
| knowledge is distracting you from the more fundamental
| questions.
|
| There is no sense in which Harris had a 50% chance and
| had an unlucky day. The only "chance" going on is how
| likely the poll sample represents the population. The
| math behind that assumes you have a genuine sample and
| ignores realities like preference falsification.
|
| Please think and read charitably before making personal
| attacks. I generally take that as a sign you are acting
| in bad faith and I do not want to interact with you.
| Goodbye.
| kragen wrote:
| I want to apologize for my impatience; you don't deserve
| to be personally attacked, even though what you're saying
| doesn't make sense.
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| Thanks. I don't think I'm ready to break this down
| Socraticly to find our shared understanding.
| kragen wrote:
| It's a difficult day for me; maybe for you too.
| pfortuny wrote:
| Single-event statistics projections are pretty useless. Much
| more so when the "projections" are 50/50.
| amusingimpala75 wrote:
| Historically (last two elections) the polls have been about 2%
| further left than the actual result. Thus a 50/50 could/should
| b be interpreted in Trump's favor
| inthebin wrote:
| Because a percentage of people who vote trump tell everyone
| they will vote dem to not be bullied or frozen out by their
| friends, relatives, colleagues, etc. Dr Phil described it well
| I think.
| trickstra wrote:
| I have yet to see any polls predict any result in any election.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Bookies are a way better indicator than polls, I've opted to
| stop checking polls and only follow the bookies. Nearly all of
| them gave Trump at least a few percentage points of an edge, at
| a minimum. Now I'm not saying they're infallible, but they make
| or break their business by figuring these odds out, so there's
| a lot of skin in the game for them to be on point.
| athrowaway3z wrote:
| I've yet to see anyone else mention it but my theory:
|
| Messaging is build on focus groups, and tweaked to get the best
| results by both sides. That group is the same group that does
| polls.
|
| Its a Goodhart's law in action: Any observed statistical
| regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon
| it for control purposes.
| nojs wrote:
| The betting odds were not particularly close, especially in the
| last few weeks. It's better to look at these rather than
| polling.
| diognesofsinope wrote:
| Vegas and prediction markets consistently had Trump as the
| favorites.
|
| Polling companies are in the business of media deals and
| government contracts. They will develop methodology and
| reporting to that end and the money is in "a close and
| contested race", even if it won't be.
| bitsandboots wrote:
| The conversation has become so polarized that people are
| preferring to hide their intentions to avoid confrontation.
| Davidzheng wrote:
| The polling system even without herding is broken because no
| one wants to respond to random texts
| dogleash wrote:
| > Is there some analysis why the polls didn't correctly predict
| the result?
|
| The people in a swing state choosing to spend time responding
| to polls are insufficiently representative. They're drowning in
| advertisements, calls, texts, unexpected people at their door
| and randos on the street. Why would they give time to a
| pollster?
| sanderjd wrote:
| Seems like they pretty much did? The polls said "a close race
| in each of the swing states, which either candidate could win".
| And that's that happened, no?
| sanderjd wrote:
| Seems like they pretty much did? The polls said "a close race
| in each of the swing states, which either candidate could win".
| And I that's what happened, no?
| vagab0nd wrote:
| Why do you think the polls _would_ correctly predict the
| result?
|
| Use Polymarket instead, where money is on the line.
| seanw444 wrote:
| I kept hearing people laugh at Polymarket. "It's not a real
| poll!" But it guessed correctly when almost none of the polls
| did. I think I'll continue to listen to betting markets.
| odo1242 wrote:
| Thing is, prediction markets tend to be gamed by people who
| bet large amounts of money. I used a (play money) prediction
| market platform before and there was literally a "markets
| that get easily gamed by whales" section on the website.
| cjbillington wrote:
| If you're talking about "whalebait" markets on manifold,
| that's a bit disingenuous - these are markets where the
| thing you're betting about is related to trading behaviour
| itself, i.e. self-referential markets.
|
| I don't disagree that the one french dude betting 30M on
| Trump on polymarket showed that there isn't enough
| liquidity in such markets for such distortions to be
| corrected, but whalebait on Manifold is not really related.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| Historically, the polls tend to skew about 3% left on average.
| So if the left is showing a 3% lead, it's more likely that
| reality is they're even. Have a look at this site - they were
| tied nationally with Trump having a healthy lead in most swing
| states:
|
| https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/202...
|
| It was no surprise he won, IMO.
| torginus wrote:
| All the polls I've been reading (including ones like betting
| sites, who lose money by being biased), were predicting this
| exact outcome.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| They did. The pollsters that were close in 2020 were close in
| 2024 as well. (Rasmussen, AtlasIntel)
|
| My explanation for this is that most polls were fabricated,
| showing enthusiasm for (D) which wasn't there. Basically, a
| form of propaganda. The most striking example here is Selzer,
| with that Harris+3 Iowa poll the day before the election.
| seanw444 wrote:
| Just like 2016.
| eigenvalue wrote:
| Yes, here is a very good breakdown of how polls were
| systematically wrong by the French guy who just made over $40mm
| of profit betting on Trump in the prediction markets:
|
| https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1853818243003125934
|
| He put Trump's true probability of winning at 90% and a win of
| the popular vote at 75%.
| _dark_matter_ wrote:
| His first point - weighting by 2020 vote - is something that
| Nate Cohn pointed out very concretely as a methodological
| choice that wouldn't be obvious until the election [0]. Even
| in retrospect that seems fair, at least based on the analysis
| that Nate put together.
|
| Worth pointing out though that most pollsters _have_ been
| weighting by 2020 vote, so in general this isn't a fair
| critique of the entire polling industry. There are other fair
| critiques though, for example, that there are entire
| populations of people that are almost impossible to reach now
| (e.g. those who don't answer unknown numbers, young people,
| etc.).
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/upshot/polling-
| methods-el...
| odo1242 wrote:
| I feel like this is confirmation bias, especially since it's
| a very large number of polls from reputable organizations
| being compared against one person's opinion.
|
| Even if the true probability isn't 50% I doubt it's that far
| off.
| culi wrote:
| The polls did pretty well this election. They underestimated
| Trump, but by less than previously. Polls pretty overwhelmingly
| showed a 50/50 race in every swing state but those odds were
| always correlated since they're not independent events
|
| People are looking at the popular vote and freaking out but
| lets not forget that there's still 7 million left to count in
| California and it's expected to net Harris almost 3 million
| votes
| Molitor5901 wrote:
| This is purely devil's advocate: Many polls may just be
| political levers, designed and executed with a predetermined
| outcome so it can be used in mass media. There is an undeniable
| tilt to mainstream news companies and almost confirmation bias
| in their polling.. Does make me wonder.
| phs318u wrote:
| To all the people wondering why Trump has been elected, the
| answer is very simple and has been true in all countries that
| have had elections. When a large section of the voting public is
| chronically missing out on the benefits of what they're told is a
| "growing economy", only to observe continued "unfair" extremes of
| wealth distribution, they become disenchanted with the system
| that has generated this situation. By definition almost, they
| become very willing prey for any demagogue that threatens to
| upend the system, turn over the money-changers tables. It's
| irrelevant whether the demagogue's policies will work or not.
| It's irrelevant whether the demagogue is provably lying or not.
| It's all about repressed anger being unleashed and finding a
| target. Even if the target is not the cause of their misery. And
| so every latent form of bigotry finds expression and is easily
| exploited by the demagogue.
|
| It's worth re-reading Goebells primarily because his
| understanding of this psychology is what made Nazi demagoguery so
| devastatingly successful. Any attempt by a party to attack the
| demagogue without directly addressing the elephant in the room
| (the growing class of working poor) is not only destined to fail,
| but destined to fail badly. If I hate you - really hate you - I
| don't mind copping a few painful blows if it means I get to see
| you bludgeoned to near death. Vengeance is an incredibly powerful
| motivator. People trying to lump all of Trump's supporters as
| Nazi's are making a grave mistake and refusing to see the forest
| for the trees. Just as most Germans in WWII were not Nazis yet
| supported Hitler, so too with Trump. Latinos, blacks, gays and
| women all voted for Trump. Don't assume they're all stupid. When
| I hate you, I'm happy to burn in hell if you're there with me.
|
| Of course, this is a simple generalisation and there are lots of
| "sub-reasons" (the bro-vote, the foot-gun Democrat advertising -
| "he doesn't have to know!", etc). If the Democrats had chosen
| Bernie Sanders as their candidate back in 2016, they would've had
| eight years in power. It's no coincidence that Bernie had a lot
| of support from those that otherwise voted Trump. They felt that
| he was real and was really concerned about them and would really
| do something to assuage their pain. Now? Now they're just mad -
| "enough is enough".
|
| However, anger is not sustainable for too long and all demagogues
| eventually come undone because once the heat of anger is gone and
| you look around and realise things are worse than ever - well,
| that's when things can REALLY get dangerous.
| squigz wrote:
| Thank you for putting this into words. I have been struggling
| to articulate the 'why' myself.
| jajko wrote:
| Hmm, as someone from Europe I've never heard labeling of
| trump's supporters as nazis, that's quite a strong claim I
| haven't seen much evidence of.
|
| Not that you are not correct in many aspects, but wasn't
| inequality sort of part of whole US setup and 'american dream'?
| Back to good ol' days when poor were _poor_ and a largely
| invisible part of society.
|
| For an european eye US is setup on inequality by principle,
| which does a lot of good and bad. When looking at resilience
| and strength of economy that Europe can never ever dream of
| reaching, I'd say bigger good trumps (eh) those evils but I
| have only very limited view. In Europe even big success is mild
| compared to how far in US things can grow into. Complex topic
| this is.
| dandellion wrote:
| I'm from Europe too. There was a republican rally at the
| Madison Square Garden a few weeks back, and there were a lot
| of comparisons with the nazis, with people in social media
| calling them nazis and so on. This article [1] for example
| mentions "Several prominent Democrats have drawn comparisons
| between Trump's Madison Square Garden rally this weekend to a
| 1939 Nazi event held there.". I don't know if the comparisons
| were justified or not, because I haven't even read the
| article, just wanted to add it as reference since I
| remembered that happening and comments calling republicans
| nazis on places like reddit.
|
| 1: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-
| allies-...
| e40 wrote:
| It has literally been a thing for years now. Since he lost
| the 2020 election he has ramped up his rhetoric and
| surrounded himself with people that are causing the
| comparison to be made.
| metabagel wrote:
| He does have support from actual literal Nazis. I don't think
| there a huge number of them, but he has their vote.
| svara wrote:
| I get this line of reasoning, but the US economy is thriving,
| unemployment is low and wages are growing rapidly at the low
| end too.
|
| Nazi ideology doesn't work well as a comparison in my opinion,
| because Weimar Germany was crippled by reparations,
| hyperinflation, mass unemployment, an acute world economic
| crisis and traumatized from a devastating war.
|
| The US is nowhere close to any of that, it's doing pretty well
| all in all.
| rincebrain wrote:
| This disconnect is, I think, the point.
|
| There are a number of people who feel they're doing pretty
| shittily right now, no matter what people's metrics say, and
| "no you're not" is not a particularly constructive response.
|
| I'm not an economist, I have no detailed explanation to offer
| for this disconnect, but I personally know a number of people
| outside of tech who are not fiscally irresponsible, but are
| struggling to reliably keep food on the table without
| consuming their savings - most frequently because they have
| some health condition that necessitates costly things, and
| their pay at work has not kept pace as cost of living
| increases have happened.
|
| So I have little trouble believing people in similar straits
| could vote for someone who made bigger swings about "I know
| you're hurting".
| metabagel wrote:
| Well, it's also the effect of Fox News, right wing radio,
| and right wing leaning podcasts which convince people to
| focus on issues which can be leveraged for political gain.
| There are lots of problems, but right wing voters are
| convinced to stew about a relatively small subset of the
| totality. And regarding those problems they also are only
| ever presented with a subset of available rationales and
| solutions.
|
| This also simplifies things for them. Instead of the myriad
| of real problems in the world, conservatives can
| concentrate on only a few, all of which have simple
| rationales and simple solutions.
| phs318u wrote:
| The US economy is not thriving for a very large swathe of the
| population. The extreme disparities in wealth, the non-
| reporting of under-employment (as opposed to unemployment)
| all skew statistics.
|
| https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/low-unemployment-
| stati...
| e40 wrote:
| > I get this line of reasoning, but the US economy is
| thriving, unemployment is low and wages are growing rapidly
| at the low end too.
|
| Many make this mistake. The stock market is thriving. Some
| people are thriving. Many people are not. They are stuck in
| low wage service jobs. It's not about unemployment.
| metabagel wrote:
| There was a global pandemic. We are in a recovery. The U.S.
| is doing far better than Europe in our recovery. We are
| basically most of the way back, and people will start to
| feel better next year. Trump will benefit despite having
| done nothing.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| Just to clarify: you're talking about the book "Goebells" by
| Peter Longerich?
| phs318u wrote:
| I was referring to Goebbels' own words regarding the
| application of propaganda and its efficacy when you
| understand the psychology of the masses as a collective
| entity (quite distinct from the psychology of the
| individual). He was a prolific writer (I believe his diaries
| measured 40 volumes!).
| e40 wrote:
| I completely agree and I've been slowly coming to this same
| conclusion. To this, I will add:
|
| The Democratic party has left a lot of people behind and their
| only choice is to turn to the other party, in the hope they
| will help. Yes, it's not logical given the facts on the ground,
| the other party likely won't help them, but the other party is
| _saying_ they will help. And that 's the important thing.
|
| Why did the Democrats leave people behind? It's the perception
| of "wokeness" and the feeling men have of being marginalized. A
| _lot_ of men feel emasculated by the state and direction of our
| culture. And those men who feel this way are not college
| educated, so they are looked down upon and they mainly have
| service sector jobs. In other words, they are being left behind
| in the great economy they see everyone talking about. The jobs
| that created the middle class (manufacturing jobs of the last
| century) have moved elsewhere, and they feel they can no longer
| support their families in the way their parents did.
|
| A lot of us here are not feeling that pain. I don't. But I see
| it out there and there are a _lot_ of them. Trump won by a
| larger margin than he did in 2016.
|
| Think about this: the Democrats avoided primaries in the last 3
| election cycles. That told a lot of people: we don't give a
| fuck about you.
|
| Others have said it here, but I'll repeat it. If Bernie Sanders
| had been the nominee in 2016, we would have likely had 8 years
| of Bernie and no Trump. Bernie Sanders was the only candidate
| in 2016 that resonated with the pain people were feeling, and
| those people who voted for Trump would have (mostly) voted for
| Sanders.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Great point, The fact that there are a ton of people who
| wanted Sanders and who flipped to Trump should have given Dem
| leadership a clue. People want real change, whether its a
| Liberal or a Republican they don't care, they are done with
| mainstream politicians who promise to keep things the same.
| squigz wrote:
| > A lot of men feel emasculated by the state and direction of
| our culture.
|
| Can you elaborate on this, because it's a sentiment expressed
| a couple times in this thread, and I'm not sure I get it?
| e40 wrote:
| It's a good question (I don't like that you were
| downvoted). I've heard repeatedly that young men feel they
| cannot take care of their family. They can't afford a
| house, primarily. But there are other things. Men go to
| college at a much lower rate than women. Because of that,
| those men make less than their female counterparts (who
| went to college). This "the man makes less" is another part
| of the emasculation, when you add it to all the other
| things. And one of those things is the dating apps, which
| for many men is a terrible experience.
| squigz wrote:
| Thanks for the answer. I won't lie, I was half-expecting
| this to be something about trans issues, but I'm
| pleasantly surprised.
|
| > young men feel they cannot take care of their family.
| They can't afford a house, primarily.
|
| I don't think this is particularly gender-exclusive, but
| absolutely one of the largest problems the younger
| generations face. How are we going to raise a family, buy
| a house - hell, just live a decently comfortable life?
|
| > Men go to college at a much lower rate than women.
| Because of that, those men make less than their female
| counterparts (who went to college).
|
| Men feeling threatened by women who make more than them
| or are smarter than them seems like something that needs
| to be worked on individually rather than socially.
|
| > And one of those things is the dating apps, which for
| many men is a terrible experience.
|
| Well, dating apps were a terrible idea from the get-go,
| but hasn't dating always been a nightmare for most men
| for most of history? I don't disagree that there's
| aspects of using dating apps that could cause some self-
| esteem issues (for both genders, I will add again) but
| wouldn't that also apply to dating 20-30 years ago?
| hyperdunc wrote:
| Trump may not have deserved to win, but the Democrats deserved to
| lose - and I'm relieved they did.
|
| Maybe after this rematch the blue team will finally understand
| the loss was _their_ fault, so they can start moving away from
| the abominable ideology and spiteful elitism that handed them
| this result.
| leke wrote:
| This is weird because the information I was getting was that
| Harris was leading the opinion polls and the Trump supporters
| were dropping him at the last minute. Now this feels like a
| rigged election.
| nikodotio wrote:
| Or the information you were getting was not comprehensive.
| hyperdunc wrote:
| > the information I was getting
|
| What does this tell you?
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| > Now this feels like a rigged election.
|
| As a fellow democrat, lose with some grace.
| manquer wrote:
| It is a rigged election, just not in the way republicans mean
| it. All American elections are rigged to make it deliberately
| difficult for many people to vote.
| Spivak wrote:
| It's a joke about mail in ballots in 2020 my dude.
| rhdunn wrote:
| There was a lot of rallying on the republican side to go vote
| online. I didn't see a lot of that on the democrat side.
| Pundits mentioned a lack of Trump's ground game, but I think
| online networking effects of republicans urging others to vote
| helped him whereas the ground game helped Harris.
|
| It was a close election. Possibly driven by the echo chambers
| people are in -- like seeing "I voted for Hilary" in left
| leaning sources and "I voted for Trump" in right leaning
| sources. Like when Anna Seltzer's poll came out the left ran
| with that but largely ignored the +10 poll for Trump that came
| out shortly after.
|
| I personally try to vary my sources to counter the echo chamber
| effects. I don't always agree with everything that is said, I
| just want to try and understand what is going on.
|
| I was seeing commentators on the left decrying the Puerto Recan
| joke, saying that it would hurt the Trump campaign. Then Biden
| made his comment about Trump supporters being garbage which the
| left dismissed. After that the right took it as a symbol,
| making memes about bins going to vote, Trump arriving to
| rallies in a garbage truck, people wearing bin bags to vote,
| etc. The left didn't see that going on, or dismissed things
| like the garbage truck as a stunt.
|
| A similar thing with Trump's McDonald's stint. Both of these
| helped connect with regular workers, something that Harris
| didn't have. Something that the commentators on the left failed
| to see or understand.
|
| I don't follow things like TikTok, but I heard a commentator
| mention how that helped women turn against Trump, especially
| amongst new voters. I suspect that due to the ranking algorithm
| and bubbles that this predominantly targetted democratic or
| left leaning voters as there were many women that voted for
| Trump.
| johnny22 wrote:
| > Like when Anna Seltzer's poll came out the left ran with
| that but largely ignored the +10 poll for Trump that came out
| shortly after.
|
| My understanding is that they were a less trusted pollster in
| the first place especially vs Ann's poll.
| rhdunn wrote:
| Fair enough. Interestingly, that +10% poll was closer to
| the current +14% that Trump is leading by in Iowa [1].
|
| It would be interesting to see the sampling data between
| the different polls to see how they adjust for potential
| biases.
|
| [1] https://apnews.com/projects/election-results-2024/iowa
| e40 wrote:
| Maybe you forgot to include the /s, but I had my first laugh
| while reading this thread.
|
| Seriously, the people who voted for him probably didn't want to
| defend it to people asking their opinion.
| nixdev wrote:
| Most of the demographic made out to be a "boogeyman" ie
| normal people, recognized DEI as "a license to hunt
| Republicans".
|
| If you're a normal person and some random intern with a 10%
| non-American accent probably in their early 20s calls you
| from some random number greeting you by your full name and
| says they're a part of some polling company you wouldn't
| recognize even if you'd heard of it before, are you going to
| confess in the slightest to them you intend to vote for
| orange cheeto man who is like literally worse than mustache
| man from WW2?
|
| Probably not.
| nrook wrote:
| From what I can tell, the polls were just really bad. Less than
| 1% response rates. This provided hope for various sides at
| various times but at the end of the day they basically aren't
| that useful.
| nixdev wrote:
| You still think the news is real?
| mbix77 wrote:
| Sad day for the world.
| amai wrote:
| But a good day for USA. With Trump winning a civil war is
| avoided.
| fullstackchris wrote:
| Civil war is a bit of an overstatement for what would again
| be a bunch of clowns trying to storm the capitol
| amai wrote:
| And a good day for the stock holders in the USA. The
| stockmarket likes Trump.
| sidcool wrote:
| What? Why? I am genuinely curious. I am not an American, so
| can't vote or have a strong opinion. Trump is weird, but does
| it spell doom?
| guerrilla wrote:
| The entire world will be affected. Trade wars against China
| and Europe, the loss of Ukraine, the end of Palestine, war
| with Iran, potential dissolution of NATO and that's only
| what's likely. Who knows what other shit is coming down the
| sewer.
| haizhung wrote:
| Not talk of basically losing all prospective of doing
| something against climate change.
| badpun wrote:
| Most people already believed climate change won't be
| mitigated.
| ramchip wrote:
| I'm not American either, but I see a war going on between
| authoritarian states and democratic ones, and Trump
| supporting the wrong side.
|
| It deeply concerns me from a human rights perspective and
| also on a personal security level because I live near Taiwan.
|
| I've also felt the impact of disinformation and conspiration
| theories spreading from the US to my country and I fear it's
| only going to get worse.
| aurareturn wrote:
| >I've also felt the impact of disinformation and
| conspiration theories spreading from the US to my country
| and I fear it's only going to get worse.
|
| Examples?
| ramchip wrote:
| I've received unhinged antivax leaflets twice at home, in
| Japan.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _deeply concerns me from a human rights perspective_
|
| What should concern you is your singular belief in
| propaganda that powerful entities care about human rights
| over their own interests.
| ramchip wrote:
| I don't find this kind of cynicism accurate or
| particularly helpful as a life philosophy. I've
| personally had the luck to meet people and be a member of
| organizations that do care and have power to make some
| difference.
| csomar wrote:
| Blue brain washing. I am not holding my hopes high but with
| Trump we will probably have less wars, less trade wars, less
| inflation and a better economy.
| _ink_ wrote:
| How exactly will tariffs lead to less inflation?
| lobsterthief wrote:
| Most economists agree that with the policies he's proposed,
| inflation will increase massively.
| a_victorp wrote:
| He was the one that started the trade wars with China and
| promised to tariff everything. Why do you think there will
| be less trade war?
| zmmmmm wrote:
| It probably does in terms of averting climate change. Of
| course he might indulge Elon and remove all nuclear
| restrictions and save the world, who knows. But the chance of
| persuading the globe towards collective action seems
| ludicrously out of reach in time to avert pretty severe
| outcomes.
| siffin wrote:
| The world needs to build over 400 nuclear plants starting
| right now to replace fossil fuel energy needs, even with
| about a 33% reduction in global energy consumption.
|
| That means a new plant starting up every 3 days. Any slower
| and it's not enough. This was data from a couple of years
| ago as well. We're never going to get close, even if Elon
| himself is modern jesus.
| Kelteseth wrote:
| Wasn't this number flawed, because it mapped the energy
| needs 1:1? Like, the efficiency of a heat pump or a
| battery is vastly better than current motors or burning
| oil.
| siffin wrote:
| I don't know, but I doubt it, and what you're stating is
| essentially the opposite, fossil fuels are far more
| energy dense than any other form of energy, you can't run
| long haul diesel trucks on batteries, not without an
| insane network of battery swap stations. The grid
| infrastructure alone needs to grow at least 4x to manage
| this.
|
| I can't find the source, but it was in a video
| presentation by Kevin Anderson, a senior research fellow
| at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
|
| 400 nuclear plants isn't actually that many in terms of
| numbers, but constructing them is an enormous task.
| Tainnor wrote:
| From a European perspective, many here are very worried that
| Trump is going to end support for Ukraine and that Putin will
| be allowed free reign.
| corpMaverick wrote:
| Leaving aside what Trump can do. It is sad to realize that a
| person with so many character faults documented in public can
| reach the presidency of such powerful country. You loose hope
| on humanity and wonder if liberal democracies can actually
| last.
| sanmon3186 wrote:
| Maybe it's just my echo chamber but people in India seemed more
| pro-Trump. This is despite Kamala having Indian roots. People
| usually take pride when anyone with Indian ancestry doing great
| on the world stage.
| lgvln wrote:
| This is sad to hear. I guess Trump's values (whatever they
| might be) resonated more with them than Harris's progressive
| liberal values.
| kshri24 wrote:
| India is extremely conservative due to Hindus being
| majority. What US considers far-right is considered left-
| of-center in India. US has gone so far to the extreme left
| that if Kamala had been elected you would have had full
| blown Communism next. It had gotten that bad. Too bad you
| guys don't realize how effed up it all looks from outside
| your bubble. Especially those countries who have already
| gone through that Hell (India went through that for 60+
| years before we elected Modi). God saved America from total
| collapse today. That's all I'll say.
| ImaCake wrote:
| I mean Modi is (was?) the member of a radical nationalist
| hindu milita from the age of 8. Modi has been popularly
| elected multiple times so seeing someone similar win the US
| election is probably what you want to see if you are a BJP
| voter.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > This is despite Kamala having Indian roots
|
| I'd imagine most people can see past origins and skin colors,
| especially when it's such a shaky argument. You don't support
| someone just because their mom were born in your country 70
| years ago
| manquer wrote:
| > despite Kamala having Indian roots.
|
| She hasn't really embraced that, although being raised by her
| indian mother and presumably closer to her than her Jamaican
| father, she hasn't her visited her ancestral village or come
| in her official capacity or been part of any major India - US
| initiatives.
|
| Indians like diaspora who actually embrace their identity,
| there is comparable example with Rishi Sunak, his
| achievements was celebrated because he made the effort to
| connect, although Indians(in India) would disapprove of his
| and Tory policies around immigration.
| dartharva wrote:
| Because Trump is more vocal about having friendly ties with
| India. He bothered to go out of his way and visit the
| country, attend public events in it and have diplomatic
| talks.
|
| Biden and his administration, meanwhile, just conveniently
| ignored the whole country. He only visited because he had to
| for the G20 summit, and talks were lackluster.
| intended wrote:
| Of course, India rightly believes that Modi will be able to
| handle Trump through flattery and appealing to his
| "strongman" image. This also feeds into the desire and belief
| that in projecting or using power that is prevalent in India.
| Trump is the better candidate for all the strongman
| governments in the world.
| bigodbiel wrote:
| Putin, Xi, the New Totalitarian World Order: Won A very dark
| chapter in human history is about to start and all from "our"
| own free will.
| mv4 wrote:
| Speak for yourself.
| amanzi wrote:
| "The government you elect is the government you deserve."
| --Thomas Jefferson
| tigroferoce wrote:
| OK, but what about the rest of the world that doesn't get to
| vote for this?
| bretanac93 wrote:
| Easy, the rest of the world gets to watch, and solve their
| own problems.
| tankenmate wrote:
| That's the problem though isn't it. A lot of the problems
| don't just belong to the US, or just belong to everyone
| else.
|
| The problem with isolationism is that everyone else gets to
| do their thing without your input.
| benfortuna wrote:
| If at all possible, I am perfectly fine with a
| diminishing role of the US in world politics.
| smatija wrote:
| Historically main problem of a large part of the world
| (from Vietnam to Yemen) is USA bombing them ...
| DeathArrow wrote:
| It's called "protecting democracy and freedom".
| tmoravec wrote:
| Right now it's Russia bombing them, and Trump threatening
| to withdraw vital support.
| Paradigma11 wrote:
| Pretty sure the South Vietnamese didn't share your point
| of view. Let's not forget it was North Vietnam that
| invaded.
| smatija wrote:
| Pretty sure no one in Vietnam appreciates USA use of
| Agent Orange.
| Paradigma11 wrote:
| Yes, all parties did horrible things that nobody
| appreciated in that war which the SU and China supported
| North started.
| wrren wrote:
| You forget that America is the cause of many countries'
| problems, see the Middle East and South America for prime
| examples.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| If you cared to ask you will discover that a huge cohort
| of people "on the right" do _not_ want the US involved in
| foreign entanglements, including with Israel.
| t43562 wrote:
| More like the solution - Iraq threatened all of the
| Middle East. So does Iran. America is a security
| guarantee to countries who don't make a noise about it
| all.
|
| As can be seen in Africa now, if America doesn't
| intervene then Russia or China will - there's no nice
| safe forum to criticise such actions in Russia. Sri Lanka
| - poor old Tamils got "sorted" with Chinese help.
|
| Then the US oil price will go up no matter how
| isolationist it tries to be. That will hit people's
| pockets.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> More like the solution_
|
| ... goes on to suggest that the US is getting involved
| for everyone's good, then...
|
| _> Then the US oil price will go up ... hit people 's
| pockets._
|
| states one of the few reasons the US political system
| really cares about these places in the slightest.
| t43562 wrote:
| All countries do what suits them. Fortunately that's
| sometimes the same thing.
| smatija wrote:
| Tell that to 12 million victims of US in Korea, Iraq,
| Vietnam, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
| t43562 wrote:
| I think the South Koreans are extremely grateful not to
| be part of the North. That's a terrible example for you
| to pick.
|
| Iraq...well they might not be too happy but I bet their
| neighbors insisted on Hussein being sorted out.
|
| etc etc.
|
| It isn't noble, it's practical. The US protects countries
| that supply oil to it. Korea turns out to be an extremely
| important ally and part of the world economy....etc.
| crabbone wrote:
| US is not the _cause_ of the problems in the Middle East.
| It has interests in the Middle East. The problems in the
| region were created by the people inhabiting the region.
| If anything, US foreign politics sometimes come as
| detached from the reality of the problems of the area
| rather than creating those. I don 't know what makes
| Americans take so much credit for the bad things that
| they hadn't contributed to all that much.
| simiones wrote:
| The US is directly responsible for millions of deaths in
| the Middle East.
|
| It's supporting Israel's genocide right now, and would
| have continued to do so whichever candidate won.
|
| It's arming Saudi Arabia to help its war in Yemen.
|
| It killed hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan,
| and armed the Taliban before that (back when the USSR was
| also killing Afghans by the hundreds of thousands).
|
| It participated in the coup against Iran's last
| democratic government (together with the UK), re-
| installing the deposed Shah (he was later deposed yet
| again, but this time by fundamentalist revolutionaries,
| instead of the democracy that had replaced him last
| time). Before the revolution, they the Shah with the
| start of nuclear tech, which formed the basis of the
| current Iran nuclear program. They then supported Saddam
| and had him attack Iran, before later losing control of
| him as well.
|
| Now, the root cause of many of the worse issues in the
| Middle East is in fact not the USA, but the British
| Empire, which drew most of the insane borders of Middle
| East states that are causing problems to this day. But
| the USA proudly took on the mantle of main meddler in the
| region in the last 50-70 years.
| crabbone wrote:
| Millions of deaths? Where do you get your numbers from?
| The bloodiest war in the Middle East, the Syrian Civil
| War maybe has a million killed... all other conflicts in
| this area have low two-digit figures. Iraqi campaign,
| since the very start in 2003 has total killed at around
| 100k-200k, which, I believe, is the second bloodiest war
| in that area.
|
| To give this some context: Iran-Iraq war, where US didn't
| really participate, scored 1m-2m deaths.
|
| And of those killed in the conflicts, overwhelming
| majority were killed by the locals, in order to further
| some local ideology, gain some local control etc.
|
| Military, I'd imagine, US may be directly responsible for
| some couple thousands deaths, maybe dozens of thousands.
| But that's it. US has absolutely no reason to waste
| troops and ammo on killing a bunch of nobodies in ME.
| That furthers no military or political goals. Even if you
| believe that US is colonial / militaristic or whatever
| other sticker you like, US is pragmatic in what it's
| doing. There's just no point in killing many people. It's
| a waste of resources.
|
| Also, you obviously have never been to ME, and have no
| clue of what's going on there right now. The idea that
| Israel is somehow performing genocide is, again,
| laughable. Yes, they don't care about how many people in
| Gaza will die. But that's it. They don't care. The
| Israelis want the deplorables behind the fence to stop
| launching rockets at them. If that means that the
| civilians will die behind the fence--so be it. Genocide
| is when a state kills off everyone belonging to a
| particular group, no matter what that group does. Israeli
| military nor police nor any other force has no programs
| of exterminating Gazans. It's just not useful, there's
| nothing to be gained from it. And it would've been a huge
| investment in terms of paying salaries to the force hired
| to perform the alleged genocide, to organize the
| logistics around it etc. It's truly bizarre how someone
| can come up with such b/s ideas and never have a reality
| check.
|
| The same, I imagine, goes for Saudi Arabia. They don't
| want the deplorables from Yemen to shoot at their oil
| drilling installations. They don't care about the lives
| of the people on the other side of the fence. In fact,
| they probably don't see them as people at all. But they
| don't care enough about them to organize a genocide.
| That's just too expensive, unproductive and wasteful.
|
| As for Iran, you are missing the point: US has interests
| in the area, that's why they choose to side with this or
| the other political / social group and support / oppose
| some groups. They aren't responsible for what those
| groups want or do. The Iranian revolution happened
| because people in Iran revolted. Not because US organized
| it.
| simiones wrote:
| The "millions" figure is related to all of the people who
| died in wars started or cheered on by the USA. I wasn't
| trying to suggest that the US military has shot millions
| of people in the ME.
|
| The Iran-Iraq war was supported by the USA, who armed
| Saddam as long as he promised to attack Iran, to try to
| take back control of, or at least punish, Iran after the
| Islamist revolution.
|
| > The idea that Israel is somehow performing genocide is,
| again, laughable.
|
| This is not just wrong, it's not even debatable today.
| Every single international organization that has analyzed
| the situation, from the UN, ICC, ICJ, journalist
| organizations, NGOs, even medical orgs: they all agree
| that a genocide is happening there. All senior Israeli
| officials (president, prime minister, defense minister,
| finance minister, and others) have said that they intend
| to punish the people of Gaza for October 7th (collective
| punishment is a form of genocide). I can find quotes, all
| from Israeli media or their own Twitter accounts, I had a
| collection of them once. Plus, they have destroyed every
| single hospital, university, and high-school in Gaza.
| They have forced the entire population to move from the
| North to the South, and then kept attacking them there as
| well. There is no other name whatsoever for what Israel
| is doing than genocide.
|
| > They don't want the deplorables from Yemen to shoot at
| their oil drilling installations. They don't care about
| the lives of the people on the other side of the fence.
|
| The war is about more than that (those "deplorables" are
| Iran aligned, a traditional enemy of SA). But it's
| irrelevant: the problem is that we know they're killing
| people quasi-indiscriminately (though nowhere near the
| wanton destruction that Israel unleashed in Gaza,
| especially in terms of leveling all civilian
| infrastructure), and yet the USA is still arming Saudi
| Arabia to facilitate this. So, the USA bears at least
| some responsibility for the deaths of all of those
| Yemenis.
|
| > The Iranian revolution happened because people in Iran
| revolted. Not because US is organized it.
|
| Sure, the Islamist revolution was not caused by the USA.
| But the coup against Mossadegh, the one that re-installed
| the US and UK puppet Shah, was indeed organized by the
| CIA. You had Iran go from a despotic king to a democracy,
| and then the UK and USA conspired to bring down this
| democracy and re-install the despotic king. And then
| proceeded to arm this king, including trying to help him
| build nuclear weapons. When the people rose again against
| the despot, the second time they were more radicalized
| than the first time, which has now made Iran one of the
| most dangerous countries in the region - including a
| nuclear weapons program that the USA helped start.
| crabbone wrote:
| > Every single international organization that has
| analyzed the situation, from the UN, ICC, ICJ
|
| Every single hand-picked organization you mean? The
| organizations that act on identity politics of being
| Muslim / Arabs and wanting to trample Israel for
| religious / identity reasons you mean? Yeah... that's
| about right. The rest can be explained by Israel being a
| US ally, when it's not for the fact that Muslims just
| want to slaughter Jews if given a chance. The countries /
| governments that campaign against Israel do it so that
| they can stick it up to the US, but in the way they don't
| directly confront the US, because they are too scared of
| the repercussions.
|
| > have said that they intend to punish the people of Gaza
|
| And? Where's genocide in that? Where are the
| concentration camps, the gas chambers, the paramilitary
| force guarding the camps and executing prisoners? Where's
| all that? Yes, of course they want to punish people
| responsible for Israelis' death. Why wouldn't anyone? Do
| they send them in droves into gas chambers? -- Absolutely
| not.
|
| > collective punishment is a form of genocide
|
| Really? By whose definition? What about riding in a sled
| and saying ho-ho-ho? Is that a form of genocide too?
| Gazans are being collectively punished by denying them
| work permits in Israel. Is that a genocide? If so, then I
| have really bad news for you...
|
| Ultimately, Gazans are the culprit of Gazans' problems.
| They started this war. They had dozens of off-ramps to
| stop it. They could surrender any time they want, and
| their beloved infrastructure would've been spared. They
| have a death wish, and Israel doesn't feel like stopping
| them from throwing themselves on the bayonets.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Please choose one international organization that has had
| people in Gaza and has declared it's not a genocide.
|
| As for colective punishment, I did make a small mistake.
| This is "just" an explicit war crime, not a _direct_
| proof of genocide. Of course, it easily leads to genocide
| if you feel that an entire people are responsible for an
| attack perpetrated by a few dozens of terrorists. After
| all, if all Gazans are responsible for October 7th, doesn
| 't it just make sense to kill or at least harm all of
| them, per this deranged logic?
|
| Just like like if someone said "Israelis and all Jewish
| people deserve to die for the crimes committed by
| Israel's military against Palestine" would be a demented
| war criminal and instigator to genocide. This is exactly
| what Israel's leadership is saying, only it's about
| Palestinians as a people and Hamas as the army instead.
| And it is just as deranged and disturbing and frankly
| disgusting.
|
| > Ultimately, Gazans are the culprit of Gazans' problems.
| They started this war.
|
| Another historical misguided statement. Israel has been
| occupying Gaza and not allowing it to be recognized as a
| state, or to control its own borders, for decades. Every
| year, even before this war, for every Israeli killed by
| someone from Gaza, Israel has killed two, three,
| sometimes even ten Gazans (and the balance is sitting at
| 45-100:1 for the current invasion, not counting all of
| the mass rape and torture and other crimes committed by
| Israeli soldiers against detainees). The people of Gaza
| are not allowed to leave the country unless approved by
| Israel, not allowed to import or export anything unless
| approved by Israel, and not allowed to be recognized in
| any international organization. The same is true of the
| West Bank. Additionally, in the West Bank, Israel is
| taking more and more of the Palestinians' lands and
| settling colonists, who often attack nearby villages as
| well.
|
| This "war" did not start on October 7th. It started
| decades ago, and Israel has been the aggressor
| throughout.
|
| Edit: same person as simiones for personal reasons, not
| an attempt at dogpiling or anything like that
| underdeserver wrote:
| This war (no need for scare quotes) definitely started on
| October 7th. The conflict may not have, but wars have
| beginnings and ends, and this one was started, by Hamas,
| on October 7th.
|
| > "Israel has been occupying Gaza"
|
| Nope. Left in 2005.
|
| > "not allowing it to be recognized as a state"
|
| Not allowing how? All Israel asked was a declaration of
| willingness to live side-by-side with Israel, without
| hostilities. Are you saying that's too much for Israel to
| ask?
|
| > "or to control its own borders, for decades"
|
| There are two sides to every border. Israel controls the
| Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border.
|
| > "Every year, even before this war, for every Israeli
| killed by someone from Gaza, Israel has killed two,
| three, sometimes even ten Gazans (and the balance is
| sitting at 45-100:1 for the current invasion, not
| counting all of the mass rape and torture and other
| crimes committed by Israeli soldiers against detainees)."
|
| This is not a game. You don't aim for equal numbers.
| Israel is going for dead or surrendered Hamas militants,
| and Hamas is going for dead Israeli civilians. The
| Israelis are better at it. That doesn't make them wrong.
|
| > "not allowed to import or export anything unless
| approved by Israel"
|
| Yes, because they kept trying to import arms, explosives,
| and rockets. Look up the Karine-A affair. Apparently,
| given what happened on October 7th, the control is likely
| not strict enough.
|
| > "in the West Bank, Israel is taking more and more of
| the Palestinians' lands and settling colonists"
|
| Sounds like the Palestinians' top interest should be to
| get a deal struck as soon as possible that forces Israel
| to remove the settlers. Like they did with the Oslo
| accords in 92', until Arafat was found to be straight-up
| lying to Clinton, negotiating with Clinton and Rabin in
| the morning and directing terrorist attacks in the
| evening.
|
| --
|
| Leaders of western nations are not generally allied with
| Israel because they particularly like Jews. They are
| allied with Israel because Israel is the historical
| homeland of the Jews, a full democracy with democratic
| values (...for now), and the most successful
| decolonization project in history; and it has from day
| one strived to make peace with any willing country, while
| successfully defending itself from numerous assaults by
| its neighboring countries, the Palestinians, and the
| Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.
| simiones wrote:
| > This war (no need for scare quotes) definitely started
| on October 7th.
|
| This is not a war, it's a one-sided genocidal invasion,
| part of a decade-long war. There have been periods of
| ceasefire in this war, but it is the same conflict that
| has lasted for decades.
|
| > Nope. Left in 2005.
|
| Nope, they are still controlling the border (see below)
| and periodically bombing Gaza, keeping records of every
| citizen of Gaza, rationing power and water, etc. That is
| an occupation, even if there aren't Israeli troops
| constantly on the border.
|
| > All Israel asked was a declaration of willingness to
| live side-by-side with Israel, without hostilities.
|
| This is completely facetious. Netanyahu has been very
| clear that there Israel will not allow a two-state
| solution, long before the October 7th attack. He even
| explicitly supported Hamas's stay in power [0]:
|
| > For years, the various governments led by Benjamin
| Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the
| Gaza Strip and the West Bank -- bringing Palestinian
| Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while
| making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.
|
| > The idea was to prevent Abbas -- or anyone else in the
| Palestinian Authority's West Bank government -- from
| advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian
| state.
|
| Here is a quote from him directly [1] about his vision
| for a Palestinian state, where he is asking for
| infinitely more than a commitment to not attack Israel:
|
| > "[A]ny final agreement between Israel and the
| Palestinians would have Israel controlling security -
| overriding security responsibility in the area west of
| the Jordan.
|
| > [...] "And I said, you're right. But - I don't know
| what you'd call it, but it gives them the opportunity to
| control their lives, to elect their officials, to run
| their economy, to run their institutions, to have their
| flag and to have their parliament, but we have to have
| overriding security control."
|
| I think it's obvious this is not a serious proposal that
| any state would accept. It also happens to be almost
| exactly one of the things Putin was asking of Ukraine,
| widely viewed in Europe and the USA as an absurdity.
|
| > Israel controls the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza
| border.
|
| Israel controls all sides of the Gaza border, including
| Gaza's border with the sea. Even the USA wasn't allowed
| to bring in medicine and food to Gaza over boat unless
| Israel approved it. The Gaza-Egypt border is nominally
| controlled by Egypt, but Egypt has long agreed to follow
| Israel's requests on who and what is allowed through
| there.
|
| > Yes, because they kept trying to import arms,
| explosives, and rockets.
|
| Which they should be allowed to do, if you are claiming
| they are not under occupation. Every free state in the
| world is allowed to import weapons.
|
| > Sounds like the Palestinians' top interest should be to
| get a deal struck as soon as possible that forces Israel
| to remove the settlers.
|
| The Palestinians shouldn't need to reach a "deal", since
| the settlements are fully illegal under international
| law, as recognized even by the USA.
|
| > Like they did with the Oslo accords in 92', until
| Arafat was found to be straight-up lying to Clinton,
| negotiating with Clinton and Rabin in the morning and
| directing terrorist attacks in the evening.
|
| The Oslo accords were a sham. There is nothing about a
| Palestinian state in the Oslo accords. Israel's leaders
| had no intention whatsoever to commit even to a vision
| that would eventually lead to a Palestinian state under
| numerous conditions. Arafat kept negotiating, but at some
| point this became apparent. Was he fully committed to the
| process? No. Was the process ever plausibly going to lead
| to any good solution for Palestinians even if he had
| been? Absolutely not. The Israelis were occupying Gaza at
| the time, and busy settling the West bank. They were
| adamantly opposed to any kind of third party monitoring
| or enforcement of any term that they would agree to: who
| would be foolish enough to sign something like this? Here
| is a good article on the overall process and how one-
| sided it was [2], written by one of the US negotiators
| who was present.
|
| > They are allied with Israel because Israel is the
| historical homeland of the Jews
|
| Most Jews that founded Israel had lived for hundreds of
| years, more than a thousand often, in various places in
| Europe. Israel is about as much their "historical
| homeland" as Rome is the "historical homeland" of the
| Spanish. Calling the most clear modern example of
| colonization a "decolonization" project is preposterous.
| There were hundreds of thousands of people who had been
| living in Palestine for generations, who were displaced
| to make room for the Zionist project. Initially, this was
| done mostly peacefully; only later, after the British
| took and then ceded control of the territory, did the
| forceful removal of Palestinian Arabs start, to make room
| for the new state of Israel. And then the colonization of
| this state by settlers from all over the world.
|
| [0] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-
| propped-up...
|
| [1]
| https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/01/middleeast/netanyahu-
| pale...
|
| [2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/13/oslo-
| accords-1993-anniv...
| underdeserver wrote:
| > "it easily leads to genocide if you feel that an entire
| people are responsible for an attack perpetrated by a few
| dozens of terrorists"
|
| 3,000 Gazans crossed into Israel on October 7th. Not
| dozens. Also not close to the entire population of 2.1
| million.
|
| Nobody is talking about killing or harming all 2.1
| million. In fact nobody is talking about killing or
| harming _any_ civilians _at all_. The only dial the
| Israelis can turn is how much effort they put into
| avoiding civilian casualties - and by effort, I mean
| sacrificing Israeli soldier lives instead of air force
| munitions and /or missing opportunities to target
| militants, which then leads to these militants attacking
| Israeli civilians.
|
| Hamas consistently uses the Gazan population as human
| shields. Israel is already leads and bounds ahead of any
| other armed force with the lowest ratio of combatant to
| civilian death ever in an urban setting. What's happening
| in Gaza is a calamity, but I'm not sure any other nation
| would handle it better in Israel's place.
| crabbone wrote:
| Collective punishment is not a war crime either. Why do
| you keep talking about something you have no clue about?
| I've given you an example of collective punishment that
| Israel did perform (unlike many idiotic claims made by
| people who just like to make stuff up). Israel canceled
| work permits for everyone from Gaza be those terrorists
| or not. How's canceling a work permit a war crime?
|
| You just keep using the words, but you don't understand
| what they mean...
|
| Now, were there war crimes committed by IDF during the
| Gaza war? -- Yes, and some were punished for that, while
| even more were claimed. This is a nature of any war. Were
| there more crimes than in any other war? How do you even
| measure and compare these things?
|
| As I lived through several wars, I can tell that Israeli
| wars, at least from my perspective as a bystander, are
| very mild in terms of cruelty towards both combatants and
| non-combatants. This is not a unique Israeli virtue. In
| general, wars waged by well-to-do countries are less
| cruel to the opposing side simply because soldiers
| growing in well-to-do countries are not exposed to the
| everyday violence as much as their counterparts in poor
| countries. They are brought up in an environment where
| human life has intrinsic value, where critical thought is
| encouraged and so it's harder to brainwash a soldier into
| a mindlessly cruel machine.
|
| Now, my childhood in Ukraine had seen this, for example,
| beside other multiple such incidents: on my way back home
| from school my mom pulled my hand hard in order to get me
| to walk faster. Before that, I've heard voices of some
| youth cursing and taunting someone. I also saw some guys
| kicking something in the mud, but it was too dark and too
| far to see what that was. Next morning there was a
| makeshift fence erected by the police around that place,
| and the school sprouted rumors that a bunch of alcoholics
| / homeless people were mauled to death at that place.
|
| This was during peace time. And this would've been a
| typical fate for the homeless / drunks, unless
| hypothermia got them first. Very rarely would anyone get
| in jail for that. Imagine now people like that being
| drafted into the military. First Karabakh war, for
| example. Or Chechen wars. These were real torture fests.
| Both sides deliberately looked for more painful ways to
| kill the opponent. And they made little distinction
| between combatants and non-combatants. People who signed
| up for the military were driven by the idea that they
| will be allowed to kill and torture legally even more so
| than by money or status.
|
| The horrors soldiers routinely commit in poor countries
| eclipse anything you could dream up in your wildest
| dreams living in the EU, US or another wealthy place.
| Does this mean that war crimes committed by IDF shouldn't
| be prosecuted? -- Of course not. But you shouldn't infer
| from there being war crimes any sort of intention on the
| state level, nor should this be any kind of supporting
| argument to claim genocide or any other such wide-
| reaching policy. Putting things in perspective and in
| proportion: if Gazans were instead fighting Russians,
| there wouldn't have been any Gazans left in about two
| months since the start of the war. And it's not unique to
| Russians. Bet you, that if they wanted the same kind of
| fight with Egypt, they'd be similarly dying in much
| larger numbers.
|
| And this isn't even because of the calculus of achieving
| military objectives. Poorer armies are both more cruel
| and more crude, while valuing the lives of their own
| soldiers less. Poorer army would both need to expend more
| ordnance per target (accidentally missing / hitting
| unintended targets) and having more vicious soldiers
| abuse the population being invaded.
|
| > Israel has been the aggressor throughout.
|
| You couldn't be more delusional / ignorant about the
| subject.
| ignoramous wrote:
| You speak in the language of the aggressor and yet deny
| or downplay or invert reality. Incredible mental
| gymnastics.
| simiones wrote:
| It is you who have no idea of what you are talking about.
|
| Here is article 33 [0] of the (Foruth) Geneva Convention
| ( _emphasis mine_ ):
|
| > ART. 33. -- No protected person may be punished for an
| offence he or she has not personally committed.
| _Collective penalties and likewise all measures of
| intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited_.
|
| > Pillage is prohibited.
|
| > Reprisals against protected persons and their property
| are prohibited.
|
| Here is a summary of more international humanitarian law
| on the matter [1]:
|
| > Rule 103. Collective punishments are prohibited.
|
| > Were there more crimes than in any other war? How do
| you even measure and compare these things?
|
| > As I lived through several wars, I can tell that
| Israeli wars, at least from my perspective as a
| bystander, are very mild in terms of cruelty towards both
| combatants and non-combatants.
|
| > Putting things in perspective and in proportion: if
| Gazans were instead fighting Russians, there wouldn't
| have been any Gazans left in about two months since the
| start of the war.
|
| This is all entirely wrong. We can even compare directly,
| as there is currently a Russian invasion in Ukraine in
| parallel to the Israeli invasion in Gaza. After almost
| two years, there are approximately 11 500 civilians
| killed in Ukraine, of which ~650 are children [2]. There
| are ~43 000 total killed in Gaza, of which at least ~20
| 500 are civilians, including more than 13 000 children
| [3]. Note that the population of Gaza is about 19 times
| smaller than that of Ukraine (~2.1 millions in Gaza, ~38
| million in Ukraine).
|
| And these are just direct deaths from the war. While
| Russia also has an appalling record of attacking and
| deliberately targeting healthcare facilities in Ukraine,
| Israel has destroyed every single hospital or clinic in
| Gaza. Russia has killed ~234 healthcare workers in
| Ukraine in two years of invasion [4]. Israel has killed
| ~765 healthcare workers killed in Gaza, in just one year
| of war [5].
|
| > You couldn't be more delusional / ignorant about the
| subject.
|
| Look just at the amount of people killed every year in
| Gaza vs Israel before this war. Please tell me how Gaza
| has been terrorizing Israel, when in every single year,
| Israel has been killing many times more people in Gaza
| then the terrorists have in Israel [6]. Several human
| rights organizations have called Gaza "an open air
| prison" before this war, including this UN special
| rapporteur [7]. In fact, I challenge you to find a single
| human rights organization that has done work in Gaza who
| doesn't consider what Israel is doing to be deeply
| oppressive.
|
| [0] https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/at
| rocity-...
|
| [1] https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-
| ihl/v1/rule103#F...
|
| [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1293492/ukraine-
| war-casu...
|
| [3] https://www.ochaopt.org/content/reported-impact-
| snapshot-gaz...
|
| [4] https://www.attacksonhealthukraine.org/
|
| [5] https://media.un.org/unifeed/en/asset/d326/d3268585
|
| [6] https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties
|
| [7] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-
| occupation-...
| Qem wrote:
| > All senior Israeli officials (president, prime
| minister, defense minister, finance minister, and others)
| have said that they intend to punish the people of Gaza
| for October 7th (collective punishment is a form of
| genocide). I can find quotes, all from Israeli media or
| their own Twitter accounts, I had a collection of them
| once.
|
| People set a database to track those, given sheer amount:
| https://law4palestine.org/law-for-palestine-releases-
| databas...
| underdeserver wrote:
| You should read those quotes you linked to. Most are not
| actually genocidal.
| fahhem wrote:
| So you admit that even you see genocidal intent in at
| least some of them. Now remove your bias and you'll see
| it in the rest
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Imagine thinking and saying something this parochial and
| isolationist in an era of massive, evident climate change.
|
| Wow.
| dspillett wrote:
| Because none of the rest of the worlds problems are going
| to be affected at all by this turn of events...
|
| I'm all for sitting back and watching the leopards eat US
| faces, I do like a little schadenfreude, but other parts of
| the world are going to be negatively affected too as is
| well documented.
| poincaredisk wrote:
| As the rest of the world, why would I care about elections
| results on another continent? US should sort their problems
| themselves. I don't even want a vote, our countries are
| independent from each other and we both decide for our own.
| verisimi wrote:
| Migrants in S. American states care!
| tankenmate wrote:
| But most of the truly thorny problems aren't "owned" by any
| one country.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| As someone with a german passport (federal elections next
| year) and living in france (next presidential in 2027) I do
| care. Europe is next. Make no mistake, the money that
| bought this election will try to get the european power
| houses at a discount, now that they have an ally in the
| white house.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| They probably will. The EU is a neoliberal institution;
| it is not long for this world.
| simgt wrote:
| Indeed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Network
| simiones wrote:
| The money in this election was mostly on Harris' side. It
| lost. It's not money that decided this election, it's
| hubris and bold face lying by a charlatan.
| mv4 wrote:
| Money did not buy this election. Attempts were made on
| the Harris side, however.
| crabbone wrote:
| I'm an Israeli who was born in Ukraine and lives in the
| Netherlands. And I care a lot about the outcome of the US
| election because of Israeli military partnership that is
| going to be affected by the new administration and because
| of the new US administration trying to break free from
| NATO, which will put my livelihood and that of those close
| to me in danger due to the looming war with Russia. Not to
| mention that I don't expect to see a lot of the male
| classmates to show up at the next class reunion because of
| how US foreign policies will affect the war in Ukraine.
| card_zero wrote:
| Poor Ukraine.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Ukraine might be a proxy of our future selves.
| yapyap wrote:
| yeah, literally and figuratively.
|
| We kinda need them to keep Russia from going haywire
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| They have their own countries with candidates to consider.
| They should mind their own business and US citizens should
| mind theirs. The US needs to move closer to isolationist
| policies for that reason.
| dewey wrote:
| Very naive view of a very globalized and connected world.
| nazka wrote:
| It was true 2 centuries ago. In the age we are now where
| each country is interconnected at every level of a society
| (economy, culture, trade, innovation, research,
| military...) that's not possible anymore. WW2 showed it.
| You can't play head in the sand and think that everything
| will be fine. Since then every major economy drawbacks
| showed the world we live today is all interconnected and
| interdependent. And that's the same for any other type of
| backlash or drawbacks from politics, alliances, society...
| blitzar wrote:
| "The rest of the world gets the America they deserve." - Me
| 2024
| justin66 wrote:
| Political solutions for the rest of the world would appear to
| include increasing the amount of money you spend on your
| national defense and/or the amount of money you spend renting
| rooms at Trump International Hotel Washington D.C to curry
| favor.
| noobermin wrote:
| My honest opinion is we need a multipolar world. Then the US
| can do as much shit as it wants but the rest of the world
| doesn't have to care.
| reshlo wrote:
| As someone whose regional hegemon in that scenario would
| almost certainly be China, I don't think that's a good
| idea.
| shafyy wrote:
| Sadly, this is not true under neoliberal capitalism. With the
| correct oversimplified messaging and a lot of money, you can
| influence a lot of people to behave a certain way.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| We definitely had microtargeting ads by the trump team to
| make Harris look bad with conflicting messages, we also
| define had a musk PAC collect data in an unethical way to
| eventually do door to door canvas for Trump, and it goes
| without saying that one of the biggest social network in the
| US is skewed towards conspiracies (musk posted a video
| endorsement of Trump yesterday where the Q letter appeared
| together with Trump and similar bullshit)
|
| Here's something I did about his PAC data collection
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41148139
|
| Here's about Trump targeted ads
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41887642
| blitzar wrote:
| The quote rings true then - If people are influenced in such
| a trivial manner then they deserve the outcome.
| vinni2 wrote:
| Tell that to the Puerto Ricans.
| amai wrote:
| "It is considered democratic, for example, that state offices
| are filled by lot, and oligarchic that they are filled by
| election"
|
| -- Aristotle, Politics
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
| kookamamie wrote:
| [flagged]
| oytis wrote:
| Europe is doing the same though.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Hopefully.
| ben_w wrote:
| I don't claim perfect knowledge of the 30-ish countries in
| Europe, but I've not heard of any of us reelecting a double-
| impeached convicted felon where the impeachments were for (1)
| abuse of power and obstruction of Congress and (2) incitement
| of insurrection; and the 34 felonies he's been convicted for
| were related to misreporting finances related to hush money
| relevant to a potential scandal that could have influenced
| the 2016 election, while also being on trial for another 54
| related to mishandling of classified documents.
|
| Even Boris Johnson didn't mange all that mess.
| oytis wrote:
| Details might differ, the big picture is pretty much the
| same. The left-wing are shy and try not to annoy the voter
| base by being too radical, while the right-wing are getting
| more aggressive and outspoken. And still the right-wing
| mostly win the elections. Literal fascists in Italy, right-
| wing populists in Hungary, Slovakia and Netherlands. And
| the upcoming elections in Germany is not going to be very
| good either - we basically get to vote between right-wing
| traitors and just right-wingers. People en-masse don't
| value freedom, human rights or rule of law any more, I
| wouldn't think there are any hurdles to get Europeans to
| vote convicted felons either.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| My Ukrainian friends want the war to stop at all cost, they are
| on the brink and all help goes to the military effort... my
| friends in Lvov can't feed themselves and have to go dig
| mushrooms... they don't care who wins, they just want peace.
| NATO sustaining that war just to save face isn't peace. Trump
| is an opportunity to end that war the democrats have sustained.
| dbspin wrote:
| Fellow European here - I think we have different Ukranian
| friends. All mine were bitterly frustrated at Biden's failure
| to properly support them militarily, and resigned to having
| to fight to the death if Trump orders they secede to Russia.
| There is zero popular support in Ukraine for 'giving up',
| since it would likely mean mass murder, and the end of
| Ukraine as an independent state.
| kookamamie wrote:
| I want the Ukraine war to stop, too. However, I do not want
| it to stop at any cost, if that means that Ukraine will need
| to surrender its land to Moscow and to agree to being part of
| Russia (again).
|
| This will send the wrong signal to Putin, and prove his model
| of acquiring buffer areas around Russia actually works - next
| on the list are the Baltics, and Moldova perhaps.
|
| I'm going to be in the trenches as soon as they get ideas
| about Finland - and you do not want that.
| scrollaway wrote:
| European here (French, been helping Ukraine since the full
| scale invasion started).
|
| We have no business relying on the US anymore. They are too
| far gone. Their political rhethorics are polluted by
| Russian propaganda. (Just look at the rest of the comments
| here...)
|
| It's time to get busy defending ourselves. Time for a war
| effort that doesn't involve merely wearing flag pins or
| doing cute street protests.
|
| We need to be funding our own defence. We need to be
| sending actual troops in Ukraine, not just weapons. No more
| of this sidelines bullshit.
| guerrilla wrote:
| This account definitely does not represent the Ukrainian
| community.
| ben_w wrote:
| Ukraine has the motive, means and opportunity to rapidly
| develop nuclear weapons. From a military analyst I have
| reason to trust due to long term accuracy and lack of click
| bait, "months" rather than years.
|
| The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, signed by
| Belarus, Khazakstan, Ukraine, Russia, the US, and the UK,
| obliging respect for signatories' borders and sovereignty,
| territorial integrity, economic security... is also what put
| Ukraine into the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
| Weapons.
| sekai wrote:
| > they don't care who wins, they just want peace.
|
| And what happens when Russia invades again after a few years
| with a revitalized military?
| baq wrote:
| Like Europe didn't have issues with democracy and general
| economy.
|
| Regards, an European.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Economically Europe is pretty much doomed.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| Source(s)?
|
| (Serious question, not a European)
| jansan wrote:
| Germany is in a slow death spiral. What you are seeing
| right now is basically the scene from Animal Farm where
| Boxer, the working horse, has been injured [1]. The
| burden on the productively working citizens is growing,
| because money is required to finance the migration
| policy, oversized healthcare system, the huge pension
| payments for the ageing population (there is no pension
| fund) and government spending. Also, tax revenue is
| shrinking(!). The current government is asleep at the
| steering wheel, so industry may continue to leave the
| country, which will again reduce tax revenue, so the
| government will have to further increase the burden on
| the productive sector, which will again result in
| weakening the economy.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xzklsnBTzc
| depr wrote:
| Fiscally conservative countries (Germany, the Netherlands
| and others in the Frugal Four) in the EU have for a long
| time preached countries must "balance their budgets". Now
| Germany balanced too hard and didn't invest enough, their
| car companies are experiencing a decline while the
| Chinese companies are growing, and the rest of their
| industry got addicted to cheap gas which isn't available
| anymore. The UK left the EU. And the EU is incapable of
| creating large tech companies.
| RMPR wrote:
| One data point is the debt crisis France found itself in.
|
| https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/10/11/frances-
| emergen...
| dmichulke wrote:
| - Declining manufacturing
|
| - declining GDP
|
| - higher (st?) energy prices across the board
|
| - dependency on the US for energy and defense
|
| - unelected EU government
| VonGuard wrote:
| Being incredibly stupid.
|
| Example: I heard the leader of the West Coast Vintage Computer
| Club remark, recently "Well, the problem is the Department of
| Education! We need to get rid of that!"
| kookamamie wrote:
| The entire Project 2025 gives me chills, to be honest. I know
| Trump has distanced himself from it previously, but who knows
| what will he actually do when given the keys to the country.
| VonGuard wrote:
| The dumber the people, the more they love Trump. It's a
| legit strategy, but I never thought people who'd benefited
| from American' education would buy into this shit and pull
| up the ladder!
| lupusreal wrote:
| The working class is struggling to afford _eggs_ and incumbent
| party campaigned on social stuff and the opposition 's shitty
| personal history. Things people don't give a fuck about if they
| can't afford eggs.
| eecc wrote:
| Wait, what's this meme? Wasn't the price of eggs something
| big in Russia? https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/in-
| moscows-shadows/id1...
| konart wrote:
| Butter. Prices for butter climed so high we have to import
| it from UAE.
| twixfel wrote:
| How much are eggs in the US? I just did some googling and I
| assume the sources are wrong because all the prices they
| quote for eggs are really low.
| teractiveodular wrote:
| Commodities in the US are often cheap by European
| standards. Gas for $4/gallon is considered outrageously
| expensive in the US, meanwhile in the Netherlands it's
| close to EUR2/L, or $8/gallon.
| master-lincoln wrote:
| > Eggs US increased 2.22 USD/DOZEN [to 4.41USD] or 101.37%
| since the beginning of 2024, according to trading on a
| contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark
| market for this commodity. Historically, Eggs US reached an
| all time high of 5.29 in December of 2022.
|
| https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eggs-us
| twixfel wrote:
| Sounds affordable.
| lupusreal wrote:
| You're out of touch. Yuppies without empathy for the
| working class can't understand why the price of groceries
| (not just eggs, but eggs exemplify the problem) is
| relevant because you lot are making north of six figures
| anyway.
| twixfel wrote:
| I don't earn 6 figures (sadly); those eggs are
| affordable.
| card_zero wrote:
| They more than doubled in price in December, and now they
| cost the same as in the UK, it's tragic.
| twixfel wrote:
| Doesn't sounds like they're unaffordable to working class
| people at all then. They're affordable in the UK and
| working class Americans are richer than working class
| Brits.
| dialup_sounds wrote:
| The price of eggs has gone up primarily due to bird flu,
| which doesn't care who you voted for.
| wvh wrote:
| Not American, not political, but this. What the hell is the
| left doing but focussing on a few ideological fringe fights?
| jgrahamc wrote:
| I'm European and I 100% disagree with the characterization that
| I'm sitting here thinking "America, what are you doing?".
| n4r9 wrote:
| To be fair, you're not a typical European (or Brit). Out of
| curiosity what _are_ you thinking?
| tomrod wrote:
| I can't speak for OP, but typically "Refugee Bad" is a
| stance I see regularly among rightwingers.
|
| We really do need a rebuild of the Civilian Conservation
| Corp, which built out massive infrastructure in the US. Not
| Potemkim style infra like ghost cities, but infra that is
| needed and useful. Bridges, dams, solar and wind, dikes,
| etc. Paired with effective economic and trade policy and
| you get a golden age for a few decades.
|
| People contributing to the economy and building
| infrastructure results in a lot of knock on benefits.
| jgrahamc wrote:
| The comment I responded to could be interpreted as
| "America, I don't understand what you're doing" or
| "America, I disagree strongly with what you're doing". I
| was responding to the former.
|
| I am simply unsurprised by the result. It was obvious for a
| long time that he had a good chance of winning and appealed
| to a lot of people. The result is likely going to show him
| winning the electoral college and the popular vote. Sounds
| like democracy doing its thing.
| n4r9 wrote:
| I understand. After the assassination attempt I was sure
| Trump would get an easy win, but then Harris replaced
| Biden and the polls reversed, and I guess I got my hopes
| up.
| arp242 wrote:
| It wasn't surprising based on the polls, no, but I'm
| fairly sure the "what are you doing?" was intended as a
| "what's wrong with you?" (or: "I don't understand what
| you're doing") rather than "I'm surprised". I'm pretty
| sure plenty of Americans are also asking "what's wrong
| with us?" - I believe Obama said pretty much that earlier
| this week or last week.
| HipstaJules wrote:
| We have a war in Europe right now.
| conradfr wrote:
| With Trump elected and the Senate changing majority I'm not
| sure it will go past the three years mark.
| bagels wrote:
| Not for long. Some countries now get to be neighbors with
| Russia instead.
| wvh wrote:
| It's coming. Left vs right, rich vs poor, socialism vs
| capitalism, men vs women, LGBTQ* vs straight, immigrant vs
| native, religion vs religion (amongst those who still have
| faith, with the rest as collateral).
|
| As an apolitical person, I've been pretty down and worried
| about the near future for the last 15-20 years in this post-
| truth society. The more science and data we have, the more we
| throw away the rational and retreat into our own emotional
| blind spots and dark psychological hang-ups. Across the board.
|
| But this too shall pass.
| agumonkey wrote:
| It seems that the web/2010+ era is not good at creating
| coherent information / pedagogy. We have access to a lot more
| data, but most people end up regressing as followers of
| tiktok celebs. Internet created an anthropoligical wild west.
| manamorphic wrote:
| In all fairness, as an EU citizen, if I was American I'd vote
| Trump. The Harris campaign was very weak and built on identity
| politics that as we saw is a double edged sword. And why should
| USA care about Europe? I mean, yes, unfortunate for Ukraine,
| but it's not necessarily their problem, no matter how much
| people make it out to be. We in Europe need to grow some balls
| and not be dependent on who is the next US president.
| n4r9 wrote:
| > unfortunate for Ukraine, but it's not necessarily their
| problem
|
| It seems like it absolutely is the US's problem, albeit
| indirectly. If Russia gets the outcome it wants in Ukraine,
| they'll have access to rich mineral deposits, vast quantities
| of grain, and nuclear power, boosting their economy and their
| status as a rival world power to the US. It will signal to
| Putin that he can be aggressive towards other neighbouring
| countries with little pushback. The war has resulted in a
| growing alliance between Russia, Iran and North Korea which
| is altering global military power dynamics and not in the
| US's favour. Also, China is watching what's happening with
| eagle eyes to determine whether to invade Taiwan, which would
| definitely escalate the US's engagement.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| Hell if I know.
|
| - Wisconsin
| dandanua wrote:
| "Kill and eat the others" ideology has won
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| He has not won yet. Perhaps there may be a last minute change.
|
| If the results remain roughly where they are now, then that is
| one important positive outcome.. and I would say exactly the same
| if the election had gone the other way.d
|
| If it had been as close, or closer than last time, then who
| becomes presient is nearly random, as WP once wrote, and an
| enormous amount of drama would ensue. Which it might still do
| depending how tight the swing states are.
|
| As it looks now it will be a solid win.
| sidcool wrote:
| The odds of a reversal are so low now, it's practically
| useless.
| autoexec wrote:
| Even if recounts or whatever showed the results were changed
| they would be challenged in the courts until eventually Trump's
| supreme court would hand him the win anyway.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Between a _clean sweep win_ of the Electoral College, the popular
| vote (by a Republican president for the first time in 20 years!),
| the Senate, and very likely the House this is an epic, bottom of
| the ninth comeback victory for the history books. And I thought
| the World Series Dodgers comeback in game 5 was incredible, I
| guess we just keep on winning.
|
| I am also absolutely vindicated in my opinion that "journalism"
| (the mainstream media) are cancers upon society. The polls
| fucking lied and the "journalism" was the real garbage.
|
| And yes, I voted for Trump and the Republicans as an Oregonian.
| No, my vote didn't count for his EC win, but I don't care: My
| vote still helped deliver a mandate that the Democrats and their
| policies are not acceptable.
| christophilus wrote:
| I don't think the polls lied (lied implies intent). I think a
| few things happened. Pollsters have a really hard time getting
| hold of Trump voters for a few reasons: folks are scared to
| admit they voted for Trump, and those who are proud Trump
| supporters have such disdain for the media (of which pollsters
| are a part) that they simply hang up / don't engage.
|
| So, Trump tends to get underrepresented in the polls.
|
| At any rate, the polls showed that there was a dead heat, so
| this really came down to the margin of error which has
| historically somewhat favored Trump.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| from https://x.com/brianstelter/status/1851766313279963218
| Anonymous TV exec: "If half the country has decided that Trump
| is qualified to be president, that means they're not reading
| any of this media, and we've lost this audience completely.
| A Trump victory means mainstream media is dead in its current
| form."
| crakhamster01 wrote:
| Which policies did you find unacceptable?
| helgee wrote:
| Shower thought: People vote for Trump because he is actually
| predictable. You never have to guess whose interests he is
| protecting. It's always his own. You never have to guess whether
| he is lying. He sure as hell is but there is also no hidden
| agenda. It's unfiltered mental diarrhea but it's raw and
| authentic.
|
| I think a lot of the unease and disdain for the Western political
| class stems from their attempts to be inoffensive and appeal to
| everybody. Whatever policy you enact there is always going to be
| a trade-off, winners and losers, and if you do now acknowledge
| that, how can I be sure that you are acting in my interest?
|
| "Me? I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to
| be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch
| out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do
| something incredibly... stupid." -- Captain Jack Sparrow
| manquer wrote:
| He is not predictable, mere selfish interests doesn't make him
| so, he doesn't have an ideology and therefore very flexible on
| what he will do, is easily manipulated by anyone and also there
| are many more dangerous people who will run his
| administration(RFK is in-charge of health!) while he spends his
| days on the golf course.
| alach11 wrote:
| I think authenticity is being hugely underrated as a factor for
| why Trump won. People inherently trust someone who is visibly
| flawed and speaks off-the-cuff. This preference for
| authenticity has always existed, but is extra strong as a
| reaction to social media.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| This really sucks and is making me incredibly worried. I know we
| don't discuss politics on HN, and there's not much point in
| debating this. But seriously... this clown? what's wrong with the
| US.
| tomrod wrote:
| Citizens United allows for money to speak. Recent SCOTUS case
| allows for paths towards legalized bribery.
|
| Neither party offers a real solution, so folks go with the
| person promising to break everything, even if he has already
| proven he won't follow the law, enriches himself, and
| destablizes global politics.
|
| Yeah, it might break a logjam. But don't expect things to be
| better after a flood.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| Bubububutttt he's totally going to bring back those 6-figure
| factory jobs in the Midwest and make houses cost $150k again
| by....deporting large portions of the underpaid manual labor
| force, taxing foreign goods at 100%, and ending all
| government programs including public education.
| defrost wrote:
| I'm still staggered by the thought of brain-worm being
| charge of _all things_ health related and _potentially_
| (although that appeared to be a joke) in charge of
| _everything_ save oil profits.
| ericmcer wrote:
| RFK says some wild stuff, but he does have a track record
| of being pretty vicious with large corporations that
| threaten public health.
|
| I am scared of him cutting a bunch of vaccines, but I am
| excited that he will go after food manufacturers who have
| been maximizing profits at the cost of public health.
| tomrod wrote:
| He won't.
| tomrod wrote:
| The US is going to be transactional instead of principled
| for a long time.
|
| What a shame.
| VonGuard wrote:
| Fuck.
| archagon wrote:
| Well, my hope for humanity is permanently eroded. Half the
| populace elected a blubbering rapist, felon, and fascist to lead
| them. Again.
|
| I'm making rapid plans to get the fuck out of this shithole
| country, and as far as business goes, no known Trump supporter
| will ever get my handshake.
| JodieBenitez wrote:
| > I'm making rapid plans to get the fuck out of this shithole
| country.
|
| I keep hearing people say that sort of thing in my country in
| similar situations and yet they never do it.
| archagon wrote:
| Good for them. My Australian application is presently sitting
| in the queue, and I've already had extensive conversations
| with a number of lawyers about UK and Dutch immigration.
| JodieBenitez wrote:
| You're seriously considering UK over US ? Seems odd to me,
| that's like choosing only downsides.
| archagon wrote:
| Even Boris Johnson can't hold a candle to the imbecility
| of Trump. And a parliamentary system generally acts as a
| better safeguard of sensible governance. UK might not be
| doing great right now, but I feel tentatively positive
| about the next 5-10 years.
|
| Plus, as a self-employed business owner, I need health
| care, and I'm not confident that Obamacare will survive
| the next administration.
| JodieBenitez wrote:
| Good luck to you then. You might need it.
| authorfly wrote:
| I would suggest you prepare to purchase private health
| care in the UK given the waiting lists.
| archagon wrote:
| Regardless, it would be far cheaper than anything in the
| US, especially if Obamacare gets repealed.
| mettamage wrote:
| Netherlands: can't you just do Dutch/US friendship treaty,
| live here for a number of years and then apply for
| citizenship?
| archagon wrote:
| Yes. The downside is the wealth tax, and it can also be
| very difficult to socially integrate into a country where
| English is not the first language. (I can learn Dutch of
| course, but it would take many years.)
| authorfly wrote:
| What wealth tax concerns you?
|
| Most of the tax begins at $80k+ and then $110k+ yearly
| income but not so much wealth from my understanding.
|
| PS; The Dutch government may reverse the negative expat
| changes, especially regarding the special status for
| capital gains from outside the country in the coming
| years. And check out Germany. They may also shortly set
| up a scheme.
| mettamage wrote:
| My wife is American. Judging by her progress learning
| Dutch well enough to be able to speak would take 6
| months.
|
| It will take her years because she does duolingo for 5
| minutes every day and speaks a bit of Dutch with me.
|
| But given by how her progress goes, I'd say it'd take 6
| months if you go intensely about it.
|
| Dutch is close to English in vocab.
|
| And by the wealth tax you mean box 3? I don't know how
| other countries do it but as we currently have it, I find
| this way more chill than the US. You don't need to log
| your trades, you don't need to care about capital gains.
| You'll roughly pay 1% about your net income.
|
| If you want to avoid that a bit: buy art in your house
| that's stable (if I recall correctly, I'm not a laywer)
| and your house is your primary residence. So any money
| that you put into that doesn't get taxed.
|
| We'll change soon to a capital gains system probably
| anyway, a few years tops, so this point is probably moot.
|
| Again, I'm not a laywer or financial advisor. I sometimes
| read up on these things, but I'm not razor sharp on it.
| hyperdunc wrote:
| > Half the populace elected a blubbering rapist, felon, and
| fascist to lead them. Again.
|
| Your kind of ignorance is so tiresome. It's one of the best
| arguments for doing away with democracy altogether.
| archagon wrote:
| I have no idea what you're trying to say here.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Why do you assume that any other country wants you?
| archagon wrote:
| Because I've done the legwork to verify this?
| modeless wrote:
| I didn't vote for Trump, but I would welcome the migration of
| people with this attitude to Europe or anywhere else.
| mattpallissard wrote:
| > no known Trump supporter will ever get my handshake.
|
| This is exactly the attitude that pushes people apart. People
| on both sides do it and it really brings me down.
| archagon wrote:
| I have no other tangible way of making people feel the
| consequences of their shitty actions.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Doesn't seem to be much commentary here on what an axis of
| Musk/Vance/Thiel (and Andreesen, etc.) influence and power in the
| US federal administration now means for the technology sector.
|
| Remember it is Musk who began the wave of layoffs a bit over two
| years ago.
|
| Bezos evidently saw the way the wind was blowing already.
|
| I also see almost zero discussion about climate change policy.
| For many of us non-Americans, this (the disengagement of the US
| from even the pathetic half-measures it moved towards under
| Obama) is one of the key things that was horrifying to watch.
| bagels wrote:
| What are your thoughts on it? Why are the layoffs related?
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Because among these people there was definitely a perception
| that we had/have acquired too much bargaining power.
| gigatexal wrote:
| What's there to talk about: they bought a President. They
| puppet the incompetent VP. They stand to make billions. The
| TikTok ban basically sealed the Trump win because its American
| investors were hellbent on him winning and they paid him to
| switch his stance on it. That's just one example.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| There might be a cultural issue here for the Dems. Many of the
| canvassers I met who were not retirees tended to be young women,
| often college-aged or a bit older, very liberal and very much
| benefitting directly from the economic status quo. To them,
| voting for anyone besides Harris was just completely insensible
| and they did not even bother to try and understand the views of
| anyone they spoke with (from what I could tell), they were just
| pushing "get out the vote" but no substantial reasons as to why.
| I suspect that many of these young women are fairly out of touch
| with the sentiments of most americans and the daily hardships of
| those without college degrees, especially young men. I suspect
| that many of these young women will be forced out of the party
| for that reason, and if they aren't, then they will have to learn
| to actually talk to people with opposing viewpoints and figure
| out how to get along with the so-called "deplorables." But most
| likely they will just end up working somewhere else; not all at
| once, but the dems will be forced to change their platforms, new
| candidates will get elected who will change their staffs, and an
| entire cohort of well-to-do liberal poly sci majors will be
| gradually shifted out of Washington.
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| This is satire right?
| CalRobert wrote:
| My mom canvassed for Harris in PA and she's 64...
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| Nobody who has time to travel from all over the country to
| canvass needs to work everyday to support themselves and/or
| their families.
| verywellsaidsir wrote:
| Very well said sir. They also don't understand the regular
| American. Who has to put food on the table without a
| college degree.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Dems won't change their strategy and probably won't have to,
| because after Trump is past his term limit the Republican party
| will be back to offering up wet noodles like Jeb and Romney,
| who won't be able to persuade the working class to vote.
| Against weaker less charismatic opponents, the poor strategy of
| the DNC will matter far less.
|
| And everything will continue to suck for the working class.
| Trump won't actually succeed in fixing much of anything for
| them, even if he tries, and nobody else is even going to
| pretend to care. The DNC will continue to be the party for
| yuppies that sneers at uneducated working men while the RNC
| takes off the mask stops pretending to care about anything
| besides the managerial class and Christian/Zionism issues.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| Yes, wet noodles like JD Vance who completely wrecked Tim
| Walz in the debate.
| redeux wrote:
| That seems like a partisan take rather than an objective
| one.
| nervousvarun wrote:
| I wouldn't say the BBC is partisan...They called it for
| Vance: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y0863ry88o
|
| Overall though do agree it was a fairly close debate not
| particularly one-sided.
|
| Will say if guys like Vance & DeSantis are the future of
| the GOP that a significant upgrade over Trump.
|
| I still don't quite understand why DeSantis fared so
| poorly w/ the GOP for this election. He appears to be far
| more competent/palatable than Trump but here are.
| eth0up wrote:
| DeSantis has made a few mistakes that have shaken
| previous supporters and infuriated others. I've mostly
| scratched my head at most if it, but one that I couldn't
| ignore was the adorable plot to turn our State Parks into
| sports facilities. I simply cannot trust or support
| anyone who views our priceless preserves as untapped
| resources in need of strip malls and golf courses.
| Florida is already at or past a sustainable threshold
| with the diseased variety of "progress" that prevails
| here.
|
| For me, once we altogether lose the quintessence of this
| state (this isn't Disneyland or Lennar), it'll be little
| more than a Skinner Box with perennial cyclones, bad
| traffic and pestilence, surrounded by cement embellished
| views of red tide.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Nobody voted for Vance (or for vice presidents generally.)
| I've seen nothing to suggest he has the kind of popularity
| or RNC establishment support that would make him a viable
| presidential candidate. The only way he gets there is if
| Trump dies, which is possible but not relevant to the DNC's
| strategy for the next election.
| eastabrooka wrote:
| Vance was pretty good at talking on Rogan.
| linguae wrote:
| What makes you sure the GOP will revert to the pre-2016 era?
| I believe that unless MAGA-style politics somehow gets
| repudiated before the general election in 2028, the future of
| the GOP is MAGA. The next presidential nominee will be in the
| mold of Trump, maybe less bombastic, but will follow similar
| policies on social and economic issues.
|
| I think a fatal strategy for never-Trumpers is to assume that
| Trump and MAGA will go away. Every gaffe and every scandal
| seems to strengthen Trump. It hasn't gone away, and we will
| have to live with the consequences. Perhaps a better strategy
| is to accept that the GOP these days is the MAGA party, and
| we need new strategies for competing in future elections.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Trump politics without a Trump personality doesn't work.
| The closest they'll get to emulating Trump is getting
| somebody like Jeb to awkwardly cuss a few times.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| > What makes you sure the GOP will revert to the pre-2016
| era?
|
| MAGA just lacks the charm without the Orange Man at the
| helm. Trump is mortal and his successors are lacking.
|
| That said, the Chamber of Commerce Republicans will
| probably stay Democrat. It'd be at least 2033 before it's
| clear that MAGA only lasted with Trump leading.
| matsemann wrote:
| > _then they will have to learn to actually talk to people with
| opposing viewpoints_
|
| Why is there a different standard applied to one of the sides?
| halgir wrote:
| It's an observation on what it takes to win for this
| particular "side", not a moral comparison of the two.
| zpeti wrote:
| Because OP is talking about the side that lost. If you want
| to win, you probably need to change. This isn't about
| standards, it's about what works.
| matthewmorgan wrote:
| Curious what you mean by benefitting directly from the economic
| status quo? Non-American here
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| Just the way it is. Most of the "growth" in the last 4 years
| went to top-wage earners; the bottom (that is, the majority
| of people) did not see their wages grow faster than
| inflation. The US has a very particular class of highly
| educated professionals who live in very specific
| neighbourhoods that tend to be fairly closed off socially
| from the rest of society; they have all benefitted
| tremendously from the Biden/Harris presidency and are her
| strongest supporters. On the other hand, many Americans who
| never went to college or never got a Bachelor's at least make
| much less money on average and have seen food prices and
| rents skyrocket over the last four years and if they had any
| savings they've essentially evaporated. These two groups of
| people don't generally talk to each other.
| goosedragons wrote:
| And those top-wage earners are college aged liberal women
| and not old rich conservative white dudes?
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| They're both? But the upper-middle class is far larger
| than the legitimate bourgeoisie, so they're class
| interests count for a lot more in politics.
| bloqs wrote:
| The old rich conservative dudes are the top brass and the
| incumbent but they often dont earn high wages, they exist
| outside the earning a living categories. Their income is
| gaining from their capital in ways that arent classed as
| income. The top of the upper middle classes are who he is
| talking about. The difference between the top middle
| classes and the bottom is larger than it has been for a
| while
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| College aged women often benefit financially from old
| rich dudes.
| conradfr wrote:
| Kind of? https://www.pewresearch.org/short-
| reads/2022/03/28/young-wom...
| mavelikara wrote:
| How did these respective groups fare in the 4 years prior?
| mike_hearn wrote:
| Roughly half of Gen Z men believe men face anti-male
| discrimination at the hands of feminists, and a quarter say
| they experienced it directly themselves. That's a huge number
| and the latter number can only go upwards by the nature of
| the question. The numbers are also rising very fast. The
| primary place they experience that discrimination is their
| workplace or university, i.e. places that affect their
| economic wellbeing.
|
| https://www.americansurveycenter.org/newsletter/why-young-
| me...
|
| _Nearly one in four Gen Z men say they have experienced
| discrimination or were subject to mistreatment simply because
| they were men, a rate far greater than older men._
|
| _In 2019, less than one-third of young men reported that men
| experienced some or a lot of discrimination in American
| society. Only four years later, close to half (45 percent) of
| young men now believe men are facing gender-based
| discrimination. For some young men, feminism has morphed from
| a commitment to gender equality to an ideology aimed at
| punishing men. That leads to predictable results, like half
| of men agreeing with the statement, "These days society seems
| to punish men just for acting like men."_
| amarcheschi wrote:
| I wonder what they perceive as "acting like man". I'm a
| 22yo guy and living in a sketchy area in italy I always
| have a friend who's a woman living near me that asks to
| walk her at home to feel more safe. That's something very
| manly indeed, and God if it's nice. Hell, one day I drove
| some burlesque performers home and when I saw one of them
| was scared I proposed to come at the door of her stay if
| she would have felt safer with me. That's again quite good
| for my perception of being a decent man, doing something
| that's tipically relegated to men.
|
| I wonder what discrimination they face day to day, whether
| it is phisical or online
| Foreignborn wrote:
| There are so many layers to your comment.
|
| Aren't you now asking yourself, "who are they scared of?"
|
| Let the answer sink in.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| I know what women are scared of in that area, God damn
| I'm autistic but not stupid. I'm slightly on the edge as
| well, that's understandable. What I'm trying to grasp, is
| how men perceive they're being discriminated against. If
| you feel like you're being discriminated because women
| are scared of men at night in a bad lit sketchy area,
| that's not discrimination, that's just survival instinct,
| and I have it too, be it some guy walking his dog on a
| leash or a woman in her fifties walking alone
| throwaway665345 wrote:
| >What I'm trying to grasp, is how men perceive they're
| being discriminated against
|
| For example, there are scholarships and conferences
| specifically for women, even in spite of college numbers
| now drastically already favoring women.
|
| I feel as though as a white male I am very heavily
| discriminated against in the academic job market. I'm
| certain that if I had a vagina, and all else were equal,
| I would have 1000x the job prospects in academia. No, I
| can't prove this, but I know a lot of other men feel the
| same way.
|
| I created this throwaway account to answer your question
| because I'm afraid of potential future employers looking
| at my posting history and seeing the above comment, which
| I think would instantly disqualify me from the majority
| of US academic positions.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| I showed this to a friend doing a PhD - in italy tho -
| and she laughed and shrugged saying that she's in
| academia not because she has a vagina but because she had
| the right recommendations from the right people
|
| I think the academia world is broken not in the way you
| think it is
|
| Although not in the US, she says that when doing
| something in the academia world being a man or a woman
| makes no difference (here)
| skinkestek wrote:
| > I wonder what they perceive as "acting like man".
|
| As late as yesterday a woman I need to listen to had
| opinions on something as basic as how men are supposed to
| pee, telling that how most men feel comfortable peeing is
| wrong.
|
| That is just one.
|
| But I think it goes all the way from kindergarten up in
| some places.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| All the opinions I've ever heard on how to do something
| we're mostly said by another men. I feel truly sorry for
| the men that have to endure this shit, many more times I
| was deemed gay (jokingly, of course, but still it
| happened) because I dressed with silk clothes or eclectic
| outfits (that aren't even so electing) or the way I
| behaved, and all this was said by friend who were guys as
| me (the type of guys that would joke about gays and trans
| and say they have no issues with them but then have to
| argue about the bathroom trans people use), yet it's
| silly to berate the entire man-slice of society for this.
| Stupid people are everywhere
| Trompair wrote:
| It has morphed. Or at least the algorithms are pushing
| militant feminism far more prominently nowadays.
|
| All these guys see on their social feeds, day-in, day-out,
| is 'feminists' stating that all men are just rapists-in-
| waiting and how they should have their rights and/or
| autonomy restricted, or from the most extreme examples, be
| physically mutilated or outright murdered.
|
| You don't have to look hard to find this stuff on social
| media, and once you do find it, that's all you'll ever be
| served.
| audunw wrote:
| You're on to something. I think Scott Galloway got it right in
| this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzLmznS91kM
|
| The Democratic party has a problem communicating to young white
| men why they should vote democrat. The party doesn't speak to
| them at all. I don't think there's much wrong with the
| policies. It could perhaps use some more policies targeting
| men's rights. But it's mostly a communication problem. Young
| men don't feel seen by the democratic party, and the democrats
| need to realize this and fix it for the next election.
| 127 wrote:
| Looking from afar, the dominating far left elements of the
| DNC have been actively hostile to unmarried white men, and
| completely disconnected from young men (who don't fit into a
| very narrow mold of acceptability) in general.
| guerrilla wrote:
| The sad thing is that there isn't anything "left" in that
| "far left". It's just misandry without the socialism.
| orwin wrote:
| The sad thing is calling anything in the Democrat party
| 'left'. Historically, right means pro-power, pro status
| quo, and left pro reform and pro-distribution of power.
| At first it was political, then it was more generalized
| (far right is getting back to full
| monarchy/empire/whatever, basically going back in time).
|
| Do the Democrat seems left to you?
| threeseed wrote:
| > actively hostile to unmarried white men
|
| Feel free to name these policies you think are specifically
| hostile to white men.
| siffin wrote:
| You'll be waiting a long while, unmarried white women are
| too busy having their body autonomy taken away. Poor men.
| slightwinder wrote:
| White men were the peak of society. Every policy,
| improvising the rights of all other people, especially
| women, is chipping away from their Throne. Naturally,
| some will see this as a threat and a loss, especially
| when you are regularly feed with misinformation. That
| society as a whole is becoming better, doesn't help the
| groups who are losing from it. And this is showing for a
| while now.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| > White men were the peak of society.
|
| Most white men are not at the peak of society. When they
| are told how good they have it, they think about how
| their paycheck barely/doesn't cover their needs, or the
| needs of his family. They think about how long their car
| will last before breaking down. They think about the
| amount of crime in their neighborhood. And then they are
| told that this is the good life? And they discover that
| the government is giving people who just got here
| handouts (which is made from their taxes, money that
| could have improved their own lives)? They won't stand
| for it.
| slightwinder wrote:
| > Most white men are not at the peak of society.
|
| Today. This was different 60 years ago. This is different
| today in more conservative countries. At least that is
| the perception of those people.
|
| > When they are told how good they have it, they think
| about how their paycheck barely/doesn't cover their
| needs, or the needs of his family. They think about how
| long their car will last before breaking down.
|
| Everyone has those problems, it's not limited to men or
| white people.
|
| > And they discover that the government is giving people
| who just got here handouts
|
| And here we have the prime example of manipulation. The
| reason why all those young men fall to this delusion.
| PleasureBot wrote:
| Today men represent 42% of 4 year college students. The
| gap between men and women enrolled in 4 year college is
| higher than it was before Title IX was enacted, but in
| the opposite direction this time. Wages are falling far
| behind inflation, and home ownership feels entirely out
| of reach for most young people due to skyrocketing
| housing prices. Additionally young people are more single
| and lonely than ever. Most of these issues do not
| exclusively affect men, but there are lots (millions) of
| young men who are unsure if they will ever be able to
| find a partner, own a home, and work a job that can help
| support a family. There's a reason toxic hyper-masculine,
| conservative influences have grown hugely in popularity;
| they are tapping into these insecurities a lot of young
| men are facing. Only Republicans are bothering to address
| this demographic with claims about how they're going to
| help them start their own business, improve own a home,
| make a decent living, etc.
|
| Telling young men today that they actually shouldn't care
| about any of these things because they had it so good 60
| years ago has done nothing but alienate people who might
| otherwise have supported Democrats.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Well I'm just glad so many men will be happy and feel in
| control of their own lives now!
| tekknik wrote:
| have you gotten the impression that this tactic doesn't
| work or you need more time?
| matwood wrote:
| Galloway has been harping on this for awhile. Check the
| Democrats website and it lists who they are for. All groups
| are there including women, but nothing about men or young
| men. I heard a blurb on the news last night that college aged
| men broke heavily towards Trump.
| threeseed wrote:
| It actually mirrors what is happening in South Korea.
|
| Women are becoming more liberal as they push for equality and
| bodily autonomy. Men are becoming more conservative because
| they feel that women's rights are coming at the expense of
| theirs and that no one is addressing their concerns.
|
| And so there is a large cultural and political divide.
|
| Which then has all sorts of side effects e.g. men becoming
| more 'incel' in their behaviour because women aren't
| interested in dating them, birth rate dropping because woman
| don't want to be stay at home moms etc.
| llm_trw wrote:
| What's missing is that men in South Korea are expected to
| spend 2 to 3 years of their life in the army. This was a
| reasonable tradeoff when women would spend as much time
| being pregnant - I risk my life to protect you, you risk
| yours to give me something to protect.
|
| At this point with how quickly South Korea is falling apart
| socially the young men may well welcome an invasion by the
| North since they have nothing to fight for - what happens
| if we have a war and we don't show up?
| threeseed wrote:
| That is a horrific and dystopian trade-off.
|
| Pretty sure most women would just prefer to fight than be
| forced to carry a pregnancy.
| llm_trw wrote:
| >Pretty sure most women would just prefer to fight than
| be forced to carry a pregnancy.
|
| And people get upset when liberals are called a death
| cult.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| So many people forget that men are expected to fight wars
| or register to be drafted on the sole basis of being born
| male. Many are circumcised for the same reason (born
| male). Where is our bodily autonomy? Where is our choice?
| davedx wrote:
| When she deliberately chose not to go on Joe Rogan was where
| I started to seriously doubt her chances.
|
| It was all Beyonce, Michelle Obama and Taylor Swift.
|
| You can say everything you want about Rogan, but I still
| really, really wish she'd done one interview with him.
| ks2048 wrote:
| There will be a lot of second-guessing for what she should
| have done. The fact is they need to nominate candidates who
| would do well in such a situation and it's not clear that
| she would have. I think Walz would have done well on Rogan,
| not sure he didn't do it.
| sofixa wrote:
| Well, can you think of any reason why those young women didn't
| want to consider and understand the "opposing view"?
|
| Their rights are literally being stripped away, with threats of
| more. Even without that, the "opposing view" is voting for a
| convicted rapist, known pedophile, weirdly incestuous with his
| daughter, incapable of forming a coherent sentence, complete
| lack of understanding about any complex topic such as economy,
| admitted to spreading lies on many ocassions, started an
| insurrection, and on and on and on.
|
| For literally anyone sane, any of those reasons _individually_
| would be totally disqualifying in a candidate. Let alone for
| people such as young women who have _a lot_ to personally lose
| from a misogynist rapist promising to strip their rights. (If
| you haven 't being paying attention, abortion restrictions have
| resulted in women dying of preventable reasons because doctors
| are afraid to do anything which _might_ be interpreted as an
| abortion, even if the pregnant woman is dying in front of them
| from sepsis due to an unviable pregnancy; add in the threat of
| removing non-fault divorces, and it 's genuinely scary).
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| I like that anger! Now that you can't postpone the
| inevitable, maybe you'll actually have to do something about
| it instead of wasting your time and energy whining about it.
| DeliriousDog wrote:
| This comment is disgusting. Voting is what they did about
| it, and they still have their rights at risk.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| Turns out voting is not enough! Damn, if only those Black
| Panthers got out to vote, we would've fixed racism in
| America. Shame.
| LunaSea wrote:
| Maybe they should simply refuse to give up power like
| your candidate did the last time no?
| tekknik wrote:
| Because that's what happened. We didn't just finish a
| Biden presidency did we?
|
| The left can't admit they're continue not understanding
| voter IDs, it doesn't mean we're going to shut up until
| they're implemented nationwide.
| sofixa wrote:
| I, thankfully, don't live in the US. I know women who do,
| and they're terrified. What do you want them to do, mount
| an armed insurrection? Murder Trump? Firebomb the
| Republican-majority Capitol?
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| What do you want them to do, have a panic attack and kill
| themselves? It seems that I have more hope in women's
| collective power than you do.
| tekknik wrote:
| um...you think it's smart so say such things?
|
| i live in the US and i don't see any terrified women.
| please stop speaking for our country thanks.
| gcau wrote:
| Can you clarify what rights are being stripped away from
| women?
| pavlov wrote:
| It's right there in the last paragraph of the comment
| you're replying to.
| quink wrote:
| I mean take your pick:
| https://www.americanprogress.org/article/women-paid-price-
| tr... or just listen to his words... "I'm going to do it,
| whether the women like it or not".
| sofixa wrote:
| I did in my comment already.
|
| Abortion restrictions are being implemented, which result
| in women being forced to carry feti which can be unviable
| (literally killing them), from rape or incest. Even if you
| don't believe women have the right to choose for themselves
| if they want to carry to term (I do, it's about bodily
| autonomy way before there's any other life in the
| consideration), this is egregious. Again, women are
| literally dying in hospitals because doctors don't want to
| save them out of fear of performing something which might
| be an abortion. This has happened in Poland, and in the US,
| and it will happen again.
|
| The Supreme Court, majority appointed by Trump and
| similarly minded individuals, has already questioned no
| fault divorces and interracial marriage too.
|
| Project 2025, sponsored by a big conservative think thank
| which is supporting Trump, and on whose support Trump
| relies (he has appointed lots of judges vetted by them, so
| to think they're not related is naive and delusional ), is
| against no fault divorces.
|
| Most divorces are initiated by women. Most victims of
| domestic violence are women.
|
| If that's not enough for you as stripping of rights, I
| don't know what will be. And I'm not a woman, nor American
| - I care because I'm capable of _empathy_ , which seems to
| be a foreign concept to many Americans.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| >I care because I'm capable of _empathy_
|
| Women are a reactionary element for a reason. Now they've
| finally been pushed to radical extremes and you see this
| as a bad thing?
| miningape wrote:
| > Most divorces are initiated by women.
|
| No having non-fault divorce doesn't stop divorces if you
| have an actual reason for it, a "fault" that caused the
| divorce if you will: Domestic abuse, cheating,
| abandonment, etc. Considering that men often lose the
| most in a divorce but don't initiate divorces indicates
| that women have a privilege here.
|
| Marriage rates aren't only decreasing because of anti-
| social people: many men are starting to view marriage as
| a legal institution which benefits women exclusively -
| allowing them to extract resources from a man with the
| backing of the state and very little effort.
|
| > Most victims of domestic violence are women.
|
| Most _reported_ victims of domestic violence are women.
| If you take into account unreported domestic violence,
| emotional abuse, and non-deadly domestic violence men are
| actually ahead of women in this particular stage of the
| oppression olympics.
|
| Maybe if you could share some of that empathy with the
| men affected by these laws you'd see why they get pushed
| through, and why women also support them.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Considering that men often lose the most in a divorce
| but don't initiate divorces indicates that women have a
| privilege here.
|
| Or men don't initiate divorces because they have the most
| to lose?
|
| > Most reported victims of domestic violence are women.
| If you take into account unreported domestic violence,
| emotional abuse, and non-deadly domestic violence men are
| actually ahead of women in this particular stage of the
| oppression olympics.
|
| You can't make a claim like that without even a hint of a
| source. Yes, most female on male domestic violence and
| abuse goes unreported and hell, many men get mocked for
| "letting a woman do that to them". It's of course
| horrific. Is there _any_ indication this is happening at
| a rate similar to or higher than domestic violence
| against women? I have never seen any, but feel free to
| share.
|
| > Maybe if you could share some of that empathy with the
| men affected by these laws you'd see why they get pushed
| through,
|
| Which laws?!
| tekknik wrote:
| > doctors don't want to save them out of fear of
| performing
|
| then perhaps they should leave the profession if they're
| so unsure of themselves. they're supposed to be among
| some of the most educated people in society and they
| can't read and understand a law? or hire a lawyer?
|
| also have you asked the women what they want? because my
| wife for instance is against abortion. both of my sisters
| as well.
| sofixa wrote:
| > they're supposed to be among some of the most educated
| people in society and they can't read and understand a
| law? or hire a lawyer?
|
| Yes, that's the biggest concern for a (probably
| overworked) doctor, read laws and hire lawyers to make
| sure if they're allowed to perform a medical procedure.
|
| > also have you asked the women what they want? because
| my wife for instance is against abortion. both of my
| sisters as well.
|
| And I hope neither of them is dying while pregnant,
| willingly or not, and the doctor has to chose before
| doing the right thing and going to prison. If all three
| of them cannot realise this and why it's important to
| _have a fucking say on the matter_ , they're either
| absurdly dumb or absurdly heartless. If they're willing
| to let women die of sepsis or be forced to give birth to
| unviable feti because they think their version of a diety
| tells them so, there is something wrong with them. (And
| I'm wording this as politely as I can, believe in
| whatever shit you want, but if your shit means letting
| people die of preventable causes because of your beliefs,
| you're a terrible person)
| tekknik wrote:
| they are required to follow laws in their normal every
| day job. for instance they must also be concerned when
| they prescribe narcotics or other controlled substances
| but that doesn't paralyze them.
|
| so again, if they can't handle the job and know when it's
| appropriate to give an abortion and when it isn't then
| they need to quit.
| c22 wrote:
| The idea that there are only two "opposing views" and we
| _must_ choose one of them is kind of the entire issue here
| imho.
| sofixa wrote:
| That's what you get when you stick with a voting system
| that has been obsolete for a century.
| c22 wrote:
| Well, this is why I've voted third party for every
| election I've ever participated in.
| tekknik wrote:
| That's not going to work, but at least you're sticking to
| your principles. We need to abolish political parties
| altogether. I've been trying to get traction on this for
| years with no luck.
| will5421 wrote:
| Us third party voters need to work together for change to
| the voting system, no matter how different our politics
| might be from one another. In fact, us working together
| despite our different politics would underline our point:
| democracy is about everyone having their say, not about
| agreement.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >Well, can you think of any reason why those young women
| didn't want to consider and understand the "opposing view"?
|
| Sure - but we're talking about pragmatic considerations. In
| hindsight, preservation or expansion of abortion rights was
| not enough to get men to turn out to vote for Harris in
| sufficient numbers to swing the election, so another kind of
| message should have been crafted for that voting block.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > Sure - but we're talking about pragmatic considerations.
| In hindsight, preservation or expansion of abortion rights
| was not enough to get men to turn out to vote for Harris in
| sufficient numbers to swing the election, so another kind
| of message should have been crafted for that voting block.
|
| My stomach dropped when I heard a young men claim that
| Trump would be better because of his economic policies. To
| which I reply which ones? Followed by stumbling silence.
|
| This is a young university educated 25 year old men raised
| in a Social Democrat European developed nation, claiming
| that Donald Trump would serve American interest and a world
| economy the best. We are absolutely underestimating the
| effect of people's world view being shaped by information
| wars on social media.
|
| Adam Curtis 'Hypernormalisation' now feels like a
| Nostradamus level prediction of the decades to come.
| tekknik wrote:
| Crazy idea, if you're confused and can't figure out why
| the brain washing didn't hold then maybe they're seeing
| something you don't? Maybe you're wrong?
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Not confused. Perhaps impressed, surprised, worried.
|
| Surkov will be proud I guess.
| tekknik wrote:
| Yea look more into the Russian disnfo BS. The campaign
| has been running likely since before you were born and
| the intent is to destabilize the country not pick a
| particular candidate. If you pay attention to the flip
| flopping from them you'd notice the same.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > the intent is to destabilize the country not pick a
| particular candidate.
| kypro wrote:
| > abortion restrictions have resulted in women dying of
| preventable reasons because doctors are afraid to do anything
| which might be interpreted as an abortion, even if the
| pregnant woman is dying in front of them from sepsis due to
| an unviable pregnancy; add in the threat of removing non-
| fault divorces, and it's genuinely scary
|
| I'm pro-choice, but this idea that pro-life opinions are not
| equally popular with women is just wrong and not support by
| polling on the subject. I'm more pro-choice than my GF.
| miningape wrote:
| The myopia here is crazy. As though the dems and their
| candidates aren't equally bad - except all of their actions
| are against young men rather than women.
|
| Also what rights are on the line here exactly? Free speech?
| no, thats what the dems have been attacking. Suffrage? Nope
| no one is trying to remove this. Even if you want to say "Roe
| v Wade": it's not a right to get an abortion, and its not
| even banned just not regulated at a federal level.
| konart wrote:
| >For literally anyone sane, any of those reasons individually
| would be totally disqualifying in a candidate
|
| Sorry, but this is not how it works.
|
| People have fear, prejudice and many other things that worry
| them. Their fear may or may not be baseless but it is there
| and if you are sane and more or less logical you have to take
| it into account.
|
| When people fear or do not understand something they tend to
| turn to someone who offers them a solution.
|
| Some times it's a doctor, some times it's a drug dealer. Why?
| Well, many reasons (I'll excuse myself and won't start
| listing those because you can write a few books about each of
| them)
|
| You want people to stop turning to mafia\drug dealers or some
| kind of charlatans for help? You have to do something about
| their fears.
|
| This is sane and logical and any therapist will tell you
| something similar.
|
| Yes, it might be hard to accept, but it is quite possible you
| have to fix this shit to be able to fix the "their rights are
| literally being stripped away" part.
|
| edit: misprints
| wvh wrote:
| Most men care. We have wives, mothers, daughters, friends.
| But it becomes very hard to vote for a party (mind you, I'm
| not American, but this is showing up everywhere) that airs
| too many radical sentiments that men are shit and useless.
| You lose your support. You can't build a majority that way.
| Keep the sensible people in the middle in the loop.
| ethagnawl wrote:
| > ... that airs too many radical sentiments that men are
| shit and useless.
|
| Are some people on TikTok saying things like this? Sure.
| Was this part of the campaign's messaging or the party's
| platform? No. Not in the least.
| wvh wrote:
| If the average "CIS white male" feels this way and is
| checking out, you've got a problem, whether you're the
| cause or not. It's perception more so than truth that's
| costing "the left" the elections.
|
| If people are rather loudly letting you know they feel
| left out, you'd better come up with a strategy that
| somehow resonates with them, rather than saying "we never
| said that" and continue to lose their vote. Whether you
| think that's justified or not is not really relevant, not
| if you want to win, at least.
|
| The same thing goes the other way 'round, if the
| democrats would win because too many women would have
| felt left out from the Republican party stance, something
| I can easily understand too.
| sofixa wrote:
| > the average "CIS white male" feels this way and is
| checking out, you've got a problem, whether you're the
| cause or not. It's perception more so than truth that's
| costing "the left" the elections.
|
| Yes, you have a problem, and it's called disinformation.
|
| > If people are rather loudly letting you know they feel
| left out, you'd better come up with a strategy that
| somehow resonates with them, rather than saying "we never
| said that" and continue to lose their vote. Whether you
| think that's justified or not is not really relevant, not
| if you want to win, at least.
|
| This is some ludicrous reasoning. What do you want them
| to do other than say "we _literally_ never said that "?
| How exactly do you picture them campaigning against
| strawmen and imagined threats? If people are too dumb to
| realise they're being lied too, that's really
| unfortunate, but you can't fix stupid. Ultimately that's
| why populist politicians with empty words are on the
| rise. You really cannot fix stupid.
| ethagnawl wrote:
| Thank you for eloquently expressing the knee jerk version
| of what I was going to say, which is _that sounds like a
| you/them problem_.
|
| So, reading between the lines, it sounds like these "CIS
| white males" (I am one, hi!) are being triggered by
| discussion of inclusion, bias, systemic misogyny, etc.
| It's not always pleasant to have a light shown on your
| biases but how else do you expect to grow or for society
| to ever change? Imagine if abolitionists or suffragettes
| had kowtowed to people who did or threatened to "check
| out" because of their work? By GP's (implied) logic, they
| should have and worked to overtly deal with those issues
| at. ... some indeterminate point in the future?
| manquer wrote:
| > Most men care.
|
| I don't think so, caring means doing something about it, if
| men weren't deeply misogynistic there would have been a
| woman president decades before. The behavior of men is not
| surprising however and is expected.
|
| What is shocking is half the women in this country also
| don't care about their own interests either.
|
| It is one thing for immigrants or working class to be
| voting against their own interests, economic and border
| policies are abstract and people historically have failed
| to attribute links to the administration responsible.
| Abortion is not abstract however, the linkage to right-wing
| policy is straightforward.
| tekknik wrote:
| Or maybe she was a bad candidate?
|
| Who in their right mind votes based on the sexual organs
| a person has?
| selykg wrote:
| So many times I have seen women say "we aren't ready for
| a woman president, they're too hysterical"
|
| The misogyny is so deep that women experience it from
| other women.
| tekknik wrote:
| many women I asked are absolutely ready, but every single
| one of them were depressed at the idea of Harris being
| the first. given she can't put a sentence together they
| didn't want the shame.
| manquer wrote:
| When there are life or death issues at stake regarding
| those organs , which organs they have absolutely warrants
| consideration
| wvh wrote:
| I'm not American, and we've had a female president.
| Clearly we're not misogynistic over here, then. Maybe
| it's something in the water.
|
| > What is shocking is half the women in this country also
| don't care about their own interests either.
|
| Aren't you just assuming for women to care about just one
| political issue here?...
| manquer wrote:
| It is not abstract political issue like the economy or
| immigration.
|
| Every woman between 18(and sadly lot younger but they
| cannot vote ) and 45 is affected directly personally by
| reproductive healthcare . It is an issue they get
| reminded about every month physically.
|
| ---
|
| Electing women heads of state , is an exceptionally low
| bar on misogyny scale, that only the Middle East, lesser
| developed parts of Africa and United States have in
| common .
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_elected_and_appoi
| nte...
|
| Even non Middle Eastern Islamic countries like Pakistan
| or Bangladesh where stoning for accusations of adultery
| is still a thing have democratically elected women
| leaders .
|
| ----
|
| People aren't voting for trump for his policies, neither
| he nor his supporters can articulate what they clearly.
|
| 2016 was explained about how it was an anti-establishment
| vote , Hillary had baggage .
|
| 2024 the discourse is already it the economy
|
| record numbers voted for him in 2020 when he had the by
| far worst possible economy of any president ever. Biden
| only scrapped through by thinnest of margins .
|
| It is disingenuous to then argue that people were smart
| enough to understand the reason behind the economy then ,
| but cannot comprehend the economic consequences of 2020
| policies and the trends of today to attribute to Biden .
|
| It is always something else, we should own who we are as
| a society.
| siffin wrote:
| Did that really happen though? or did the right just
| amplify those messages because they're very effective to
| campaign on? and now everyone just repeats them. Maybe even
| making a lot of young men feel even more despondent and
| useless in the process.
|
| Kinda funny how the moment real progress is made on trying
| to give anyone other than males a hand up, they start
| crying like babies about how they're not getting enough
| attention. Meanwhile, those same men are literally
| stripping away women's rights to their own body.
| thrance wrote:
| Give me a single instance of a Democrat criticizing men in
| general, I'll give you 10 of Trump/Vance justifying rape or
| abuse or pedophilia
| philistine wrote:
| Don't bother. It only goes so far as _the democrats are
| demonizing men_ but there are no examples. The fact is
| the democrats did not run on demonizing men, the
| republicans ran on the democrats demonizing men.
| code_runner wrote:
| And that's why you have to appeal to them all the more.
| You have to be able to understand and counteract
| messaging like this. Proof is in the pudding
| tekknik wrote:
| do you remember a time when the republicans were even
| keeled and tempered and the democrats kept calling them
| hitler, nazis, facists, and so on? I certainly remember.
|
| The only way to counter this message is to stop with the
| hate speech. Like the parent above said. Even
| independents are tired of it now.
|
| Of course likely the left will again ignore the warnings
| and continue on so I'm quite anxious to see what 2026 and
| 2028 bring.
| philistine wrote:
| I have no clue what you're talking about? Did Gore call
| Bush a fascist? Obama?
|
| Ultimately, I see the world this way: people want good
| things for others. Most people who voted for Trump aren't
| directly fascists. Trump himself I wouldn't even qualify
| as a fascist. But he espouses fascistic policies.
| Immigrants polluting the blood of America, stuff like
| that, those are fascist ways of talking about
| immigration. So at some point we have to talk about
| things, and denounce them. And no, Trump himself is not
| Mussolini. But the shortcut of calling him a fascist is
| ultimately okay.
|
| Same thing with racisms. Most people aren't fundamentally
| racist, but they'll espouse racist opinions. So they're
| racist.
| tekknik wrote:
| if you believe the left hasn't ramped up the vitriol
| against their supposed enemies then you're living under a
| rock. have you already forgotten this same hatred almost
| got Trump shot twice? the rest of us haven't.
| sofixa wrote:
| Trump is literally a convicted rapist. Mounted an
| insurrection. Pedophile. Serial cheater. Mocked disabled
| people and veterans. Literally stole money from a
| children's cancer charity. You can literally, no
| exaggeration, pull out tens of those _indisputable_
| facts, which in a normal world, would be immediately
| disqualifying. You wouldn 't hire someone who has said
| any of the millions of things he has said. Do you
| remember grab them by the pussy? Would you be friends, or
| hire, or tolerate anyone speaking like that?
|
| Pointing them out and how fundamentally unsuited that man
| is for any job, let alone the presidency of any country,
| is not "hatred". If you have a problem with people being
| shot at, take this up with your local representative to
| get better controls on who can acquire a weapon.
| code_runner wrote:
| trump is running at least partially on a revenge-tour
| platform. his rhetoric is unlike anything else I've
| personally heard from another candidate on any side of
| the aisle.
|
| I understand that we don't agree here and that we all
| view things that are said through a distorted lens... so
| you may feel that certain speech from one person isn't
| violent, but said by another person is.... and I clearly
| would flip that around.
|
| Its a shame that things are the way they are, but
| hopefully we can all understand each other at some point
| and things are less polarized. Its pretty miserable to
| have calm and reasonable conversations about anything
| even broaching politics. Its just contributes to the echo
| chambers.
| code_runner wrote:
| I don't know of a time in recent memory with "even
| keeled" republicans (at least beyond the Primary). Romney
| and McCain would be the last I'm aware of.
|
| I'm confident that I've heard both sides saying exactly
| what you're saying though... and I remember many times
| that "the end of democracy" was around the corner.... and
| if such-and-such wins a race war is going to break out
| etc.
|
| The rhetoric and post-election-dooming is always the same
| regardless of which side wins.
|
| I pretty firmly believe that things like the economy,
| incumbents tendency to remain in power, and a party
| switch after hitting the term-limit are the biggest
| factors. What people actually say once the primaries are
| over just doesn't matter to most people. People will
| cherry-pick what they want to hear.
| wvh wrote:
| Exactly. If, as a non-American who is non-political and
| didn't follow the elections at all, that's the only thing
| that I've heard, I guess there's your problem (assuming
| you lean democrat).
|
| What I wonder as a complete outsider: how bad must the
| image of "the left" be that a shady right-wing populist
| megalomaniac businessman with sexist tendencies wins the
| election a second time?
|
| Are the democrats associated with a handful of radicals
| and idealistic goals that don't apply to the silent
| majority, or is there a perception that they can't handle
| the current political and economical challenges?
| MrHamburger wrote:
| Youtuber ShoeOnHead has called the lack of care for young
| men might bite the DNC during elections. 6 days ago.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSw04BwQy4M
|
| You have many examples of left not being really nice
| towards men in the video and in other videos on her
| channel.
| thrance wrote:
| That's not an example. Give me a policy, or at least a
| promise of a policy, literally _anything_ coming from a
| democrat 's mouth that would prove that the left is
| actually antagonizing men as a group.
|
| Meanwhile, Trump has said that you should grab them by
| the P-word, Vance has criticized "childless cat ladies"
| as if being a single woman should be a crime. I can go on
| and on, it really is that simple.
| tekknik wrote:
| This lack of evidence thing is old and still doesn't
| work.
|
| I certainly remember hateful women lambasting men,
| including myself, for things like saying a woman is
| attractive.
|
| Also Obama just said: "[P]art of it makes me think, and
| I'm speaking to men directly... that, well, you just
| aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president,
| and you're coming up with other alternatives and other
| reasons for that."
|
| I wonder what he meant? That men are sexist because we
| don't want a woman president? Or maybe that they wouldn't
| vote because they're heading to the grocery store or
| something?
| thrance wrote:
| Kamala being a woman absolutely had a negative impact on
| her results. That is probably not the main reason she
| lost though. Again, do you have any real proof that the
| left is systematically antagonizing men, or can you only
| provide anecdotal evidence?
|
| It's really easy to find instances of right-wing
| politicans or pundits saying abhorrent things about women
| as a group (refer to my previous comment), but no one
| seems to care. On the other hand Obama makes vague
| implications that sexist bias may negatively influence
| their candidates and now half the country hates men.
| kelnos wrote:
| Do you seriously actually think that Obama acknowledging
| that sexist bias exists when it comes to electing the
| president is an "attack on men"?
|
| I love how whenever someone on the left says they're
| offended by something outrageous and awful, the right
| says "grow a thicker skin, snowflake", but whenever
| someone on the left calmly asserts an obvious truth, that
| bias exists, people on the right whine that they're being
| attacked and their way of life is being destroyed.
|
| I'm a man and I don't think the Democratic party "hates
| me". Maybe Republicans need to grow a thicker skin and
| stop being offended by every little thing. (See, I can be
| an asshole and argue in bad faith too!)
| randomdata wrote:
| From my outsider (non-American) male perspective, I never
| heard anything from the Democrats. Somehow I ended up
| hearing a whole lot from the Republicans, without looking
| for it (or wanting it!). Whatever they did, they seemed
| to do a better job getting into the channels where men
| are found. So while I expect the Democrats haven't
| criticized men, I can understand how it is easy to buy
| into the rumours when that is all you have to go on.
| wvh wrote:
| I'm not American. This is not a moral or political
| statement. I'm pointing out you (as in "the left") seem
| to be losing men. This costs you support, and well,
| victory. Clearly enough people felt "the left" were not
| on their side.
|
| I can't speak about justifying rape or abuse or
| pedophilia or reproductive rights or religion or
| immigration or not being able to afford food. I don't
| live in a (that) polarised two-party system country.
| Though I fear we're all sort of heading that way for one
| reason or another...
| thrance wrote:
| I'm not American either, but I don't believe the problem
| is with the American "left" here. If half of America has
| really been brainwashed into thinking Harris is a
| communist, I'm afraid this country is lost.
|
| If anything, my advice to democrats would be to start
| playing "dirtier", I haven't seen anyone take advantage
| of the recent links established between Epstein and
| Trump, for example.
| wvh wrote:
| Maybe you're right, and that makes me sad.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> If half of America has really been brainwashed into
| thinking Harris is a communist_
|
| Well, are they wrong? Once you get past the stupid
| rehtoric associated with the word, the goal of communists
| is to usher in an age of post-scarcity.
|
| The United States is clearly leading that charge. Food
| production is the closest thing we have to post-scarcity,
| and that's almost entirely thanks to the efforts of US
| innovation. I even dare say that US innovation in general
| is doing more for bringing us closer to post-scarcity
| than anything else seen in the world. Harris seems/seemed
| on board to see that continue.
|
| Trump may be too. He appears to also stand behind
| American innovation. Although, perhaps to the determinant
| of innovation elsewhere, which does set him apart from
| Harris, and, to be fair, you might argue that leaves him
| unaligned with the communist intention.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Well, are they wrong? Once you get past the stupid
| rehtoric associated with the word, the goal of communists
| is to usher in an age of post-scarcity.
|
| So, if you ignore what a word means, and redefine it,
| yes, anything can mean whatever you want it to mean.
|
| Communism has an element of post-scarcity as a sort of a
| prerequisite, but that's neither the main goal, nor the
| means. There is nothing even remotely communist in
| anything even remotely mainstream in US politics.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> So, if you ignore what a word means, and redefine it,
| yes_
|
| Go on. What does the word mean?
|
| It is oft associated with "member of the Communist
| Party", of which Harris clearly is not. Perhaps that is
| what you are thinking of? But that usage is like calling
| a member of the Democratic Party a liberal - something
| that is also often done. But to be a liberal does not
| automatically make you a member of the Democratic Party,
| even if members of the Democratic Party are often
| liberal.
|
| _> but that 's neither the main goal, nor the means._
|
| What is the main goal, then?
|
| The means is undefined. Different communists have
| different ideas about how to achieve post-scarcity. The
| Communist Party has a particular stance about that,
| certainly, but as before, while members of the Communist
| Party may be communist, not all communists are members of
| the Communist Party.
| thrance wrote:
| Yes, they're wrong. Democrats are very much pro-
| ownership, and have no interest in weakening the
| capitalist class in any ways, shape or form. Communism is
| not about post-scarcity, to the contrary. It's an
| economic system that seeks to distribute finite resources
| equitably, and get rid of the owner class (In theory at
| least, in practice, well...).
|
| So arguing that any of Harris or Trump have anything to
| do with communism is either very dishonest or coming from
| a place of deep ignorance.
| slothtrop wrote:
| I detect a double-standard among Republicans in this
| regard, but at any rate, I think this is a case of
| culture-war/DEI resentment and conflating people on
| Twitter with the DNC. And here they'll usually point to
| some policy or other that gives credence to some of that
| (DEI for federal workers or something), but it's a weak
| connection.
| Jcampuzano2 wrote:
| I think people don't realize that it doesn't need to be
| directly said by a politician to create sentiment.
|
| If you look at the online sentiment which greatly affects
| young voters, it is very much anti-men in general. In
| fact you even have instances of this being seen in
| popular culture entertainment and slipping into
| mainstream at times. Especially for CIS white males. And
| guess which population overwhelmingly both voted for
| Trump, but also gained voters for the Trump camp? Men.
|
| Anti-male rhetoric is at an all time high, and has given
| rise to male spaces being dominated by accordingly anti-
| female rhetoric.
|
| This is in part what the parent comments are mentioning.
| That many of the most outspoke people for Dems (i.e not
| necessarily politicians themselves) are women who just
| entirely dismissed even trying to capture male voters who
| were on the fence. Yes, I get that it is difficult to
| resonate with people who vote in favor of taking away
| womens rights, but the problem is that you just aren't
| going to win if you don't capture at least some of those
| voters.
| thrance wrote:
| I don't dispute that a lot of republican voters bought
| into the propaganda that dems were anti-men, but what are
| the democrats supposed to do? This is completely
| baseless. I can't recall a single mainstream liberal
| figure having problematic words on men as a group.
|
| Republican speakers on the other hand spew non-stop hate
| toward every minority I could name and no one cares. If
| the median voters can't see that (wether he lives in a
| bubble or simply refuses to acknowledge it), then this
| country is _fucked_.
| activitypea wrote:
| > Well, can you think of any reason why those young women
| didn't want to consider and understand the "opposing view"?
|
| consider and understand =/= agree and support. Regardless of
| the Harris' or Dems' views, you win elections by getting
| votes. If we assume everyone who voted for Trump is a sexist
| asshole, then Harris was running for president in a country
| where half the electorate are sexist assholes. If you're not
| gonna extend empathy and try to build bridges with them, then
| there's no point in running.
| tekknik wrote:
| > convicted rapist
|
| nope, misinformation (which why? it's his last term..). he
| was NOT convicted of rape and instead of a LESSER crime
| called sexual abuse.
| latentcall wrote:
| Him being a rapist and pedophile should be enough for men not
| to endorse him. They'll put "shoot your local pedophile"
| decals on their trucks then go and vote for a notorious
| pedophile. Therefore supporting pedophilia. It's such a weird
| cognitive dissonance thing I can't wrap my head around.
| Implicitly or explicitly supporting a pedophile is a no go
| for me one and done.
| justin66 wrote:
| > they were just pushing "get out the vote" but no substantial
| reasons as to why.
|
| That's the focus of _any_ canvasser, not just the young women
| you did not like.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| > they were just pushing "get out the vote" but no substantial
| reasons as to why
|
| Perhaps. But that's not their fault. Anecdotally, 100% of my
| left leaning friends and colleagues were pro-Harris but with no
| reason other than "not Trump." That's not a "message" the
| undecided independents can believe in. Imagine Pepsi's key msg
| to be "not Coke".
|
| Frank Luntz just said on ABC News that Harris began to lose
| ground ~6 wks ago when she resorted to name calling. Didn't HRC
| make the same mistake? How do undecided independents build
| trust in someone who was so guarded (e.g., zero press
| conferences)? And wastes time with name calling instead of
| hammering home her vision?
|
| It's gonna be another four yrs of left-hate for Trump. The DNC
| leadership won't own their failure (again). The Harris campaign
| won't own their bad decisions. It'll all be Trump's fault.
|
| Their incompetence is Trump's fault? That's lack of
| accountability isn't working. Again.
| johnny22 wrote:
| I dunno, seemed pretty obvious to me. I wanted Harris because
| I wanted her to finish what biden was doing, and keep people
| like Lina Khan in. I wanted to see more investment in
| infrastructure and all that jazz. Seems like a nobrainer.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| You saw what you wanted to see, which is fine. However, for
| others her set of benefits wasn't as clear. For most, her
| closeness to Biden was a negative. For me her adverts were
| too abstract. "I'm going to stop the price gouging" but
| never said how.
|
| I get it, her campaign didn't have a lot of time. That
| said, the DNC should have a pulse on what voters are
| looking for, etc. As it is, this is the third candidate
| handpicked by the DNC and 2 of 3 lost to an inexperienced
| politician. That's not the victor's fault. Tho I'm
| confident there will be little to no accountability owned
| by the DNC. It's going to be four more years of blame the
| winner.
| ks2048 wrote:
| "not Trump" basically worked for Biden in 2020. I don't think
| Harris lost by name calling. Name calling works great for
| Trump. She just wasn't that strong a candidate.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Well, given the fate of Clinton and Harris, it might be
| safe to say Biden got lucky using the tactic.
|
| Luntz is widely respected as a political pollster. He said,
| the focus groups he worked with showed she lost momentum
| when the name-calling started. Is that why she lost? No,
| there were plenty of reasons. But if Luntz said that didnt'
| help then there's no reason to think otherwise.
| wvh wrote:
| The "tolerant" left has become the intolerant blind block I've
| been raised to fear the far right for. As a typical European
| middle-aged (I guess) male, mostly apolitical, I don't really
| feel anybody speaks for me anymore. The failure of the left is
| what is driving the growth of the right, by losing those people
| who very much were reaching out to minorities, female and other
| "left" interests. Tune out the radicals and work with the
| "sensible" people in the middle, and that goes for both left
| and right...
|
| Why are we letting pure simplistic tribal emotion take over in
| this age of science and rationality?...
| raldi wrote:
| It's a waste of time for canvassers to try to change anyone's
| position; people's political positions come from their lived
| experiences.
|
| Canvassing is all about ensuring that the people who already
| agree with your position know how to express that on the
| ballot, and do.
| matsemann wrote:
| Do you see the irony of complaining about them not
| "understanding your views" while you generalize a huge swath of
| young women? And why the hold-up on them being women at all?
| kragen wrote:
| As I understand it, in the US, "get out the vote" efforts don't
| count as campaigning, so they aren't subject to campaign
| finance laws. Attempting to persuade voters to vote for
| something or someone in particular, or even trying to
| understand their views, would likely put them in a different
| organizational category.
| bArray wrote:
| AP News at this time are reporting 224 (Harris) vs 267 (Trump)
| [1].
|
| A lot of political thoughts in these comments. I think the
| important thing going forwards is to figure out how to maximise
| the opportunity that you find in your environment.
|
| For our team we were looking to relocate our manufacturing from
| China and get additional investment. One of our objectives today
| is to figure out how the recent result in the US will affect this
| planning.
|
| [1] https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024
| vintnes wrote:
| The AP refusing to call Alaska all night is deeply
| embarrassing. I respect their right to present an angle but
| come on, Jack
| smrtinsert wrote:
| Welcome to the world social media gave us
| gedy wrote:
| The DNC reminds me of the board a formerly successful company
| with good people - but has terrible management and keeps
| promoting unpopular leaders.
| kwere wrote:
| i imagine the person that can climb the corporate ladder in an
| major organization to the level of board member with a lot of
| qualities, being a good person is not one of those
| goethes_kind wrote:
| From a game theoretical perspective this is a good result. It is
| a clear reiteration of the message to the Democrats: you won't
| win by claiming to be 0.1% less bad. The Democrats should have
| fielded a strong personality in their own right. This is not
| about left or right. It's about mobilizing people by giving them
| something to care about. "More of the same" and "not like that
| guy" isn't very enticing.
|
| I don't think the policy positions even matter that much, if you
| can make a strong case and gain the confidence of the electorate.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I sincerely fear this will inject way too much inertia in wrong
| directions globally even if it sends a clear message to non
| right wing crowds.
| spwa4 wrote:
| I've often found this is a mistake WAY too many people make.
| A successful team has a failure. Often, the reaction is
| restructuring, big changes, ...
|
| I try to tell people that. "You're a 10 person team. You've
| had some 50 successful projects before this failure. That
| means this justifies at most a 2% change. A 2% change in the
| team is about half a day change, once per month, NOT more
| than that".
|
| Invariably, the whole team is changed entirely, randomly, or
| going with the political winds, usually with much worse
| quality as a result. And afterwards they do see it didn't
| work.
|
| And then they respond differently: they'll no longer admit
| failure, because they do see that the changes were a
| disaster, but you apparently fix that by refusing to admit
| anything ever goes wrong ...
|
| I'm different. I think every project is a failure, it's just
| a matter of degree. You don't succeed in projects, you
| minimize how bad they are. Drives people up the wall though.
| agumonkey wrote:
| this is not a team project, it's a whole planet at stake
| here
|
| i can focus on 5% improvement per year, but if the head of
| states ruin things at 20% during the same time i'll be dead
| in a few
| redeux wrote:
| This is likely game over for Democrats and democracy in the US.
| Democracy has already been on the backslide here for some time,
| so it's not overly surprising, but I don't expect either to
| last the next couple of years.
| mattmanser wrote:
| You don't think the democratic state Governors will step up
| if there's even a hint of that happening?
|
| In the end a lot of the money and power is mostly in blue
| states.
| labster wrote:
| Governors can be killed by executive order. It's an
| official action so under the new Supreme Court ruling the
| President can't be prosecuted. Anyone who carries out the
| order can be pardoned. The courts can of course reverse the
| executive order, but not resurrect a man so the case would
| be moot.
|
| This is a man who has talked about shooting political
| opponents on the campaign trail, I'd be astonished if he
| doesn't follow through if there will be no consequences.
| testrun wrote:
| _Governors can be killed by executive order_
|
| This is a bald faced lie. Stop talking rubbish.
| polotics wrote:
| The sequence of event presented by the poster you are
| responding to is indeed a joke in 2024. Can you however
| not see a future where it becomes a practical
| possibility?
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| When the liberals on the Supreme Court say this:
|
| > Looking beyond the fate of this particular prosecution,
| the long-term consequences of today's decision are stark.
| The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the
| President, upsetting the status quo that has existed
| since the Founding. This new official-acts immunity now
| "lies about like a loaded weapon" for any President that
| wishes to place his own interests, his own political
| survival, or his own financial gain, above the interests
| of the Nation. Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214,
| 246 (1944) (Jackson, J., dissenting). The President of
| the United States is the most powerful person in the
| country, and possibly the world. When he uses his
| official powers in any way, under the majority's
| reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal
| prosecution. Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate
| a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to
| hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a
| pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.
|
| Then the claim that the President can in their official
| capacity assassinate others with impunity and protection
| from prosecution is no lie.
|
| https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.p
| df
|
| You're living in a pre-Trump world. The Supreme Court
| changed the rules while you were asleep.
| bigfudge wrote:
| Can you explain why? It seems like that is exactly what
| was implied by the recent SC judgement.
| startupsfail wrote:
| That money and power doesn't seem to be willing to move
| towards centrists policies. And there is a lot of power in
| the president, considering how unstable the world is the
| most likely scenario now is further consolidation of that
| power. And Russia or Israel are good examples, if anyone
| wants to see what happens after the power gets
| consolidated.
| fireflash38 wrote:
| I think you'll see a huge clawing back of power to the
| Federal government. Just around the things where they want
| to stick it to blue states.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| Definitely. This will involve a tariff regime explicitly
| disadvantaging the ports in coastal blue states. Certain
| bureaucratic centers will be moved, the kinds of things a
| real estate developer can follow in a short meeting.
|
| The side effects of this will both hurt his base, and
| offer opportunities for smart people. For example,
| careless tariffs can raise the cost of everything at
| Walmart by 60% with Amazon not far behind. You know this
| and I know this.
|
| Tariffs also demonstrate to domestic companies that they
| don't need to innovate. The material and labor to
| innovate will be cheaper overseas. You know this and I
| know this.
| rothron wrote:
| These are the same noises that were made on the right prior
| to the election. As long as people are sufficiently mad about
| the status quo, the other party has a chance to take over.
| jorts wrote:
| Keep in mind this site swings heavily right wing.
| matwood wrote:
| Fiscally conservative, socially liberal (in that order)
| probably best describes HN.
| moomin wrote:
| I feel like that's a story HN and a lot of tech likes to
| tell itself, but the truth is that when push comes to
| shove they support candidates who are neither, but _are_
| deeply right wing.
|
| Concrete actions tell the real story.
| jappgar wrote:
| fiscal conservatives that nevertheless don't want their
| mil contractor jobs to disappear.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| The actual lib-left side of tech evaporated. ACLU, EFF,
| even fedora-core atheists etc are a shell/joke of their
| former selves. The remaining ones (i.e. Stallman) back
| Bernie, Yang, or still buy into the green party.
|
| I got mass downvoted earlier and a "talking to" from Dang
| in regards to me pointing out that a certain Ron Wyden
| having one bad vote about BDS/isreal isn't a good enough
| reason to throw the baby out with the bath water and turn
| against one of the only reliable techno-libertarians.
| This site is done with its purported liberalism.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >fedora-core atheists
|
| What, exactly, is a "fedora-core atheist?"
|
| How might such an atheist differ from an atheist who runs
| Debian or OpenBSD?
| tirant wrote:
| Economically liberal (as in Milton Friedman, Thomas
| Sowell) and socially liberal.
|
| Trumps tends to be economically liberal internally and a
| conservative for international economics.
| zanellato19 wrote:
| So... Right Wing?
| moffkalast wrote:
| Entrepreneurs are kind of by definition neoliberals, aka
| libright.
| Macha wrote:
| Of 5 years ago, maybe.
| ks2048 wrote:
| I agree there are a lot of right wing, libertarian types,
| but I'm guessing just voting by the HN crowd would be a
| Harris landslide over Trump. For example, donations for
| Alphabet employees was supposedly 89% to democrats, 11%
| to republicans.
| km144 wrote:
| I mean considering the degree to which people on this
| site style themselves as intellectuals, it would be
| pretty astounding to me to hear that most of them voted
| for Trump this time around given his fairly disastrous
| economic agenda. Mostly tariffs--I don't really believe
| HN is that protectionist
| boomskats wrote:
| Didn't the DNC kill democracy in the US all the way back in
| 2016?
| ks2048 wrote:
| No, way back in 2000, the Supreme Court prevented a recount
| of votes in Florida.
| wil421 wrote:
| Highly unlikely. The next Governor of my state is likely that
| person who stood up to Trumps fraudulent voting claims. We
| will see if the Democrats can find a decent candidate but I
| doubt it. They used the same person twice with the same
| results.
| _heimdall wrote:
| If the democrats were interested in winning they would have
| had a few options this election. The party seems to have
| other priorities that they always prioritize over winning
| though, and that hasn't worked out well for them.
| tyleo wrote:
| They were interested in winning and I think they made
| decent moves. Dumping Biden amounted to huge increases in
| their win probability. A stronger candidate could have
| bolstered that further but Harris ran a decent campaign.
| The broader state of the economy and border put them on
| the back foot so I think they would have struggled with
| most candidates. Perhaps an outsider similar to Bernie's
| 2016 campaign would have had the best shot.
| _heimdall wrote:
| If they really wanted to win they never would have had
| Biden on the ticket. At a minimum they would have allowed
| a primary rather then forcing RFK out of the party and
| keeping any other potentials off the stage.
|
| In my opinion Biden was clearly slipping 18-24 months
| ago. But even if that's wrong, the best way to show the
| country Biden was fit for another term _and_ energize the
| party would have been putting him on stage to debate with
| other democratic leaders.
| smolder wrote:
| I don't personally think she ran a decent campaign. It
| was very standard and bland talk of unity and other hot
| air -just the stuff you expect politicians to say when
| trying to get elected, nothing to really build trust in
| her. She needed to make Trump look dumb, dishonest and
| inept by comparison. Talking to voters as if they're
| smarter might have helped, but I don't really know.
| vundercind wrote:
| Citizens United and the coup attempt neither being treated as
| five-alarm fires for our Democracy were probably the moments
| when a major slide toward authoritarianism became far, far
| more likely. Democrats just sat on their hands.
|
| By the time we got to the news that at least two Supreme
| Court justices and very likely more are being bought, and
| collectively shrugged rather than making that _the_ issue
| until they were out, well, that wasn't so much a landmark on
| the way down as another ordinary day.
| neotek wrote:
| "Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only
| a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You
| wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others,
| when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting
| somehow. You don't want to act, or even talk, alone; you
| don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' Why
| not?-Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is
| not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you;
| it is also genuine uncertainty. Uncertainty is a very
| important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes
| on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general
| community, 'everyone' is happy. One hears no protest, and
| certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there
| would be slogans against the government painted on walls
| and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps,
| there is not even this. In the university community, in
| your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues,
| some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they
| say? They say, 'It's not so bad' or 'You're seeing things'
| or 'You're an alarmist.'
|
| "And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must
| lead to this, and you can't prove it. These are the
| beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you
| don't know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise,
| the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the
| regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your
| colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic.
| You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally,
| people who have always thought as you have....
|
| "But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds
| or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the
| difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime
| had come immediately after the first and smallest,
| thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently
| shocked--if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in '43 had
| come immediately after the 'German Firm' stickers on the
| windows of non-Jewish shops in '33. But of course this
| isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds
| of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them
| preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not
| so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand
| at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
|
| "And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever
| sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-
| deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in
| my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying
| 'Jewish swine,' collapses it all at once, and you see that
| everything, everything, has changed and changed completely
| under your nose. The world you live in--your nation, your
| people--is not the world you were born in at all. The forms
| are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses,
| the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the
| concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which
| you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of
| identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in
| a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear
| do not even know it themselves; when everyone is
| transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a
| system which rules without responsibility even to God. The
| system itself could not have intended this in the
| beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled
| to go all the way."
|
| -- Milton Sanford Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The
| Germans 1933-45
| danparsonson wrote:
| Sums it up beautifully, thank you
| vundercind wrote:
| That entire book is _excellent_.
| fireflash38 wrote:
| I'm reminded of how we react to pandemics. If we are
| successful with vaccines or masks or whatever, then not
| many people get sick and die. No big crisis. And people
| are wondering "why did we do that, see it was no big
| deal".
|
| It's the same looming issue with climate change.
|
| And they all have the same undercurrent: doing something
| might cost us money, so we don't do it. Thus the economy
| being the greatest predictor of elections.
| p3rls wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933_in_Germany
|
| Whatever you think about Trump, 2016-2020 was in no way,
| shape or form comparable to the 30s under NSDAP Germany
| and to *insist* on making such comparisons ad nauseum is
| one of the reasons you were rebuked at the polls by the
| electorate.
|
| It's also electrifyingly funny that Trump took the
| largest Jewish counties (e.g., Rockland, NY) -- those
| self-hating Jews must want to go back to the
| concentration camps. This is your brain on progressive
| logic.
| vundercind wrote:
| I took this particular case as highlighting one way by
| which functioning liberal democracies slide into
| authoritarianism and sharply-shifted political and social
| norms, one hard-to-reverse step at a time, not all at
| once. I also think the direct comparisons to nazis are
| mostly not useful, but that's not how I read this
| excerpt's being posted.
| neotek wrote:
| You missed the point spectacularly.
| p3rls wrote:
| Looks like more of the same antifa boilerplate but in the
| form of an incoherent postww2 ethnography by a confused
| leftist (whose sample was a total of ten people btw) and
| is exactly why your ideas were thoroughly smashed
| yesterday, no?
| vundercind wrote:
| Have you read the book? It's not trying to be an academic
| population-level study or anything, it's accounts of and
| reflections on the reported experiences (and some
| verifiable--sometimes conflicting--facts surrounding
| those) of a few members of the Nazi party who were
| otherwise just ordinary people going about their lives,
| which is a perspective lost among focus on SS members or
| the Nazi political elite. A different book that _was_ a
| statistical study might also be interesting, but could
| not accomplish the same things. It'd be a totally
| different book, not a better version of the same book.
| ben7799 wrote:
| Excellent book. I read this book after my WWII Veteran
| relatives passed away, had fought in Europe and survived
| the Battle of the Bulge. His wife invited everyone over
| and wanted everyone to look through his books and take
| some that looked interesting.
|
| That's one of the ones I took, certainly the one I
| remember most.
| sethammons wrote:
| my entire voting choice was based on "who is willing to
| take on the blatant corruption at the supreme court"
| eadmund wrote:
| Citizens United was literally about citizens showing a film
| critical of a political candidate. It's one of the purest
| examples of free political speech there is.
|
| No Supreme Court justices are bought.
|
| I share your concern about the lack of seriousness with
| which many seem to regard the Capitol riot, which is a
| black stain on our history.
| vundercind wrote:
| > Citizens United was literally about citizens showing a
| film critical of a political candidate. It's one of the
| purest examples of free political speech there is.
|
| You should read fuller accounts, it's a fair bit more
| complicated than that.
|
| The part that made it so harmful, at any rate, was the
| court deciding without prompting from the plaintiffs to
| buck their normal "as narrow as possible and don't make
| things major constitutional questions unless you have to"
| policy and widen the case to be about something it
| initially was not, with the result that campaign finance
| control _at all_ and keeping foreign money at least
| _kinda_ out of US politics became impossible.
|
| > No Supreme Court justices are bought.
|
| Uh. I dunno what to say. Yikes.
|
| Pretend George Soros had been giving Sotomayor gifts
| amounting to huge sums of money over many, many years in
| ways that plainly violate rules for lower court judges,
| and that she's "accidentally" not disclosed a lot of it.
| voisin wrote:
| > No Supreme Court justices are bought.
|
| What do you call the controversy around Thomas and his
| billionaire benefactor?
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > By the time we got to the news that at least two Supreme
| Court justices and very likely more are being bought, we
| collectively shrugged rather than making that the issue
| until they were out
|
| It's happening to this day, too. Yesterday, "Oh, possibly
| Russian-originated bomb threats closing election stations?
| Sure, we'll talk about it briefly and move on." Elon Musk-
| funded PAC sending fake text messages from Kamala Harris
| saying that kids will be able to coordinate gender-
| affirming surgery while at school "outside of parental
| interference" and that she will be legalizing abortion upon
| delivery? "Oh, that might be illegal, maybe? Next story."
| are demoralizing in the amount of indifference they come
| with.
| snickerbockers wrote:
| I'm always amazed by how many people consider it a failure of
| democracy for the candidate they voted for to lose.
| Xeamek wrote:
| You know that Hitler was literally voted into power, right?
|
| I am NOT saying Trump is literally Hitler, but the idea
| that democratic vote can't have un-democratic outcome in
| the long run is simply false. It can, and history showed us
| that more then once
| snickerbockers wrote:
| That's the problem with this statement: Trump is not
| Hitler and any hypothetical "undemocratic outcomes"
| aren't apparent in the extreme short term. He hasn't run
| on a platform of eliminating democracy and there isn't
| any indication at this point that he will.
| dsmithn wrote:
| "Except for day one"
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| He ran on a platform that he won the 2020 election, and
| it was stolen.
|
| How is that not anti-democratic?
| logicchains wrote:
| If he and his supporters genuinely believe that, it's an
| extremely democratic position.
| wyre wrote:
| Remind me what its called when someone's geniune belief's
| don't align with reality?
| ImJamal wrote:
| You are going with the assumption that the election
| wasn't stolen. If you are correct then Trumo would be
| taking an anti-democratic position. If the people's will
| was genuinely to elect him and the election was actually
| stolen then he would be taking the democratic position.
| bspammer wrote:
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-tells-christians-
| they...
| kristiandupont wrote:
| He literally tried to overthrow the election 4 years ago.
| I mean, he wasn't exactly being subtle about it!
| Jensson wrote:
| But in the end he didn't end Democracy, he let the
| democratic procedures take place, a fascist wouldn't do
| that.
|
| > He literally tried to overthrow the election 4 years
| ago
|
| Not openly, the people who went to the white house
| weren't under Trumps command. He argued against the
| election result using the proper tools of the democracy,
| you are allowed to do that.
|
| I'm not sure why worry now when we already know he handed
| over the power once. Maybe it wasn't willingly but he
| will be forced to step down in 4 years as well.
| Xeamek wrote:
| >But in the end he didn't end Democracy, he let the
| democratic procedures take place, a fascist wouldn't do
| that.
|
| Fascist wouldn't fail?
|
| Again, You know Hitler literally tried a coup, failed and
| then switched to 'democratic' means?
| Jensson wrote:
| > Again, You know Hitler literally tried a coup, failed
| and then switched to 'democratic' means?
|
| Hitler never left the seat of power once he got it. Trump
| did. They are not the same. Hitler did a coup to try to
| get power, he failed at that, Trump already succeeded
| grabbing power (he got elected) and then left it.
| sentient_aloe wrote:
| Which he said he regrets doing.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/03/us/politics/trump-pa-
| rall...
| kristiandupont wrote:
| > he let the democratic procedures take place, a fascist
| wouldn't do that.
|
| He did so because he had no other choice. Mike Pence, of
| all people, rescued democracy. If it hadn't been for him,
| Donald Trump would not accepted the transfer of power.
|
| And this is what the difference boils down to. You and I
| both know that Trump would have declared himself the
| winner no matter what the vote count had been. And we
| also both know that Harris is going to concede to Trump
| because the vote count says so.
| Jensson wrote:
| Luckily it isn't the presidential candidates who decides
| the winner, so it doesn't matter who Trump or Harris
| thinks the winner is.
| kristiandupont wrote:
| True, but it still negates your claim that "He hasn't run
| on a platform of eliminating democracy".
| Zak wrote:
| The call to Brad Raffensperger asking him to "find" votes
| has been public for years. I'm in disbelief that anyone
| could listen to that conversation and conclude it was
| anything but an attempt to steal the election.
| Jensson wrote:
| Trying to cheat a few votes isn't more fascist than
| gerrymandering, it is corrupt but it isn't fascism.
|
| If he had rigged the whole election I'd say it is
| fascism, but rigging a whole election is on such a
| different scale and planning and conspiracy level that it
| isn't the same thing, he didn't even try to rig the
| election. If he tried to rig it then it wouldn't be one
| such call, it would be hundreds with many accomplices.
| Zak wrote:
| Trump also made calls to officials in other swing states
| he lost attempting to change the result. They weren't as
| public and damning, but had several of them been
| successful after all was said and done, it would have
| rigged the whole election.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| _Trying to cheat a few votes_
|
| This is some pretty hardcore rationalization even by
| modern standards. Trying to "cheat a few (10s of
| thousands of votes so you win a swing state)" is called
| trying to steal an election.
|
| _but rigging a whole election is on such a different
| scale and planning and conspiracy level that it isn 't
| the same thing, he didn't even try to rig the election._
|
| He literally did from many different angles. Asking for
| changed vote counts, fake electors, 60 court cases with
| no evidence, planning violence to stop the certification
| of the election.
|
| How do you square what you are saying with these facts?
| Zak wrote:
| > _60 court cases with no evidence_
|
| That's the one thing in the list I'm OK with. Determining
| whether a claim has legal merit and factual basis is what
| courts are for.
| grugagag wrote:
| He didn't or he couldn't pull it off?
| jamincan wrote:
| I've not been as immersed in the presidential race, but
| hasn't he explicitly said he wants to be a dictator, this
| is the last vote you will need, we should stop so and so
| from voting and so on? Like, right out of his mouth? How
| is that not an undemocratic platform?
| snickerbockers wrote:
| > he wants to be a dictator
|
| The full quote was that he was going to be a dictator but
| only on the first day. It's probably one of the dumbest
| things he's ever said, but the fact that he put a limit
| on his own supposed dictatorship contradicts him being a
| dictator. At any rate, while I'm not a fan of what he
| said, he definitely did not preclude the continuation of
| American democracy even if interpreted in the most
| literal possible way.
|
| > this is the last vote you will need
|
| He said that you [the people at his rally] aren't going
| to need to vote anymore because hes going to accomplish
| all his goals this time. Not that there won't be a vote
| or that his supporters won't be allowed to vote. They
| definitely won't be allowed to vote for him since he'll
| be at up against the term limit.
|
| > we should stop so and so from voting and so on
|
| This one I've never even heard before outside of him
| claiming that his opponents want to let non citizens vote
| ks2048 wrote:
| I believe people who claim he will "end democracy" do not
| believe he will literally put an end to elections. Many
| places widely considered "undemocratic" also have
| elections.
|
| > They definitely won't be allowed to vote for him since
| he'll be at up against the term limit.
|
| I'm sure if Trump were younger and up against term
| limits, he (and his party) would simply ignore them or
| change the rules. That's the kind of democracy-ending
| actions that could easily happen. Lucky for us, I think
| he's too old for this particular problem.
| BadHumans wrote:
| Trump is not the end he is the means to an end. His party
| will absolutely change the rules just to take advantage
| of them in the future.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > hasn't run on a platform of eliminating democracy
|
| Didn't he literally say in his victory speech that he's
| now elected the 47th president, as he also was the 46th?
|
| In the story Trump tells, he _literally already is_ a
| third-term president.
| dazilcher wrote:
| He did not say that [1]. I can't decide whether people
| keep misrepresenting his statements intentionally, or
| there's some psychological process in play that prevents
| them from parsing his speech. He is a terrible
| communicator after all.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI9fbbQ-aTo&t=96s
| rightbyte wrote:
| He speaks backwards and from the inside out of sentences.
| Changes subject mid sentence. Etc.
|
| I think normal people think that is OK but academics
| thinks it sounds stupid.
|
| In the beginning I believe he got a boost from
| journalists feeling smart by nitpicking that to
| manufacture some "gotcha". He is way to easy to misquote
| to resist the temptation.
| wyatt_dolores wrote:
| He has literally said "Vote for me, and you'll never have
| to vote again."
| Izkata wrote:
| That's out of context. He was trying to reach people who
| just don't vote in general, telling them they only needed
| to bother this one time and he'll fix their problems
| (costs, economy, etc) so well they can go back to not
| bothering to vote.
| vel0city wrote:
| Yeah, they'll be so "fixed" nobody will have the ability
| to "unfix" them.
| Sabinus wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Cap
| ito...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempts_to_overturn_the_20
| 20_...
|
| This stuff was not merely spicy words, it was dangerous.
| Democracy runs on norms and good people, and is precious
| and hard won. Trump being in power is a risk.
| FractalHQ wrote:
| What about when he said he wanted to be dictator so
| people wouldn't have to vote anymore? And when he made
| himself above the law with MAGA court justices? Or talked
| about a firing squad for his opponents and opening fire
| on peaceful protestors? Or when he attempted a violent
| coup on the White House? Or when he praised Hitler and
| asked for generals like Hitlers that will do anything he
| says without question? Or when he praised Putin, Kim Jun
| Un, and other the dictators of the world?
| ks2048 wrote:
| He said many times very explicitly he will be a dictator
| on day one. We'll find out in a few months what the means
| exactly. I honestly don't know.
| BadHumans wrote:
| He absolutely said vote for me and you'll never have to
| vote again because we'll have it fixed. How is that not
| running on eliminating democracy?
| Clubber wrote:
| >You know that Hitler was literally voted into power,
| right?
|
| He was not. This is a popular misconception.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_rise_to_po
| wer
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| What do you call being the majority party, winning
| referendums, etc?
|
| Certainly there is a lot of voter intimidation, control
| of the press, etc. behind it, but I think that's
| precisely what is being debated here.
| Clubber wrote:
| >What do you call being the majority party, winning
| referendums, etc?
|
| Nazi's were not the majority party when Hitler ran for
| president, they were the largest party, but not majority.
| They weren't even a majority even when Hitler was
| _appointed_ (not voted) chancellor by Paul von
| Hindenburg, the man who won the presidential election.
| There were a few more steps before he acquired absolute
| power, but none of them involved voting. It 's
| interesting, read the article.
|
| Like I said, it's a common misconception.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Well the largest party (as per HN rules please "use the
| best form of the argument", no need to nitpick), and not
| by a small margin -- at least 10% over the 2nd largest.
| And you'll still argue he did not "win" elections?
|
| (You could not "vote" a chancellor. In a lot of perfectly
| valid democracies, the PM position is always appointed,
| never directly voted, usually from the larger party or
| the at least the candidate most likely to pass a
| (constructive) motion of no confidence. So he was elected
| legally per the correct democratic process.
| Cleanly/Fairly -- that's another question. But would you
| really be surprised Hitler could win elections? He had
| pretty ridiculously good reputation in some circles. He
| would have likely polled pretty well even in the US.).
| Clubber wrote:
| >And you'll still argue he did not "win" elections?
|
| The Nazi party won elections, Hitler did not.
|
| >>You know that Hitler was literally voted into power,
| right?
|
| He was not. He lost the presidential election in 1932. He
| forcefully took the presidency after the Reichstag fire.
| He was appointed chancellor because the Nazi party won
| elections. He lost his. I can see where you think it is
| splitting hairs, but you specifically named Hitler and
| not the Nazi party. That might not have been what you
| meant to say, but it's what you said that I was refuting.
|
| Also, Hindenburg didn't have to appoint Hitler, he could
| have chosen another from the Nazi party. He certainly
| didn't want to appoint Hitler, but some backroom
| negotiations that he wasn't a part of ultimately led to
| Hitler's appointment.
|
| >So he was elected legally per the correct democratic
| process.
|
| This is like saying the SCOTUS is elected because the
| President that appointed them was elected. They are not,
| they are appointed. Hitler himself never won an election.
|
| FWIW, here are the 1932 election results:
| Hindeberg 53.05% Hitler 36.77% Other Guy
| 10.16%
|
| This would be considered an absolute blowout. Please
| don't feel like I'm scolding you, I really enjoy
| historical conversations, so thanks for this one.
| markopolo123 wrote:
| I think that the journey Hitler undertook in 1924 is
| actually more useful as a comparison to Trump's story...
| The media and courts and the incumbent's/MSM's
| expectations verses the reality of how that would land
| with the volk. A tangent from the parent but they did say
| they enjoy historical conversations :D
| gen220 wrote:
| People really don't understand interwar period Germany,
| and helpfully pluck out a narrative that suits their
| interests today. Treaty of Versailles and "dolchstoss"
| myth included.
|
| Thank you for sharing the truth. It's worth understanding
| why Hindenburg chose Hitler as Chancellor, too. Hitler
| was popular, and seen as a useful force that might be
| controlled by the conservative elements of the German
| political system. It didn't work out that way.
|
| There's no contemporary analogue to Hitler today in
| American politics. There's no significant paramilitary
| force, for one. No true populist -- in spite of trump's
| rhetoric his policies don't qualify.
|
| Ironically, the closest to fitting the mold might be
| Vance? Somebody unelected, young, brokered his own access
| to power in exchange for political support (via Elon,
| Thiel).
| Izkata wrote:
| > Ironically, the closest to fitting the mold might be
| Vance? Somebody unelected, young, brokered his own access
| to power in exchange for political support (via Elon,
| Thiel).
|
| Kamala Harris fits just as well: She was so unpopular in
| 2020 she dropped out before the primaries, then got
| picked for Vice-President. Then because Biden was in
| office, she again didn't get votes in the primary this
| year but instead was selected by the DNC when Biden
| dropped out.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| > I can see where you think it is splitting hairs, but
| you specifically named Hitler and not the Nazi party.
|
| Yes, I do consider this is splitting hairs. First, yeah,
| I do not think explicitly making the separation between
| Hitler and the Nazi party makes any practical difference
| to the argument. Let me know if you can think of one.
|
| Second, Hitler did get into power through democratic
| means -- definitely not the presidency, but he was made
| chancellor, which is, to the best of my knowledge,
| equivalent to a PM and therefore head of the executive.
| Don't move the goalpost and claim that "Hitler didn't get
| into power until he illegally made himself president",
| because he was into power before that; as much as you
| could within the limits of the constitution. They voted
| him into office and he was made chancellor through legal
| means. For the last 2/3 elections that can still be
| considered "somewhat" free, his party got the largest
| number of votes.
|
| He won the elections, and legally speaking had every
| right to be put into power and made chancellor. Or at
| least to try until he was voted out by a no confidence or
| failing to pass laws. He had no right to become
| president, much less to become dictator.
|
| > This is like saying the SCOTUS is elected because the
| President that appointed them was elected. They are not,
| they are appointed. Hitler himself never won an election.
|
| In a lot of democratic countries, the PM-equivalent
| figure is NEVER directly elected. Would you call Italy,
| Spain, etc. non-democratic countries just because the PM
| is appointed by parliament instead of elected directly?
| The PM is the actual head of the government; the head of
| state (monarch/president) is a figurehead.
|
| > FWIW, here are the 1932 election results:
|
| _Presidential_ election. President is much less important
| than you think if you see this from a US-centric view,
| because the actual head of government is the chancellor!
| The secretaries/ministers are appointed from the majority
| parties in parliament, not arbitrarily by the president
| as in the US. This is still pretty common in many
| European democracies...
|
| And in all parliament elections, Hitler's party won with
| a comfortable margin:
|
| 1932 July elections : Nazis 230 seats (out of 608) ; next
| party 133. Almost 2x distance. Hitler's coalition : 267
| seats and 43% of vote. Won by simple majority.
|
| 1932 November elections (arguably last fair elections in
| Germany) Nazis 196 seats ; next party 120. In coalition:
| 247, 42% of vote. Simple majority.
|
| 1933 March (definitely last free elections in Germany):
| Nazis 288 seats; next party 120. Coalition: 340, ~52%,
| absolute majority .
|
| There's no other way to put this, even if you ignore 1933
| results: the Nazis _and Hitler_ were put into power by
| the (simple) majority of the population. If they had lost
| even in % of votes to a second party, or something to the
| effect, then I would also argue that voters didn't put
| Hitler into power. But as it is...
|
| And you can't really argue that someone could be voting
| for the Nazis (or coalition parties) without knowing
| you'd be voting for Hitler, considering how personalistic
| they were by 1932.
|
| > Please don't feel like I'm scolding you, I really enjoy
| historical conversations, so thanks for this one.
|
| This has been discussed ad-nauseum, even on wikipedia...
|
| Disclaimer: I already mentioned that results of an
| election when there is literal vote coercion going on
| (intimidation, control of the press, etc.) cannot be
| considered fair. This doesn't negate the fact that he did
| win elections, and therefore this is still a valid lesson
| for generations to come.
| simonask wrote:
| It's not that she lost, it's that somebody who seems to
| oppose democracy won.
| tirant wrote:
| As a non-American, how does Donald Trump seem to oppose
| democracy?
|
| That is the message continuously published here by
| generalist German newspapers, but I cannot find any
| substance behind it.
| simonask wrote:
| I'm also not American, but how can this not be obvious to
| you? Start with the January 6 coup attempt.
|
| Here's a list, though:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/10/29/trump-
| dem...
| wholinator2 wrote:
| Where's the chart? I can only see the first paragraph
| chuankl wrote:
| Try this gift link to the article:
| https://wapo.st/3CeK2hk
| nobody9999 wrote:
| https://archive.ph/fFirx
| ttyprintk wrote:
| He has said all these things:
|
| - the Constitution needs suspending
|
| - he needs extrajudicial purges
|
| - vote counting shall be stopped at a particular time.
| Officials in charge of the mechanics of democracy need to
| be pressured explicitly about this.
|
| - the peaceful transition of power needs to be
| interrupted
|
| - expectations held together by norms hold no value. The
| very tradition of democracy is optional.
|
| It might be irrational to spend effort voting --engaging
| in democracy-- to elevate someone so skeptical of it. And
| your newspaper and even in this thread people are
| extremely polite about those doing so.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| - Media that criticizes him should lose their broadcast
| licenses (ABC, CBS) or shut down (Google).
|
| - The Federal Reserve should do what he says rather than
| be independent.
|
| - Military generals should be as obedient to him as
| German generals were to Hitler.
| bluesnews wrote:
| He generates doubt around the election result "if I lost,
| it is because of fraud" and provoked a group of people to
| attempt the overturn the previous election. Plus more
| subtle things like election rule changes that reduce
| democracy in the background.
| ordu wrote:
| I personally came to this opinion when he declared
| previous elections rigged without any evidence. The
| election institute and its fairness is a cornerstone myth
| of a democracy, you cannot destroy it without ruining the
| democracy. If the election institute is corrupted there
| is no way to have a legitimate president. You can have
| only tyrants and dictators after that. It means that you
| are not anti-democratic you can oppose the election
| institute only if you know it is corrupt. But Trump
| didn't know, I'm sure he knew that the elections were not
| rigged, and yet he attacked the elections.
|
| I was not sure, because I had a hypothesis that Trump is
| just stupid and do not understand what he is doing. But
| before the current elections he talked a lot how he is
| going to abuse power to persecute political opponents, or
| just any opponents, if we believe his words, he is going
| to persecute everyone he doesn't like.
| NotMichaelBay wrote:
| The candidate who was just voted into power is a convicted
| felon awaiting sentencing and also awaiting 2(?) other
| criminal trials which are now probably going to just
| disappear. It's objectively a failure of democracy.
| Jensson wrote:
| Are criminals not allowed to be elected?
| bormaj wrote:
| _Convicted_ felons cannot legally run for office
| nradov wrote:
| No. The Constitution doesn't bar convicted felons from
| running for office. Perhaps it should but that would
| require an Amendment.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| He was convicted of 34 felonies.
| NotMichaelBay wrote:
| They are, apparently, which is why it's a failure. He was
| also awaiting trial for interference in the previous
| election. The irony would be amusing if it weren't so
| seriously wrong.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I mean, he'd be ineligible to join the military, but can
| run it. He'd fail a security clearance, but can hand them
| out. Many states forbid felons from even _voting_.
|
| "You can be president from a jail cell" is likely to be a
| "well that wouldn't happen" oversight on the Founding
| Fathers' plate, not an intentional design.
| 8note wrote:
| If people want him in, maybe those laws aren't great?
|
| I'm no Trump fan, but I'd much sooner trust an election
| over a judge and jury to decide who should be in charge
| ekianjo wrote:
| > game over for Democrats and democracy in the US
|
| So voting is the end of democracy? Interesting take
| tail_exchange wrote:
| Because no dictators are voted into power? Hitler,
| Mussolini, Mugabe, Chavez...
| llamaimperative wrote:
| "Not worried about Trumpism" is a near-100% accurate
| indicator of extreme ignorance of authoritarian regimes
| and of the American political system, unfortunately.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > near-100% accurate indicator of extreme ignorance of
| authoritarian regimes
|
| extreme ignorance of authoritarian regime is particularly
| visible among people who think that things happen like in
| movies with singular figures like Darth Vader showing up
| and suddenly grabbing power out of some kind of ether.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Which isn't and wasn't ever the concern with Trump.
| ekianjo wrote:
| SO everytime someone is voted in, the idea is to panic?
| Especially when the guy was already in the office 4 years
| ago and was not Hitler?
| tail_exchange wrote:
| No, only if they tried a coup, filled his cabinet with
| yes-men, and have a following full of neo-nazis. Then you
| should be concerned.
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| I see this claim often but (from my position as an outsider,
| not American) it doesn't look very plausible: Trump was
| already president once and that didn't happen, why would it
| happen now?
| bojan wrote:
| It did begin then. The Supreme Court of the US is since
| then conservative and will now probably remain so for many
| years to come.
|
| Further, he needed the second term then, so he couldn't go
| all crazy as he needed the people to vote for him once
| more. Now he doesn't have that limitation any more.
| fallingknife wrote:
| The SC being conservative is the result of a democratic
| process, not a threat to it.
|
| If Trump wanted to be dictator, why didn't he just do all
| that stuff in his first term and not worry about
| reelection in 2020?
| wholinator2 wrote:
| Things take time. Erosion of trust and the creation of
| political apathy in the populace takes time. Also, as has
| been said, he did try things but was continuously pushed
| back on by the actual politicians he put in his cabinet.
| He's also 8 years more elderly and emboldened. His cult
| of personality has essentially stabilized into an
| American institution. He's also had an entire
| administration to place judges and pass legislation that
| favors his power plays. In general it seems like you're
| asking, why might it take more than 4 years to topple a
| democracy, which i think has an obvious answer, democracy
| doesn't want to be toppled.
|
| Again, I'm not arguing he's gonna go full dictator, but i
| think it's a lot more likely this time around than last
| time.
| arp242 wrote:
| He's significantly more unhinged than he was 4 years ago,
| and even more obsessed with personal loyalty than he was
| before.
|
| And in general this sort of thing doesn't happen overnight;
| there's a process to things. It's like the old quip on how
| someone becomes bankrupt: "very gradually, and then
| suddenly all at once".
|
| I don't know what will happen, but it's a dangerous path to
| walk. Maybe the next four years will be sort-of okay-ish,
| but what about the state of things in 10 or 20 years?
|
| In large part, democracies work because we all believe it
| should work, and once that belief goes out the window for a
| critical mass of people then you're playing with fire.
|
| The GOP in general has been engaged in scorched earth
| politics since Obama: all that matters is a win today and
| doesn't matter what conventions or institutions get damaged
| in the process. A healthy democracy would have disqualified
| Trump from running again in 2020. It would not play highly
| nihilistic power games with the supreme court. etc. etc.
|
| It's absolutely not a healthy state of affairs.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| Because Trump selected career Republicans who still
| followed the Constitution and law for his cabinet.
|
| This time around: 1. He allowed an insurrection and was
| voted in anyway, so his extremist followers are emboldened.
| 2. He surrounded himself with yes-men.
| kartoffelsaft wrote:
| Trump has stated that his biggest regret from his term is
| that the people he appointed to various positions, while
| quite competent and/or experienced, would push back on
| ideas or plans he proposed. In other words, they weren't
| loyal.
|
| The difference between this term and his previous is going
| to be a much stronger focus on making any position he can
| appoint be one that doesn't tell him no. And it looks like
| many of the positions he can't (the senate and likely the
| house) are going that way too. That, to me, makes him
| represent a meaningfully larger threat to the balance of
| power in the US than his previous term.
| tdeck wrote:
| When Trump took power in 2016 there wasn't much of a plan
| because nobody expected it. Today Trump's backers have
| Project 2025 ready which has a specific plan to replace
| anyone who might be able to slow things down in the civil
| service, armed forces, justice department, etc... Not to
| mention the immunity doctrine that the administration now
| has from its handpicked supreme court.
|
| In theory there are things Biden could still do right now
| to help preserve these institutions but I doesn't look like
| he will, or even like he has the mental capacity and
| empathy to be motivated to do so.
| _heimdall wrote:
| If this is somehow the end of democracy here, it wasn't
| Trump's election that killed it. One election alone (or two
| if you believe both terms were the cause) couldn't likely
| kill an otherwise healthy democracy. Democracy would have
| been dead for my of my lifetime if this is the moment it
| becomes clear that its gone.
|
| That said, I very much dislike Trump and would rather have an
| empty oval office (arguably we have that already), but I
| think his threat to democracy has been wildly overblown.
| Unless a rogue president throws out the book entirely,
| Congress would have to be the ones to actually get rid of
| most of our democratic processes and systems.
| Tostino wrote:
| The second you have a president willing to mobilize the
| most advanced military in the history of the world against
| its own populace there's no chance of realistically
| resisting.
| _heimdall wrote:
| I have absolutely no expectation that Trump will actually
| order the military on the US populace, but even if he
| tried it matters whether the military would follow such
| an order. It could always happen, that's part of the
| reason I wish our federal government was drastically
| reduced and our standing military disbanded, but I simply
| can't think so little of our troops that they would
| actually do it.
|
| That said, if somehow that did happen one day I fully
| expect to die by their gun. At that point that army
| becomes an invading force and I'd feel like I have no
| choice but to fight.
| Tostino wrote:
| I really hope you are right about that. I worry because I
| listened to what he said...and he said he wants to use
| the military against the "enemy from within, and named
| specific political opponents and mentioned media figures.
|
| I tend to believe him when he says that's what he wants
| to do. But you are right, one would hope the military
| would refuse such an unconstitutional order.
| rightbyte wrote:
| When Martin L. King was murdered there were thousands of
| soldiers sent to the DC. I would say that movement was
| rather succesfull anyways.
| from-nibly wrote:
| You mean like Abe Lincoln?
| irobeth wrote:
| I'd point back to at least 2000 and the Supreme Court
| stopping the count in Florida, but maybe back to when we
| sabotaged the Iran hostage deal so Carter couldn't have a
| win
| _heimdall wrote:
| Sure, both are good examples of democracy being attacked.
| More broadly, I'd point to all the lies the public is fed
| to "nudge" us in whatever direction the political parties
| and lobbyists want. Its not much of a democracy if voters
| are asked to vote based on massive piles of bad
| information.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Candidate wins in a landslide election against someone who
| had not won any votes in a presidential campaign on her own
| merits _ever_ and you call that game over for democracy?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| That wasn't a landslide. To see what a landslide looks
| like, look at 1972.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| OK he still won. Unless you will claim, like MSNBC
| already is, that it was stolen by the Russians.
| ball_of_lint wrote:
| Where do you see that?
|
| (not that MSNBC is a monolith, but) This article claims
| exactly the opposite:
| https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-steal-
| elec...
|
| > Trump didn't need to file frivolous lawsuits before
| federal courts. The Supreme Court wasn't given a chance
| to throw the election his way in a redux of 2000's Bush
| v. Gore. The false bomb threats to polling places that
| have been ascribed to Russian actors don't appear to have
| had any measurable effect. There's been no reporting that
| indicates that the promised hordes of MAGA-trained poll
| watchers blocked any Democratic voters from casting their
| ballots.
|
| > He just won.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| Or 1984[0]: Reagan was re-elected in the
| November 6 election in an electoral and popular
| vote landslide, winning 49 states by the time the ballots
| were finished counting on election night at 11:34
| PM in Iowa. He won a record 525 electoral votes
| total (of 538 possible), and received 58.8% of the
| popular vote
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_United_States_pres
| identia...
| iszomer wrote:
| Are you attributing the US Democrat Party to be the
| progenitors of democracy?
| fnordsensei wrote:
| It's probably not that, but (separately) both the
| Democratic Party and democracy for the same reason: if
| Republicans successfully engineer (what's effectively) a
| one-party state.
|
| Regardless if the dems still exist in name or not, both
| them and democracy are done.
| snarf21 wrote:
| This is all because of Reagan. Removal of the fairness
| doctrine and lowering of the highest tax rate from 70% to 50%
| to 28%. Now, we live in an oligarchy full stop. All the "free
| press" is owned by billionaires who crave tax cuts and
| election ad money more than "truth". (Look at the LATimes and
| WaPost refusing to endorse a candidate at the sole direction
| of their owner.) The oligarchs soon realized that you don't
| have to buy the country, just 10 people to control 2 of the
| branches of government. We really need to move the Supreme
| Court to 13 that are elected by popular vote in the 13
| districts. We elect the heads of the other 2 branches of
| government, why not the judiciary?
|
| The greatest trick the rich ever pulled was convincing the
| middle class that poor people are the cause of all the
| problems in their life.
| Tainnor wrote:
| Not an American, but it's wild to me how anyone could describe
| Kamala as "0.1% less bad". She's an accomplished politician.
| jeffhuys wrote:
| What did she accomplish?
| tomrod wrote:
| https://www.miamidadedems.org/what_has_kamala_harris_done
| jeffhuys wrote:
| I honestly expected more, especially more specifics, but
| I recognize I'm biased. The reason I asked, is that
| nobody really knows when you ask them, which is what
| surprises me often. You needed to send me a link as well.
|
| Of all those, I really like the insulin one.
|
| I guess people in America have different priorities than
| the accomplishments on that list.
| tomrod wrote:
| I sent you a link for your review and reference, not
| because I couldn't name accomplishments. I prefer to
| respect the intellectual honesty of the person I speak
| with by providing citations for information they are
| unaware of.
| pabl0rg wrote:
| It says she "Led the push for the Domestic Workers Bill
| of Rights Act, federal worker unionization". Federal
| worker unionization is very undemocratic b/c federal
| employees essentially blackmail voters. They become
| untouchable.
| simonask wrote:
| In most countries in the world, unionization doesn't mean
| "get everything you want", it means collective
| bargaining. It's an approach that cuts both ways,
| creating stable employment terms, which benefits both
| employer and employee.
| mavamaarten wrote:
| Indeed. It's crazy to me that unionizing is seen as a bad
| thing by exactly the people that would benefit from them,
| these days.
|
| They're only bad for big companies that prey on and abuse
| their workers.
| eadmund wrote:
| Government-employee unions are bad for their employer,
| the government.
|
| They're particularly bad when politicians can take money
| from taxpayers, give it to union members, who are then
| forced to give it to their unions, which then turn around
| and donate it to the politicians' campaigns.
| roenxi wrote:
| The accomplished politicians seem to struggle a bit because
| they have a history of being terrible. It isn't like Trump
| came out of nowhere - it has been most of a decade now and
| when he won in 2016 that was on the back of backlash that had
| obviously been brewing for a long time. It was notable in
| 2016 that he had to knock out Bushes and Clintons from the
| presidential race who visibly couldn't wring compelling
| support out of their insider status. The Bush family name was
| more of a serious liability because of the family history of,
| you know, the Bush years. Trump's most memorable line of
| attack on Jeb Bush was making callbacks to how bad George's
| tenure was (which isn't entirely fair, but it does go a long
| way to showcasing why being an "accomplished politician" is a
| handicap given how badly US policy has been playing out for
| the last few decades).
|
| If the US political class had a history of success then being
| an accomplished politician might be a tick on the report
| card, but in practice it seems to mean that they have
| sympathies to the military-industrial complex and a number of
| extractive lobby groups.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| The Republicans didn't have anybody in 2016 or Trump
| wouldn't have had a chance. He stepped up to the plate even
| though he is the complete opposite of a lifelong
| Republican.
|
| So was Hillary, so the vision of lifelong Republicans has
| been completely out-of-reach for almost a decade now. They
| had no choice but to settle for less.
|
| I think it's been well demonstrated currently with Trump's
| live appearances where he really thinks he's doing the
| right thing all the time whether he makes very much sense
| or not.
|
| Just last week alone Trump made Ronald Reagan with
| Alzheimer's look like an absolute genius by comparison.
| lawn wrote:
| Constantly lying, grifting, and being a convicted felon
| somehow is only worth 0.1%...
|
| Anything of the shit Trump has done would be an immediate
| disqualification for anyone else, yet everything constantly
| gets a shrug.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| Imagine if a convicted woman were to be the democratic
| candidate
| zarkenfrood wrote:
| Accomplished politician wouldnt be a compliment though would
| it. One of the recent issues is bureaucratic bloat caused by
| career politicians. In that sense she would be less
| appealing.
| Tainnor wrote:
| I understand that this appears to make sense for a lot of
| people but to me a president should... actually be
| qualified to be a president.
|
| Otherwise, it's as if you had a string of bad CTOs and then
| decide to hire a gardener with no tech skills as your new
| CTO.
| bilvar wrote:
| In a democratic system everyone should be fair game to
| hold office, that's the whole point. What you're
| advocating for is aristocracy and leading to phenomena
| such as career politicians existing, who are leeches to
| productive societies.
| Tainnor wrote:
| It would be aristocracy if you had to be born into it.
|
| Now, I'll admit that the US system of mostly only very
| rich people getting access to top universities is not
| exactly fair - but you can in principle become a
| politician no matter your background.
|
| I don't think it's crazy to assume that qualifications
| matter. And most of the US's best presidents (such as
| Lincoln, both Roosevelts etc.) were highly educated and
| had had political careers before.
| bilvar wrote:
| Err no. Let me educate you a bit. The word aristocracy is
| an ancient Greek word that means "Rule of the most
| capable/best".
| Tainnor wrote:
| I'm aware, having taken Ancient Greek in high school,
| thank you very much. Meanings shift. An aristocracy is
| not a meritocracy and is mostly distinguished by its
| reliance on social status instead of actual merit.
|
| See e.g.: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/eng
| lish/aristocr...
| bilvar wrote:
| I'm Greek so I'm using the actual meaning of the word,
| not the one produced by Western hegemony.
| Tainnor wrote:
| We're speaking English here and not Greek.
| bilvar wrote:
| I'm not asking you to speak Greek, just to respect it.
| thfuran wrote:
| But we're speaking English.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| I know what you mean, we've come a long way from "Honest
| Abe" to "Dishonest Don" :\
| ks2048 wrote:
| I don't see a connection between "career politicians" and
| non-"productive societies". Corrupt societies can be
| corrupted by career politicians or a revolving door of
| temporary politicians.
| bilvar wrote:
| I never said that there is a link between career
| politicians and unproductive societies. I said that
| whenever there is a productive society, there will be
| career politicians leeching on it.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| When you can't be productive yourself, you leech off the
| biggest thing you can, in the hope you can go un-noticed
| until the parasitism has been forgotten and you can
| convince people you are a symbiotic life form :)
| Lutger wrote:
| There is a difference in qualifying for having prior
| experience and for being born into a certain family.
| Trump inheriting around half a billion dollars is
| Aristocratic, Kamala Harris having a successful career in
| politics is not.
|
| Trump's success in only partly due to his inheritance
| though. I'd liked it more to a charismatic religious and
| authoritarian leader.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| Everyone is fair game but most often experienced
| leadership is what is preferred and gets elected because
| overall, people who have a choice don't want "just
| anyone" to end up as president even if it is technically
| open to all.
|
| One of the worst travesties in any organization is when
| there are non-leaders occupying leadership positions for
| any reason. And that is already too common in areas where
| people don't have a choice.
| rascul wrote:
| Experience as a politician is not a qualification for US
| President
| Tainnor wrote:
| Legally, no. But prior to Trump, every single US
| president had served either in a political office or in
| the military.
|
| It just seems unreasonable to assume that knowing how to
| govern isn't an important qualification for the job of
| actually... governing.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > She's an accomplished politician.
|
| So accomplished she could not even win a primary against an
| old man and was the first one out.
| 15155 wrote:
| How'd she do in the primaries?
| kryogen1c wrote:
| > Democrats: you won't win by claiming to be 0.1% less bad
|
| It's been confusing since the first trump term how many dems
| held this position. How can you call trump obviously
| reprehensible and irredemable... and then lose?
|
| I made the mistake of debating politics with a then-friend who
| called all 75 million trump voters "drooling fucktards". Word?
|
| We don't talk anymore
| nervousvarun wrote:
| That's basically it in a nutshell for my experience as well.
| Elections are won by swaying Independents...the Dem strategy
| for Independents appeared to be "Trump is a fascist" "Trump
| supporters are garbage".
|
| Ok well..that's not really an argument?
|
| And yes we can bring up all the terrible Trump examples but
| if the point is separating yourself from that, how is what
| they've done any different?
|
| It just feels each side just despises the other and it all
| ends up like children arguing on the playground.
|
| Where are the adults?
|
| There's going to be all kinds of hyperbole thrown around
| today on both sides but personally see this as a failure by
| the Democrats to sway Independents.
| contracertainty wrote:
| As a European I have to ask - do you really need another
| argument? If I stand on a platform for government in Europe
| with an arguably fascist agenda I will get called out as a
| fascist and will lose. Never mind if I am a convicted
| felon, rapist, and probable russian intelligence asset.
| Seriously, what are you guys thinking here? Americans would
| actually vote for an extreme right wing candiate just to
| prove a point to the dems? Just to get one over on the
| libs? Please explain.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| I wouldn't be so sure about the fascist agenda in eu
| given some recent results of some parties throughout the
| union
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| I think there are also a lot of single issue voters who
| don't think about the ethics of the candidate or their
| world view.
|
| How many evangelical Christians just voted for an
| adulterer and convicted criminal because he's not pro
| choice?
| _heimdall wrote:
| I live in a very Republican area and know quite a few
| people who do vote only on the one issue of pro-life. I
| don't think many of them would actually agree that Trump
| is an adulterer or a criminal though. They would chalk it
| up to Democratic lies or political attacks using the
| legal system as a weapon.
|
| Heck, I know quite a few people who are very strongly
| religious and somehow view Trump as a good Christian
| candidate. That one really blows my mind, unless they've
| changed the ten commandments entirely since I was growing
| up.
| graemep wrote:
| > I live in a very Republican area and know quite a few
| people who do vote only on the one issue of pro-life.
|
| it is an important issue.
|
| > Heck, I know quite a few people who are very strongly
| religious and somehow view Trump as a good Christian
| candidate. That one really blows my mind, unless they've
| changed the ten commandments entirely since I was growing
| up.
|
| What makes it bizarre is not things like adultery (a
| fundamental tenet of Christianity is that we are all
| sinners) but that Trump is clearly not a Christian. He
| does not even know the basics of Christianity - remember
| when he wished people "Happy Good Friday"?
| _heimdall wrote:
| > it is an important issue.
|
| For sure. I don't take issue with anyone voting based on
| whatever they care about in general. I don't feel
| strongly enough about one topic to be a single issue
| voter, but I get it for anyone that does feel that
| strongly.
|
| > What makes it bizarre is not things like adultery (a
| fundamental tenet of Christianity is that we are all
| sinners) but that Trump is clearly not a Christian.
|
| 100% agree. No one is perfect and I wouldn't expect
| anyone who is religious to always fit the bill, but Trump
| is an example of someone _very_ far from any religious
| ideals. I was raised Catholic, if Trump were catholic I
| don 't think he would have had time outside of confession
| to even run for office.
| graemep wrote:
| > was raised Catholic, if Trump were catholic I don't
| think he would have had time outside of confession to
| even run for office.
|
| That literally made me lough out loud. Raised Catholic
| too (been an agnostic since, and some sort of Christian
| and technically if not theologically a Catholic now).
| xdennis wrote:
| The problem is that it doesn't stick and people see it as
| desperate.
|
| Trump was very favorable to Israel and has a Jewish
| daughter. Not typical fascist behavior.
|
| Debbie Dingell said Trump will build internment camps and
| put her in one. Were were the internment camps in Trump's
| first term?
| card_zero wrote:
| He'll definitely go away without a fuss after his second
| term, right? He isn't considering what could be done
| about the 22nd amendment. Putin extended his terms in
| office in creative ways, but Trump isn't Putin and has a
| high regard for established political mechanisms, even if
| they mean there will be less importance for Trump at some
| point in the future.
| gg82 wrote:
| I'm sure Trump will be happy to go into being former
| president Trump at the end of his term.... if the left
| let him.
| card_zero wrote:
| Is there any source of reassurance about this I can look
| to, or only your gut feeling?
| yencabulator wrote:
| What kind of a veiled threat is that? How would "the
| left" not let a president leave office?
| colechristensen wrote:
| In four years trump isn't going to be able to speak in
| complete sentences, much less run for office.
|
| We don't have to worry about him stealing any more
| elections, he's far too old for that to be an issue
| card_zero wrote:
| He'll be 3 years younger than Ali Khamenei is now, and 5
| years younger than the pope.
| colechristensen wrote:
| There is already very clear cognitive decline. I don't
| think he'll be able to function as president in a couple
| of years.
| ubertaco wrote:
| I am less optimistic than you; I don't see how that would
| matter to the current MAGA movement.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| _> Trump was very favorable to Israel and has a Jewish
| daughter. Not typical fascist behavior_
|
| So because Israel is involved in something means that
| something can't be fascist? What about the fascist things
| Netanyahu is doing with Israel?
| dotancohen wrote:
| Not all nationalism is fascism.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| Yeah that's why I called Netanyahus actions fascist.
| nerdix wrote:
| Anti-Semitism isn't an inherit trait of fascism. It's an
| inherit trait of Nazism.
|
| Mussolini was in power in Italy 10 years before Hitler
| was in Germany and he wasn't very anti-Semitic at all. He
| was influenced by Hitler towards the end of his reign but
| even then his anti-Semitic policies were mild when
| compared to Germany.
|
| Part of the problem with calling someone a fascist is
| that people associate the word with Hitler. But Hitler
| wasn't the only fascist or even the first fascist.
| samatman wrote:
| Ok but I believe the topic is _Donald Trump_ who has been
| directly, repeatedly, relentlessly, compared to Adolph
| Hitler, and he and his supporters slandered as Nazis.
| Specifically. Directly, relentlessly, repeatedly.
|
| So perhaps this:
|
| > _Part of the problem with calling someone a fascist is
| that people associate the word with Hitler._
|
| Is not making the point you think it's making.
| indy wrote:
| Fascist has become an overused word by the left. Everyone
| else (the majority of the american voting population it
| would seem) are tired of the label and tune out anyone
| who accuses someone of being a fascist. The response from
| the left has been to double down and accuse more people
| of fascism.
| kristiandupont wrote:
| Trump has called his opponents fascists a million times.
| overallduka wrote:
| This word really means nothing at this point, like
| racist, it's so misused that it has lost its meaning.
| indy wrote:
| Yes, and wasn't it silly of him to call his opponents
| Fascist?
| kristiandupont wrote:
| It sure was but you were implying that this was a problem
| with the left.
| indy wrote:
| So maybe the left should reduce their usage of the word?
| Especially if they want to win over some of the people
| that voted for Trump in this election?
|
| Just a thought
| kristiandupont wrote:
| Yeah, you all keep making that point. But I don't believe
| for a second that a single voter went with Trump because
| the libs had called them mean words.
| indy wrote:
| Well your belief is wrong. The libs have spent years
| calling people of certain backgrounds, ethnicities and
| genders as fascist, racist, homophobic, sexist,
| transphobic, deplorable.
|
| This behaviour culminates in what you're seeing.
| kristiandupont wrote:
| I know that they have, but that's not why people voted
| for Trump. You just like to say that to try and make it
| look like something the libs brought on themselves.
|
| And as you agreed, Trump does the same, more than anyone.
| So unless you are openly stating "the left should behave
| _more_ decent than the right if they want votes ", there
| is a problem in your logic as well.
| indy wrote:
| Yes he has called people fascist in some of his speeches.
| Now compare that against everyone on CNN, MSNBC, The New
| York Times, The Washington Post, Hollywood, etc etc etc
| relentlessly calling people names for nearly a decade.
| The difference is a thousand fold. There is no
| equivalence in quantity.
| nervousvarun wrote:
| I can't begin to speak for America, my point was about
| the importance of Independent voters:
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/first-us-independent-
| turnou...
| card_zero wrote:
| (Except in Austria, which now has Volkskanzler Herbert
| Kickl.)
|
| Edit: maybe not, I think they're still in procedural
| limbo because no other party wants to be in the
| coalition.
| sien wrote:
| Giorgia Meloni - President of Italy.
|
| Victor Orban - President of Hungary.
|
| The AfD in Germany got a higher percentage of the vote in
| Thuringen in Germany than any other party. Currently
| polling higher than any member of the governing coalition
| nationally.
|
| Geert Wilders - successful in the Netherlands.
|
| Marine Le Pen - possible next president of France.
|
| The Freedom Party of Austria - has been in government.
|
| These parties all sometimes win in Europe.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| In italy happened the same "nooo you can't call them
| fascist"
|
| Freedom of protest was, in fact, restricted in italy in a
| way that it affects climate manifestations more than
| lobbies manifestation - we have taxis striking and
| blocking cities if someone wants to touch their ungodly
| privileges -
|
| Journalist striked on the public news because news has
| become unreliable, propaganda spewing news at a level
| before unheard of
|
| It didn't happen, but Giorgia meloni wanted to abolish
| the crime of torture to better allow police to do its
| work (lmao even)
|
| At the season opening of the teather la scala di Milano,
| one man shouted "viva l'Italia antifascista" (long live
| antifacist italy). Police was sent to check his documents
| and similar intimidatory shit
| fch42 wrote:
| only European but if your choice is binary, you can only
| make it that way.
|
| Some Americans may well vote for the rightwing candidate
| because they want to stick it to the left (or whoever the
| "anti" would be).
|
| Personally, I don't think that alone makes a majority in
| that binary choice; in Europe, it would mostly end up in
| the vote for a minor "ultra" party. And less-"anti"
| conservative voters have other options.
|
| In the US though, as someone with conservative values and
| views, one always has to choose ... do I want to vote
| with everyone else who votes for "my" camp including the
| stick-it-tos (because there's only one option "on my
| side"), do I not vote, or do I even vote against what
| feels closer to me because the stick-it-tos vote for them
| as well, and/or their head on the ticket is clearly one
| of the stick-it-tos ?
|
| Am I glad I needn't make that choice. And am I sad what
| kind of asocial extremes are encouraged by the binary,
| winner-takes-all US political system.
| graycat wrote:
| deleted
| stillold wrote:
| Now try and add some evidence?
| graycat wrote:
| Right. In the US, on politics and the issues, getting the
| information and "evidence" is a really big problem.
|
| I have and/or have seen good evidence for all that I
| mentioned, but such evidence is NOT wanted by or common
| in the media which means that I have no well written,
| comprehensive, single reference to give.
|
| Uh, YOU try: Write a document with good evidence,
| details, quotes, video clips, etc., and see how much
| interest the US MSM (mainstream media) has in publishing
| it!!! I predict you will regard your effort, no matter
| how carefully done, as a waste of time.
|
| E.g., so far I've never seen even one credible graph
| over, say, the last 16 years, of, say, the US CPI
| (consumer price index). Same for budget deficits,
| spending bills, balance of foreign exchange, Fed loans,
| spending on the war in Ukraine (was there actually ANY
| spending or did we, instead, actually just ship war
| supplies produced in the US?) -- the actual details are
| absurdly messy, sloppy, missing, etc.
|
| Clearly, bluntly the details do not SELL -- won't get a
| big audience.
|
| To give good evidence here would exceed by several times
| the 10,000 bytes or so limit that Hacker News seems to
| have on a single post.
|
| US media credibility? Here is evidence of biased, cooked
| up, gang up, pile on, organized mob attack from 2017:
| https://youtu.be/f1ab6uxg908
|
| With that example, there is less than zero credibility.
| So, for your "evidence", don't expect that from the US
| media.
|
| I wish, profoundly wish, have posted many times on social
| media, that the US news media should provide JUST such
| evidence, at least up to common standards of high school
| term papers. All that is no more than a spit into the
| wind -- the media does NOT want to expend bytes for such
| writing, documentation, evidence, etc.
|
| So, here I did all I can do to respond to the question I
| quoted, apparently, from a European. Agree or not with
| what I wrote, but it is the best I can do under the
| circumstances. The question from Europe are not very
| deep; so I gave answers of similar depth. The speeches in
| the election were not very deep. The Trump statements at
| the economic clubs in Chicago and Detroit were deeper.
|
| That's my explanation, best I can do, take it or leave
| it.
|
| But, really for an accusation of "Nazi", etc. the "burden
| of proof is on the accuser". The rape? He said, she said.
| There in the dressing room of the department store, did
| she scream and get some witnesses? Nazi? Just what is the
| evidence that Trump has done anything like the Nazi stuff
| Hitler did? Felon? He has never gotten a sentence -- if
| he does, then he can appeal, win the appeal, and show
| that he is NOT a "convicted felon". So, no sentence. The
| papers case, the J6 case, the Georgia case, the "hush
| money" case -- all are falling apart due to appeals, etc.
| They are NOT _legal_ cases but just efforts to misuse the
| legal system to have others, as here, believe he is a
| felon. But with the appeals, e.g., even to the SCOTUS,
| ALL of the cases are falling apart. My view is that the
| wrong here is from low level parts of the US legal system
| and not from Trump.
|
| And where are the arguments about 10+ million illegal
| immigrants, the inflation, the attacks on US fossil fuel
| energy, the Ukraine war, the Gaza war, the Lebanon war,
| the hundreds of missiles from Iran, the promotion of
| biological men in women's sports, the lies about abortion
| (Trump sent the issue back to the states to decide), the
| bans on gas powered cars and trucks, etc.?
| stillold wrote:
| Traditional media generally requires having three
| different independent sources to publish.
|
| You have failed to provide one.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| >In simple terms, in the US no really good student is
| short on education due to lack of money.
|
| In the south, at least this is flat wrong
| graycat wrote:
| In the south, this is flat right, Memphis State
| University, University of Tennessee.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I am happy to give you a tour of Louisiana.
| graycat wrote:
| Get book on high school algebra, plane geometry,
| trigonometry, solid geometry, and calulus. Study all of
| them. Then take tests, e.g., SAT, to confirm excellence.
| After high school, keep living at home, and get a job,
| even just mowing grass. Take the money and get a bus
| ticket to one of the midwestern states and apply to a
| college, not a _university_ , there. Being a good student
| with good SAT scores, should be able to get a scholarship
| with $0 tuition. Or work hard, make all As, and then ask
| for a scholarship, use a work-study program, etc. Go to
| the available offices and see what programs they have for
| low or no cost schooling. Then with a high GPA, apply to
| grad school -- $0, zip, zilch tuition. Get a Masters in
| something. Let the Masters confirm excellence and f'get
| about the quality of the high school or even the college.
|
| A niece got PBK at Indiana University, went to Harvard
| Law, got first job at Cravath, Swaine, & Moore. Left for
| an MD, and has been practicing since then. Suspect she
| spent very little on tuition.
|
| As a first grad student in math at Indiana University, I
| got paid for teaching, had a nice single dorm room,
| actually lived well, and saved some money.
|
| There are a lot of buttons to push, strings to pull, to
| get low cost or free college, then free through Ph.D.
| Being a good student, good SAT scores, already know
| calculus well, all can help.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I had to teach a doctor's daughter from Alexandria who
| showed up to my physics recitation not knowing what a
| function was, despite having taken AP calculus AB. And
| how did this happen in the public schools in Alexandria?
| Because the gym teacher taught it and everyone got 1s.
| Furthermore, the school board gets bonuses for kids
| taking AP tests and teaching gifted classes and then
| hands the teaching jobs out to their sycophant favorite
| teachers
| graycat wrote:
| Starting with first algebra through my applied math
| Ph.D., nearly everything important that I learned I got
| heavily from independent study. (1) Loved plane geometry.
| Slept in class then worked ALL the more difficult
| supplementary exercises. (2) For my first year of
| college, went to a cheap state school, partly because I
| could walk to it. They put me in a math class beneath
| what I'd had in high school and would not let me take
| first calculus. For their class, a girl I knew also in
| the class told me when the tests were, and I showed up
| for them. For calculus, I got a copy of the book they
| were using, not a bad book, and started in and did well
| covering the first year. For my sophomore year,
| transfered to a fancy college, took an oral exam on first
| calculus, then got into their second year, did well, and
| was caught up. (3) Linear algebra? Sure, went through
| Halmos carefully word for word. About a fine point, wrote
| a letter to Halmos and got a nice answer. Also worked
| through Nering's book -- Nering was a student of Artin at
| Princeton. Later did a lot in linear algebra
| applications, e.g., in statistics, numerical issues, etc.
| (4) In grad school, got pushed into their course in
| 'advanced linear algebra'. When the course got to the
| polar decomposition, I blurted out in class "That's my
| favorite theorem!". Blew away everyone else in the class.
| Partly intimidated the prof. In grad school took an
| advanced applied math course then in the summer went over
| the class notes word by word. Wrote the prof a letter
| improving on one of his theorems. Back in class, took a
| 'reading course', and from the study in the summer saw a
| problem and solved it with some surprising math, two
| weeks. Later published it -- so, technically it was a
| _dissertation_.
|
| Point: Self study can work well. Obviously: Once a prof
| reading research papers, nearly always have to use self
| study, and the papers are generally much less polished
| than good textbooks.
|
| So, I recommended to students short on money just to do
| some self teaching and show up, demonstrate what learned,
| and ask for a scholarship.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > As a European
|
| As a European you don't have presidential elections that
| matter. Executive and legislative power is in the hands
| of your parliament and the president is a figurehead (if
| you have one).
|
| If you want to compare your European experience to the
| USA, you should look at congress and not the presidential
| elections. You'd probably find the same dynamics there as
| in your own country, with the exception that the blocs
| that you have in parliament have been distilled into two
| parties.
| yencabulator wrote:
| My home country has 3 major parties each at about a
| quarter of the seats, the rest split between about half a
| dozen others. The various parties have very different
| views, only one of them I'd argue is "right wing" in the
| US sense, and they've all mostly learned to make
| compromises and not be too divisive, or they face a more
| moderate party taking their seats.
|
| US two-party system really is the weird one.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Every European parliament will form into a "government"
| bloc and an "opposition" bloc after the election. Right
| wing / left wing doesn't necessarily have anything to do
| with it. The US congress does manage to make bi-partisan
| bills. Because members of congress can go against their
| party sometimes. In European parliaments that kind of
| behaviour usually results in a crisis of government and a
| vote of confidence.
|
| > or they face a more moderate party taking their seats
|
| That's not right. You cannot lose your parliament seat in
| any European parliament until the next election. If an MP
| or an entire party in Europe is too divisive, they might
| not be able to be part of a majority and they will be in
| opposition.
|
| In the USA, the executive government is not elected by
| parliament - so you're comparing apples to oranges. The
| president builds the executive government after being
| elected by the people in the states. That's something
| different.
| vundercind wrote:
| One major difficulty with addressing republicans and "low-
| information" independents (there aren't a ton of true-swing
| voters anyway, most are partisans who prefer not to label
| themselves that but vote as if they were) is that you
| _can't discuss issues with them_. If you try, you
| immediately get sidelined into dealing not with
| disagreements on issues, but with having to try to convince
| them that basically their entire list of concerns is
| _fictional_.
|
| We had an R state rep candidate come by our house.
| Highlighted two issues in her message to us. Both were
| simply not actual things. The _existence_ of the problems
| were lies. WTF do you do with voters who consume media
| that's made them believe those? It's like a huge moat
| around even being able to talk to them about anything real,
| even if only to disagree about some real thing.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > We had an R state rep candidate come by our house.
| Highlighted two issues in her message to us. Both were
| simply not actual things. The existence of the problems
| were lies.
|
| This has been a constant refrain from Democrats: "The
| thing that you are upset about is not happening. Well, it
| is happening, but it is the exception. Ok, it's happening
| everywhere, but it's a good thing." No, of course Harris
| isn't for government sex changes for imprisoned illegal
| immigrants, except for the fact that she said she was.
| The truth is that we all know that she would say anything
| to win, and holding her to any position she ever publicly
| held feels unfair.
|
| The people who have been kept low-information are the
| Democrats, because they have been surrounded by media
| largely controlled by their political party. Republicans
| often have _bad_ information, but they 're constantly out
| there consuming information and hate-reading what
| Democrats are saying. Independents, in my experience, are
| the highest-information of all, because they don't think
| of political parties as something they can offload their
| morality to. Independents _only_ see politics in terms of
| actual issues, and track those issues rather than having
| parasocial relationships with political celebrities.
|
| In that vein, I'm pretty sure that if I had an experience
| where a political candidate came to my house and talked
| about issues that weren't real, I'd talk about those
| issues specifically, and speculate about their origin. I
| think you don't mention them because they _were_ real,
| but a lot of liberals have taken this position of
| officially denying reality if reality could help Trump.
| Is widespread voter fraud real? No. Should people be
| unconcerned about making it easier? Also, no.
|
| If upper-middle class liberals could have won the "stop
| sounding like Scientologists" challenge, they could have
| won. If The Democratic party could have wanted to win
| more than they wanted to avoid alienating _any_ donors,
| they could have won by taking _any_ popular position on
| _anything._ Trump spent most of his campaign actively
| campaigning _for_ Harris by calling her a radical-left
| socialist; if she were actually a radical-left socialist
| instead of an empty vessel to be filled with cash, she
| would have won. If the Democratic party hadn 't chosen
| _again_ not to run a fair, open, lively primary, they
| would have won.
|
| With Trump campaigning against radical-left socialist
| Harris, and Harris campaigning against rapist Hitler,
| homophobic Stalin, and racist Mussolini, the majority of
| people looked at which candidate was lying the most, and
| voted for the other one. Everybody knows who Trump is,
| and he's already been president, and nobody went to
| camps. It was a rather sleepy standard Republican
| presidency, whose few deviations from the norm _pleased_
| people. The only reason we heard about Harris is because
| she (and Buttigieg) pretended to be for single-payer
| healthcare in order to destroy a popular candidate who
| was running on an honest program.
| vundercind wrote:
| 1) "Local crime in your specific hilariously safe rich
| town is out of control and rapidly rising, which is why
| the cops are asking for more money and I'm going to give
| it to them!" I double checked to be sure, and no, of
| course this was fiction. So you encounter a supporter of
| hers and want to talk about actual issues, you get stuck
| pulling up the cops' own crime stats on your phone I
| guess. Good luck with that conversation, we've tried it
| with relatives who are convinced it's true about their
| own _different_ rich low-crime towns. Now you're stuck
| fighting phantoms.
|
| 2) "boys in girls sports". So incredibly niche that who
| gives a fuck, and does not appear to be an actual problem
| that sports conferences and associations aren't handling
| just fine on their own. Why does anybody care about this?
| Right wing news, entire reason. Not an actual issue.
| pessimizer wrote:
| 1) I don't know where you live, you may be right about
| crime where you are. It is not specifically Republican or
| uncommon to run on law & order while exaggerating
| disorder.
|
| 2) Boys _are_ in girls sports, and Biden destroyed Title
| IX with an executive order. And you 've gone from
| "fictional" to "Why does anybody care about this?" You
| don't see this as a dishonest progression?
|
| edit: and now edited to "who gives a fuck." Women who
| dedicate their lives to sports. Men who think that half
| the population deserves half the medals and half the
| opportunity. Me.
| vundercind wrote:
| > Biden destroyed Title IX with an executive order
|
| Oh she mentioned defending title IX and I had zero clue
| wtf she meant (I mean, I know what title IX is, but
| figured it was some kind of allusion to something I'd
| only know if I listened to Mark Levin even more than I
| already do). A glance at The Googles and this appears to
| be exactly the kind of thing I mean.
| bigfishrunning wrote:
| > Oh she mentioned defending title IX and I had zero clue
| wtf she meant
|
| Feel free to label anyone who doesn't vote the way you do
| a "Low information voter"
| vundercind wrote:
| Being unaware of an issue that only exists in hard-right
| media and hadn't happened to come up in the times I've
| dipped into such--which I do pretty frequently--isn't,
| like, a problem. I correctly guessed exactly what it was,
| anyway.
| DFHippie wrote:
| If you believe false things, you are a low-information
| voter. And if someone doesn't believe the lies you
| believe, they will disagree with you. Vundercind's point
| from the beginning was that problem isn't a difference in
| values or priorities but facts.
| vundercind wrote:
| Fundamentally, that's a better way to put it, really. I
| have two young daughters and the examples that have come
| up every time I've tried to engage on the sports issue as
| if it _might_ have merit have done the exact opposite of
| convincing me I should be worried on their behalf--it
| very much appears to be nothing and quibbling over how
| much of that one story from Florida that they decided to
| champion as a key example is demonstrably a fabrication
| _again_ isn't really "discussing real issues". We
| literally disagree on what facts are. _If_ I believed
| their facts I might even at least partially agree with
| them! But I look at what they present and I disagree
| about the basic reality of the problem they're trying to
| convince me exists.
|
| [edit] shit, we can't even get to substance on issues
| where we agree the broad category of _thing_ needs to be
| addressed. Immigration! Yes! Let's do some stuff on that!
| "Biden's open border" ok well congrats we already solved
| that because that's not a thing, rhetorically or in fact,
| zero democrats with any power want an open border and the
| border is not open, so... "illegals smuggling fentanyl!"
| wait how much money do you want to devote to that
| specifically, because that's a negligible source of
| fentanyl in the US ( _citizens_ smuggling fentanyl,
| however...) and yeah we're just bogged down disagreeing
| on facts again.
| arandomusername wrote:
| > So incredibly niche that who gives a fuck
|
| And then you're surprised why people vote differently to
| you...
| vundercind wrote:
| I'm not, I'm well aware of the boring shifts in policy
| and law over three or so decades that have gotten us to
| fighting phantoms instead of trying to decide whether
| incentives or mandates are the right way to achieve
| greater healthcare access and lower costs, or what have
| you.
| fallingknife wrote:
| > boys in girls sports
|
| So why can't Democrats just come out against this
| insanity and take the easy W? The whole, "well it isn't a
| really an issue" argument doesn't fly when you still
| demand your way on it.
| data_maan wrote:
| > The truth is that we all know that she would say
| anything to win
|
| While Trump wouldn't do any of that, right? He would say
| things because they're true :D
|
| > It was a rather sleepy standard Republican presidency,
| whose few deviations from the norm pleased people
|
| Just a small insurrection at the end, no biggie. Oh, and
| some international agreements were shattered, but who
| cares about those anyway. I mean, there was also Corona
| which jolted some people from sleep, but thanks to
| Trump's recommendation to get some chlorine you could get
| right back to sleeping :)
| vundercind wrote:
| Ensured an R-partisan Supreme Court for the rest of my
| life, odds are. And I'm only middle aged.
| data_maan wrote:
| Is that a good thing?
| vundercind wrote:
| To the 35-40% of the country that's on board with
| basically everything they've done or are likely to do,
| who constitute a reliable mega-bloc of Republican voters,
| yeah.
| autoexec wrote:
| > If you try, you immediately get sidelined into dealing
| not with disagreements on issues, but with having to try
| to convince them that basically their entire list of
| concerns is fictional.
|
| I wish that democrats had spent less time telling
| republicans that the boogeyman doesn't exist and more
| time showing them how we're going to keep them safe from
| the boogeyman. In WI, there was a referendum question
| that asked if people wanted to add language to the state
| constitution which would explicitly specify that only US
| citizens could vote. The democrats fought against that
| saying that election fraud was basically non-existent and
| that it would be a waste of time to change anything since
| it's already illegal for non-citizens to vote.
|
| They fucked up though, because no matter how right the
| democrats were about the safety of elections the fear
| republican voters have is very real and it's never a
| waste of time to ease those fears.
|
| As it turns out, if the referendum passes (and I'm
| guessing that it has) the result will be replacing
| language which says that _every_ US citizen gets to vote
| with language which says _only_ US citizens get to vote.
| It never said anything about replacing language in the
| referendum question voters saw though. The fear of
| illegal immigrants voting has likely been used to remove
| language protecting the right of US citizens to vote in
| WI and could open the door for laws that prevent certain
| US citizens from voting.
|
| Since Democrats and Republicans are in full agreement
| that only US citizens should be able to vote the smart
| thing democrats should have done was push to add language
| explicitly stating that only citizens can vote but
| without replacing anything else. That would have
| satisfied the fearful republicans and protected the
| voting rights of all citizens. Instead they just wanted
| to lecture republicans about voter fraud statistics.
|
| Every parent who has checked under their child's bed or
| looked in their closet for "monsters" understands this.
| When you have people acting like frightened children
| about something that isn't real, sometimes you just have
| to comfort them.
|
| This is the same problem democrats have when republicans
| say they are afraid of small children going to school and
| getting sex change operations. Trump tells them it
| happens which is scary. Democrats just want to tell them
| that they are misinformed and that little kids aren't
| getting surgery, but they'd be smarter to say "You're
| right, little children getting sex changes at school is a
| horrible thing and we are putting forward a law that
| would ban that practice so that no child gets sex change
| surgery!". Why do democrats keep letting these issues
| both sides agree on become arguments that divide us?
| vundercind wrote:
| Heh, I have similar feelings about gun issues. Democrats
| are dead right but I wish they'd just drop the entire
| issue completely. I mean they already barely talk about
| it, though, so who knows if talking about it even less
| would be enough to convince e.g. my dad that his homemade
| "Biden and Harris will take your guns" sign is definitely
| wrong and makes him look ridiculous (somehow, this
| _never_ happening no matter how many times he thinks it
| will hasn't convinced him)
| autoexec wrote:
| The trick isn't to stop talking about gun control.
| Democrats should be proactive about addressing the fear.
| They should campaign on a promise to never go door to
| door and take everyone's guns away and push for
| legislation that specifically states that the mass-
| unarming of the public is explicitly illegal while giving
| them an opportunity to carve out the exceptions that the
| majority of people, including republicans, agree on like
| keeping guns from crazy people and violent felons.
|
| The point is that the irrational fear has to be
| addressed. Making fun of it, ignoring it, or lecturing on
| why the threat is imaginary won't help.
| data_maan wrote:
| Sounds like America suffers from a collective psychosis.
| beedeebeedee wrote:
| Yup. The folks I know who embraced MAGA were all going
| through difficult emotional issues. It seemed to give
| them something they could rally around (i.e., bond with
| others to blame democrats, migrants, trans people, et al,
| for their problems)
| roland35 wrote:
| We are now at the point where tucker Carlson and Alex
| jones are saying that they are fighting demons - I am not
| sure how we can make any rational arguments when one side
| thinks they are fighting against the literal Christian
| devil!
| fallingknife wrote:
| When I registered to vote in WA all they asked for was my
| address and the last 4 of my SSN. No ID whatsoever. I
| could have got as many ballots as I wanted. Voting system
| security is nonexistent, and when Democrats pretend like
| this isn't an issue and fight tooth and nail to keep it
| this way it just makes them look like cheaters.
| vundercind wrote:
| We would expect the several attempts by Republicans _in
| government with as much access as possible_ to hunt for
| fraud to have found more than trivial cases of it, then.
|
| They've been beating this drum for what, fifteen years at
| this point? More? They should at least have found smoke,
| if not fire, instead they just keep saying they smell a
| raging forest fire and coming back with single burnt
| matches when given the reigns of government to go look
| for it and tell us what they find.
| autoexec wrote:
| Democrats aren't opposed to making voting more secure.
| They just want to do in a way that doesn't make it harder
| for poor citizens to vote. Republicans have been using
| the fear of voter fraud to keep US citizens they don't
| like from voting. They'd do things like pass a voter ID
| law and then close DMVs in poor democratic districts so
| that it's harder for "the wrong" US citizens to vote.
| They weren't even remotely subtle about targeting
| specific groups of voters (https://www.washingtonpost.com
| /news/wonk/wp/2016/07/29/the-s...)
|
| Every democrat I know wants elections to be more secure
| than they are. They just also want them to be fair.
| There's been a lot of room for proactive measures here
| that democrats could have been pushing for, but there
| have been efforts too
| (https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/1007715994/manchin-
| offers-a-v...)
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| In Canada Im required to show my ID to vote and things
| work just fine.
| vundercind wrote:
| This appears to be province-by-province but looking at
| Ontario's rules they appear to allow _a lot_ of documents
| to count as an ID for voting, and do not require a photo
| ID, nor do they have multiple tiers of ID that require
| bringing, say, several ID documents if you lack a single
| "better" one--any single one of the many examples works.
|
| https://www.elections.on.ca/en/voting-in-ontario/id-to-
| vote-...
|
| Some US states have voting ID requirements, and they tend
| to be (though not always!) significantly stricter than
| that, sometimes requiring a specifically a government-
| issued photo id, for instance.
|
| I'm pretty sure laws that have much looser definitions of
| "ID" and/or provision resources to ensure timely, free,
| and easy access to such an ID, see less resistance from
| democrats. If the entire pro-ID movement just wanted to
| do what Ontario does it'd be less of a contentious issue,
| I think.
|
| [edit] for the record, though, I agree this is a place
| Democrats could safely give ground--the data do not well-
| support their disenfranchisement concerns, and 30+ states
| already have some kind of voter id law.
|
| It is, separately, also true that there is no evidence
| there's any actual reason to enact more of these laws.
| The data also don't support that, at all. But whatever,
| it's probably not significantly harmful, just a minor
| waste of resources.
| yencabulator wrote:
| Canada also made it cheap and convenient for you to have
| that ID.
| someuser2345 wrote:
| Democrats actively fought against voter id laws. Instead,
| they should have supported those laws, but with an
| amendment to make it easier for people to get an id.
| vundercind wrote:
| I do think trying it is a better tactic than not, but
| would not bet on embracing reasonable ID laws preventing
| a push to modify those to _unreasonable_ ones from
| becoming exactly as big an issue, through the same
| mechanism, among the same voters.
|
| That's the risk when the measure is more-or-less harmless
| but also the problem it addresses isn't real. They can
| just keep claiming the problem still exists and running
| on it.
| nerdix wrote:
| When the average voter attempts to prove that elections
| are insecure by doing the things you claim you could
| easily do, they end up getting caught and facing election
| fraud charges.
|
| Being able to cast a vote illegally is trivially easy
| because there are exceptions baked into the system like
| provisional ballots. Lucky there is an thorough audit
| process so having that vote actually counted while
| avoiding election fraud charges is a lot harder.
| Xeamek wrote:
| Ok, well... that's not really an argument, is it?
|
| It actually is, though.
|
| Sure, it didn't work--probably because enough people
| weren't convinced that it was true enough (and also because
| they didn't care)--but it's not unreasonable to think that
| such an argument should have been enough.
| krona wrote:
| Appealing to insult is not, in fact, an argument. It's a
| form of rhetoric which doesn't change peoples minds, it
| reinforces them.
| Xeamek wrote:
| "X is a fascist" is not just a simple insult. Pretending
| that's all it is is ignorance at best
| llamaimperative wrote:
| "You are fascist" actually _isn't_ just an insult. If you
| display fascist tendencies then you're a fascist, and he
| displays many of those typical tendencies.
| a-french-anon wrote:
| 99% of people don't know what fascism (Italian fascism, I
| suppose, not national socialism, Falange Espanola or BUF)
| actually is and only mean "some kind of vaguely
| traditionalist (but not monarchist) authoritarian" by it.
| It's actually a pretty good red flag for people who
| shouldn't be trusted to discuss politics.
| vacuity wrote:
| There are actual fascists (and not as few as I would
| like) and they need to be called out, but using the term
| inaccurately and provocatively on a broad group makes it
| easier to oppose the usage outright. Optics are important
| to politics, like it or not.
| kragen wrote:
| One of the hardest lessons to learn growing up is that
| there aren't really any adults, not in the sense I believed
| when I was a kid. "Adult" is a role people play when
| they're interacting with kids. Some do it better than
| others. But inside every adult is a terrified child+
| desperately struggling to make sense of an uncertain,
| incomprehensible world. Unfortunately for that child, life
| always ends in death; it won't be long until you are dead
| and everyone who remembers you is dead. And our reasoning
| abilities are not capable of understanding very much of the
| world, so often nothing we do matters, not even for the
| purposes it was intended for. Mostly our understanding of
| the world consists of stories we tell ourselves with
| relatively little connection to reality.
|
| Our understanding of the world is profoundly mediated by
| fiction, which is to say, lies.
|
| That's why it all ends up like children arguing on the
| playground. The kind of playground++ where my 14-year-old
| classmate Evangalyn Martinez got stabbed to death for, I
| think it was, stealing Joella Mares's boyfriend, and nobody
| leaves the playground alive.
|
| Under those circumstances, what does it mean to live a good
| life rather than a bad one? Good answers exist, but they're
| not easy.
|
| ______
|
| + This is a metaphor. I don't mean that each adult has
| literally swallowed a child and is digesting them alive
| like a python.
|
| ++ Technically that was actually the parking lot. Also, I
| was already no longer her classmate at the time, and
| because we were in different grades, I don't remember if I
| ever met her. She wouldn't be my last classmate to be
| stabbed; in my high school biology class each student was
| paired with the same lab partner for the whole semester,
| and the next year, someone else at the high school
| nonfatally stabbed my lab partner, Shannon Sugg, now
| Shannon L. Schneider (ginga.snapz1718). If memory serves,
| she dropped out from the psychological trauma. You can read
| the decision in her lawsuit against the school at
| https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/nm-court-of-
| appeals/141549..., which says it was Alicia Andres who
| stabbed her. "Plaintiff asserts that the Due Process Clause
| of the Fourteenth Amendment imposed a clearly established
| duty upon school officials to protect her from this
| stabbing." I'm glad violent crime has dropped a lot since
| then in the US.
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _the Dem strategy for Independents appeared to be "Trump
| is a fascist" "Trump supporters are garbage"._
|
| > _Ok well..that 's not really an argument?_
|
| Choosing to not put a fascist(-leaning) individual into
| power is "not really an argument"? So it's okay to re-elect
| individuals who have tried at least once to stop the
| peaceful transfer of power?
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-coup
| intended wrote:
| "where are the adults" I mean, the Republican game plan was
| to create this situation. Once they decided that they will
| do what it takes to win, they really did succeed.
|
| I mean take everything from the climate crisis, to my
| favorite - creationism being taught in school at the same
| level as evolution.
|
| The playbook is literally right there, you get experts to
| come on stage, ridicule them to your audience, show that
| they are cartoons and have no real value.
|
| Then you provide you viewers with good sounding news bites
| and manage the optics, and you can get a convicted felon
| elected to President.
|
| Yes - it really is just the information ecosystem. There
| really is no free speech when one side is a regular joe and
| the other side is a marketing and political speech
| behemoth.
|
| It is that simple, and we can't do anything about it,
| because that would be harming our ability to speak freely.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Okay, but what about the truth?
|
| I mean, if one of Trump's own closest advisors carefully
| states that he fits the definition of a fascist, is it not
| fair to call him one? If Trump outwardly celebrates many of
| the traditional concepts of fascism like attacking the
| media, attacking minorities, attacking "enemies from
| within" is it not fair to call him that?
|
| And what do you say about a person who supports fascism?
| That they're very fine people?
| indy wrote:
| It's always amazing what a biased media/social network can do
| to the perception of otherwise rational and intelligent
| people.
| lobsterthief wrote:
| Just remember how rational and intelligent the average
| person is. Then realize that half the US population is less
| rational and less intelligent than that.
| smnrg wrote:
| Original quote by George Carlin, not US-centric: "Think
| of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of
| them are stupider than that."
| codethief wrote:
| I take it confusing the arithmetic average for the median
| is part of the joke?
| Jensson wrote:
| "The average person" typically means the median person.
| badmintonbaseba wrote:
| Intelligence is not inherently quantifiable. IQ is an
| arbitrary way to quantify it, but there average and
| median is pretty much equal by definition.
| a-french-anon wrote:
| IQ roughly follows a Gaussian distribution, so median and
| average are the same here.
| wavemode wrote:
| IQ is normally distributed, so the two are the same.
| red016 wrote:
| Carlin had no father and you can tell.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| > just remember
|
| I don't and you shouldn't. Mocking others intelligence
| only shows that you lack enough to understand them. As I
| understand it, this is precisely the point of GP
| xtracto wrote:
| I don't think it's a matter of intelligence. It's a
| matter of ignorance/knowledge.
|
| I read a statistic that 50% of grown up Americans have
| only 6th grade education. Which means that what? 60%-65%
| may have 9th grade?
|
| The vast majority of people is uneducated and only
| responds to simple thoughts: as someone said: they see
| their wallet shrinking, and they decide to vote for the
| alternative. Other more complex issues don't matter, they
| don't care about them.
|
| The same thing happened in my country (Mexico) where we
| have also tons of uneducated people. The people vote for
| the sound snippet, for the demagogue who told them what
| they wanted to hear.
|
| And similarly, the other parties in their smugness didn't
| understand why people didn't vote for more complex
| issues.
|
| It's sad, but most of us (highly educated people) live in
| a bubble.
| frereubu wrote:
| How is this different from what Trump supporters were saying
| about Democratic voters? Genuine question - I'm not in the US
| and from my perspective the vitriol was pretty universal.
| Jensson wrote:
| If both sides spouts vitriol then you pick the side that
| doesn't pour it on you, that is the problem described by
| "one side is 1% less bad than the other". If you want
| voters then try to welcome them instead of blame them for
| all the problems, goes for both sides.
| frereubu wrote:
| Sure, but then shouldn't the universal vitriol cancel
| itself out somehow? Democracts have been on the receiving
| end of a lot of name-calling too. This doesn't feel like
| a good enough explanation. It feels much more like the
| Democrats ignored (or were perceived to have ignored) a
| lot of substantive issues for a large section of the
| population.
| Jensson wrote:
| > Sure, but then shouldn't the universal vitriol cancel
| itself out somehow?
|
| It does, both sides got about the same amount of votes as
| you can see.
|
| > It feels much more like the Democrats ignored (or were
| perceived to have ignored) a lot of substantive issues
| for a large section of the population.
|
| I don't think so, it doesn't matter how much you try to
| do for people if you also namecall them at the same time,
| they will assume you aren't on their side even if your
| policies are better for them. Vitriol ensures the vote
| becomes tribal instead of rationally inspecting both
| sides and picking the better option.
| Wololooo wrote:
| I realised through hearing through channel 5 and average
| Americans that they don't really get it. They don't want
| to think, they want an easy solution to complex problems
| and anyone coming with a pre made thing is seen as the
| Messiah. The other part don't care because they saw a lot
| of screaming and failed to grasp what was so bad about
| Trump. If he was so bad why was he still nominee? If he
| was so bad why wasn't he arrested? If he was so bad...
| You get the picture...
|
| This can be seen as the democrats also not understanding
| the average person and this is where Bernie was actually
| hitting good points, his message was consistent and he
| was never demonising Trump on his name but explaining
| what they could do better by explaining policies in a way
| that people understood what they would get from them or
| lose if they didn't get implemented...
|
| Of course the issue is a bit more complex, but they
| exacerbated the people that were unseen instead of
| helping the healing and some actors of course were way
| too happy to fan the flames.
|
| This is a very bad day that is marking the beginning of a
| very bad period for everyone...
| Dalewyn wrote:
| I think Trump and the Republicans did actually succeed in
| welcoming in a truly diverse base of new and former
| voters: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/06/us
| /politics/p...
|
| This is the Red Wave that was promised in 2020 and 2022
| but failed to materialize.
|
| Why didn't Harris and the Democrats pull it off? Well,
| they could start by not playing identity politics or
| calling Americans deplorables, Nazis, and garbage.
| Godwin's Law was in full swing for them.
|
| I'm Japanese-American, demographically I should be a
| bleeding heart Democrat, but truthfully I can't stand
| their constant victimizing and divisive rhetoric and is
| why I voted for Trump and the Republicans in 2016, 2020,
| and 2024.
| cglace wrote:
| As someone who pays attention to politics exceptionally
| closely, I wonder what you would call Trump's rhetoric if
| not divisive.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| I call it practical, on point, gruff, and charismatic.
|
| Practical and on point because Trump talks about things
| that the common American actually gives a shit about in a
| way that the common American can understand and relate
| to. This also has a side effect of uniting people under a
| common cause despite outward appearances.
|
| Gruff because that style of speech appeals to most
| Americans who don't like being sophisticated, or worse:
| Being politically correct. Remember that being
| politically incorrect was one of the reasons Trump won in
| 2016, and it's still one of the reasons he won again
| today.
|
| Charismatic because, well, I think everyone has to at
| least admit that the man draws people in despite any and
| all odds.
| cglace wrote:
| So when he calls the other side names and makes threats,
| he is practical and gruff.
|
| His practical message was incoherent; it was more of an
| erring of grievances, conspiracy theories, and wild
| policy ideas that he seemed to have come up with while
| speaking.
|
| I can't argue with the fact that it appealed to people,
| but you can't say it wasn't divisive because it was
| practical and gruff. Those two things don't rule out
| divisiveness.
|
| BTW, I voted Republican in every election until Trump,
| and the reason why I didn't vote for him was due to how
| divisive he was.
|
| I think you just happen to agree with his side of the
| divide.
| DFHippie wrote:
| > erring of grievances
|
| I don't know whether this was deliberate or a typo, but
| it's funny and apt.
| GTP wrote:
| > uniting people under a common cause
|
| If the common cause is being against other people, that's
| still divisive.
| beezlewax wrote:
| "They're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats"
|
| Is that gruff or on point?
| cglace wrote:
| Don't worry he will fix the economy.
| Daishiman wrote:
| You literally voted for a guy who said things 1000x worse
| and this is your take?
| foldr wrote:
| I recall a vox pop in the Washington Post that included a
| woman who was voting for Trump because she thought he'd
| be better than Harris at standing up to Putin. Trump
| seems to attract a combination of low information voters
| and voters who are reluctant to give their real reasons
| for voting for him. Either way, don't expect the given
| reason to make a lot of sense.
| Daishiman wrote:
| He doesn't have a reason to hide why he was voting for
| him, so I'll chalk it up to the low information voters
| who vote on vibes.
|
| In low-information voters' defense, it's been amazing to
| me as a non-American how Trump's literal dementia was not
| in the front pages of the media every single day. The
| complicity of the news media in normalizing a senile
| candidate should't go unnoticed.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >Trump's literal dementia
|
| Nope.
|
| I watched that now infamous three hour marathon podcast
| he did with Joe Rogan. That kind of performance is not
| something a demented man can do, full stop. To say
| nothing of his _utterly crazy_ rally schedule, I
| legitimately don 't know where he gets his energy.
|
| Hate him if you want, that's your right and I will
| respect that. But Trump is _terrifyingly_ sharp,
| especially for a man his age.
|
| >The complicity of the news media in normalizing a senile
| candidate should't go unnoticed.
|
| The media dumped Biden right quick after his old age
| couldn't be hidden anymore. That debate he had was
| straight up elder abuse by the media.
| Daishiman wrote:
| > I legitimately don't know where he gets his energy.
|
| Drugs. Incoherent hour-long rants are the product of
| stimulants, the kind that give you the sort of terrible
| judgement that no one would ever want out of a
| presidential candidate.
| bilekas wrote:
| The double standard for Trump vs ANYONE else is mind
| blowing.
| mcphage wrote:
| > Well, they could start by not playing identity politics
| or calling Americans deplorables, Nazis, and garbage.
|
| Why not, though? Clearly, it is a winning strategy for
| the Republicans. So why not adopt it as well?
| carlosjobim wrote:
| That is assuming half the country are Democrats and the
| other half Republicans. But the most important voting
| block considers themselves to be neither one nor the
| other, and then it becomes strategy to spit fire at your
| opponent.
|
| And I don't know about other people, but I consider any
| rhetoric against a political party to be directed against
| their politicians, not against their voters - unless
| explicitly stated.
| fastball wrote:
| Well the Trump camp was mostly blaming illegal immigrants
| in this cycle, and illegal immigrants can't vote, so
| seems like that strategy works ok.
| noobermin wrote:
| The right gets to hate, the liberals don't. Basically the
| media let Rs play on handicap and the electorate basically
| buys it.
|
| You're right it's unfair but if you're not American and
| thus stuck in the political media stew then you can see it
| clearly.
| _heimdall wrote:
| I'm not so sure about that, I've seen plenty of hate from
| both sides.
|
| Covid was a great example, anyone who disagreed with the
| main narrative or even just wanted bodily choice was
| blasted by many liberals, including the president, with
| all kinds of hateful speech.
|
| Since 2016 many liberals also have used hateful speech to
| describe anyone willing to vote for Trump. I personally
| didn't like either candidate the political machine
| offered us, but in many of my discussions with anyone
| liberal Trump voters were often held as something like a
| second class citizen, that's pretty damn hateful in my
| book to consider anyone "lesser than."
| hncensorship69 wrote:
| Of course your comment is being downvoted. Hackernews is
| an echo-chamber of Trump haters. I'm only here for the
| cope today.
| mondrian wrote:
| This is a deep insight. It's a reactionary vs.
| establishment dynamic where the reactionaries get a free
| boost because they're fundamentally more provocative from
| a content perspective. I think it's more like "the
| reactionaries get to hate, the establishment doesn't" and
| R and D may swap those positions.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| He wasn't wrong
| JustFinishedBSG wrote:
| > It's been confusing since the first trump term how many
| dems held this position. How can you call trump obviously
| reprehensible and irredemable... and then lose?
|
| How is that in any way contradictory ?
| archon1410 wrote:
| It implies that either they themselves are even more
| reprehensible and irredeemable, or the majority of US
| voters are so morally bankrupt that they prefer
| reprehensible and irredeemable candidates. The latter is
| probably true, but why would they say that and then
| continue to run for elections? Why do they want the
| approval of morally bankrupt people who prefer
| reprehensible candidates?
|
| Another option is that voters are just very stupid and fail
| to see that which is "obvious", repeatedly, despite
| billions spent on trying to make them "see". Or perhaps
| their claims are not actually "obvious", and they ought to
| be... kinder to the other side.
| bjourne wrote:
| You are asking why they would say true things.
| archon1410 wrote:
| No, I am asking why they would knowingly desire the
| approval of those who prefer "irredeemable" candidates.
| They would either have to lie a lot to get it, or pull
| themselves down to be more reprehensible. So, what's
| their strategy? Lieing a lot after telling the "one
| truth", or becoming more reprehensible themselves?
| Probably both.
| bjourne wrote:
| You did: "The latter is probably true, but why would they
| say that" The implication of your comment is that
| politicians shouldn't tell the truth because that offends
| voters.
| Zak wrote:
| Seeking votes is not like seeking approval in a social
| context. Someone trying to win a contested election
| desires votes for the purpose of winning.
| bigfudge wrote:
| Or educate and persuade?
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Or educate and persuade?_
|
| There's a lot of people around me who are actively
| against education, or attack facts because they don't
| _believe_ them, or vomit opinions as "facts".
|
| It's practically impossible to persuade people like that.
| data_maan wrote:
| Voters everywhere are stupid but in the country of
| exceptionalism, they lately seem to have become
| exceptionally stu... tolerant!
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _Another option is that voters are just very stupid and
| fail to see that which is "obvious", repeatedly, despite
| billions spent on trying to make them "see"._
|
| I think this is the correct options.
|
| I mean, look at the people who worked for him in the last
| administration:
|
| > _So how do we explain this near-universal rejection of
| Trump by the people who worked with him most closely? I
| guess one explanation is that they've all been infected
| with the dreaded Woke Mind Virus. But it's unclear why
| working for Donald Trump would cause almost everyone to
| be exposed to the Woke Mind Virus, when working for, say,
| JD Vance, or Ron DeSantis, or any other prominent right-
| wing figure does not seem to produce such an infection._
|
| > _Of course, not everyone who worked for Trump has
| abandoned and denounced him. Rudy Giuliani, who is now
| under indictment in several different states, is still
| among the faithful. Michael Flynn, who was fired by Obama
| for insubordination and then removed by Trump for
| improper personal dealings with the Russian government,
| is still on board, and is now threatening to unleash the
| "gates of Hell" on Trump's political enemies. Peter
| Navarro, the economist1 who served four months in prison
| for defying a Congressional subpoena, is still a Trump
| fan. And so on._
|
| > _You may perhaps notice a pattern among the relatively
| few people who are still on board the Trump Train from
| his first term. They are all very shady people. I don't
| think this is a coincidence; I think it's something
| systematic about Donald Trump's personality and his
| method of rule._
|
| * https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/trumpism-is-kakistocracy
|
| The GOP party has changed:
|
| > _As many people have noted, Trump's movement is a cult
| of personality. Since Trump took over the Republican
| party in 2016, essentially every tenet of modern
| conservatism has been replaced with belief in a single
| leader. Trump appointed the judges that killed Roe v.
| Wade, but he constantly goes back and forth on the topic
| of abortion rights. Trump didn't cut entitlement
| spending, but whether he wants to do that in his second
| term or not depends on which day you ask him. Trump has
| flip-flopped on the TikTok bill, on marijuana
| legalization, on the filibuster, on SALT caps, and so
| on._
|
| > _But these flip-flops do not matter to his support at
| all. His supporters are sure that whichever decision
| Trump makes, it will be the right one, and if he changes
| it the following week, that will be the right decision as
| well. If tomorrow Trump declared that tariffs are
| terrible and illegal immigration is great, this would
| immediately become the essence of Trumpism. Trump's
| followers put their trust not in principled ideas, but in
| a man -- or, to be more accurate, in the idea of a man.
| That is what Trumpism requires of its adherents._
|
| * Idid.
| hhjinks wrote:
| So your opinion is that elections are a referendum on the
| moral virtue of the candidate, _or_ that you shouldn 't
| run for office if you think the electorate is morally
| bankrupt?
|
| I'm sorry, but I have to be blunt. That is an extremely
| narrow view, and a single second of critical thinking
| should present a million other possibilities. The former
| is obviously untrue, considering Trump's long list of
| vices. The latter is a complete non sequitur. Power is
| power; the electorate's morals only matter insofar as
| they're willing to check the box next to my name.
|
| Trump can be reprehensible and irredemable, and still win
| if he's more believable on the issues Americans care the
| most about. He could be a fraud, a cheat, even a traitor,
| so long as he's persuasive. That's how democracy works,
| how it _should_ work.
| GTP wrote:
| > why would they say that and then continue to run for
| elections?
|
| Are you suggesting that the USA should have a single
| political party? Anyone that cares for democracy would be
| against that, regardless of their other political views.
| cdrini wrote:
| My guess would be what they meant was that they should
| quit. Ie either you respect the intelligence/morallity of
| the people who you want to vote for you, or maybe you
| shouldn't be trying to represent them.
|
| And not quit as in leave only a single party, but quit as
| in leave a vacuum for another party/candidate/etc to step
| in.
|
| Note these aren't necessarily my personal views, just
| trying to help clarify what I believe the commentator
| meant.
| ninkendo wrote:
| > or the majority of US voters are so morally bankrupt
| that they prefer reprehensible and irredeemable
| candidates
|
| Correct, yes.
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| Maybe 4th time is the charm with this kind of divisive
| messaging?
| Pxtl wrote:
| So you expect progressive voters to simply politely
| ignore the awful things Trump has done, and the fact that
| his supporters don't seem to care?
|
| Short list: Trump has been adjudicated in court as having
| sexually assaulted a woman, and has admitted to doing
| more. Nearly every person who has worked with him has
| described him in the worst possible terms. Stories of him
| celebrating Nazis [1], sexually fixating on his own
| daughter[2], horrifying things like that.
|
| The man is a convicted felon, and has only escaped
| punishment for various other crime by virtue of his own
| appointees in the court system.
|
| If a reader accepts these well-supported items as facts,
| what should they think about somebody who votes for that?
|
| Should they lie and say "a reasonable person would
| support this"?
|
| Or should they tell the truth even when it is "divisive"?
|
| [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-said-
| hitler-did-...
|
| [2] https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/trumps-
| lewd-talk-a...
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| Yes. I think having a healthy community and successful
| future political campaign will require reframing this
| rhetoric.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| this is pathetic and embarassing
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| No. That would be being unable and unwilling to build a
| theory of mind to understand 80 million people from all
| walks of life.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| So we can't call a rapist a rapist because it upsets
| conservatives too much?
|
| We can't call a failed businessman what he is? Or
| correctly point out that he idolizes dictators and Hitler
| specifically? Or that he is so fucking stupid he said he
| wanted Hitler's generals even though they were 1) Not
| very good 2) several tried to assassinate him and 3)
| fought like middle school girls?
|
| Why do we have to abandon reality? Why do we have to
| treat conservatives with kid gloves?
|
| I seem to remember something along the lines of "Facts
| don't care about your feelings" and "Fragile Snowflakes"
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| Did I say any of that?
|
| > rapist
|
| Source?
| ninkendo wrote:
| [delayed]
| anthonypasq wrote:
| something can be true but not politically advantageous to
| mention
| bakuninsbart wrote:
| The "grab them by the pussies" comment should have been
| enough to show everyone that he's a morally reprehensive
| little clown. I originally typed out a long comment to
| further elucidate why he is despicable, but it actually
| takes away from the message. An SA advocate shouldn't be
| president in the 21st century.
| ninkendo wrote:
| My goal isn't to sway trump voters, they've already
| demonstrated time and time again, and again, and again,
| and again, that they have no intention of meeting
| liberals _anywhere_ , let alone "in the middle", and that
| there's nothing, ever, _ever_ that anyone could ever do
| to pry them away from their GEOTUS, so there 's no real
| reason to try to appease them. So I'm left with just
| calling it like I see it.
|
| Trump supporters blaming liberals' rhetoric for their
| decisions is a troll tactic: It's a way of trying to bait
| liberals into paying more positive lip service to Trump.
| And it works, all up and down the media organizations are
| _terrified_ to say things that offend trump supporters.
| All for some vague belief that if they coddle his
| supporters enough they get some "centrist credibility"
| or something.
| beedeebeedee wrote:
| > Another option is that voters are just very stupid and
| fail to see that which is "obvious", repeatedly, despite
| billions spent on trying to make them "see".
|
| Fox News. The folks who voted trump watch only Fox News,
| which has crafted an alternative and immersive world view
| that appears coherent if you only watch Fox News and
| reject conflicting information as lies.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| There are more people who voted for Trump than there are
| people who only watch Fox News. So maybe you ought to re-
| consider the GP's point.
| intended wrote:
| The OP is correct though. If the issue is that their
| statement is weak when its being reduced to just Fox News
| subscribers, then sure.
|
| However the issue is about the kind of information
| ecosystems that drive polarization and misinformation.
|
| Disinfo and misinformation campaigns target right wing /
| conservative viewers more than they do left wing /
| liberals.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07942-8
|
| But I can point to research and articles till the cows
| come home. The fact is that people reject everything
| negative about Trump and fill in the blanks with whatever
| they want to believe.
|
| We're basically playing whose line is it anyway
| throwaway817472 wrote:
| Who is defining what is misinformation? It would be easy
| to reframe such that the opposite can be just as "true, "
| depending on your perspective. For example: Trump turned
| out not to be working with Russia, despite the media and
| politicians constantly saying they had evidence. Trump
| started zero wars, despite fear mongering that he would
| start World War 3. He ended the tensions with North
| Korea, despite pundits saying diplomacy doesn't work with
| dictators. Arguably all of that was misinformation, so
| one could argue the opposite of what you said is also
| true. Whomever defines "misinformation" can make that
| statement with full confidence and be correct in their
| own mind every time.
| intended wrote:
| This is my domain of work, so - Me. If that's not good
| enough you can look at the research paper I linked.
|
| If you haven't looked at the article - this is directly
| in the summary:
|
| > sers who were pro-Trump/conservative also shared far
| more links to various sets of low-quality news sites--
| even when news quality was determined by politically
| balanced groups of laypeople, or groups of only
| Republican laypeople--and had higher estimated
| likelihoods of being bots
|
| If you want more - The original fake news, the Romanian
| ad farm sites, had greater success and traction when they
| targeted conservative viewers.
|
| To save us both trouble - this is not some cockamamie
| argument about crud like "he who defines it can be
| correct.",or conflation of bad reporting and hyperbole.
|
| This is straight up conservatives being the victims and
| consistent targets of mis and disinformation.
|
| I also know that this will have 0 impact on changing
| minds. I know it wont.
|
| That said, I do hope we can agree that people deserve
| respect for their efforts to understand a topic, subject
| or field of work. Do read the article, and when I say
| that conservative / republican information diets are more
| vulnerable and exposed to low quality information and
| conspiracy theories, I'd appreciate the honor of at least
| having your opinion on the abstract and matter of the
| paper.
| throwaway817472 wrote:
| I don't disagree with your points, as they tend to align
| with my personal experience. Given that most of the
| people I interact with are conservative, I can't really
| compare to the sources used by progressives, but I
| suspect it would consist more of links to mainstream
| media. Jumping on a plane, so won't be able to respond
| quickly, but I will read the article you linked.
|
| My point wasn't necessarily that conservatives aren't
| exposed to more misinformation, but rather that
| misinformation is very difficult to define, since the
| general public lacks so much information. Very few people
| actually know the truth. Many people fill in the gaps
| with their biases and then believe they've consumed "the
| truth." Without an objective view of all facts, it's
| difficult to ascertain the truth, therefore it's also
| difficult to ascertain what is misinformation.
| intended wrote:
| Thank you, I will come back and engage with your
| response.
| throwaway817472 wrote:
| My apologies for writing my response in a piecemeal
| fashion as I read through the paper. I'm on a phone,
| which makes it difficult for me to take proper notes and
| to write a response of proper length.
|
| My initial reaction is that this study seems to delegate
| the classification of misinformation to a set of fact
| checkers and journalists. It then uses this to classify
| links as being either misinformation or disinformation,
| based on a trustworthiness score. Unfortunately, I can't
| open the table of exact fact checkers and journalists
| because none of the links work on my mobile browser, so
| I'll have to just guess at the contents for now.
|
| Delegating classification of truth to these third parties
| allows for significant bias in the results. Most
| conservatives consider main stream media and fact
| checkers to have a significant progressive bias. If
| correct, this would explain at least some of the results
| of this study. I haven't done a thorough analysis myself,
| so I can't say either way, but it would be worth
| investigating.
|
| The study also mentions that many users could have been
| bots. I suspect this could also have skewed the results.
| This is mentioned in the abstract, so I suspect it's
| addressed later in the paper.
|
| Either way, continuing to read... very interesting study.
| intended wrote:
| Take your time, please.
|
| As for your objection and concern - the study deals with
| that issue by letting participants decide themselves,
| what counts as high quality and low quality.
|
| This holds if you look at outright conspiracy theories.
| Globally, conservative users are the most susceptible to
| such campaigns.
|
| I will add "at this moment in time". I expect that
| sufficiently virulent disinfo which targets the left will
| evolve eventually.
|
| For additional reading, not directly related to lib / con
| disinfo efficacy - The spreading of misinformation
| online. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1517441113
|
| This is one of the first papers on this topic I ever
| read, and will help in the consideration of misinfo /
| disinfo traffic patterns in a network.
|
| uhh - not that you asked for additional reading.
| hanniabu wrote:
| One side has good marketing and the other has bad
| marketing. That simple really.
| lesuorac wrote:
| > the majority of US voters are so morally bankrupt that
| they prefer reprehensible and irredeemable candidates.
|
| Well, to make this non political.
|
| Look at how many sports players have a history of
| domestic abuse; the character of a player is secondary to
| their ability to play the sport.
| intended wrote:
| > It implies that either they themselves are even more
| reprehensible and irredeemable > or the majority of US
| voters are so morally bankrupt that they prefer
| reprehensible and irredeemable candidates
|
| You dont need to go that far. You just need to create an
| information environment that is beyond the ability of the
| average person to navigate.
|
| At that point, the other side is just evil, and your
| team, even if they are convicted for crimes, have ties to
| Epstein or anything - doesn't matter.
|
| ----
|
| I mean, you can have privatized thought policing, there
| aren't any laws or regulations to prevent. Everyone reads
| about Big Brother and worries about government control.
|
| So you can create enough of FUD shared till it's
| believed.
|
| Don't forget - we had to deal with Creationism, and that
| was _wildly_ successful for a completely unscientific
| argument.
| locococo wrote:
| I have another take, the democratic party is incompetent.
|
| If they can't convince voters to vote for them given how
| bad the other side looks then they must be really
| incompetent.
|
| What's the point of having all the feel good rallies in
| cities with famous people if you can't reach people in
| rural areas.
|
| The democratic party is too elitist, too far from regular
| people.
| siffin wrote:
| It's like being a pastry chef and mocking someone's cake as
| if it's the worst cake ever, but you can't even make a
| better one even though it's your profession.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| It's more like making an edible cake but the customers
| preferring the one containing rat entrails because they'd
| rather eat rat entrails than let anyone else eat an
| edible cake.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| No, it isn't. And the fact that you think it is, is the
| problem.
| gregoryl wrote:
| This kinda of argument is the crux of your issue. "no it
| isn't" vs "this is why I disagree:"
| arandomusername wrote:
| User above hasn't really given any points to disagree
| about.
| haccount wrote:
| You're saying "the Turd Sandwich is inedible. Everyone
| should order the Shit Burger instead."
|
| Maybe you could leave the Poop Cafe and have something
| that's food instead lmao
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| Or you do make a better one but still lose because people
| did not actually care about the cake but about the
| messaging.
|
| Or in meme form:
|
| https://i.redd.it/g0r0x1ldi0e71.jpg
| prepend wrote:
| I think it's more about taste being subjective. So if my
| "better" cake is actually less preferred, then it's not
| actually better.
|
| Making an objective statement about subjectivity is kind
| of silly in the first place. Then losing shows it to be
| stupid.
| card_zero wrote:
| So the election was about nothing objective?
| prepend wrote:
| Definitely not. It's the weighing of the population's
| subjective preferences. It's quite literally each voter's
| perspective and choice that matters.
|
| Hopefully, subjective preferences are based on objective
| facts and reality. But who can really know.
| flappyeagle wrote:
| The median person is pretty dumb and half of the population
| is dumber
| matwood wrote:
| To your point, the Democrats should win every election,
| especially against Trump. But, they can't get out of their
| own way. Go all the way back to when the party hosed Bernie,
| and now this time when they were Hiden Biden.
|
| While the economic numbers are good, they are mainly good for
| people with already high economic status like existing home
| owners and professionals. For example, student loan
| forgiveness sounds great but then leaves every blue collar
| worker who didn't go to college wondering WTF are they doing
| for me? They are giving more money to people who are already
| ahead. When Musk says pain is coming, many of Trumps
| supporters are happy because they are already in pain and
| want to see those benefitting feel some of that pain.
|
| Then they go and overplay their hands with social issues. I
| didn't see it at the time, but all of the DEI rollbacks we've
| been seeing over the past year or so should have been a
| signal. One of the middle of the road people on TV last night
| mentioned he had friends who tried to avoid interacting with
| people at work because they were afraid of saying something
| offensive. And these were likely center left people. I have
| had similar discussions with even my most progressive
| friends. The almost refusal to message young men is also a
| problem.
|
| Most Americans want legal immigration, but the Democrats took
| too long to do something and then Trump was able to kill the
| bill last minute. It looked like the Democrats wanted to
| simply ignore it until they no longer could.
|
| There are more, but I think these are some of the big
| Democrat self owns.
| creato wrote:
| > Most Americans want legal immigration, but the Democrats
| took too long to do something and then Trump was able to
| kill the bill last minute. It looked like the Democrats
| wanted to simply ignore it until they no longer could.
|
| You forgot the part where they claimed their hands were
| tied, then finally did something about it 8 months before
| the election.
| matwood wrote:
| Yes, completely dropped the ball on an issue they could
| have addressed head on.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Biden introduced a bill for border security on the first
| day of his administration, GOP nuked it. Wasn't ignored.
| 15155 wrote:
| Automatically allowing a specific quantity of millions of
| illegal immigrants as a "compromise" isn't "border
| security."
| tzs wrote:
| The Senate passed a bipartisan bill earlier this year
| that had almost everything Republicans have asked for.
| The House wouldn't even consider it.
| 15155 wrote:
| Did you read it?
| llamaimperative wrote:
| https://youtu.be/oZw7xijmeGM?t=89
|
| Lindsay Graham did!
|
| "Everybody who comes on this floor and says our border is
| broken. We should do something about it. You're
| absolutely right. And unfortunately, we didn't get there.
| President Trump opposed the Senate bill."
| apinstein wrote:
| It's fascinating how no one mentions that Trump didn't
| pass comprehensive immigration legislation during his
| first term despite it being core to his platform.
|
| This issue is a mess and has been kicked down the road
| for literal decades at this point. Maybe finally it will
| get passed...
| llamaimperative wrote:
| He seems quite literally incapable of a "comprehensive"
| solution to anything. Every solution was the simple one
| that had the predictable unintended consequences.
|
| E.g. on immigration he _prevented_ courts from deferring
| certain deportation cases, which meant high-risk
| immigrants stayed in the country _for longer._
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > He seems quite literally incapable of a "comprehensive"
| solution to anything. Every solution was the simple one
| that had the predictable unintended consequences.
|
| That is because the result doesn't matter, not in "starve
| the beast" [1] cycle politics - it used to be mostly
| about money but the model can be used also for general
| politics. The playbook is:
|
| 1. side A rise to power claiming "issue X must be solved
| by doing Y" (all while knowing that doing Y is useless or
| counterproductive, but the voter base doesn't care - be
| it immigration or the defunding of healthcare or
| whatever)
|
| 2. The consequences hit delayed, when the term is at its
| end and the competitor B takes over (usually in US
| political cycles every 8 years, but these days it seems
| like the ping-pong is accelerating)
|
| 3. That leaves an opportunity for side A to constantly
| barge in from the side "look at issue X, vote for us next
| time and we'll fix it (for realsies this time!)"
|
| 4. Side A wins the next election.
|
| When it comes to anything budget related, replace the
| campaigning slogan with "look at issue X, it is clear
| that the government is incapable of doing anything about
| that issue, let us privatise it".
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
| llamaimperative wrote:
| This is all true but I actually don't think Trump _knows_
| his solutions won't solve these problems. I think he's
| actually a simple-minded man who's saying the simple
| solutions he thinks will work because he hasn't ever
| thought about the problem.
|
| I mean he came into power and proudly declared he had
| never heard of NATO before running (!!) but was brought
| up to speed in ~2min (!!). That's who he is.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Someone like Trump should have access to actual experts
| able to estimate the impact of his political ideas.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| The whole problem with "someone like Trump" is that if
| said expert tells him he's wrong, then said expert is
| gone in short order.
|
| This is why autocracies and oligarchies are bad. Not
| because they're just de facto _evil_ , but because they
| produce undesirable outcomes, often even undesirable by
| their own standards (see: Russia's ongoing 3 day special
| military operation in Ukraine)
|
| Every single person around him is playing a loyalty test.
| Thank god Fauci was expert enough to navigate that
| dynamic so delicately, but most others don't have the
| talent or appetite for it.
| noobermin wrote:
| There was no student loan forgiveness.
| _heimdall wrote:
| They tried extremely hard to do it though, and wasted a
| lot of political capital on the issue. The fact that they
| tried so hard _and_ couldn 't get it done is a good
| example of what the GP was talking about.
| noobermin wrote:
| It's almost as if they're premise is invalid then.
|
| This is a lot like liberals complaining about things
| Trump didn't do.
| intended wrote:
| I mean, you can "waste" capital on anything, if the other
| team is going to demonize whatever you do.
|
| Obamacare was based on Romneycare, and Romney had to
| disown it. Let's not have discussions on things that dont
| happen. There is nothing the dems can do which wont be
| spun into harm by the republican side of the media
| sphere.
| _heimdall wrote:
| That goes both ways too. I also don't find political
| talking points about the other side couldn't do
| particularly intriguing, but the Democrats did have a
| field day in 2019/2020 pointing out how little Trump
| actually did with regards to building a wall.
|
| The most annoying part is that almost every time with an
| issue that couldn't be done, it should have been clear
| from the beginning. The idea of the government vacuuming
| up all (or most) student debt seems completely untenable
| right out of the gate, just like the idea that we would
| be able to build a physical wall across out entire
| southern border _and_ make Mexico pay for it.
|
| Its lazy politics all the way around. And that lazy
| politics wastes plenty of tax dollars and distracts
| everyone from issues actually worth talking about.
| intended wrote:
| I mean, it definitely doesn't go both ways. The repubs
| made an issue of a tan suit as I recall.
|
| Again - the Obamacare-Romneycare example. One party tried
| to reach across the aisle, to bend over backwards to
| build common ground.
|
| The republicans refused to cross the aisle, even when
| their points and desires were incorporated.
|
| From the Gingrich era, it's been a clear goal to stop any
| bi-partisan behavior. That only winner takes all policies
| and behavior is acceptable.
|
| That dems started to do this, for DJT, is kinda sad. They
| should have started a lot earlier.
|
| I request, that when policy is brought into the picture,
| let's not forget that policy is fundamentally irrelevant
| to the Republican Party. It's nice to discuss policy,
| yes. But policy is a treatment for real world issues in a
| working legislature. Not one where good policy must be
| rejected if it's brought up by the Dems.
|
| At this point, the game theory solution is for Dems to
| respond by also rejecting bipartisan efforts, and copying
| the republican playbook.
| astrange wrote:
| There has been several hundred billion dollars of it.
|
| https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/biden-harris-
| adm...
| gre wrote:
| Looks like very recent proposal and the money hasn't been
| forgiven yet? If they had the power all along, then why
| wait til the week before the election?
| astrange wrote:
| > Looks like very recent proposal and the money hasn't
| been forgiven yet?
|
| No, look down at the bottom under "A Significant Track
| Record of Borrower Assistance".
|
| > If they had the power all along, then why wait til the
| week before the election?
|
| Judges blocked all the other ways they tried to do it.
| nradov wrote:
| The Biden administration attempted to implement student
| loan forgiveness despite lacking any statutory authority
| to do so.
|
| https://www.scotusblog.com/2023/06/supreme-court-strikes-
| dow...
| Atreiden wrote:
| The problem is he tried to means-test it, which made it a
| program that had to go through Congress. If he had just
| waved his hand and done it unilaterally, it would not
| have been blocked.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Then they go and overplay their hands with social issues.
| I didn't see it at the time, but all of the DEI rollbacks
| we've been seeing over the past year or so should have been
| a signal.
|
| Yeah, a signal of large players in economy preparing
| themselves for a Trump victory - the begin of which was
| Meta unbanning Trump and the culmination of which was Bezos
| banning the WaPo endorsement. Big Business doesn't care
| about any values, all it cares about is money, and so it
| prepared for Trump possibly taking over again in time and
| getting into good terms with him.
| stillold wrote:
| "They are giving more money to people who are already
| ahead." They did that three times in Trump administration.
| Resulting in the largest deficit increase ever...
|
| The pain ahead is realizing China is the new superpower.
| Tawain won't make it to 2028.
| matwood wrote:
| IIRC, Trump gave it to everyone whether they needed it or
| not. Perhaps there were more that I'm forgetting. But
| people who perceive themselves at the bottom rung (and
| are told they are by media and sometimes dems), will see
| it as unfair if people perceived higher up get something
| extra.
|
| Of course the super rich are going to get themselves tons
| of benefits, but that remains in the abstract for most.
|
| Trump may get lucky for the time being on China. They are
| struggling economically and may not have the desire to
| pick a fight right now. IMO, countries bordering Russia
| are under a more immediate threat.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| PPP loan fraud disproportionately benefited already
| wealthy people who both had the means to navigate the
| bureaucracy and the lack of morals to steal.
| whoitwas wrote:
| I mean ... if you support that guy. It's accurate.
| arp242 wrote:
| Half the stuff Trump says is some insult to someone. "Owning
| the libs" and "libtards" has been a thing for a long time.
| Remember when the tea party said Obama was literally Hitler
| for trying to come up with a better health care system? etc.
| etc. etc.
|
| But somehow everyone else needs to be on their best behaviour
| and as soon as they say "fuck you back" in response to a
| torrent of "fuck you"s it 's a big deal.
|
| If you want to talk tone and insults then you're definitely
| starting at the wrong end.
| dathinab wrote:
| > How can you call trump obviously reprehensible and
| irredemable... and then lose?
|
| because not being any of notorious lair, repeatedly make
| comments you normally only would expect from fascist, having
| systematically undermined various check and balances in their
| last term, having lost sexual assault cases, shamelessly
| abusing the reach of a president for deformation etc. seem to
| no longer matter even through any of this points where
| believed to be reliable carrier killers
|
| now "reprehensible" that is a much more personal non
| objective judgement so arguing around that is pointless
|
| Irredeemable seems obvious, but if the things you need
| redemption from don't matter anymore it really doesn't matter
| either.
|
| I think the main problem here is that politics in the US are
| fundamental broken due to way to much polarization in a 2
| party system and no good way to fix it.
|
| If Tump wins I personalty think it's hardly avoidable that in
| the next 20 year there will be a point where you won't be
| able to call the US democratic anymore at all (based on a
| objective standard) and the question is if the US will then
| realize they fuck up and fix it or not (if not autocracy will
| mass spread even more and likely also take over the EU and
| given past history of how autocrats tend to cooperate while
| fighting democracy but then turn onto each other quite
| reliable the moment their power stabilized we probably should
| expect WW4).
|
| Naturally I would love to be proven wrong, I really would.
|
| And I think it's best to always stay polite.
|
| But I can understand why someone gets angry with a lot of
| people voting for someone who comes with such a risk.
| Especially if a deep dive analyses into their positions show
| that 1) he lacks concrete (public) plans for most of his
| positions and 2) they likely will end up making live worse
| for many potentially the majority of the people voting for
| him.
|
| But then people voting more based on "feeling" and
| "popular"/"populist" believe always has been very common.
| It's also kinda funny how close the words "popular" and
| "populist" is, sometimes just a change of perspective apart.
| fwip wrote:
| > because not being any of notorious lair, repeatedly make
| comments you normally only would expect from fascist
|
| Kamala's rhetoric, especially around the military and
| border security, seemed almost specifically designed to be
| "1% less fascist." Some of the lines wouldn't have been out
| of place in Starship Troopers.
|
| If you triangulate yourself into 98% fascism, it's hardly
| surprising that people who don't like fascism aren't
| excited to go out and vote for you.
| QuadmasterXLII wrote:
| From your choice of candidates, it's obvious that you don't
| mind coarse language or a tell-it-like-I-see-it attitude. I
| wonder what about your friend's comment bothered you so much.
| Molitor5901 wrote:
| You have put the point on the entire issue. People use
| party/candidate affiliation as the barometer for all future
| interactions, and when they don't like something about the
| other party, they use that as judgement of the whole person.
|
| That is a person's right, but it is also failing to recognize
| that they are two sides of the same coin. So long as people
| hate one another for who they are voting for there will never
| be societal cohesion.
| macspoofing wrote:
| > The Democrats should have fielded a strong personality in
| their own right.
|
| I think Biden's decision to run for a second term was what sunk
| them. That was a selfish decision. He then bowed out too late,
| and Democrats had to scramble and nominate the only viable
| alternative. Biden should have refrained from running last year
| in order to give the Democrats a full primary to choose a
| candidate.
| cxr wrote:
| > I think Biden's decision to run for a second term was what
| sunk them
|
| You _think_?
|
| > Democrats had to
|
| Oh? Oh-- They _had_ to.
|
| > the only viable alternative
|
| K.
| c22 wrote:
| Agreed. I thought it seemed obvious back in 2020 that we'd
| see a candidate flip for this election, but no one in the
| Dem's leadership saw this coming? If they'd been positioning
| Harris and laying groundwork for the last four years this
| would have been an easy win for them.
| prepend wrote:
| Or perhaps if they had used democratic practices and let
| the constituents of their party actually vote to choose who
| they thought was best suited.
|
| Biden pulling out so close to election didn't let them
| actually go through their process to elect their nominee.
| It's quite possible democrats would have chosen a candidate
| who was not associated with Biden and thus more electable.
| nirav72 wrote:
| I think Biden is going to go down as the person that broke
| the democratic party. But in reality, the blame lies on Obama
| for convincing Biden to step aside in 2016 and let it be
| Hillary Clinton. Biden had a much better chance at beating
| Trump in 2016 than Clinton.
| dogleash wrote:
| I see what you're saying, but I put that on Hilary. How
| much dirt must she have had on everyone else such that that
| the party establishment treated her candidacy as Manifest
| Destiny and the best democrat unafraid to run against her
| was socialist grandpa from Vermont who wasn't even a
| democrat?
| laniakean wrote:
| People were praising Biden for stepping aside, but he only
| stepped aside once he was forced. Had he made this decision
| earlier, the Democratic Party would have had the time to do a
| proper primary.
| 15155 wrote:
| > would have had the time to do a proper primary.
|
| But then they wouldn't have been able to try and transfer
| his incumbency bonus as easily.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >I think Biden's decision to run for a second term was what
| sunk them.
|
| They didn't have anybody else they could think of who was
| more electable. They had squandered years when they should
| have groomed flashier personalities having more substance
| than Trump.
|
| The only reason Trump got in to begin with is the Republicans
| had squandered their own years, and by the time 2024 came
| around neither party had anyone to offer who wasn't a bit
| more elderly than average.
|
| I would have liked to see Biden pick _Haley_ as his running
| mate, and if that didn 't work, then resign and make Harris
| president right there at the primary.
| mint2 wrote:
| Yeah he RBG'd American real hard. Not only the late drop out
| after the primary, but also he put in D- effort into selling
| his work during his term. I think he did many decent things,
| but sold them like a wet sock.
|
| lack of good messaging around the economic policies was also
| a big factor during Harris campaign. They could have attacked
| Trump on tariffs but mostly gave him a pass. Also mostly gave
| him a pass on not debating. Was puzzling.
| rozab wrote:
| I assume by 'strong personality' you mean populist. I think
| it's a big mistake to think populism can only be fought with
| populism, otherwise all democracies would have fallen to it
| long ago.
|
| I do think if we're pointing fingers, most of the problems came
| from before the Harris campaign kicked off.
| goethes_kind wrote:
| Populism is just democracy taking the reigns back from the
| entrenched political establishment. There is nothing
| democratic about a social class of bureaucrats gatekeeping
| all political offices. If anything, it seems to me that
| populism is necessary to overcome the local minimum that the
| political landscape settles in from time to time.
| chimprich wrote:
| It's pretty hard to define what populism is; it's kind of a
| "know it when I see it" kind of definition for most
| commentators.
|
| My best attempt at a definition would be a platform that
| denies known truths in favour of superficially popular
| positions. For example, claiming that tariffs don't
| increase prices, or that legal convictions are lies, or
| even that solid, established scientific evidence (like
| vaccines are safe and hugely effective or climate change is
| real) are untrue.
| gg82 wrote:
| Nah, that is not what it means.
|
| Populism is a political approach that seeks to represent
| the interests and voice of "ordinary people" against what
| is perceived as an elite or establishment. Populist
| movements often emphasize a direct connection between the
| leader and the people, bypassing traditional political
| institutions or parties, and claim to speak for the
| "common people" against corrupt or out-of-touch elites.
| Populism can appear across the political spectrum, taking
| different forms depending on the issues and ideologies
| within a given society.
|
| This is likely to cause winners and losers to come out of
| the situation... and probably after time, the leaders end
| up becoming elites who become out of touch with the
| "common people" and the process is likely to repeat.
|
| I think it is closer to Democracy than whatever the
| democrats seem to say - which they seem to define as:
| "whatever gives them the power to do what they want"
| vacuity wrote:
| In the ideal, populism can be seen as a good example of
| democracy. In practice, voters just go off of feelings
| and "he said, she said", at which point it's not about
| the benefit of the people so much as whichever elites
| manage to wrest the conch this time. For the most part,
| the people themselves aren't well educated and able to
| understand what is actually to their benefit or not, even
| if they are college educated. Adding to that, people are
| bad at long-term thinking and focusing on multiple
| issues. In practice, the outcome is the same.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Good definition! Here's the Cambridge one:
|
| "political ideas and activities that are intended to get
| the support of ordinary people by giving them what they
| want".
|
| Giving someone all they want is not seen as a good
| thing... unless _you_ are the recipient, in that case
| internal bias comes to play.
| dogleash wrote:
| That is how populism has been branded as bad, to you. By
| your definition the most populist parties are the
| republicans and democrats ("denies known truths in favour
| of superficially popular positions").
| vacuity wrote:
| > the most populist parties are the republicans and
| democrats
|
| This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone...
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| From the outside this is what I think too. Biden tried too
| desperately to be the next candidate again and Harris'
| campaign could have started 1 or 2 months earlier than it
| did.
|
| If Trump actually wins, the world might be in for a lot of
| trouble very soon. Quite worrying. Aside from totalitarian
| regimes, wherever you look around the world people were
| hoping the crazy dude would not win, wondering how anyone
| could be so blind not to see what kind of person he is, how
| uneducated, silly, and what a loser in the general sense.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| A second administration will look quite different. If he
| remembers his campaign ideas, the economics will look much
| closer to Brexit than the chaos of his first term.
| chpatrick wrote:
| ...Brexit not being chaos?
| ttyprintk wrote:
| Yeah, the application of new tariffs will look like the
| disorderly negotiations of Brexit rather than magic
| marker hurricane prediction.
| strix_varius wrote:
| "impotent gridlock" would be more accurate than "chaos"
| to describe Trump's first term.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| > Aside from totalitarian regimes, wherever you look around
| the world people were hoping the crazy dude would not win
|
| Can you list some of the places where you've looked "around
| the world"? The locals I know out here in Asia (and a few
| in Southern Africa) aren't Trump haters.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Basically everywhere in Europe, where we still have
| democracy, even if more and more shaky these days,
| because we don't get our act together with regard to the
| war in Ukraine.
|
| Then Ukraine itself of course.
|
| I think no one wants to have to deal with a deranged
| dude, who calls NK dictator a "great guy". Surely people
| in South America don't like his hate speeches and
| outlandish ideas about them paying for any kind of wall
| either.
|
| In general people in many countries take statements like
| wanting to be a dictator "only on the first day" as very
| serious indications of some guy's mental health and for
| what they will have to deal with in the near future.
| Generally people are not a big fan of having to deal with
| authoritarian figures, who could impact their country's
| economy tomorrow, by doubling down on some idiotic
| tariffs policy or some other crap that comes his mind.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| > Basically everywhere in Europe
|
| Ohhhhhh, the other half of the Global North? I don't
| consider that representative of "around the world".
| Europe's population is a minority (reference the
| Valeriepieris Circle:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeriepieris_circle) , and
| it doesn't hold a monopoly on functioning democracies
| either.
|
| >Surely people in South America don't like his hate
| speeches and outlandish ideas about them paying for any
| kind of wall either.
|
| But....have you been there, and asked them? Or have you
| just been to Europe? I've never been to South America,
| and only know a handful of Mexicans, Brazilians,
| Argentinians, and Colombians....not enough to say that I
| can speak for their politics.
|
| > Generally people are not a big fan of having to deal
| with authoritarian figures, who could impact their
| country's economy tomorrow, by doubling down on some
| idiotic tariffs policy or some other crap that comes his
| mind.
|
| I think authoritarians are more popular, globally, than
| you realize. I know Filipinos who spoke highly of Duterte
| because his crackdown really cleaned up crime in Manila,
| as one anecdote. Trump's tariff policy will probably not
| work out well for the overall quality of life in America,
| agreed on that point though.
| ks2048 wrote:
| It's funny how "populism" has a shifting definition (as I see
| it). Your comment implies populism is the opposite of
| democracy. While it's literal meaning seems to be exactly
| democratic (doing what the populous wants).
| p3rls wrote:
| Dear OP, if you don't understand why people are making fun
| of you, imagine the trump guy that mostly exists in your
| own heads saying "We must avoid falling into tyranny by
| leaning into the fuhrerprinciple!"
|
| And now we know why Confucius said the first step is the
| rectification of names.
| amelius wrote:
| It's not "doing what the people want", but it's "telling
| them what they want to hear".
| Fnoord wrote:
| ..but it isn't doing what the populous wants. It is making
| it appear to do what they want based on populistic (yet
| unrealistic) resentments.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > From a game theoretical perspective this is a good result. It
| is a clear reiteration of the message to the Democrats: you
| won't win by claiming to be 0.1% less bad.
|
| Yeah, I said as much on a reddit comment _prior_ to knowing the
| results: This is a _good thing_ for the future of the Dems!
| They can now take this valuable feedback and put together a
| better platform to run on in future races.
|
| Running on social activism isn't a winning strategy, no matter
| how loud that vocal minority is shouting.
| a_victorp wrote:
| This has happened before... I don't expect Dems to ever
| really learn this lesson
| notnaut wrote:
| Why would they? The party in its current form exists as a
| reactionary pressure release valve for after the actual
| party of action deconstructs the roadblocks that keeps the
| money controlling both parties from self-replicating.
| vundercind wrote:
| _Did_ Harris run on social activism? I didn't get that from
| the campaign's messaging. Not Biden's, either.
| e40 wrote:
| It's clearly the perception. Before Harris entered the
| race.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I believe social activism has been associated with the
| Democratic Party recently, I suppose it is implied when you
| run under their umbrella.
| vundercind wrote:
| It's rather tricky to fight this perception when it
| doesn't primarily come from either one's messaging or
| one's actions.
| lelanthran wrote:
| Not tricky at all: any politician can distance themselves
| from some fringe group of vocal nutjobs.
|
| Even Trump has done so on occasion, like with the project
| 2025 conspiracy theory.
| vundercind wrote:
| Indeed, just denying it while having a ton of actual
| close ties to it worked in that case.
|
| Or, his voters didn't care in the first place so the blow
| was never really gonna land (I suspect this is more like
| it)
| creato wrote:
| It doesn't need to specifically be Harris or Biden's
| policies to drag them down. There's very obviously a
| backlash against some progressive ideology going on, and
| the democratic party is clearly at least partly beholden to
| adherents of that ideology. That's why Harris can't give
| obvious and clear answers to (some) simple policy
| questions.
| vundercind wrote:
| Yes, but the claim was they _ran on_ that. Fixing the
| problem (if it is a problem) is a lot easier, and the
| necessary approach to fix it very different, if you ran
| on something and it backfired, compared with _not_
| running on it and still losing votes over it.
|
| [edit] I also truly wondered if that'd been a significant
| part of their message, and I missed it--in the age of
| granular ad-targeting, who knows?
| yoz-y wrote:
| What kind of political landscape will democrats come back to
| in 2028? Doesn't project 2025 aim to dismantle a lot of the
| current establishment?
| lelanthran wrote:
| > Doesn't project 2025 aim to dismantle a lot of the
| current establishment?
|
| Didn't the Reps distance themselves from that? Vocally and
| repeatedly?
|
| _You_ may think that that playbook is _their_ playbook,
| but apparently their distancing themselves from it worked
| well enough.
| oaththrowaway wrote:
| Project 2025 is basically QAnon for the Democrats
| gmueckl wrote:
| Trump and Vance will almost certainly pull strings to erode
| the current political system in Washington with no regard
| for the spirit and likely even the letter of the
| constitution.
| ars wrote:
| Project 2025 is not an actual policy of anyone with power.
|
| I saw so many ads by Harris complaining about it, and
| that's part of how I knew she would lose: when you fight
| against something that isn't real, you're going to lose.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| As someone living in WI who got barraged with ads from both
| sides, that wasn't the messaging _anyone_ saw AFAICT. The
| biggest issue on people 's minds was the economy. Dem messaging
| on economic policy was nonexistent. Women's healthcare isn't an
| issue that resonates with young (read: unmarried) men. It
| should, but it doesn't. There could have been some "look out
| for your wife" messaging, but there wasn't.
|
| There's a lot of people in the comments parroting whatever
| narrative they cooked up for 2016, but the reality is that both
| candidates' approaches were wildly different this time around.
| pineaux wrote:
| Yeah. Most democrat leaning people here and outside are not
| reading the situation correctly. We are currently in the
| process of the creation of a new world order. Its happening
| everywhere. Right-wing, anti-immigrant, egomaniacs with
| little respect for democracy as we know it are taking power
| in all of the western influence sphere. It might be because
| this is the way countries like China/russia can undermine the
| hegemony of the west. It might be because of the way the
| internet works that takes away power from the systems that
| used to work. Or what we could conclude that the story the
| liberals/left are telling all over the world implicitly locks
| out most people that vote and is self destructive. Either
| way. Don't believe the pundits they are consistently wrong.
| numbsafari wrote:
| All the libertarian mumbojumbo about the internet and
| encryption prove to be wrong. The internet becomes a tool
| of mass surveillance and misinformation affording the
| oligarchic takeover and dissolution of democracy and broad
| based freedoms.
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| The result is a combination of all these factors and many
| others, including racism, misogyny, and a desire to return
| to a time when groceries were cheap. Next summer, the
| recession will come as a great surprise to those who
| expected to be better off under Trump
| cpursley wrote:
| You sound quite confident. Are you willing to place
| financial bets?
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| My financial decisions are none of your business buddy.
| cpursley wrote:
| Okay, then maybe keep your predictions to yourself. Put
| up or shut up.
| ssijak wrote:
| Or maybe, just maybe, the Democrats (and other similar
| parties elsewhere) went too crazy and left and did not
| focus on real issues ordinary people face?
| galactus wrote:
| What, in practice, was too crazy and left in the Biden
| administration? (Honestly asking)
| bagels wrote:
| Defending trans people apparently was a bridge too far
| for many, for one.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >Defending trans people apparently was a bridge too far
| for many, for one.
|
| Which is ridiculous. Trans folks are less than one
| percent of the population.
|
| Why shouldn't they be allowed to be who they are? Given
| the tiny number of these folks, it really shouldn't make
| any difference to anyone who's not trans anyway.
|
| But, apparently, some folks, who appear to believe that
| their trained-in prejudices are the laws of nature, feel
| the need to tell _other people_ how they should live and,
| even more egregiously, try to _force_ them to do so.
|
| That's not liberty. That's not individual rights. That's
| not religious freedom. Rather, it's busybodies trying to
| tell other people what to do.
| meiraleal wrote:
| Liberal isn't left. Maybe their problem is that they
| actually didn't go left (workers).
| astrange wrote:
| We just had by far the most pro-union administration in
| decades, eg they saved the Teamsters' pensions, and in
| return the Teamsters didn't endorse them. Americans don't
| care if you respect the working class or not, they're
| postmaterialist voters.
|
| But they're also "education polarized", so they
| definitely care if you respect people who didn't go to
| college. But "respect" doesn't mean you're nice to them
| or even that you do things for them as a group. It could
| just mean you don't come off like you went to grad
| school.
| thpeterson wrote:
| Grocery union workers were hassling people to see their
| prescriptions where I live recently, before they'd let
| them in the store as pharmacy workers had a different
| contract
|
| More local tribal groups who can ask for your papers
| "please" is not the way either. Unions have aligned with
| mafioso and pols to propagate violence. Not sure why
| everyone thinks the past is a good solution. Clearly the
| average American is a moron; who rewards them with more
| authority?
|
| Dem pols are 100% useless as any real change screws them
| too as people. It's pageantry on both sides. Ones just
| openly violent and that one won. Great.
| messe wrote:
| The Overton window has shifted insanely right in the US.
| The democrats would be considered centrist or even centre
| right in much of the EU.
| astrange wrote:
| When people say this, they just seem to mean European
| countries have more universal healthcare than the US
| does. But /keeping/ your healthcare program after it's
| already been invented is conservative!
|
| European parties are definitely not to the left of the
| Democrats on immigration or minority rights.
| messe wrote:
| Nah, there's far more to it than that. Workers' rights,
| consumer rights, privacy laws, and strong regulations
| around corporations for a start.
| NeutralCrane wrote:
| Very much depends on the issue being discussed.
| Economically? Perhaps. Socially? Absolutely not. The US
| is far out on its own branch when it comes to things like
| LGBTQ issues, racial and other identity issues,
| immigration, etc. I'm not sure these played as much of a
| role as the economy in terms of this election, but they
| are absolutely next in line in terms of the issues
| looming large in voters' minds.
| t-3 wrote:
| It's more that their marketing targeted people who are
| already Democrats and moderate Republicans. The first
| group didn't need convincing, and the second group is
| small. The independents and swing voters they should have
| courted were left in the cold and either didn't vote or
| went for Trump. They kept preaching to choir, and the
| choir kept shouting "Hallelujah!", so they thought they
| had it in the bag.
| coderenegade wrote:
| The anti-immigration thing is because the great experiment
| of mass migration has failed to work for the average
| person, and the political left have failed to show up with
| an answer, a policy, a plan -- anything, really. People are
| voting for candidates who are at least willing to pay lip
| service to the issue. I don't know how bad it is in the US,
| but in the rest of the West, it's been a disaster.
| Overcrowded cities, erosion of quality of life, strained
| services, competition for housing, suppression of wages,
| the complete abandonment of on-the-job training, falling
| tertiary education standards, minority enclaves with values
| that are fundamentally incompatible with the West... The
| list goes on.
| n4r9 wrote:
| All the things you listed are a result of neoliberal
| austerity politics much more than they are a result of
| immigration.
| VagabundoP wrote:
| Having better safety nets definitely helps people look
| outward rather than in.
|
| Pensions, social security, healthcare; once you have a
| feeling that you'll be taken care of if things go bad you
| can think about your neighbours a little more.
| no_wizard wrote:
| This.
|
| The democrats shifted to the center instead of creating a
| campaign chasm on actual progressive issues that
| Americans would generally support like universal
| healthcare[0], student debt cancellation, housing
| subsidies, stronger pro labor policies (support for
| unions has grown across the aisle substantially) and
| generally fairer more equitable economic participation.
|
| That would have reached across the aisle and put
| Republicans on the defensive especially around messaging
|
| Instead, they went strong with wedge issues and tried to
| play culture wars. Which honestly I don't disagree with
| the conclusions and policy positions democrats made here
| but it didn't speak to economic fears or relief for the
| masses
|
| We did this to ourselves to a certain degree. All
| progressives have left now is molotovs in the streets
|
| [0]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/468401/majority-say-
| gov-ensure-...
| matwood wrote:
| I agree focusing on the culture issues was an incorrect
| move. But, union members seem to have gone largely pro-
| Trump even after he talked about firing anyone who went
| on strike and breaking them up with Musk. It's hard to
| understand.
| fallingknife wrote:
| What austerity politics? The US is running a 6% deficit.
| n4r9 wrote:
| OP was talking about "the rest of the West" so I was
| thinking more about the UK, where we've effectively had
| over a decade of austerity politics.
| jvmboi81 wrote:
| Where is the austerity? Does it have a knife?
| okeuro49 wrote:
| It's getting really noticeable across every western
| democracy.
|
| The far-left strategy seems to be clientele politics, and
| attempting to rule over the fractured result.
| cassepipe wrote:
| You would need to show up with data to back up those
| claims.
|
| I live in (around) a major city. Sure it's overcrowded
| but that has nothing to do with foreign immigration and
| everything to do about it being a economic powerhouse.
| Quality of life has been increasing since the city has
| invested/is investing in more transportation/bikeable
| lanes/better air pollution standards/less noise. Also
| laws that are forcing better insulation standards are a
| net quality of life both in terms of comfort and footing
| the bill. Even the people who really need to take their
| cars will benefit because there will less traffic jams on
| account of 1. people for whom it was mostly comfort
| leaving the road and 2. reduced speed means less
| unnecessary braking to get out and in the motorway around
| the city.
|
| Strained services seems to be because of budget
| tightening. It's a policy choice that has to do with
| ideology (don't fund a service when it could made
| profitable by outsourcing it) and trying to save on
| budgets because of a bad economy. Again you'd have to
| back up with data that it has something to do with
| immigration.
|
| I could on and on but basically what you are saying there
| was too much new people too fast but I don't think this
| is nowhere true in my western european country.
|
| The only thing that could worry is the minorities
| enclaves but it's not hard to break up a ghetto by
| opening it up sociogeographically and economically, you
| just need to the political will to do so but instead it's
| left in place and used as convenient fear-mongering tool
| for politicians.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| If wages are suppressed and you look at some guy making
| less than you with a different skin color, I think you're
| looking at the wrong guy.
|
| I agree with what you say, I regret not having voted in
| my Italian city and now third places have been closed
| because not profitable
| Jensson wrote:
| Supply of cheap labor lowers wages, not sure why you
| believe otherwise. There are other things that can lower
| wages, but cheap supply is a factor.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| I'd rather have solidarity with other average Joes than
| put the guilt on them, just because they're enabling
| someone to pay lower wages shouldn't put the
| responsibility on their shoulders
| astrange wrote:
| This is the lump of labor fallacy. Adding people
| increases demand more than supply, meaning it increases
| wages. Immigrants also have complementary skills to
| natives, which further reduces risk.
|
| There is no empirical evidence of anyone's wages being
| lowered by immigration.
|
| https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/repost-why-immigration-
| doesnt-...
| amarcheschi wrote:
| Man that's one of the most surprising thing I could
| discover, like, ever. I've always thought that an
| increase in the number of workers dropped wages, and tbh
| the guilt has always fallen on the one who pays slave
| wages, not the people being paid peanuts. But that's a
| complete shift of paradigm, you should tell more people
| about it (although as he says, he probably won't change
| people's minds about it)
| Jensson wrote:
| That assumes immigrants are average people, but they are
| not they mostly work in some sectors. Those sectors will
| see a wage dump, other sectors might see a wage hike to
| compensate though.
|
| For example if immigrants are mostly highly paid
| programmers, you can expect waitresses etc to get a wage
| hike, but if immigrants are mostly uneducated young women
| then waitresses will probably see reduces wages.
|
| If you look you can see the groups who compete with the
| immigrants tend to be more hostile towards immigration,
| while the groups who doesn't see immigration in their
| sector aren't as hostile. Most immigrants tend to be men
| for example, so we would expect men to be more anti
| immigration since their jobs see more competition from
| it, and that is also what we see in opinion polling.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| The first study brought in example literally has to do
| with low skilled worker, and as seen it does not affect
| other workers in a negative way (if I'm getting what the
| guy is saying in his post)
| Jensson wrote:
| If you read this study it says they found a big negative
| effect on male workers:
|
| https://giovanniperi.ucdavis.edu/uploads/5/6/8/2/56826033
| /ma...
|
| > Using a restricted subsample of high school dropouts
| and the March-CPS4, he finds a large and long lasting
| negative di|erence in wages between Miami and its control
| in the 1982-1985 period.
|
| The article argues that is flawed since it only
| considered high school dropout men, but those are the
| main competitors to low skill immigrant jobs. If you
| include women and other groups who don't compete for the
| same low skill jobs then yeah you wont find an effect.
| Some of those might even see increased wages canceling
| out the reduced wages low skill men see, but that doesn't
| really help those low skill men.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| It makes sense to say that at least a slice of population
| gets the small stick, but if I get it right the net
| benefits as a whole are bigger than the singular
| disadvantages, or no?
|
| I can't seem to understand that
| Jensson wrote:
| Studies didn't find benefits either, it was mostly non
| results. More people means more people, they work and
| consume services at about the same rate, what matters is
| just how the new people distort the ratio of different
| kinds of people not that they are more people.
|
| More people means there is more competition for housing
| until more supply is built though, so housing prices tend
| to go up from immigration. That is good if you wanna
| sell, bad if you wanna buy or rent.
| bombcar wrote:
| The problem can be that the net whole is "better off" by
| some minuscule amount but certain subgroups are
| disastrously worse off.
|
| For example, factory jobs disappearing usually increases
| the nations GDP "as a whole" but has disastrous effects
| on the poor communities that provided the labor.
|
| Or another way to put it - if immigration is a net
| benefit and has little downsides, then a minimum wage for
| immigrants (legal or otherwise) of $45/hr should be fine.
|
| (Even that might not move the needle much as immigrant
| labor, both legal and illegal, has "corporate" advantages
| that can't be matched by residents. Being able to skirt
| regulations and laws because you know your employees
| can't complain without risking their residency is a
| powerful tool. See: H1B abuse and OSHA abuse.)
| tomp wrote:
| In Europe, most immigrants (from third-world countries)
| are on welfare and are net welfare recipients.
|
| see graph here
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/ScienceUncensored/comments/1565s
| ti/...
|
| from article
|
| https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/12/18/why-have-
| danes-t...
| sampo wrote:
| > Sure it's overcrowded
|
| The Guardian (a left-leaning newspaper) estimates that
| leaving the housing crisis unfixed also fuels the far
| right parties.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/news/article/2024/may/06/fix-
| eur...
| VagabundoP wrote:
| The issue here is that there is a global developed world
| housing crisis. There was a global inflation crisis.
| There's no quick fixes for these problems.
| sampo wrote:
| > There's no quick fixes
|
| Sure is. Change zoning rules to allow building a lot
| more. Let people and corporations build using their own
| money. No need for government to use any money, just
| change the rules. Collect property taxes from the new
| buildings.
| bombcar wrote:
| Global housing shortage.
|
| Build more houses?
|
| No! Can't do that, we need the money for forever wars
| everywhere! But the Raytheon shareholders can use the
| profits to add solar panels, so it's all good.
| lenkite wrote:
| Lloyd Austin - Biden & Harris's Secretary of Defense -
| serves on the board of Raytheon. So wars are natural.
| cassepipe wrote:
| I don't know about London but imho people would not
| equate the housing crisis with illegal immigration since
| those people can only live together in decrepit
| apartments when not in the streets. It takes a
| billionaire funded media ecosystem (as I have in my
| country) to consistently hammer in the fact that those
| are linked in people's head.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| This is simply the ancient political strategy of blaming
| our problems on groups of people that are different, and
| not actually taking responsibility to identify and fix
| the real causes. It is a formula as old as time for
| despots to seize power by fabricating an enemy that
| doesn't exist from peoples prejudice and fear.
| ulbu wrote:
| you can't reduce ecological principles to just rhetoric.
| less resources, more requirements = more strain. the more
| resources to share, the less impact of the same shared
| unit, the easier it is to dispense to whoever. sharing
| resources with others with those who share other
| properties is more acceptable to most. but this
| propensity is generally reduced with more resources to
| share. humans band into groups in competition for
| resources when they are scarce.
|
| just as how people are getting triggered online more
| easily by displeasure, so they are triggered by the bad
| apples more than the invisible good ones. there's more of
| good ones, but the larger their absolute number, the more
| resources are shared and the more bad apples there are,
| the more this sharing becomes problematic. the fewer
| shared properties there are, the less there is to dilute
| the bad-applehood.
|
| abstracting away from this into a symbolic ideal
| (equivalence via property of "humanhood" and equivalence
| via property of "need" determined via capacity of empathy
| and Christian virtue) does no one any good and is
| experienced as a result of effacement of shared histories
| (roots). the idea that real present (ie, ahistorical)
| causative elements are always only just social or
| imperialist is ideology.
| oytis wrote:
| Yet the voters don't want to deal with those who actually
| hoard these limited resources, and prefer to blame
| immigrants and other minorities
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Um..
|
| because as UniverseHacker stated at the outset, that's a
| time tested method of gaining power. It works.
|
| Not to put too fine a point on it, but Trump is the new
| President isn't he?
| ulbu wrote:
| you can leverage not only a reaction, but also its
| object. increase the pressure, increase the resistance,
| propose solution (and hide other agendas behind it).
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| The actual things most people are concerned about aren't
| even close to being zero sum- things like economic
| activity increase with more people and ingenuity. We're
| in a time when innovation is rapidly letting us do more
| with less resources, we aren't resource constrained for
| our real world quality of life. Rhetoric creates us vs.
| them situations that don't exist in fact- while also
| artificially constructing groups to pit against one
| another along lines that only benefit the person creating
| them. Even if I did think things were zero sum and wanted
| to use government force to keep resources in my group-
| the "in group" I would choose isn't the one any
| politicians are trying to sell me based on what people
| look like or where they were born.
| anovikov wrote:
| But well, immigration has to only increase. Many of the
| problems of the West are due to insufficient immigration.
| And at the present time, we don't even care much about
| quality. We need just "bodies": whoever is willing to
| come, ideally those who are likely to have lots of
| children (although their birthrate falls dramatically
| once in). Because a generation down the road, those
| people will run out and countries will be competing hard
| to get ANYONE in.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| The dividing edge is if you believe a nation is a people
| or if a nation is a country. But if you believe a nation
| is a country - ie its geographical borders, then why does
| it even matter if people live there or not?
|
| Since we're already treating people like cattle ("we need
| bodies") to be moved around at will here, then we might
| as well make a comparison with a cattle farmer. If his
| cattle are not reproducing and thus are dying out, what
| sensible person would suggest that the solution is to get
| cattle from other farmers? When is it time to ask why his
| cattle is dying? Is it because they deserve it? Is it
| because the farmer needs the milk more than the calves?
|
| I personally want my people to survive and not join the
| scrolls of history on the long list of exterminated
| tribes. If we have to survive outside of our current
| geographical country in a different place, then that is
| preferable to extermination.
| anovikov wrote:
| It is because they CAN. They never wanted to reproduce in
| the first place. And the reason isn't even the democracy
| or "rotten Western values" - they die off even faster in
| authoritarian, patriarchal Eastern countries, free and
| unfree alike. It's simply economic growth.
|
| Give me any way of "making people reproduce again" which
| isn't overtly dystopian-totalitarian and i will accept
| that promoting "as much immigration as possible, not
| letting in only known criminals" was a bad idea.
|
| Sure government can just start having babies for itself.
| That will be real cattle herding.
| bjourne wrote:
| How you figure immigration is the cause of all that? You
| might as well add hemorrhoids and back pains to your
| list.
| astrange wrote:
| Immigration opponents just make up things so they can
| claim immigration caused it. The biggest tell is that
| they mention wage suppression, because they think it'll
| make them sound sympathetic - but there is absolutely
| zero evidence that immigration lowers any native wages,
| and theoretically you should expect it to increase them
| because of increased demand. (Conversely, when people
| move away this reduces demand and lowers your wages.)
|
| That and employment for prime aged (i.e. not retirement
| age) Americans is as high as it's ever been.
| vundercind wrote:
| Immigration does have a net benefit to the economy,
| generally, but _of course_ it tends to depress wages for
| anyone in sectors the immigrants are landing jobs in.
| Even NPR admits this, when they cover the topic. If this
| weren't the case, there wouldn't be a bunch of us wanting
| to loosen rules about foreign-trained doctors practicing
| in the US.
|
| Whether those sectors include most of the people worried
| that _their_ wages will be suppressed, when who we're
| talking about are illegal immigrants who mostly do stuff
| like chicken processing and house framing /roofing, is
| another matter.
|
| It's weird that "we had a bipartisan bill to address
| specifically this thing you're worried about, likely to
| pass and be signed into law, and Trump scuttled it _so he
| could keep complaining about it_ " didn't resonate.
| Frankly, if that's too "technical" a message to be
| received, we really are fucked.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| A guy answered me in another comment where I was saying
| similar things about wages, and apparently it's not true,
| it's an interesting read (which I can't criticize or
| comment since I'm not knowledgeable in economics)
| https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/repost-why-immigration-
| doesnt-...
| vundercind wrote:
| It can be the case that immigration tends to buoy wages
| over all, while there do exist _some_ for whom
| immigration will depress wages. Again, we're _definitely_
| trying to do this when we craft targeted policies aimed
| at bringing in or discouraging immigrants for specific
| professions, and it _does_ have the effect one would
| expect.
|
| We have a history of doing the Neoliberal "well this will
| make line go up and we can just help the few whom it
| harms" and then not helping those few, so I get why
| people worried their wages might be some of the ones
| affected aren't thrilled. Whether most of the folks so-
| concerned would actually see such a thing, is another
| matter (I'm guessing not, in at least 95% of cases of
| people with those concerns).
| amarcheschi wrote:
| Yeah, it makes sense what you're saying
| astrange wrote:
| > but of course it tends to depress wages for anyone in
| sectors the immigrants are landing jobs in. Even NPR
| admits this, when they cover the topic.
|
| In practice this is not an issue, to the point it's hard
| to find cases where it ever happened. Collection of
| studies: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/repost-why-
| immigration-doesnt-...
|
| One reason for this is that immigrants have differing and
| complementary skills from natives - eg just speaking a
| different native language is a skill - and so they're not
| likely to land in the same sectors. They're more similar
| to other immigrants from the same place, and so it's more
| likely they'd lower each other's wages. I think this is
| totally believable, but the demand factor is still very
| important here - one immigrant could start a business and
| employ others etc.
|
| > If this weren't the case, there wouldn't be a bunch of
| us wanting to loosen rules about foreign-trained doctors
| practicing in the US.
|
| Doctors in the US are a special case because their number
| is so limited by the AMA and by (US government funded)
| residency slots. So yes, this could lower their wages if
| foreign doctors have similar enough skills to compete
| with them vs complement them. But it's more important for
| us to just stop limiting how many new doctors we train.
|
| This wouldn't necessarily hurt them though; I mean it
| probably would, but if it made healthcare more affordable
| resulting in more people going to see doctors, then
| they'd all get paid more:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
| vundercind wrote:
| Yeah the full answer is "it's complicated and yes _maybe_
| some people see wages depressed or increases that would
| have happened, slowed, by immigration". It _can_ , for a
| given individual or even sector, do the thing people are
| worried about, even if _most_ benefit--mean or even
| median wages tending to go up isn't the same as _your_
| wages will go up. Simplified "it doesn't lower wages"
| messaging has a smell to people burned by other
| neoliberal policies, and they're not wrong to detect a
| hint of the ol' BS, even if their concern is overblown or
| misplaced.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Someone pointed out online, I forgot who, that the
| problem with job reports is two fold
|
| It reports only those actively looking for a job or
| employed, so it leaves out people who simply aren't
| participating in the labor market anymore because they
| can't find one.
|
| It also reports all jobs, not the quality of the jobs.
| Average Americans feel the job market today is terrible
| and largely does not look at part time and near minimum
| wage work roles growing as a positive. The jobs report
| doesn't disaggregate higher paying jobs from lower ones
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > The jobs report doesn't disaggregate higher paying jobs
| from lower ones
|
| Yes it does, and it shows that the fastest growing wages
| are in the bottom 10%.
| no_wizard wrote:
| It breaks by sector and averages wave growth but doesn't
| disaggregate actual by the numbers for each sector and
| their loss / gross as far I can tell.
|
| https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
|
| We can make assumptions though and yes I agree it shows
| that trend.
|
| Even if I'm misinterpreting this my general assertion
| about people's feeling about the job reports that I'm
| telegraphing I think still remains valid
| mrguyorama wrote:
| "I've been demonstrably wrong in every single point but
| I'm still right _because I feel like it_ " is such a good
| demonstration of what happened this election.
|
| Some people are hurting because there's always some
| people hurting, and for some reason that means we get the
| party that wants to reduce social safety nets?!
| astrange wrote:
| That may be true of the monthly jobs report numbers
| (don't remember how they work), but if you need to know
| then it's not an issue because there's alternatives.
|
| Here's reports for all these that don't have those
| issues, as they just come from surveys.
|
| > It reports only those actively looking for a job or
| employed, so it leaves out people who simply aren't
| participating in the labor market anymore because they
| can't find one.
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060
|
| This simply asks "do you have a job", and it's up to the
| people responding to decide if being an Uber driver is a
| job.
|
| > Average Americans feel the job market today is terrible
| and largely does not look at part time and near minimum
| wage work roles growing as a positive.
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12032196 - % of
| workers part time because they couldn't find anything
| better
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0203127200A - % of
| workers at federal minimum wage
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026620 - % people
| with multiple jobs
|
| All look healthy right now. (Obviously there's a lot more
| people at the state minimum wage.)
|
| > The jobs report doesn't disaggregate higher paying jobs
| from lower ones
|
| That's in FRED somewhere, but
| https://realtimeinequality.org is an easier way to view
| it.
|
| Btw, I think focusing on "jobs" isn't the best thing to
| look at - the poorest people in a country will always be
| children and the elderly, and hopefully we don't want
| them to get jobs.
| no_wizard wrote:
| The jobs report is what most media parrots across all
| media platforms more or less is the monthly jobs report
| and definitely the one I'm referencing.
|
| No matter how you cut it though Americans do not feel
| they are getting their fair share economically and want
| to avenge that, which is why I think voters didn't push
| back against tariffs - which have become a cornerstone of
| economic rhetoric by Trump and his allies - at the ballot
| box.
|
| I think it's also because a good chunk of the electorate
| doesn't quite understand how tariffs work and it's going
| to backfire, but the sentiment is very clear
| astrange wrote:
| Americans had what's called a vibecession where they
| universally thought the economy was bad, but then
| answered every question about their own finances by
| saying they were good. The implication was they thought
| it was bad for everyone else, just not them, so that's
| mostly on the media's negativity bias.
|
| There was some hangover effect from inflation, although
| of course that's going to get worse now.
| tekknik wrote:
| > but there is absolutely zero evidence
|
| and here we have another reason for yesterdays results.
| tomp wrote:
| Fortunately, we don't need to listen to any "academic
| economists" (who need to toe the party line) or even
| internet "experts", we can simply observe reality.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-
| central-5210935...
|
| During COVID lockdowns, UK farmers complained that they
| can't get cheap foreigners to pick their strawberries.
| Obviously "lack of workforce" is just a propaganda
| expression for "we don't pay enough". Open borders
| _directly_ reduces wages.
| astrange wrote:
| A single article with no counterfactual isn't as good as
| the existing literature, which has plenty of empirical
| studies (https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/repost-why-
| immigration-doesnt-...). Academics love disagreeing with
| each other and economists are pretty bipartisan relative
| to other fields.
|
| > Obviously "lack of workforce" is just a propaganda
| expression for "we don't pay enough"
|
| Looks to me like this needs a specialized skilled
| workforce, otherwise they won't be able to pick the fruit
| in time for it to stay ripe.
|
| Paying a smaller population of workers more will not
| necessarily encourage them to develop enough skills to do
| this job. It might just be left undone and then no fruit.
| If you have a larger population of potential workers,
| then there's more room for people to specialize in this
| because you have a larger economy.
|
| > James Porter said 200 workers normally travelled to his
| farm in Scryne, Angus, from eastern Europe.
|
| I'd like to know which part of Eastern Europe that means.
| If it was Ukraine they were bad then and worse now, but
| if it's Poland they have incredible economic growth right
| now and are on track to pass the UK before too long.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| << I'd like to know which part of Eastern Europe that
| means.
|
| Not OP, but I can absolutely vouch for local negative
| sentiment in Eastern Europe. Granted, some of it is a
| direct result of war in Ukraine ( and a lot of those
| refugees getting benefits and priority for government
| services in host countries ).
|
| It is hard for the population in general to get that they
| are getting a deal, when they don't. Maybe some
| individual billionaire does, but if anything, it only
| exacerbates the issue further by focusing anger on that
| one person.
| belorn wrote:
| There is a current discussing in Sweden about the issue
| of human trafficking in picking fruits. Historically we
| have had a fairly large source of Asians being tricked to
| travel to northern Europe to pick forest fruits, with
| passports being taken, payments being withheld, and
| living standards beyond reasons. Last year a fairly large
| case was brought to bring down the human slavery and
| disgusting practices, and as a result the practice has
| been significantly reduced.
|
| As a result the prices of forest fruit has increase
| multiple times and food companies are reporting a
| significant increase in costs thus needing to reduce the
| number of employees. Every industry above in the chain is
| feeling the economical impact of losing the human
| slavery. Local government is also concerned since the
| created void, in combination with increase wages, may
| encourage new independent illegal workers which then the
| state must handle.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Even leaving aside the human trafficking component, a lot
| of berry picking looks like a scam in Sweden. The costs
| to travel and live in Sweden rarely cover their earned
| wages. Their per hour earnings are surely far below
| Swedish minimum wage laws. Why do the Swedes allow it to
| continue?
|
| I highly recommend this DW documentary if others are
| interested to learn more about this very specific issue:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW1QWG3xSNg
| belorn wrote:
| The reason why Swedes allow it to continue is of similar
| reasons why people allow human trafficking in
| construction. It occurs in the background where it is not
| seen, it reduces costs, and makes people money.
|
| If human slavery was a net-loss for countries then it
| wouldn't be historical popular. Be it building roads,
| railways, bridges, buildings, harvesting or picking
| fruits, those are not things people in general want to
| see prices increase. People who talk about illegal
| immigrants being a net-positive on the economy never talk
| about that aspect, in the same way that those being
| against illegal immigrants do not want to talk about
| increased costs. Even people who talk about human
| trafficking do not want to talk about human trafficking
| in construction or food production.
|
| At one point the police even announced (as part of a
| political move in order to get more budget) that they
| would stop investigating construction places for human
| trafficking since just going to a single construction
| place would fill their work quota for that year, and thus
| everything else would had to be put at hold. Everyone who
| work in construction are fully aware of the open secret
| that a large part of all work is done by illegal workers
| that do not pay taxes (or minimum wages), do not get
| safety equipment, and is not limited by regulations that
| exist to protect workers. Sweden is far from unique in
| this aspect.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| I too am suspicous when companies and industries complain
| they cannot get enough cheap labour. However, there is a
| balance to be struck. If the UK needed to pay natives at
| prevailing wages, it might be 15 GBP per hour (or more)
| to pick strawberries, and then strawberries would
| probably double in price at the market... and very few
| people would buy them. When UK was part of the EU, there
| was freedom of movement, so a lot of seasonal workers
| came from Eastern Europe to work the fields in the UK.
| This probably helped to reduce UK food prices.
|
| What bothers me much more: When companies and industries
| that generate middle class jobs (and above) complain
| about being unable to find workers. After the GFC ended
| around 2009, this was a constant complaint in business
| newspapers for _many years_ (I guess at least five years
| during the post-GFC recovery). It was so obviously
| bullshit to even the most casual observer: The offered
| wages were much too low, so jobs stayed unfilled for
| months on end. In short, they wanted high skill people to
| work for low wages. > Open borders
| directly reduces wages.
|
| If this were true, how to do you explain why the UK grew
| so much faster than other EU nations in the decade
| _before_ Brexit? Similarly, how do you explain how much
| worse is the UK economic story _after_ Brexit? It seems
| exactly the opposite of what you wrote. One thing I will
| grant you: Open borders suppress wages for low skill
| workers. That is pretty much undeniable. The people hurt
| most by EU freedom of movement are low skill natives.
| tomp wrote:
| _> how to do you explain why the UK grew so much faster
| than other EU nations in the decade before Brexit?
| Similarly, how do you explain how much worse is the UK
| economic story after Brexit? It seems exactly the
| opposite of what you wrote._
|
| Are you sure about that? It seems about equal to me
| [1]...
|
| In any case, Brexit didn't cause closing the borders;
| immigration into the UK increased massively [2] (i.e. the
| politicians didn't deliver what the people wanted). Any
| negative changes to the UK economy were more likely
| caused by decrease in trade with the EU... [3] Although
| COVID makes all these statistics suspect.
|
| [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/national-gdp-
| constant-usd...
|
| [2] figure 5 here: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/
| resources/briefings/lo...
|
| [3] https://obr.uk/box/the-latest-evidence-on-the-impact-
| of-brex...
| bjourne wrote:
| It's depressing that you discard research in favor of
| "observing reality". Like, what do you think researchers
| do?
| solumunus wrote:
| > but there is absolutely zero evidence that immigration
| lowers any native wages
|
| What? You're really claiming that increasing the supply
| side of a market has no effect on prices? That's absurd.
| You shouldn't need evidence for common sense. If labour
| supply is essentially unlimited then there is never
| pressure to increase wages. A literal child can
| understand this...
| astrange wrote:
| Using a pure supply argument for the labor market is the
| worst possible one to do it on. It's usually okay, but
| labor is people, and people are the source of all demand,
| so you really have to consider both of them.
|
| Also, I'm going by empirical studies here. Those are
| better than beliefs, because truth is stranger than
| fiction.
| solumunus wrote:
| All I know is in the UK it's not uncommon for jobs to get
| thousands of applications. I'm pretty confident the
| immigration is hitting the supply side more than demand.
| Most of this immigration is from low skilled workers on
| poverty wages, I'm struggling to see how this would
| massively increase demand elsewhere in the labour market.
|
| Since immigration started increasing in the late 90's
| wages have been stagnant. Correlation doesn't equal
| causation, but hmm.
| astrange wrote:
| The UK outside London is IIRC poorer than all but one US
| state, and your housing policy makes it even harder to
| build new housing than California.
|
| So you have much bigger problems. For there to be jobs
| there has to be industry first. That'd provide the
| demand.
| belorn wrote:
| It seems fairly evident that human trafficking has had an
| economical positive effect on countries who practiced it.
| It is an common observed fact that the current
| construction sector is dependent on human trafficking and
| most current construction projects would fail to meet
| their goals without a steady stream of cheap, untaxed
| illegal labor that do not need to follow safety
| regulations.
|
| However for people who work in those sectors the picture
| tend to look differently with wages and good safety
| practices being suppressed. Construction companies that
| follow regulations and pay taxes for all their employees
| will loose in the competitive market. The effect on the
| economy may be a net-positive, and it may also be true
| that most countries could not contain growth if
| construction actually cost as much as it had to without
| the illegal practices, but that is all multiple aspects
| of the same issue.
| arandomusername wrote:
| Do you refute that importing mass amount of people into a
| city, without substantially increasing supply of housing,
| increases the price of housing?
| no_wizard wrote:
| Depends on a host of factors.
|
| Housing is also one of the few issues that is so local
| and immigration is such a tiny story around it to begin
| with. Prices are high in plenty of areas seeing little
| immigration activity
| titannet wrote:
| If the immigration is double the normal expected growth
| (~tripling the growth) it is not really tiny. It may very
| well be solvable, maybe even easily. But the problem in
| many European countries is that "the left" does not even
| acknowledge that this may be a problem and should be
| solved leading to many people voting for "the far right"
| that does acknowledge that this is a problem. In the US
| housing may not be the biggest issue, but the result is
| the same: the average voter can choose between "there is
| no problem, we can take in as many immigrant as we want
| forever" and "we don't want immigration".
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Many of the most expensive cities in the US have
| relatively low immigration compared to other areas with
| much more reasonable real estate, and it behooves you to
| link it where housing is expensive and immigration is
| very high. You have to actually provide some sources
| before you throw out blanket comments blaming immigrants
| for our problems
| arandomusername wrote:
| NYC, one of the most expensive cities, has 37% foreign
| born population.
| saynay wrote:
| That issue goes far beyond immigration. You want a job,
| especially one that has growth potential? You move to a
| city, regardless of if you are a native or not. You can
| see all the same trends in cities and countries without a
| lot of immigration.
| simgt wrote:
| Where I'm from the shortage of supply is also due in
| varying proportions to: too many airbnbs and secondary
| residence, rural flight, families being split in multiple
| households, increase of average home size, etc.
| Immigration certainly plays a part, but likely not as
| much as you think.
| arandomusername wrote:
| Biggest cause is insufficient increase in supply, often
| due to government regulations.
|
| Immigration can heavily increase demand, and so it can
| play a big part, depending on the immigration numbers.
| Anyone moving in needs a place to live as well.
| n4r9 wrote:
| This argument just doesn't make sense. The US annual
| population growth is currently 0.5%. Between 1960 and
| 2000 it rarely went below 1%, but since 2010 it's always
| been well under.
| arp242 wrote:
| Everyone in Europe has been talking about it for decades
| and many parties on the left have nuanced views on it,
| and they're certainly not ignoring it. In the US, "the
| wall" Trump was banging on about in 2016 already existed.
| Deportations under Obama were higher than under Trump,
| and higher still under the Clinton administration.
|
| Secondly in many countries "the left" hasn't really been
| in power for a long time; often government are in the
| centre or centre-right.
| emilfihlman wrote:
| You'll get a lot of hate for saying these things, but
| it's good you said them.
|
| People really need to face reality and that our society
| simply cannot sustain even limited immigration if those
| people end up as a negative for the state in terms of
| financials.
| astrange wrote:
| The US doesn't give immigrants welfare, and they pay
| taxes, so that would be difficult.
| tgma wrote:
| False. Immigrants are eligible for various social
| benefits, food stamps, health care, etc.
| nradov wrote:
| Many recent US immigrants are asylum seekers. They do
| receive substantial government cash payments and free
| housing (i.e. welfare). I am generally pro immigration,
| but let's be clear about the cost.
|
| https://www.cdss.ca.gov/inforesources/refugees/programs-
| and-...
| bombcar wrote:
| Let's also not pretend that "free housing" is NOT a major
| transfer of wealth from the government to landlords.
|
| People would likely be less annoyed if the "free housing"
| was more akin to government owned military barracks
| instead of subsidized rent to private enterprise.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Find me a republican voter that will sign off on the
| government building the new housing stock.
| benfortuna wrote:
| Your perception does not make anything a reality. Many
| nations commit more to immigration and welfare than the
| US, and are benefiting from it.
|
| Skilled migrants bring wealth with them, and in fact
| countries like Australia have avoided recession through
| immigration (and unemployment is still around 4%).
| NeutralCrane wrote:
| I'm certain that absolutely no one is referring to
| "skilled migrants" when participating in these
| discussions of limiting immigration.
| adrianN wrote:
| Where I live I have the impression that cities are
| overcrowded because that's where the jobs are. I don't
| think immigration is the main problem, but I don't know
| the actual data.
| bigfudge wrote:
| Immigration is not at a historic high in us or Europe. I
| think it's a combination of regressive social policy and
| redistribution upwards plus moderately high immigration
| which leaves an opportunity for populist bigots to
| leverage anti immigration rhetoric in elections.
| piltdownman wrote:
| What?
|
| 5.1 million immigrants entered the EU from non-EU
| countries in 2022, an increase of around 117% (2.7
| million) compared with 2021.
|
| The population of Ireland alone increased by 3.5% in 2023
| - a 3.5 per cent increase in population in a given year
| being one of the highest ever for a single country in
| recorded history.
|
| https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-
| affairs/2024/06/10...
| rxyz wrote:
| Wasn't 2022 a huge outlier because of the war in Ukraine?
| bigfudge wrote:
| Yes
| wowsonottrue wrote:
| Constant immigration is not sustainable. Especially when
| people come from cultures which are very different than
| the west. They have different value systems, religions,
| etc. There is also the problem of scale, imagine if all
| of India moved to Germany. What would happen? At some
| point the politicians will have to look at the issue.
| bottom999mottob wrote:
| This is one of the worst over-generalizations.
|
| Cultures are not monolithic, static entities. How do we
| go from "different cultures" to "negative outcomes?"
| That's a complete non-sequiter.
|
| Imagine if all of Germany moved to India. What would
| happen? What if part of Britain moved to UK? At some
| point the politicians will have to look at the issue...
| fallingknife wrote:
| Here is how:
|
| > During the 2015-2016 celebrations of New Year's Eve in
| Germany, approximately 1,200 women were reported to have
| been sexually assaulted, especially in the city of
| Cologne. In many of the incidents, while these women were
| in public spaces, they were surrounded and assaulted by
| large groups of men who were identified by officials as
| Arab or North African men.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_New_Year%27
| s_E...
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Slightly off topic, but what's the difference between
| North African and Arab? Are Egyptians, Algerians, Libyans
| etc not real Arabs? How are they classified technically
| speaking?
| bombcar wrote:
| Aren't "Arabs" from the Arabic peninsula (sometimes
| including Israel and Turkey et al) and North Africans
| from ... North Africa? They may be similar in many ways
| but they're geographically distinct.
| dotancohen wrote:
| If you would imagine a Venn diagram, North Africans are
| the cross between the Arabs and the Africans. Arabs being
| the culture, and African being the geographical region.
| The Arab culture was spread by the sword about 1,300
| years ago.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| I can see that. It confuses me mostly because North
| Africans seem, at least to the eye, far more similar to
| Arabs than they seem to sub-saharan Africans for
| instance. Arab influence in North Africa being so much
| more strong than the influence of any other group.
| Culturally, genetically etc etc.
|
| Just interesting.
| kgwgk wrote:
| Arab can mean multiple things: a: a
| member of an Arabic-speaking people b: a member of
| the Semitic people of the Arabian Peninsula
|
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Arab
| screye wrote:
| Your reply was to this GP:
|
| > imagine if all of India moved to Germany. What would
| happen?
|
| Indian & East-Asian immigrants have much lower violence
| stats than the native populations. To that end, your
| example doesn't say much about the GP that you're
| replying to.
|
| To steel man the GP, let's say they mean any 2
| demographics, not German vs Indians specifically. But
| there in lies the core issue with immigrant
| conversations. You can't pick 'any 2 demographics'.
|
| Different immigrant groups (grouped by
| nation/age/gender/religion/skill-level) demonstrate
| different integration characterisitics. All immigrant
| conversations should be painfully specific. The
| conversations will be politically insensitive. But this
| is a comment thread about Trump winning his 2nd term in
| office. So, clearly, the ship has already sailed on
| political correctness.
| Meloniko wrote:
| Just that this isn't a real issue but a fear topic /
| terrorism/ propaganda.
|
| The avg joe isn't affected by this.
|
| But hey let's be real here: will the avg American start
| working all the not so good immigrants jobs?
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I live in an area with a lot of immigration and one side
| effect is that "entry level" jobs are just about
| impossible to get for teenagers and other low-skilled
| non-immigrant workers because of intense competition[1].
| So no, the "average" American may not care about these
| jobs, but the poorest Americans and those "just starting
| out" do.
|
| It's ironic to pay lip service to supporting the poor
| while kicking the ladder out from under them with
| immigration.
|
| [1] https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-
| region/massive-lineu...
| Meloniko wrote:
| If the avg joe are teenagers and people needing to work
| as a supermarket clerk, USA might have fundamental other
| issues...
| youngtaff wrote:
| You know that almost everyone since the Mayflower is an
| immigrant and descended from one?
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Well, we did have slavery. So I'm not sure I would
| necessarily call everyone since the Mayflower
| _immigrants_. Let 's just say there has been a lot of
| movement of people into the US on a population adjusted
| basis since the Mayflower.
| ahallock wrote:
| What does that have to do with present day? You're
| comparing two different times and circumstances
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| I personally don't see much similarity between the
| mayflower (Europeans exiled to underpopulated territory
| in the empire) to a Chinese grad student coming to work a
| tech company. And that's the ideal case!
|
| With this issue it's all about the particulars
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > Constant immigration is not sustainable. Especially
| when people come from cultures which are very different
| than the west. They have different value systems,
| religions, etc.
|
| I lived in Northern Calfornia (Bay Area) for a few years.
| I would disagree with the quoted statement above. Yes, it
| was not perfect (ethnic) harmony, but there were
| absolutely wild(!) levels of immigration there -- all
| kinds of Asians (East, Southeast, and South) as well as
| Latins (Central and South America). Some how, some way,
| it worked; I guess because the economy was very strong. I
| would characterise most Latin cultures as _closer_ to
| Western European cultures because they are mostly
| Christian (though, some are Animist), so they have a
| Christian world view. However, East/Southeast/South
| Asians that immigrate to California are rarely Christian
| (some South Indians and South Koreas). Buddhists (so many
| types!), Confucianists/Daoists, Hindus, Moslems, Sikhs
| were are all present in the Asian immigrant community.
| For the first generation (the parents), they all stayed
| in very tight communities, but their kids learned to mix
| in public schools, unis, and early career jobs. I never
| got tired of hearing the funny stories when immigrant
| parents first learned that their children were dating
| outside their national/ethnic/religious group. At first,
| shock and disappointment, then later, acceptance.
|
| Also, specifically regarding Germany, are you German, or
| have you lived there? Unfortunately, I see a lot of
| negative media about immigration in Germany ("Oh, too
| much! Cannot mix different types!" -- All that bullshit).
| But, then you talk to Germans, especially those under 40,
| and it is a different story. Many of them grew up with
| many immigrants in their schools. Germany is already much
| more multi-cultural than outsiders realise. The number of
| ethnic Turks in Germany would surprise many. In the last
| 20 years, this community has become much more integrated
| into wider Germany society. (They finally have some
| federal minister roles... whoot!) Yes, Germany has ethnic
| struggles, as any _newly_ multi-cultural nation has, but,
| overall, they have a good attitude about it.
| VagabundoP wrote:
| Migrants are how people are fed and how many esential
| jobs are filled. They aren't the problem, even illegal
| immigration are blips (although massive wars have put
| huge pressures on countries) and are only set to get
| worse with climate change.
|
| The root causes of the issues are war, climate change and
| demographics. No amount of "battening down the hatches"
| or "sticking your head in the sand", which is right wing
| answers to this, are going to solve it. The real
| solutions are strengthening global co-operation and
| international agencies.
|
| Unfortunately we're going in exactly the wrong direction.
| moomin wrote:
| Very few of the things you're listing are caused by
| immigration. They're caused by institutional neglect. The
| person telling you they're caused by immigration has no
| intention of addressing the institutional neglect,
| because that doesn't get them power.
|
| Meanwhile, the services you need, right down to food, are
| supplied in many cases by immigrants. So it's working for
| the average person extremely well.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Both of you are taking these blatantly extreme narratives
| and putting them ot as though they were fact.
|
| The reality is that immigration is not all good for the
| average person. Similarly, it's not all bad for the
| average person either. When we frame these discussions in
| the stark extremist terms on either side, we get into
| trouble.
|
| We have to calibrate immigration, so that we get the
| good, without getting so much of the bad. There are so
| many untruths floating out there right now about
| immigration on both sides that it's hard for the people
| trying do that calibrating to actually make any progress.
| When we try to get a handle on the good or the bad,
| invariably, someone's narrative is going to be shown as
| false.
|
| There is an impact on wages, that's lamentable and it
| causes pain in a lot of the middle class. Let's put our
| heads together and see how can we address that?
|
| Some people are not willing to admit that there are
| people of foreign origin who are critical additions to
| our intellectual capital. But a reasoned analysis would
| concede that H1B's are not even close to the same as NIWs
| in that regard. We probably can source a lot of H1B work
| natively. We should still offer the H1B opportunity
| though, so what does that balance look like?
|
| Crime? Crime is definitely a problem. The data shows that
| it doesn't get better through the generations as one side
| would have you believe. At the same time, it isn't as
| prolific among people of foreign origin as the other side
| would have you believe. (Heck, in all honesty, the data
| shows crime isn't even as prolific among native born
| Americans as one side would have you believe.) Do we have
| to address it? Absolutely, but we shouldn't look at
| everyone as a criminal.
|
| We need balance to address these issues wisely, but
| balance is severely lacking in contemporary civic
| discourse here in the US. And therefore, balance is
| lacking in our policy decisions.
| nox101 wrote:
| I know this will sound like denialism but data on crime
| that claims it's going down doesn't match my day to day
| experience and so I tend to believe something is wrong
| with the data.
|
| Ideas that come to mind are (1) reclassifing crimes as
| not crimes - instant reduction in crime in stats but no
| reduction in actual crime and victims (2) less reporting
| because of less enforcement as in police don't enforce
| the laws either because they don't want to or because
| there are less of them so there is less reportihg (3)
| less reporting because of uselessness. if you don't
| believe the police will do anything why report it. Car
| gets broken into, reporting is a chore that produces no
| results, reporting to car insurance just raises your
| rates.
|
| Etc... as just one example I recently rented a car at SFO
| and there were signs saying don't leave anything valuable
| in your trunk because of theft. that's effectively saying
| the government isn't working to prevent this crime so the
| criminals are winning so you can no longer use a car for
| one if it's intended purposes. In can fully imagine in 20
| years we'll be told not to store any valuables in our
| houses. that not how it should work.
|
| I lived in the mission in Sf. Crime is way worse today
| than 20 than ago, any stats that claim otherwise are
| lying
| 5040 wrote:
| Reminds me of this:
|
| >Jeff Bezos(01:34:00) We were going over a weekly
| business review and a set of documents, and I have a
| saying, which is when the data and the anecdotes
| disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. And it doesn't
| mean you just slavishly go follow the anecdotes then.
| vachina wrote:
| Same experience when I studied in Germany. My house got
| broken into by a Bosnian migrant, with CCTV footage
| showing the face and all, brought it to the police but
| nothing came out of it, citing footage not enough to
| incriminate. Bs really.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > The reality is that immigration is not all good for the
| average person.
|
| This statement is far too general. You need to divide
| high skill and low skill immigrants. Almost all
| economists would say that high skill immigration is good
| for your economy, and those immigrants are much more
| likely (than natives) to start businesses and create
| jobs. There are many, many academic studies about this
| type of immigrant in a wide variety of highly advanced
| nations. In 2024, a large number of highly advanced
| nations (all over the world) have active, aggressive high
| skill immigration schemes. Rich governments really want
| these people to come.
|
| Regarding low skill immigration, it can help to supress
| labor costs (and indirectly control inflation) in very
| high labor industries, such as non-commodity crop farming
| (vegetables, fruits, etc.) and food processing. That
| said, if uncontrolled, it will have a negative economic
| impact upon low skill natives.
| moomin wrote:
| A nuance of like to add, though: some of the ways of
| controlling immigration, in particular revocable economic
| visas, are _designed_ to push down the cost of labour at
| the expensive of natives.
|
| IMHO, if you get permission to work in a country, it
| shouldn't be revocable. The revocation just serves as a
| way of paying the immigrant, and therefore the native who
| could also do the job, less.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| What is a "revocable economic visas"? I am not familiar
| with it.
| moomin wrote:
| An H1B is a good example. The company says they don't
| need you, you have to leave the country.
| oytis wrote:
| > Overcrowded cities, erosion of quality of life,
| strained services, competition for housing, suppression
| of wages, the complete abandonment of on-the-job
| training, falling tertiary education standards,
|
| Pretty sure the ever wealthier owner class is to blame
| for that, not immigrants.
|
| > minority enclaves with values that are fundamentally
| incompatible with the West
|
| And this is a massively overblown problem mostly pushed
| to distract voters from those listed above.
| threetonesun wrote:
| Most of America 100 years ago was minority enclaves with
| values fundamentally incompatible with the "old" America.
| Worked out in the long run because we had a good run of a
| strong middle class. Money makes everyone merge.
|
| But, the Republicans will just attempt to make the rich
| richer, and keep the poor and others isolated, then sell
| the story that the others are the ones keeping the middle
| class down, not the rich.
| saynay wrote:
| "Lip-service" is probably a good way to put it, since all
| those issues are also happening in countries without a
| lot of immigration, but most people don't look too far
| outside of their own country when considering problems in
| it. It is easy to look for a simple to understand change,
| and lay the blame on it, and people like easy answers for
| things they would rather not have to think about (like
| economies).
|
| Most of those issues are probably better explained by the
| trend for jobs, especially higher paying ones, to be more
| and more concentrated in cities. There has been almost no
| policy push to realistically address that from anyone,
| outside of lackluster and temporary measures to encourage
| jobs in smaller cities.
| jajko wrote:
| Correlation != causation, yet again for billionth time
| even otherwise smart folks easily do this mistake,
| usually emotions cloud their rationality. There is 0
| proof as in any form of research that proves what you
| claim, you don't even try to back it up.
|
| All this boils again to emotions - people see french
| teacher having head cut off by student due to showing
| muhammad's picture in the class, and this trumps 1000s
| other data points and discussions. I am not saying such
| things should be ignored or swept under the carpet, but
| analyzed rationally, discussed and good measures taken,
| even very harsh if they are the best course of action.
| Simple folks don't want to hear arguments, they want to
| see blood and whole world to fix their lives so they can
| live like some tiktokers they follow en masse.
|
| For Europe, yet again Switzerland is doing stuff 1000x
| better than rest of the continent. They have 3x the
| immigration of average western EU country, yet 0.1%
| problems with it. But its population is smarter and less
| emotionally driven, so populists have it much harder
| here. Also they as society setup the whole immigration as
| set of rules as expectations that everybody +-adheres to.
| But EU has too big egos to actually admit somebody is
| better and just learn from more successful, so they will
| keep fucking things up till people are so pissed they
| will vote for people who will do further long term damage
| but will tackle scary immigration boogeyman.
|
| Now its really not a good time for democracies that don't
| have well educated smart self-sufficient population,
| dictators are coming better off.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| _> For Europe, yet again Switzerland is doing stuff 1000x
| better than rest of the continent._
|
| Well, being the continent's money vault and avoiding two
| world wars while the whole continent ravaged itself
| twice, tends to make a huge difference in your nation's
| development (time in the market beats timing the market
| and Switzerland did both).
|
| Also, just like the USA, Switzerland won the geopolitical
| lottery early on by being in a position that's easy to
| defend and difficult to attack and capitalized on it over
| the decades by attracting the highly educated elite and
| the wealthy entrepreneurs escaping from the European
| countries as they were torn by wars and revolutions, plus
| the dirty money of warlords, dictators and criminals from
| all over the world made them incredibly prosperous. It's
| not a repeatable formula that any other EU country could
| have easily replicated.
|
| Adding the fact that Switzerland is incredibly
| restrictive with who they accept in the country, compared
| to neighboring EU countries who just let the dross in to
| virtue signal how tolerant they are, maintains
| Switzerland a very safe and desirable place to be despite
| it being relatively diverse (diversity in this context
| also means diversity of thought and diversity of opinion,
| not just the US identity politics version of only meaning
| non straight white males). So another win for them.
|
| But if you look at Swiss elections, plenty of candidates
| took the xenophobic route in their campaigns demonizing
| Muslims and burkas as the biggest threat, but unlike EU
| members they don't really care what other think of them
| so they're a lot more outspoken about it.[1][2]
|
| [1] https://www.dw.com/en/anti-minaret-campaign-divides-
| switzerl...
|
| [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56314173
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Your comment is a fantastic display of how easy it is to
| obscure bigotry with reasonable-sounding window dressing.
| eftpotrm wrote:
| Speaking for where I know, immigrants have been
| substantially higher net contributors than non-immigrants
| while the research on wage suppression suggests it's
| almost certainly not true except in some very small, very
| specific scenarios.
|
| So - are population and housing costs going up and
| infrastructure failing to keep up, while businesses don't
| invest? Sure - but that's down to a failure to invest the
| proceeds of change, not down to the change itself.
| screye wrote:
| > experiment of mass migration has failed to work for the
| average person
|
| Could you precisely articulate this experiment ? America
| has had stable mass immigration for the longest time,
| arguably its entire history. Do you mean the entire
| American experiment ?
|
| In what manner has it failed to work for the average
| person and in what manner has it harmed their bottom line
| ?
|
| > Overcrowded cities, erosion of quality of life,
| strained services
|
| American Cities are some of the most underpopulated in
| the whole world. Its only crowded city (NYC) has high
| positive sentiment for immigrants and owes the core of
| its historic identity to mass immigration. Not sure how
| immigration erodes quality of life or strains services.
| The US doesn't offer much in the way of services to
| immigrants anyway.
|
| > competition for housing
|
| This is 100% a building problem. The US has had high
| levels of immigration for a long time [1]. Immigration
| isn't going to suddenly shock the housing system. While
| the absolute population of the US keeps increasing,
| American cities have stayed woe-fully underbuilt. [2] New
| housing also isn't being built where people could use it.
| IE. within commute distance from offices in city centers.
|
| > suppression of wages
|
| Unfortunately these have been a long time coming. The
| alternative is jobs being shipped out of the US. The
| issue is even worse in Europe, where education is worse,
| employees work fewer hours and skill levels in new-tech
| are limited.
|
| Wage suppression occurs differently in low and high
| skilled jobs.
|
| In the low skill domain, the US already overpays blue
| collar workers, unionized factory workers and restaurant
| wait staff compared to the rest of the world. These jobs
| aren't threatened by immigrants, they're threatened by
| automation.
|
| Among high skill workers, it is a statistics problem. 7.5
| billion people from developing world want to be inside
| America's 300 million people bubble. Even with a 10x
| inefficiency, there will be twice as many talented people
| outside this bubble than inside it. So, the only way for
| the bubble to maintain its superiority is to keep
| skimming off the top. At 140k employment based green
| cards/year, that's 0.1% of the children born around the
| world that year. So even with another 10x inefficiency,
| the US would only allow the top 1 percentile of the whole
| world in.
|
| The US wants this top talent. Because at their caliber,
| they are going to outcompete the US, and fundamentally
| alter unipolar power structures that give US its modern
| form. We're already seeing this with China. Now that the
| US has stopped having the same appeal to top Chinese
| candidates, Chinese geniuses now build within China,
| eroding America's control in every industry, one at a
| time. Eg: The world's best AI institutions are all
| Chinese [3]. The institutions didn't improve that much.
| It's just that America stopped being able to poach their
| best away.
|
| Wages WILL be suppressed. The competition free utopia of
| the Boomers and Gen-Xers was only possible because the US
| emerged as sole superpower of the 20th century, while
| Asia rebuilt from scratch. Now that the world is
| stabilizing again, American wages can't hold up to
| scrutiny from the rest of world.
|
| > the complete abandonment of on-the-job training,
| falling tertiary education standards
|
| Not sure what immigration has to do with any of this.
|
| [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-
| content/uploads/sites/20/2024...
|
| [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/184487/us-new-
| privately-...
|
| [3] https://csrankings.org/#/index?ai&vision&mlmining&nlp
| &infore... _______
|
| > I don't know how bad it is in the US, but in the rest
| of the West, it's been a disaster.
|
| If you're talking about Canada and Europe, that's a whole
| another story. Yes, their mass immigration programs have
| been unmitigated disasters. But, you can't plainly
| extrapolate that to the US. The specifics matter. On that
| note, I wish you were more specific about what kind of
| immigration ?
|
| Skilled vs unskilled
|
| Legal vs Illegal
|
| Vagrant men in their 20s vs Families
|
| Religiously conservative vs liberal
|
| Tolerant vs Fundamentalist ?
|
| It makes a difference.
| xnx wrote:
| Fantastic comment. I wish we could've had more open
| discussions about specific factual details over the past
| four years. I'm not a fan of "both-sides"-ism, but it
| there are definitely plenty of uncomfortable truths to go
| around for everyone.
| bombcar wrote:
| There's a simple argument - the USA can obviously support
| some level of immigration - at the bare minimum the
| difference between current births and the replacement
| birth rate - and just as obviously it can't stably take
| in half a billion people a year. Somewhere in between
| there must be a gradual cutoff where it becomes "too
| much".
|
| Most opponents of immigration say we've passed that mark
| and either need to compensate to solve the issues caused
| by it, or dial the number back.
| xnx wrote:
| > Somewhere in between there must be a gradual cutoff
| where it becomes "too much".
|
| There's a huge range of dimensions beyond how many
| people: Who is allowed to immigrate? How long do they get
| to stay? Do their children become citizens? etc.
| l33t7332273 wrote:
| I'm curious how "mass immigration" has obviously and
| clearly impacted people's daily lives in middle America -
| outside of media
| immibis wrote:
| What you're observing is that:
|
| - there's immigration
|
| - normal people are getting shafted
|
| However, the two things are entirely unrelated.
|
| However, the ones doing the shafting tell people they're
| related so often that people believe it.
|
| [this line censored by moderator intervention]
| mbesto wrote:
| > the political left have failed to show up with an
| answer, a policy, a plan -- anything, really.
|
| This is factually untrue. U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021
| was a legislative bill that was proposed by President Joe
| Biden on his first day in office.[0] It died in
| committee.
|
| The reality is that illegal immigration is good for ALL
| business (regardless of whether you are democrat or
| republican) in the US. This is the hush-hush wink-wink
| reality that most politicians understand but would never
| say publicly. They create appearances they are doing
| something (e.g. creating legislation that might fix the
| problem) but knowing it won't ever pass in a partisan
| legislative body.
|
| [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Citizenship_Act_
| of_2021
| vidarh wrote:
| That is going to be explosive because there isn't a
| developed economy anywhere that can avoid major crises
| without maintaining _or increasing_ immigration levels over
| the coming decades as the effects of fertility rates really
| start to bite.
|
| In the UK we saw the Tories try to play the ball in two
| places at once: Enable lots of immigration while
| simultaneously pretending the country was under siege to
| appeal to the anti-immigrant crowd. It blew up in their
| faces in a spectacular way.
| ChocolateGod wrote:
| > coming decades as the effects of fertility rates really
| start to bite.
|
| I mean one solution is to promote policies that encourage
| people to have more children, but we "can't afford it",
| expecting we'll be able to afford the incoming social
| care crisis.
| 15155 wrote:
| How about door 3: only allow immigration for skilled
| individuals capable of adding outsized value to our
| economy?
| ben_w wrote:
| As a person who can be described that way: why would I
| want to migrate to any country whose leaders were elected
| on a platform of hating migrants?
|
| "Oh but not like you, you're one of the good ones!" -
| imagine yourself being described that way, and ask if
| that's a crowd you care to spend your time living with.
| 15155 wrote:
| > why would I want to migrate to any country whose
| leaders were elected on a platform of hating migrants?
|
| "Hating migrants" != "want only the migrants that pull
| their own weight"
|
| Why would you personally want to immigrate to a place
| where you are immediately expected to foot the bill for
| everyone else?
| ben_w wrote:
| > "Hating migrants" != "want only the migrants that pull
| their own weight"
|
| "Oh but not like you, you're one of the good ones!" -
| imagine yourself being described that way, and ask if
| that's a crowd you care to spend your time living with.
|
| > Why would you personally want to immigrate to a place
| where you are immediately expected to foot the bill for
| everyone else?
|
| Because the only places that doesn't describe are those
| without a functioning government capable of collecting
| taxes.
|
| You want me to migrate to ${your country} to boost the
| economy? Well, that's only useful to you to the extent it
| means I'm supporting all the people in your country that
| can't migrate elsewhere for exactly the same reason.
| 15155 wrote:
| > "Oh but not like you, you're one of the good ones!"
|
| I want to live with people who pull their weight and
| aren't an immediate financial burden on everyone else,
| yes.
|
| If this is "one of the good ones" vs "one of the bad," so
| be it. If one is immediately looking to burden everyone
| else, I can see why one wouldn't want to "spend [their]
| time living with" folks who don't want to give them free
| shit.
|
| > Because the only places that doesn't describe are those
| without a functioning government capable of collecting
| taxes.
|
| We're not talking about tax collection, we're talking
| about how taxes are spent.
|
| > You want me to migrate to ${your country} to boost the
| economy?
|
| I don't care why or if you immigrate, but if you do, you
| will not have a net-negative financial impact on the
| population. Yes: there are freeloaders amongst the
| population as-is - this itself isn't a valid reason to
| import millions more.
|
| We're already taking the cream of the crop - which is why
| H-1B and O-1s visas are a thing. People hiking across the
| Darien gap aren't magically going to become engineers and
| doctors.
| pyrale wrote:
| > I want to live with people who pull their weight and
| aren't an immediate financial burden on everyone else,
| yes.
|
| Call us back after you've deported your own parents and
| children.
| ben_w wrote:
| > We're not talking about tax collection, we're talking
| about how taxes are spent.
|
| You're doing both.
|
| In every functioning nation, the rich subsidise the poor.
|
| I as an above average income earner am necessarily always
| going to subside the poor no matter where I live --
| unless it's a place that's got no government.
|
| That was true when I lived in the UK, true when I moved
| to Germany, and would have been true had I moved to the
| USA instead -- all that changed for me was Joe Bloggs
| became Otto Normalverbraucher instead of Bubba Sixpack.
|
| > I don't care why or if you immigrate, but if you do
|
| Except you previously wrote "How about door 3: only allow
| immigration for skilled individuals capable of adding
| outsized value to our economy?"
|
| If you "allow" something but nobody wants to take you up
| on it, it's not any different than forbidding it.
|
| I'm _allowing_ people to donate infinite money to me, but
| I 'm not taking any steps to _encourage_ this or give
| anyone a reason to.
|
| > People hiking across the Darien gap aren't magically
| going to become engineers and doctors
|
| Likewise a degree.
|
| In both cases the capability is already a demonstration
| of being well above average.
| Jensson wrote:
| > "Oh but not like you, you're one of the good ones!" -
| imagine yourself being described that way, and ask if
| that's a crowd you care to spend your time living with.
|
| That is how the left describe men, do you argue the left
| hates men?
| ben_w wrote:
| I have yet to encounter anyone saying that, and I live in
| a country which (and come from another country which
| also) considers the US' Democrat Party to be suspiciously
| right-wing.
|
| But hypothetically, if I met someone saying that, I would
| indeed say that specific person hated men.
|
| They definitely would not be someone I would wish to
| constantly be treading egg-shells around for fear of
| getting deported.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _" Oh but not like you, you're one of the good ones!" -
| imagine yourself being described that way, and ask if
| that's a crowd you care to spend your time living with._
|
| This entire thread is filled to the brim with people
| describing the _voting majority_ of Republicans as low
| information idiots.
|
| We can't have unrestricted immigration, period. How do
| you propose we select?
| ben_w wrote:
| > This entire thread is filled to the brim with people
| describing the voting majority of Republicans as low
| information idiots.
|
| Indeed, and I think it unhelpful:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42059010
|
| I wrote both with the intention of inducing empathy, as
| in putting oneself in the shoes of others.
|
| > We can't have unrestricted immigration, period.
|
| False.
|
| In many threads where the US is compared unfavourable to
| other nations, e.g. that the public transport isn't as
| good or as cheap as Germany's, or that internet is slower
| and more expensive than France, or whatever, the defence
| is "oh, America is just so big and empty".
|
| You have the most part of a continent. You could, if you
| wanted to, fit in the whole world -- about twice the
| population density of the Netherlands, which I've been to
| and isn't _that_ crowded.
|
| And it's not like everyone actually wants to live in any
| given country anyway -- even if you did have the whole
| world suddenly teleport in and leave the rest of the
| planet empty like an xkcd what-if, I'd be surprised if
| less than 80% put in active effort to leave.
| pyrale wrote:
| > "Hating migrants" != "want only the migrants that pull
| their own weight"
|
| As a foreigner, I honestly can't see the difference
| between "want only the migrants that pull their own
| weight" and "hate foreigners but refrain from saying it
| to their face if there's a financial incentive".
|
| If your tolerance is predicated on me giving you money,
| I'll pass the opportunity.
| 15155 wrote:
| My tolerance is predicated on me not giving _you_ money.
|
| Spend the money you _earn_ on yourself: it will flow
| through the rest of the economy. But I am not going to
| give you any to do so.
| ben_w wrote:
| > My tolerance is predicated on me not giving _you_
| money.
|
| Either:
|
| 1) You also don't tolerate the below median earner who is
| native to your country
|
| or
|
| 2) Your tolerance is dependent on citizenship not just
| income
|
| If you're #1, that's a problem for your fellow citizens
| whom you don't tolerate.
|
| If you're #2, you're telling me to not bring my higher
| earning skills to your economy.
|
| Doesn't matter if you didn't mean it that way, you still
| won't get me spending the money I earn on your economy so
| you won't get rich from me.
| 15155 wrote:
| Why can't it be both?
|
| Why can't I want to minimize the number of unskilled
| outsiders (with different values, etc.) because they may
| cost more while overlooking that fact for those with
| obvious economic power regardless of where they are from.
|
| I know it hurts to hear: people with wealth are
| _desirable_ guests and citizens.
|
| A country's citizenry is much like children: some are
| going to be shitty, but we still support that limited
| group because of arbitrary moral obligation (perhaps
| inspired by the fact that we want our "own" to continue.)
| We're not obligated to extend this tradition to anyone
| else for any reason.
|
| > you still won't get me spending the money I earn on
| your economy so you won't get rich from me.
|
| Thankfully there are billions of people in the world and
| they're literally dying to get into the US. H-1Bs quotas
| are filled every year - there's no shortage of high-
| average earners wanting to come here, either.
| ben_w wrote:
| > Why can't it be both?
|
| Because the depenence on citizenship in the second is an
| additional requirement beyond the minimal state of the
| first.
|
| > I know it hurts to hear: people with wealth are
| desirable guests and citizens.
|
| I know it hurts to hear: _I don 't want to be your
| guest_.
|
| If I was invited by an American company to relocate, I'd
| turn it down, regardless of pay.
|
| Most of the billions in this world aren't heading to you,
| wherever you live.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| As another skilled immigrant, this is exactly what I
| want.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _why would I want to migrate to any country whose
| leaders were elected on a platform of hating migrants?_
|
| Well, for one: cutting back on illegal immigrants and
| hating immigrants are not the same thing.
|
| Two: stay where you are? I don't get what your
| expectations are here. Plenty of skilled immigrants love
| the US. If it's not your cup of tea, that's fine.
| ben_w wrote:
| 1. Illegal immigration is already illegal. Cutting back
| on it is tangential to every other statement about
| promoting, limiting, or targeting migration.
|
| 2. I'm responding to a comment that says "How about door
| 3: only allow immigration for skilled individuals capable
| of adding outsized value to our economy?"
|
| And in my capacity as such a person: that attitude makes
| me not interested in anything else on the table.
| Hypothetically to demonstrate the point: You could offer
| me your entire GDP, even after accounting for a business
| plan where I somehow specifically help you double it, as
| pay... and I'd turn you down.
|
| Remember that the current state of immigration in the USA
| is exactly what was being proposed to be changed: the
| previous desirability is _specifically_ not going to
| remain.
| deniscepko2 wrote:
| It works if your existing population is willing to do
| unskilled labour. Which in my country is not the case
| 15155 wrote:
| I love this one because it's so basically obvious: the
| price for this work will increase or it simply won't
| happen and wasn't necessary anyway.
| astrange wrote:
| You can't get native Americans to do farm work for any
| amount of money, because they'd have to live in the
| middle of nowhere near the farm and that's no fun.
|
| (That is, you'd have to pay them so much they could buy
| the farm and then hire someone else to work it. But
| you're not going to do that.)
| 15155 wrote:
| The market will take care of this: people will do the
| work or pay for it or they won't eat.
| astrange wrote:
| "They won't eat" is a perfectly possible outcome of this,
| and a bad one. That is called a recession.
| 15155 wrote:
| No, it's called a famine and wouldn't happen. Recession
| would imply that the market was completely incapable of
| adjusting to allocate resources correctly.
|
| Promoting a second-tier, legally-disenfranchised
| workforce isn't the win you seem to think it is.
| astrange wrote:
| > Recession would imply that the market was completely
| incapable of adjusting to allocate resources correctly.
|
| It doesn't have to be "complete", just a shortfall in
| demand, and of course eventually it ends. But if the
| market doesn't clear for a while, that's still people
| having to eat less for a while.
|
| > Promoting a second-tier, legally-disenfranchised
| workforce isn't the win you seem to think it is.
|
| Almost everything is better than farm work, which is why
| everyone ditches it as fast as they can. Even being a
| sweatshop worker is better. Nevertheless, the migrant
| farmworkers are doing it because it's better than their
| alternatives, presumably because they get paid better
| than doing it in their own country.
|
| Btw, I'm not even thinking of especially poor countries
| here. Japan is a respectable first-world country but has
| surprisingly low wages and a bad exchange rate, and there
| are recent cases of Japanese people leaving for Australia
| to do work like this and making 2-3x what they can at
| home.
|
| And of course back in Japan it feels like every
| convenience store worker these days is an immigrant from
| China, India or elsewhere.
|
| This is fine, really. Productivity will increase over
| time, they'll save money over time, and their kids will
| have better jobs.
| flappyeagle wrote:
| Or everyone pays much higher prices.
| ben_w wrote:
| You missed what's actually happening, which is that cheap
| workers don't need to migrate _to you_ to get unskilled
| work done _for you_.
|
| The jobs move to distant factories filled with alien
| staff paying taxes to far away governments and who then
| spend their wages where they live (which isn't where you
| live).
|
| Even with tariffs, that's still cheaper for many things.
| And the work you're incentivising to bring to you with
| tariffs, that's often automated precisely because it's
| unskilled. Food has been increasingly automated at least
| since the 1750s -- to the extent that cows milk
| themselves (into machines not just into calves) these
| days.
|
| It works until it doesn't -- wherever the jobs go gets a
| rising economic spiral, and a generation later their
| middle class is corresponding richer and say to each
| other much what you say now: "why do we need _them_? ",
| only now _you_ are a "them" in that discussion.
|
| It's a weird thing, migration. The short term incentives
| absolutely favour it for everyone, but it's bad for the
| place of origin in the long-term.
|
| But note that I didn't say _international_ migration: the
| arguments are the same between San Francisco and
| Sacremento, or between Lampeter and Cardiff, or between
| Marzahn and Zehlendorf.
| arandomusername wrote:
| cheap labour, not unskilled.
|
| So what you want is to import third world immigrants so
| you can pay your plumber cheaply instead of paying them
| appriopriately.
| neeleshs wrote:
| That's the ethos of commerce for thousands of years. Try
| to pay the least to get the best
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Studies show you've got it backwards. If you let a nurse
| or programmer into the country, they're going to take a
| job that's otherwise filled by an American, depressing
| skilled wages.
|
| If you let in an unskilled laborer, they're going to take
| a job that nobody wants. They spend those wages, boosting
| the economy.
|
| In both cases, studies show that the number of jobs stays
| roughly the same; immigrants create about the same amount
| of jobs as they take. However skilled immigrants decrease
| average wages, and unskilled immigrants increase average
| wages.
|
| It's the outliers that really tip the balance, though. If
| one of those immigrants turns out to be Jensen Huang or
| his parents, that's how you make America great.
| 15155 wrote:
| > Studies show you've got it backwards. If you let a
| nurse or programmer into the country, they're going to
| take a job that's otherwise filled by an American,
| depressing skilled wages.
|
| But at that same time they're contributing massive
| amounts to the tax base, furthering society.
|
| Maybe they even start a company, employing more
| programmers.
|
| They also spend their wages.
|
| > If you let in an unskilled laborer, they're going to
| take a job that nobody wants.
|
| The price for that work is artificially low because these
| folks don't have any legal protections of any kind.
|
| Guess what else happens commonly to unskilled, under-the-
| table labor? Injuries! Which I have to pay an outsized
| amount for in the form of Medicaid and ER fees.
|
| How much of their remaining income is remitted straight
| to their impoverished relatives back home?
|
| > If one of those immigrants turns out to be Jensen Huang
| or his parents
|
| Know how to easily filter out Jensen Huang from the crowd
| of people swimming across the Rio Grande? Marketable
| skills.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > How much of their remaining income is remitted straight
| to their impoverished relatives back home?
|
| The skilled labourers do far more of that than unskilled
| ones.
|
| > Guess what else happens commonly to unskilled, under-
| the-table labor? Injuries! Which I have to pay an
| outsized amount for in the form of Medicaid and ER fees.
|
| The vast majority of the cost of health care is old
| people, and it's expensive because it's labor intensive.
| The way to bring health care costs down is to increase
| the ratio of young people to old people. Which in 2024
| means immigration.
|
| > Know how to easily filter out Jensen Huang from the
| crowd of people swimming across the Rio Grande?
| Marketable skills.
|
| Marketable skills like shopkeeper? That's what Jensen
| Huang's parents were.
| 15155 wrote:
| > The vast majority of the cost of health care is old
| people
|
| Chronic costs, yes, costs borne out of tail risks - no.
|
| > Marketable skills like shopkeeper? That's what Jensen
| Huang's parents were.
|
| If you have the drive, economic ability, wherewithal in
| 2024 to keep a shop - _operate a business_ - in the
| United States in 2024, yes, this is a desirable,
| marketable skill.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > Chronic costs, yes, costs borne out of tail risks - no.
|
| Chronic costs are the vast majority of total costs
|
| > If you have the drive, economic ability, wherewithal in
| 2024 to keep a shop - operate a business - in the United
| States in 2024, yes, this is a desirable, marketable
| skill.
|
| That's a priori data. Jensen's parents weren't
| shopkeepers in Taiwan, so how would you know this?
| bombcar wrote:
| What's not mentioned is that skilled immigration, if it
| pushes aside a skilled citizen - that skilled citizen can
| no doubt find some other work.
|
| But the unskilled citizen labor that gets pushed aside by
| unskilled immigration - they have a much harder time
| finding work.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > that skilled citizen can no doubt find some other work.
|
| at a much lower salary, sure.
|
| > But the unskilled citizen labor that gets pushed aside
| by unskilled immigration - they have a much harder time
| finding work.
|
| No they don't, not according to studies. Studies show
| that immigration increases the number of total jobs
| available. There are fewer available jobs for janitors,
| but more available jobs where just being a local is a
| marketable skill. A local has language and cultural
| skills that immigrants don't have.
|
| So they're less likely to find work as a janitor but more
| likely to find one as a waiter or retail manager, both
| higher paying positions.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Lord help your soul though if you are a citizen and do
| not have the ability to work a high level job.
|
| There are an enormous number of unskilled workers in the
| US. And they get a vote. And they will vote to kill off
| competition from migrant workers. Like what trump is
| promising.
| ben_w wrote:
| While I'd like that to be an accurate description of why
| the Tory party lost, my understanding is that the
| migration topic was basically the only thing the Tories
| did that continued to resonate with voters, and what
| actually lost them was a continuing series of incompetent
| leaders, starting with Cameron (who didn't realise the
| mic was still hot immediately after resigning). Nobody
| (of any party) liked May, Johnson got away with pleasing
| lies until Partygate, Truss was a forgettable joke, and
| Sunak was basically Jim Hacker.
|
| IMO the only reason the Tories didn't lose sooner was
| that the Labour party was also stuck with Corbyn.
| flir wrote:
| They lost the anti-immigration vote to Reform. That
| shows, to me, that the voters that cared about that topic
| could see the difference between their rhetoric and their
| actions.
| arandomusername wrote:
| What are those major crises? Decrease in housing prices?
| dsign wrote:
| Pensions and taxes. I guess that's medicare in USA?
| arandomusername wrote:
| Less Taxes: So we would have a smaller government? That's
| good. Government already gets so much money and waste it.
|
| Pensions: Maybe instead of relying on a pyramid scheme,
| people would need to manage their investments or have
| kids and raise them well so they take care of them later.
| Sounds like a win.
| logicchains wrote:
| Japan is way ahead of the west in falling birthrates, but
| in spite of very little immigration there hasn't been any
| major crisis, just gradually declining standards of
| living.
| 15155 wrote:
| > We are currently in the process of the creation of a new
| world order ... with little respect for democracy
|
| Damn, we should have definitely installed an anointed
| candidate with zero primary votes .. to save democracy.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| I'm concerned about this "group paranoia" phenomenon that I
| increasingly see among friends and family. Yes, just like
| in the past it was the Devil himself manipulating kings and
| people, now it is China and Russia that secretly hold sway
| over Western governments (when it's not the Jews).
| tekknik wrote:
| I stopped reading at new world order. I guess we've gone
| full circle now as this used to be what the GOP said about
| dems.
| rightbyte wrote:
| It might also be that neoliberalism just is failed and
| dead.
|
| The wake up call should have been 15-20 years ago.
| mnky9800n wrote:
| More than that, I think there was a lot of democrat messaging
| that the economy is the greatest its ever been because of
| Biden. When I would say, it is because of Nvidia, haha. and
| what does that have to do with the price of milk or eggs for
| some random american?
| ryukoposting wrote:
| The fact that Tim Walz made it through a 90 minute debate
| without mentioning the CHIPS act _a single goddamn time_
| absolutely blows my mind.
|
| Dems could try to explain why Trump's economic policy made
| the US economically brittle, leaving Biden no choice but to
| pay the piper to avoid a depression. You're not going to
| woo voters with that kind of narrative, though, even if
| it's the truth.
| 15155 wrote:
| He's a knucklehead, remember?
| strix_varius wrote:
| Similarly, when the friendly The View hosts asked Harris
| what she would do differently from Biden, I assumed her
| team would have drilled that obvious talking point into
| her with flashcards.
|
| My mind was blown when she said "There is not a thing
| that comes to mind in terms of -- and I've been a part of
| most of the decisions that have had impact."
| bombcar wrote:
| You don't even have to start a fight - you can just have
| an answer about how certain policies take time to grow
| and you'll continue to nurture them. An analogy about how
| it takes time to turn a cargo ship might be apt; how the
| main thing is steady at the help, and hold the rudder.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| My parents who are extreme Democrats called me after that
| interview to say there's no hope and Trump will win.
| Harris never understood the obvious fact that Biden's
| approval ratings were terrible not because he is old, but
| because people don't like his policies.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Nvidia has literally nothing to do with record low
| unemployment.
| torginus wrote:
| I'm pretty sure some guy who made it big on stocks now
| can afford to have his front deck renovated.
| tiahura wrote:
| Or my electrician friend who's making boatloads working
| crazy overtime building data centers.
| FredPret wrote:
| If you replace "Nvidia" with the much broader
| "technology" then it is indeed the major reason the
| modern world economy is good.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Technology is definitionally a thing that improves
| productivity, so sure.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Yeah, that's the core. Politicians _love_ to claim "the
| economy is good!"... but if the people see it in their
| daily lives that almost none of that supposed "good" makes
| it into their pockets, there will be problems. People
| aren't stupid ffs.
|
| Many people got raises after the inflation shock... but
| rent hikes ate that up, prices for food and staples didn't
| go down despite fuel/energy prices going low, and many
| people _didn 't_ get raises at all or (especially in the
| tech sector) got laid off entirely.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| People literally are stupid. Inflation was a global
| phenomenon, clearly not "caused by" POTUS, and the US
| managed it far _better_ than every peer.
|
| The idea that if you don't like inflation you should vote
| Trump is pretty much the definition of stupidity.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| People are still feeling it in their wallet every time
| they go grocery shopping. The greatest mistake of the
| Biden era was to ignore the cost of living explosion and
| the uncontrolled greed.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| They absolutely didn't ignore the cost of living
| explosion or uncontrolled greed.
|
| Kamala proposed several policies targeted at those
| problems. Many of which I disagree with, but it's
| demonstrably untrue they "ignored" it.
|
| The American people were just lied to successfully by the
| world's biggest liar.
| bombcar wrote:
| I think the "ignored" is that the sitting VP was
| proposing policies _for later_ that hadn't been
| implemented! That was the biggest hurdle - she had to run
| as a dependent independent which is basically an
| impossibility.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Meanwhile the guy who spent years crying about the border
| only to then instruct the Republican party to kill a bill
| meant to fix exactly that problem won so....
| 15155 wrote:
| The global inflation in question was a result of the
| COVID over-response. I imagine the indirect deaths from
| negative economic impacts far exceeded the 0.1% IFR
| COVID-19 peaked at.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Which was neither an American nor a Democratic Party
| phenomenon, and again the US did better with recovery
| than anyone else by a huge margin.
|
| Revisionist history points toward COVID response being a
| left-wing thing, but there was almost zero variation in
| policy state to state. The only point of variation was
| school reopening schedules.
|
| The _one thing_ that was _knowably wrong_ to do at the
| time we did it was to deliberately slow down testing to
| keep Trump's numbers looking good. Everything else was
| flying blind and to the extent we made mistakes (visible
| in retrospect), we made fewer of them than any of our
| peers.
| 15155 wrote:
| > almost zero variation in policy state to state
|
| The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes
| and ears..
|
| Did you visit any midwestern state during COVID? Florida?
|
| You can use the Google on the internet machine as much as
| you like and cherry-pick some leftist city in any state,
| but: broad/legally-enforced mask mandates, forced
| business closures, etc. were absolutely not happening in
| many areas of the United States.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > there was almost zero variation in policy state to
| state.
|
| That's not true, what on earth are you talking about?
| Everything was closed for way longer in New York than in
| Arizona for example.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The vaccine was developed quickly under Trump. A genuine
| success he can claim happened under his rule.
|
| He stopped talking about it at rallies because his
| supporters boo-ed him whenever he mentioned it.
|
| We're partly at the mercy of his stupidity but also the
| stupidity (that we're not supposed to talk about
| apparently) of his most devoted voters.
| 15155 wrote:
| He stopped talking about it because it was unpopular
| (because it is ineffective) and was forced.
|
| No other vaccine is given entirely under the pretense
| that it will basically only be of benefit to _other
| people._
|
| COVID had a 0.1% IFR across the whole population.
|
| If I am 18-30, why would I take a novel vaccine when it
| doesn't even prevent the illness or make me meaningfully
| more likely to survive? "To protect grandma, of course!"
| isn't why we agree to use TDAP vaccinations or formerly
| administered Polio or Smallpox vaccines.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > COVID had a 0.1% IFR across the whole population.
|
| The US population is around 340 million people, no matter
| how "low" a rate appears (besides your number being
| wrong, it's 1% [1] and the number of reported infections
| is likely to be way lower than the actual amount), the
| sheer size of the country will be problematic. At the
| very least 1.2 million Americans _died_ of Covid over the
| four years of the pandemic. That is the equivalent of one
| average size city getting wiped out by a nuclear blast -
| if this amount of death were caused by an external force,
| the US would utterly annihilate that external force. Hell
| they flattened Afghanistan for a few thousand people who
| died in 9 /11.
|
| And additionally, deaths aren't the only metric. I caught
| it two times, I was out sick for three weeks with more
| weeks of lower productivity following because that shit
| fried my brain. Others had it worse, a friend of mine was
| out for half a year. That _is_ an effect worthy enough of
| a mask and vaccine mandate.
|
| [1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
| card_zero wrote:
| Ugh, a trolley problem.
| 15155 wrote:
| Yes, this is a utilitarian conundrum.
|
| If seniors weren't the majority of the electorate, the
| economy would've won out.
| dalmo3 wrote:
| This is why the US is so great. You debase the dollar,
| the whole world suffers, and you can still claim "we've
| outperformed our peers". Fantastic.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| The dollar traded at pretty stable levels through the
| 2020-2024 period, and most countries that could did
| similar things to their currencies as we did.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| To be clear, it doesn't make sense to say "the dollar
| traded at pretty stable levels". You need an FX pair to
| make sense.
|
| There are three big, floating currencies in the world:
| USD, EUR, and JPY. These currencies are overwhelming used
| for international trade. The USD<->EUR FX rate has been
| quite stable (~1.10) for about 10 years. However, the
| JPY<->USD FX rates has risen dramatically since 2022.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| To be clear, it's obvious I'm saying across a basket of
| all FX pairs, the US traded at pretty stable levels.
| There is no sign at all of debasement.
|
| JPY, likewise, has performed terribly against a basket of
| all FX pairs.
|
| JPY is the outlier.
| bluecalm wrote:
| One look at a currency prices chart disproves the
| "debasing" theory.
| thajkn wrote:
| It was partly a global _man made_ issue because every
| country (including the U.S.) printed COVID money like
| crazy.
|
| It was the Supreme Court, _staffed by Trump_ , who
| stopped the COVID madness with their vaccine mandate
| ruling.
|
| The other issue is that Biden and his cronies Nuland,
| Blinken, Sullivan et al. deliberately escalated the
| Ukraine situation in 2021/2022, with the well known
| consequences. Note that _Zelensky himself_ begged Biden
| not to be too aggressive at the Munich summit in early
| 2022! If I were Ukrainian, I 'd loathe Biden.
|
| The Biden administration mandated that their EU "allies"
| would participate in disastrous sanctions, which sent the
| EU into economic stagnation.
|
| The U.S. is safe because it has natural gas and the
| reserve currency, which means they can print money more
| easily. It is not to Biden's credit that the U.S. economy
| is comparatively better.
|
| I'd say that over 50% of Europe is very happy with the
| Trump victory, the EU press does not reflect public
| opinion.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Why would _any_ European be happy with Trump winning[0]?
| The cornerstone of Trump 's economic policy is shittons
| of tariffs that will cut the EU out of trading with the
| US and devastate them.
|
| [0] aside from "it gives us moral cover to start
| deporting citizens we don't like"
| tkadf wrote:
| He said that in 2016 and 2016-2019 were great years for
| Europe. He won't leave NATO either. He has less room to
| maneuver than people think.
|
| What he will probably do is reverse the insane foreign
| policies of the Biden administration and stop the world
| from burning. I think he'll deescalate the Ukraine and
| Taiwan situations. Probably he'll not attack Iran either
| even though he is said to be a bigger hawk on Israel than
| Biden. But he also has a sense for economics and will not
| want another oil crisis.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| If he has a sense for economics why does he want to put
| 20% tariffs on everything?
| joyeuse6701 wrote:
| Trump printed that Covid money. Trump escalated the
| Ukraine situation with his scandal over aid and casting
| doubt in the unity of NATO, exactly what Putin wanted.
|
| I'm surprised you would write all of this, blaming Biden
| for Ukraine's situation, without a word about Putin. I
| guess Putin isn't responsible at all for Ukraine's
| situation eh? It's all magically Biden.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Ye, Trump was pissed over not getting info about Hunter
| Biden doing business there?
|
| And the concept of 'NATO unity' is a joke. NATO is the US
| and the extension of its 'soft power'. How is e.g. unity
| between Greece and Turkey supposed to work out, or France
| with itself.
| tkahdn wrote:
| I never understood this argument. Of course Putin is
| responsible, but what is the point of mentioning it?
|
| Suppose you are on a tour in Rwanda to observe gorillas,
| and the tour guide tells you not to look them in the eye.
| One tourist feels humiliated by that instruction, looks a
| gorilla in the eye and gets beaten up. Who do you blame
| if you know in advance what the gorilla will do?
|
| It was patently obvious to anyone who experienced the
| cold war what Russia would do if Ukraine would be a NATO
| member, preferably equipped with Tomahawk missiles. It
| was obvious to Merkel, to Obama, to Zelensky.
|
| Of course Russia is to blame, but what is the point if
| you are supposed to be the adult in the room? You are
| also to blame.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Only Orban and pro-russian parties were happy today in EU
|
| Americans could had saved Russian economy with this move,
| currently facing an imminent stagflation, so I bet that
| Putin is also a very satisfied cat and licking his lips
| at this moment. He has a golden excuse to pause the war
| for a while in the most favorable conditions for him, and
| rearm himself
| cranberryturkey wrote:
| you got it buddy, been in tech (silicon valley) for 25
| years. I got laid off in August 2023 and the market sucked
| even back then. No recruiters reach out anymore. Back in
| 2022 it was twice a day or more.
| 15155 wrote:
| > It should, but it doesn't.
|
| A flight or bus ticket to California or Colorado for a once-
| in-a-lifetime service costs multiple orders of magnitude less
| than the recurring cost of groceries and basic goods.
| kragen wrote:
| If you don't get arrested when you get off the return
| flight.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| Your wife dying because your flight got delayed, and you
| being imprisoned for trying to save her, are also once in a
| lifetime events.
| 15155 wrote:
| How many people die because they didn't obtain an
| abortion in the nick of time? Is this normally an urgent
| service (outside of legally time-limited states?)
|
| How many people struggle to afford buying groceries?
| creato wrote:
| There have been several cases that made the news in the
| last few weeks in the wake of new abortion bans, e.g.
| https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/01/nevaeh-crain-
| death-t...
| 15155 wrote:
| These edge cases are tragic, yes, and shouldn't happen.
|
| Economic hardship results in orders of magnitude more
| all-cause mortality, making it the more important problem
| to solve.
| adrianN wrote:
| I find it sad that this is framed as an either-or
| problem.
| 15155 wrote:
| We have a two-party system: this is the natural
| conclusion of applied game theory and is unfortunate.
| willsmith72 wrote:
| if you believe tariffs and digging are magic pills to an
| economy, sure (one which in the past year is actually
| doing extremely well)
| arghwhat wrote:
| Looking purely at the cases where an abortion is required
| for health reasons:
|
| Emergency abortions required for health reasons are often
| needed when things go wrong, and when that is the case it
| might need to be performed either soon or immediately.
| Being in a state that opposes it might delay the decision
| in ways that injure or kill the mother.
|
| Non-emergency abortions required for health reasons -
| that is, when there is significant risk but it is not
| unfolding yet - also happen but being in a state that
| opposes abortions at any level in general might make it
| difficult - doctors not willing to suggest it to avoid
| risk to their business, those around you refusing the
| need and convincing you that it would be bad, not to
| mention having to plan a medical trip to a foreign
| location to get it done - and in turn put the mother at
| risk of injury or death through inaction.
| 15155 wrote:
| Ok, how many people die or commit suicide because they
| cannot afford basic goods and services?
| arghwhat wrote:
| I'm sorry, but I don't see the relevance of your
| question.
|
| Does it somehow make it less relevant to fix a cause of
| death because more people die of other unrelated causes?
|
| Far more people die in accidents than any other causes of
| death in the U.S., seemingly only beat by cancer and
| heart disease. That doesn't make every other cause of
| death any less troubling or worth fixing, and it
| certainly does not mean that one should hold back
| existing treatments for "lesser" deaths or injuries.
|
| Any avoidable injury or premature death is one too many.
| antifa wrote:
| It's a new thing Texas invented.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| How many people struggling to afford buying groceries
| voted for the guy who promised tax cuts for the rich?
| eadmund wrote:
| I believe that abortion to save the mother's life is
| legal in all 50 states, every territory and the federal
| district.
|
| There are a small number of women who have died due to
| their physicians and/or hospitals misinterpreting the
| law, just as there are patients who die every day due to
| physicians' and hospitals' mistakes. Those are issues
| which need to be addressed.
|
| But -- so far as I know -- right now there is nowhere in
| the country where if a pregnant woman's life is
| threatened by her pregnancy then she cannot legally
| obtain a medical abortion.
| shadowfacts wrote:
| In principle, that is true. But that is simply not the
| reality on the ground. States ban abortion with such
| exceedingly narrow exceptions that doctors and hospitals
| delay until the point of actively endangering women.
|
| Four deaths, reported on by one outlet, in the past
| couple months:
|
| - A Texas teenager died after going to three emergency
| rooms and being misdiagnosed and denied treatment:
| https://www.propublica.org/article/nevaeh-crain-death-
| texas-...
|
| - Another Texas woman died after a miscarriage as a
| result of doctors not treating her due to the state's
| fetal heartbeat law:
| https://www.propublica.org/article/josseli-barnica-death-
| mis...
|
| - A Georgia woman with chronic health conditions, which
| can make pregnancy highly risky but did not exempt her
| from Georgia's abortion ban, died of complications from a
| medication abortion:
| https://www.propublica.org/article/candi-miller-abortion-
| ban...
|
| - Another Georgia woman died because doctors delayed 20
| hours after she arrived at a hospital--9 hours after she
| was diagnosed with sepsis--before treating her:
| https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-abortion-ban-
| ambe...
| nop_slide wrote:
| > right now there is nowhere in the country where if a
| pregnant woman's life is threatened by her pregnancy then
| she cannot legally obtain a medical abortion.
|
| This literally happened very recently
|
| https://www.propublica.org/article/nevaeh-crain-death-
| texas-...
| eadmund wrote:
| From that very article:
|
| > Texas's abortion ban threatens prison time for
| interventions that end a fetal heartbeat, whether the
| pregnancy is wanted or not. It includes exceptions for
| life-threatening conditions ...
|
| And from the actual text of the law (https://www.capitol.
| state.tx.us/tlodocs/87R/billtext/pdf/HB0...), abortion is
| permitted when 'in the exercise of reasonable medical
| judgment, the pregnant female on whom the abortion is
| performed, induced, or attempted has a life-threatening
| physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising
| from a pregnancy that places the female at risk of death
| or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a
| major bodily function unless the abortion is performed or
| induced.' That is a very broad exception.
| sn wrote:
| The doctors had to be so certain that it was life
| threatening before acting that once they decided it was
| life-threatening, she was already going to die no matter
| what they did. And this is not an isolated incident.
|
| The law has to allow for more uncertainty for the carve-
| out to be effective.
| daedrdev wrote:
| This might blow your mind, but for a condition to truly
| be life treating some people will probably die even if
| they have treatment, otherwise by definition it would not
| be a life threatening condition.
|
| For example doctors have to wait for sepsis to actually
| occur before treatment, thus some will die because they
| loose to the infection
| kaitai wrote:
| Unfortunately as a practical and legal matter that is
| false. First, physician incentives are aligned to deny
| care: they have a defense for denying care ("my lawyer
| isn't clear that I have authority to do this") and the
| woman has no recourse. Second, there is a simple matter
| of skill and availability. Fewer facilities allow
| abortion; fewer OB/GYNs are skilled at doing it safely.
| In my pregnancy I wanted a perfectly reasonable and legal
| thing supported by medical evidence and was unable to
| find a doctor in the state to provide it (vaginal breech
| birth as opposed to forced C-section).
|
| When you are pregnant, and particularly if you are
| experiencing complications, you do not have time to shop
| around and convince people and schedule in advance and
| all that. You are constrained by the spatiotemporal
| availability of a skilled medical professional.
| CalRobert wrote:
| You are absolutely right, but there are still a lot of
| people who can't pony up the cost of flight, lodging, etc.
| at short notice in a stressful situation.
| 15155 wrote:
| I think not being able to afford food and basic services
| may make it _more_ difficult to sock away the $500
| required for this edge case.
| bigfudge wrote:
| But inflation has been a global/western phenomena post
| Russian invasion and not unique to the US. Your economy
| has outperformed the developed averages. Non existent dem
| messaging on it is inexplicable to me... from a uk or
| European perspective your economic performance under
| Biden was enviable.
| DFHippie wrote:
| As a US citizen, it is frustrating but not inexplicable.
|
| The vast majority of the voters who had the opportunity,
| patience, ability, and inclination to follow an argument
| like this -- the inflation spike was global and the US
| did better than its peers -- voted for Harris.
|
| Opportunity is a key part of the problem: many voters
| live in walled informational gardens guarded by
| propagandists. The only messages that can penetrate into
| the gardens are short, emotional rather than rational,
| and lacking in nuance. They are indistinguishable from
| the constant barrage of lies and disinformation these
| people are exposed to.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| "bus"???
|
| Isn't one of the proposals from Republicans is to ban
| inter-state travel for pregnant women?
| FireBeyond wrote:
| One of the southern states introduced a new crime,
| "Conspiracy to commit abortion", which specifically
| targeted the idea of traveling out of state, researching
| abortion providers outside the state, and aiding someone
| with transportation, lodging, or financials around
| terminating a pregnancy.
| flakeoil wrote:
| I hope you will enjoy your flight to another state the next
| time you are sick and need surgery.
| 15155 wrote:
| Fortunately, I'll be able to afford it because I won't be
| pumping my entire paycheck into social programs,
| groceries, and supporting a massive population of
| unskilled illegal immigrants.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Who do you think farms your groceries?
| vundercind wrote:
| I get a lot of political text messages from multiple red
| states (for some reason) and it was almost all culture war
| stuff from the right. But maybe the messaging was super-
| different in swing states.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| The culture war crap is low-hanging fruit for fly-by-night
| scam PACs who don't know what they're doing. Hence the
| incompetence displayed when you get ads for states and
| races you have nothing to do with.
|
| We didn't see much of it here in Milwaukee County. We got
| boatloads of mailers from WisGOP framing Trump as a
| moderate candidate, though.
| pyrale wrote:
| > don't know what they're doing.
|
| Or do they? This strategy seems to work for them so far.
| protonbob wrote:
| That doesn't even help for married men because they can use
| contraception with their wife.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| But they can't use contraception to stop their wife dying
| from a miscarraige of a wanted child in a state where the
| doctors fear being jailed for taking the necessary medical
| steps for saving the mother's life, if that looks too much
| like an abortion.
| zpeti wrote:
| Remind me again - who in the history of the world has
| ever not been ok with abortion to save the mother?
| bhickey wrote:
| https://www.propublica.org/article/josseli-barnica-death-
| mis...
|
| https://www.propublica.org/article/nevaeh-crain-death-
| texas-...
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappana
| var
| nindalf wrote:
| I remember a notable Irish case where a mother died
| because the doctors refused to perform an abortion. Led
| to a constitutional change.
|
| Woman dies after abortion request 'refused' at Galway
| hospital (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-
| ireland-20321741.amp).
|
| There have been cases like this in America but I'm not
| going to look it up. Fortunately the other commenter did.
| Hope this changed your opinion :)
| gabrielhidasy wrote:
| A few very religious people, but I don't think any of
| those had traction to get that into law in the US
| recently.
| Retric wrote:
| The line isn't clear cut as risk isn't a guarantee.
|
| Multiple US woman have already died when doctors where
| unwilling to intervene despite significant issues being
| present. There's a lot of politics involved but as an
| example Josseli Barnica died in 2021 before row vs wade
| was overturned with doctors refusing to act over legal
| concerns despite clear and significant issues.
| jampekka wrote:
| You're vastly underestimating how cruel people can get,
| especially when they are on religion.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/01/21/us/abortio
| n-b...
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| What do you think those "9-month abortions" people talk
| about are for?
| tekknik wrote:
| This has already been covered. Any Dr too scared to read
| and interpret a law needs to give up their license
| because they're pushing a political agenda.
|
| If you don't want to get pregnant it's quite easy even if
| you don't use contraceptives. Mistaken pregnancies need
| to go back to health class.
| whatever1 wrote:
| The hospitals turn women in trouble away instructing them
| to come back in a comma or something. Not sure what can
| be done.
| awkward wrote:
| If you've dealt with human behavior at scale at all you
| know that more friction produces less activity. Of course
| doctors are going to deny treatment if it's treatment
| that comes with special legal scrutiny. Of course a new
| layer of legal review and approval is going to suppress
| the service that gets locked behind it.
| ff317 wrote:
| The laws in question are ambiguously worded and untested-
| yet in courts. They promise severe financial penalties
| and prison terms for offenders. I don't blame a doctor
| for being scared.
| no_wizard wrote:
| The very contraception republicans are in record repeatedly
| wanting to ban?
|
| https://apnews.com/article/contraception-senate-abortion-
| bid...
| goles wrote:
| Can't remember where I read this but essentially most
| Americans are single issue voters on the economy. They just
| pick their second most important issue when the economy is
| humming along nicely.
|
| The economy has been fine for many peoples working lives
| during ZIRP. But when people feel like their struggling to
| afford diapers and cereal most other issues become secondary.
| saynay wrote:
| This has been my thought as well. Inflation was high, so
| low-propensity voters against the current party show up
| while those for the current party don't. It will take some
| time to see what the actual voting shifts were, but the
| economy has always been an accurate predictor.
| lokar wrote:
| The general consensus was to avoid high unemployment as
| that would anger voters.
|
| Now we know high inflation is much much worse in the
| minds of voters.
| saynay wrote:
| Probably true, honestly. High inflation impacts everyone,
| where high unemployment probably affects fewer people
| directly.
| mlcrypto wrote:
| Under the Biden/Harris administration even software
| engineers were hurting and couldn't find work.
| Unprecedented
| romwell wrote:
| >Under the Biden/Harris administration even software
| engineers were hurting and couldn't find work.
| Unprecedented
|
| Sure.
|
| And why do you think that might be?
|
| In other words, do you think policy changes have
| _instantaneous_ effect on issues like unemployment, or
| perhaps they _take some time_?
| kukkamario wrote:
| It is rather annoying that larger policy changes easily
| take 2-4 years to actually affect anything so current
| party always gets both blame and thanks for the changes
| made by the previous administration.
| matwood wrote:
| Yeah. Unless a POTUS is in for 8 years they almost never
| get to experience the full results of their economic
| policies.
|
| Biden inherited an inflation time bomb which has been
| handled. I expect Trump will claim he fixed inflation the
| first report that comes out after the inauguration.
| mindslight wrote:
| A thousand times this. I don't know that Trump could have
| done a better job at economic sabotage when in office the
| first time. Printed trillions of dollars of undirected
| helicopter money when monetary velocity was low, which
| immediately went into asset inflation ("the stock market
| is great"). Then when things started moving again, it all
| started chasing goods and we got broad price inflation on
| top of acute shortages. The fact that the democrats just
| let the republicans hang Trump's economic destruction
| around their neck really shows how utterly inept they are
| at messaging. I shudder to think what inflation will be
| at in four years after a return to ZIRP corporate welfare
| and the next national emergency that's left to fester.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| "inflation time bomb". I never saw that term before. What
| was the primary cause of simultaneous inflation in all
| highly advanced economies, and how was Trump responsible
| for the US component?
| matwood wrote:
| He wasn't responsible for all of it. COVID supply chain
| disruption obviously played a huge part, but it's like
| everyone has forgotten that Trump also sent out a huge
| amount of money[1]. We can debate if that was the
| wrong/right move, but it's annoying when people blame
| Biden for the inflation that inevitably came once the
| economy turned back around. Trump has as much if not more
| responsibility depending on how you look at it.
| Meanwhile, the Fed under a Biden administration has
| seemingly engineered a soft landing.
|
| Trump also pressed SA to cut oil production to help prop
| _up_ gas prices in the US [2]. So when the economy turned
| demand surged back pushing prices higher.
|
| [1] https://www.investopedia.com/coronavirus-aid-relief-
| and-econ...
|
| [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/economy/special-
| report-trump...
| colechristensen wrote:
| Democrats insisted on COVID restrictions that were more
| like religion than science and then they just stopped and
| everyone was fine. The medical outcomes good and bad
| still happened, some of them just delayed.
|
| The length and intensity of the restrictions were
| unnecessary, and the economic consequences of giving away
| trillions of dollars during them are why we're in this
| economic situation.
|
| What would have changed if the restrictions were 6 or 12
| months shorter? Nothing.
| rpenm wrote:
| Not true, restrictive states had significantly lower
| mortality. Mask mandates being the most significant
| factor. The largest gaps in mortality occur in the latter
| half of 2020 and the latter half of 2021, during Delta.
|
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-
| forum/fullartic...
| svardilfari wrote:
| That's survivorship bias and thus your comment is just an
| opinion and nothing more. During restrictions covid
| vaccines were rapidly handed out and improved upon - this
| undoubtedly halted the spread of a virus that ultimately
| killed 1,212,000 people. So please go ask those peoples
| family and those people themselves if 'everyone was fine'
| throwaway4220 wrote:
| This ended up being true but is easy to say
| retrospectively though! I was in (irrationally) mortal
| fear everyday.
|
| Maybe if Democrats just played the republican card and
| refused to sign stimulus package just out of spite we
| would not be here. Same with the bank bailout in 2009.
| colechristensen wrote:
| You can look at my posting history from the time, I was
| saying the same thing during the latter half of the
| lockdown
| j0hnyl wrote:
| They do have an instantaneous effect. The unemployment
| rate is toggled using interest rates and the impact is
| seen immediately.
| GlobalFrog wrote:
| Well, if you remember the 2016 elections, Trump was
| saying that the economy was extremely bad and disastrous.
| Then, within his first month of presidency, suddenly, the
| same numbers were extremely good because of him. During
| the Obama presidency, there had been a growth of 227000
| jobs per month which became a growth of only 36000 jobs
| during the Trump years. During the last two years of
| Obama, the annual median household increased $4800, but
| only $1400 during the first two years of Trump. And then,
| under Biden the same annual median income was of $3250.
| And I could go on like that, except on the house prices
| which is the area where the pattern does not stand. So
| there are two things here: - Even if has been saying for
| the last months/years that the economy was a
| disaster,Trump will say within the first month of his
| presidency that the economy is already doing better
| immediately, while the numbers will be the very same at
| first. And when the economy will falter later on just
| like during his first term, his supporters won't mind
| because... - This election was not at all about the
| economy. This argument is an excuse for the real reasons
| why many Americans vote: more and more are susceptible to
| the cult of personality and to the progression of the
| most radical right-wing extremism ideas.
| gortok wrote:
| It was a combination of factors: zero interest rate
| policies changed to fight inflation and the Tax Cut Jobs
| act of 2017 changes (section 174) requiring
| capitalization of everything softwsre development related
| except bug fixes went into effect for tax year 2022.
|
| If software developer salaries cannot be expensed and
| it's now 5 times more expensive to borrow money to
| expand, jobs will be lost.
|
| Oh, and the TCJA was championed and signed into law by
| then President Trump.
| gruez wrote:
| >and the Tax Cut Jobs act of 2017 changes (section 174)
| requiring capitalization of everything softwsre
| development related except bug fixes went into effect for
| tax year 2022.
|
| Seems like a stretch. "Software Development Job Postings
| on Indeed in the United States"[1] was up into the
| beginning of 2022. The tax changes were known in advance
| for years. If the tax code changes were a significant
| factor, why did companies hire a bunch of people in 2021,
| knowing that when 2022 rolled around there would be
| massive taxes?
|
| [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE
| gortok wrote:
| > Seems like a stretch. "Software Development Job
| Postings on Indeed in the United States"[1] was up into
| the beginning of 2022. The tax changes were known in
| advance for years. If the tax code changes were a
| significant factor, why did companies hire a bunch of
| people in 2021, knowing that when 2022 rolled around
| there would be massive taxes?
|
| Gruez... Income Taxes are paid the year after they're
| incurred. Tax Year 2022 is filed and paid in 2023. The
| effects wouldn't _start_ being felt until March 2023 at
| the earliest.
|
| Also, literally everyone involved in tax policy thought
| it would be repealed. Heck, the IRS had to scramble to
| release guidance because they thought it was going to be
| repealed. The IRS didn't release detailed guidance on
| Section 174 until September 2023 -- six months after tax
| filings were due (a number of businesses asked for an
| extension to file but still had to pay the taxes as if
| they had filed on time).
| https://www.cohnreznick.com/insights/additional-guidance-
| irs...
|
| The Section 174 capitalization for software development
| was included in the TCJA as a way to 'pay' for the tax
| cuts, but no one seriously believed it would stay in the
| law. The problem is congress is very dysfunctional, so
| once it was signed into law you'd need a congress to get
| it out. It's no surprise the congress in 2023 was more
| dysfunctional than the one in 2017.
|
| Also, in 2021 interest rates were historically low, and
| as I stated initially the dual loss of the ZIRP
| environment and the massive change to how software
| developer policies worked together to kill software
| development jobs.
| gruez wrote:
| >Gruez... Income Taxes are paid the year after they're
| incurred. Tax Year 2022 is filed and paid in 2023. The
| effects wouldn't start being felt until March 2023 at the
| earliest.
|
| First off, 2022 taxes are not paid in 2023. Corporations
| have to pay taxes quarterly, not yearly.
|
| https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-
| employe...
|
| Second, no CFO is going to going to accept "this year's
| engineering expenses might be 100% more expensive
| (because we can't deduct it), but it's only due next year
| so we can keep on hiring!". The whole point of accounting
| is modeling the company's books to reflect its financial
| situation as accurately as possible, not just looking at
| whatever the bank balance is. This includes modeling
| future tax obligations.
| gortok wrote:
| Gruez. You pay payroll and estimated taxes quarterly. As
| long as you hit 90% of your actual tax burden, there are
| no penalties. You file income tax yearly and that sets
| you up for both your remaining burden that you didn't pay
| in estimated taxes, and your future estimated taxes. The
| trick is when you go to file by March 15th, you may or
| may not have accounted for all of the vagaries of tax
| changes -- and in fact the IRS pushes out guidance
| throughout the year that will affect the filing process.
|
| For companies that were expensing 100% of developer
| salaries (which was a lot of them -- capitalization is
| very cash intensive), having to now eat 80% of that
| salary as profit and only being able to deduct 20% is
| devastating.
|
| 1171(!) small software companies have come together to
| try to get congress to repeal their changes to Section
| 174. They haven't been successful yet, but here's hoping
| that by further education of folks like yourself, they
| will be. https://ssballiance.org/
| nirav72 wrote:
| Yeah. This is a thing lot of people don't understand or
| see . When they think of Software Developers - they tend
| to focus on SV companies or FANG. But most software devs
| work in corporate IT. In that world, IT is a cost center
| and rarely a profit center. So when cost of anything
| rises and they need to cut back to boast revenue numbers
| - it's always the cost center that takes the first hit.
| In this case, the cost of borrowing dramatically went up.
| eadmund wrote:
| > even software engineers were hurting and couldn't find
| work. Unprecedented
|
| Is the tech bust of 2000 so easily forgotten? And then
| the global financial crisis of 2008?
| globnomulous wrote:
| Yes, especially if your username is "mlcrypto."
| romwell wrote:
| >But when people feel like their struggling to afford
| diapers and cereal most other issues become secondary.
|
| Not entirely unreasonable.
|
| Now, if only they had the brains to realize that the
| economy during the _current_ term was shaped by the
| decisions made in the _previous_ term.
|
| Cue Trump's 2nd term being propped up by everything Biden
| did to un-fuck Trump's 1st term.
| poes-law wrote:
| Poe's law comes to mind for me here. But I guess this
| comment is sincere.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Democratic messaging really failed. The economy was a
| winnable issue for them. Trump's promises (20% broad
| tariff, mass deportation, make the Fed a political office,
| trade wars) would devastate the economy and cause
| significant inflation. Even Elon Musk admits that Trump's
| plans will tank the economy.
| https://x.com/whstancil/status/1851265385909092565
|
| Now right wing commentators are saying that Trump won't
| actually do what he promised.
|
| https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/11/w
| h...
| nirav72 wrote:
| Most of the stuff he promised he won't do. Simply because
| of the sheer complexity and resources involved. It's not
| in his nature to focus and work out complex issues.
| Imagine the logistics required to simply apprehend,
| process and deport 10-15 million people at scale. He'll
| probably do better at closing the border than any past
| president. That's for certain. But actually deporting all
| undocumented migrants already within the country. yeah,
| that's not happening.
|
| At best , its going to be performative on many things.
| Even with structural changes to the administrative state
| that the GOP's project 2025 seems to be promising - it's
| harder than it appears.
|
| Regarding tariffs - China is currently in an economy
| slump. Trump being transactional in nature , its certain
| the Chinese will be open to bilateral agreements. So I
| don't see tariffs lasting long.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| It's not in Trump's nature to do the work, but all he has
| to do is sign the bill. It's staffers that do the work.
|
| In 2016 the staffers were mostly Bush people, and the
| 2016 presidency was mostly a Bush repeat.
|
| In 2024 the staffers are going to be much different. If
| Trump gets a trifecta all bets are off -- we'll get
| policy set by whoever gets Trump's ear.
| lenkite wrote:
| He and Vance both said they would focus on criminal
| deportation first. Considering that most illegals
| breaking laws are just let loose free to commit crimes
| again by left-leaning states - those folks will now get
| to be kicked out like they should have been.
|
| Then, he will apply his rule of: no adding regulation,
| unless you first remove regulation. The one-in, two-out
| program to cut regulatory costs. Considering he
| definitely did this in his last administration and did
| save ~$100 billion, reasonably certain he will do this
| again.
| nirav72 wrote:
| yeah no doubt - he's going after the remain-in the U.S
| migrant policy that Biden implemented shortly after
| taking office in 2021. Those are going to be low hanging
| fruits. Same for other groups of migrants on temporary
| status, since they're easy to find. But I was referring
| to the 10-12 million that have been in the U.S for years.
| Those are going to be a lot harder, unless he has the
| infrastructure and resources in place to manage the
| logistics. Not saying they won't attempt it. But they'll
| hardly make a dent in the numbers. That's a huge number
| and will have a huge impact on the labor market. Whether
| positive or negative remains to be seen.
| toyg wrote:
| _> right wing commentators are saying that Trump won 't
| actually do what he promised_
|
| I expect a lot of voters actually thought that would be
| the case: "yeah yeah he has to make noise during the
| campaign, once he gets in he'll just give us some more
| tax breaks, he's not crazy."
|
| I guess we'll see if that's the case.
| tw04 wrote:
| Then all those people are in for a heck of a rude
| awakening. I can tell you what's going to happen to the
| cost of everyday goods with a 100% tariff placed on top,
| and the answer isn't: they're going down.
| nprateem wrote:
| Populism only works because the average voter doesn't
| understand economics or politics. Or much of anything
| they're voting for really.
| frmersdog wrote:
| And the Harris campaign's answer to this was...?
|
| Keep in mind that this is after the Biden admin/Congress
| gutted half of his proposed infrastructure reform. That
| half was already compromised compared to what
| progressives wanted, and they STILL couldn't pass it.
| Guess who stayed home yesterday?
|
| When you say, "Your only choice to save democracy is to
| vote for me," reasonable and rational people conclude
| that democracy is already done for and simply don't vote
| for anyone. And there were warnings that this would
| happen - like the primaries in Michigan - but
| establishment Democrats didn't listen (or didn't care).
| So, now, here we are. How's that for a rude awakening?
| kyleee wrote:
| What "everyday goods" are getting a 100% tariff? Is there
| a list somewhere?
| qeternity wrote:
| ZIRP was the cause of that pain.
| margorczynski wrote:
| The money from ZIRP mostly goes to the upper class as it
| props up asset values - stocks, land & housing, luxury
| goods, etc.
|
| In general easy lending benefits the richest the most -
| that's why you saw such a growing split between the wealth
| of the richest and poorest after throwing away the gold
| standard.
| frmersdog wrote:
| >The money from ZIRP mostly goes to the upper class as it
| props up asset values - stocks, land & housing, luxury
| goods, etc.
|
| One that people tend to miss: compensation for high-
| income professionals. When that gets bid up, so does the
| price of everything they spend money on.
| Education/childcare, personal electronics, healthcare,
| transportation, food, etc. It's not just the wealthy and
| ultra-wealthy; when the upper middle class can pay and
| not feel pain, that's taken as a signal to jack up prices
| across the board.
| margorczynski wrote:
| I would most certainly categorize what is commonly known
| as the "upper middle class" as wealthy. Upper-middle
| usually has a sizable wealth, mainly in real estate,
| equities, etc. So it is not only the rich and ultra-rich
| (but of course them benefit from this the most if they
| don't do anything too stupid). Of course all of these
| terms and definitions are quite fuzzy so the whole
| argument hinges on some implicit agreement as to the
| specifics.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > essentially most Americans are single issue voters on the
| economy.
|
| Isn't this true in all democracies? It is very hard to stay
| in power if the economy isn't doing well.
| Pedro_Ribeiro wrote:
| In Portugal the same two parties have been
| consistentently fucking up the economy for the past 30
| years with no end in sight. It's comically bad.
|
| They then announce pensions for majority groups like the
| elderly and get voted into power by the same groups they
| are financing.
| screye wrote:
| > Women's healthcare
|
| Further, the democrats have been in power for 12/16 years,
| and multiple years controlling all 3 houses. They did nothing
| to help with Women's healthcare. I have followed the issue
| closely, and I still don't understand what they Dems were
| going to do to keep abortion legal. If it's a state issue,
| how would the President change anything ? If it's national
| issue, why haven't they already done anything ?
| tzs wrote:
| > I have followed the issue closely, and I still don't
| understand what they Dems were going to do to keep abortion
| legal. If it's a state issue, how would the President
| change anything ? If it's national issue, why haven't they
| already done anything ?
|
| They could pass a national law that protects a right to
| travel to other states for an abortion if your state bans
| them.
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| So why didn't they?
| _ph_ wrote:
| Because they didn't have a majority in the last two
| years.
| DFHippie wrote:
| Do you live in the US? The first half of the Biden
| administration was hamstrung by Manchin, Sinema, and the
| Republicans. The Democrats had nominal control of the
| presidency and legislature but faced implacable
| resistance from the Republicans and these two nominally
| Democratic senators. Until the recent Supreme Court
| decision the US hasn't had a king.
| lokar wrote:
| And Manchin had no real chance of reelection anyway.
| hibikir wrote:
| With the existence of the Senate filibuster, passing laws
| is very difficult even when you win. There are entire
| topics where significant reform is basically impossible,
| from anyone.
|
| This is why America's supreme court is so important: One
| can argue that most federal level changes in the last 8
| years cane from the court just changing their mind on
| what used to be settled precedent.
| lokar wrote:
| I expect they will end the filibuster
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| The filibuster has existed for a long time and yet
| Congress was still able to pass laws. I don't give them a
| free pass for this, they need to learn to work together
| with the other party like we did in the past.
| Meloniko wrote:
| Obama wanted to do that but couldn't
| anthonybsd wrote:
| >Further, the democrats have been in power for 12/16 years,
| and multiple years controlling all 3 houses.
|
| When was this exactly? The last time democrats controlled
| presidency and both houses was during Obama's first term
| and they passed the most historic overhaul of healthcare in
| this country, which was a huge win for women's healthcare.
| me_me_me wrote:
| ah obama, the good old stable days.
| cbsks wrote:
| And they had a hell of a time getting it passed, too.
| There's no way it would have gone through if it included
| a hot ticket item like abortion rights.
| dccoolgai wrote:
| The "Stupak amendment" was exactly that. There were a
| group of Dems who wanted concessions on federal funding
| that were holding out until that amendment went in the
| bill.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| That something I find that the left/liberals/progressives
| doesnt get.
|
| The democrat party is not progressive. If they ever have
| 60 seats in the senate they will fracture and argue with
| the progressives elements. Most of the democrat party's
| constituents are conservative, religious. Most of the
| minorities they take for granted are not onboard with
| nonbinary identities, or anything to do with fetus
| elimination. They just are afraid of republicans for one
| reason or another.
| lmm wrote:
| > The last time democrats controlled presidency and both
| houses was during Obama's first term and they passed the
| most historic overhaul of healthcare in this country,
| which was a huge win for women's healthcare.
|
| Was it? From a foreign perspective it doesn't seem to
| have changed the conversation around US healthcare at
| all.
| vcxy wrote:
| Yeah, it was a pretty big change actually. You're right
| though, the conversation didn't change much even as
| access to healthcare did change.
| weard_beard wrote:
| Yeah, access. That's what we were all freaking out about.
| Lack of access. That's what makes our system different
| from the rest of the western world. Access. Glad we're
| drowning in access.
| t-3 wrote:
| It was a great thing for the people who most needed
| healthcare, but it priced me (young at the time and
| healthy) out of the market. I went from having cheap
| employer-sponsored healthcare to not being able to afford
| it (literally from less than 10% to ~50% of my paycheck).
| pmontra wrote:
| I'm from the other side of the Atlantic. Do you mind
| explaining how that happened?
|
| To give you some context: every country is different here
| but usually we have an almost free healthcare system
| covering everything for everybody (but sometimes you have
| to wait for a long time) and private healthcare that is
| more expensive, usually faster but not necessarily
| better.
| arethuza wrote:
| "usually faster but not necessarily better"
|
| Here in the UK my wife and I have between us spent a fair
| bit on private medical care over the last year - in the
| case of my wife for cataract operation on both eyes and
| in my case dental implants and related procedures.
|
| What I find amusing about private health care in the UK
| is that in each case I have ever used it they make it
| clear that if something goes seriously wrong they will
| take you to an NHS hospital.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> What I find amusing about private health care in the
| UK is that in each case I have ever used it they make it
| clear that if something goes seriously wrong they will
| take you to an NHS hospital._
|
| Privatize the winnings, socialize the losses, the "free
| market" working as intended.
| t-3 wrote:
| Most of the prices going up for young and healthy people
| is just the math insurance companies have to do when they
| can't deny people and have to provide more coverage.
|
| The part where we don't have the free healthcare system
| is mostly due to politicians being afraid of socialism or
| being afraid of raising taxes or both and a very strong
| medical lobby that doesn't want the salaries of doctors
| (very high over here) to drop.
| greentxt wrote:
| Imagine if you could buy car insurance after you crash
| your car.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Huh? The "car crash" in this analogy is "losing your
| job", which has nothing to do with your health profile.
| heylook wrote:
| And in that circumstance you are allowed to maintain your
| health insurance (COBRA) or buy a new plan ("qualifying
| life events," which also includes things like marriage
| and moving).
|
| The comment you're responding to was alluding to if
| people could choose to not pay for health insurance until
| after they got injured or sick and then needed the
| benefits.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Can you explain this more to me? What does it mean to be
| unable to afford healthcare? As I understand, it is a law
| that you must have it, or you pay a fine to the IRS by
| your tax return. Do you really have no healthcare now?
| jmpetroske wrote:
| There are no longer fines in your taxes for not having
| insurance. That law was revoked
| t-3 wrote:
| Unable to afford healthcare is pretty straightforward, I
| think. My plan went from being a relatively small amount
| I would pay for peace of mind, to being a giant expense
| that would leave me destitute. As far as the fine, if it
| hadn't been revoked it would just come out of my tax
| return, so "paying" would have been no big deal. Yeah,
| still don't have healthcare. I realized I don't need it
| much and became more fatalistic after living without it.
| Brybry wrote:
| Before ACA you could be denied health insurance or
| coverage due to pre-existing conditions (or they could
| charge you so much that it was infeasible to get
| insurance).
|
| This was huge because if you ever lost insurance and got
| new insurance (switched jobs) then you were often
| screwed.
|
| ACA defined essential benefits. Before ACA insurance
| usually didn't cover things mental healthcare. Required
| coverage of preventative care/screenings/reproductive
| care for women.
|
| Annual and lifetime coverage limits were banned. Your
| health insurance could no longer drop you because you got
| an expensive to treat cancer.
|
| The amount of desperately needed consumer protections ACA
| added were immense.
|
| Sure there are problems with ACA, especially the
| marketplace part of it, but overall it was a big change
| to healthcare in the US.
| amluto wrote:
| > Sure there are problems with ACA
|
| That's putting it mildly. Sure, the ACA was, in many
| respects, a big improvement over what came before it. But
| it's still outrageously broken. Let's consider the
| perspective of a person who wants health insurance:
|
| 1. You mostly want to be insured via your employer, and
| you mostly get screwed if you leave your job. The
| financial disincentives to insuring yourself are _huge_
| unless you qualify for the subsidies.
|
| 2. For some bizarre reason, you can use only buy
| insurance at some times of the year.
|
| 3. You more or less have to buy insurance through a
| website that is massively and incomprehensibly bad. Want
| to figure out what that insurance covers? It's sort of
| doable, but it sure isn't easy.
|
| 4. Whether or not you will get to fill a given
| prescription still seems arbitrary and vaguely malicious.
|
| 5. The whole system rubs the insane list prices of
| healthcare in your face, almost continuously. For drugs,
| even small amounts of Internet searching points out how
| much cheaper they are basically anywhere else.
|
| It's _really hard_ to be excited about the ACA.
|
| (For added fun, and this isn't really the ACA's fault but
| it sure is a failure of affordability and sure seems like
| a massive failure of government: check out hims.com.
| Pulling a random example, "generic for Cialis" is at
| least 3x the price on hims.com as it is via GoodRx.)
| lokar wrote:
| Re: 2
|
| You can use a broker (free to you) and get the same
| (regulated) plans. If your situation is at all
| complicated you should definitely use one. Probably even
| for "simple " cases.
| prewett wrote:
| And if you are relatively healthy and able to pay your
| regular doctor bills out of pocket, ACA made catastrophic
| insurance illegal (because of the minimum requirements).
| It's sort of like making car insurance require $50 copays
| to the mechanic. Sure, it's nice if you need an engine
| rebuild, but paying for all that makes the insurance a
| lot more expensive if you have a reliable car. There's no
| need for me to pay the doctor's bill _and_ the insurance
| company 's profit+overhead, I'd like to have the option
| to pay normal stuff myself and only insure something too
| large for me to pay.
| nradov wrote:
| This might not be quite what you want, but the ACA does
| allow for High Deductible Health Plans (HDHP). Those have
| consumers paying out of pocket for normal stuff, using a
| Health Savings Account (HSA).
|
| https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/high-deductible-
| health-p...
| amluto wrote:
| Which are, nonetheless, rather impressively worse in
| basically all respects than the old medically
| underwritten individual plans. Other than the fact that
| anyone can get them, of course.
|
| I'm not saying that the ACA was a bad law. I'm saying
| that a not-so-nerdy voter contemplating whether ACA is a
| great achievement of the Democratic Party is likely to be
| unimpressed.
| nradov wrote:
| Worse in some ways, better in others. The old individual
| plans usually had serious limits on coverage of pre-
| existing conditions. And they had lifetime coverage
| limits which could be exhausted by a single serious
| illness or injury.
| jampekka wrote:
| If healthy people could opt out of insurance, it would
| get really expensive for the not-so-healthy. That's why
| mandatory insurances are quite common.
|
| Wheter it's a good idea to do this via private for-profit
| insurance and healthcare is another question. I prefer to
| just pay it via taxes.
| jjav wrote:
| > It's really hard to be excited about the ACA.
|
| While your complains are all true and the ACA is a mess
| compared to any developed country, it is still very
| exciting to have the ACA. For anyone who was barred from
| getting insurance before, it is _the_ lifesaver,
| literally.
|
| Compared to other countries, ACA isn't very good (to put
| it mildly) but compared to how the US was before it, it
| is the most wonderful improvement ever.
| wingspar wrote:
| Democrats held all Presidency, House, and Senate in the
| first two years of the Biden administration. 2021-2022
| shlant wrote:
| someone doesn't understand how passing laws work. Just
| because you barely have a majority, does not mean you can
| do anything you want.
| gershy wrote:
| Can you elaborate? Genuinely curious!
| shlant wrote:
| sure: just because you barely have a majority, does not
| mean you can do anything you want.
|
| Edited original comment to be more productive.
| umanwizard wrote:
| You need 60/100 votes to control the senate, which they
| did not have, so no, they didn't hold the senate.
| jkestner wrote:
| With a simple majority, they can change the rules of the
| Senate so that a simple majority will get a bill passed.
| The filibuster is not in the Constitution.
| lokar wrote:
| We are probably about to see that in action
| daedrdev wrote:
| Manchin and Senna refused to do that, as the most
| conservative democrats in districts trump won by double
| digits. Thus they did not have the votes.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| They controlled the Presidency, House and Senate at the
| start of Biden's term.
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| Isn't it true that Roe should have been codified long ago?
| I wonder why that never happen like it did in Canada after
| Morgentaler
| sokoloff wrote:
| Because it was a critical fundraising topic for decades
| (on both sides, to be fair).
|
| I don't exactly know how much of national politics is
| optimizing for fundraising rather than for making
| citizens' lives better, but it's clearly far too great.
| johndhi wrote:
| Woah this is a very interesting point
| shlant wrote:
| conspiracies are not "very interesting point[s]"
|
| The reality is that:
|
| 1. Abortion has always been one of the most divisive
| topics in the US
|
| 2. Roe vs. Wade to begin with was a very shaky legal
| hodgepodge based around right to privacy
|
| 3. Codifying something like that takes immense political
| might and public approval neither of which existed in a
| significant capacity
| lokar wrote:
| It's not that divisive outside the political class.
|
| 60+% majorities have supported abortion as a right until
| near the end of the second trimester, and for the health
| of the mother after that (for 30+ years).
| 0xBDB wrote:
| That is not the case. Support drops well below a majority
| after the _first_ trimester, and always has.
|
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/321143/americans-stand-
| abortion....
| RajT88 wrote:
| More and more clearly.
| computerthings wrote:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15abortion
| .ht...
|
| > "the first thing I'd do as president is sign the
| Freedom of Choice Act"
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/markets/us/obama-says-
| aborti...
|
| > "I would like to reduce the number of unwanted
| pregnancies that result in women feeling compelled to get
| an abortion, or at least considering getting an abortion,
| particularly if we can reduce the number of teen
| pregnancies," Obama said.
| EasyMark wrote:
| That's a popular misconception that has been shattered
| for well over a decade. That is nearly impossible with
| the filibuster, there was one slim window of 1 or 2
| months in Obama's terms that they could have squeezed it
| in. Otherwise it's a fight to the death every time with
| the republicans in the Senate (filibuster)
| tpmoney wrote:
| The problem is the filibuster is a choice of the senate.
| They can at any time decide to do away with it, it's not
| law and not a law of nature. But they don't because it
| serves their interests to be able to throw their hands up
| in the air and not even have to try to pass legislation.
| EasyMark wrote:
| That's no something that is going to happen, -both-
| parties dearly love the filibuster, if it can just be
| done away with, against, precedence then it will become
| useless whenever a party gets the slimmest of majorities.
| I'm not sure how much longer it matters though, if this
| turns into a dictatorship
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I mean.. it is technically not inaccurate, but it fails to
| account for the remaining portion of the balance of power.
|
| That said, there were very few moments, where a given party
| had house, senate and presidency at the same time. And most
| of those moments were divided almost evenly in half so
| breaking ranks had a big effect.
|
| I think what I am saying it is a tired talking point.
| EasyMark wrote:
| Controlling the house doesn't mean anything. Any minority
| easily control legislation with the ability of an easy
| filibuster. You seem to forget trump was in for 4 years as
| well with many split Congresses. You can't blame democrats
| for all the bad things for that period when one party
| (minority at times) is actively working for the 1%
| Brybry wrote:
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Combine
| d...
|
| The 111th Congress was the only time in the last 20 years
| Democrats had a filibuster-proof trifecta and that was for
| 72 days. [1]
|
| That was the government that gave us the Affordable Care
| Act aka Obamacare.
|
| The other Democrat trifecta was the 117th Congress[2] but
| if you look that's only with independents in the Senate
| that caucused with Democrats. Obviously also not filibuster
| proof.
|
| That's the government that gave us the CHIPS act.
|
| Think about how often parties are in power and they can't
| even fill appointed positions because of partisan
| opposition during confirmation, let alone pass legislation.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111th_United_States_Congress
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/117th_United_States_Congress
| jampekka wrote:
| > That was the government that gave us the Affordable
| Care Act aka Obamacare.
|
| Aka Romneycare, originally put forth by the Heritage
| Foundation. If that's the best Democrats can do, no
| wonder people aren't too optimistic about them.
| soco wrote:
| If people were logical like you suggest, they wouldn't
| vote for an even worse situation. Yet they constantly do,
| so I'm sorry I cannot accept "logic" as a reason for the
| latest vote. People voted something, they got something,
| and they will get something back (where all those
| somethings aren't even important for elections). No, I'm
| not sarcastic, also not joking. Campaign and vote looked
| as seen from here absolutely bonkers.
| jampekka wrote:
| It's not a good reason to vote republicans but it is a
| good reason to be apathetic about democrats and the
| political system in general.
| Aunche wrote:
| The reason Democrats couldn't do more is because not
| enough people voted for them, so they can only be angry
| with themselves. We would have had a public option if
| Congress didn't have to rely on the Blue Dog democrats.
| IMO Democratic voters have unreasonable expectations for
| their politicians and Republicans basically have none.
| Did Trump face any consequence to failing to pass a
| border bill during his administration?
| jampekka wrote:
| Obama was apathetic at best in pursuing the public option
| once he got elected. He made a deal with the hospital
| lobby early on to drop it.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20211027180129/https://www.ny
| tim...
| wwweston wrote:
| The Democratic Party are the ones that passed it. The
| Republicans didn't, not when they held the legislature,
| not when they held the presidency and the legislature.
| Even when Romney signed it in MA (to his credit), it came
| from the Democratic Party held state legislature.
|
| And its passage has helped _millions_ , people I know
| personally and probably people you know personally. Maybe
| anyone who'd ever heard the phrase "pre-existing
| condition" before. It's one of the single most effective
| and widely beneficial government efforts in our
| lifetimes.
|
| It's not that fact that Democrats did it by taking the
| best parts of an opposition party policy isn't
| impressive, it's that the unseriousness of Republicans
| when it comes to their own ostensible policy ideas is
| depressive.
| lokar wrote:
| The ACA is not ideal, but is the line between life and
| death for millions of Americans.
| heylook wrote:
| From Wikipedia:
|
| The public health insurance option, also known as the
| public insurance option or the public option, is a
| proposal to create a government-run health insurance
| agency that would compete with other private health
| insurance companies within the United States. The public
| option is not the same as publicly funded health care,
| but was proposed as an alternative health insurance plan
| offered by the government. The public option was
| initially proposed for the Patient Protection and
| Affordable Care Act, but was removed after the
| independent US senator for Connecticut Joe Lieberman
| threatened a filibuster.
|
| As a result, Congress did not include the public option
| in the bill passed under reconciliation. The public
| option was later supported by Hillary Clinton and the
| Democratic Party in the 2016 and 2020 elections and
| multiple other Democratic candidates, including the
| current President, Joe Biden.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_health_insurance_opt
| ion
| anonymousab wrote:
| > filibuster-proof
|
| Well there's your problem. The GOP knows that you need to
| sidestep those kind of tedious anachronisms in order to
| wield power effectively and get what you want. The Dems
| needed to learn that lesson several administrations ago.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| The same reason the GOP didn't do anything about the border
| or gun rights when they had the chance. Why solve an issue
| when you can use it to get people to vote in the next
| election? Its a gamification of government. They are more
| concerned with keeping their jobs than governing.
| blindriver wrote:
| Trump had the Wait in Mexico policy which was great. GOP
| never promised anything on gun rights, but Trump single-
| handedly banned bump stocks after the Las Vegas massacre
| which is more than Obama ever side on gun control.
| lokar wrote:
| And then his judges reversed the ban
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I think a gun ban in the US is going to require a
| constitutional amendment to repeal the 2nd. Anything else
| is, at best, temporary.
| lokar wrote:
| No need. Just appoint ideological judges with no respect
| for precedent (that they disagree with).
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > They did nothing to help with Women's healthcare.
|
| What about Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act)? I think
| that helped many women secure healthcare, which is
| incredibly important during pregnancy, childbirth, and
| early childhood. > keep abortion legal
|
| As I understand, after the US Supreme Court cancelled (I
| don't know the correct term) protection abortion rights,
| many states automatically banned it (via "trigger" laws.)
| However, I read that many women are using video calls with
| out-of-state doctors to get prescriptions for (chemical)
| abortion pills. I wish I had more hard numbers on it, but
| the number of abortions has not fallen as much as people
| thought. Also, depending upon your income level and
| proximity to a neighboring state that still allows
| traditional (surgical) abortion, many women drive to the
| next state for the procedure.
| psychlops wrote:
| I didn't understand the focus on abortion as an issue for
| people. It's a legislative problem after Roe was overturned
| and it's not clear to me what the presidency would do to
| change that other than asking the other branches to take a
| federal action.
| hibikir wrote:
| It's really all about control of the courts. They can, for
| all intents and purposes, throw laws away, inclusive
| sections of the constitution with little to no recourse
| without a level of control of the legislative branch that
| is extremely rare.
|
| Given that congress is so naturally weak, the most
| important part of it is the senate's role in federal
| judicial appointments.
| camdenreslink wrote:
| It was a winning ballot measure, and protection for it was
| passed in most states it ran (even states where Trump won).
| Didn't translate to enough enthusiasm for voters though.
| lokar wrote:
| It's currently unclear, but it's likely congress could
| enact a nationwide ban.
| gspencley wrote:
| > Women's healthcare isn't an issue that resonates with young
| (read: unmarried) men
|
| Disclaimer: I'm Canadian, not American, so my opinions don't
| matter.
|
| I'm married with two daughters who are in their early 20s.
| The abortion issue has come up in my household when
| discussing Trump v Kamala, but the thing that the Democrats
| didn't seem to get is that even though it's something that my
| wife & daughters care about in the abstract, it's not a
| PRESSING matter for them because they're not planning on
| needing an abortion ever, let alone any time soon.
|
| That doesn't mean that they aren't pro choice & don't want
| women's reproductive rights protected at the federal level,
| like it is here in Canada. But on the hierarchy of things
| that matter to them today, it is extremely far down on the
| list. What matters to them most right now is the economy and
| rising crime rates.
|
| The right wing also spun it as "why on earth do the Democrats
| think that every single woman is dying to murder her unborn
| baby?" And while us pro-choicers don't look at it that way, I
| think that kind of worked as a reminder that while it's an
| issue, it's just not the most important one affecting their
| day to day lives at the moment.
| _ph_ wrote:
| The problem is, even when there is never the plan of having
| an abortion, healthcare support for women suffers greatly
| from the abortion plans. Because it gets legally
| problematic for doctors to provide healthcare for women.
| Sooner or later you will have a patient with a medical
| emergency during a pregnancy. There are already enough
| incidents where critical ill women don't get medical
| treatment because they also are pregnant.
| cassepipe wrote:
| While I agree with you I think you are missing the point
| made by parent which is seems to me that it's _not_ a
| _psychologically_ pressing issue.
|
| It still seems wild to me because I don't share that
| psychology but am probably biased because I live in a
| place with a social safety net and most criminals don't
| have access to guns here so crime is less scary to me :
| Muggings are rare probably because it's not very
| profitable and is more of desperate/drug-addict thing.
|
| Being a drug dealer seems much more profitable and I
| don't feel targeted as a person. Shootings remain rare
| _ph_ wrote:
| And I was trying to make the point that it already is a
| pressing problem for any woman living in those states and
| of course any male who feels attached to them. Because
| medical support for women of any age is strongly
| decreasing.
| gspencley wrote:
| > and most criminals don't have access to guns here so
| crime is less scary to me
|
| I'm the parent and you did an excellent job of clarifying
| what I was trying to say.
|
| I do want to respond to this statement, however, since
| I'm Canadian and in one of those countries where abortion
| is federally protected (and Canadians strongly favour
| that across partisan lines for the most part) and I live
| in what used to be one of the safest cities in Canada.
|
| 10 - 20 years ago, homicide was virtually unheard of in
| our city. I mean, it was like a once in a decade event
| and almost always domestic violence. Today, we can't go a
| week without hearing about another stabbing or shooting
| that happened out in public.
|
| Recently our street saw every single vehicle broken into,
| including ours. We all filed police reports but no one
| ever showed up or even gave us a follow up call. The
| message was clear: the police either don't have the
| capacity or just don't care to deal with certain crimes
| now. To contrast, I remember my house being broken into
| when I was around 13 or 14 years-old, so mid 1990s, and I
| remember watching the detective powder the windows for
| prints.
|
| Times have changed here in scary ways. We pay the same
| taxes and have the same expectations of our government as
| we always did. Canadians value the social safety nets and
| gun regulations that we have. The problem is that those
| don't seem to be working as well as they used to. We earn
| less due to inflation, pay the same or higher taxes, and
| get less in return. Most of us know of people who travel
| to the USA for health care due to our long waiting lists
| while hearing from Americans how great our free health
| care is.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| What city is this? Toronto metro homicides have been ~100
| per year for the last 50 years despite Toronto metro
| population skyrocketing. Basically all Canadian cities
| show the same pattern.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| Abbotsford is my guess. That place went from a peaceful
| farming community to a gang warzone in 20 years. There
| are a LOT of targeted homicides there and it is very
| visible. I have family there and there have been multiple
| shootings within a few hundred meters of their home. How
| can you feel safe?
|
| Almost all of the homicides are targeted gang violence
| between ethnic groups, but it still makes you concerned
| for your safety that you are going to take a stray
| bullet.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Abbotsford is basically metro Vancouver at this point,
| and they're basically experiencing Vancouver crime now.
| Crime going up in Abbotsford and going down in Vancouver
| is terrible for those in Abbotsford but doesn't support
| the narrative that "crime is going up".
| nradov wrote:
| The USA is sort of like two separate countries that share
| a common geography. Muggings and other violent street
| crime are largely confined to a handful of neighborhoods
| in certain cities. In my city we have literally _zero_
| shootings most years. So people have completely different
| experiences depending on where they live and end up
| talking past each other.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _rising crime rates._
|
| What can you do about a low information voter?
|
| _they 're not planning on needing an abortion ever, let
| alone any time soon._
|
| People rarely _plan_ to get an abortion. Setting that
| aside, more than anything, from a political perspective,
| this is an issue about _freedom_. I 'm not planning on
| buying a firearm any time soon, but I wouldn't support a
| firearm ban (and thankfully, I don't have to worry about
| this because no mainstream politician is running on this
| policy). It doesn't matter what your thoughts about
| abortion are, women should have the _freedom_ to have
| autonomy over themselves. Also, the anti-abortion laws are
| also preventing women from getting medicine for treating
| some chronic disease.
| gspencley wrote:
| > What can you do about a low information voter?
|
| I already explained this in another reply, but while
| crime rates might be going down across the board, I'm
| talking about what my daughters, my wife and their
| friends are telling me. And they are not low information
| voters, because crime rates are sky rocketing in our area
| and the data supports that. We live in what used to be
| considered one of the safest cities in all of Canada, and
| now we hear about a new shooting or stabbing in public
| just about every week. Mostly drug and gang related.
|
| Everything else you said, especially about the abortion
| issue being a freedom issue, is preaching to the choir. I
| agree with you. I'm talking about the mindset of my wife,
| my daughters and their friends and what they say matters
| to them.
| ImJamal wrote:
| > What can you do about a low information voter?
|
| Crime has increased in the US. The official numbers were
| wrong and were recently corrected, instead of dropping by
| 2% they actually increased by over 4%.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41859346
|
| This is something that the average person saw. The only
| people who didn't were in a bubble.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| The article you're linking to makes claims about FBI
| data, but its only evidence are links to and images
| created from another website [0], and not the FBI data it
| is referencing. Further, following the link, the site
| claims "the data is here" and links only to self hosted
| excel files and _not_ to the referenced FBI data.
|
| 0 - A website which happens to have a conservative bias
| and has failed several fact checks according to Media
| Bias/Fact Check: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/crime-
| prevention-research-cen...
| gonzobonzo wrote:
| And even if they were low by U.S. standard, they're still
| much higher than other countries, and much higher than
| people would like. Imagine if someone responded like that
| to other issues:
|
| "I think we should do more to reduce childhood hunger."
|
| "Childhood hunger is already lower than it used to be,
| you must be a low information voter."
|
| **
|
| "I think we should do more to reduce traffic fatalities."
|
| "Traffic fatalities are already lower than they used to
| be, you must be a low information voter."
|
| **
|
| "I think we should reduce carbon emissions."
|
| "Carbon emissions are already lower than they used to be,
| you must be a low information voter."
|
| If these are important issues for you, you're not going
| to want to be on the same team with the people who
| respond like that.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| The original discuss was around "rising crime rates", not
| "high crime rates". Even if you want to have this
| separate discussion, you're leaving out the obvious
| context of "crime rates are lower than they used to be
| _when Trump was president immediately prior to this_ ",
| so, if you think crime is too high, the answer is not
| someone who presided over even more crime.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > What can you do about a low information voter?
|
| You can cite various statistics to a person up until the
| point their car or house is broken into. Or, until they
| don't feel safe at night any longer in the neighborhood
| they grew up.
|
| We can double down and say these are "ignorant" voters,
| maybe even insult them, but I doubt that will help win
| them over. Even worse, it will alienate them.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| At what point do you think you should look a little more
| locally for the problem when nationwide trends are going
| the other way?
| hyeonwho4 wrote:
| Why do you think crime is down?
|
| Looking at 12 month running averages from FBI UCR since
| 2012, crime has been in a generally increasing trend from
| the last minimum, which was in the 12 months starting Jan
| 2020, to a maximum in the year starting Dec 2022.
|
| https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/c
| rim...
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Going by the recent FBI report:
| https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-
| releases-2023-cr...
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _this is an issue about freedom._
|
| There is a fundamental issue that pro-choice people (of
| which I am, as well) continuously overlook with this
| argument: a fetus isn't merely a clump of cells up until
| it leaves the woman's body. At some point it's a viable
| human being and also deserves rights. Is that 3 months? 6
| months? 8 months? I don't know, but it's somewhere.
|
| Most people in the _world_ share that view; why are pro-
| abortionists so ignorant of it?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Who exactly do you think gets abortions? When and why?
| Because this is another obvious lie we hear from the
| Trump's campaigning: "They will take the life of a child
| in the eighth month, the ninth month and even after
| birth."
|
| 93.5% of abortions happen before 13 weeks. 0.9% happen
| after 21 weeks [0]. Since Texas' trigger laws have been
| put into place, the maternal mortality rate rose by 56%
| [1]! In 2022, there was an 11.6% increase in _infant_
| mortality! Before that, across the years 2014-2021,
| infants death _fell_ nearly 15% [2]. On top of this, 4
| pregnant women have died because they couldn 't get the
| care they needed and and again, women are finding they
| can't get certain medicines for chronic diseases because
| doctors are afraid to prescribe them. If you respect
| these lives, I would invite you to consider what is
| happening in the real world alongside your thought
| exercises about cells.
|
| 0 - https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/ss/ss7209a1.htm#:
| ~:text=....
|
| 1 - https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/texas-
| abortion-...
|
| 2 - https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/20/health/texas-abortion-
| ban-inf...
| otikik wrote:
| It has never been about it being "pressing", or even about
| ideology. It's about cold, calculated electoral math.
|
| Abortion is what's called a Wedge Issue[1]. It is so
| because the public opinion on the US is divided roughtly
| 50% for it and 50% against it.
|
| On top of that, the US presidential election is a First-
| past-the-post[2] system. So if I manage to get 52% of the
| votes and you only get 48%, I win everything, you lose
| everything. You can probably imagine where this is going:
| Instead of convincing 51% of the people I only need to
| convince 3% of the indecisive, and I win.
|
| Finally, the US is a very polarized country. The "other" is
| always bad, "we" are always good. So the wedge issues tend
| to "align". If you and I agree on abortion, we will
| probably also agree in most of the other wedge issues.
|
| All of these factors together result in that both Democrats
| and Republicans are forced to "optimize", so their
| campaigns all revolve around the same wedge issues. They
| must, if they want to win.
|
| If you ask me, the least complex way to get the country out
| of this rut would be changing the voting system to
| something other First Past The Post.
|
| Unfortunately, the people who are in a position to make
| such a change are the least motivated to make it.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_issue
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-
| post_voting
| vel0city wrote:
| > they're not planning on needing an abortion
|
| I'm not planning on being in a car accident. I guess I just
| shouldn't care about policies that force doctors to let car
| accident victims just bleed out.
| blub wrote:
| Wearing a condom, taking birth control easily prevents a
| pregnancy. There is no similar protection against car
| accidents.
|
| OP politely explained their reasoning and you're being an
| ass.
| vel0city wrote:
| Funny you mention contraception here, that's another
| thing the GOP is openly talking about making more
| difficult for people to access.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/thomas-
| wants-...
|
| Even then, no contraception is 100% effective. The _only_
| 100% effective thing is abstinence. Just like getting
| into a car accident, the only way to not have any risk is
| to not get in the car. But good luck living in the US
| without getting in a car or being around moving cars.
|
| I'm just pointing out the reality of their choices.
| They're acting like the only people who get a D&C are
| people who planned to get one before they were even
| pregnant. Most people who get this kind of care don't go
| into it _planning_ on doing it. It 's like thinking
| people planned to break their legs or planned to get
| cancer.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Funny you mention contraception here, that 's another
| thing the GOP is openly talking about making more
| difficult for people to access._
|
| Buddy, we are long past believing NBC's interpretation of
| a complicated legal ruling. Your guys have been scare
| mongering for way too long. Believe it or not, there are
| lots of sensible conservatives.
| vel0city wrote:
| > In future cases, we should reconsider all of this
| Court's substantive due process precedents, including
| Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell
|
| Buddy, if you can't understand what these very direct
| words mean I don't know what to tell you. This isn't some
| "NBC interpretation of a complicated legal ruling", he's
| openly and directly saying these decisions should be
| overturned. He is directly stating we should reconsider
| contraception access, _throwing gay people in prison for
| being gay_ , and recognizing gay marriage.
|
| The modern GOP is openly talking about repealing the
| court decisions which legalized wide access to
| contraception, disallowed throwing people in prison for
| being gay, and requiring states to recognize gay
| marriage. This isn't some fringe conspiracy theory or
| complicated legal ruling fear mongering, _its directly
| what they 're saying_.
|
| Quit burying your head in the sand and _listen_ to what
| your own party is actually saying.
| lcc wrote:
| Accidental pregnancy is preventable, but abortion
| restrictions also undermine the safety of women who are
| pregnant by choice. We saw this recently with Nevaeh
| Crain, for example, who died because doctors were afraid
| that treating her might harm her baby. Sadly the baby
| died anyway.
|
| You can't protect against random medical emergencies.
| kaitai wrote:
| Many women get pregnant and want a kid and experience
| complications. Roughly 25% of pregnancies end in
| miscarriage. Restrictions on abortion care must
| necessarily negatively affect care for pregnant women who
| have not sought & don't want abortion. The care for
| complications of abortion and miscarriage are essentially
| identical. Incentives are aligned for doctors to deny
| care for either. There is no medical, civil, or criminal
| recourse for women who die or have their health affected
| by improper care for pregnancy complication, miscarriage,
| or complication of abortion; there is no punishment for
| doctors who fail to provide medical standard of care;
| there is an affirmative effort by some states to punish
| doctors who would provide such care.
| gspencley wrote:
| I agree with you but you're missing the point.
|
| As I said, women's reproductive issues ARE important to
| them. It does come up in discussions.
|
| The point is that people often tend to be single-issue,
| or few-issues voters... and there are policy issues that
| are just way more important to them right this very
| second. Issues like the economy and the housing crises.
|
| My wife and I were living on our own and starting a
| family when we were our daughters' age. Our daughters not
| only still live with us but they have abandoned any hopes
| of ever being able to own a home of their own.
|
| Our oldest daughter, who will turn 25 soon, wanted
| nothing more in life than to have a family and she is
| seeing the time window for that slip by. She thought
| she'd be married with a home and kids by now. She found
| her partner, he lives with us now too. Why would the
| abortion message resonate with her when what's bothering
| her most is that she wants kids?
|
| From what I've heard in the news, the women who were
| single-issue-voters on abortion tended to be older women
| who are concerned about the rights of their daughters and
| grand daughters.
|
| But I do wonder how many young women are in similar
| situations to my oldest daughter. Women who are more
| concerned about whether or not they can have kids versus
| whether or not they could terminate an unwanted
| pregnancy. They might not be a huge voting block, I
| honestly don't know. But I can't imagine that the
| abortion message resonated with this demographic at all.
| vel0city wrote:
| > Why would the abortion message resonate with her when
| what's bothering her most is that she wants kids?
|
| Anyone thinking about possibly becoming pregnant should
| absolutely be worried about whether their doctors will be
| able to save their lives when something goes wrong, which
| is very often. If you think "abortion" rights are only
| about unwanted pregnancies you've got far too narrow of
| an understanding of the reproductive process and what can
| go wrong. You think Nevaeh Crain's child was unwanted, or
| the many other women whose deaths were just like hers?
|
| > they have abandoned any hopes of ever being able to own
| a home of their own
|
| Project 2025 pretty much ensure affordable housing pretty
| much won't get built anywhere near jobs are. It doubles
| down on NIBY housing policies and prevents densification
| of areas. It doubles down on requiring a car to drive to
| work on a long commute. Maybe they'll be able to afford a
| new build in a suburb 70 miles from their jobs
| eventually.
|
| > Issues like the economy
|
| Looking forward to that new 20%+ sales tax on imported
| (read: _most_ things) you buy. That 'll really do a lot
| for the economy. Good choice.
| meowfly wrote:
| You are capturing why I think abortion is a good wedge
| issue but a poor campaign issue.
|
| * Men aren't directly affected by it (~50% population)
|
| * Woman over 40 aren't generally affected by it
|
| So woman between 18-40 who can vote are the group most
| affected by abortion policy. And as you point out, even
| they aren't directly affected until they actually need one.
| So the skin-in-the-game for most people is very low. Most
| people vote and are opinionated on it as a sort of proxy
| for woman's rights.
|
| However, some issues like house affordability, crime,
| employment, etc are very high for skin-in-the-game. People
| are currently affected or know people currently affected by
| these issues.
| vel0city wrote:
| I would absolutely be affected by my wife dying from
| something which should be preventable but has been made
| pretty much illegal.
|
| I would absolutely be affected by my friend dying from
| something which should be preventable but has been made
| pretty much illegal.
|
| I am not an 18-40 woman and I _am_ affected by the
| abortion policies in my state.
| tayo42 wrote:
| > they're not planning on needing an abortion ever, let
| alone any time soon.
|
| Accidents happen. Do they not have sex ever?
| bmitc wrote:
| > Dem messaging on economic policy was nonexistent.
|
| In what way do you think the Republicans care about the
| economy? How should the Democrats communicate better that the
| Republicans tank the economy with every presidency only to be
| recovered by the Democrats who hand off a winning economy to
| the Republicans? To be completely honest, I don't think most
| Americans can even understand the argument.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| > The biggest issue on people's minds was the economy.
|
| Which is kinda bizzare to me as a European - American
| salaries and economic output are growing the fastest of
| basically any developed economy, _especially_ in the poorer
| segements of society. By all accounts, post-COVID Dem
| policies have been incredibly succcessful.
|
| But that's not good enough?!
| astura wrote:
| Cost of living has outpaced wage growth in the last several
| years for most Americans.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| I can't speak for what it feels like on-the-ground, but
| the numbers saying American real wages are growing fast,
| especially for poorer people.
| S_Bear wrote:
| If you're making $8 and hour and get bumped up to $12,
| that's a 50% bump but you still can't afford to live and
| need a second job. Based on the job postings in my part
| of the US, that's pretty much standard.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Could this be that if you don't have a social safety net
| things are much more worrying economically ?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| And because of that, voters have routinely installed the
| party for 50 years that promises to cut welfare?
| cassepipe wrote:
| I am not saying they're right. If you are told that
| welfare is a burden to society/communism and that you
| have to fend for yourself then yes you will only care
| about "the economy" and not ask for more welfare
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I believe I can answer this as I personally saw it as an
| issue ( with the disclaimer that I think neither candidate
| even suggested appropriate corrective actions ). Our
| household is above average for US and the state and yet I
| still have near constant drain on my cash reserves on a
| regular basis. In other words, my real purchasing power
| decreased DESPITE some increase in absolute salary numbers.
| sensanaty wrote:
| I'm not a Yank so I've got no clue about the reality on the
| ground, but is that actually true? Sure, the statistics say
| GDP is growing or whatever, but do real, normal working
| people feel the effects of those bumps? Cause the way it
| seems is that you've got a few extremely wealthy
| milli/billionares sucking up every single possible cent
| that can be sucked up while your average Joe gets screwed
| more and more. Companies are doing great, and so are people
| in the stock market, but is that representative of the rest
| of the country? I suspect it isn't
| thechao wrote:
| The economic term-of-art is the GINI coefficient. And,
| yeah, the US's GINI is crazy.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
| bombcar wrote:
| The average person sees grocery costs rising, and is
| unable to move because they can't replace the interest
| rate on the loan they have. This feels quite squeezing.
| timeon wrote:
| > Cause the way it seems is that you've got a few
| extremely wealthy milli/billionares sucking up every
| single possible cent that can be sucked up while your
| average Joe gets screwed more and more.
|
| Is there hope that this will change under Republican
| government?
| sensanaty wrote:
| I highly doubt it, but it obviously also wasn't happening
| under the Democrats, or at the very least it wasn't being
| perceived as if things were/could improve.
|
| Eventually people get tired and listen to populists.
| That's why they get elected, because they'll tell you
| what you want to hear. Whether they actually have any
| plans of doing it or not is almost irrelevant when you're
| dealing with bullshit on both sides.
|
| The only way to beat populists is to have actual concrete
| plans, which as far as I saw as a non-USAian at least,
| the democrats barely ever spoke of, and it seems to be
| the common sentiment across this thread as well.
|
| Denmark is a good example of what I mean, they had a
| surge in right-wing populist parties due to people's
| ongoing and ignored issues with Illegal immigration
| (among other things). Know what the moderates, who were
| in power, did? They adjusted their policies accordingly
| with actual concrete plans that they set in motion. And
| to no one's surprise, the populist parties died down and
| people calmed down in general once they saw that action
| was actually being taken.
| bioneuralnet wrote:
| On the contrary - "Let the millionaires/billionaires do
| whatever they want" has been a core pillar of their
| platform for decades.
|
| To be fair, Democrats are historically only marginally
| better in that regard.
| ak_111 wrote:
| American wealth isn't uniformly distributed. And as soon as
| you fall below a threshold of poverty in the US you feel it
| 10x more painfully than an equally poor person in Europe.
|
| The US series _Breaking Bad_ talks about a well-behaved
| chemistry teacher who resorts to manufacturing and selling
| drugs after he gets cancer and finds out that his savings
| are no where close to covering the medical cost. He needs
| to magic the money from somewhere or simply die. Such a
| context for the story will sound utterly bizarre to almost
| all Europeans (including Russians).
| bluecalm wrote:
| Yeah man, we usually die waiting for treatment instead. I
| had cervical spine issue which made it impossible for me
| to work, walk for longer than few minutes, sit in certain
| positions. I would need to wait 3 years to get it fixed
| in my EU country and that is after few years of paying
| more in healthcare contributions than some of the most
| expensive premium insurance plans in US.
|
| I paid out of pocket to be able to function. Whatever the
| solution to American healthcare costs is it's not what we
| do in EU.
| margorczynski wrote:
| Yep this is what a lot of the socialists in the US don't
| understand - they think you'll get the same level and
| speed of treatment in EU as the US, you just pay much
| less.
|
| That is not the case - as mentioned even in pretty
| serious cases you might need to wait 1 year or more for
| something that should be done ASAP, on top of that the
| quality of the doctors isn't the best. This is especially
| bad for well-off people (as in middle class) as you pay
| e.g. 500-1000 USD a month and can't even get a basic
| check-up.
| no_wizard wrote:
| This doesn't paint an accurate picture of socialized
| healthcare either.
|
| If you go east and look at Japan[0] which also has
| socialized healthcare the quality of healthcare there is
| very good
|
| [0]: https://www.oecd-
| ilibrary.org/docserver/9789264225817-5-en.p...
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Japan is an outlier in most societal comparisons because
| they have a unique trait called "homogeneous monoculture
| with a strong adherence"
|
| You end up with cool things like high trust, and shitty
| things like intense racism.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Japan isn't an outlier, there are other countries with
| universal healthcare that are also high functioning, like
| Canada (Ranked 7th in public health and 5th in quality of
| life), Norway, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Germany,
| Sweden.
|
| Not to mention if it was on the median so bad for
| citizens you'd see more broad support for repealing it in
| countries where it is supposedly isn't working, but that
| isn't really happening either.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Status quo bias is powerful
| bluecalm wrote:
| Yeah and in some countries with private insurance
| healthcare is good as well (Switzerland). It's just not
| about public vs private. It's about sensible regulation
| so services can be delivered cheaper and
| cartels/monopolies are curtailed.
| no_wizard wrote:
| I agree. The only model we have for this in the US
| currently is Medicare. It's the only version of universal
| healthcare we have and would be the most obvious way to
| implement it
| themaninthedark wrote:
| Right but you also have everyone pay for health insurance
| in Japan. If you don't pay of it and suddenly decide that
| you want it, you have to pay the back owed portion as
| well before it is applied.
| huhkerrf wrote:
| > The US series Breaking Bad talks about a well-behaved
| chemistry teacher who resorts to manufacturing and
| selling drugs after he gets cancer and finds out that his
| savings are no where close to covering the medical cost
|
| At the risk of going off topic, this is a popular, but
| incorrect meme. Walter could have had enough money for
| his cancer treatment, especially after getting the offer
| of paying it off by his former cofounders. He started
| selling drugs to provide for his family because his
| cancer was terminal. (And continued because of his own
| hubris.)
| ak_111 wrote:
| I watched it long time so forgot the exact details. But
| you are saying he could have had enough money from his
| cofounders, but that was still after he decided to start
| drug dealing. So how is that refuting that the initial
| trigger for his drug making was to make enough money for
| his treatment?
| milkshakes wrote:
| he declined the offer
| softg wrote:
| I think the point they're making is "Walter White is a
| well-behaved chemistry teacher who resorts to
| manufacturing and selling drugs after he gets cancer"
| would still be true even if he stopped dealing drugs
| after he was offered money.
| filoleg wrote:
| Multiple offers, in fact.
|
| One in the very beginning of the show, when Walter's old
| friend Elliott offers him a job at his company (that
| Walter originally created with him, but later quit, and
| then it ended up turning into a very successful business
| afterwards). With the explicit mention of their health
| insurance being able to cover all the costs of his
| treatment.
|
| Then later in the show, Elliott and his wife straight up
| offered him money to cover everything, feeling that
| Walter deserves it (not in the least part, for being an
| original cofounder who was unlucky and quit right before
| the company got big).
|
| There were more moments like those that i keep
| forgetting, but claiming that Walter started
| manufacturing drugs as some last resort to cover his
| medical bills is complete revisionism.
| allkindsof wrote:
| The healthcare in America is so bad you _have to_ be a
| drug kingpin to afford it.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> The US series Breaking Bad talks about a well-behaved
| chemistry teacher who resorts to manufacturing and
| selling drugs after he gets cancer and finds out that his
| savings are no where close to covering the medical cost._
|
| This is an incredibly bad example and a meme that
| clueless people (usually Europeans) love to bring up time
| and time again but if you watch the show carefully,
| you'll see that Walter actually had health coverage for
| his chemo therapy from his school insurance but he
| resorted to selling meth because he wanted the best chemo
| therapist in the sate of New Mexico, and one of the top
| 10 in the whole US, so he had to go privately out of
| pocket. In Europe you'd also need a boatload of cash or a
| top private insurance if you'd choose the best private
| chemo therapist and clinic in the country outside the
| public health system where Walter would be on long
| waiting lists if he were in Europe.
|
| And reason number two, he mainly sold meth because he had
| a huge ego that prevented him from accepting charity for
| his treatment and he loved the danger and thrill of it in
| his mid-life crisis to compensate for being a
| looser/push-over his entire life holding his career back
| despite his scientific brilliance, nothing to do with the
| US health system, that's why the show's writing and
| character development was so good.
|
| Anyway, pointing at a fantasy TV show as an argument for
| real life issues is just silly. It's not real.
| ak_111 wrote:
| "In Europe you'd also need a boatload of cash or a top
| private insurance if you'd choose the best private chemo
| therapist and clinic in the country outside the public
| health system where Walter would be on long waiting lists
| if he were in Europe."
|
| This is extremely incorrect take. Ask anyone in France,
| Germany or the UK. The quality of outcome is extremely
| small between public and private even for the most
| complicated procedure. Perhaps in private you will get a
| better experience in terms of customer service.
|
| In fact some of the most notable experts usually work for
| both the public medical sector and run their own clinic.
|
| This is as incorrect as saying in Germany you have to go
| to a private university to get access to the best
| professors.
|
| There are also loads of datapoint supporting the
| "fantasy" take of the series. For example loads of
| american only start going for certain cancer screening at
| age 65 when it becomes free, this can visibly be seen in
| the data where there is a sudden jump in detection at
| this age. Again, this kind of behaviour would sound very
| bizarre for most Europeans.
| markus92 wrote:
| Long waiting lists for chemo? You don't know a whole lot
| about oncological care in Europa do you.
| someuser2345 wrote:
| Sort of. As far as I remember, his primary motivation
| wasn't to get treatment (he actually doesn't want to get
| treated at all at first), it was to leave behind enough
| money for his family.
| filoleg wrote:
| While I mostly agree with your overall point about wealth
| distribution in the US vs Europe (based on my purely
| anecdotal understanding of Europe), that Breaking Bad
| analogy I keep hearing over the years is just wrong in
| terms of what happened in the show (even though that
| analogy being bad doesn't defeat your larger point at
| all).
|
| Walter (the protagonist) didn't start manufacturing drugs
| as the last resort to pay medical bills. From the get-go,
| Walter got offered a job by his former co-founder friend
| Elliott (who ended up turning their startup into a
| successful corp, while Walter ended up quitting and
| becoming a teacher), with the explicit mention of their
| health insurance being sufficient to cover any medical
| expenses Walter might incur.
|
| That happened literally in the first few episodes of the
| show. Walter refuses because of his stupid pride. Later
| on in the show, Elliott and his wife straight up offer
| Walter to cover all medical costs (current and future
| ones), and he still refused. He had many many fantastic
| outs that didn't require him to continue manufacturing
| drugs (or even starting to do so in the first place).
|
| I am mostly upset about this inaccuracy, because it
| undercuts one of the most important aspects (if not *the*
| most important aspect) of the show. It is a story about a
| man who lived a life full of regrets, feels impotent, and
| found an excuse to do all the bad things that make him
| feel good, self-important, and inflate his ego to crazy
| highs, all without feeling any remorse whatsoever.
| ak_111 wrote:
| I don't see how it refutes the broader point that not
| having socialised medicine creates all kinds of
| diabolical dynamics in society that punishes you as soon
| as you fall out of the system for any reason.
|
| For example if I understood correctly he got "punished"
| by the system for preferring to work as a teacher than
| remain a cofounder and ended up losing his private health
| insurance this way.
|
| Also, I think that the fact that his wife offered to burn
| her savings to fund his medical expense will be very
| difficult for most men to accept it is not really an
| "out", especially with the survival rate of cancer, you
| might end up burning her saving and then leaving her fend
| off for the kids by herself. Also what happens if he took
| the offer then she got cancer or they got hit by another
| big medical bill?
| filoleg wrote:
| > I don't see how it refutes the broader point that not
| having socialised medicine creates all kinds of
| diabolical dynamics in society that punishes you as soon
| as you fall out of the system for any reason.
|
| It doesn't, which is why I said "while I [...] agree with
| your larger point about wealth distribution" in my
| original reply. My gripe was about the overplayed and
| incorrect "Breaking Bad is about a teacher who got pushed
| to manufacture drugs due to medical bills" trope, not
| about your larger point.
|
| > if I understood correctly he got "punished" by the
| system for preferring to work as a teacher than remain a
| cofounder and ended up losing his private health
| insurance this way.
|
| He had that private health insurance waiting for him, as
| Elliott instantly offered Walter his position back upon
| hearing the bad news. Walter simply refused that offer
| and decided that getting involved in manufacturing meth
| was more fun and rewarding to his ego.
|
| > Also, I think that the fact that his wife offered to
| burn her savings to fund his medical expense will be very
| difficult for most men to accept it is not really an
| "out"
|
| Walter's wife didn't offer that. It was Elliott (the
| cofounder) and his wife that offered it, both of whom are
| close friends of Walter and are multimillionaires due to
| their company's success. They themselves said that for
| them it wouldn't be a financial hit at all, and they
| insist on helping out their close friend in need.
| chronid wrote:
| You should look where the economy is growing and where the
| salaries are growing. It's not uniform at all.
|
| The entire situation (as an EU country citizen who moved to
| another EU country) and the narratives around it are funny
| to me because they're the same as the ones going around for
| years in my birth country.
|
| "Side X should learn they should get better candidates,
| otherwise people are not going to show up" way of thinking
| included, which has only led to further decline as the
| "conservatives" win and make the situation worse taking
| more and more seats and control in state controlled
| companies while at the same time pushing their own
| companies to absorb more and more of the budget. Yeah, not
| showing up because you did not like the candidate was a
| great success - if you wanted the decline to accelerate,
| that is.
|
| Well, good luck US friends, to you and us all.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| There's an economic component, and an emotional component.
|
| Economically, inflation hurt. Real wages may have come up
| to compensate, but you get the inflation first, and then,
| some time later, _then_ you get the wage increases. It
| still hurts. Even if the wages increase _more_ , it still
| takes some time to recover.
|
| Emotionally, it's not just the pain (and the remembered
| pain) from the inflation. It's Clinton calling people
| "deplorables". It's Biden calling them "garbage". It's the
| feeling that the Democrats have abandoned the working-class
| people - abandoned them for a couple of decades, in fact.
|
| Trump speaks those peoples' language. He understand their
| sense of rejection and abandonment. Those are the people
| that the Democratic party _claimed_ to champion, but the
| party took their support for granted, and championed a
| bunch of identity causes that the working class doesn 't
| identify with at all.
|
| Turns out ignoring and insulting your long-term base isn't
| a good way to win.
| prometheus76 wrote:
| Yesterday I went out for lunch. By myself. At a local
| Mexican restaurant. I ordered a burrito and a bottled coke.
| My bill was $18. Four years ago, that same meal at that
| same restaurant was $8. My salary has not doubled with
| inflation, but many of my costs have.
|
| No fancy economics equations can compensate for continual
| sticker shock at the consumer level.
| araes wrote:
| Same, small town, and the prices keep changing so fast in
| the last five years that the restaurants went from
| relatively nice durable menus to cheap little paper
| plastic flaps, because they kept having to reprint the
| menus again and again with all the price hikes.
| xnx wrote:
| The rapid change in prices have been a lot to adjust to,
| but consumers seem OK with it because they keep buying
| expensive goods.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| I would be surprised if everyone stopped buying food...
| vehemenz wrote:
| If I understand the argument, we're collapsing the world
| order over the price of a burrito?
| kube-system wrote:
| Voters in small town America neither care about nor
| understand geopolitics. They do understand and care about
| the price of burritos. Have you seen any recent
| interviews of voters and their stated concerns? Have you
| seen the exit polling demographics by education level?
| Klonoar wrote:
| That burrito is the world for many people, and it's
| already collapsed.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Most Americans have very little interest in and less
| knowledge of the world outside the US. Moreover, many of
| them don't _want_ to know anything that would require them
| to rethink their position.
| vehemenz wrote:
| We Americans are thinking the same thing. The reality is
| that America is in the midst of a dramatic cultural decline
| --especially in rural America, which has become more
| frivolous, callous, and undignified, even if they're no
| more uneducated than twenty years ago.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >But that's not good enough?!
|
| It has never been enough, in at least 70 years, for
| democrats to do good enough. They are graded on this insane
| curve compared to perfect, and they always fall short since
| they haven't had serious (more than 60 senators) political
| power in decades, so they can't do much.
|
| Consider the Palestine issue. I wonder how many young
| progressives stayed home because Harris refused to say "I
| will ban Israel from buying US weapons", despite it being
| clear from polling that doing so would lose her some votes
| and undeniably increase republican voter turnout. But nope,
| they refused to see that reality, so they didn't vote for
| her "maybe we will tell them to kill fewer babies" tactic.
|
| Oh well, in just a few years the problem of Palestine will
| probably be solved for good. I hope those voters are happy.
|
| Meanwhile republicans can say "I have a concept of a plan"
| and say that harris should be shot by 9 guns and they get
| 70 million votes.
|
| My brother is the weird conservative that thinks "Trump
| didn't win the election in 2020" and "maybe we should
| regulate companies a little", but that didn't stop him from
| voting for the one shouting for violence. Maybe that's
| because he has, even during bush's term, been of the
| opinion that "all democrats should be shot", which he says
| right in front of me. I bet he wonders why we don't have a
| better relationship. It's always for something absurd too,
| like he said democrats should be shot because of Michelle
| Obama saying children should be able to eat healthy food at
| school, which for some reason made her responsible for the
| decline of school lunch programs since the 80s (a time
| which he did not experience). It's just another nonsensical
| thing republicans believe about their country because fox
| news said it every day for a year even though it's
| objectively untrue. Our state's school lunch program was
| better under Obama than it was when he was in school and
| yet he is sure that Michelle Obama, who has no powers as a
| first lady, was personally responsible for decisions our
| STATE made about it's school lunch program.
|
| I don't know what else to say. They believe lies, when I
| tell them that they believe lies they tell me to my face
| that I should be shot, and when I say "fuck you" to that,
| they insist that I'm so divisive and partisan. It's just
| absurd the reality they live in. It seems so stressful to
| believe that the government is going to send a liberal
| twink to steal your guns and shit in your litter box and
| trans your kid.
|
| But when you can go in front of a judge and say "nobody
| rational would watch our news program and believe it" and
| "we literally made up out of whole cloth a story about how
| the democrats stole the election, despite the fact that
| many of us were not so sure about pushing such a total lie"
| and suffer no consequences, what the fuck else is there to
| do?
| class3shock wrote:
| The economy I think was the huge sticking point. You can't
| have everyone in your party saying "the economy is good, it's
| growing better than ever, look at all the jobs, etc." while
| literally no average person is seeing that. They are so out
| of touch that they think if finance/econ majors on tv say the
| economy is doing good than it's doing good.
|
| Compared to pre-pandemic - Housing prices have shot up
| incredibly - Loan interest rates are two or three times
| higher - Every day goods are higher - Car prices are higher -
| Insurance is higher - Utilities are higher
|
| And that would be fine, prices go up over time after all, but
| all of that is on the back of pay, that for most people, has
| not gone up anywhere close to enough to cover all of that, if
| it's gone up at all.
| y7 wrote:
| I guess, from a Western-European perspective, the problem
| is that with the choice of Democrats and Republicans you
| get the choice between right-wing and ultra right-wing.
| Having right-wing politics that funnel money from the poor
| to the rich, or the tenants to the landlords, is in the
| interest of the financial backers of _both parties_.
| Messaging-wise, the Democrats have always been "more
| honest" (low bar, it's hard to be more dishonest/convoluted
| than Trump anyway), so maybe that's why Trump seems to come
| out ahead there.
| arethuza wrote:
| Reminds me of the quote by Gore Vidal:
|
| _" There is only one party in the United States, the
| Property Party ... and it has two right wings: Republican
| and Democrat."_
| wwweston wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand the criticism. This is bad?
| People _like_ property rights. Progressives like them.
| Conservatives like them. Economies like them.
|
| Meanwhile there are substantial differences between the
| two wings, what services and programs they think
| government should provide, how problem solving should be
| approached.
| penjelly wrote:
| normally I'd agree about Trump's honesty, but in the
| debate and subsequent Harris interviews I saw a lot more
| deflection, misdirection, lies/mistruthes and non-answers
| than I did from trump. Sure trump says some wild things
| which are often only 50% ish true. But kamala would
| openly call things lies that were verifiable fact, those
| are lies too, and she lied a lot.
| intended wrote:
| I dont want to get into a flame war, 50% is a generous
| number, since many times he isn't speaking full
| intelligible sentences. Trump gets a pass on absolutely
| outrageous things, which he creates by the second. I feel
| that he is so bad, and so incessant with his content
| creation., that he causes an integer overflow in the
| audience. At that point, he is once again assessed with
| an average rubric.
|
| I feel that his success here suggests that this is a
| strategy that will succeed globally, and that many
| political candidates are going to be emulating his
| "style".
| tartoran wrote:
| Yes, the Pandora's box is about to open and show us how
| bad we've had it, by showing us how much worse could
| really be.
| intended wrote:
| Hey, this is what works, we have to get rid of our
| emotions and feelings about it. Be productive, efficient
| and deliver. /s
| thunky wrote:
| All politicians lie. They're only ever called out by the
| "other side".
| rdtsc wrote:
| > I saw a lot more deflection, misdirection,
| lies/mistruthes and non-answers than I did from trump
|
| Yup, it just came without the crass jokes and the
| mannerisms but I guess the confidence was pretty high
| that people would forgive her because she's just "not
| trump".
|
| I think they totally bungled the messaging and stuck
| their head in the sand. With all the billions of campaign
| money, they spent most of it calling trump a fascist or
| orange idiot a bunch more times, hoping that's enough to
| bump voter numbers. There is a dose-response curve there
| and after some point it just doesn't yield linear
| results.
| philistine wrote:
| I think you perceived that because you expected Trump to
| lead the election and her to follow in his wake. She
| deflected to the things she wanted to talk about to a
| usual degree, and did not lie more than usual for core-
| Democrat politicians, which is not a lot. They just don't
| address what they don't want to talk about.
|
| Ultimately she lost, and probably should have even more
| aggressively emulated him by promising things that aren't
| even real. Like how do you circle the promise that the
| war in Ukraine will be over _tomorrow_. I 'm not making
| it up, that was repeated ad nauseum on the campaign
| trail. I guess all that matters is winning.
| class3shock wrote:
| You're touching on one of the struggles for many left
| leaning voters and why the democratic party struggles
| with enthusiasm and to win. To many on the left, the
| party markets itself as "the least bad option" and thus
| "the only choice". Anyone in sales would tell you that is
| not the best pitch.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I get where you're coming and the Dems' greatest sin is
| probably pulling the rug under progressive candidates in
| primaries of some elections, but at some point you gotta
| look at the things Biden/Harris did for all Americans as
| president and consider if it passes the threshold from
| "least bad option" to, dare I say, "good, but obviously
| not perfect option". Things like increasing the threshold
| for overtime pay, an anti-redlining mortgage lending
| framework, pushing the HHS to reschedule cannabis to
| schedule III, actually showing up on a picket line, etc.
| class3shock wrote:
| I agree with all of that but I'm not the voting block
| that should be seeing that and voting democrat but not.
| To those people it will never matter how many incremental
| gains the dems push through. They only see the big things
| not attempted or failed, that the party is once again
| running a uninspiring insider, that they are being told
| who they have to vote for because there is no other
| option, and that having done that last time not much in
| their day to day lives has improved.
|
| I don't care about that but the people that do make or
| break the democratic party. Unfortunately the democrats
| seem incapable of learning that if you don't appeal to
| those people, they will lose.
| no_wizard wrote:
| And Trumps proposed tariffs will only accelerate price
| increases[0]
|
| It's clear it has support from rank and file republicans as
| well, it is more than feasible that if republicans win the
| house too we will see tariffs in short order
|
| [0]: https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/trumps-new-tariff-
| proposa...
| mastax wrote:
| The president has huge amounts of executive authority
| over tariffs. I don't know where the boundaries are but I
| wouldn't be surprised if we saw huge tariff increases in
| the first hundred days.
| greentxt wrote:
| Right. You would want to do it immediately so that
| initial hits to economy can be claimed as belonging to
| Biden. And then you can cut the tarrifs and make things
| improve.
| vundercind wrote:
| Nah, he'll make the Fed a political appointment and goose
| the economy that way, already seemed pretty annoyed that
| he didn't have direct control of it last time and seemed
| to partially blame that for his loss. His voters will
| ignore the resulting inflation, say it's awesome, and you
| won't be able to convince them otherwise _maybe_ until
| the really bad crash on the other side.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Even worse, he'll throw gasoline everywhere just like he
| did last time and throw the match right before he leaves
| the room. Fuel prices and the Afghanistan withdrawal were
| both done specifically with that in mind.
| vundercind wrote:
| Afghanistan is one of those cases where I strongly agree
| with the idea (and with his pushing back on DoD crying
| about how it'd take a _really long time_ to pull out the
| troops and equipment--I get it's landlocked but it's a
| small force, you control the air, and resistance on the
| ground is near-zero, so if that's super-hard for you,
| guess you're bad at a really basic part of your job and
| we should be very concerned) but absolutely hate the
| inept execution, like the dumb-shit bargain with the
| Taliban. Cracking down on Chinese cheating on free trade
| is another--yes, more of that, but be less shit about it
| please?
| ericd wrote:
| It will almost certainly accelerate inflation, but won't
| it also give domestic manufacturing workers hurt by
| globalization a lot more demand for their work, and
| leverage to increase their wages? It seems like the main
| people hurt by this would be the upper middle class and
| above, the execs, designers, and managers who've directly
| and indirectly managed large international teams of
| laborers working at low rates, as they'll get hit by the
| inflation, but see no additional demand/leverage to
| increase their wages. They're the part of the bimodal
| wealth distribution that has until now done very well by
| globalization, and I think this election is largely a
| reaction by the other mode.
| no_wizard wrote:
| It hurts everyone, the price shocks will be felt for
| years, and any gains that can be made won't matter.
|
| Wage gains won't keep pace with any price increases
| either, Republican's have already outlined policies that
| are regressive to average Americans[0][1]
|
| About the only thing tariffs will do is consolidate power
| at the top and allow the largest corporations to buy out
| smaller ones that can't cope as well.
|
| We are remember, talking about broad spectrum tariffs
| here, which will hit any import, from food to solar
| panels.
|
| [0]: https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/32a30
| 3df-1977...
|
| [1]:
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/10/30/trump-
| reduce...
| ericd wrote:
| That JEC doc doesn't seem to mention tariffs?
|
| Yes, prices will rise, the question is whether it will
| increase their leverage in the job market enough to boost
| their earnings enough to counteract the higher prices.
| no_wizard wrote:
| my point with the JEC wasn't about tariffs its about
| Republican policies that show that _" will it increase
| their leverage in the job market enough to boost their
| earnings enough to counteract the higher prices"_ is
| fantasy
|
| The highest levels of leadership of the Republican party
| have shown time and again that they want a permanent poor
| underclass through their policies (both enacted and
| proposed) and actions.
|
| There's no sense in speculation here, if they can put the
| boot on labors neck, they will 100% of the time
| ericd wrote:
| I mean, we were just talking about tariffs, not whatever
| else may be in their plans.
|
| But point taken, you think that the net result will be
| worse for poor people. I don't necessarily disagree, it
| just seems that this one bit might be somewhat positive
| for the poor.
| no_wizard wrote:
| The net result will be worse for all people except those
| in power
| xnx wrote:
| > won't it also give domestic manufacturing workers hurt
| by globalization a lot more demand for their work
|
| Temporarily perhaps, the push for automation in
| manufacturing (and farm operations) will be very strong.
| tayo42 wrote:
| I don't think the US is the only place where US companies
| sell things. What about when tariffs are placed on US
| items, demand will drop with US made things.
| ericd wrote:
| It's not, but our balance of trade is very deeply
| negative. We import a _lot_ more than we export. Partly
| because our currency is kept artificially strong by
| reserve currency status, preventing our exports from
| becoming more competitive when we go deeply into debt.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| No. You can't just wave a magic wand and order
| manufacturing home. Capitalists exported a lot of skill
| and industrial infrastructure to overseas markets, which
| can't be rebuilt overnight.
|
| There was talk about this in the first term too, and it
| ended up with a lot of money from tariffs being used to
| subsidize farmers because they found themselves doing so
| poorly that suicides spiked.
| ericd wrote:
| Right, it seems likely to be disruptive in the short
| term, and there would be skill shortages and big holes in
| the domestic supply chain. I mean more
| abstractly/directionally. It does seem like it'd be best
| if it was phased in predictably over a longer period of
| time, but doesn't seem like that's the plan.
| gruez wrote:
| >And that would be fine, prices go up over time after all,
| but all of that is on the back of pay, that for most
| people, has not gone up anywhere close to enough to cover
| all of that, if it's gone up at all.
|
| BLS data shows real (ie. inflation adjusted) wages has gone
| up since the pandemic.
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| The data may show that. The people don't _feel_ that.
| (Many of them don 't see it in their budgets, either.)
| croes wrote:
| You don't feel earth rotation either but it still exists.
|
| You can't argue about feelings
| psychoslave wrote:
| People definitely can feel the impact of earth rotation
| on a daily basis. They literally would not even have the
| notion of a day without it actually.
|
| https://sciencenotes.org/what-would-happen-if-the-earth-
| stop...
| croes wrote:
| You can measure the effects but people don't feel it,
| just ask flat earthers
| no_wizard wrote:
| But it's a skewed picture of the actuality, which that
| those wage gains didn't make up for the 40 years of
| stagnation preceding it.
|
| If wage gains kept pace with productivity gains it'd be a
| very different and vastly better economic story for the
| average American
| gruez wrote:
| >which that those wage gains didn't make up for the 40
| years of stagnation preceding it.
|
| It stagnated in 2008-2016 but they still voted for obama,
| but when it finally started rising in 2016 they voted for
| trump?
| no_wizard wrote:
| It wasn't really rising in 2016. The flat wage growth
| lasted past 2020, with a relatively recent blip, but it
| has not meaningfully risen to outpace the stagnation that
| existed for decades.
|
| If wages increased with productivity increases we'd be in
| better shape overall as a society, but here we are.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Voting for the guy that complained American wages were
| too high and thinks tariffs are paid by other countries
| will definitely not help.
|
| Please be more specific if you are explaining why
| American voters have got angry and done something stupid
| that will make things worse or if you are defending that
| stupidity as a good thing that will help the situation
| you are talking about.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Like Brexit, you have to let the electorate find out the
| hard way.
| schnebbau wrote:
| My theory is that social media has given people this
| skewed perspective of reality where everyone else appears
| to be rich and living in luxury.
|
| This makes their own lives, in which they are still
| better off than 99.9% of the history of humanity, feel
| worse.
| no_wizard wrote:
| or you know, wages stagnated for 40 years and haven't
| kept pace with productivity gains, and it was inevitable
| that this would wear most American citizens down and we'd
| feel it more and more over time.
|
| The most recent wage gains failed to make up for this
| fact
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/19/heres-how-labor-dynamism-
| aff...
| nsxwolf wrote:
| When your lifestyle suddenly has to change in drastic
| ways because of a rapid increase in prices none of this
| makes anyone feel any better. "Think about how much worse
| it COULD be, kids!"
| gruez wrote:
| >When your lifestyle suddenly has to change in drastic
| ways because of a rapid increase in prices
|
| Where's the evidence this is happening for a majority (or
| even something vaguely resembling one) of people? I've
| already posted official statistics that show inflation
| adjusted median wages are up.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Ok, well, my wages aren't up, and everybody I know's
| wages aren't up either. Being told this over and over
| again, that everything is great, despite what's obvious
| to our own personal experience is why you got the result
| you got today.
| otteromkram wrote:
| We're still at 390 levels of cost in a 370 world.
| gruez wrote:
| >real (ie. inflation adjusted) wages
| no_wizard wrote:
| But still haven't matched productivity gains since the
| 1970s[0]
|
| Everyone likes to point this out like it somehow made up
| for all the wage stagnation of the last 40 years and it
| most definitely did not.
|
| Not to mention these wage gains are slowing fast.
|
| [0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/19/heres-how-labor-
| dynamism-aff....
| gruez wrote:
| >But still haven't matched productivity gains since the
| 1970s[0]
|
| The gap might be real, but it's existed for decades.
| Moreover at least when it comes to explaining why people
| voted for Trump: while I have no data to support it,
| "we're poorer because of inflation" is a much more
| popular sentiment/election issue than "the top 1% are
| taking the gains for themselves", especially among
| republican voters.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Considering his very pronounced and persistent support of
| broad tariffs on all imports, I'm not sure why people
| would vote for Trump and the Republican platform he
| steers if they're worried about the economy and prices.
| This will absolutely drive prices up across the board,
| exacerbating the situation, while the Republican platform
| has no proposal for even attempting to offset that, they
| also want to put the boots on the neck of labor, as it
| were (see Project 2025 or even the miniaturized version
| Agenda 47)
| endemic wrote:
| > the top 1% are taking the gains for themselves
|
| They deserved it because they worked hard for it!
| ggu7hgfk8j wrote:
| It's worth keeping in mind that inflation is a
| theoretical construct based on assumptions and formulas
| that may not apply for every individual or subpopulation.
| gruez wrote:
| >It's worth keeping in mind that inflation is a
| theoretical construct based on assumptions and formulas
|
| That might be so, but it's better than people's vibes,
| which famously flip-flops based on whether their
| preferred party is in power.
|
| >that may not apply for every individual or subpopulation
|
| I never claimed that, but the parent comment did imply
| real wages have not gone up "for most people".
| auggierose wrote:
| So, CPI adjusted it means that median people are "doing
| better" about $30 (also CPI adjusted) than in 1980 per
| week? Given all the "progress" in that time, that is just
| not enough, and that is what people feel. People feel
| they don't have the money to participate in modern life,
| and yeah, an extra $30 per week is definitely not enough
| to do that.
|
| Also, the median stats say nothing about how people below
| it are doing. By definition, that is 50%, and that is
| also about the number of people voting for Trump,
| alongside your run-of-the-mill racists and fascists.
| gruez wrote:
| >So, CPI adjusted it means that median people are "doing
| better" about $30 (also CPI adjusted) than in 1980 per
| week?
|
| They're actually doing about $50 better, because there
| was a recession in 1980. Moreover, the $50 (or $30)
| dollars are "1982-84 CPI Adjusted Dollars", not today's
| dollars. In today's dollars it would be $158.28 (or
| $94.97). Moreover, given most people's expectation and
| discussion for income increases are the raw dollar
| amounts (ie. not inflation adjusted), it's not a fair
| benchmark for real wage increases.
|
| >By definition, that is 50%, and that is also about the
| number of people voting for Trump, alongside your run-of-
| the-mill racists and fascists.
|
| Given how the votes are roughly 50-50, you can make the
| opposite argument for Harris, replacing "racists and
| fascists" with "college students and woke activists".
| class3shock wrote:
| Their methodology produces results that are not
| representative of the economic situation of average
| american families.
|
| The average household income is 80k(ish) the average
| house is 420k(ish)
|
| In Bethlehem, PA (a fairly middle of the road place tax
| wise) that means $5050 take home pay a month and a
| mortgage payment (FHA 3.5 down, 6.7 interest) of $2650 a
| month. That is more than half your pay just on a
| mortgage, not pmi, not insurance, not utilities, not
| anything else. Do this calculation across the country
| with localized numbers, do it with rent instead. Add a
| car and insurance for it into the mix. Then try adding in
| health insurance, groceries, etc. You are going to find
| that the numbers result in average people being squeezed
| and guess what? That lines up with peoples actual
| experience.
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paycheck-to-paycheck-
| definition...
|
| https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2024/amid-a-
| resilient...
|
| My interpretation of this is that pay has not kept up
| with inflation.
|
| Edited to be less witty
| itissid wrote:
| There was a graphic in John Kings (CNN). Segment that
| showed a vast majority of the counties had wages falling
| behind inflation. This is just extremely real for the
| 5k(ish) takehome pay guy. I noticed the 4.5 ish $ eggs
| and milk.
|
| The overall situation of housing and college costs have
| been increasing for a while this last round of inflation
| really was a big part of the last straw.
| gruez wrote:
| >There was a graphic in John Kings (CNN). Segment that
| showed a vast majority of the counties had wages falling
| behind inflation.
|
| Source? Is this simply because rural counties are doing
| worse than urbanized counties, and there are more rural
| counties than urbanized counties, such that if you don't
| account for population you'll come to the conclusion that
| "vast majority of the counties had wages falling behind
| inflation", even though that's not true for the country
| as a whole?
| tanjtanjtanj wrote:
| A $2650 mortgage in Bethlehem PA is a very, very big
| house. You can't apply the average mortgage price to a
| place where you can get a 2000 sqft house for under
| $200K. Additionally Bethlehem PA is an above average area
| for PA when it comes to affluence.
| thrwaway1985882 wrote:
| The median price per square foot in the US is $226[0].
| The _insanely_ economically depressed rust belt area
| where I was born has a median price over $150 per square
| foot (you do _not_ want to live there). I suspect your
| mental model of housing prices is anchored in the past
| when the world has moved on.
|
| [0]:
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEDLISPRIPERSQUFEEUS
| tanjtanjtanj wrote:
| Okay, but we were not talking about the median house, we
| are talking about Bethlehem, PA. I got my data by going
| to Zillow and seeing that there are many 10s of houses
| near the 2K sqft mark that cost around $200k. You can do
| the same yourself.
|
| Pennsylvania did not experience the same uplift in
| housing prices in 2020-2022 that much of the rest of the
| nation did as people are net leaving the state.
|
| PA is actually one of the places least affected by
| inflation not just in the US but in the world.
| thrwaway1985882 wrote:
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEDLISPRIPERSQUFEE1090
| 0
|
| The median home in the Bethlehem, PA core based
| statistical area costs $200 per square foot in October
| 2024. In October 2019, it cost $120 per square foot.
|
| I'm sure you can find homes that list for half the cost
| per square foot just as well as someone could find homes
| that list for double the cost per square foot. That's why
| the median is useful - and it has increased 66% over the
| last five years.
| class3shock wrote:
| Just fyi, I just used it for a location for a online
| calculator to grab tax for because PA is fairly middle of
| the road in taxes. If you want to do the math for
| Bethlehem PA specifically look up the average house sale
| price and the average income and take a look.
| kalkin wrote:
| The question is supposedly whether things are better or
| worse, not whether they're "good enough" in some abstract
| way.
|
| If you think things aren't good enough for an average
| person in one of the statistically best periods a
| capitalist economy has ever seen, there are
| redistributive alternatives. That doesn't seem to be what
| Trump voters are expecting. Instead there seems to be a
| nostalgia for past better times, which isn't really
| explained by "people are squeezed" based on math that
| would almost certainly have worked out just as tightly
| ten years ago.
|
| Something else is going on. I don't claim to have a full
| explanation but none of the attempts to "fix" BLS
| statistics that I've seen have been more persuasive than
| this.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| You responded to a statement about change by talking
| about state. Both things are true: that average people
| have it better and that they have it hard.
| oefrha wrote:
| When (some) people feel they're worse off and blame it on
| the government, telling them government produced
| statistics says they're actually better off is totally
| going to make them trust the government more. /s
|
| Edit: Without the snark, lots of people believe their
| rent, grocery bills, energy bills etc. have gone up a lot
| more than official inflation numbers (and that can be
| true even if the inflation numbers are "accurate" for
| some definition of accurate), and you're not going to
| convince them using anything derived from these inflation
| numbers.
| jghn wrote:
| > You can't have everyone in your party saying "the economy
| is good, it's growing better than ever, look at all the
| jobs, etc." while literally no average person is seeing
| that.
|
| Isn't that literally what happened in his first term?
| Remember "I built the greatest economy the world has ever
| seen"? These claims were backed fully and completely by the
| stock market and not the rank & file. And this is the same
| situation we find ourselves in now. All these years later
| we're still in a situation where "the economy" is going
| gangbusters, but the average person feels left out.
| class3shock wrote:
| I would say absolutely yes, which is ironic to say the
| least. I think the fact that he didn't follow through on
| his promises got lost in the crazyness of the pandemic
| times but do remember, he did not get re-elected. Also
| americans don't really think that far back when it comes
| to presidential elections, they tend to be here and now
| things.
| dcuthbertson wrote:
| > All these years later we're still in a situation where
| "the economy" is going gangbusters, but the average
| person feels left out.
|
| It doesn't matter. Trump claimed he'd build the greatest
| economy again. He didn't provide any details on what he
| plans to do that will actually improve people's lives. He
| just let people jump to their own happy conclusions.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> He didn't provide any details on what he plans to do
| that will actually improve people's lives.
|
| He did provide high level detail. He said he'd use
| tariffs to exclude foreign made stuff, which will
| necessitate "made in America" and bring manufacturing
| back. He said he'd balance the budget, which
| (theoretically) has long-term effects. He said he'd
| deport illegals, which should reduce demand for housing
| and hence prices.
|
| You can disagree with any of those things, but I don't
| think it's right to say he didn't offer anything
| specific.
| w0m wrote:
| > I don't think it's right to say he didn't offer
| anything specific
|
| I mean; he offered 'specifics' - they simply didn't make
| any sense on cursory examination. How to fight inflation?
| Tariffs! How to make already expensive goods cheaper?
| Tarriffs!
|
| Hell, re: deporting illegals, he didn't even bother to do
| that his first term, Obama did it at a dramatically
| higher rate.
|
| It's all a "I'll fix everything by doing nothing"
| smokescreen.
| stormfather wrote:
| You're being disingenuous. The closest Republican talking
| point to reducing inflation was increasing energy
| production. That is a legitimately deflationary policy.
| What I think most people don't understand on the left is
| how far their credibility has fallen with the common
| person, and is because of attitudes like this. If you
| actually want to understand this election at all, you
| have to understand that people on the right feel
| constantly lied to by institutions and media figures, and
| disingenuous rebuttals like this don't help, they hurt.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Illegals are not competing on buying homes. Working for
| cash is not going to allow you to purchase a home
| ungreased0675 wrote:
| Maybe not buying houses, but they have to live somewhere,
| right? That has an effect on housing prices.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> He didn't provide any details on what he plans to do
| that will actually improve people's lives. _
|
| No, but he had a very simple and catchy message that even
| people with the lowest IQ can understand and remember: _"
| Fuck illegal immigrants, fuck China, America first, USA
| no. 1"_.
|
| Election messages need to appeal to the lowest common
| denominator of education and intellect. If you start
| boring people with facts and high brow speeches that only
| the well educated can understand, you lost from the
| start.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _Election messages need to appeal to the lowest common
| denominator of education_
|
| Republicans understand that the less educated a voter is,
| the more likely they are to vote R. It's not a
| coincidence that they are trying to gut the education
| system.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| What did democrats do to improve the education system?
| notahacker wrote:
| I think the bigger problem isn't that the Dems didn't try
| to take credit for growth, but that they didn't point out
| that actually things weren't that rosy in 2020 and
| basically conceded the entirely false argument that
| Trump's term made the economy better and Biden's made it
| worse.
|
| Sure, Trump didn't cause the pandemic, but neither did
| Biden and the inflation isn't unrelated to Trump's fiscal
| policy being looser than it needed to be even before the
| pandemic either, as well as being fundamentally the Fed's
| job to solve[2]. It's difficult[1] for an incumbent to
| win by attacking the track record of the _last_
| government especially when much of it was factors outside
| their control, but not impossible, especially since Trump
| has presented wavering voters with plenty of other
| reasons not to vote for him. Trump is living proof that
| excuses work...
|
| [1]Not impossible though: an unpopular British government
| won a majority in 2014 by constantly blaming slow post
| recession growth on the other party's borrowing five
| years earlier
|
| [2]You can absolutely guarantee that if Trump was in
| power the US would have experienced at least as much
| inflation, and he'd have wasted no time in blaming the
| Fed
| jghn wrote:
| > I think the bigger problem isn't that the Dems didn't
| try to take credit for growth, but that they didn't point
| out that actually things weren't that rosy in 2020 and
| basically conceded the entirely false argument that
| Trump's term made the economy better and Biden's made it
| worse.
|
| This is more or less the direction I was heading w/ my
| post. I don't think it's a messaging issue per se. Rather
| it's control of the messaging. The economy in general has
| been on a steady path for a while, despite ups & downs:
| it's trending towards a bimodal distribution where
| certain parties are doing quite well and others are doing
| less well. But what I've seen the last several election
| cycles is the indicators that dominate what I see on TV,
| read online, etc swap depending on who is in power. So my
| expectation is that literally nothing will change yet
| we'll be hearing about how awesome the economy is for
| everyone in several months.
| xnx wrote:
| I agree, but also think the number of voters that have
| the attention to be influenced by such a nuanced argument
| is vanishingly small.
| notahacker wrote:
| Tbh I imagined it less as nuance and more as attack ads
| which focused on reminding people that 2020 was a
| _really_ shit year for people 's incomes and that Trump
| didn't actually deliver on his promises, not even the
| wall.
|
| Would have been more effective to remind people why they
| didn't vote for him than remind them of his behaviour
| afterwards which he's perfectly good at doing himself.
| astine wrote:
| Yes, that's true, but the problem is that these past four
| years have been bad for everybody, so they remember the
| Trump years as being better than they actually were.
| jghn wrote:
| > these past four years have been bad for everybody
|
| They've been pretty good for some people.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| Yeah, if you're a high earner living the urban/suburban
| life you've probably done really well. The problem is
| that rural turnout was off the charts last night, which
| what handed Trump the popular vote - something that has
| not happened with a Republican candidate since 2004.
| jghn wrote:
| I agree. But GP said that everybody was feeling pain.
| That's not true.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Absolutely not. Inflation hit us very hard and we had to
| make real lifestyle changes to get back in the black.
| endemic wrote:
| I'd love to know the details.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| We got hit too. We adjusted mostly in our eating habits.
| Moved to zero eating out, more bulk buying, cheaper
| foods, etc. We're also much more discriminating on what
| activities we do for the kids.
|
| I'm not gonna go all "woe is me" since we're doing fine,
| but as someone with a family of 5 the discretionary
| income basically went to zero the last 4 years.
| purple_ferret wrote:
| They've been great for US Stock holders, which basically
| comprises most of the Upper and Upper Middle Class.
|
| In fact, so good, people think anything buy 10-20% yearly
| gains on assets is bad
| throw_that_away wrote:
| I lost my job a few months back, and I feel like the
| messaging from Harris/Biden was everything's great! Keep
| doing whatever is happening. Voted for who spoke to me.
|
| Every company I join literally has an arm in Mexico,
| India, Pakistan, Colombia or Ukraine - and it always
| started feeling like at any minute those people would
| have my job. And they do. I want an administration that
| makes it so that those people don't have my job. And yes,
| I have always been willing to work for a lot less, but
| all the other Americans want more and more and more, so
| that it's expected for a programmer in the US to make
| 200k, so these companies decide to hire someone in
| Colombia for 80k. I'll take 100 and work a lot closer
| than that person in Colombia. But no companies here will
| listen to that. And I'll do it as someone with 20 years
| of experience.
|
| But the only thing people on the left care about, as
| usual, are issues that actually don't matter. Yes I get
| it you want Gay rights and you want Abortion rights, but
| the reality is those things are not going away in the
| states you're already in. But on the other side, American
| people are being pushed into a terrible economic state.
|
| Go ahead and not listen, HN doesn't. It's WAAAY to left.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| unemployment was at historic lows, you just got unlucky.
| idk what to tell you man
| throw_that_away wrote:
| Exactly what Harris was saying, hence the direction of my
| vote! Also, 50 job apps and no call backs, this is the
| WORST economy ever. In 2018, I would submit 3 and get 3
| offers at the end of it.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| your level of critical thinking is remarkable, i guess
| this is what we're competing against.
| islanderfun wrote:
| I think the issue is that when people are desperate (lost
| job, can't pay for needs, etc) critical thinking can be
| limited to just short term survival mode. Even if it
| doesn't make sense big picture wise.
|
| Democratic party needs to listen and at the very least
| fluff up a response that people in this situation feel
| heard. Even if there nothing they can really do. It's all
| about appeasing emotions.
| ballooney wrote:
| Do you genuinely think that this is the worst economy
| ever?
| throw_that_away wrote:
| In my lifetime, yes.
| 8note wrote:
| Does that include the 2000s tech crash? AI winters?
| sophacles wrote:
| Sounds like a skill issue. I never even saw a slowdown of
| recruiter spam. Maybe you should just try a little?
|
| Also, maybe look into a little history while youre at it
| - the economy is not even close to the worst one ever,
| see: 1930s, 1970s, the turn of the millenium, and
| 2008-2012 for examples in living memory.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| It _is_ a skill issue. The folks at the bottom today
| within the USA economically when unemployment is so low
| and social mobility is so high do so out of choice. I 've
| traveled the rest of the world and seen what actual
| poverty looks like (the kind where you have no real hope
| even if you work hard or are smart). I've seen how much
| better the US handled every crisis/pandemic vs others. We
| have it better than anyone else BY FAR.
|
| I'm tired of pretending it's not. Want to call me a
| coastal elite like it's a slur? I'll wear it with a badge
| of honor. We _are_ better than you at economic planning
| and becoming prosperous - also with defending social
| freedoms (i.e. legalizing the mushrooms).
|
| We lost the low information voters. Bad from the
| perspective of winning elections but good from the
| perspective of self selecting your friends and people you
| associate with. The democrats really are a social club.
| ANewFormation wrote:
| There was a massive downward revision in August, with
| most sectors hit hard, leaving the gains that remained
| increasingly dominated by government/education/healthcare
| jobs.
|
| Telling people 'X' when their eyes/lived experiences tell
| them 'Y', and then frequently insulting them for not
| agreeing on top is certainly part of the reason for the
| popular vote going as it did.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| this person basically just went: bad thing happened to me
| -> blame the president -> vote for the other person.
|
| i have no interest in coddling people's feelings and
| telling them how right they are when they are operating
| with this level of analysis. Im not a politician so i
| dont have to deal with that, but im so tired of trying to
| explain how the world works to stupid people and getting
| shit for it because im not validating their delusions.
| ANewFormation wrote:
| When presidents are quick to take credit for economic
| successes, surely it isn't unreasonable to hold them
| accountable for economic failures.
|
| The disconnect between government data and the economic
| realities MANY people experienced (as evidenced by exit
| polling on the economy) only further salts the wounds for
| people not doing well.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| again, youre assuming people's delusions about their
| personal finances are worth entertaining. theres
| absolutely no economic indicator you could point me to
| that validates people's feelings about the economy.
|
| There were no economic failures during Joe Biden's
| presidency.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| Or maybe they said that "Bad thing happened to me", tired
| to recover, no recovery happening and it begins to feel
| like being lied to, blame the president.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| It's at historic lows while layoffs are happening all
| over. I don't know what to say but it doesn't feel like
| good times to a bunch of people.
|
| John Deere: https://www.msn.com/en-
| us/money/companies/john-deere-faces-b...
|
| GM: https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/21/business/gm-layoffs-
| kansas/in...
|
| Stellantis:
| https://www.npr.org/2024/10/11/nx-s1-5145932/stellantis-
| jeep...
|
| https://intellizence.com/insights/layoff-
| downsizing/leading-...
| tharmas wrote:
| Under Biden, Mexico is the China replacement for
| manufacturing.
|
| I have my doubts that Trump will change that.
| anuraj wrote:
| China heavily invested in Mexico. They are building up
| Mexico's manufacturing capacity to cover American demand.
| Either way, China wins.
| tayo42 wrote:
| you think trump is going help programmers in the US at
| all? How? Trump merchandise isn't made in the US. His
| daughters brands are manufactured in Asia.
| stcroixx wrote:
| Whatever measures are used to portray the economy as
| great(it's not just the stock market) or unemployment is
| down do not match with the impact people feel in their
| own lives. Maybe they aren't lies, but they aren't
| accurate either. Massive layoffs in our industry and a
| glut of H1Bs still hanging around are a problem for an
| American job seeker in this industry and we'll look out
| for our interests despite what we're told.
| 8note wrote:
| My prediction is that the next four years won't see any
| improvement either, and the republicans will similarly be
| voted out again next election.
|
| If "the economy" is going to be fixed, first Congress and
| the senate will actually have to start passing bills
| again, but that's probably not happening for another
| decade
| chrisBob wrote:
| My theory is that legal sports betting makes the economy
| seem artificially worse for a lot of people. It has had a
| measurable impact on bankruptcy rates, and is causing a lot
| of self-inflicted financial stress. Trump's main platform
| is that your problems aren't your fault, and I think that
| resonates well with people struggling because they are
| throwing out their disposable income every month.
| camdenreslink wrote:
| When looking at some profiles of celebrating Trump
| supporters on Reddit, basically 100% had a large number
| of posts in sports betting topics, or Wall Street/day
| trading topics. An interesting demographic overlap there.
| jonhohle wrote:
| I've never bet on sports but watched my grocery bill
| skyrocket. A few years ago I posted year-over-year
| grocery prices and in aggregate the bill was 50% over the
| course of 12-months. Since then we've seen insurance and
| utilities skyrocket, creature comforts like streaming
| services are all up. CPI may say one thing, but my
| checkbook feels much worse. Disposable income has all
| gone to sustain a reduced quality of life.
| lokar wrote:
| What do you think will happen to grocery prices now?
| jonhohle wrote:
| It depends on how gov spending changes. If the federal
| government stops hemorrhaging debt hopefully they stay at
| current levels.
| nradov wrote:
| Does that really impact a lot of people? The total size
| of the legal sports betting industry is $11B, which is
| only about 0.04% of US GDP.
|
| https://www.espn.com/espn/betting/story/_/id/39563784/spo
| rts...
| fullstop wrote:
| I am not on Facebook, but my wife is. According to her
| there are countless posts from women complaining that
| their husbands / boyfriends are wasting their money on
| sports betting.
|
| So while it's a small percentage of GDP, it is a much
| larger percentage of their budget.
| nradov wrote:
| I am Facebook friends with a lot of women and haven't
| seen a single such complaint. That's obviously not a real
| population survey but if it was really a widespread
| problem then I think I would have seen it.
| fullstop wrote:
| I'll have to ask her, but I'm pretty sure that this is in
| closed groups and not people posting about it on their
| wall.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Back in my day I remember when the same anti-porn
| conservatives would also tell you that gambling bans are
| good. I can't believe that conservatives gave up on moral
| purity.
| throwaway13337 wrote:
| This is an interesting phenomanon. The median purchase
| power is increasing but people feel poor.
|
| Things with limited supply are becoming more unaffordable
| because the rich are much richer than they were before. So
| if housing is limited and is seen as an investment vehicle,
| it becomes unaffordable.
|
| The same goes for health care. There is a limit supply of
| medical care. Some people can afford much more than others
| which compounds the issue.
|
| Americans (and most of the collective West) can afford all
| things that are not in limited supply - food, clothing,
| gadgets, transportation, etc. This is amazing in the
| context of history.
|
| The weirdest thing is that both health care and housing do
| not need to be limited supply. It's completely artifical.
| We make bad governing decisions that force it to be so. Our
| problems are not economic but social/organizational ones.
|
| Relatedly, I was quite surprised when recently I realized
| that the median (adjusted for PPP) disposable income in
| America was the highest in the OECD (except Luxembourg):
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
|
| This means that the average american really really is
| financially better off than anywhere else in the world. I'd
| say that their quality of life isn't - they die much
| earlier than the rest of OECD, for example. But they are
| definitely the richest. And not just the richest american
| but the average american.
| oporo wrote:
| It takes $600k now to have the buying power of $200k in
| the 80s
|
| The economy is 100% intentionally managed to protect the
| prior generations story mode way of thinking
| no_wizard wrote:
| Frankly, if wage gains kept pace with productivity gains
| it'd be a very different and vastly better economic story
| for the average American. The reality is the recent blip
| of wage gains didn't make up ground on the last 40 years
| of stagnation, and it shows signs of slowing in any case,
| and Americans are feeling _that_
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Ironically wage gains have outpaced inflation in the last
| 4 years, but that's such a minor effect compared to the
| lost ground over the previous 40 years that it's not
| noticeable.
| stormfather wrote:
| It depends on how you measure inflation. The most
| important expenses for a young person trying to start a
| family are health-care, housing, food, child care and
| college tuition. Inflation in these categories is wild. I
| don't care at all if a big screen TV has gotten cheaper.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Given that big screen TV's are a negligible portion of
| the inflation basket and housing is by far the biggest
| component of the basket, I think the current basket is a
| fairly decent reflection.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| Yes, but for the electorate to blame the current party
| for the last 40 years is irrational.
| surbas wrote:
| The definition of "disposable income" used in this chart
| is gross income minus taxes.
|
| I don't think this corresponds with what most people
| think that means. i.e. gross income - (taxes + housing
| costs + food + health/childcare). I certainly didn't.
| kelnos wrote:
| That's the correct definition of "disposable income". The
| latter value is called "discretionary income", and a lot
| of people incorrectly say disposable when they really
| mean discretionary.
| jmpetroske wrote:
| It's always cases like this that make question if the
| dictionary is wrong, or if everyone speaking the language
| is wrong.
| vundercind wrote:
| Yeah it's hard to calculate a comparable figure on this
| when savings in one country is basically just temporarily
| holding money for the medical industry and getting to
| collect gains on it in the meantime, and in another, it's
| actual savings.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| There is a fundemental problem that cannot really be
| solved with housing:
|
| People want a single family homes with a nice property in
| nice area. They want a short commute and all the
| convenience of modern life.
|
| There is in fact a hard limit on how many single family
| homes you can have in a an area. You can build them
| somewhere else, but then you get long commutes or short
| commutes to low paying work.
|
| HN, let me remind you, most people do not work in tech
| banging on a keyboard all day with mild collaboration.
| Most people still need to commute to their jobs at least
| once a week. The majority still need to go in everyday.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| People are willing to live in condos just fine. But
| everything is unaffordable now. Every new condo building
| has crazy HOA fees with prices that are totally out of
| reach.
|
| We're not building out or building up. So yeah. It's bad.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Families tend to want single family homes. But
| singles/couples are happy buying townhomes or condos,
| which we could build a lot more of on the existing land.
| And we should encourage older couples to downsize (eg CA
| makes this undesirable because of prop 13)
| doron wrote:
| Add to that a systemic lack of investment in public
| transportation infrastructure and it makes said commutes
| completely reliant on private resources.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| Factor in good schools and other wants well.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _I was quite surprised when recently I realized that
| the median (adjusted for PPP) disposable income in
| America was the highest in the OECD_
|
| That doesn't really tell you all that much useful.
| Disposable income just deducts taxes from your gross
| income. What really matters is the cost of those other
| things we're talking about: food, housing, healthcare,
| childcare, etc. When you subtract those out as well, you
| get _discretionary_ income, and I bet the US is not
| leading at all there.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| It's not really a straightforward comparison because
| those categories are discretionary to an extent. For
| example people in the US seem to eat out at restaurants
| far more than in other countries. That would certainly
| increase food spending but clearly it's a choice people
| make to improve their life and doesn't represent a defect
| in the economy.
| frmersdog wrote:
| Much like, say, IQ, wealth shouldn't be compared across
| populations without massive amounts of contextual
| normalization. Individual wealth measures don't account
| for institutional safety nets, nor social/cultural
| affordances, nor geography, nor weather, nor history,
| nor-
|
| Suffice it to say that trying to directly compare
| individual wealth across disparate populations is so
| disingenuous as to be tantamount to spreading falsehoods.
| People feel poor because they are poor; Americans simply
| cannot afford many of the things that other developed
| economies provide for their residents. We can make lots
| of small changes to help with this^ (i.e., we don't need
| a massive overhaul or revolution), but the people calling
| the shots have to actually admit that people are not
| doing well, and that the costs people face today are
| burdensome. They won't, because they're afraid of not
| being reelected (and then they lose anyway).
|
| ^Solve food deserts by opening bodega-like shops in both
| urban AND suburban neighborhoods.
|
| ^Replace surface parking with structures housing
| amenities that people can walk to.
|
| ^Increase mass public transit access by building rail and
| bus/bike lanes.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| Whether one thinks things are bad or good is subjective
| and should not be relevant, although it does appear to
| matter electorally. A rational voting public would vote
| on a forward looking basis -- which candidate would
| deliver the biggest expected improvement.
| frmersdog wrote:
| A rational voting public will not vote for someone who
| normalizes genocide. This is reasonable, because that
| which is normalized becomes probable for all.
|
| Looking at the numbers, it doesn't seem so much that
| America chose Trump as they refused to choose Harris; her
| popular vote total is in the middle of Obama's, and
| Trump's is roughly the same as last time. I recognize and
| agree that Trump is worse. As much as Harris wanted to
| make that what the election was about, as with Biden in
| 2020, that's simply not what it was. The election was
| about if Harris could do better than Biden, as an
| executive. She couldn't show that she would, so the
| people who came out for Biden did not come out for her.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Life expectancy in the US is below average but it's
| certainly not "much lower than the rest of the OECD"
|
| https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/d90b402d-en.pdf
| gwurk wrote:
| That would make it a left/right thing. As a European: there
| is no left in america, there is a liberal right and a
| conservative right.
|
| The economy is good in america, but that just means that
| the amount of "resources" in the country is increasing,
| but, if "average joe" benefits from that or not is a
| question of how those resources are distributed.
|
| Left/Right is about economy.
|
| Being on the right means that you find it more important
| that the total pool of resources is increasing.
|
| Being on the left means that you care more about how the
| resources are distributed.
|
| What happened here is IMHO that the conservatives did the
| populist thing, they claimed that regular people would get
| more resources if they won, while still claiming that they
| would distribute less resources away from wealthy people.
|
| They are not wrong in saying that the economy is good, it
| is just that since there is no left in american politics,
| it seems like some people have forgotten the other
| perspective, since redistribution of wealth have been
| almost an insult in america for so long. Yet, last time he
| was president, trump managed to send everyone a check,
| signed by himself, but paid for by taxes, without being
| called an evil communist.
|
| I listened to a radia program where poor americans where
| interviewed, and that was the thing that they remembered
| about trump, he sent them a check.
|
| So, in conclusion, there is a large group of poor
| americans, that associate the guy that wants to remove
| taxes for rich people with what I (according to the above
| definition) consider to be left wing politics.
| ywvcbk wrote:
| > there is no left in america
|
| There is, though? It's just no represented at all because
| of FTPT there is based no constituency where it can get
| 50%. Usually not even in Democrat primaries.
| gwurk wrote:
| Yes, that was what I meant.
| lokar wrote:
| Sanders got 25% of the primary vote in 2020 despite being
| a lost cause for most of the voting.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| _As a European: there is no left in america, there is a
| liberal right and a conservative right_
|
| This gets parroted too often. America objectively
| provides more abortion access than Europe. Speech here is
| undoubtedly more expansive than in Europe. Sure, unions
| may have more power in Europe, but not so much more that
| I'd be saying "there is no left in America".
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Europe seems to be pretty good at being on the right
| lately. Even compared to America. I think the two party
| system just creates more centrist government, which is
| perhaps a strong argument for it.
| burntalmonds wrote:
| I don't buy it. There's a reality distortion field at work
| here. If Trump had been in office he would he would have
| been touting the economy as the greatest in history. And
| 'average people' would have 'seen that' despite not 'seeing
| it'.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| I don't vote for Trump. I don't know anyone aside from
| some crazy family members who like him. I'm in an extreme
| blue state that was called when only a few percent of the
| vote was in. I don't even know anyone who listens to
| Trump's speeches or sees this ads.
|
| Every single person I know feels this economy is
| terrible. Of every age. From new graduates, to senior
| people. Even the most extreme Obama or Bernie people feel
| like things are going very badly.
|
| Everyone on campus was consistently outraged when Biden
| would gloat about his economy.
|
| It's not Trump. I have no idea what his message even is.
|
| This is an own goal. Democrats believed the total
| bullshit that economists spew about how good things are.
| When people actually feel how terrible they are.
| vundercind wrote:
| Becoming the refuge-party for fleeing Republican
| neoliberals (joining the existing Democratic ones) is
| really gonna cripple the party when the party that
| _popularized_ (among the political set--voters never
| liked it) that damn world-view is abandoning it.
| lokar wrote:
| And trump voters, not understanding inflation, think he
| will bring down prices.
| usaar333 wrote:
| I'm in the Bay - am I the only person that thinks the
| economy is going great?
|
| My wages are up since Biden started. My rent, my biggest
| expense, has held the same. NW up a lot from stock market
| gains.
|
| There seems to be a lot of inflation with food
| ,restaurants and domestic work, but isn't lower wage
| people getting higher wages a good thing?
| vundercind wrote:
| Housing's still shooting up really fast and I guess used
| cars are just always gonna be expensive now.
| usaar333 wrote:
| Housing: not in the Bay: https://www.zillow.com/rental-
| manager/market-trends/mountain...
| anonymousab wrote:
| > but isn't lower wage people getting higher wages a good
| thing
|
| Their wages did not rise anywhere near commensurate with
| the increased costs of those goods and services - the
| same goods and services that those people would be buying
| usaar333 wrote:
| I don't think that can be true in the Bay. They would
| have an even higher percent of expenditure to rent, which
| is flat.
|
| America wide looks at worse flat:
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
| (ignoring covid years which distort this)
| frmersdog wrote:
| What you're doing now is what people are so angry about.
| Stop, "But the numbers..."ing, humor people's feelings
| for a moment, and figure out what would need to be done
| to lift those spirits. Gaslighting is not a good tack.
| usaar333 wrote:
| I agree that maybe people need their feelings humored,
| but how is this gaslighting? I'm not denying that there's
| food inflation or restaurant inflation - I pointed out
| that it's a narrow way to look at even your own economic
| position.
|
| Food might be up 30% in biden's term for all I know. And
| maybe wages are only up 20%. But as long as rent is 0%
| and asset growth kept track with inflation (it's blown
| past it), you are still ahead.
|
| I suspect this is just standard human loss aversion at
| work. I feel this even from my own wife who looks at our
| economic position worse than me even though it is the
| same numbers. What's worsened becomes more important than
| what's improved, even if rationally, it nets out even.
| frmersdog wrote:
| >But as long as rent is 0%
|
| My rent was up 30% and it was my largest expense. DoJ has
| been dragging its heels on punishing the companies that
| were a part of this gouging-via-algorithmic-price-fixing-
| and-warehousing, and now that Trump is going to be in
| office, those lawsuits are likely dead in the water. Very
| much a "Thanks for nothing, Joe," situation.
|
| In gaslighting, the perpetrator insists on denying the
| victim's perception of reality, while actually
| controlling the facet of reality that he denies is
| altered. In this case, Democrats control the means to
| alter the economy via leaning on Congress, the Treasury,
| and the Fed. They manufactured an environment where
| earners would lose out to the concerns of asset holders
| (the "soft-landing," rather than a swift and severe FFR
| rate hike and tightening of Treasury holdings that would
| have squelched inflation), but insist on telling earners
| that everything is okay, because the metrics that matter
| to asset holders are doing well. In carrying water for
| this line of argument, you're participating in their
| gaslighting. People aren't doing well, full stop.
| usaar333 wrote:
| Dems don't control the fed.
|
| A fast rate hike might have caused massive unemployment
| which would be much worse.
| frmersdog wrote:
| They can lean on the Fed, and they did.
|
| A fast hike would have caused pain, but the money
| printing that we did anyway would have helped mitigate
| that. Instead, it just went to propping up asset prices.
| Bank Bailout 2.0; we didn't learn our lesson, and the
| incumbent party was yet again ousted.
| usaar333 wrote:
| America's economy probably did better than anywhere else
| in the rich world. I don't see how we can view this as a
| fail
| frmersdog wrote:
| You're doing it again.
| uxp100 wrote:
| Yes, it's been good for the rich. Stock market gains do
| nothing for most people.
|
| I'm skeptical about the vibes based methods of evaluating
| the economy, I think the economy really is better for the
| lowest income workers, but forget stock market gains.
| Also, rents remaining flat might be a Bay Area specific
| phenomena. Or even SF specific? Don't know where you
| live.
| 0xBDB wrote:
| I'm in Texas, in Big Tech. I didn't vote Trump. But I
| understand.
|
| I'd like to get out of here but can't move because of
| mortgage rates, among other reasons. I'd like to change
| jobs but tech layoffs have flooded the job market. It's
| an anxious time. My 401k is doing great though.
|
| I don't blame Biden for all this. There was absolutely no
| choice but to pour enough stimulus into the economy to
| cause massive inflation in order to prevent a revolution
| during COVID. But if I'm feeling the hangover I'm sure
| the real working class is staggering.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| There was someone upthread that was talking about how
| unemployment is lowest ever while we have all these
| layoffs going on. It's kinda surreal.
| 0xBDB wrote:
| I believe the unemployment statistics, but I'm not sure
| what industry is doing all the hiring. I doubt it pays as
| well as the industries that are shedding people right and
| left.
| l33t7332273 wrote:
| > while literally no average person is seeing that
|
| I mean, frankly as a Gen Z man I don't understand this at
| all. I'm doing a lot better than I was 4 years ago.
| Finished school, got a good job, etc.
| lokar wrote:
| I was about to retire early, with the risk to the ACA I'm
| not sure.
| wbl wrote:
| Pay went up a ton too for low income people.
| no_wizard wrote:
| But still haven't matched productivity gains since the
| 1970s[0] Everyone likes to point this out like it somehow
| made up for all the wage stagnation of the last 40 years
| and it most definitely did not.
|
| Not to mention these wage gains are slowing fast.
|
| [0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/19/heres-how-labor-
| dynamism-aff....
| jandrese wrote:
| I agree "It's the economy stupid".
|
| Where the Democrats went wrong is they looked at the
| economic figures for stuff like corporate profit margins
| and the stock market and said "look how good the economy
| is!" when those profit margins are high because they've
| jacked prices and regular consumers are feeling the
| squeeze. Unfortunately there's little a President can do
| about that. Corporate consolidation was largely complete
| before they even took office and monopolistic behavior is
| to be expected. The pandemic supply chain disruptions gave
| companies cover to increase their margins and that's what
| they did.
| pants2 wrote:
| Theodore Roosevelt was well known for monopoly-busting.
| It is something the president can influence and the U.S.
| has a dozen major monopolies that should have been busted
| long ago.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _" the economy is good, it's growing better than ever, look
| at all the jobs, etc." while literally no average person is
| seeing that._
|
| I think I'm an average person. Car prices came down and I
| was finally able to buy a sedan. Unemployment seems low.
| Eggs are expensive, sure, but on the other hand, my brand
| of yogurt always seems to be on sale and oatmeal prices are
| flat, so it's kind of a wash there. The economy seems
| pretty fine to me.
|
| Certainly, there have been no threats to shut down the
| government (like in '18-'19), which did do a number on my
| retirement plan at the time...
| miltonlost wrote:
| And that inflation was caused largely by pre-Biden Trump
| policies of giving tax-breaks to billionaires and allowing
| blatant corporate greed. Inflation is not a quick
| phenomenon. It has lags. It has stickiness. People don't
| know this because they don't take any economics.
|
| And, more importantly, today's inflation is by large firms
| exerting their market control and monopolistic tendencies.
| How many grocery companies are there and in their region?
| Kroger is trying to buy out Albertsons to completely
| dominate the midwest, to lower quality and increase prices
| like all monopolists. What needs to be done is anti-trust
| enforcement which Biden has attempted. But none of this is
| known by 90% of the country and 0% of Trump voters.
| endemic wrote:
| Yeah, Kroger's behavior is infuriating. I've stopped
| shopping there; fortunately I have choices.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| You left out wages.
| pc86 wrote:
| > There could have been some "look out for your wife"
| messaging, but there wasn't.
|
| No but there was plenty of "if you're married and vote for
| Trump you're a misogynist" or "no real man with daughters can
| vote for Trump" messaging which rightly fell flat.
|
| That Trump _won the popular vote_ is astounding. That he 's
| currently ahead in Michigan is _insane_ ,
| politically/electorally speaking. By 10pm last night the
| MSNBC crowd was already starting the "this was just about the
| economy," "no incumbent Dem could have won," "no challenging
| Rep could have lost" cope.
|
| The Democratic party has an opportunity here to put DEI,
| identity politics, and culture war nonsense in the garbage
| where it belongs, and everyone on the left who was talking
| about unity and bringing America together 24 hours ago has an
| opportunity now to show whether they meant it, or if they
| only meant it on their terms.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Calls for unity in politics always is a call for everyone
| to unify behind the speaker rather than for everyone to
| find common ground.
| pc86 wrote:
| Regardless of party it's always good to call out partisan
| hacks when you have the chance.
| vacuity wrote:
| Political unity is something of a pipe dream when you
| look at some of the represented political groups in the
| US. I won't call out specific groups, but people can
| likely imagine at least one group they really don't want
| to have any power. Maybe because of media fearmongering,
| maybe real, but there's probably some group you perceive
| terribly. I don't think an electorate is supposed to
| represent all groups, no matter how extreme. There's no
| room for justice or equality or whatever if we give power
| to people actively targeting democracy or other people.
| It's dishonest to act as if there's some reasonable
| compromise in this scenario.
| pc86 wrote:
| I can't wait until people stop saying the guy who won a
| majority of the popular vote is a threat to democracy.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| _He sold pardons_
|
| It doesn't matter how many people vote for you, your
| policies can still be anti-democratic.
| vacuity wrote:
| And the people may not want democracy. Democracy is only
| "good" in the sense that it can allow multiple competing
| groups. Any given group would prefer, if it could
| magically get it, an authoritarian gov't that imposes its
| world view and doesn't cede power to the wrong people.
| But the Republicans and their base are favorable to that
| idea now, as opposed to the Democrats who want to
| preserve an illusion of unity. Not that the Democrats
| should abolish democracy once they gain power, but then
| you need something disruptive elsewhere in the system to
| compensate for these incompatible tensions (such as a
| revolution).
| pc86 wrote:
| I think part of the answer is to accept that we don't
| live in a democracy, we live in a republic, and simply
| getting 50% +1 doesn't give you the right to do whatever
| you want. We'll see if the second Trump administration
| acknowledges that or not. They had a Republican House and
| Senate in 2016 too and still couldn't repeal the ACA, for
| example.
| pc86 wrote:
| Is this the Dunphy lawsuit? Or something else?
|
| As far as I have read, Guiliani has been accused in a
| civil lawsuit of saying he was going to sell pardons,
| nobody's provided any proof or evidence that Trump knew
| about it or did anything, and nobody has even had
| criminal charges brought let alone adjudicated.
|
| I'm happy to be proven wrong but two third parties being
| engaged in an unresolved civil claim is a long way away
| from "Trump sold pardons."
| gwurk wrote:
| In your opinion: Are those two things mutually exclusive?
| freeone3000 wrote:
| With Trump's party platform planks #17, about removing race
| and gender from school curriculae, #18, regarding a ban on
| transgender female athletes, and #19, regarding political
| deportation and "making colleges patriotic", I believe the
| culture war is being strongly fought by Trump as well, as
| much as I wish it wasn't.
| TheHypnotist wrote:
| The "abortion" issue is very poor marketing and I don't
| understand why this has never been corrected. It's not about
| unwanted children, it's more about the 1/5 chance a woman has
| of miscarrying and what happens after (along with the array
| of other pregnancy related issues).
| throwaway234423 wrote:
| The issue is that the extremists on both sides get the
| microphone and muddle the debate as much as possible.
| bluGill wrote:
| Right, you can't actually talk about any real compromise
| position. All anyone hears are the two extreme options.
| People who talk about miscarriage, mother's life in
| danger, and so on are trying to convince you that because
| those exist all abortion should be legal. Anyone who is
| against abortion sees right through that. If anyone was
| serious about the compromise position where those types
| of things are allowed but otherwise abortion was illegal
| they might be able to get many against abortion on their
| side - except that they won't because give an inch and
| they take a mile is reality and everyone "knows" if you
| compromise at all they will just be back against next
| year asking for more.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Conservatives think that's just a lie. They openly reject
| the harms that are actively happening right now in Texas.
|
| How do you win an election when your opponent is apparently
| not bound by reality? Maybe Harris should have just
| promised puppies and rainbows and candy.
| bluGill wrote:
| An liberals are not honest about caring. They are arguing
| because of a few bad cases all abortion should be legal,
| instead of using this as a reasonable compromise. So long
| as those are the two choices a lot less humans die if all
| abortion is banned even if some mothers die as well. (Do
| not say a fetus isn't a human - that might work for you
| but it doesn't apply to anyone against abortion and you
| just look like an idiot for not recognizing what they see
| as an obvious fact and we get nowhere).
|
| If you want to support a compromise: most of what you
| need to do is shut up everyone who will only accept their
| extreme position.
| TheHypnotist wrote:
| Stop trying to introduce nuance to a topic where there is
| none. It should be entirely left up to the woman and her
| doctor.
| bluGill wrote:
| And you have just ensured this fight will continue.
| TheHypnotist wrote:
| I wouldn't compromise on my bodily autonomy, neither
| should women. It's simple. You making it more complicated
| is what ensures this fight will continue.
| bluGill wrote:
| What we have here is a conflict of values. That you think
| it is simple is insulting the values of others. Most
| people against abortion value females right to body
| autonomy: they value the right to not be murdered more.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| Except if it's a COVID vaccination.
| TheHypnotist wrote:
| That's very much a false equivalency as pregnancy and
| miscarriage is not contagious.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Maybe Harris should have just promised puppies and
| rainbows and candy._
|
| She did, and no one fell for it.
|
| Consider that, just maybe, you're the one not bound by
| reality.
| zer8k wrote:
| If they sold it as a "universal right to basic healthcare"
| it would be more palatable to most people.
|
| Fact of the matter is most abortions are elective. It is,
| in fact, about unwanted children. It is however a shame
| actual health risks are lumped in - mostly due to
| marketing.
| dcow wrote:
| I think it was even more simple: Democrats put a senile man
| up for office.
| Daishiman wrote:
| You've heard Donald Trump talk in the last couple of months
| and you think Biden is senile?
| thechao wrote:
| He has good days and bad days. My dad's 82, and he's
| doing a lot better than DJT.
| dcow wrote:
| The point is not that Trump is a shining human. It's
| simply not a winning move to run a dying senile man for
| office who's two generations removed from having a sliver
| of empathy for the actual problems Americans are facing
| and then pivoting mid/race to a VP that gives men
| vasectomies at her rallies.
|
| _That_ was Trump's competition. Trump may be abrasive
| but at least the version of him you see has already lost
| his mind so you know what you're getting. And apparently
| it resonates with more Americans.
| Daishiman wrote:
| Everything you've said here is completely and absolutely
| delirious. This is the literal information of a low-
| information voter: someone who honestly believes that
| people are getting vasectomies at rallies or that a
| senile billionaire who says Haitians refugees are eating
| dogs as if it were reality is a better potential
| candidate.
| sickofparadox wrote:
| Surely insulting people by calling them "low information
| voters" (read as: stupid idiot) will win this time
| despite failing in 2016 and 2024. Also, people were at
| the very least offered vasectomies at the DNC rally[1],
| so maybe you should check your information levels, they
| seem to need a top-off.
|
| [1]https://www.npr.org/2024/08/20/nx-s1-5081386/planned-
| parenth...
| Daishiman wrote:
| You're picking one point in the headline that by itself
| sounds totally outrageous because in the mind of the low-
| information voter you read the headline and think to
| yourself a sketchy booth that says "free vasectomies!!!1"
| and somebody grabbing you in the middle of a convention
| saying "Kid, want a free vasectomy?".
|
| In the context of a health check in reproductive health
| RV that offers a ton of things, _including_ vasectomies
| in the context of an informed discussion with a health
| expert, it is not only totally reasonable, but it should
| be extended to a host of other services that can provided
| in a mobile clinic the same that mobile vaccination sites
| were provided during COVID.
| sickofparadox wrote:
| >"in the mind of the low-information voter you read the
| headline and think to yourself a sketchy booth that says
| "free vasectomies!!!1" and somebody grabbing you in the
| middle of a convention saying "Kid, want a free
| vasectomy?"."
|
| You have invented a person in your head to get mad at.
| Regardless, normal people think having the abortion
| clinic RV at your largest rally offering to sterilize
| your supporters is weird. No matter how much you want to
| dress it up.
| Daishiman wrote:
| Normal people are in favor of abortion and reproductive
| health. The only way that's weird is if you want to dress
| it up as weird, which is what people who think you
| shouldn't be able to do with your body as you please
| believe.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| _a VP that gives men vasectomies at her rallies_
|
| Why would you ever think this is true?
| sickofparadox wrote:
| Probably because it is? [1]
|
| [1]https://www.npr.org/2024/08/20/nx-s1-5081386/planned-
| parenth...
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Then the actual truth is 'planned parenthood sets up a
| mobile clinic near the democratic national convention'.
|
| The vice president wasn't giving anyone vasectomies, a
| mobile clinic was at a huge event.
|
| Now that we've established the actual truth and not a
| ridiculous hallucination, what is the problem?
| sickofparadox wrote:
| I don't know if English is your second language, so I'll
| try to explain this plainly. When GP says "a vice
| president" in their comment it is not meant as literally
| Kamala Harris, they are using a literary device called
| metonymy. Google's definition: the substitution of the
| name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing
| meant, for example suit for business executive, or the
| track for horse racing. "a VP" in GP is a substitution
| for "the Kamala Harris campaign" which absolutely did
| organize a mobile clinic to be present for a major event,
| at which vasectomies were offered. Here is further
| reading on Metonymy if you would care to learn more:
| https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/what-metonymy.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| _I don 't know if English is your second language_
|
| I don't know if English is your second language, but this
| is what's known as a lie for propaganda. There is
| something reasonable that everyone would be fine with
| (mobile medical clinic) and then there is the lie you're
| repeating that you're now going on an odyssey to back
| peddle away from as if you didn't just repeat propaganda.
|
| Now that the truth has been established your forgot to
| explain what the problem is.
| sickofparadox wrote:
| Your clinging to the idea that there is anyone at all who
| has said and meant, literally, that Kamala Harris was
| providing vasectomies to anyone is the kind of shrill
| idiocy that led her to lose this election.
|
| >"this is what's known as a lie for propaganda"
|
| No one is outright lying, but you are certainly being
| dishonest by insisting someone else was not speaking
| figuratively when they obviously were.
|
| >"your(sic) forgot to explain what the problem is."
|
| The problem is that it is weird and off putting to most
| Americans that there is a clinic offering sterilization
| procedures to supporters of a politician at their rally.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| _Your clinging to the idea that there is anyone at all
| who has said and meant, literally, that Kamala Harris was
| providing vasectomies_
|
| If you meant something else, why did you say what you did
| and not the truth? Because you are lying for propaganda.
| If you wanted to explain the actual truth you would have
| said it.
|
| _No one is outright lying,_
|
| You are and you're doing it on purpose for outrage over
| something that isn't real.
|
| _The problem is that it is weird and off putting to most
| Americans that there is a clinic offering sterilization
| procedures to supporters of a politician at their rally._
|
| I would guess they offer it to everyone actually. What is
| the problem? You still haven't explained it.
|
| Everything you've said is variations of "I didn't meant
| it so it wasn't a lie" and "it's just not right because
| it is".
| blindriver wrote:
| Trump talked for 3 hours straight and was coherent,
| remembered facts accurately and funny as well.
|
| Harris avoided any conversation that wasn't heavily
| edited.
| throwaway4220 wrote:
| Why is this still being said? Did you not watch the
| debate? What facts? He mixed up Nikki Haley and Nancy
| pelosi.
|
| He's old, it's not unexpected. I think he got a huge pass
| with Biden being in office, which was in retrospect a bad
| decision.
| Klonoar wrote:
| Senile is not a binary flag here: Biden did not present
| as well as Trump, it's as simple as that.
|
| He should have moved aside far, far sooner.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| For politicians, economy is the GDP and stock market.
|
| For the common folk, economy is their purchasing power.
|
| That's where there's the disconnect.
| Ekaros wrote:
| And for financial media it is the stock market.
|
| Which can be separate from the purchasing power.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| NB: I added stock market and didn't see your reply.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Whats bizarre though is that consumer spending has been
| strong.
|
| There is this bizarre mixed signals problem where all the
| metrics look strong, and yet all the people are
| complaining.
|
| My personal belief is that the crazy economics of the
| pandemic was kick in the head to most people's perceptions
| of finances. Things got really good for a lot of middle and
| lower class people, and now there is pain in the return to
| normal.
|
| And housing.
| dcow wrote:
| Re: "look out for your wife": I'm going to say the unpopular
| but perhaps true thing... there are limits even to the amount
| of reproductive freedom society can grant women while being
| able to sustain a replacement rate that keeps it alive, and
| even women know it. I have been having a small but increasing
| number of conversations where people are absolutely
| questioning whether we've over-indexed on trying to sell
| women this "be just like the salary men no consequences"
| narrative--with women who were all about reproductive freedom
| in their 20s and all of a sudden they are 35, have a great
| job, but can't easily have kids anymore, feel unfulfilled and
| feel like they were lied to. It's real even if it's not how
| you specifically feel. I don't have the answer but I think
| the almost anti-child democrat narrative, which Kamala dialed
| to 11, really really misses the beauty and wonder of
| childbirth and frankly the core need society has to actively
| and healthily sustain itself (which simply cannot be done via
| import). We don't all work and make money just to die, do we?
| Humans are programmed to build legacy.
|
| I say this because I fundamentally believe that Democrats
| need an answer for this if they want to remain relevant. You
| can't milk reproductive freedom for eternity. Americans want
| the focus to shift back to a more nuanced and biologically
| adapted conversation around sustainable social narrative.
| That or we need mechanical wombs.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| Or even some "look out for your husband" messaging, but men
| only mattered to one side in this election to the degree that
| they were incidentally useful to women.
| adolph wrote:
| > Women's healthcare isn't an issue that resonates with young
| (read: unmarried) men.
|
| This seems to be an oblique reference to something specific
| about that healthcare. If someone doesn't articulate a
| proposed specific amount of time or objective physiological
| thresholds for a procedure, they aren't serious. I saw no
| evidence for this from either campaign, so I guess they
| agreed the issue was not at play.
| mint2 wrote:
| Being from California, I couldn't see what the ads were like
| and I'm extremely curious about something.
|
| Were there a bunch of ads explaining why tariffs are going to
| cause pain and raise prices? And would be likely to spike
| inflation again?
|
| I'm guessing no due to the election result but please
| confirm.
| lokar wrote:
| You can't explain things like that to most voters, it just
| won't work.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| > Were there a bunch of ads explaining why tariffs are
| going to cause pain and raise prices? And would be likely
| to spike inflation again?
|
| Yes. They billed it as the "Trump tax."
| 8338550bff96 wrote:
| Women actually deserve a constitutional amendment to protect
| their rights, not a court ruling of the most dubious
| jurisprudence. Because of Roe V. Wade the political will
| create a new actually applicable amendment was never pursued
| - a bandaide that eventually fell off.
|
| Part of the problem is that most people lack the cognitive
| capacity to understand the legal argumentation of Roe V. Wade
| and how shaky it was and so they out of incompetence set
| themselves up as women's rights constitutional amendment
| obstructionists
| easterncalculus wrote:
| > There could have been some "look out for your wife"
| messaging, but there wasn't.
|
| Instead, they ran ads implying that husbands were trying to
| force their wives to vote trump, a narrative that comforts
| their own biases but does nothing for the people they needed
| to convince.
| SirMaster wrote:
| Yeah, why would people ever support a party that seeks to
| vilify them?
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Women 's healthcare isn't an issue that resonates with
| young (read: unmarried) men. It should, but it doesn't. There
| could have been some "look out for your wife" messaging, but
| there wasn't._
|
| Because sensible people don't think that Trump presidency
| means "no healthcare for Women".
| sbdhzjd wrote:
| I think Trump won college educated white women. In fact, I
| think he did better in every demographic? Most of them for
| sure.
|
| So to blame this on "unmarried white men" is counter
| productive.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| I've only seen exit poll demographics for key states.
| Republicans won college white men but only at 50%. He
| performed better among married white men (28% of sample)
| than non-married white men (20% of sample). Looks like his
| biggest gender gap is among suburban whites. Looks like his
| most-supportive crosstab is evangelicals, happy with the
| Supreme Court, whose primary issue is banning abortion.
| whoitwas wrote:
| I can't understand. The orange goon can't complete a sentence,
| hates everything, crimes everything, is basically a 300#
| toddler... A literal toddler would be 99% less bad. If given
| the choice between Hitler and Trump ... at least you know what
| Hitler thinks. Trump will change his mind for an extra ketchup.
| Applejinx wrote:
| He's run out of Russia, and that explains a lot. This is
| really a worldwide battle, but the death mostly isn't caused
| by bombs in most places.
|
| It's caused by intentionally mismanaging health crises while
| sending healthcare to Putin. There's nothing mysterious about
| this. It's simple warfare, but on the terms used within the
| Russian regime domestically.
|
| We've been the Zone for some time now, and the fog isn't any
| lighter this morning.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| A lot of people wanted more of what he has to offer. You
| won't gain much by understanding why, even from his most
| eloquent supporter.
|
| The best knowledge is how to benefit from this. And the
| topmost rule is that Trump wants to live out his life without
| fear of court. We may have to strike a deal that the
| stability of America depends on that.
| bko wrote:
| I think it would have been better if they didn't hide Biden's
| mental deterioration and let the primary process pick out a
| better candidate. There isn't a single county that she
| outperformed Biden from 2020.
| data_maan wrote:
| > I don't think the policy positions even matter that much, if
| you can make a strong case and gain the confidence of the
| electorate.
|
| If this were true it would mean Americans are dumb as rock and
| don't really care about "boring", technocratic but important
| decisions like climate change, geopolitical alliances, etc. -
| and just want a showman to dazzle their softened brains.
| numbsafari wrote:
| Yeah. Exactly.
| kragen wrote:
| This is obviously true and has been for decades. Neil
| Postman's _Amusing Ourselves to Death_ from 01985 makes the
| case fairly strongly, but probably even stronger evidence is
| that the US apparently just elected as president a Twitter
| troll and reality-show TV host who doesn 't know how to
| capitalize English and signed bills with a Sharpie in his
| previous presidential term.
| data_maan wrote:
| So... dumb as rock it is then?
| kragen wrote:
| Yes, I said that was obvious. Postman makes an excellent
| case that that's what happens when you reduce public
| discourse to entertainment.
|
| Don't get complacent; the process producing European
| leaders like Putin, Zelenskyy, Orban, Meloni, and Erdogan
| is no better, nor other American leaders like Lula or
| Maduro, nor Modi. And, although Xi's path to power
| doesn't depend on how relatable his stories are about how
| he had difficulty climbing into a garbage truck, that
| process is flawed in other ways that are likely worse.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| > just want a showman to dazzle their softened brains
|
| Nietzsche made this case really strongly in his chapter/essay
| "The Flies in the Marketplace" back in the 1880s, and pretty
| well predicted how this would emerge play out half a century
| later in Germany. " Full of clattering buffoons is the
| market-place,--and the people glory in their great men! These
| are for them the masters of the hour."
| oefrha wrote:
| > I don't think the policy positions even matter that much.
|
| The tribalism at this point is insane, it's basically organized
| religion. You choose your tribe and get assigned a (terrible)
| religious leader and a list of dogmas you have to subscribe to
| without getting ostracized. Why should my view on trade be
| linked to regulations be linked to climate be linked to drugs
| be linked to criminal justice be linked to refugees be linked
| to Israel be linked to identity politics be linked to abortion
| be linked to guns? No idea, but take it or leave it. And the
| choices of religious leaders? Between someone who lies as
| readily and confidently as he drinks water and someone who's a
| boring ladder climber and <omitted because this is an
| overwhelmingly one-tribe site>. No thank you.
| arghwhat wrote:
| Tribalism is human nature, as social success - a key survival
| criteria - requires alignment.
|
| The reason it becomes a problem is that there the only
| options for each "tribe" is one of two extremes, and that
| these are perceived so fundamentally different it is hard for
| people to find common grounds. When you have many more
| parties, you have a wider spectrum where you can have partial
| agreement and disagreement with much softer borders between
| political strongholds, and tribes can incrementally move
| within the spectrum without having to switch all their
| beliefs and ideologies from one day to the next.
|
| Being more understanding of tribes with other ideas rather
| than making them villains would also help both sides in
| communication and political mobility.
| dataviz1000 wrote:
| Veritasium released a wonderful new video yesterday, "On
| These Questions, Smarter People Do Worse" which ..... I'm
| not going to spoil it for you but you will understand why I
| responded with the link.
|
| Watching, they discuss a study about gun control and I
| though omg I was thinking about that recently and the study
| they presented answers the question I've been pondering
| about gun control. If you watch the video, you will
| understand my disappointment.
|
| I had been living in New Orleans including when it had the
| 8th highest murder rate ... not in the United States but
| the world in 2022 (it was #1 in US hence not 8th). The city
| couldn't hire police officers and close 120 position had
| been unfilled. There is a very strange phenomena happening
| in the past 2 years, the crime rate in New Orleans is
| plummeting without police. [1] So, in the Veritasium video,
| they talk about a gun violence study and I think, that is
| exactly the question I'm asking. Does gun violence go down
| if law enforcement is removed from the equation because
| that is exactly for unknown reasons happening New Orleans
| today. Nobody is taking away guns in New Orleans and
| everyone I know has at least 2. I was a little disappointed
| with the study but tapped my self on the shoulder asking
| the correct question when presented with it.
|
| [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB_OApdxcno
|
| [1]https://www.fox8live.com/2024/09/19/how-new-orleans-
| went-mur...
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I currently still live in New Orleans, and I am willing
| to bet you the surveillance programs and license plate
| readers have something to do with it.
| lesuorac wrote:
| Well, the title of the video is actually wrong.
|
| Smarter people did better than Dumber people. The people
| with a score of 8,9 on numeracy did the best [1] but not
| as good as they should've. This is basically best shown
| on page 12 [2] on the actual paper, people with high
| numeracy have a better chance of correct answer than low
| numeracy.
|
| I suspect the effect is even across low & high numeracy
| but because high numeracy people were more likely to get
| the correct answer to begin with. Akin to say you playing
| a toddler in Counter-Strike. You're more likely to win a
| round than them. So if for a round I disconnect one of
| your controllers then the disconnection is more likely to
| cause you a loss than the toddler because the toddler was
| going to lose anyways, the effect of disconnection for
| them is dwarfed by their innate ability.
|
| [1]: https://youtu.be/zB_OApdxcno?t=413
|
| [2]: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=
| 2319992
| throwaway817472 wrote:
| The title says that smarter people do worse, which is
| correct in the sense that their relative performance is
| 20% worse than less numerically inclined people. They
| cover this in the latter half of the video. However, in
| order to believe this was the title's intent, you would
| have to assume the title should have read, "Smarter
| people score worse on political numerical questions than
| on apolitical numerical questions." Realistically it's so
| ambiguous that any interpretation is plausible.
| lesuorac wrote:
| > Realistically it's so ambiguous that any interpretation
| is plausible.
|
| The dude isn't some rushed working single mother. He had
| amble time to choose what he wanted to convey and instead
| chose that title.
|
| When your study creates 2 populations (those with good
| numeracy and those without) and you make a claim that one
| of those populations "do worse" than it's always
| implicitly with respect to the other population.
| throwaway817472 wrote:
| All I can say is your frustration is valid, and welcome
| to modern YouTube.
| hoseja wrote:
| The study doesn't replicate.
| generic92034 wrote:
| > When you have many more parties, you have a wider
| spectrum where you can have partial agreement and
| disagreement with much softer borders between political
| strongholds, and tribes can incrementally move within the
| spectrum without having to switch all their beliefs and
| ideologies from one day to the next.
|
| That is a good theory, but coalitions can also easily
| create stalemates on many topics and effectively rendering
| a government incapable of any significant action. There are
| recent examples in EU countries.
| arghwhat wrote:
| The effect of coalitions is in political execution rather
| than in ideological separation. The concern here was
| entirely about the social impact on residents, not the
| political efficiency.
|
| Coalitions can partly negate the benefit of the
| "spectrum", but each member still answers to a different
| body of voters and going along with too many conflicting
| proposals would put them at risk of losing the confidence
| of their voters. Not differentiating from the other
| coalition members puts the party at risk of voters
| jumping ship to the others, and each party ultimately
| wishes to grow their own voter base.
| generic92034 wrote:
| The effect on the residents from a coalition not
| performing is usually increasing the base of the
| politically more extreme parties.
| Gormo wrote:
| > Tribalism is human nature
|
| Nah, tribalism of this sort is absolutely not human nature.
| People naturally form tribes and define ingroup/outgroup
| boundaries around their actual relationships and
| communities.
|
| It takes alignment of a lot of unusual circumstances to get
| people to attach their identities to "tribes" that are
| actually aggregations of completely unrelated strangers
| grouped together on the bases of abstract symbols.
|
| People are naturally loyal to their families and local
| communities, not to continent-spanning political
| organizations.
| arghwhat wrote:
| I'm confused: You start by saying that tribalism isn't
| human nature, but then you describe that tribal behaviors
| are natural.
|
| People are indeed loyal to their local communities -
| which includes having ideologies that would not greatly
| offend your peers - but everyone has different
| communities. Yours might include family A and B. Theirs
| might include C and D, and E and F, respectively.
| Continue a few rounds and you'll see that each social
| circle is unique and inter-connected.
|
| No one within this "super-tribe" can have a different
| ideology without offending _their_ local community by
| aligning with the opposite extreme - even if your opinion
| only differed slightly, your _choice_ is one of two
| extremes.
|
| In order to fix this, you need people to have more
| choices so that they can select something slightly
| different from your community without offending it.
| nemo44x wrote:
| I don't think it's as tribal as you think. At the margins
| yes, there are wing nuts both ways. But Trump got a lot of
| votes he didn't get before and Kamala got fewer than Biden.
|
| Inflation has been a shocker. The border being flooded is
| terrifying. The economy is and has been struggling in many
| peoples lives. And the democrats want to still focus on
| identity politics.
|
| I think they can easily win in 4 years but they need to
| change their ways. They need to abandon the poisoned ideology
| that Obama inspired.
| istjohn wrote:
| > The border being flooded is terrifying.
|
| ...
|
| > And the democrats want to still focus on identity
| politics.
|
| Does typing this out not cause the slightest pang of
| cognitive dissonance?
| m0llusk wrote:
| Add to that the Democrats have been far more successful
| with apprehending and deporting illegal immigrants. This
| is a struggle among people trapped in their own bubbles,
| disconnected from and uninterested in reality or relevant
| metrics.
| nemo44x wrote:
| I don't know if that's true or not but "sanctuary
| cities", "Abolish ICE", blue city mayors complaining
| about a migrant crisis, and Venezuelan gangs taking over
| apartment complexes don't inspire confidence.
| nemo44x wrote:
| If the issue was immigrants in general then possibly. But
| it's about illegal immigration specifically and complete
| disregard for law and order when it comes to the millions
| crossing the border illegally and being encouraged to do
| so in many cases or no pressure to deport anyhow. Turns
| out that's bad policy.
| ubertaco wrote:
| By the actual numbers, illegal immigrants are by far the
| group with the lowest rate of felony, violent crime,
| property crime, and drug-related crime:
| https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/undocumented-
| immigrant-o...
|
| The idea of illegal immigration being "complete disregard
| for law and order" is based solely in feelings of fear or
| animosity, not in facts.
| throwaway817472 wrote:
| This is precisely his point. Illegal immigration isn't
| about identity politics, as it has nothing to do with
| race or gender or disability, etc. Your comment turned
| this into a conversation about identity politics.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Most discussions of immigration I've seen seem to be
| fixated on a subset of illegal immigrants. i.e. talk of
| border walls (only between US/Mexico, never seen
| discussion of US/Canada) when most illegal immigrants are
| coming via boring methods like through ports of entry and
| on commercial airplanes.
| throwaway817472 wrote:
| That's fascinating. I definitely agree that there seems
| to be a fixation on the southern border. Do you have a
| source showing that a majority of illegal immigrants are
| entering through ports of entry or commercial flights?
| Would love to read it.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I didn't find more recent numbers than this in the minute
| I spent looking but I imagine they're available if you
| dig around: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/16/686056668/for-
| seventh-consecu...
| kgwgk wrote:
| That's about 2016-2017. Estimates of illegal crossings in
| the South border were below 200k per year, I think, but
| over 800k last year.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Wasn't 2016 when the country was at peak "build the wall
| and make Mexico pay for it"? Regardless, do you have
| numbers for 2023 that include visa overstays, for
| comparison purposes?
| nemo44x wrote:
| I'd be curious to get more information on that. For
| example, it isn't only Mexicans and Central Americans
| coming through the southern border. Around 25,000 Chinese
| nationals have been apprehended on the southern border by
| the middle of the year, for example. You wonder how many
| HAVE passed through illegally.
|
| Maybe I'm wrong but I feel like a better pro-immigration
| strategy for Democrats would be to agree with the fact
| illegal immigration must be stopped and to debate the
| methods to stop it. And then secondly, argue for opening
| LEGAL immigration to more people since there are many
| benefits to it when done in a controlled and deliberate
| manner.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| These people try and illegally enter the US through the
| southern border because a CHANCE of a life in the US is
| better than dying in Mexico to your local cartel.
|
| No amount of border wall or lawfare will change that for
| Mexico (I personally believe we should be working hard
| with Mexico to re-assert law and order, that WOULD reduce
| illegal immigration). No matter what we say, the horde of
| bodies will continue.
|
| So what are you going to do? Are you going to shoot them?
| How many strangers will we shoot, how many mothers and
| children, just to insist that we really care about that
| border? Will America be better when we kill a thousand
| people a day in the south? How will doing that improve
| the economy?
| starfezzy wrote:
| Implying a contradiction reveals the critic's own
| identity politics perspective.
|
| The permanent, irreversible demographic shift that
| conveniently favors Dem politics is only one of the many,
| many problems caused by turning a blind eye to
| unprecedented hordes of inherently law-disregarding
| third-worlders taking advantage of our weak border
| enforcement.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| I never saw any Democrats focusing on Identity, it was
| always Republicans talking about it as a boogie man.
|
| There are actual real genetic disorders Trans people are
| dealing with.
|
| Republican's just chose Trans people as some small group
| dealing with a difficult to explain condition and decided
| to pile on them.
| NeutralCrane wrote:
| Republicans have been increasingly focused on identity
| politics and Democrats have been avoiding it for only the
| last year or so as it has become clear that it is a major
| liability for Democrats. They spent most of the last
| decade heavily emphasizing identity politics, and it's
| become clear to them and everyone else they have been
| largely out of touch with the average American in that
| area. Now that there is a rising backlash, they've tried
| to distance themselves but Republicans have years of
| material to drag out and pin them with. I don't think
| they get credit for trying to downplay a long-running
| strategic blunder in the 11th hour.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Decade?
|
| Not really. If you want to go back a Decade, then it was
| legitimate equality issues.
|
| You can't just say, people shouldn't be equal and claim
| you are fighting against 'identity' politics. Like women
| being allowed to open bank accounts without their
| husbands permission. Why do Republicans want to go back
| to those days? Unless you actually listen to them, and
| they quote some Bible Versus about Women being property,
| then you see the actual agenda.
| nemo44x wrote:
| This is the classic motte-and-bailey scenario - that the
| entire radical gender movement is just trying to be nice
| to trans people. But overlooking trans women competing
| against biological women, biological reality, critical
| gender theory being taught to kids, pronouns, "x" as in
| Latinx and the adjacent drag queens reading to kids, etc.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| "entire radical gender movement"
|
| What is the term for 'take a couple isolated examples and
| call it a movement'? motte-and-bailey goes both ways.
|
| There is no widespread 'trans women competing against
| biological women'.
|
| Completely made up issue to stir outrage with the radical
| base.
| intended wrote:
| But... all of those were addressed by the Dems? Kamala's
| policies were explained and even endorsed by economists.
|
| The people who bring the issues back to identity politics
| are not dems.
|
| Unless... perhaps the solutions didn't matter, and the
| polls themselves were much stronger than the results.
| NeutralCrane wrote:
| Economists are tea leaf readers. For any given economic
| plan you have economists giving their endorsement.
| "Kamala's policies were explained and even endorsed by
| economists" is a non-statement and you can replace
| "Kamala" with any presidential candidate in the last 50
| years and it will remain true. I think the President gets
| too much credit for both good and bad economic
| situations, but the fact of the matter is that the
| average American feels the economy is terrible after 4
| years of Biden policies and that is going to look larger
| than promises of future policies.
|
| On the issue of identity politics, Democrats have been
| all in for nearly a decade, and only in the last year or
| so, when it has become apparent they are out of step with
| the majority of Americans, have they begun to back off.
| It's not unexpected for the Republicans to now be the
| ones bringing up identity politics given how closely the
| Democrats have aligned themselves to it for so long, and
| the current backlash towards it. The damage is done and
| it will take many years of priority shifting for
| Democrats to get over it.
| intended wrote:
| The preceding comments were about tribalism, and I was
| showing that policy had nothing to do with anything. That
| the dems talked about policy but it still be perceived
| that they didn't.
|
| > identity politics
|
| This has squarely been a republican plank to rile and
| invigorate their base, regularly creating issues where
| none existed to get their team up to vote,
|
| The fact that this can be blamed on the dems is always
| strange. I mean, the whole point of Fox was to create a
| counter narrative to address the march of "liberal
| science". The goal was entirely to handle science and
| research, and present ways to combat this with feelings.
| Again - my favorite example is creationism.
| ff317 wrote:
| Inflation being a years-long painful problem to wrestle
| with was inevitable with all the stimulus pumped in to keep
| us afloat through the pandemic. We could have fared far
| worse, and many countries did. I don't know why the left
| didn't push on this argument harder to defend themselves.
| bakuninsbart wrote:
| You are not wrong, the Democrat strategy obviously failed,
| the racist right is significantly better at identity
| politics, because a) whites are still a majority and b)
| latinos are very christian and anti-socialist on average.
|
| And Kamala Harris was an uninspiring candidate, the
| democrats have proved to be the definition of "lesser evil"
| without any true identity with teeth to speak off. Still,
| Donald Trump is a pedophile, a rapist, a good friend to
| Jeffrey Epstein. I don't understand how anyone can be
| morally bankrupt enough to vote for someone like that.
| matsemann wrote:
| _< omitted because this is an overwhelmingly one-tribe site>_
|
| A woman? Lots worse than "liar" could be said about one of
| them, I'm curious what makes you think both candidates are
| equally bad but don't dare say it.
| oefrha wrote:
| I never said two choices have to be equally bad for me to
| not want to choose either. And don't try to gotcha me with
| the misogyny nonsense.
| Molitor5901 wrote:
| In group power dynamics. Once a person identifies with a
| group, and makes the beliefs of that group part of their
| identity, then they will fight any threat to it. Since there
| are just two parties you are forced to choose one or the
| other.
|
| The single greatest thing the American people can do from
| this moment on is to stop hating each other for political
| beliefs, put that aside, and just talk without expectation or
| trying to convince someone. Just talk. America has let
| political identity supersede all else.
| xeromal wrote:
| A youtuber spoke about this though I can't remember the
| name. Veretisium maybe? He goes into how humans inherently
| want to avoid being ostracized from their tribe so they
| vote regardless of data or hard science. He said it was a
| feature rather than a bug though
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >The single greatest thing the American people can do from
| this moment on is to stop hating each other for political
| beliefs
|
| Many conservatives, including many of my own family
| members, have enthusiastically declared "all democrats
| should be shot", for usually really odd and mundane things
| too, like Michelle Obama saying children should eat
| healthily. They blame her for school lunch programs in my
| state going downhill, primarily from reduced budgets that
| prevent the school from buying anything to eat other than a
| shitload of frozen chicken patties. But no, apparently that
| reduction in funding, which was decided at the state level
| and mostly done during Bush's admin when no child left
| behind fucked with school funding, is her fault.
|
| None of the hate came from democrats. The first mean
| spirited thing said by democrats was when Hillary called
| republicans a basket of deplorables.
|
| Republicans have been calling democrats satan worshippers,
| literal biblical demons, degenerates, sexual deviants, etc
| since the 70s.
|
| Republicans walked away from basic decency. Not democrats.
| None of us feel comfortable talking to our Trumper friends
| and family because they are our parents who raised us to
| hate others and we had to individually of our own accord
| grow past that. They are our brothers who literally tell us
| we should be shot back in the mid 2000s, before you can
| even blame identity politics. They are our mothers who
| taught us we were sluts for wearing a skirt and deserved to
| be raped. They are our grandparents who taught us that
| having a baby out of wedlock is an ostracization worthy
| event. They are teachers who spent a lecture talking about
| how slavery wasn't so bad. They are bosses who force you to
| watch anti-union propaganda before you can work.
|
| Fox News specifically has been declaring and waging regular
| war on most things that aren't stereotypical 50s americana
| since it's inception.
|
| Like what fucking more do you want from us? How do you talk
| to that?
| Pxtl wrote:
| Considering how quickly the Democrats ousted Biden when his
| mental fitness to lead was in doubt, I don't think it's fair
| to describe progressives as having a "religious leader".
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| I've been trying to argue for some time that with two
| parties, even accounting for their primaries, the bandwidth
| of our representation is much too low to communicate a
| spectrum of political ideas. I forget the exact numbers I
| calculated, but from memory, current American democratic
| bandwidth at the national level is something in the
| neighborhood of 5 bits per year. This can't allow for any
| kinds of subtle distinctions between philosophy. We're stuck
| with big ugly buckets of loosely-related (at best) issues
| because we can't democratically communicate any more
| specifically.
| csense wrote:
| It sure feels like ranked choice voting would help a lot.
| returningfory2 wrote:
| I think this is somewhat true but not fully true. Elections
| aren't the only way in which policy gets communicated and
| so this bit-level analysis doesn't capture it fully IMO. If
| you look at border policy, for instance, Democrats have
| moved to the right not because of election mechanisms like
| primaries, but through public opinion.
| ludsan wrote:
| > you won't win by claiming to be 0.1% less bad.
|
| Please.
| ecuaflo wrote:
| Probably not a good message to circumvent the democratic
| process and skip the primary either
| xbmcuser wrote:
| Democrats lost the enthusiasm once they sidelined Bernie
| Sanders for Hillary Clinton at that time they had a similar
| fire among it's voters. I feel they lost a lot of young male
| voters at that time and they are still paying for it
| pineaux wrote:
| Yes. At that point many people saw the corruption of the
| democratic party.
| rafinha wrote:
| That "enough of the damn emails" moment from Bernie Sanders
| during the democratic debate was very weird to say the least.
| It seemed he wasnt interested at all at moving forward with
| the nomination.
| boosting6889 wrote:
| It is much simpler than that. My dad watches Fox News all day
| nonstop. When I say all day I mean he is watching it from the
| time he wakes up at 6am until going to sleep and doesn't watch
| anything else. It does not matter who the democrats field, Fox
| News will just demonize that person and their viewers will vote
| accordingly. He does not even agree with any traditionally
| conservative ideology; he is pro-choice, pro-LGBT rights, pro-
| union, doesn't like tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy
| doesn't agree illegal immigration is a huge problem, but he
| votes for Trump because he watches Fox News nonstop. The one
| common thread among every Trump supporter I know is Fox News.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| >The one common thread among every Trump supporter I know is
| Fox News.
|
| Nobody I know watches Fox News. My social circle is almost
| entirely current/former US military expats, so it's not easy
| to even access cable television outside of work, if you even
| work on a US military base (and not everyone does). Most
| people are tied into YouTube, podcasts, etc.
|
| Mostly economically liberal, socially conservative, with
| graduate STEM educations or MBAs. Mostly prime working-age
| males or kinda close to retirement. Significant over-
| representation of minorities. Religiously either atheist,
| Catholic, or Muslim. Almost all vocally Trump-leaning or at
| the very least VERY anti-woke.
|
| The anti-Trump contingent in my personal life is all older
| people:
|
| (2) retired boomers, one a white Progressive guy from the
| Pacific Northwest, the other a black guy from Virginia, both
| with TDS from consumption of legacy media (NYT in the white
| guy's case, mainstream cable news in the black guy's case)
|
| (2) almost-retired black women, both unmarried, one with no
| kids and the other a now-empty-nester with adult adopted
| children. Both watch a lot of US TV as well.
| ars wrote:
| I know tens of Trump supporters, not a single one of them
| watches Fox News.
| immibis wrote:
| From a game theoretical perspective the Democrat establishment
| is fine with this since they all support Trump anyway. They'd
| rather not be in power but have their policies represented in
| the President, than have the president but have him not do what
| they really want.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| Nah.. as the old saying goes: "It's the economy, stupid."
|
| Trump wasn't elected, the bad inflationary economy created by
| monetary shenanigans elected Trump.
| linotype wrote:
| You realize though that Trump's policy plan is more
| inflationary than Kamala's right?
| giantg2 wrote:
| "I don't think the policy positions even matter that much, if
| you can make a strong case and gain the confidence of the
| electorate."
|
| That's pretty sad state of the system. Policy positions should
| be the primary thing voters care about.
|
| "It's about mobilizing people by giving them something to care
| about."
|
| Yeah, but this is how you get the most extreme candidates. Look
| at the primaries. They have very small numbers of voters, and
| the voters in just a few states set the tone for those
| elections due to timing. You can make a huge difference by
| mobilizing voters with increasingly extreme positions or
| rhetoric. As you said, status quo doesn't energize. That means
| the people are less likely to get involved fir the staus quo
| unless they have a strong sense of duty about voting.
| weberer wrote:
| >I don't think the policy positions even matter that much
|
| I disagree hard. You should have a strong policy that people
| can believe in. When the average person sees that the price of
| certain groceries are 3x what they used to be, they stop caring
| about petty personal attacks.
| dtquad wrote:
| How are Democrats to blame for inflation caused by Trump-era
| COVID entitlements funded by money printing? Sure some of it
| continued for months into the Biden administration but the
| bulk of it happened under Trump.
| weberer wrote:
| Why didn't they focus on that? I think the average person
| would care a lot more about that fact than Trump being
| convicted on 34 counts of not properly filing business
| records. Since inflation actually affects them. Yet the
| convictions took up no shortage of airtime in attack ads.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I think this part changes the context: 34 counts of not
| properly filing business records in order to hide the
| fact that he paid a porn star to keep quiet about their
| affair in order to hide this information from voters
| before an election...
|
| But it seems nobody cared anyways, he didn't need to hide
| it
| ks2048 wrote:
| I agree that the price of groceries probably decided the
| election. But I don't see how Trump had any "strong policy
| that people can believe in". There was just anti-status-quo
| amongst the 10% of votes that are up-for-grabs at this point.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| I agree but the point is: democracy mandates all candidates
| strenuously pursue the 5% in 7 states. The Republican Party
| has a better model of their psyche. I think you and I agree
| it's a cynical model, but the Democratic Party doesn't get
| results with theirs.
| vacuity wrote:
| The Democratic Party can't win with those tactics
| anyways. If it imitates the Republicans more and more,
| everyone will just slide further right. It should've
| taken a different stance and hard-lined on it. Trying to
| appeal to voters within the existing, rigged game is a
| nice show of bravado but not going to get results.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| Yet the success of Republicans is that it's easier to
| convince stupid people than it is to convince smart
| people. I'm open to other theories of tactics, if you
| want to elaborate.
| sanderjd wrote:
| This seems like you're agreeing that policies don't matter?
| Trump's policies are actively hostile to decreasing grocery
| prices.
|
| I think what you're saying here is that neither policies nor
| personalities matter as much as outcomes. And yep, that seems
| right.
|
| And Trump owns those outcomes now for the next few years, for
| better or worse.
| DrScientist wrote:
| It's about the courage to be honest- or perhaps just plain
| honesty.
|
| Note I'm not saying Trump is honest - it's just some of the
| democrat dishonesty was off-the-scale.
|
| As an example - "Biden is fine to serve 4 more years".
|
| Such obvious dishonesty is really damaging when voting is
| largely emotional.
| wesselbindt wrote:
| In theory, I agree with you. In practice, however, they've lost
| elections before, and it's never really affected their
| policies. They move ever more right, regardless of what
| happens. The border wall used to be bad, and now it's something
| they actively pursue. Universal health care used to be a thing
| they'd at least mention (and it's still a very popular position
| to take), and these days? Not a peep.
|
| Their strategy, at least the past three cycles, has been "I
| offer you nothing, but do you really want to vote for the other
| side?" And I don't see that changing.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| You'll get downvoted by women because "I offer you nothing,"
| is strikingly untrue about abortion.
| wesselbindt wrote:
| We've had four years of a democratic regime. What have they
| done for abortion?
|
| To clarify: I think this is an important issue, but I think
| the past four years demonstrates that the promises
| democrats make regarding protection of abortion rights are
| empty ones. The capability to do something is demonstrably
| there (look at Trump, he got Roe v Wade overturned, which
| is huge, and it's not like he has more power than a
| democrat president), the will to wield this capability is
| not.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| They vetoed all 0/0 national abortion bans that reached
| the Oval Office.
| wesselbindt wrote:
| Ok, I'm not super sure what point you're trying to make.
| I think the claim you're trying to make is that the
| democratic party has something on offer regarding
| abortion. We're on the back end of a four year democratic
| presidency. There's logically two possibilities regarding
| abortion:
|
| - there's something on offer now that Biden wasn't
| offering four years ago
|
| - Harris' offer is the same as what Biden was offering
| four years ago
|
| That's a mathematical fact.
|
| In the first case, my question is "what is it?"
| Personally, I haven't seen anything in the messaging of
| Biden and Harris' respective campaigns to indicate there
| is a difference between them on this front, but I
| could've missed something, and I'm glad to be corrected.
|
| In the second case, we have a means of seeing what this
| offer actually means in terms of actions and policies.
| And judging by the accomplishments of the Biden regime on
| this front, that's basically nothing. Effectively,
| nothing is on offer on the abortion front.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| Listen, the Presidents signature on a national abortion
| ban won't be a Democrat. You're extrapolating a political
| strategy when it's simply: don't sign a bill that makes
| menstrual tracking a responsibility of the United States
| Government.
| wesselbindt wrote:
| Listen, when we look back at the achievements of
| presidents, we don't talk about the things they didn't
| do. We don't praise Ronald Reagan for _not_ signing a
| bill that reinstates slavery. We don't praise Carter for
| _not_ starting a war with Denmark. When I apply for a
| job, I don't tell my interviewer I won't shit on their
| desk, I tell them about the stuff I can do for their
| business. Saying you won't do something is not making an
| offer.
| bbor wrote:
| They nominated one of the most progressive senators to ever
| serve, promised huge changes to Medicaid and home buying
| assistance, protecting abortion access, and legalized
| marijuana. Oh, and "believes in democracy". That's a lot, lot
| more than "1% better"
| strangescript wrote:
| The dems started this when they black balled Bernie in 2016.
| They were too focused on their own self interest and they are
| going to reap what they sowed long into the future now.
| dathinab wrote:
| > From a game theoretical perspective this is a good result.
|
| there is a real not very small risk of the us stopping(1) being
| a democracy in the next 4 years, and even if not it will nearly
| guaranteed heal other autocratic rulers weighting that against
| the democrats learning a lesson they already knew (but might
| not have listened to) seems like a pretty terrible deal
|
| (1): Assuming you can call a 2 party system democratic, which
| given how the elections worked out (power dynamic wise) the
| last few times is clearly not that clear anymore (it still is
| democratic, but in a gray area). Let's be honest if people had
| effectively/power dynamic wise more choices (e.g. multiple
| presidential election rounds ranking of candidates where votes
| of eliminated candidates spill over etc.) I think non of the
| last 2 presidents would have been elected.
| fastball wrote:
| There is a very very close to 0% chance of the US stopping
| being a democracy in the next 4 years.
| thenaturalist wrote:
| With the obliteration of the balance of power by the
| SCOTUS, extremely favorable SCOTUS judges with a
| conservative majority, a Senate and possibly a House
| majority the risks from an authoritarian-loving,
| narcissistic candidate who has "concepts" of plans, goes
| against mainstream economics in his economic policy,
| fanboys over a billionair drug-addicted narcissist who
| wants to destroy institutions by slashing "100 billion USD
| per year" from Federal institutions and put RFK Jr in
| control of the national health who tried to sabotage the
| constitutional and peaceful transfer of power and who
| instigated a violent storm of a parliament with casualties
| involved, the risks have certainly hardly ever been higher?
| fastball wrote:
| You're pointing out a bunch of things that are scary to
| you, without actually describing how democracy will be
| lost. The majority of our democracy can be attributed to
| the constitution, which requires a supermajority to be
| amended.
|
| I also think you would be pleasantly surprised by the
| number of people who voted for Trump who would _not_ be
| happy with the dissolution of democracy.
|
| Also I think you'd be hard-pressed to get a majority of
| SCOTUS judges to be happy with that.
| thenaturalist wrote:
| You argue that I am unspecific, however my entire post
| lists factual occurrences and people which can easily be
| validated.
|
| You on the other hand present no counterfactual at all.
|
| Democracy will be lost if there are no public
| institutions to enforce rules in a way which keeps nobody
| in particular with too much power.
|
| Democracy will be lost if core players of said system do
| not respect the rules anymore and either try to negate,
| obstruct or otherwise hinder balance or peaceful transfer
| of power.
|
| Trump has clearly shown to be capable of the latter and
| his desire for centralizing power around him.
|
| Read some of the testimony of former staffers that
| emerged over the past few weeks.
|
| And the SCOTUS ruling has given him a carte-blance to
| enact his ideas - without impunity.
|
| The Senate or House will not or hardly force him to
| compromise on legislation, MAGA captured the Republican
| party.
|
| The legal changes and Trumps demonstrable behavior are
| much more akin to a Putin in Russia or a monarchy than to
| a democracy with equal institutions governing.
|
| The constitution isn't worth the paper it's printed on if
| it's just being ignored.
| fastball wrote:
| I didn't say you were unspecific, I said your points
| didn't relate to dissolving democracy, they were mostly
| just things you fear (but not unspecifically). Here is a
| more thorough answer to those original points:
|
| SCOTUS has not obliterated the balance of power AFAICT?
| Otherwise Biden would've had more power than he does/did,
| right? I'll need more details about this obliteration.
|
| SCOTUS judges are indeed majority conservative. But
| you'll need a tad more to indicate that "conservative"
| translates to "supportive of dissolving our democracy".
| I'll accept statements they've made to that effect,
| anything they've written, or whatever else you have. But
| we know you have nothing to indicate this at all.
|
| Your concerns about economics have nothing to do with
| dissolving democracy. BUT (because I'm passionate about
| this) - mainstream macroeconomics is pseudo-science
| peddled by charlatans anyway. It's too multi-variate for
| them to effectively predict the outcome of basically
| anything at a macro level. They're not Harry Seldon even
| if they wish they were.
|
| Your concern about him being buddies (sometimes
| frenemies) with Elon Musk has nothing to do with
| dissolving democracy. Elon Musk can't enable that in any
| shape or form. I guess he could make Trump dictator of
| Mars if his plans for SpaceX pan out, though.
|
| Your concern about RFK Jr being in charge of public
| health has nothing to do with dissolving democracy. RFK
| Jr believing that vaccines cause autism or that fluoride
| turns the freaking frogs gay has nothing to do with the
| state of our democracy.
|
| As you helpfully point out, Trump tried _and failed_ to
| mess with election certification last time around. The
| institutions holding their own against him is literally
| the opposite of what you are trying to argue.
|
| I'll concede that maybe the risks have never been higher,
| but going from 0.001% to 0.01% isn't a huge deal in the
| grand scheme of things.
|
| ---
|
| And here is my answer to your new comment:
|
| > Democracy will be lost if there are no public
| institutions to enforce rules in a way which keeps nobody
| in particular with too much power.
|
| This is true. Luckily the institutions that actually
| enforce this are not the ones Trump et al have expressed
| interest in cutting.
|
| > Democracy will be lost if core players of said system
| do not respect the rules anymore and either try to
| negate, obstruct or otherwise hinder balance or peaceful
| transfer of power.
|
| This is clearly untrue. Someone trying and failing to
| mess with democracy is actually evidence of the opposite
| - that the democracy is robust. As I said before, Trump
| being unable to stop election certification is not the
| evidence for your argument you think it is.
|
| > testimony
|
| You mean like the testimony from all the people in the
| military that aren't big fans? You don't think that maybe
| the military might have something to say if the President
| tries to become a dictator? Support of the military is
| usually required for that, and Trump doesn't seem to have
| that much support in military leadership.
|
| Which SCOTUS ruling gives him carte blanche to enact
| anything he wants with impunity?
|
| So far this is all going according to the constitution.
| The house passing bills which are then passed by the
| senate which are then signed by the president is... our
| democracy. I don't see the Judicial branch abrogating
| their responsibilities to the Executive branch, nor do I
| see the Legislative branch doing that, even if they
| support Trump for president. Just because they'll be able
| to pass whatever they want for 2-4 years doesn't mean
| they're going to pass something that dissolves democracy.
| And so far you have nothing to indicate that those
| branches are interested in doing that. Just your fear
| running rampant.
| kcplate wrote:
| > The constitution isn't worth the paper it's printed on
| if it's just being ignored.
|
| While I agree with that statement, I think you are
| ignoring that virtually all of the conversation about how
| the Constitution and Bill of Rights are out of touch with
| modernity is actually coming from the left. I don't hear
| anyone on the right really arguing that point--its quite
| the opposite actually.
| proto-n wrote:
| I really really hope you are a better judge of that than I
| am
| Supermancho wrote:
| Trump appoints 2 more allies to Supreme Court positions.
| During his term.
|
| Trump runs for a 3rd term, with the help of his existing
| support (including Musk).
|
| Vance fails to certify states that are unfavorable to Trump
| or refused to list Trump as a candidate for 3rd term,
| announcing the Trump has won. Congress may object. Bad
| news, it's R controlled.
|
| The issue is brought to the Supreme Court, however Trump
| will effectively still take the position as per ceremony.
|
| Supreme Court decides in favor of Trump, under the doctrine
| of strict interpretation (bad faith is an existing
| loophole).
|
| This is just one of the many paths to breaking down the
| existing political system.
|
| What you and I consider "democracy" may differ. These
| series of events would be a breakdown of American
| democracy, regardless.
| 93po wrote:
| this is extremely out of touch with reality. trump is not
| going to run for a third term. he didn't even pardon
| himself when he was last in office, which he could have
| done, but didn't. he also could have packed the courts
| and didn't. trump sucks but he's not fundamentally trying
| to operate outside established powers and traditions of
| his office. if he was gonna "fuck all this i do what i
| want" he would have last time
| Supermancho wrote:
| > if he was gonna "fuck all this i do what i want" he
| would have last time
|
| He tried. There are books and interviews, available
| today, describing how unprepared he was (ie the basic
| housekeeping of staffing positions) to take his position
| as the head of the executive branch. He had no political
| infrastructure, which has been since remedied by some
| rather fringe conservatives (related to prj2025). He is
| unable to manage anything, ruling through typical
| narcissistic behavior of delegation and blame. He has a
| colorful history of exploiting legal loopholes. The only
| thing Trump consistently does, is prop up his own image
| and power to continue to operate in this manner.
|
| > he also could have packed the courts and didn't.
|
| Meet reality. He did enough by taking whatever
| Republicans put in front of him. I see no reason to
| believe it won't be repeated.
|
| > trump is not going to run for a third term.
|
| This is not a compelling statement, in the slightest.
|
| Again, this is one possible path for deconstructing
| American democracy, which easily sprung to mind and is
| dependent on his health in 4 years. Saying it's
| impossible, is another opinion.
| cortesoft wrote:
| He is going to be in his mid 80s after this term. At some
| point age is going to catch up to him no matter what else
| happens.
| xnx wrote:
| Donald Trump Jr.
| yencabulator wrote:
| I fear more what comes after Trump than Trump himself.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Trump is king maker and he will choose a Trump 2
| fastball wrote:
| Do you genuinely believe that congress being "R
| controlled" means all those Rs will be happy with Trump
| pissing on the constitution? Do you genuinely believe
| that? That being happy to have Trump in office a second
| term (as is allowed and normal) is the same as wanting
| him to be dictator? Do you think every single Republican
| elected this cycle is a Trump supporter, period?
|
| Same with SCOTUS. They're appointed for life. What in the
| world makes you think they are more loyal to Trump than
| to the foundation of the US? Hint: they're not. 2/3 of
| his SCOTUS appointments are Federalist Society members,
| who LOVEEE the constitution).
| jerlam wrote:
| It's hard to know what's "truly" in people's hearts, but
| the list of Rs who have been (re)elected while opposing
| Trump is short.
|
| Someone made a wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w
| iki/List_of_Republicans_who_oppose...
| mikepavone wrote:
| If you mean in the literal sense that we will still have
| elections, then sure. But Hungary is a great example of why
| getting rid of elections is not necessary. You just need to
| stack the deck so it's almost impossible for your opponents
| to win.
|
| Now I certainly don't know what's going to happen in the
| next 4 years with any certainty, but Trump was not exactly
| a champion of democratic norms the last time and there will
| be far less to restrain him now. Those who opposed him in
| the GOP have been pushed out and the judiciary is far more
| friendly. Many of those that own or control platforms and
| news publications were either eagerly cheering Trump on or
| signaling they would be more deferential now.
|
| We have a much longer history as a democracy than
| democratic backsliders like Hungary so I don't think it's a
| given we're destined for the same fate, but I think the
| risk is a lot more than zero.
| mdgrech23 wrote:
| If you think we're currently a democracy you're very wrong.
| Being a democracy means you actually get to vote on things
| like whether or not we should go to war, whether we should
| have national health care. We have 0 say in things that
| matter. That's not a democracy.
| rsanek wrote:
| that is actually how a representative democracy works.
| you're thinking of direct democracy.
| bmitc wrote:
| This is an extremely bizarre take. People just re-elected
| someone who tried to overthrow the government and is a complete
| know-nothing. It's well reported that he doesn't actually do
| anything during his presidency until he acts on a whim with
| some nonsensical action.
|
| You claiming this is a good result from any perspective is so
| strange. If anything, it shows the U.S. is a lost cause and
| that the majority of Americans are narcissists alongside the
| person they just elected.
|
| The Republicans have won by actively dumbing down and
| pigeonholing their constituency.
| quotemstr wrote:
| Dear Democrats,
|
| Yes! You're right. You should have run a stronger personality.
| Much stronger. Harris didn't "think big". She should have been
| more strident in advocating for censorship, inflation,
| imprisoning her political enemies, and legalizing crime. Please
| run these stronger personalities in every election from now on.
| We'd appreciate it.
|
| Thanks, and much love,
|
| Republicans
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Bernie Sanders is that strong personality, but he got shunned
| from becoming a candidate because he's _too_ opinionated. It
| feels like the democrats push for a centrist candidate because
| anything more progressive /liberal/left will scare off the
| moderates. But the dems have so little to work with.
| ak_111 wrote:
| Yep. The most interesting phenomena in all most all electoral
| history is the Obama-Obama-Trump-Trump-Trump voters (those that
| voted Obama twice, then Trump thrice). It is probably 1-2% of
| the electorate but probably 5-10% in most swing states.
|
| Democrats should study those people very very intensely and
| understand how they lost them. It was exceptionally radical to
| vote for Obama in 2008, people were calling him a cupboard
| muslim and terrorist sympathiser. They really believed he will
| deliver change and create a decisive break with neoliberal
| policy (both domestic and foreign), it is quite amazing that
| exactly these voters would vote 3 times for Trump after that.
|
| Yet apart from Obamacare Obama delivered basically zero change
| in foreign or domestic policy. You simply can't take voters who
| went out of their way to vote for you for granted in this way
| and expect there won't be a backlash.
| eadmund wrote:
| > It was exceptionally radical to vote for Obama in 2008
|
| What are you talking about? He got 68% of the electors; 53%
| of the population voted for him. That's not radical: that's
| mainstream.
| ak_111 wrote:
| Yes exactly I meant for some people it was very radical to
| vote for him despite the aggressive McCain/Palin campaign
| that was painting him as a black foreigner cupboard muslim
| with a strange un-american name. Imagine those white, MAGA
| ultra-anti-woke Trump supporters. Some of these voted for
| Obama _twice_ there is a whole wikipedia page about it.
| They would be like a feminist Ivy League literature
| professor voting for Trump now, relative to her demographic
| it is very radical.
|
| The fact that Obama won so much of electorate implies that
| there were quite a lot of people who radically went against
| their usual political leaning. Those voters gave him the
| benefit of the doubt that he would shake the system.
| chubot wrote:
| Hm that's kind of interesting, what's your source for this
| phenomenon?
|
| It sounds plausible, but I haven't seen anyone discuss it
| ak_111 wrote:
| It is well known phenomena:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama%E2%80%93Trump_voters
|
| although anecdotally most people know people personally
| that voted Obama then Trump. Obama was very much a populist
| outsider in his original campaign, he even pioneered
| devious social media ad targeting.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| If you think there is a 0.1% difference between the parties,
| that is because there is that much difference in the issues
| _you_ care about.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > The Democrats should have fielded a strong personality in
| their own right.
|
| Wonder if keeping Biden have been better. He got 80M+ popular
| votes, after all! Why swap him out? I guess Harris was seen as
| Biden++, already working for Biden admin and younger, so
| naturally she would get 90M+ popular votes or something.
| nyeah wrote:
| Quibble on the numbers, not on the basic statement. I'm not
| sure that campaign promises such as suspending the
| Constitution, jailing political opponents, etc., really are
| only 0.1% worse than continuing the Republic as it has operated
| for nearly 250 years. Looking back a few years from now, we may
| find a delta of 0.2%, 0.5%, or possibly even more.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| > continuing the Republic
|
| We're a democracy.
| nyeah wrote:
| We have until Jan 20 to argue which word was more accurate.
| kratom_sandwich wrote:
| "A republic, based on the Latin phrase res publica ('public
| affair'), is a state in which political power rests with
| the public through their representatives--in contrast to a
| monarchy." - Wikipedia
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| sigh. we are a democracy.
| EasyMark wrote:
| I can't agree this only shows the game theory sometimes fails
| because despite almost all the advantage to select one version
| of a thing vs another, often an group or individual will go
| against their own best interests because of pure emotion. When
| an option is a little bit better than the previous version of
| itself and the other option is complete failure of the system
| with the system destroying itself (democracy) then the winning
| group loses along with the "losing" group.
| Kraftwurm wrote:
| This time the Americans could choose between two completely
| different types of personalities for their President.
|
| - A quite smart and kind Woman who believes in demcratic values
|
| - An extremely selfish, through and through corrupt and
| unbelievably stupid bully with a clear agenda to end the
| Democracy
|
| The chose. That's all. Nothing to see here.
| jonahbenton wrote:
| You really don't know what you're talking about.
| fredgrott wrote:
| Dem here, Harris needed to deliver her first speech and
| separate from Biden on policy...i.e. knockout punch....
|
| Any less was always a crap shot....
|
| This speaks to relationship between Bidden, Harris and the Dem
| elites...in that where no alternate leadership can rise...
| Buttons840 wrote:
| From a game theory perspective, Trump is like a 2/2 MTG card
| that deals 10 damage to yourself when played.
|
| Trump, personally, will not do much to contribute to the
| Republican cause. Trump's contributions will mostly be saying
| dumb things that get his opposition riled up and energized to
| vote against him next time. He's also going to be a very old
| sundowning president--it's Republican's turn to defend that.
| chrismsimpson wrote:
| In other countries we have this thing called civic duty. Do try
| it sometime.
| l33t7332273 wrote:
| I think the Democrats were claiming to be more like 75% less
| bad, but other than that your point stands.
| throwaway8754aw wrote:
| Also the left's constant political games of trying to do
| everything and anything to put him in jail and etc the public
| grew tired of.. ignored unless you were on the their side. They
| tried so many things impeachment, pee pee tape, this trail,
| that trail.. nothing worked and probably helped him in the end.
| As well the economy yet as independent I voted for whom I've
| done better under financially and it just happens to be under
| the 46th so that's how I voted. But didn't care either way as a
| part of me wanted to vote for the 47th due my republican family
| legacy and the very distant hope home interest rates go down to
| 3 to 5 percent which I know that's a distant hope. But either
| way I'd been happy with the first woman or with the 47th as I
| too grew tired of the crap they threw on him, he survived an
| assassin and his no tax on tips, overtime or social security
| will help those in need. Get rid of income tax altogether
| sounds interesting yet crazy via the crazy comedian off hinged
| man who will surely say things people will incessantly talk
| about.
| proggy wrote:
| The reason why our courts, which are historically apolitical,
| tried to convict him is because he committed a nearly
| uncountable number of crimes. And he broke even more norms.
|
| Our biggest failure as a nation was not convicting him sooner
| and more decisively.
| throwaway8754aw wrote:
| Political gaming is done by the left and the right ..the
| majority spoken they are tired of it. Fake news is real and
| it's rampant from all sides and everywhere used for
| political to economical advantage (startups do it all the
| time like OpenAI demoing & promising a H.E.R. Like product
| but it's nowhere to be found ..was that all a fake demo?).
| My point is people are tired of all that ..I surely am.. I
| want truth reality I do not want an internet filled with AI
| fake crap nor do I want to hear about another Donald Trump
| impeachment case... give me truth reality yet will there
| ever be such when lying and making up crap at times
| behooves the parties doing so. Yet as we see here in this
| instance same fake playbook against him the majority had
| enough.
|
| You say The courts are not apolitical as a left leaning you
| sound you surely have said the Supreme Court is right
| focused have you not?
| sanderjd wrote:
| People who commit crimes should be prosecuted for them. That
| is not a political statement.
|
| The political choice was allowing someone to avoid
| prosecution pending the results of an election.
|
| But I have some optimism that prosecutors and courts will be
| less willing to allow this in the future. Prosecutors need to
| bring cases sooner, and courts need to move more quickly, to
| avoid this kind of bad outcome in the future. Lesson learned.
| havblue wrote:
| I think the policy positions do matter though... The Democrats
| were pro labor before Clinton helped to pass NAFTA. Limbaugh
| would even mock Democrat voters who thought Bill would "find
| you a job". There's no illusion of that anymore. There's just
| people dropping out of the workforce and the unemployment
| numbers being fudged to make it look like everything is fine.
|
| Neither party responded to this until Trump came around.
| Meanwhile, the Democrats also seemingly gave up on the whole
| social safety net argument as well. Obama at least ran on
| helping people but, well, I don't see that anymore. While I
| agree that their messaging has failed, I ultimately think
| they've failed to provide any substance to their argument.
| dkarl wrote:
| This is a terrible take. Everyone wants to believe that this
| result will vindicate their pet peeve about the Democrats.
|
| A lot of people want this loss to prove that Democrats should
| have been stronger on Gaza.
|
| A lot of people want this loss to prove that Democrats should
| have rejected identity politics.
|
| And there's a long tail of other things that people think a
| Democratic loss will push the Democrats towards: protectionism,
| isolationism, socialism, etc.
|
| The Democrats are going to lick their wounds, crunch the
| numbers, and probably move towards Trump on economics. Or
| something else. 95% of people who are hoping that the Democrats
| are going to suddenly see the light on their pet issue are
| going to be disappointed. They aren't going to go hard left on
| Gaza. They aren't going to go hard right on identity politics.
| The loss is going to cause a whole bunch of damage, and we're
| going to get very little if any long-term benefit to weigh
| against it.
| ars wrote:
| Other way around on Gaza. The US should have done more to
| help its ally.
|
| The fact that Houthis have shut down shipping, and the US
| hasn't stopped them is absolutely shameful.
|
| And by helping its ally more, the war would have ended
| quicker leaning to overall less death. Which is why a
| majority of Muslims actually voted for Trump.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| > I don't think the policy positions even matter that much,
|
| Right. The misogynists won. There are simply too many people in
| this country who don't want a woman President.
| miltonlost wrote:
| Most mainstream media being owned by right-wing billionaires
| manufacturing what is actually (mis)informing the public of
| Trump's decline, combined with other people only getting their
| "news" from randos on TikTok or podcasts, and just the general
| decline in critical thinking taught at schools (and lack of
| reading)... I don't know what can be done with these disparate
| realities.
|
| I don't put blame on Harris' campaign, since it actually did
| discuss and put out policies to help people beyond just calling
| Trump a fascist and evil. That you think (or at least say you
| think) they didn't shows how badly their message wasn't
| conveyed BY the media that are the only people that can convey
| it.
|
| If the local news owned by Sinclair is your station and it says
| only right-wing talking points, if two newspapers can have
| their endorsements scuttled by their billionaire owners, if
| podcasters like Joe Rogan can pass along Russian misinformation
| and facebook memes as truth, how can the Harris campaign get
| through to people?
|
| But was the campaign actually passed down to voters? and did
| those voters willingly seek it out, since it will not be
| presented to them in their chosen bubbles? The entire system of
| billionaires blatantly criming in an election without
| repercussions and the media manufacturing consent silenced any
| chance of fair representation of what is happening and who is
| at fault. Like inflation being a consequence of Trump's
| policies and not Biden's due to inflation's inherent time lag
| that most people never learn about
| consteval wrote:
| I think it's pretty much undeniable this will only push the
| dems further right.
| gosub100 wrote:
| I know this would only happen in an alternate universe, but
| they should be able to come out and say "ya know, we got it
| wrong" on certain issues, such as immigration. They will face a
| bit of immediate shame from pundits, but gain in the long term
| by removing that point of contention from the conservatives.
| Thus opening up a share of their voters.
|
| To be fair to Republicans, they could say "ya know, we _do_
| believe human civilization has caused climate change and there
| is a government role to address it. We just disagree on the
| terms and mechanism for how that should work "
| John23832 wrote:
| There is a lot of "Don't believe that Republican voters are
| stupid" in the comments, but why is that true?
|
| Why can't it be true that many people voted stupidly? As a third
| party to Brexit, it was apparent that many people voted stupidly.
|
| --
|
| edit:
|
| In my opinion, it's very simple. I became a one issue voter after
| one of the candidates tried to obstruct the process (violently),
| the last time. That's antithetical to America. It's ironic
| because it's the type of thing that happens in the "shithole
| countries" that we're so focused on keeping out (I say this as a
| person who thinks immigration reform with strong structure is
| long needed).
|
| Rewarding Trump by giving him the keys is stupid if you can even
| muster the courage to say you believe in anything America stands
| for.
| dmichulke wrote:
| I suppose your definition of stupidity doesn't fit their
| definition of stupidity
| yapyap wrote:
| > There is a lot of "Don't believe that Republican voters are
| stupid" in the comments, but why is that true?
|
| I'm taking a shot in the dark here but I'm guessing they voted
| R themselves, we can all portray ourselves to be objective in
| comments when we really aren't. This happens a lot on social
| media, especially the faux-smart part.
| elric wrote:
| Brexit was a special case of stupid. There should never have
| been a referendum with such a stupid question, devoid of any
| context or potential impact.
|
| Democracy only works when voters are informed.
| diggan wrote:
| > Democracy only works when voters are informed.
|
| Since most people in the world aren't informed nor wants to
| be informed, are you saying democracy doesn't work in the
| real world?
| _ink_ wrote:
| It sure looks like it, doesn't it. The outlook in Europe is
| also bleak. The cult is strong and with Trumps victory will
| only get stronger.
| michaelt wrote:
| There's actually some interesting context there.
|
| Shortly before the Brexit referendum, Scotland had an
| independence referendum, where the Westminster government was
| in favour of the status quo - and they had a great deal of
| success by deliberately not figuring out what independence
| would mean.
|
| What currency would an independent Scotland use? What will
| happen to their military? What about healthcare, and
| education? EU membership? What share of the UK's national
| debt would they take on? Who will get citizenship? What will
| the border look like? Nobody knows! So a yes vote was a scary
| leap into the unknown with many unsolved problems, while a no
| vote was safe and predictable.
|
| After the strategy succeeded in the Scottish independence
| vote, Cameron decided to repeat that success with Brexit -
| not figuring out what Brexit means was a deliberate strategy
| intended to boost the remain campaign.
| joseppudev wrote:
| Are you really going on and calling people that have different
| opinions stupid with that word salad?
| lynndotpy wrote:
| They used common english words arranged in simple sentence
| structures.
| John23832 wrote:
| Yes.
|
| In my opinion, it's very simple. I became a one issue voter
| after one of the candidates tried to obstruct the process
| (violently), the last time. That's antithetical to America.
| It's ironic because it's the type of thing that happens in
| the "shithole countries" that we're so focused on keeping out
| (I say this as a person who thinks immigration reform with
| strong structure is long needed).
|
| Rewarding Trump by giving him the keys is stupid if you can
| even muster the courage to say you believe in anything
| America stands for.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| Well, half of the population is more stupid than the other half
| (not saying republicans are, just saying that yeah, hackernews
| is definitely a subset not representative of the total
| population)
| audunw wrote:
| I think there's something to be said about the value of a
| calculated protest vote.
|
| For young men, who doesn't feel that the Democrats are offering
| them a world view where they are valued at all, why should they
| vote Democrat? Maybe at some level they realize that Trumps
| policies are worse for them in some ways than Harris'. But when
| Harris loses despite Trump being such an awful candidate it
| sends a very powerful message to the Democrats: you can't just
| keep ignoring a huge portion of the population and make them
| feel like they're not valued in society.
|
| People put self-worth above almost anything else except self-
| preservation.
| Spivak wrote:
| I keep seeing this take on Democrat's treatise of men but I'm
| not sure it really follows. Even among Democrats white people
| and men are the most valued classes of American society, for
| better or worse their interests will never not be protected
| above all others. The Democratic case has been "given that,
| what can we do to help the rest of you." Stuff like LGBT
| support, reproductive rights, BLM, and even path to
| citizenship don't even wiggle the needle of white men's favor
| in society.
|
| It doesn't change how it _feels_ especially in online spaces
| where minorities vent publicly where before it has been
| private, and I can understand that, but that seems to be the
| only difference. GOP messaging successfully took "everyone
| is doing worse off right now" + "look at these Democrats
| throwing inconsequential scraps to minorities" and convinced
| people it was causal.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Mostly because "they're stupid" is a lazy argument that ignores
| why you think they're stupid. You can say "Well, they voted
| against their best economic interests," assuming they're all
| net recipients of government cash, but they say they don't want
| to be, and they want to dismantle executive departments they
| perceive as wasteful. You can say "They're violent," but Trump
| campaigned on being the peace-negotiator who didn't start any
| wars, and Harris had no real response to that. You can say "He
| hates women," but there are apparently enough women who are
| either pro-life or didn't see abortion as the main campaign
| issue. Harris's commercials said "We want change," but she's
| the incumbent! If change didn't happen by now, why would it
| four years from now?
| tzs wrote:
| From what I've seen from Trump supporters on NextDoor you are
| missing a lot of cases where it is hard to come up with a
| good explanation that doesn't involve some stupidity or at
| least willful ignorance.
|
| For example I've seen people saying they were going to vote
| for him because he'll stop undocumented immigrants from
| eating pets in Springfield OH. No one has been able to find
| any evidence of that.
|
| There are also the people who say they will vote for him
| because he promises to get rid of some specific government
| service or program, and it turns out from their other
| comments that this is a service or program that they depend
| on but don't realize it is the same program.
|
| Going the other way, there are people on NextDoor who I've
| suspected were a bit stupid long before I saw them in any
| political discussion. E.g., people going on about contrails
| being the government spraying us with chemicals or the new
| electric meters rolled out in this area over the last few
| years will make us sick because of their remote read
| capabilities (but the ones they replaced were also remote
| read--apparently they never noticed that they never saw a
| meter reader in all the years they had it).
|
| Whenever one of those people later posted something that did
| say how they would vote it almost invariably was for Trump,
| and it would be for reasons like the ones above.
|
| This suggests that while there might be reasons for a non-
| stupid person to vote for Trump, he also captured a big
| fraction of the votes of stupid people. That I think is one
| of the biggest difference between Trump and other candidates
| from both parties. Trump might be the first to actively court
| the stupid vote.
| Tainnor wrote:
| My point precisely. We seem to forget Churchill's famous dictum
| that "no one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise.
| Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of
| Government except for all those other forms that have been
| tried from time to time".
|
| I am for democracy because everything else is worse, but that
| doesn't mean I need to delude myself that "the majority is
| always" right or some nonsense like that. Yet the latter seems
| to be an increasingly common talking point, I've noticed.
| defrost wrote:
| Democracy isn't homogeneous.
|
| There are _many_ democratic nations on earth, many variations
| on theme.
|
| Churchill today might note that US democracy is the worst
| form of democratic Government being structurally doomed to
| spiral into a two party K-hole _despite_ being setup by
| people largely vehemently opposed to party politics.
|
| Perhaps worst is overstating "old", "tired", "dated", "failed
| to scale", "doesn't encourage representative government".
|
| It's not a choice between one form of democracy and
| authoritarian Stalinism. There's a far broader chice between
| many forms of democracy - some of those that embrace plurity
| of choice and reject unlimited legal bribery by very small
| very rich vested interests might be worth a look.
| Tainnor wrote:
| While I agree with you that there are different ways of
| structuring democracies and that parts of US democracy
| seem... in need of an update, even "better" democracies
| can't fully prevent a slide into authoritarianism. It has
| happened countless times before.
| kn0where wrote:
| Because any choice in a two party system is stupid to some
| degree, for most people. Most people's beliefs don't all line
| up exactly with one political party or the other. So every
| election is a compromise: which of your values must you
| prioritize? A whole lot of Americans aren't doing well
| economically, they haven't been doing well for decades, and
| under Biden they saw everything get more expensive. So they
| don't like either side, and if you can convince them to vote,
| it's only going to be for change. Kamala didn't portray any
| change from Biden, so she lost.
| lgvln wrote:
| I think calling it mere stupidity is a little too reductive.
| There are genuine grievances among his supporters, such as
| rising inequality, loss of opportunities/jobs and an economic
| system which is not working out for them. But expecting a
| narcissistic misogynistic racist billionaire rapist to actually
| help them is...the definition of stupidity.
| jpgvm wrote:
| At the end of the day though he was the one that spent the
| time to understand what they care about.
|
| > Literacy levels: 54% of adults read below a 6th-grade
| level, and 20% read below a 5th-grade level.
|
| This is the reality in America. The education system failed
| these people. Trump is merely taking advantage of that. He
| understands that logical arguments aren't necessary, merely
| emotional ones that appeal to how downtrodden and forgotten
| these folk feel. If he can make them believe that building a
| wall and/or deporting immigrants will get them their jobs
| back or that tariffs will bring manufacturing back to America
| that is more important to winning an election than truths or
| reality.
|
| He won fair and square, the election -is- a popularity
| contest, not a competency contest.
| dspillett wrote:
| I find it hard to believe that the majority of ~70,000,000
| people are that stupid and/or mislead, the only other option is
| that the majority actually want what is now coming and I do not
| feel obliged to refrain from passing judgement on that. My
| feelings on brexit, which far more directly affects myself, are
| similar.
|
| People who were naive enough to be misled do undoubtably exist
| (I know a couple of otherwise intelligent people who massively
| regret the brexit thing) but I don't think they are the
| majority.
| sumo89 wrote:
| Rough maths. 70 mil votes for Tump out of 260 mil 18+ people
| in the USA, that's about 27%. Around 21% of US adults are
| functionally illiterate. There's a lot of idiots out there.
| https://www.crossrivertherapy.com/research/literacy-
| statisti....
| Xortl wrote:
| 70% of Republicans think Trump was the fair winner of the 2020
| election. They are just collectively massively misinformed.
| 43natashalog wrote:
| oh lord, I was afraid of it
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| It's clear that this is actually what the American voters want.
| It's not a glitch or a fluke or a quirk of the system.
|
| I've never been more ashamed to be American.
| jacknews wrote:
| I'm not so sure.
|
| The democrats keep throwing up these lame/hated candidates
| (Harris this time, Clinton in 2016) whom they appear to assume
| will prevail, because, Trump.
|
| And so faced with a choice of bad vs bad, the result ends up
| being quite close and unpredictable. As my daughter says, the
| first female US president should be someone actually good.
|
| Blame the system, not the voters, maybe.
| mattmanser wrote:
| I never get this sort of rhetoric.
|
| Its literally 50/50 split.
|
| 50% of Americans DON'T want this.
|
| Ita a quirk of democracy, but talking about 'Americans' wanting
| this, when the result is entirely a coin toss.
|
| And one weighted towards repiblicans by the way their state
| system works, giving the smaller states a dispropotinate say.
|
| Same thing happens in the UK. A fairly small percentage of the
| UK voted for Labour and yet it was 'a landslide'. More people
| voted for Jeremey Corbyn than Kier starmer, but one is
| apparently 'out of touch' and the less popular politician is
| somehow a 'genius'.
|
| It's such a bizarre rhetoric that has no basis in reality, just
| electoral technicalities.
| senectus1 wrote:
| its more than half so far... not quite as close a split as I
| would have expected 66,181,515 votes (47.5%) 71,113,511 votes
| (51%)
|
| But yeah.. roughly half the country doesnt want him
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| People forget that in Germany, Hitler was elected. He was very
| popular during a time of inflation, and blamed immigrants.
|
| Germans are human too, it can happen anywhere.
| cococococ wrote:
| An unsurprising result. There is a worrying global rise in right-
| wing popularism and this is part of it.
|
| We can look forward to more war, more crime, more suffering, more
| scapegoating of minorities. This is the start of a long decline
| that ends in death and destruction.
|
| That Harris and Trump were apparently the best that the US
| political machine could spew up as choices to run one of the most
| powerful countries in the world is concerning in itself. Just
| shows how severely politics is broken in the US.
| max51 wrote:
| >We can look forward to more war
|
| Do you really believe the Dems would do less war? They are
| literally siding with Dick Cheney. They were always very pro-
| war (eg. Hilary Clinton) but now they don't even hide it and
| they are embracing the whole "security through strength" and
| "escalation to de-escalate" in the middle east.
|
| If you look back at the past few presidency (incl. Obama),
| Trump was far more peaceful. He was the first president in a
| very long time to not invade a new country. I don't think he
| does it out of love or empathy, I suspect he just thinks it's a
| waste of money, but the end result is the same.
| lousken wrote:
| where is "stop the count", "rigged elections" and other messaging
| like this? it's disappointing that democrats can't call that out
| locallost wrote:
| It's dissatisfying that he could win, but it's not the first
| time, so I've already accepted a long time ago that the world is
| not what I wish it to be.
|
| In that context, I am more curious what his policies will be
| because even though he rides different waves of general
| discontent in society, ultimately he doesn't care about anything
| except the economy and money. So I think he will double down on
| tariffs, but some things are irreversible - saving the e.g. coal
| mining industry is a lost cause and he'll throw those people down
| the drain because it doesn't make economic sense anymore. What I
| am most curious about is how he'll handle Biden's policies with
| regards to blocking acquisitions on monopoly prevention grounds.
|
| Also the markets are not open in the US, but over here in Europe
| they're already skyrocketing. So "Wallstreet" is expecting
| massive growth in what is already quite an inflated market.
| romellem wrote:
| I genuinely don't understand. I _really_ hope I am wrong, but I
| believe we are about to enter a post-truth state.
| OldMatey wrote:
| We have been in a period of post-truth. We are entering a
| period of epistemological breakdown
| user3939382 wrote:
| The terrifying state we've been entering for several years now
| is where people in power believe they both know and get to
| dictate what the truth is. Unfortunately despite the rhetoric I
| don't see that reversing since it's coming from the uniparty.
| dgellow wrote:
| Already there since a decade
| Clubber wrote:
| >I believe we are about to enter a post-truth state.
|
| Who was the last president that didn't lie?
| _ink_ wrote:
| > In four years, you don't have to vote again, we'll have it
| fixed so good you're not going to have to vote.
|
| Donald J. Trump, 07/28/24
|
| Unbelievable.
| akmarinov wrote:
| [flagged]
| joelthelion wrote:
| Taiwan being abandoned to its mainland neighbor, maybe?
| skandinaff wrote:
| But what about all the semiconductor industry that US
| companies, esp now with AI advancement rely on so heavily?
| archagon wrote:
| Trump will make a deal with Xi to give him access to the
| industry post-takeover.
| polotics wrote:
| "make" => "try to and fail", as some people are harder to
| maneuver than, it seems, the American public
| kragen wrote:
| He won't need one, because Taiwan's semiconductor
| industry will be destroyed during the takeover and
| require a decade or more to rebuild.
| michaelt wrote:
| The UK thought they had a 50 year agreement with China to
| guaratee Hong Kong's democracy:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-
| British_Joint_Declaration
|
| Turns out if the other country decides they are altering
| the deal, and you don't have any leverage - the bit of
| paper isn't worth all that much in practice.
|
| Would you repeat the same feat with Taiwan, if you were
| in Trump's place?
| pineaux wrote:
| Nah
| whoitwas wrote:
| Complete chaos. Retribution. Whatever the goon encounters. RIP
| USA
| guerrilla wrote:
| You forgot trade war against Europe and China. Also, if
| economists and investors are right, massive inflation. I also
| personally predict total war with Iran, directly or indirectly.
| drexlspivey wrote:
| - Anti abortion law possibly being implemented on a federal
| level
|
| Curious what do you base that on?
| miningape wrote:
| Fear, rage, and entitlement. Trump has been very clear he
| just doesn't want it regulated at a federal level.
| treyd wrote:
| Yet all the people he associates with do. I wonder what the
| most likely outcome from that might involve...
| boesboes wrote:
| He has also been very clear he wants to imprison his
| opponents and violently deal with immigrants. What should
| we believe?
| miningape wrote:
| > He has also been very clear he wants to imprison his
| opponents
|
| When? He's gone out of his way to *not* imprison his
| opponents. Why do you think Hillary is still running
| around?
|
| > violently deal with immigrants
|
| *Illegal Immigrants
|
| Not so sure about the violent part either, but let's just
| say that that's true.
| akmarinov wrote:
| Isn't this a tentpole Republican/MAGA desire?
|
| Why overturn Roe otherwise?
|
| Why not implement it now when they'll control all branches of
| government and have a 6-3 favor in the supreme court?
| miningape wrote:
| > Isn't this a tentpole Republican/MAGA desire?
|
| No, it's not.
|
| > Why overturn Roe otherwise?
|
| To let states decide how it should be handled, rather than
| a federal mandate. Allowing different possibilities to be
| tested - maybe in some states it will become completely
| illegal, maybe in others mothers will face pressure to
| terminate a pregnancy.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| I hope you don't really think that being pro choice is
| about pressuring woman to terminate pregnancies.
|
| Why do I think that's much more probable for abortion to
| become illegal than for women to be pressured to
| terminate pregnancies?
|
| Your comment feels so innocent, but different
| possibilities to be tested just ends up in women being
| denied abortion
| miningape wrote:
| I think it's about as likely as it becoming illegal.
| There's too many good reasons to keep abortions even in a
| restricted state - even though it does open up a very
| messy moral can of worms.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| There already are states where abortion is very
| restricted or illegal. There aren't states where
| terminating pregnancies is forced
| miningape wrote:
| Forgive my ignorance but I didn't realise there were
| states it was illegal in.
|
| > There aren't states where terminating pregnancies is
| forced.
|
| I personally don't think this could ever come from a
| mandated level (same as outright bans), I think instead
| we see it in the form of social pressure: and we can
| already see it across the US. An estimated 65% of
| abortions in the US are unwanted but the mother was
| heavily pressured by peers, family, work, etc. You can
| also see this in the downstream effects: getting an
| abortion raises your chances of suicide by 6x and
| depression by 4x.
|
| Clinics also do not screen for coersion, the same way
| organ donations, adoptions, loans are all screened.
|
| Again, should abortion be illegal because of the above?
| No. But it does indicate it's not as innocent as making
| sure women are ready/able/willing to have a child.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| The only sources I can find about what you're saying is
| gutter something and lozier Institute, and by searching
| for them a bit it looks like they're catholic founded
| research. I'm gonna take what they say with a huge pinch
| of salt
|
| I'm gonna trust more a study by the university of San
| Francisco which finds that most women don't regret having
| an abortion or are happy about it
| https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/01/416421/five-years-
| after-ab...
| miningape wrote:
| Thank you, I'm re-evaluating some of my opinions.
| indigo0086 wrote:
| Ballots across the country voted on various degrees of
| abortion and passed.
| akmarinov wrote:
| > To let states decide how it should be handled
|
| If that's the case - why are states criminalizing getting
| an abortion in another state?
|
| Some states decide for all states, that's the sort of
| thing that has to be decided on a federal level
| kristjansson wrote:
| > To let states decide how it should be handled, rather
| than a federal mandate. Allowing different possibilities
| to be tested - maybe in some states it will become
| completely illegal
|
| Why should one get to play Laboratory of Democracy with
| women's lives?
| _ink_ wrote:
| If the US drops support of Ukraine Putin might try to take
| Kyjiw again.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I kinda expect the EU to go collective defense if the US
| pulls out, to see if the US can still be trusted to honor its
| words, of if they have to write it off entirely (honestly,
| they should have done that before, but...)
| akmarinov wrote:
| I don't see that.
|
| Netherlands, Austria predominantly leaning right now,
| joining Hungary, Slovakia.
|
| Germany and France are both with very unstable governments.
|
| Pretty much leaves Poland and the Baltics
| rightbyte wrote:
| I don't think they see an unilateral suicide as more
| tempting than a bilateral suicide.
| FridgeSeal wrote:
| [flagged]
| georgeplusplus wrote:
| You're missing a lot. War is not good and signing peace deals
| is not a bad thing.
|
| Dems lost this election because they've become the party of
| warmongerers. You need to understand that played a big role.
| lobsterthief wrote:
| Signing peace deals to give over lands stolen by Russia is a
| good thing?
| iinnPP wrote:
| This doesn't get enough mention.
| munksbeer wrote:
| > War is not good and signing peace deals is not a bad thing.
|
| If Russia invades Alaska, do you think the average Republican
| will take the same sentiment? Just give him that land because
| otherwise lots of people will die.
| wezdog1 wrote:
| Assuming you are not dealing with despots who will strike
| again.
| uxp100 wrote:
| I don't completely disagree with you (I mean, I mostly do,
| just not completely) but do you have reason to think the
| hawkishness of the Biden administration (a lot of which was
| inherited from the hawkish first trump administration) really
| influenced people? Like polls, or even surprising anecdotes?
|
| Americans mostly don't seem to care about foreign policy at
| all.
| georgeplusplus wrote:
| No we do get it. It's these modern democrats that are so
| disconnected from the reality of the American people which
| is why they lost huge in this election across all racial
| and demographic lines. Look at NY how does it get that
| close?
|
| The American people cried that the economy was bad for them
| and the democrat message was no it's better than ever.
|
| The American people said why are we sending billions to
| Ukraine when we need the money here. They were told we were
| supporting dictatorships. Just look at some of the
| responses to my comment here.
|
| The American voter was concerned about the huge crime waves
| in the cities and the biden admin told us crime was good
| and made up.
|
| The Democrat response to COVId was to shut up and take the
| vaccine or lose your job.
|
| I'm surprised she didn't lose more with all the pain biden
| Harris caused.
| gwd wrote:
| > War is not good and signing peace deals is not a bad thing.
|
| The logical conclusion of this is that we should always just
| surrender whenever some other army comes knocking at our
| door. Let Putin walk all the way to Portugal, let Kim Jong Un
| walk to the south tip of the Korean peninsula, because any
| peace deal, no matter how bad, is always better than firing a
| single shot.
|
| Putin invaded Crimea and then said "I'm done". Then by proxy
| he invaded the Donbas, and said "I'm done". Then he invaded
| Ukraine. Why do you think that if we sign a peace deal with
| him, that he just won't build up his forces in another year
| or two and invade again -- either Ukraine, or one of the
| other Baltic countries?
|
| At some point you have to say, "It stops here".
|
| EDIT: Furthermore, you have to think of the knock-on effects.
| If we settle now in Ukraine, that won't stop war with Russia:
| Putin has learned that invading your neighbor is fine, and
| he'll do it again and again. Xi and Kim will learn the same
| thing, and there will be wars in Taiwan and Korea.
|
| On the other hand, Russia is almost defeated -- another 2
| years and they'll be completely out of materiel. They're
| already resorting to pulling in North Korean troops. Support
| Ukraine for another year or two, and the war will end for
| good -- and Xi and Kim will learn that invading your neighbor
| is a losing proposition, and war in Taiwan and Korea will be
| avoided.
|
| > You need to understand that played a big role.
|
| Do you have any support for this statement? I haven't heard
| many people bring up Ukraine as a major reason for voting
| Trump or not voting Harris.
|
| Ironically, there were Arabs and progressives who failed to
| support Harris because she supported Israel too much, and
| there are Zionist Jews and Christians who support Trump
| because they think Kamala didn't support Israel enough. On
| that particular conflict I don't think there's any winning
| position for the Democrats.
| georgeplusplus wrote:
| >>>Do you have any support for this statement? I haven't
| heard many people bring up Ukraine as a major reason for
| voting Trump or not voting Harris.
|
| Its a bad look when many citizens are hurting economically
| and you send billions and billions to a foreign government
| and then gaslight them the economy is indeed fine.
| a_dabbler wrote:
| You need to read the basic outline of WW2.
| arethuza wrote:
| If Ukraine falls then the Baltics will be next - I can see
| Poland, France and the UK attempting to help but I suspect this
| would ultimately fail leading to the breakup of NATO. EU either
| breaks up or becomes much stronger...
| akmarinov wrote:
| It'll take multiple years for Russia to recover and have the
| means to target the Baltics, by then Putin will likely kick
| the bucket, as he's getting up there in years and who knows
| what the succession would look like.
| kitd wrote:
| Moldova first. The Kremlin have already refused to recognise
| the new pro-EU leader, and they've been making noises about
| Transnistria for a while (a similar situation to Crimea and
| East Ukraine).
| snickerbockers wrote:
| There's a huge difference between invading a NATO member and
| invading a non-NATO member. And ultimately I don't think
| Russia has the capability to continue invading more countries
| with or without the US' opposition, this war has been a
| nonstop embarrassment for them.
|
| If Poland France and the UK are more invested in opposing
| Russia then one would think that the Ukraine wouldn't be
| entirely reliant on the US to support it. This is the
| fundamental problem with the proxy war in the Ukraine, the
| people pushing for it talk about it as if the fate of the
| European continent rests on the fulcrum of the Ukraine and
| yet the other European countries hardly seem to care.
| arethuza wrote:
| "There's a huge difference between invading a NATO member
| and invading a non-NATO member."
|
| In practise, doesn't that depend on what the US decides?
| snickerbockers wrote:
| It does insofar as the US can "decide" to betray all of
| its allies by ignoring its obligations under a military
| alliance. We've already publicly proclaimed to the entire
| world that the American military will come to the aid of
| any NATO member which is invaded. We've never had such an
| agreement with the Ukraine and thus owe no obligations
| towards them.
| audunw wrote:
| What do you mean? Europe has contributed twice as much to
| Ukraine compared to USA. Yeah, in plain military spending
| USA has given more, but a war isn't won with just guns.
| This has been a strategy that has made sense given USAs
| military industrial complex, and EUs geographical proximity
| to Ukraine.
|
| If USA pulls out it's likely that EU will shift some of its
| aid over to military. This is already happening: European
| countries have started setting up arms production within
| Ukraine which gives Ukraine more guns per dollar spent than
| what donations of western built weapons does. So don't
| think the dollar amount donated tells you everything about
| the amount of military support given.
| pistoleer wrote:
| Russia has plenty of meat for the grinder. Being
| embarrassed isn't gonna stop them.
| arethuza wrote:
| They aren't even going to be embarrassed - Ukraine will
| get a peace deal forced on it and Russia will declare a
| glorious victory _and that will become the history that
| everyone remembers_.
| konart wrote:
| >pull out of Kursk
|
| This is happening any week now with or without Trump.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| Is there any reason or source to anything you said, or just
| saying because you hate him. Specially regarding the last one,
| he clearly mentioned that he is against that.
|
| I am as much against Trump as the next guy, but let's don't
| degrade HN conversations to this level.
| whoitwas wrote:
| [flagged]
| BigToach wrote:
| RFK Jr. in charge of or heavily influencing FDA and other
| health related policy. Dismantling the Department of Education
| Mass deportations Tariffs
| mlnj wrote:
| Ooooh, that's gonna be real interesting to see. An anti-
| vaxxer in charge of healthcare.
|
| Taking fluoride away from drinking water. Weakening vaccine
| research and development.
|
| Looks like most Americans will be in for a long suffering in
| the coming decades. Combine that with privatisation of health
| insurance and weakening Medicaid, this heavily points towards
| a Brexit moment for the USA.
| ra7 wrote:
| Quite possibly the most devastating thing for the country, if
| he follows through on the crazy health policies. It will be
| felt for decades.
| iamben wrote:
| Mainstream (safe!) vaccine scepticism?
| vdvsvwvwvwvwv wrote:
| Sadly neither candidate was going to substantively stick up for
| Gazan citizens. I just hope Trump's wildcardness spins the
| geopolitical roulette wheel to land on peace.
| maratc wrote:
| I'm old enough to remember 2016 elections and the "rip usa we
| are doomed" predictions then. The fact is, we were ok that
| time, it's gonna be ok this time too.
| toombowoombo wrote:
| [flagged]
| vundercind wrote:
| We ratcheted several notches farther toward high-level
| corruption being normal--multiple family members in high
| level positions, no divestment from direct control of
| business interests--Carter gave up control of a peanut farm
| to be president because to do otherwise would have been
| unacceptable, that's how much has changed. Even on _just_
| that front it was extremely damaging, and that's one thing.
| gwd wrote:
| > The fact is, we were ok that time, it's gonna be ok this
| time too.
|
| Trump has always wanted to be a tyrant; he has always wanted
| to run the country like he runs his businesses -- he says
| something and it's done, he makes decisions for his own
| personal benefit, he rewards his friends and punishes his
| enemies.
|
| In 2016 he wasn't expecting to win and didn't really know
| what he wanted, so he appointed well-respected people from
| the Republican establishment. Those people believed in the
| constitution, the rule of law, the rules-based international
| order, and so on, and pushed back and refused to obey him
| when he wanted to act like a tyrant.
|
| This time is different. He knows what he wants: People who
| will be personally loyal to him. The Republican establishment
| has been destroyed. The Supreme Court has officially decreed
| that nearly anything he does is immune from prosecution. He
| will have a much easier time getting his way this time than
| he did in 2016.
| acje wrote:
| My biggest fear is that Trumps deterrence of CRINK countries
| will cause XI to miscalculate. Other than that I think this is
| manageable. EU will get a boost as the internal awakening
| materializes. As an European I had difficulty understanding why
| Trump was even an alternative, but I have come to realize that
| the Plutocratic nature of the US was causing more suffering for
| the people than was easily observed from here.
| ray023 wrote:
| Lots of wrongs you got there.
|
| "- Israel given carte blanche and a lot of support to bulldoze
| Gaza"
|
| I agree, both parties are way to big buddy with Isreal, war
| with Iran I am not sure sure.
|
| "- Russian sanctions lifted"
|
| Ah yeah that is why Putin endorsed Kamala for that EXACT
| OPPOSITE reason that Trump put heavy sanctions on Russia and he
| did not like that.
|
| "- Elon looking to cut government spending - healthcare,
| subsidies"
|
| Any evidence of this claim? Of course not. Making government
| more efficient does not equal to your doomsday fears. Has Elon
| ever public-ally indicated and of this? I do not know his
| positions on this honestly but I doubt your claims. Elon is for
| UBI, he says the world needs it because Robots will take over,
| and I doubt he will support a UBI where people can not effort
| to pay their doctors and surgeons with. So I am calling
| straight BS on this.
|
| "- Anti abortion law possibly being implemented on a federal
| level"
|
| Any hint about this claim? No of course not.
|
| "What else am i missing?" A lot actually:
|
| - No more stupid DEI BS that is already on a downwards trend
| even during Biden/K
|
| - No more castrating kids, chopping their breasts of pps of.
|
| - No more hiding from parents that they supposedly changed
| their gender/pronouns or whatever they latest trendy woke sh1t
| it.
|
| - No more indoctrination in education like things that you are
| more oppressed/valuable the more "minority" checkboxes you
| check. Hopefully the DEATH of wokeness.
|
| - Less of the PURPOSEFULLY pushing illegals to vote (for dems
| of course). BY LAW in California they can not ask people for ID
| to vote. Total insanity, not sure if they can required ID
| federally but I hope they can and will.
|
| - Securing the Border. Kamala flipped on this btw, as she did
| on plenty of others things b4. But as she noted the people
| actually WANT a secure border, including all the people she
| thought will vote for her, she suddenly claimed she wanted the
| same thing that was always Trumps thing and she railed against.
|
| - Free Speech online and offline, something the real left once
| was championing but now they are all pro censorship of all the
| opinions they do not like. Simply call everything they do not
| like "hate-speech" and call everyone who dares to have a
| "right" opinion on something a nazi.
|
| - Less regulations more economic opportunity. Something that
| ties into Elons government efficiency endearment I guess. What
| they will cut it bureaucracy and the burden to start and
| operate a business.
|
| - I am sceptical of this is just a lie but Trump at least
| claims he is anti-war. While the left openly the war mongering
| 24/7. You very typically put "deal" in quotes and make it sound
| like a peace deal is something bad. Peace deals are incredibly
| good and if Trump can actually make and negotiate deals with
| countries instead of starting WW3 that would be great. The US
| needs to stop invading counties and getting involved on the
| globe with 700 military basis across the world ... it needs to
| end. And I do not think Trump will end it, but a president that
| will start 1 war less then the other side is still a win. And
| Trump is hopefully that guy. The Israel Gaza situations is bad
| and Trump is 100% wrong so far on this.
| mondrian wrote:
| The US is currently in proxy war with Russia on two fronts:
| Ukraine and Israel/Iran. Conceding Ukraine would help Iran,
| which is probably not what Israel wants. The idea that Trump
| would be friendly to Putin -- lift sanctions, give him Ukraine
| -- seems like a strategical contradiction.
| akmarinov wrote:
| Sadly, he's never indicated anything to the contrary
| kragen wrote:
| This seems like a reasonably good analysis, but Trump's
| frequent campaign promise to deport all the "illegal
| immigrants" seems like it might deserve a prominent mention,
| even if only to explain why you don't think it will happen.
| During the campaign, Trump often defined "illegal immigrants"
| as 20 million people or more, some of whom have US residency
| visas that Trump thinks they shouldn't have gotten and
| therefore aren't "illegal" in the conventional sense.
|
| If it does happen, it will be the largest "ethnic cleansing" in
| human history--bigger than the Yugoslavian migrations, bigger
| than the Armenian genocide, bigger than the Holocaust, bigger
| than the Holodomor, bigger than the US's previous forced
| removals of Native Americans. I say "ethnic" because it's
| primarily directed at people who are dark-skinned because of
| their Native American ancestry and driven by racism against
| them. It isn't directed against white illegal immigrants like
| Elon Musk and Melania Trump were.
| leptons wrote:
| [flagged]
| lelanthran wrote:
| > fascists have come to power in the past, or they are just
| into fascism and prefer that kind of thing.
|
| This, right here, has been the focal point of Dem supporters
| everywhere - doubling down on the name-calling.
|
| I seriously doubt that more than half the voters are
| homophobic, misogynistic fascists, but calling them that only
| stops them from engaging, it doesn't magically cause them to
| rethink their position and switch their vote.
| master-lincoln wrote:
| So these people care more about what other people call them
| than how their nation is governed?
| lelanthran wrote:
| > So these people care more about what other people call
| them than how their nation is governed?
|
| When it is the people governing them, that's a perfectly
| rational decision - why would someone who views me with
| contempt govern me fairly?
| frereubu wrote:
| @whoitwas The point of this comment was that not all
| Republican voters are MAGA.
| siffin wrote:
| You're right, but boy does it suck when antifa has to not
| only fight to win, but take the moral high ground and baby
| the potential fascists so they don't become actual fascists.
| faggotbreath wrote:
| Antifa are cosplayers. They would get their bussies blown
| out in a real fight.
| lobsterthief wrote:
| It goes both ways though. Taking the high road doesn't seem
| to work either.
| pineaux wrote:
| This. Its the arrogance of the Dems that is making people
| turn to Trump. It's getting on the high horse and calling all
| Trump supporters trash and drooling fucktards and stuff like
| that. You are making yourself look bad. Imagine someone isnt
| so politically active, but hears an elitist dem calling
| people they dont know a drooling fucktard, what do you think
| they will think?
| data_maan wrote:
| Except Trump calls people all kinds of bad things and it
| doesn't seem to hurt him.
|
| Conclusion: You cannot arrogantly call someone a drooling
| fucktard. But you can call someone garbage non-arrogantly
| while also being a convicted felon.
|
| The MAGA snowflakes prefer the felon, their soft skin can't
| seem to withstand arrogance.
| oersted wrote:
| I don't understand, Trump has been explicitly, frequently
| and consistently insulting to almost every group. That's
| how it all started, that is also to a large degree his
| "saying how it is" appeal. If name calling and arrogance
| are the root of the issue, how come it has worked so well
| for Trump? This is a bizarre inversion, I would understand
| if you insisted on other qualities like wokeness or
| economic policy, but how are you managing to attribute the
| exact worst qualities of MAGA to the Dems?
| trymas wrote:
| I guess there is no group of people that trump hasn't name
| called (dems, gays, hispanics, blacks, you name it, etc.).
|
| It should've been disqualifying when president publicly mocks
| and physically parodies disabled journalist instead of
| answering god damn questions.
|
| Taking high road didn't help in 2016, wouldn't have helped
| now.
|
| But this trend is obviously not only in USA. Some political
| groups and their voters don't care what is said, and other
| political group must upstand the highest moral standards.
| Jensson wrote:
| > I guess there is no group of people that trump hasn't
| name called (dems, gays, hispanics, blacks, you name it,
| etc.).
|
| There are a few groups not there, and those won Trump the
| election, and Democrats has name called those groups. If
| Democrats didn't demonize those people then maybe Trump
| would have lost.
| foldr wrote:
| Trump got a larger share of the hispanic vote than in
| 2020. I'm not convinced that voters really care that much
| about being insulted on the whole. If you go through the
| archives, which parts of Trump's voter base haven't been
| insulted by him at one time or another?
| trymas wrote:
| Indeed. Mexicans, hispanics in general are insulted by
| him and his followers constantly, but it seems that this
| group brought the victory to him.
|
| Who trump hasn't insulted? billionaires[0] and saudis?
|
| [0] though even Bezos is an exception.
| Jensson wrote:
| > Who trump hasn't insulted? billionaires[0] and saudis?
|
| Did Trump insult white men? You see Democrats say white
| men are the problem all the time, I never see Trump or
| his supporters say that.
| foldr wrote:
| >You see Democrats say white men are the problem all the
| time
|
| Be serious. You might for some reason think that this is
| their underlying message, but they don't _say_ this. They
| even chose an old white man as their nominee, for
| goodness ' sake.
| immibis wrote:
| It's not name calling, it's descriptive and neutral.
| cglace wrote:
| If you support and vote for a fascist you are a fascist.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I don't see it as name calling, the word Fascist plainly and
| accurately describes their positions and strategies. If they
| sincerely believe this is what is best, why would they see it
| as an insult rather than a compliment?
|
| It is true that Americans are pretty proud of winning WWII,
| and label that as defeating fascism... but it is plainly
| obvious that this current political movement aims to
| implement exactly what we were fighting to prevent back then.
| I think this is the main reason it is seen as an insult-
| people that language implies betrayal of what a lot of
| Americans died fighting for.
| frereubu wrote:
| This is a confusing comment that I don't think answers my
| question.
| 486sx33 wrote:
| Wow, I knew the comments would be bad. But this is the point
| where I literally said wow aloud.
| immibis wrote:
| Did he say something incorrect?
| prepend wrote:
| > literally
|
| I do not think you know what this word means.
| monstertank wrote:
| I like how you seem to think no atheists voted for Trump
| dang wrote:
| Can you please not break the site guidelines like this? You've
| been doing it a lot in this thread, as well as in other
| unrelated threads, and we've had to ask you this many times
| before.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the
| intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
|
| (We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42059721.)
| gtvwill wrote:
| Rip America. China and russia are gonna love this.
|
| Astounding they have elected a literal criminal as a president.
| Bonkers even.
| ibz wrote:
| China will definitely _not_ love the tariffs.
|
| Criminal? What are you even talking about?
| timomaxgalvin wrote:
| Trump is a criminal. I think that is fact. Not sure it
| matters.
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| tariffs? the world is fed up with tariffs and sanctions, they
| came up with the BRICS+
|
| the US will definitely _not_ love the death of the USD, or no
| longer having access to rare earth materials located in China
| ;)
| NickC25 wrote:
| Criminal, yes. He's a convicted felon.
|
| He also sold the entirety of the CIA's intel on Israel's
| nuclear weapons capacity to the Saudi Arabians in exchange
| for the Saudis sponsoring a golf tournament at a Trump
| resort, so there's that too.
| apexalpha wrote:
| Not super worried from a European perspective, it might even spur
| on some cooperation in our own union, which I support.
|
| Just a bit nervous for Ukraine... I wish Europe could step up on
| that front but we just don't have the capacity for it. Which is
| entirely our own fault, Trump is right to call us out on our
| reliance on the US. It's our continent we should be the one
| spearheading this.
|
| Hopefully that will change in the near future. But that doesn't
| help Ukraine now.
|
| The democrats need to do some serious introspection on their
| policies and priorities. And perhaps just return to running a
| white male as candidate...
|
| Oh well at least it's a _very_ clear victory, so no weeks or
| months of anxiety over the results.
| Yaina wrote:
| I'd be nice if the EU would step up and become more self
| sufficient with Trump in the White House.
|
| Though I am nervous. I think Trump could still do us a lot of
| harm.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| The EU was holding world peace. This destabilisation is in
| part caused by America.
|
| Iraq, war on oil. Isreal funded by US arms
|
| Russia owns Trump and Russia wants the EU dead.
|
| By no means should the EU get cosy with the US.
|
| Why shouldn't the US get cosy with the EU?
| gg82 wrote:
| Why would Russia want the EU dead. They were selling 10's
| of billions of dollars of oil and gas to it each year.
| Russia is however a bit paranoid about its own security,
| having being invaded numerous times over the centuries and
| wants to keep control of its own economic destiny.
|
| Provide a way where security of both Europe and Russia can
| be provided for and peace will quickly follow.
| account42 wrote:
| > Russia is however a bit paranoid about its own
| security, having being invaded numerous times over the
| centuries and wants to keep control of its own economic
| destiny.
|
| In soviet Russua, Russia is the one constantly being
| invaded.
| danieldk wrote:
| _Russia is however a bit paranoid about its own
| security,_
|
| Every rational actor (including Putin) knows that not a
| single NATO country is interested in invading Russia. He
| might have been worried about a democratic uprising in
| his country like Ukraine in 2014, but given how much an
| autocracy Russia has become, that's pretty unlikely now.
|
| _Provide a way where security of both Europe and Russia
| can be provided for and peace will quickly follow._
|
| It's very clear that Putin wants to annex countries that
| he considers Russia's property (mostly former Soviet
| states). He has wars in Ukraine, Chechnya, and Georgia to
| back it.
|
| Putin's word in a peace treaty will be worth as much as
| him saying that he wouldn't invade Ukraine up till the
| invasion. Nada. The only thing that will work is military
| deterrence.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| >It's very clear that Putin wants to annex countries that
| he considers Russia's property
|
| Nothing more than fantasy that justifies the warhawk
| stance among liberals. It is completely disconnected from
| reality. What Russia wants is safety from NATO. NATO in
| Ukraine would have been a strategic noose from which
| Russia would never escape. Ukrainian neutrality lead to
| peace. Ukraine with NATO aspirations lead to this war.
| The simplest answer is the right one in this case.
| danieldk wrote:
| This is a false narrative that Putin propagates all the
| time (besides that Ukraine is run by nazis) and is not
| supported by history. He did attack Georgia and Chechnya.
| There was no danger at all of these countries joining
| NATO anytime soon.
|
| At any rate, it has been a severe miscalculation on
| Putin's part. He thought they could take Ukraine in days
| and the aggression led Finland and Sweden to join NATO.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| >This is a false narrative that Putin propagates all the
| time
|
| It turns out that bad people do speak the truth
| sometimes, at least when the truth is in their corner:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/1gh
| s32...
| kelnos wrote:
| That "truth" is speculative fiction. Nothing more than
| unsubstantiated conspiracy-theory nonsense.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| It's weird to see people say stuff like this. Like, are
| you completely ignorant of the history of US initiated
| regime change around the world? Do you not find it at all
| plausible? The US has a very long history of doing this
| very sort of thing[1]. Do you think the three letter
| agencies have just been sitting on their hands in recent
| decades? I just don't get how people can engage in such
| willful ignorance.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involveme
| nt_in_r...
| kelnos wrote:
| I can simultaneously find something plausible and see
| that there's historical precedent for it, but not accept
| unsubstantiated fantasy stories made up on the internet.
| nickpp wrote:
| > It is completely disconnected from reality.
|
| Russian conquest wars in the last 30 years: Chechnya
| 1994-1996 and 1999-2009, Georgia 2008 (Abkhazia and South
| Ossetia) & Ukraine (2014 - today).
|
| > Ukrainian neutrality lead to peace.
|
| When Russians invaded Donbas in 2014, Ukraine actually
| had a non-aligned, neutral status. It only invited the
| Russians as they perceived it as weakness. Ukriaine's
| effort to join NATO was in hope of gaining a defense
| umbrella.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| To call them "conquest wars" is just a-historical self-
| serving nonsense.
|
| >When Russians invaded Donbas in 2014, Ukraine actually
| had a non-aligned, neutral status.
|
| They had a non-aligned status up until the moment their
| elected government was overthrown. At that point
| Ukraine's status is undefined. How was the government
| overthrown you ask? A US regime change operation: https:/
| /www.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/1ghs32...
| nickpp wrote:
| No.
|
| Government was overthrown in February 2014, the Ukrainian
| parliament renounced Ukraine's non-aligned status in
| December 2014 while Russia annexed Crimea in
| February/March 2014 and attacked Donbas in April 2014 -
| all while while Ukraine was still neutral and non-
| aligned.
|
| > US regime change operation
|
| I haven't seen any actual proof for that, only
| speculation like what you are linking to.
|
| LE:
|
| And you'd need some _strong proof_ considering that
| everything that happened afterwards completely vindicated
| Ukrainian people 's fear of Russia and their desire to
| get closer to the West.
|
| As someone who lives in Eastern Europe and who also lived
| through a bloody revolution to get out from under the
| Russian boot - let me tell you: we don't need external
| influences to desire to live in peace and freedom, to
| pursue our happiness and prosperity. We are just like
| you, people of the West, in that regard. We don't want to
| live under Russian occupation any more than you do and we
| are willing to pay the blood price for the privilege.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| The point at which neutral status is officially renounced
| is of no consequence. When the existing polity is
| replaced, any agreements or expectations of the behavior
| of the nation are moot. Hence their status being
| "undefined".
|
| >I haven't seen any actual proof for that, only
| speculation like what you are linking to.
|
| Yes, it turns out sometimes you need to make inferences
| and compare historical events and M-Os to get a clear
| picture of what happened out of the public eye. The fact
| that some people can't even entertain the notion that the
| US had a hand in Ukraine's revolution just underscores
| your psychological need to feel like moral heroes while
| calling for escalation in the war. But there is enough
| circumstantial evidence (like the Nuland intercept) that
| paints a very clear picture to those who aren't taken in
| by motivated reasoning.
| kelnos wrote:
| And sometimes it's just conspiracy-theory drivel, thought
| up by people who have an axe to grind.
| athrowaway3z wrote:
| > Provide a way where security of both Europe and Russia
| can be provided for and peace will quickly follow.
|
| So if i'm following you correctly, Russia's nuclear
| arsenal wasn't enough to provide security. Only thing we
| haven't tried for more security is to have every European
| nation be in control of their own nuclear arsenal?
|
| Its a bold claim, but by golly you've snorted enough
| foreign-sourced talking points that you might actually be
| right!
| blashyrk wrote:
| > The EU was holding world peace.
|
| I can't fathom where you got that from.
|
| > Iraq, war on oil. Isreal funded by US arms
|
| All true, and the EU complicit in all of those. Maybe not
| by choice (see remark about sovereignty at the end), but
| complicit nonetheless. You also forgot Syria, Yemen,
| Yugoslavia and probably a few others as well.
|
| > Russia owns Trump and Russia wants the EU dead.
|
| Sorry, but this is not Reddit.
|
| > By no means should the EU get cosy with the US.
|
| The EU has no choice other than be "cosy" with the US. It's
| called Pax Americana.
|
| In simple terms, the deal is this and always has been this
| since WW2 ended: the EU has traded political sovereignty
| for security, to and from the US.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| > Russia owns Trump and Russia wants the EU dead.
|
| What's Reddit to do with anything? Trump is a failed
| businessman.
|
| His business have failed and Russia bought him out. This
| was evident back in 2008 and it's evident now and ever
| since the 80's.
|
| https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how-russian-money-
| helpe...
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_projects_of_Dona
| ld_...
|
| Russia wants Trump as his backhand man and that's what
| they got. America wants freedom yet at the same time
| they're happy to accept brokerage from a man who dreams
| of an neo-USSR.
|
| > I can't fathom where you got that from.
|
| world peace was a rush mix of words. What I mean at least
| they held stability of the world stage.
|
| > EU is complicit
|
| I'm not saying the EU is a saint. The EU has an agenda
| and evils of its own. But as a figurehead and
| representation of many countries up on the world stage it
| held a positive power.
|
| Countries could count on the nation for relief unlike any
| other.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| From the British side of things, we are now a ballistics rag
| doll.
|
| We had Brexit, a catastrophe in itself. And with that we've
| sold ourselves to the US for "alliance" means; meaning that we
| will be dragged through everything the US wants.
|
| When we were tied to the EU, at least we had a some sort
| solidarity.
| Lutger wrote:
| Well, you and Germany are one of the few influential western
| countries left that has some sort of stable center-left
| government. Almost everything else is rightwing conservative,
| neoliberal or slowly descending into fascism.
| Tainnor wrote:
| Spain has a left-wing government, Poland is back to being
| centrist after getting rid of PiS, Switzerland has its own
| distinct government where all major parties are represented
| in perpetuity, ...
|
| Also to call the current German government "stable" is... a
| choice.
| torlok wrote:
| Poland isn't stable either. PiS may come back at any
| point. You'd think that consolidating power, destroying
| relations with all neighbours except for the totalitarian
| Hungary, and implementing a total abortion ban would do
| them in, but no. PiS can run a campaign entirely on anti-
| LGBT and anti-immigration rethoric and win. Poland turned
| into Florida every recent election. The anti-LGBT
| nonsense is already coming back ahead of the next
| presidential election.
| Tainnor wrote:
| > Also to call the current German government "stable"
| is... a choice.
|
| Just hours after I wrote this, the German government
| basically imploded.
| Lutger wrote:
| Those are the few yes. And it looks like the goverment of
| Germany is about to fall. AfD is set up for a big win, so
| that will be that.
|
| We're trending very far to the right as a whole, with the
| edges getting bigger and more extreme by the year.
| Tainnor wrote:
| > AfD is set up for a big win, so that will be that.
|
| The AfD is currently polling at about 18% of the vote.
| Alarming, yes, but nobody wants to work with them. The
| next government will likely be CDU led, with either the
| SPD or the Greens as a junior partner.
| jltsiren wrote:
| Trump is wrong in that. Europe relies on the US, because the
| American world order is built that way. That's what the US has
| traditionally wanted. They are the hegemon that maintains the
| world order and pays for it. Europe usually supports the US,
| both for ideological reasons and because it benefits from the
| American world order.
|
| But if the US is no longer committed to their world order, I
| can see the return of a more selfish Europe. One that is
| willing to work with both the US and BRICS and does not
| automatically favor either.
| pyrale wrote:
| > But if the US is no longer committed to their world order,
| I can see the return of a more selfish Europe. One that is
| willing to work with both the US and BRICS and does not
| automatically favor either.
|
| I don't see this happening unfortunately. The much more
| likely scenario is that the US diplomacy in EU will adopt a
| partisan stance, favoring far-right parties. Anyone who has
| followed far-right EU movements in the last two decades can't
| seriously believe that US conservatives talking about
| isolationism means they will stop pushing their views in
| Europe.
| jltsiren wrote:
| What you call "far-right" is not a unified movement.
| Nationalism is one of those ideologies where ideological
| alignment can make you just as easily allies as enemies. If
| the US wants to work with European nationalists, it must
| simultaneously increase military support to Ukraine,
| isolate Russia even further, restore normal relations with
| Russia, and make cheap Russian natural gas available again.
| pyrale wrote:
| So far, the policy differences between the different far-
| right parties in Europe hasn't really prevented them from
| cooperating. Besides, a lot of the meddling by US
| conservatives pushes on specific issues, so they don't
| mind funding two parties with opposed views on orthogonal
| topics.
| Tainnor wrote:
| > So far, the policy differences between the different
| far-right parties in Europe hasn't really prevented them
| from cooperating
|
| They literally have. France's RN officially stopped
| collaborating with the German AfD over the latter being
| too "extreme". Now they sit in different fractions of the
| EU parliament.
| pyrale wrote:
| That is the one such development I can think of in recent
| history. We'll see if this becomes more common as far-
| right parties become more mainstream, but I'm not holding
| my breath.
|
| On the other hand, I've seen US-influenced and Russia-
| influenced movements happily cooperate for years now.
| There's been some tensions over which side to support
| when the war in Ukraine broke out, but so far it hasn't
| prevented these same groups clashing on this specific
| issue to cooperate on other issues.
| account42 wrote:
| Funny how "far right" parties are always the fault of
| foreign countries and never the result of the parties in
| power fucking over the local population year after year.
| pyrale wrote:
| country X is funding party Y != party Y exists because of
| country X.
| dgellow wrote:
| The US leaving NATO would be terrible for Europe. Ukraine is
| very likely fucked with that result. I'm European and extremely
| worried.
| piiritaja wrote:
| Should not have to worry about US pulling out of NATO. Trump
| is stupid, but even he realizes that it would not benefit US
| in a any way. Significantly reducing funding might happen,
| but hopefully that will make EU countries increase their
| defense spendings as a reaction.
| dgellow wrote:
| There is absolutely no reason to expect Trump to act like a
| responsible leader. If he feels like leaving NATO he will
| do it.
| sirbutters wrote:
| If Putin orders him to, he will.
| kelnos wrote:
| That assumes that Trump is a rational actor when it comes
| to these sorts of things, and I'm not sure we can rely on
| that.
|
| The question is how much of his leaving-NATO rhetoric was
| sincere, and how much of it was empty threats to try to get
| other NATO countries to devote more money toward defense.
| timomaxgalvin wrote:
| I don't see this. France and UK have nuclear submarines. We
| need fewer boots on the ground interventions, not more.
| ossobuco wrote:
| > Just a bit nervous for Ukraine...
|
| > The democrats need to do some serious introspection on their
| policies and priorities. And perhaps just return to running a
| white male as candidate...
|
| Considering that one of the main points of Trump's campaign was
| a swift end to Ukraine's war, and considering the large vote
| margin by which he won, I believe the lesson the democrats
| should learn is that most USAers don't want the USA to be
| involved in foreign wars.
|
| By definition the democratic party should be able to read the
| population, right?
| max51 wrote:
| >By definition the democratic party should be able to read
| the population, right?
|
| In the 2016 elections, they literally went to court to argue
| that they are a private company and their internal processes
| (eg. the primaries) don't need to be democratic.
| kelnos wrote:
| This is why GP is nervous: Trump's "swift end" will likely be
| trying to broker a deal where Ukraine gives up all the
| disputed territory, and Russia effectively wins, validating
| Putin's approach to territorial expansion.
| audunw wrote:
| Europe in total has contributed twice as much to Ukraine as
| USA. And much of that is spending that actually affects their
| economy, not just "we're going to give a billion dollars of
| equipment that we were going to have to replace soon anyway".
| I'm not trying to dismiss USAs contribution here but it's a
| fact that much of it is really more of a program to modernise
| the stock of US military weapons and ammunition, which
| incidentally frees up old stock for Ukraine.
|
| Also keep in mind that Europe now supports Ukraine by setting
| up arms production within Ukraine, which gives more weapons per
| dollar spent than donating weapons made in USA or Europe.
|
| That said, while European military spending has improved a lot
| since the invasion, there's still a bit further to go and it's
| not such a bad thing if Europe is forced to become more self-
| reliant militarily.
|
| Will be very short sighted for USA though. They benefit on so
| many levels from Europe being so dependent on USA.
| danieldk wrote:
| _Will be very short sighted for USA though. They benefit on
| so many levels from Europe being so dependent on USA._
|
| This is the part that I don't get with the USA's recent
| obsessions with isolationism. One of the reasons the US _is_
| so rich is because it is a world power with a lot of loyal
| allies. We align a lot of our policies with the US when we
| are asked (see blocking ASML exports to China).
|
| If the US is not willing to step up for its allies [1], it
| becomes a regional power, and the loss of influence will
| result in worse economical outcomes.
|
| China is happy to fill the void.
|
| [1] Also don't forget that (most) allies stepped up when the
| US asked (Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.), even when much of their
| population thought it was not the best idea.
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| > And perhaps just return to running a white male as
| candidate...
|
| This isn't why people aren't voting dem. Did you forgot that
| Obama was elected? People don't want to vote dem because Dems
| have moved significantly to the left and are supporting crazy
| policies.
| bamboozled wrote:
| You have to find some good in all things and I think this is
| the most likely good. Other countries and continents realizing
| it's time to move on from America and start to stand on their
| own two feet.
|
| I'm really tired of American being the center of everything,
| especially after this fiasco. It would be nice if it was a more
| progressive country for a change.
|
| By progressive I mean, a country who believes in climate
| change, renewables and nuclear and women's reproductive rights.
| pavlov wrote:
| There's lots of blame and anger directed at Democrats, but
| ultimately it's the Republicans who picked Trump.
|
| They could have won against the unpopular Biden/Harris with
| practically any other candidate. Nikki Haley polled well against
| all possible Democrats.
|
| The party was already done with Trump in February 2021, but then
| they explicitly decided that they prefer one more try with an old
| man who doesn't spare much thought to actual policies but does
| brag about sexual assault, tried to orchestrate a coup last time
| he lost an election, etc. etc.
|
| It's not inflation or Biden's unpopularity or some other external
| factor. Lots of Americans really want what Trump is selling.
| smallstepforman wrote:
| Some would say that Trump won 3 times
| acdha wrote:
| Yes, we know. Those people are wrong, but the mistake of
| their opponents is thinking that pointing this out is
| sufficient in the post-Obama era where things are so focused
| on retaining power. Most Republican politicians and staffers
| knew Trump lost in 2020 - we have records of them saying so -
| but they also recognized that he got a LOT of people to vote
| and gambled that the Democrats got lucky with the freak
| pandemic and Biden's somewhat unique combination of being
| well-known nationally and white men thinking of him as one of
| their own even if they don't agree with all of his policies.
| They adopted the big lie gambling that he'd do it again in
| 2024, and it worked.
| Aeolun wrote:
| It's absolutely insane to me that someone that literally incited
| their followers to storm the capitol, has been charged with so
| many counts of fuck knows what, and has (somehow) survived
| multiple assassination attempts can come back to win the
| presidency.
|
| It's just a "only in the US" kind of thing.
| vdvsvwvwvwvwv wrote:
| Time to gaterade the crops.
| bagels wrote:
| Can't wait for the great ideas ol brain worms has for
| agriculture.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Or maybe the competition is that pathetic
| Aeolun wrote:
| I mean, if all the country votes for is dirty old men, then
| maybe?
| siffin wrote:
| No kidding, I was saying to my partner earlier how friggin
| crazy the timeline is getting. That 15 years ago, I couldn't
| have even imagined writing a fictional timeline like this.
|
| The most striking aspect to me is how blatent and brazen trump
| is with his lies, how fake he is, and how so many can't see it
| or just don't care for some reason.
|
| He pretends to be religious of all things, he so obviously
| isn't and couldn't give a damn, but pious people of all people
| should care about honesty and respect, at least in the public
| sphere.
| monstertank wrote:
| Perhaps it's time for you to reflect on the legitimacy of those
| claims?
| schweinebacke wrote:
| Netanjahu and Berlusconi enter the ring
| whoitwas wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxiMrvDbq3s
| maxglute wrote:
| House and senate sweep? Interesting times intensifies.
| casenmgreen wrote:
| There's a story Winston Churchill tells of, of an old man who
| lived a long life on his death bed surrounded by his family,
| where one of his grand-children asks him for the dying man's
| advice about life.
|
| The man thinks for a moment and then says : "I've seen a lot of
| trouble in my life, most of which never happened".
|
| We can all now think of a million ways in which Trump will be a
| disaster.
|
| I predict that bad as he will be, most of what we now worry about
| will not happen.
| cbeach wrote:
| A lot of people predicted WW3 as soon as Trump took office in
| 2016.
|
| The reality was that Trump's unpredictability and Machiavellian
| approach to diplomacy put a chill on many of America's global
| rivals.
|
| With the Abraham Accords, Trump brought the Middle East a step
| closer to stability. And despite some rhetorical silliness with
| North Korea, the situation on the Korean peninsula was more
| stable under Trump than it became under Biden. Regarding
| Russia, I feel Russia waited for the election of Biden (a
| decrepit, predictable leader on the World stage) before
| invading Ukraine.
| casenmgreen wrote:
| I have a rather different view - I thought Trump was so
| scattered, and his party ungovernable due its internal
| splits, that he was unable to implement his crazy ideas.
|
| Regarding Russia, I may be wrong, but I think Putin's
| judgement of the situation was so insular, based purely on
| everyone agreeing everything would go just fine and no one
| thinking for one second about what might go wrong and what to
| do if it did, that Putin's assessment of the situation was
| not meaningful.
| gred wrote:
| As a conservative American, I'm...
|
| Cautiously optimistic about: curbing government spending,
| reducing illegal immigration, protecting unborn lives,
| restraining Iran + proxies, continuing economic growth
|
| Nervous about: Ukraine, additional inflation caused by tariffs,
| ongoing political polarization
| siffin wrote:
| How do you figure that not providing life-saving medical
| treatment to a pregnant mother and letting her and her baby die
| is going to protect that unborn life?
| account42 wrote:
| Well for one, strawmen are very flammable and fire is bad for
| unborn life.
| gred wrote:
| I think you're putting words in my mouth. IMO in this
| scenario the medical decision-making process should weigh
| both lives equally. Doctors make life-and-death decisions all
| the time, and I'm OK with that as long as one life is not
| considered "lesser". I understand that reasonable people can
| disagree on when life truly starts, though.
| siffin wrote:
| Doctors aren't doing that though, they're saying they won't
| touch people in case they are seen to be breaking laws, and
| people are already dying, how can you not understand the
| nuance?
| gred wrote:
| Which laws, and which doctors?
| tzs wrote:
| Here's one recent example:
| https://www.propublica.org/article/josseli-barnica-death-
| mis...
| gred wrote:
| Thank you for the example, I do hope that they clarify
| that gray area in the law. It's a tough situation; they
| were dealing with probabilities ( _sometimes_ infections
| occur, and _sometimes_ these infections lead to death)
| rather than a clear-cut "we can save one of these two
| lives if we perform an abortion".
| siffin wrote:
| Funny how treatment like this used to be a clear-cut
| decision made by the only experts who can make it
| (medical professionals), but now innocent people and
| babies are dying because of peoples random religious
| beliefs, that obviously have nothing to do with medicine.
|
| It has nothing to do with medicine because there isn't a
| doctor in the world who would willingly let a patient die
| when they could have treated them - unless they believe
| they will end up in jail for it - which is exactly what
| is happening - and that blood is on your hands for
| defending this absolute crap.
| arp242 wrote:
| Putting aside the general disagreement on the topic, one of
| the major concerns is all of this isn't really happening,
| with some of these laws and prosecutions just being so
| strict. Take [1] for example: when doctors are unable or
| afraid to intervene even when the baby has _already died_.
| It 's just so completely unnecessary and purely the result
| of an overly strict abortion ban. This is hardly the first
| or only story of its kind.
|
| [1]: https://people.com/texas-teen-suffering-miscarriage-
| dies-due...
| cbeach wrote:
| Firstly, Roe vs Wade was overturned in 2022 during the BIDEN
| term.
|
| Secondly, Trump has never called for a federal abortion ban,
| nor, in fact, a state abortion ban.
|
| Thirdly, there are currently exemptions in ALL states that
| protect abortion if it is a life-saving necessity for the
| mother. Trump has never proposed removing these exemptions.
| siffin wrote:
| Search the news for mothers and their babies dying because
| doctors in states which have enacted abortion bans refuse
| treatment. That's what happens.
|
| Rove vs Wade was overturned because of a right wing stacked
| supreme court, which has nothing to do with the sitting
| president. Unless you think the executive has control over
| judicial decisions?
|
| Trump is enabling all sorts of backward thinking ideology
| to fruit, directly or indirectly.
| cbeach wrote:
| Just to be clear I am pro-choice and I support mothers
| and their bodily autonomy.
|
| I think the Dems will continue to lose elections if, in
| their hysteria, they attibute bad things to Trump that
| had little to do with him.
|
| If the Dems and their supporters care more about the Two
| Minutes Hate against Trump than creating their own
| positive vision of America, then they'll continue to
| lose.
|
| Americans are a positive and patriotic populace. That's
| why Trump's "Make America Great Again" messaging
| resonates with them.
| siffin wrote:
| Why do right wingers think democracy is about beating
| some other party, rather than improving the lives of
| citizens?
|
| You're implying that unless the major left wing party
| kow-tows to the emotional needs of extreme right-wingers,
| then they should be allowed to destroy the country
| because mummy wasn't nice to them?
|
| How about actually focussing on improving things instead
| of crying about every little thing.
| kingaillas wrote:
| >Firstly, Roe vs Wade was overturned in 2022 during the
| BIDEN term.
|
| That timing is all about how long it takes a lawsuit to
| work through the system to reach a stacked court.... not so
| much who was President when it finally was resolved.
| Bost wrote:
| What about "If things don't go my way, I don't mind starting
| civil war?"
| gred wrote:
| I haven't seen that in Trump, myself. It seems to me that a
| lot of the Jan 6 discussion comes down to "what was he
| thinking when he did X?", and the tribes either give him the
| benefit of the doubt or assume the worst intentions,
| according to their various inclinations.
| agumonkey wrote:
| what are the most probable policies regarding russia ? since
| russia and iran are in the same bed i wonder how things are
| going
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| Lifting all sanctions against Russia. Putin helped Trump to
| win this election in the end.
| gred wrote:
| Past performance is mixed: Trump 45 used mostly the carrot
| with the North Koreans, but mostly the stick with the
| Iranians and Chinese. I think it's pretty clear that
| Ukraine aid will decrease, but I'm not sure how much carrot
| vs stick will be applied to Russia.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| curbing government spending:
|
| increased taxes, as per evident of the UK government switch to
| labour
|
| reduce illegal immigration:
|
| shortage of labour for mundane jobs, as evidenced by the UK
| brexit. We now don't have farmers to do the jobs that we all
| hate
|
| protection of unborn lives
|
| abortion aided to the protection, so now expect a baby boom
| crisis. Your daughter gets pregnant, now what? You have to fork
| the bill of either supporting or child care of others.
|
| economic growth:
|
| You rely on china for everything, when was the last product you
| looked at that had "made in the usa?
|
| What is there to grow upon? AI/ML? CyberSecurity?
| gred wrote:
| > curbing government spending: increased taxes, as per
| evident of the UK government switch to labour
|
| Can you elaborate on this one? I don't agree with most of
| your takes, but this one I just didn't understand.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| The Conservative government, right wing-- caused a "black
| hole" in spending. Where by for the eight years they were
| in power the conservatives took any income, money for the
| country for themselves and their bed buddies.
|
| This includes scrapping budgets for Scotland, Wales leading
| a dominance in the London tax haven and sabotaging anything
| else progressive.
|
| So, we've finally extinguished the conservative party with
| a left wing party, labour who are suppose to fight for the
| people but in return have just released the budget report
| where by instead of cutting spending they're going to
| increase national insurance, work taxes from next April,
| cut public services of schools, healthcare and pensions all
| in the name to get us out of this "black hole" including
| draining further Scotland and Wales because with increase
| spending.
|
| So instead of actually tackling the issue they want the
| same pie that conservatives had and their slice too.
| gred wrote:
| Thanks for the explanation. But that sequence sounds more
| like "corruption -> increase taxes", or perhaps "cut
| taxes -> increase taxes"... not "cut costs -> increase
| taxes"?
| tapoxi wrote:
| The only way to curb government spending is to completely
| eliminate Medicaid and Medicare at this point. If you look at
| the data there's simply not enough tax revenue to cover those
| programs with an aging population, and the Republicans were
| against allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices so I'm not
| sure they'll give the program any teeth.
| gred wrote:
| Yeah that one has more emphasis on the "cautiously" than the
| "optimistic" :-) Both parties have largely ignored this issue
| since the Tea Party movement, but it has been mentioned
| somewhat prominently in this campaign.
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| * curbing government spending - elon musk said that he plans
| cutting about $2T. It includes social security.
|
| * reducing illegal immigration - mass deportation is a fantasy.
| in reality trump will not do much about it.
|
| * protecting unborn lives - yeah, more women will die instead.
| good job.
|
| * restraining Iran + proxies - yeah, Putin is a best buddy of
| Iranian leaders and Trump will be in their company too.
|
| * continuing economic growth - trimp policies will lead to
| recession.
|
| * Ukraine - it's utterly fucked.
|
| * additional inflation caused by tariff - on spot. companies
| will not hesitate to gauge pricing more than necessary because
| of tariffs.
|
| * ongoing political polarization - it's not just polarization.
| It will be on the edge of the civil war when Trump will order
| shoot protesters.
| chx wrote:
| > mass deportation is a fantasy
|
| as the grandson of two concentration camp survivors: I'd call
| that a nightmare and I don't think it's so far from reality
| you'd hope for.
| gr__or wrote:
| Economists, a conservatively skewed bunch, are not optimistic
| about his plans: https://qz.com/donald-turmp-taxes-tariffs-
| economy-simon-john...
|
| The majority of women are not enthusiastic about his plans on
| that front either
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| I can't wait for MAGA to experience the 'hardship' that Musk
| has already promised. If they keep voting red after that,
| it's beyond stupidity.
| gred wrote:
| Keep in mind that the left has been saying that the right
| has been voting against their own best interests for
| decades. I doubt that will change, especially if the
| apparent realignment along "class" lines turns out to be
| sustained.
| modeless wrote:
| The S&P 500 is up 2.4%. The only economists you need to
| listen to are the ones who put their money where their mouth
| is.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Economists may be conservatively skewed relative to other
| academics, but certainly not relative to the median voter.
| tzs wrote:
| > restraining Iran + proxies
|
| The way to restrain Iran is to put reasonable sanctions on
| them, then negotiate terms for removing those sanctions. An
| international group (the US, China, France, Russia, the UK, and
| Germany) did that over Iran's nuclear weapons program and it
| resulted in an agreement that would have delayed Iran from
| getting nuclear weapons for at least a decade.
|
| Then Trump was elected and a couple years later and over the
| objections of China, France, Russia, the UK, Germany, and the
| EU unilaterally withdrew from the deal and imposed even harsher
| sanctions that had been on Iran before.
|
| So we ended up back to where we were before that deal, except
| with Iran knowing that if you make a deal for sanctions relief
| you can't trust the US to keep it, and so they have figured out
| other ways to get by with the sanctions in place. And the US is
| not Spinal Tap...when sanctions at 10 don't work it can't turn
| the dial to 11.
| foxglacier wrote:
| > when sanctions at 10 don't work it can't turn the dial to
| 11
|
| Yea it can. It did that to Iraq.
| drumhead wrote:
| Trump is transactional. He'll do something for you if you don't
| something for him. Want an abortion law nationally? Give him
| corporate tax cuts. Want to fund Ukraine? Give him more
| deregulation. He's got no political principles. He's anyone's if
| the price is right. 8 more years of Trump then
| vdvsvwvwvwvwv wrote:
| 4 you mean
| sirbutters wrote:
| no, no, he really meant 8, at least. Laws and constitution
| don't mean shit no more.
| hello_computer wrote:
| People are tired of competing with 3rd-world wages while having
| to meet 1st-world expenses--especially in a ChatGPT world. It's
| no surprise that shutting the borders and capping the visas is a
| mildly popular platform--especially when the Democrats (with a
| few exceptions, like Sanders) abandoned their labor
| constituencies back in the 90s.
| casenmgreen wrote:
| Do we have any sense of to what extent Russian interference
| played a part in the outcome?
| bigodbiel wrote:
| I don't think it mattered much. It was the will of most
| Americans to join the Russians.
| kingaillas wrote:
| The sad truth is even if XYZ country "interfered" with a
| misinformation campaign... they didn't actually manipulate the
| votes. Enough US citizens voted for Trump.
| itomato wrote:
| Suppose Russian "interference" is just business as usual. A
| long play to undermine the Republican Party and take it over
| like a parasite.
|
| Strong-arming "The Good Ones" until they play along. Once that
| happens, the fight is won.
|
| They want to undermine it All and make it irreversible.
| Utterly.
| pubby wrote:
| Something I've been wondering lately is how big of a blind spot I
| have from being habitually online. Like, I'll read the news, and
| I'll read political discussions on HN and r/politics and
| r/conservative and Twitter, and I'll try to get a sense of what
| everyone is thinking, but unfortunately I don't think that's
| possible. The posters on these sites all have one thing in
| common: they're into politics and current events.
|
| Having a chance to talk to more people in meatspace this year, it
| was a surprise to find out how many people have only a passing
| interest in politics, but still vote. Like, the average user here
| probably reads 5+ news articles a day, but there are plenty of
| people IRL that will read one a month, or maybe just skim a
| headline. They don't really keep up-to-date with the race. They
| mostly vote by feel and pragmaticism.
|
| People always talk about "shy" Trump voters, but what makes me
| more curious are voters that match the description above. If you
| put someone in a voting booth who isn't interested by news, who
| do they vote for? I mean, Trump has a lot of surface-level
| qualities - he's a tall, confident white man who's a successful
| boss of business and an anti-establishment outsider - and maybe
| that's enough to capture this demographic.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| You were respectably drifting away from your elitism in the
| first two paragraphs.
|
| Then the last paragraph shows you have a long way to go.
|
| > If you put someone in a voting booth who isn't interested by
| news, who do they vote for? I mean, Trump has a lot of surface-
| level qualities - he's a tall, confident white man who's a
| successful boss of business and an anti-establishment outsider
| - and maybe that's enough to capture this demographic.
|
| I live in a rural working class region. I have beers with these
| guys all the time. They're my best friends and I'm the odd
| coder guy that works from home.
|
| They do not care about the surface level qualities, besides the
| fact that he's hilarious. They might not read articles but they
| listen to podcasts a lot on their commutes at 4AM in the
| morning.
|
| They don't want war with Russia, they're pissed about the COVID
| stuff, and they aren't happy with the price of gas.
|
| They don't care that he's tall.
| egonschiele wrote:
| What do they care about, then? I have no connection with
| people like you're describing, so anything you can say would
| be interesting to hear. My understanding is based on the news
| is the economy, and gun control.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| It seems you didn't read my comment?
|
| > They don't want war with Russia, they're pissed about the
| COVID stuff, and they aren't happy with the price of gas.
| egonschiele wrote:
| Sorry, to clarify: I did read that part, but I'm saying,
| can you expand on that?
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Sure. They care about most of the stuff people have cared
| about for thousands of years.
|
| They want to grow their families, low prices, government
| to stay out of their business. They want to grow their
| side jobs, like contracting or excavating or HVAC. They
| distrust smarty-pants paper pushers. They work side-by-
| side with a sudden increase of illegal immigrants.
|
| None of this is simply surface level, at least not more
| so than any other human being. We're all just humans bro.
| egonschiele wrote:
| Cool, thanks for the response!
| siffin wrote:
| Not wanting gas to be expensive, without knowing literally
| anything about why gas might cost more, is about as surface
| level as you can get.
|
| What happened with covid? Trump was a complete clown, but
| they still support him? Sounds again, very, very surface
| level.
|
| You say they don't care about his height, or his gender
| maybe, or his race, but if he were a short female minority,
| that would 100% affect their opinion, even if they didn't
| understand it or wouldn't admit it. Very surface level no?
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| You're just taking every policy position and asserting it's
| surface-level.
|
| We're now 8 years in of the elitists calling anyone who
| disagrees with them stupid, shallow, and racist.
|
| You have learned nothing.
| siffin wrote:
| I agree, except we're more like 80 years into elites
| calling everyone else stupid.
|
| Your first sentence is based, if you can't see how
| following a couple of simple talking points like "herp
| derp gas is to spensive" isn't anything but surface
| level, you're actually stupid, because I'm telling you,
| there is a shitload more to gas than it coming out of the
| pump at a price someone _wants_ it to be. You can 't just
| vote for cheaper gas, trump isn't an oil well.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| I understand you think everyone who voted for Trump is
| stupid. But it's simply not true.
|
| Also price of gas isn't the only things I mentioned. You
| hilariously omitted war with Russia, and all the other
| plausible reasons one might vote for Trump, like making
| illegal immigration harder than legal immigration,
| reducing bureaucracy, wanting to cut red tape to go to
| Mars, lower taxes.
|
| You could assert all these things are somehow
| superficial, but that doesn't make it true.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I don't understand the war part.
|
| It does seem like Russia will continue to push west once
| they take Ukraine. At this point it seems like this is
| almost inevitable without US support.
|
| We have a lot of Ukrainian people in Canada and they are
| mortified by this event. To them, US support was a
| lifeline. Some friends were literally crying over this
| turn of events because they're terrified for their family
| back home.
|
| If Russia takes Ukraine and is emboldened to continue
| west, how will this impact the USA? Will you want to
| remain uninvolved and isolated? Does it really seem safe
| to allow this to continue?
|
| Or do you think nothing much will happen and this hand
| wringing is unnecessary? Or perhaps that Russia won't
| move further west, or it's fine that they might?
|
| It strikes me that a lot of Trump's policy is that of a
| remarkably uninformed person who struggles to connect
| dots and anticipate the results of these actions.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| > Or do you think nothing much will happen and this hand
| wringing is unnecessary?
|
| This. The Neville Chamberlain comparison has been used to
| involve us in every major war since WWII and literally
| all of them turned out to be total disasters.
| siffin wrote:
| Epstein said it of trump, he is good at real estate and
| otherwise a complete moron. He said he can't think ahead
| what might happen with any issue, and if you've been
| watching him, that should be pretty obvious.
|
| That's why this is so dangerous, he's a con man, and
| everyone supporting him has bought into the con, because
| I never see any trump supporter posting a clause that
| says they will stop supporting him the moment he crosses
| line x, they just support literally anything he does or
| will do.
| hajile wrote:
| Russia invaded Ukraine with ~170,000 troops. When it
| turned into an actual war instead of a quick regime
| change, they had to hire Wagner and draft prisoners until
| they could train up troops to send.
|
| Do you seriously think Russia was going to be able to
| attack another country if they took over Ukraine? 170,000
| wouldn't even be enough to actually hold on to Ukraine
| (in Kosovo, we needed 1 soldier for every 34 people to
| preserve peace, that would be over 1 million Russian
| soldiers in Ukraine to occupy it).
|
| This assertion simply doesn't make any sense to me.
| siffin wrote:
| I didn't say that at all, I was responding to a commenter
| talking about their particular friends, who they claimed
| weren't voting on shallow premises, when the examples
| they provided were absolutely as shallow as they were
| trying to claim they weren't.
|
| You went off topic and started defending all trump
| voters.
| physicles wrote:
| > I live in a rural working class region. I have beers with
| these guys all the time. They're my best friends and I'm the
| odd coder guy that works from home.
|
| This is what America needs more of -- people from different
| worlds just having beers together, and realizing that we're
| all normal people trying to get by.
|
| Do you know of anyone who can articulate a compelling case of
| why Trump would make a good president? I'm left-leaning but I
| want to understand where others are coming from.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| I tried to make one earlier. I also consider myself left-
| leaning.
|
| 1. Don't want war with Russia. Trump's presidency was
| relatively low-war. He's also expressed a great desire to
| end the Ukraine conflict. If the Donbas and Crimea is the
| price of avoiding Nuclear war, I'm on board. The moment
| that switched me to deciding on Trump was when Dick Cheney
| endorsed Kamala.
|
| 2. Protecting kids. I don't think kids can consent to
| medical gender transition. It amounts to state sanctioned
| child abuse. I have kids. Once you're 18 go ahead do what
| you want.
|
| 3. Illegal immigration. I lived in South America for 4
| years. My wife is Colombian, we just moved back to the
| States. Legally. It was a long and arduous process to come
| in legally. That should be made easier (something Musk at
| least has espoused) and coming in illegally should be made
| harder. I know quite a few illegal immigrants and they are
| being abused by the urban elite to build their summer
| homes. They're not living a better life and they're stuck
| here.
|
| 4. Federal bureaucracy. The federal bureaucracy has become
| a parasite on our progress. Just look at what's happening
| with SpaceX. This ties in with the immigration thing. The
| problems we have with immigration are actually that the
| lazy and corrupt bureaucracy takes years to process
| something that should take 2 hours. (and does! even in
| "third world" countries like Colombia)
|
| 5. Trust. Everyone who hates Trump likes to talk about how
| much he makes stuff up. But he's authentic. Meaning he
| rarely reads from a script. He talks off the cuff. He's not
| controlled. I'm tired of having politicians that basically
| hate half the country and think we're dumb because we don't
| like to listen to their corpo-bureaucrat speeches
| nickpp wrote:
| > Donbas and Crimea is the price of avoiding Nuclear war
|
| On the contrary, the risk of nuclear war increases when
| Putin gets Donbas and Crimea. Because what he wants next
| will be even more valuable to nations with nukes.
|
| Appeasing sounds great but at some point you run out of
| other people's countries.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| The Neville Chamberlain comparison has been used to
| involve us in every major war since WWII and literally
| all of them turned out to be total disasters.
|
| It's like Charlie Brown and the football.
| geoka9 wrote:
| One could argue there have been no major war since WWII
| and the belief in the futility of appeasement is exactly
| the reason.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Leave us alone Neocon Lucy, America will resist the urge
| to kick your warmongering football.
| kgeist wrote:
| Putin himself is already tired of the war. He just
| doesn't see a way out where he can save the face. He
| wanted it to be a 3 day campaign, remember? I have doubts
| Putin is eager to start Ukraine War 2.0
| nickpp wrote:
| Russian conquest wars in the last 30 years: Chechnya
| 1994-1996 and 1999-2009, Georgia 2008 (Abkhazia and South
| Ossetia) & Ukraine (2014 - today).
|
| If Putin ever gets tired of war, he seems to quicky
| recover and start again.
| geoka9 wrote:
| Russia wants a few years of respite, ideally without
| sanctions and with the Ukraine military stripped to the
| studs, so that its own military can regroup and finish
| the job in a few years. Once that happens, the rest of
| Eastern Europe will be next and the Ukrainians will be
| first in the meat wave attacks, just like their
| compatriots from Eastern Donbass in 2022 (it has been
| occupied by Russia since 2014 and by now the towns there
| are nearly void of male population).
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| > the rest of Eastern Europe will be next
|
| Do you have any evidence of these plans?
| jiggawatts wrote:
| They literally showed them during the first days of the
| war.
|
| There was a press conference where they accidentally
| showed a diagram with arrows continuing through Ukraine
| into Transnistria, which is Moldova's equivalent of the
| Donbass.
|
| You have to be very ignorant of geopolitics to think that
| there aren't more countries like Ukraine that Russia
| would like to return to their empire.
|
| Some might join voluntarily but many -- like Kazakhstan
| -- won't without a fight. Unlike Ukraine, most of the
| others are not conveniently next to Europe and hence will
| be impractical for western nations to support.
|
| After Ukraine falls, Moldova is next, and then the
| various -stans will be rolled up in quick succession.
| This will create a Soviet Union 2.0, which will be a net
| positive for Russia, and a mixed bag for the rest of the
| world. It'll likely be a net negative for Europe, which
| is why they're supporting Ukraine now.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| So no?
|
| "the rest of Eastern Europe" was the claim
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Serbia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, and possibly
| even Hungary are all in eastern Europe and at non-zero
| risk of a _repeat_ invasion by Russia.
|
| Sure, not _all_ of Eastern Europe is at risk.
|
| So... is that okay then in your mind? As long as Putin
| only takes _some_ of Europe, that 's acceptable?
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| I literally said if he takes Donbas and Crimea, yes
| that's worth it. You've failed to present any evidence he
| could take anything else except Transnistria which has
| already been defacto independent and considered under
| Russian occupation since 2022.
| hajile wrote:
| I don't understand this perspective.
|
| Russia is gettin North Korean troops to fight for them
| because they are losing so bad, but Russia is also an
| aggressive superpower hell-bent on invading even more
| countries with far better defenses than Ukraine.
|
| This isn't accounting for Russia's disastrous
| demographics problem. The biggest reason they are moving
| so slowly is because they can build new artillery, but
| are demographically forced to do everything they can to
| minimize casualties.
|
| It also isn't accounting for Russia trying to get a
| permanent peace deal 2 months into the conflict. That's
| not the behavior of a country bent on conquest.
|
| Finally, I can't take people seriously when they are
| basically asserting that Russia believed they could take
| over all of Eastern Europe with just ~200,000 troops.
| When Ukraine changed from regime toppling to an actual
| war, Russia was caught with their pants down. They had to
| hire Wagner and draft prisoners to buy time to start
| pushing soldiers through training. If they'd been
| planning some large invasion campaign, they would have
| started serious troop training a handful of years prior
| and have millions of already-trained troops.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| > I don't understand this perspective.
|
| It's because it's not based on fact. These people
| (rightly so) hate Putin. But just because you hate Putin
| does not mean he is capable or intending to be Hitler.
|
| Same actually goes for Trump actually. Just because you
| don't like the guy doesn't mean he's literally Hitler.
| cruffle_duffle wrote:
| > they're pissed about the COVID stuff
|
| Pretty much the entire reason I stopped being a loyal
| democrat. It's hard to call the other team a bunch of
| fadcists when your own party set up hotlines to dime out your
| neighbors for having a picnic in their backyard. Or close
| your kids school for two years. Or destroy your community by
| shutting everything down (except protests, but only for
| certain topics). Or threatening your job unless you take a
| medical procedure. Etc...
|
| And let's not forget the massive economic damage caused by
| all that. This election is basically the result of democrats
| absolutely horrible covid policies.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| You, me and millions of other Americans. Just that there
| are few of us in spaces like Hacker News or the New York
| Times.
| cruffle_duffle wrote:
| This election is honestly vindicating. At least I can
| know I'm not going crazy when I scratch my head about the
| massive double speak from democrats. Forgive me for
| speaking so crude but my former "tribe" flushed their
| entire set of values down the toilet and went all in on
| Covid.
|
| Bodily choice? Nope. Get a shot or loose your job.
|
| Deaf or have language issues? Hope you enjoy not being
| able to read lips. Fuck you though. Only Covid mattered.
|
| Education? Nope. Close schools for two years. Prevent
| kids from going to the only sanctuary they have from
| abusive care givers. Fuck kids. Only Covid mattered.
|
| 99%? Nope. Transfer massive amounts of wealth from poor
| to rich. But hey at least I'm privileged enough I can
| work from home.
|
| Small business? Nope. Close small businesses and
| celebrate ordering all your shit on Amazon (to be
| delivered by poor working class, expendable delivery
| people so you can stay comfortably isolated working from
| home at your large house and not get exposed to those
| deadly deadly Covid germs)
|
| Science? Nope. Almost none of the covid interventions had
| any science supporting them. We were literally running an
| uncontrolled experiment that nobody consented to.
|
| Data? Nope. We will actively suppress people who take
| public data showing Covid isn't as bad as portrayed.
| Let's also treat deaths with and from COVID as the same.
|
| Elderly care? Nope. Lock them in their care home and let
| them die completely alone. But hey, zoom calls, right? Oh
| yeah and when grandma dies, no funeral for him! Only
| George Floyd can have a funeral.
|
| Minority's? Fuck them. Only Covid matters
|
| Community? Close it all down. Fuck them. Only Covid
| matters.
|
| Anti-authority? Naw. Call this 800 number and dime out
| your neighbors BBQ. Cheer on when the police arrest
| somebody for sitting on a park bench or going onto the
| beach. Cheer on authorities towing cars parked at trail
| heads. Cheer on people getting fired for not electing a
| medical procedure.
|
| Naw... these assholes deserve the loss. They brought it
| on themselves when they sold their souls to politically
| driven covid hysteria.
|
| It blew mind how so many people I thought were in "my
| tribe" could so rapidly turn against virtually every
| single value I thought we shared. The real moral is fuck
| tribalism and if you are scratching your head wondering
| why Harris lost. This is why.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Agreed down the line. My parents are actually Deaf and
| had a tough time.
|
| When COVID happened in March 2020, I talked to my Trump
| supporting cousin and she said it was being blown out of
| proportion because there was an election coming up.
|
| I dismissed it and even expected it from the Trump side
| to say that.
|
| But now I realize they were totally right.
|
| It just goes to show that party politics has nothing to
| do with values- just does my tribe have power or not.
|
| Glad to see there are some of us that still care about
| these basic American values, and willing to change our
| minds in defense of these values.
| pubby wrote:
| I didn't intend for my post to be about rural vs urban, or
| smart vs dumb. The point I was trying to make was that some
| people just aren't interested, no matter their background.
| You can find these people everywhere, which might explain why
| Trump gained in almost every county this election, even urban
| ones.
|
| It's a spectrum of course. The friends you describe sound
| like they fall somewhere in the middle of caring about
| politics vs not. My point of discussion is on the people at
| the low end, as these are likely to swing. People past a
| certain threshold of attachment have had their votes locked
| in for years.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| No, my friends don't care about politics except that some
| of them went to vote.
|
| If you went to vote you obviously care about politics at
| least a little. The idea Trump won because people don't
| care about politics but then went and voted for him is
| inherently self contradictory.
|
| That they're simply "attached" to him because he's tall or
| whatever is obviously elitist and it's exactly this
| mentality that repulses the people who voted for him, ie
| the majority of the country.
| mattpallissard wrote:
| Are you me?
| beAbU wrote:
| Not an American, not a Trump fan - he grosses me out a bit.
|
| But I've come to the realization that both sides have an ugly
| component that is winning out on online forums. It's the
| classic tale of the vocal minority controlling the narrative.
|
| So to answer your question, being habitually online, and using
| that as a basis for your opinions on the world will very much
| make you vulnerable to a serious blind spot.
|
| The amount of shit-flinging on Reddit, from both sides, is
| shocking to me as a non-American. That people can espouse so
| much hate towards their _literal_ neighbours is unreal to me.
| This country is so divided that I 'm not sure how things will
| be fixed soon. Online has become such a cesspool that it's not
| possible to sit around the same fire any more.
|
| I like to think that the majority of people are waaaay more
| moderate than what you might think from looking at social
| media. And I would encourage anyone to try and interact with
| more people in meatspace. Don't try and convince anyone of
| anything, but try to understand why they feel the way they
| feel, and have some goddamn empathy.
|
| I blame two things for our current situation:
|
| 1. Social Media. In hindsight it makes perfect sense, but
| polarizing content _will_ generate more engagement, and since
| engagement is a primary KPI for many platforms, that is what
| the Algorithms will select for naturally. It 's a positive
| feedback loop, that resulted in people defacing their
| neighbours front-yard political posters, and then smugly
| posting about it on social media. Because of course that's how
| you'll convince them to vote for the other party.
|
| 2. Two party system: I like eating meat, and I would like to
| continue doing so if I can. But I also care for the protection
| of animals and sustainable utilisation of resources. But
| because meat is part of the Carnivore party's platform, and
| everything else is part of the Herbivore party's platform.
| People might support more worker's rights, but now in order to
| get that they must also be anti abortion. It's a broken system
| and it breeds deep deep divisions.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| The divide is real and very noticeable in meat-space, not
| just online. This is also happening in the rest of the
| western world, and has been brewing not just since the
| Internet but since WWII.
|
| There was a study done on bipartisanship in the US senate,
| where senators were mapped into a 2D space and pulled
| together slightly if they voted together, and pushed apart if
| they voted against each other. 50 years ago the two parties
| were mixed together, then slowly but surely drifted apart.
| The animation over the years was like watching cell division.
| There's now only a couple of senators left in the centre,
| everyone else is far apart in two blobs.
|
| I have zero in common with people that make their _hatred_ of
| transgender people a substantial part of their politics --
| but have never talked to one and have never been influenced
| by one in any way.
|
| It's like talking to an alien species that singles out green
| eyes. Not blue, not brown, just green, but _with a seething
| hatred_ that goes beyond anything I have ever felt. "You
| need to also hate the green-eyes or you're bad." is not
| something I can wrap my head around. Not now, not ever.
|
| The Internet has nothing to do with me feeling this way about
| green-eye-haters.
| christophilus wrote:
| The blind spot won't go away until people feel safe having an
| honest conversation about their political views.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Who doesn't feel safe doing that? This does not seem like a
| real problem to me. Nearly everyone speaks freely about their
| views all the time.
| kelipso wrote:
| No...you get ostracized or cancelled in many social circles
| for indicating that you might support Trump or Republican
| policies. Even mild ostracization would make people
| hesitate to voice their opinions, never mind the level it
| is currently.
| consteval wrote:
| This is, largely, because a lot of republicans have a
| difficult time expressing their views without using tools
| like racism and misogyny.
|
| Just take a look at the Trump rallies. Even if you agree
| with 100% of Trump's policies, look at how he talks about
| women. Could you repeat what he says in the workplace?
| No, you'd get fired. Not for being republican, but for
| sexual harassment.
|
| If you were able to support anti-immigration policies
| without calling entire classes of people "garbage", then
| maybe people wouldn't get mad at you. But for a lot of
| republicans, they just can't do that. They don't know how
| to word their policy support without saying something
| incredibly offensive.
|
| Or, for example, it's one thing if you're pro-life. But a
| lot of republicans will use words like "slut" and
| "whore", and even President Trump wants to "punish
| women". Again, this just isn't acceptable speech in most
| social situations.
|
| Until your average republican and, hell, our president,
| figure out how to address these topics without being
| offensive, people will get offended.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| This is basically all TDS.
|
| Does my Colombian immigrant wife somehow hate immigrants
| and women because she thinks Trump would be better than
| Kamala?
| consteval wrote:
| Of course she doesn't. But, can she express that without
| saying it in a way that says "I hate immigrants"?
|
| This is what I'm pointing out. Having republican beliefs
| is fine. Can republicans voice those beliefs without
| bigotry? Often no. For Trump, certainly not. For many,
| they can't either.
|
| If you just say "Trump addresses immigrant better", then
| okay. If you say "they're eating the dogs, they're eating
| the cats, we have to clean up our country" then... yeah
| you're getting pulled into HR.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| I have never heard Trump say he hates immigrants. His
| wife is literally an immigrant. Do you actually believe
| he hates immigrants?
|
| Actually hating immigrants and being politically (and
| sometimes factually) incorrect are two different things.
| The latter is forgivable.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| the men in your life are dishonest with you. You will
| never know what people really think (and no one will be
| able to explain why to you because you won't hear them)
| consteval wrote:
| I absolutely hear them, but they're incapable of voicing
| their beliefs without bigotry.
|
| You can say, for example, that there are challenges to
| gender-neutral bathrooms. Okay that's fine. You can't say
| "those dirty pervy <slurs> are molesting our little
| girls!". Do you see how that's now bigotry?
|
| How many republicans are able to do 1 without ever
| touching 2? Very, very few. Certainly Trump can't, and
| Cruz can't either. If those are your role models then
| it's no wonder you can't express your beliefs.
| TheSisb2 wrote:
| Apparently people that support Trump
| sanderjd wrote:
| I really think this conventional wisdom is drastically
| overblown. Especially in places like this, which are San
| Francisco liberal adjacent.
|
| Yes, it is not surprising that people who are in the
| minority in a place with a strong majority viewpoint are
| less excited to rock the boat. But very few places are
| like San Francisco.
| dilap wrote:
| I promise you this is not the case.
| kelnos wrote:
| In liberal strongholds (like SF, where I live), many
| conservatives will hide their political views for fear of
| social alienation. I've experienced this directly, when
| someone I'd recently met sort of sheepishly/obliquely
| brought up that they supported Trump. That fear is
| warranted: I really had less interest in developing a
| closer friendship with that person after learning that. It
| was especially jarring to me that this person was a non-
| white woman, and I just cannot understand how someone can
| support someone whose rhetoric demeans her on two axes.
|
| I expect the same happens in conservative strongholds too,
| with liberals self-censoring. I know I wouldn't be
| comfortable openly discussing my (leftist) political views
| in, say, suburban Texas.
| umvi wrote:
| > Nearly everyone speaks freely about their views all the
| time
|
| How do you know they are speaking freely and not just
| trying to fit in while secretly cloaking their true
| thoughts and views?
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| > he's a tall, confident white man
|
| Imagery, vibes, personality, all of these have powerful effects
| on people, educated or not.
|
| Few can express how these intangibles impact them, and if they
| can they are usually won't say it out loud,
|
| This is why you NEED to run a primary, to debug your campaign.
| You don't know how your candidate looks and feels to people in
| Tennessee, etc until you try it.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Yep, spot on.
|
| And these same people are gonna be pissed about a bunch of the
| stuff Trump does, because they truly had no idea what he was
| saying he would do.
|
| This is how "thermostatic public opinion" works.
| wwalker2112 wrote:
| I live in rural Illinois. Surrounded by people west coast
| elites would consider "simple". They aren't voting for a
| candidate because he's tall and confident.
|
| They have 401ks. Own small businesses. Have Mortgages. Send
| their kids to public schools. Budget for their families. Hell,
| even farmers are trading commodities and are very familiar with
| the markets. There are so many legitimate factors that go into
| who they vote for.
| kccoder wrote:
| Apparently searches for "Did Joe Biden drop out?" spiked
| yesterday. That's a level of unawareness that is difficult to
| comprehend.
| sexy_seedbox wrote:
| Congrats Melania!
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Congratulations to Elon Musk. Best $44b spent.
| Spacemolte wrote:
| "America first" (read: "Trump first"). It is going to be
| interesting to see all the different ways that guy is going to
| enrich himself and businesses, again..
| nirav72 wrote:
| Looks like he also might win the popular vote. First republican
| to win the popular vote since 2004. If this is true, then this
| was a clear mandate that the a majority of voters prefer Trump's
| policies over the other side. We might not like it, but this is
| how democracy works.
|
| There is certainly going to be domestic and international chaos
| in the coming years. But a realignment of the world order and
| domestic politics was inevitable. It's not going to be end of the
| world like some are making out to be. Nor is it going to be the
| end of the United States. There will be opportunities. Buckle up
| and find opportunities where you can.
| ethagnawl wrote:
| > Nor is it going to be the end of the United States.
|
| We're looking at the possibility of a 7-2 Supreme Court stacked
| with activist judges (the new ones will be even more so). Now,
| it depends on your definition of "the United States" but
| whatever comes out the rear end of this is going to look
| different to the point of potentially being unrecognizable.
| They already have the playbook.
|
| A few bleary-eyed, scatterbrained possibilities: mass
| deportations, end of the free press/open internet, end of the
| Department of Education (public school?), end of birth control,
| bans on vaccines, etc., etc.
| aketchum wrote:
| we are not going to end public school. Just look at Kentucky
| where trump and R candidates won easily but the school choice
| amendment was crushed
| xyst wrote:
| > opportunities where you can
|
| Guess I'll become a grifter like the rest of them. Become a
| parasite on society. Fuck everyone else, I guess.
| latentcall wrote:
| >Nor is it going to be the end of the United States
|
| I'm not so sure about that. If it happens I'm not so sure it
| would be a bad thing either. This country's system makes no
| sense. If I was from Texas I wouldn't want my taxes paying for
| things I don't believe in and if I was from California ditto.
| This country truly makes more sense as several different
| countries that can choose to cooperate.
| kardianos wrote:
| Let's re-embrace federalism then.
|
| Let's make the Federal government primarily fund the armed
| forces, and certain things like airwaves, and flight. Then
| get it out of things that it doesn't need to regulate.
|
| Half my non-federal taxes go to my local school. I'm cool
| with that. I also fund my local fire/police, local
| governments. I'm cool with that.
|
| We need to restrain the interstate commerce clause; which is
| out of control. But yes, you are describing federalism. Let's
| make federalism great again.
| WiSaGaN wrote:
| Apparently claiming the other side is worse in Gaza issue is not
| enough. Democratic voters simply refuse to turn out in swing
| states like Michigan and Wisconsin.
| Satam wrote:
| Is there reason to believe that the extra voters would've
| helped Kamala instead of Donald?
| eightysixfour wrote:
| Not necessarily, but the total number of voters for both
| candidates is down compared to 2020. This election will be a
| story of who chose not to vote.
| tootie wrote:
| Harris' vote total was down from Biden 2020 by 15M and
| Trump's was down from 2020 by like 4M. So a net 11M Dem
| voters didn't show up.
| twohaibei wrote:
| Only if you assume people who voted for Biden in 2020 would
| vote for Harris in 2024.
| culi wrote:
| Because we know that those who didn't turnout who've voted
| before were mostly democrats
| dcchambers wrote:
| You can't blame the swing states for this one. Trump over-
| performed polls EVERYWHERE and by the looks of it he dominated
| the popular vote.
| culi wrote:
| Not really everywhere but most of the eastern half of the US.
| The popular vote should narrow to within 2 million votes.
| California still owes us over 7 million votes, mostly from
| blue cities. That alone should net Harris almost 3 million
| mardifoufs wrote:
| What do you mean by worse? It's a hypothetical versus a very
| real year long conflict that killed tens of thousands, with
| unwavering support from Biden ( in terms of actual material
| support). They even openly support the invasion of Lebanon,
| something that even other Israeli allies seem to be much less
| enthusiastic about.
|
| Saying that it would be worse with the other side is absolutely
| meaningless, no other administration (red or blue) let
| something like this go on for a year and even expand to another
| invasion down the line.
| NoLinkToMe wrote:
| Eh Trump doesn't care at all about Palestinian lives, nor do
| his followers, meaning he'd be able to give Netanyahu a carte
| blanche and trade it for political favours, and he's got the
| personality to do so.
|
| From Israeli intelligence sources itself, it was noted that
| the Hamas attacks were planned in part as a response to the
| abraham accords under trump (Israeli/Saudi appeasement and
| the movement of the US embassy to Jerusalem) which Hamas
| warned against.
|
| Third, Trump literally ensured the US was the first country
| on the planet to recognize Israel's domain over the Golan
| Heights, which is internationally viewed as annexed land. And
| it's likely further annexations will be recognised as well,
| with no recourse, leading to the gradual decline of the
| Palestinian political project to the point that it ceases to
| be an issue (e.g. look at US history, its 300 million non-
| native Americans are here to stay, it's a political non-
| issue)
|
| So yes, Trump is worse. Not only did his middle-east policy
| help cause the escalations in the first place, recognize
| Israel's annexations, Israel would be even more free to run
| wild in Palestine than before.
|
| It is worse. Just look at how happy Netanyahu is with the
| Trump victory is all you need to know.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| How many palestinians died during the Trump administration?
| More importantly, what did Biden do that didn't amount to
| full Israeli support? Like, you are again arguing about
| more abstract stuff, whereas no matter what Biden or Trump
| say, the reality is that Israel has been left to do
| whatever it wants, with full american material, for a year
| now. That's almost unprecedented and that's my entire
| point.
|
| And even if we go by what they say instead of what they do
| and did, Trump at least keeps hammering the point that the
| war will need to stop as soon as possible. The Biden
| administration has openly supported the Israeli escalation
| in Lebanon very recently. And has shown absolutely no care
| for putting an end to this (other countries like France for
| example, supported Israel in Gaza but openly condemned what
| happened in Lebanon).
|
| Again, Trump is a lot of things, but he does not seem to
| like war. Biden on the other hand seems rather unbothered,
| and tries to pretend to care while providing almost the
| entirety of the munitions that Israel has been using to
| genocide Gaza and invade Lebanon. But at least he doesn't
| recognize more Israeli annexations I guess (not that he
| ever condemned the settlements or did anything against the
| current settlements either, but hey he's just the
| president, not someone with power to do something about it
| right?).
|
| So to see the mental gymnastics that Democrats do to openly
| support Biden while also sweeping under the rug the dire
| consequences of his foreign policy behind 'both sides would
| do it' is extremely off-putting. The side that's doing it
| right now is the side that they are actively openly
| supporting! I guess I am biased as I have close friends
| that had to flee from their homes and had their entire
| family properties obliterated in Gaza but still.
|
| Ps: Netanyahu reacted to Biden's victory in a rather
| similar way, so what would that mean ?
| NoLinkToMe wrote:
| I'm not interested in arguing in defense of Biden because
| I can't and I won't.
|
| What I will do is argue that Trump would've been even
| worse. What I will do is again, reiterate, that the
| current violence is in part a direct result of Trump's
| actions. For one in Saudi/Israeli appeasement, the move
| of the US embassy to Jerusalem and recognising Jerusalem
| as the Israeli capital, the recognition of annexed lands.
| We know this to be true. These are massive and likely
| irrevocable steps in US policy that slowly will end the
| idea of a Palestinian state and turn them into a native-
| american minority in someone else's state.
|
| Further, we know that Netanyahu is in power because of
| Trump's support. Trump was famously pissed at Netanyahu
| for congratulating Biden indeed on his victory, noting he
| recognised the Golan Heights as Israeli land during the
| election which massively helped his win. These guys are
| doing each other favours. There is absolutely no reason
| to suspect Trump would've restricted Israel more than
| Biden. Trump doesn't care nor do his followers. Trump has
| done things Biden hasn't, and he's likely to do more.
|
| > Trump at least keeps hammering the point that the war
| will need to stop as soon as possible.
|
| Biden has been doing the same for more than a year now,
| only its toothless. Trump may stop the war but only by
| giving Israel exactly what it wants. Do you think he's
| going to use his credits for a Palestinian cause, for
| what benefit to him? Due to his own ethical standard?
| Don't make me laugh.
|
| Again, not defending Biden, but Trump simply is worse for
| Palestinians. I don't think he would've protected
| Palestinian lives any more, but rather set the scene for
| more Israeli support, more annexations, more military
| aid, and more future escalations. Israel has had lots of
| plans that didn't get pushed through (e.g. pushing Gazans
| into Egypt and taking Gaza as part of Israel) that might
| well be a reality under Trump.
|
| > Ps: Netanyahu reacted to Biden's victory in a rather
| similar way, so what would that mean ?
|
| No. He was the literally the first leader in the world to
| congratulate trump. For Biden it was extremely late, even
| 12 hours after the US media had called the election. He
| didn't refer to Biden as president-elect and in the
| immediate subsequent tweet went on to thank Trump for all
| that he had done. Now that Trump won again he called it a
| great victory and the greatest comeback ever with
| exclamation marks. It's not a regular political message
| 'congratulate the new guy and start up diplomatic
| courtesies', it's happiness. His cabinet celebrated the
| victory. 2/3rds of Israeli's support Trump. This is not
| for nothing.
| yalogin wrote:
| Today we learned that immigration is more important for Americans
| than even abortion, so much that 3 states didn't even codify it.
| code_runner wrote:
| FL had 57% in favor but needed 60 for an amendment to state
| constitution. Generally speaking it seems that this issue has
| popular support, which hopefully counts for something.
| jahsome wrote:
| It counts for exactly as much as the votes your comment got,
| which is to say a few warm-and-fuzzy feelings, but in a legal
| sense -- zilch.
| code_runner wrote:
| my hope is that somehow, someway, somewhere.... there is a
| politician who will think twice about further stripping
| reproductive rights because of this. Or maybe even someone
| who will help expand. It is a popular position with wide
| support.... and hopefully that does mean something.
|
| you've got to stay hopeful. votes do count, but a 60%
| threshold means a minority have more sway in this instance.
| jahsome wrote:
| That's a great counterpoint. Thanks!
| Gormo wrote:
| Florida unfortunately does not have an actual ballot
| initiative process. People have been misusing the
| constitutional amendment process as a makeshift ballot
| initiative process for the past couple of decades.
|
| Unfortunately, this has a lot of drawbacks. Amending the
| constitution requires a 60% supermajority, which I think is
| appropriate for constitutional questions, but is too high of
| a threshold for ordinary policy legislation. In this case,
| repealing the laws against abortion and marijuana have
| majority public support by a wide margin, so why should we
| have to pass new constitutional amendments with a 60%
| supermajority just to repeal bad statutes that were passed
| via the ordinary legislative process in the first place?
|
| On top of that, because measures passed this way become
| constitutional provisions, rather than normal legislation, it
| makes it difficult for the courts to exercise judicial review
| and reconcile these measures with extant law. It's sort of
| the worst of both worlds.
|
| Maybe we should try to get an actual ballot initiative
| process into a draft constitutional amendment for the next
| election cycle.
| wang_li wrote:
| On the spectrum from bare majority to unanimity, being in
| the bottom 20% of the range is not "a wide margin."
| code_runner wrote:
| 100% agree. No implementation details, just a setup for
| additional court cases... when we've seen that courts
| making decisions on reproductive rights doesn't count for
| too much.
| thmstcls wrote:
| fun fact: the FL amendment requiring 60% supermajority only
| passed by 57%
| 015a wrote:
| Exit polling yesterday didn't really indicate that, despite it
| being a big part of Trump's rhetoric. It more-so indicated that
| the economy and democracy (anti-establishment) were the most
| important issues.
| ericmcer wrote:
| I mean that makes sense? If you buy into the narrative that
| illegal-immigration is bad, then anyone could feel it
| personally. Weigh that against abortion which affects a few
| people in some smaller states where it is still illegal.
| Granted it has way more traumatic effects but still it makes
| sense most people can just ignore it as an issue.
|
| If you total the population of the states which have a ban also
| I would bet it is less than 50m people, so ~15% of the
| population live in a state where it is banned and those are
| heavy rust belt states so they might even be in favor of it
| being banned.
| PsylentKnight wrote:
| > affects a few people in some smaller states where it is
| still illegal
|
| Smaller states like Texas, the second largest state by
| population?
| codexb wrote:
| Also learned that massive numbers of latinos supported Trump
| precisely for those issues. Destroys the argument that
| supporting illegal immigration is a way to win over American
| latinos for Democrats
| unethical_ban wrote:
| "Supporting illegal immigration"
|
| Republicans have stymied multiple useful border initiatives
| since 2008, most recently this year.
| ipython wrote:
| Unfortunately it seems the gambit to hold the congress
| hostage has worked for them. Bad juju for any sort of
| attempt at building political alliances if you are punished
| for compromising across the aisle, but rewarded for holding
| the populace hostage until you get a supermajority to enact
| 100% of your agenda.
| ganoushoreilly wrote:
| I don't think this is accurate when you consider the
| "addons" that were pushed as part of these initiatives.
| Further you can look at the past few months drastic
| decreases due to presidential initiatives to further
| bolster the rights argument that the didn't even need these
| initiatives and could have just enforced existing laws.
|
| That's the problem. The solutions are already on paper,
| just not enforced. Much like theft in California which
| appears to have had a drastic shift back with this election
| too.
|
| People was consistency and enforcement regardless of party.
| srid wrote:
| > [..] the argument that supporting illegal immigration is a
| way to win over American latinos for Democrats
|
| Since not all American latinos are "illegal immigrants", why
| would this be a sane argument?
| sureIy wrote:
| You believe abortion means murder and that illegal immigrants
| bring in crime. Those are somewhat reasonable things to believe
| in and both lead to one candidate. I am not as surprised as you
| are.
|
| I'm not justifying them, but I completely understand why
| someone would think like that.
| no-dr-onboard wrote:
| How do you get to those conclusions based of what op said?
| hokumguru wrote:
| I can't imagine what it's like trying to moderate this thread
| right now so I just want to say thank you Dang!
| Gud wrote:
| Yes! Thank you Dang, we all owe you a beer!
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| I don't have the feeling it's being moderated at all at the
| curent time. Plenty of comments calling out Trump voters as
| Nazi, bigots, fascists and misogynists here are not
| flagged/removed while other comments explaining why democrats
| lost do get flagged.
|
| Regardless of ones feelings towards the Orange Man and his
| voters (over half the country!) you shouldn't be able break HN
| ToS and get away with it. So either moderation efforts are
| being overwhelmed (hats off to Dang) or HN is heavily
| politically biased from the userbase to moderation team.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Maybe this is the containment zone, an unmoderated section on
| the front page, one place that is actually about the elections
| where we can rage a bit and get it out of our systems...
|
| Which doesn't seem too bad in terms of everyone getting an
| outlet to process things one way or another, and keeping the
| rest of the front page clean.
| rolls-reus wrote:
| Our own Hamsterdam!
| beretguy wrote:
| Yeah, I want to voice opinions but I don't want to add to
| Dang's pile of work even more.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| If you don't break any rules you shouldn't be adding any work
| though.
| echoangle wrote:
| It will still generate responses that need to be moderated
| and malicious flags of your rule-conforming comment still
| needs to be reviewed.
| beretguy wrote:
| I have nothing nice or constructive to say.
| data_maan wrote:
| America now stands in line with various developing nations and
| sports a convicted felon as head of state. Bravo!
| metabagel wrote:
| He's our Sergio Berlusconi.
| rkhassen9 wrote:
| With all of the hacking and newfangled ai tools out there,
| perhaps hand counting removes some of that element.
| dotancohen wrote:
| And when electronic voting was first introduced, it was seen as
| a step towards reducing fraud in the hand counted voting
| process.
|
| I suppose that one could conclude that electronic voting simply
| moved the fraud from local fraud to remote fraud.
| smallstepforman wrote:
| Casino slot machines are highly regulated and certified by
| accredited agencies. They give accurate results. Vote counting
| machines, not so much.
| TOMDM wrote:
| Extraordinary claims require if not extraordinary evidence
| but at least evidence at all.
|
| And please not the dominion claims that even Fox settled out
| of court on because they knew they were lying.
| laverya wrote:
| There have been quite a few demos over the years where
| voting machines are hacked. Now, this does not mean that
| they _were_ hacked, for real, in a real election.
|
| It does mean that it is possible to do, and in ways that
| paper ballots are not.
| antback wrote:
| As a European, I'm trying to see the positive side of this
| situation. Here are a few thoughts:
|
| - It appears that Democrats are often seen as part of an "elite,"
| which makes it difficult for people at home to relate to or
| understand their message. A full reset might be needed to bridge
| this gap.
|
| - Europe has long been under the shadow of the United States.
| Perhaps this could be a good start toward greater independence
| for Europe.
| maxehmookau wrote:
| Right-wing demagogues have been playing this game for years.
| Imagine being the party of billionaires and pointing to the
| other side and shouting "elites!"
|
| I've never understood it, but it's an impressive party trick.
| bigodbiel wrote:
| It worked. Putin now is on top. And Europe must prepare.
| America now will be hostile.
| bigodbiel wrote:
| There is no positive for Europe. Only bad to worse.
| Globalization is dead. In Africa hunger and mass migration to
| Europe. Europe needs to militarize: Defense budget >5%,
| deportations, conscription, nukes and a fully functional
| independent army against expansionist Russia who now will have
| Trump's acquiesence. America must be seen as possible enemy. I
| am not being hyperbolic. It's parabellum.
| antback wrote:
| But that's precisely the point. If there are new adversaries,
| new obstacles, it's essential to work toward becoming
| stronger, more independent, more prepared and building
| greater unity among states.
|
| I agree with you, things are looking bad... Today, I'm just
| trying to be positive. Tomorrow, maybe not ...
| arp242 wrote:
| I mean, all other things being equal, it would be better if
| we didn't have to do those things, no?
|
| Imagine we could spend those resources towards more
| constructive endeavours. Not just for Europeans, but also
| people in the US and Russia. Take a look at [1] - they
| could be doing so much better.
|
| It's all just so sad. And pointless.
|
| Also then there's the entire business with global warming.
|
| [1]: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.MA.IN
| ?locat...
| antback wrote:
| Thanks for the link. Interesting graph! Do you know what
| caused the increase in 2021?
| arp242 wrote:
| The dip is probably COVID; it's not really an increase,
| more return to norm.
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| For me, the most positive outcome is the EUR to USD exchange
| rate. It's gonna be at least 1:1 pretty soon.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Are there actual efforts or will to make a stronger Europe?
| Honest question
| antback wrote:
| Currently, It is the opposite, I think ..
| RugnirViking wrote:
| italian, greek and french prime ministers and presidents have
| spoken on their proposals for a european army
| pjerem wrote:
| Europe did (mostly) nothing during and after the previous Trump
| presidency. I don't see how it could be different.
|
| And it's not like Europe was currently in a good state
| politically speaking.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| There were a couple of moderately sane people around him
| during his first term. There will be less of them this time
| around.
| preisschild wrote:
| > Europe has long been under the shadow of the United States.
| Perhaps this could be a good start toward greater independence
| for Europe.
|
| I wish this were true for so long, but so far we have seen
| nothing. Not even Draghis recommendations were really
| introduced.
| ossobuco wrote:
| The end of the war in Ukraine suddenly got much closer. I can't
| think of something more positive for me as an European.
| xyst wrote:
| Maybe it's a signal towards the end of flags.
| latentcall wrote:
| The elite comment is so funny considering the biggest sponsor
| of Trump aka not elite (?) is Elon Musk the richest man ever
| (?!).
| data_maan wrote:
| [flagged]
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Everyone is ignoring the obvious problem: Georgia is a state with
| 16 EV, and was targeted in 2020 with a scheme that resulted in
| multiple convictions across multiple states, with members of a
| conspiracy now serving prison time.
|
| This scheme was in _at least_ 7 states, but focused on Georgia.
| Although the government was already out looking for a repeat of
| it, Trump 's illegal dealings seem to have been actually
| effective this time (at least for now, legal challenges in some
| states are apparently already being filed).
|
| Trump repeatedly discussed via Truth Social and via multiple
| speeches and interviews that he was planning on doing it again,
| and had things in place to do it again. Trump also has multiple
| legal hurdles (a convicted 34 time felon, and facing another 54)
| that he still has to deal with.
|
| We have no clue if he's been elected President, we don't know if
| he can serve (the issue with the disqualification clause of the
| 14th Amendment was never handled; the Supreme Court merely ruled
| that they can't keep him off the ballot, a very narrow ruling),
| and we don't know if he is going to be serving from a prison cell
| (since he cannot pardon himself).
|
| What I don't get is why there are _so many_ pro-Trump /anti-
| American puppet accounts on HN, especially ones that essentially
| claim Harris lost because shes a woman and/or because her message
| was one of facts, inclusion, and moving forwards instead of
| feelings, exclusion, and moving backwards.
|
| She "lost" because people are bigoted, racist, and self-
| sabotaging and Trump resonates with them. She also "lost" because
| some states seem to have been lost by merely thousands of votes,
| and I know for _a fucking fact_ some Democrats did not vote this
| year because she wasn 't a 100% perfect ticks-all-the-boxes
| candidate for them; somehow Trump being convicted of being a
| rapist and also the ongoing issue with him having had sex with a
| 13 year old in 1994 wasn't enough for them.
|
| If Trump becomes the revenge quest protagonist he claims he wants
| to be, every single Democrat that didn't vote this year, you may
| not deserve this, but you certainly did this to yourself (and by
| extension, to all of us).
|
| I'd also like to thank dang for his hard work, I've been seeing a
| lot of the outright insane comments become dead, and I appreciate
| that.
| trallnag wrote:
| "Puppet accounts" meaning controlled by some outside force like
| Russia or China? I think there's also a fair share of throwaway
| accounts being used to troll or share very controversial
| opinions
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Yup, and both of those get the moderation hammer around here.
| Insane anyone tries, this ain't
| Slashdot/Digg/Reddit/Twitter/Facebook/etc
| Pigalowda wrote:
| I guess they let all the Russian bots vote this time. Oh wait,
| they weren't actually bots..
| giantg2 wrote:
| The big thing to remember is the election isn't over. I'm not
| talking about the president, but the house. Most of the things on
| the list of actions in the article, or list of concerns in the
| comments, will require congress to enact. We could still end up
| with a split congress. Even narrow majorities should imped the
| most extreme items. In my opinion, narrow majorities or a split
| is beneficial. It helps keep stuff from being rammed though
| without real thought or debate.
| montagg wrote:
| The big picture still is what it is. Americans want a king.
|
| You can get into the more nuanced weeds and there is plenty
| more nuance there, but the overarching dynamic is people made a
| tradeoff, and they chose a king.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Parties basically switched sides this election. From 2008 to now:
| - Pro war party: Repubs -> Dems - Dick Cheney party: Repubs ->
| Dems - Elitist party: Repubs -> Dems - Working class party: Dems
| -> Repubs - Pro free speech party: Dems -> Repubs - Bigger
| spending party: Dems -> Repubs - Skeptical of large corps: Dems
| -> Repubs
|
| There are some issues where they haven't switched (eg. abortion)
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| RE: "Skeptical of large corps" do you mean their voter base or
| their actions? Because I seriously doubt whoever is replacing
| Lina Khan is going to be more skeptical of large corporations
| dtquad wrote:
| JD Vance said he supports the anti-US-big-tech campaign of
| Lina Khan and that he thinks she has a place in the new
| admin.
|
| They will most likely break up Google and Meta for "pushing
| the woke agenda" but are smart enough to hide behind Lina
| Khan's anti-US-big-tech arguments that has populist support
| on both wings of the political spectrum.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| This will clearly happen because Pence was so influential
| in Trump's first term, and Trump also followed through on
| so much of his and/or his vice president's claims in the
| first term.
| stuckkeys wrote:
| You cant be serious lol.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I read it as almost certainly sarcasm (usually when
| people use "clearly" like that, it's sarcasm).
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| I disagree with him. Peter Thiel supported Trump before
| but the vice was from the religious part of the sector.
|
| Vance is Thiels man. And Theil wants to be a Supreme
| Court Judge.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Why do you say Theil wants to be on the Supreme Court?
| This is the first time I'm hearing this
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| I'll believe it when I see it; but yeah they _might_ target
| Google/Facebook for not following the free speech ideals of
| present day Twitter.
|
| Don't think they'll actually break up either of them in
| that case though; more likely use them as a boogeyman to
| endlessly dispute with so they appear anti-big-tech whilst
| doing everything possible to boost share prices of the same
| and similar companies.
| cik wrote:
| This particular issue would be great for competition, and
| the economy. Conglomerates always have a discount. Whilst
| (perhaps) unpopular, this is one thing I'm rather in favour
| of.
| bitsandboots wrote:
| I'd love this to be true but there's no reason and plenty
| to the contrary for me not to believe anything said by
| people associated with Trump. Time will tell but I expect
| the opposite.
| km144 wrote:
| JD Vance isn't president, Trump is. Trump does not care
| about breaking up big tech. What are we talking about here?
| zzbzq wrote:
| Maybe last decade. This time, Trump's direct answer here
| was that he doesn't want to break up Google, because they
| are powerful, and he likes them powerful because he is
| going to force them to obey him and act in his interest.
| kccoder wrote:
| Vance called Trump "America's Hitler" a few years ago. You
| can't trust what he says.
| vijay_erramilli wrote:
| OpenAI is surely a goner now -- with Musk holding the reins.
| dtquad wrote:
| How are the repubs not pro-war?
|
| They are pro-Israel and anti-Palestine.
|
| They are pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine.
| _heimdall wrote:
| The republicans I know have pretty varying opinions on those
| two wars. One pretty common thread is that they don't want us
| involved though, regardless of which side of the wars they
| align with.
| philistine wrote:
| Ultimately those opinions will not matter. The president
| has full control of the State department and will align
| with the autocrats who stroke his ego: Putin and Netanyahu.
|
| Expect the money to stop flowing to Ukraine, and to keep
| going to Israel, and try to divine a logic for that.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Thankfully the state department doesn't hold the purse
| strings, though the democratic party did so poorly that
| Congress may still be willing to approve whatever
| spending the Trump wants.
| TOMDM wrote:
| Then call them what they are, isolationists not anti war
| then. Carrying water for Russia's invasion of Ukraine;
| opposing aid for Ukraine is incompatible.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Sure, you could call them isolation if you prefer.
|
| Many of the republicans I know sit in a gray area in
| between, they definitely don't want us involved but they
| also don't have a strong opinion on the wars either way
| and see them as someone else's fight. That definitely
| isn't the main narrative I see in the media, but I
| personally know very few republicans who care strongly
| about one side of either war.
|
| That view is a bit like a libertarian anti-war view in my
| opinion. Its antiwar without attempting to get involved
| in anyone else's business.
| navigate8310 wrote:
| Basically questioning tax-money spendings
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Trump is going to send more money and armaments to Israel
| and not one of them will object because he will abandon
| Ukraine and they'll all hold that up as an amazing thing.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Maybe, at which point I expect their being pretty
| hypocritical. I wouldn't begin to say one side of either
| war is in the absolute right or wrong though. War is
| messy, terrible, and bloody. It'd never as simply as
| right vs wrong or good vs evil.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| When has hypocrisy ever caused self reflection when
| people are playing the team sport that is politics?
|
| It's always "your hypocrisy is worse than my hypocrisy"
| because even if they admit the hypocrisy exists (not a
| given) they just chalk it up to "both sides." We've seen
| this song and dance for a decade straight.
| cglace wrote:
| All of the Trump voters I know think we should obliterate
| Iran.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Here's 1 that doesn't think that.
|
| Maybe you just don't know enough Trump voters?
| cglace wrote:
| I live in Georgia; my family is from South Carolina,
| North Carolina, and Florida. Try again.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Well that's interesting. I live in a _very_ red area and
| have never heard this. At best I could hear it said as a
| joke, I don 't know anyone that would actually think we
| should do that.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| They are certainly more anti-war than the Dems right now
| siffin wrote:
| They have managed to have themselves perceived as anti-war,
| which is an obvious untruth.
| arandomusername wrote:
| True they are pro-israel, but so is most of the dems. It's
| the one topic that actually gets bipartisan support.
|
| repubs aren't pro russia. they are just anti-getting-involved
| in there.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| >repubs aren't pro russia
|
| They sure are for the right price.
| pvaldes wrote:
| > repubs aren't pro russia
|
| This only matter if we think that the Republican party
| still exists, and was not silently replaced by other
| party carrying its blood stained skin. Is GOP still
| alive? Is a serious question.
|
| I have a lot of doubts about the real independence of
| republicans in this situation. The man at charge is
| obviously pro Russia and the republicans can't do a s*t
| about this. They will be replaced one by one. Anything
| that would try will be pushed out of the road.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| As de-facto world police, inaction on the US' part is
| compliance.
|
| Of course, it took what, 70, 80 years of US influence to
| weaken the European armies to the point where we're highly
| reliant on them for defense, deterrence, tech and material.
| The Crimea invasion should've been the catalyst for the
| massively increased spending and prioritization of the
| military in Europe, not the 2022 escalation. I hope for
| Ukraine's sake that Europe has been able to catch up and
| restart production of equipment and that they can supply it
| asap, because after Ukraine it'll be Moldavia and Georgia,
| which already have pro-russian separatist movements /
| areas. Poland has invested a ton in updating their military
| at least.
|
| I hope the US doesn't have veto powers to stop article 5
| from being enacted if it does come to that.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| > I hope for Ukraine's sake that Europe has been able to
| catch up and restart production of equipment and that
| they can supply it asap,
|
| They can't and they won't.
|
| https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-weapons-shells-european-
| unio...
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/germany-ukraine-military-
| aid-2026/a-69...
|
| Sending more munitions to Ukraine means it takes the
| Russian military longer to overcome the Ukrainian army by
| force of arms. The unstated aspect that is often glossed
| over is that this requires more and more Ukrainian men to
| be _forced against their will_ to die for the territorial
| integrity of the country (because in 2024 the Ukrainian
| military is fueled overwhelming by conscription, not by
| volunteers). It 's bizarre to me that is considered a
| "pro-Ukrainian" take. It's like egging on Paraguay during
| the War of the Triple Alliance to keep fighting, no
| matter if ~70% of your male population dies in the
| process. Just don't surrender!
| wholinator2 wrote:
| It's pro-ukrainian in relation to the alternative, which
| appears to be the eventual complete dissolution of
| Ukrainian sovereignty?
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| This sounds like "Silence is violence" garbage that is
| used to bully anyone who's not an activist. In this case,
| actively pro war.
|
| No. We don't want to be world police. We want to make
| money and grow our families.
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| It's a little more than silence. The US is actively
| selling weapons to Israel, actively sanctioning Israel's
| biggest enemy/rival Iran (not specifically to help
| Israel, but still), pressuring other Israel enemies to
| normalize relations with them, using their Security
| Council veto to block any UN resolution against Israel,
| etc.
|
| Israel's diplomatic position would be _much_ weaker if
| they didn 't believe that the US would keep supporting
| them no matter what they do.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > Israel's diplomatic position would be much weaker if
| they didn't believe that the US would keep supporting
| them no matter what they do.
|
| Why do you feel that Israel's diplomatic position needs
| to be weaker?
|
| And how would the Palestinians' diplomatic position be,
| without the support of Iran, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq,
| Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Turkey, Lebanon, Libya,
| Tunis, and the USSR and now Russia?
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| My comment was in reference to Ukraine/Russia. I don't
| think we should be involved with Israel/Palestine either
| arandomusername wrote:
| trying to be de-facto world police has caused many issues
| for US. (Current) repubs wants to stop getting involved
| in other conflicts (except supporting Israel)
| xnx wrote:
| No small portion of US economic dominance is spending
| more on the military than he China, Russia, India, Saudi
| Arabia, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, South Korea,
| Japan, and Ukraine combined. Sending money to Ukraine
| wasn't out of the goodness of US hearts, it was to fight
| a low grade proxy war with Russia. Every dollar the US
| spends in the Ukraine destroys many times the amount of
| Russian equipment and spills no US blood. I am not
| endorsing these actions.
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| > It's the one topic that actually gets bipartisan support.
|
| Gee I wonder why. Every single US senator takes AIPAC lobby
| money.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| And they pay well and on time
| arandomusername wrote:
| If only there was a president that wanted pro Israel
| lobby groups register under Foreign Agents Registration
| Act, wonder what would have happened.
| tekknik wrote:
| Boy what an over generalization.
|
| Most are anti palestine because Hamas is a terrorist. Sorry I
| won't support terrorism and support what Israel is doing.
|
| I support Ukraine because I know what Russia needs Ukraine
| for.
|
| Do I want to see people shooting? No because I've been to war
| and seen how ugly it is. Sometimes you have to defend
| yourself though.
|
| I still voted for Trump.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| > Sorry I won't support terrorism and support what Israel
| is doing.
|
| This just means you support State Terrorism instead of non-
| state terrorism.
|
| > Sometimes you have to defend yourself though.
|
| Unless you're Palestinian. In which case defending yourself
| isn't authorized. Just ask the West Bank residents being
| regularly killed by armed illegal settlers pre-October 7th
| how laying down their arms has worked out for them.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I'm trying to follow your logic, seriously please help
| me. You are suggesting that murdering people at a music
| festival and kidnapping children and kidnapping elderly
| and beheading civilians is a form of defense against
| other people hurting other people in a different
| geographic region? Please, tell me I'm wrong and do tell
| me how you see things.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| > You are suggesting that murdering people at a music
| festival and kidnapping children and kidnapping elderly
| and beheading civilians is a form of defense against
| other people hurting other people in a different
| geographic region?
|
| I'm suggesting murdering people at a music festival
| occupies the same space, morally, as bombing entire
| families with aviation ordnance. One of them is painted
| as wrong, and the other isn't, because _state terrorism_
| is tacitly approved in the Western mainstream information
| space....depending on the perpetrators. When Hamas (or
| Russia) does it, it 's "kidnapping", when Israel does it,
| they are "detaining suspects". From August 2023 (before
| the Hamas attack) AP News was reporting Israel had 1,200
| detainees without charges. Why aren't they called
| hostages? ( https://apnews.com/article/israel-detention-
| jails-palestinia... )
|
| The two regions are both enclaves of Palestine, engaged
| in a joint struggle for emancipation. There were 100+
| Palestinians killed in the West Bank in 2022: (
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-63073541 ) and
| 200+ killed in 2023 _before_ the October 7th attack (
| https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/08/1139922 ). Clearly
| disarmament and NOT being ruled by Hamas is not working
| for the West Bank Palestinians. I'm sure if you asked any
| of the various Palestinian militant groups, yes they are
| engaged in a joint defense of their people. After all,
| the primary purpose of the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation was to
| try to capture enough Israelis to force a prisoner
| exchange and get their own people back (similar to
| snatching Gilad Shalit and trading just him for 1,000
| Palestinians). They suffered from "catastrophic success"
| mixed with undisciplined follow-on echelons (Palestinian
| Islamic Jihad as well as others) who inflicted far more
| civilian damage than just a cross-border snatch &
| grab....and they are definitely paying for it in blood
| now.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > I'm suggesting murdering people at a music festival
| occupies the same space, morally, as bombing entire
| families with aviation ordnance.
|
| Then I'll address that. You are again, 100% correct.
| Bombing entire families with aviation ordnance would be
| abhorrent.
|
| When the Gazans set out to attack a music festival, they
| did so with the explicit intention to murder civilians.
| When Israel drops a JDAM on a civilian home in Gaza, one
| of two things happen: Either the target is a high-ranking
| militant, and unfortunately the civilians he lives with
| (like everybody else, they have families) are collateral
| damage. Or, the target is military infrastructure in
| those civilian homes, and the home gets warnings to
| evacuate before the bombs fall.
|
| Let's be clear: Israel has been willing to cause far more
| collateral damage since the 7th of October last year than
| beforehand. Every Israeli I know mourns the civilians
| killed as a result. I am certain that there exist
| Israelis who celebrate Gazan civilian deaths, I see them
| online. But nobody that I've ever met - and I served in a
| combat unit here - has ever felt that way.
|
| If you really feel that bombing entire families is wrong,
| you should know that a rocket from Gaza fell not far from
| my apartment in November 2012. We had just a broken
| window, but other neighbours had far more damage and one
| was critically injured. The rocket fell where one of my
| daughters was playing just as the sirens rang - that
| siren saved her life and others.
| IMTDb wrote:
| > After all, the primary purpose of the Al-Aqsa Flood
| Operation was to try to capture enough Israelis to force
| a prisoner exchange and get their own people back
|
| You can't possibly believe this when there are numerous
| confirmed reports of entire families being massacred with
| _0 hostages taken_. If your purpose was really to take
| hostages; those could have been easy bargain chips;
| instead they raped them, murdered them and paraded their
| bodies in front of cheerful crowds.
|
| If the central point of the operation was to grab
| hostages; their whereabouts and well being (or at least
| survival) would have been central to the whole ordeal;
| instead the were disseminated with little to no proof of
| life. It doesn't even appear that the Hamas leadership
| knew what to do with them, or even had them accounted for
| and located.
|
| The goal of the attacks was to inflict a major blow to
| the Israeli government by forcing a strong military
| response that would delay the normalisation of the
| relations between Israel and other arab states. To do so
| Hamas was wiling to sacrifice civilian blood which is
| exactly what is happening now. They placed their hideouts
| in schools hospitals, and NGO headquarters to maximise
| the political cost of any military operation. Hostages
| were "nice to have" as they were supposed to further
| increase the pressure on the Israeli government by people
| who would be pushing for their return.
|
| They did not anticipate how far BiBi was willing to go
| and they are definitely paying for it in blood now.
| rcstank wrote:
| Anecdotally, I've seen many republicans be anti-Israel and
| anti-Palestine, anti-Ukraine and anti-Russia. Their stance is
| pro-America.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Yup, me too.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Arguably being pro-Israel is anti-war. Israel's current
| conflict is the direct result of several entities starting a
| war with her last October. Suggesting that Israel should not
| fight back is promoting the idea of war as a means of getting
| what one wants.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Nah, Americans aren't that dumb. We send billions and
| billions to Israel every year, for what? Most Americans
| want to stop being a blank check for them to bomb whoever
| and then get mad, deplete their resources, and ask for more
| when they get attacked back
| dotancohen wrote:
| I'm glad that you feel that way. You'll be relieved that
| those pushing the "Israel bombs whoever and then get mad"
| agenda was lying to you. We've been (we as in my family)
| absorbing rocket fire for literately years - hardly been
| bombing every time we get mad. It took something
| egregious - literally beheadings and burning of babies (I
| personally know at least two families whose babies were
| burned to death) - to ignite this war. My daughter's
| classmate was murdered in his home along with both his
| sisters and both their parents. My son's summer camp
| counselor was kidnapped, his body was later retrieved.
| Shall I go on? What would you have your country do under
| these circumstances?
|
| Your heart is in the right place. But you've been
| manipulated.
| marxisttemp wrote:
| Renounce Israel's war crimes or face tribunals
| marxisttemp wrote:
| Ah yes nothing happened before last October right
| dotancohen wrote:
| There was lots of conflict. But not war.
|
| Are you deliberately trying to conflate conflict with war
| to push an agenda?
| marxisttemp wrote:
| Free Palestine weirdo
| dotancohen wrote:
| "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not
| less, as a topic gets more divisive."
| thehappypm wrote:
| The GOP would rather the Ukraine war end (probably with
| Russia winning).
| croisillon wrote:
| Liz Cheney voted with the GOP for the four long Trump years,
| how is she not a Republican
| psychlops wrote:
| It's become evident that Cheney's will wear whichever color
| funds more war.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Because the partied seem to have largely flipped when it
| comes to platform and Cheney followed the platform rather
| than the party allegiance.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| Trump doesn't care about abortion at all, yet for some reason
| Dems think it'll be Handmaid's Tale. States can do what they
| want.
| ks2048 wrote:
| Trump doesn't care about anything but himself, of course.
|
| But the judges he appoints do. And if his first term is
| repeated, he'll again just appoint the far-right judges that
| republicans hand to him.
|
| You're right, some things will be left up to states and I
| think we'll see more state divisions and self-sorting of
| people among states.
|
| On abortion, it will be interesting to watch republicans
| fight over trying to push a nationwide ban. Trump is savvy
| and powerful enough to squash that, probably.
| kzrdude wrote:
| It's more important to look at what Trump does than what he
| says. Because he says whatever he thinks people will like.
| He's a chronic liar, by the way.
|
| Trump did in fact enable the judges who changed the law on
| abortion.
| _heimdall wrote:
| I'm surprised more people hadn't noticed this switch during
| this campaign cycle. It seemed pretty clear to me, especially
| coming off the heals of a pandemic response that saw the
| democratic party flip so dramatically to blindly trusting big
| pharma and reaching for law & order as a pandemic response
| strategy.
|
| The best explanation I heard recently was that Trump in 2016
| made a play to pull working class Americans into the Republican
| party. The party basically clinched its teeth and looked the
| other way, knowing that they either accept the voters or risk a
| real problem. Since then the Republican party has largely
| embraced the working class while the Democratic party continues
| to favor more and more towards the rich voters and massive
| corporations, finishing off the full party flip.
| dtquad wrote:
| >Since then the Republican party has largely embraced the
| working class while the Democratic party continues to favor
| more and more towards the rich voters and massive
| corporations, finishing off the full party flip.
|
| Insane to say this when Trump and Republicans want to lower
| taxes for the rich and even suggest "abolishing the IRS".
| _heimdall wrote:
| Cutting taxes on the rich helps the rich, it doesn't
| directly hurt the working class. More importantly, Trump
| and the Republicans embracing the working class has
| everything to do with rhetoric and who they target for
| voting and very little to do with policies they actually
| enact. Most voters end up caring about what is said and pay
| little attention to what is done.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| > it doesn't directly hurt the working class
|
| Until the programs and benefits that the working class
| relies on are cut because "who's gonna pay for it?!" And
| "we've gotta reduce the deficit!". Then the working class
| will be directly and painfully effected because they are
| the ones that need tax credits and Healthcare options and
| foodstamps and support! Who's gonna pay for it? The
| people that already have enough! I understand the human
| urge to hold on to everything you have. But when did we
| stop caring about contributing to a functioning society?
| _heimdall wrote:
| That's all totally possible, sure. But those are down
| stream impacts that are influenced heavily by other
| factors and by how people react to a change in taxes, for
| this example. Its way more complicated than that.
|
| > I understand the human urge to hold on to everything
| you have. But when did we stop caring about contributing
| to a functioning society?
|
| I'd ask when we decided that a functioning society was
| only possible with a powerful government collecting and
| redistributing wealth. Neither are required in my
| opinion, though we likely couldn't be as centralized as
| we are today without large governments and taxes.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| It's a matter of fact that Trump has pulled a huge portion
| of the working class vote from the Democrats
|
| You probably think the working class is just stupid.
|
| I think the working class is way smarter than you think. If
| you genuinely explore that possibility you will understand
| clearly why Trump won.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| I'm sure we'll see a flourishing of the working class
| under the Republicans, then. We'll see Trump going to bat
| for unions in their fights against Corporate America,
| we'll see minimum wage increases throughout the country,
| maternal leave, and much more.
|
| Or, people have fallen for a demagogue selling them a
| cheap lie (it's not corporate America keeping you in low
| paying jobs despite massive productivity and
| profitability, it's those damn immigrants stealing your
| jobs!).
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| You're trying to make it cut and dry that Dems good
| Repubs bad for the working class. And working class too
| dumb to know it.
|
| It's simply not true and we can go through every line
| item and add nuance.
|
| > Trump going to bat for unions
|
| Union jobs have been exported to other countries
|
| > we'll see minimum wage increases
|
| No taxes on tips
|
| > maternal leave
|
| Higher child tax credit, and generally pro-family
|
| These things are not as simple as you make it to be.
| Maybe you disagree with Trump voters, but that does not
| make them stupid and gullible.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Getting a block of voters to support you is very
| different from actually doing right by those voters in
| the long run. If the Republican party doesn't end up
| doing much, or anything, to help the working class voters
| that Trump brought to the table they'll lose those voters
| eventually. Its just a lagging indicator since it first
| has to become clear that the party isn't actually on
| those voters' side.
| Izkata wrote:
| Trump wants to lower taxes for everyone, not just the rich.
| Which will have more of an effect on the working class.
| XajniN wrote:
| Tax is always paid by the workers. "The rich" are not the
| problem, they own the businesses that create jobs and add
| value to the economy. The problem is the government that
| can never have enough.
|
| You need to reduce the need for tax money, not increase the
| amount paid.
| ks2048 wrote:
| I think this could be correct if only look at what they say
| rather than what they do.
|
| We'll see if Republicans in control are anti-war, anti-elite,
| pro free speech, pro-working class, anti-large-corps, etc.
|
| I know where I'd place my bets on policies.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| This is a good point, but when you compare to Kamala, she's
| even worse on this front.
|
| Kamala never talks like just a normal person. My wife was
| telling me this this morning. You can't get through the
| facade. How on earth are you gonna know what she's really
| gonna do?
|
| My wife was like- "I just don't see Trump being a warmonger,
| but Kamala, she very well could be."
|
| And then you take into account what she _has_ said and done
| (Cheney anyone?) and it 's open shut case of who's less
| warlike.
| kubectl_h wrote:
| > "I just don't see Trump being a warmonger, but Kamala,
| she very well could be."
|
| It's not Trump that will be the "warmonger", it's the
| people he empowers. Trump is a shallow personality -- all
| he wants is attention, he does not have an ideology. For
| the boring part of actually enacting policy he defers to
| supplicants and this time around his supplicants are more
| unserious and self-interested than the first time around.
|
| This is just basic 2nd order reasoning that it seems like
| so many people in this country lack.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| > all he wants is attention, he does not have an ideology
|
| This is not demonstrably true. He's had a consistent
| ideology since the beginning- MAGA and now MAHA too.
|
| I used to think Trump was shallow, for maybe a few months
| in 2015. The problem with that is if you think Trump is
| shallow, it means all the people who voted for him and
| love him are stupid. In fact, you implied you think this:
|
| > This is just basic 2nd order reasoning that it seems
| like so many people in this country lack.
|
| Your operating philosophy cannot be that everyone who
| disagrees with you is stupid.
|
| Your point about supplicants can be equally applied to
| Kamala.
| kubectl_h wrote:
| > Your operating philosophy cannot be that everyone who
| disagrees with you is stupid.
|
| I don't think people are stupid. I think they don't think
| things through.
|
| MAGA is not a coherent political policy. Project 2025 is
| at least soundly documented and is probably the set of
| policies we'll see out of this admin.
|
| I googled MAHA and it doesn't seem like a thing beyond a
| boilerplate website and twitter account nobody follows
| and some videos from RFK. Again, not a policy, just a
| platitude like MAGA and an unserious one at that.
| pc86 wrote:
| "Those people don't think things through" then parroting
| the objectively false Project 2025 nonsense.
|
| OK then, think this through - Trump has said the parts of
| P25 he's read are stupid, he doesn't support it, and it's
| from a group of people who don't work for him ( _some_ of
| them used to but none did when it was published). It 's
| bog standard DC think tank pablum that nobody cares
| about.
| kubectl_h wrote:
| Even supporters of Trump routinely say that you shouldn't
| take him on face value, vis-a-vis tariffs, etc. Why
| should I take what he said about 2025 seriously? His son
| and VP are absolutely aligned with the goals of the
| Heritage Foundation.
|
| It's exactly what he did with Roe, trusted and
| subsequently empowered people whose ideology is stronger
| and, frankly, unaligned with his and look what happened.
| pc86 wrote:
| Dobbs didn't happen because Trump got hoodwinked by a
| bunch of social conservatives. Maybe I'm retconning this
| in my brain but overturning Roe has been a thing with the
| GOP for a long time, Trump always said he was going to
| appoint conservative judges and justices, and he's said
| since that he'd veto a national abortion ban.
|
| It's unfortunate that on this issue most of the GOP is in
| the "never, ever" camp and most of the left is in the
| "any time, any place, for any reason" camp. We'd be much
| better off as a country if we allowed it before ~20 weeks
| electively, disallowed it after ~20 weeks unless the
| mother is about to die, and just moved on. That would
| keep us more liberal on this issue than 99% of Europe,
| still protect people from unplanned pregnancy, and result
| in net fewer abortions in the US.
| skulk wrote:
| If you voted for him, possibly still not stupid. Love
| him? Definitely stupid.
|
| > Your point about supplicants can be equally applied to
| Kamala.
|
| Ah yes, the district attorney with a long political
| career is exactly same as the reality TV star.
| twohaibei wrote:
| IMO Ex-president is a better credential than having a
| long political career, which often means, connected,
| corrupted and conformist.
| pc86 wrote:
| All the Republicans who were against him being re-elected
| are the warhawk wing of the party. There is zero evidence
| of him being inclined to be a warmonger, and a lot of
| evidence (and history) to the contrary.
| archagon wrote:
| Uh, Trump barely talks at all.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Trump has many 3 hour long podcasts and routinely gives 3
| hour long speeches, off the cuff.
| archagon wrote:
| His ramblings are borderline incomprehensible.
| slackfan wrote:
| Might wanna brush up on your english listening skills
| then.
| pxndxx wrote:
| He does move his mouth a lot but I wouldn't call whatever
| sounds he produces "coherent speech"
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| You do realize almost every time he goes off the cuff Fox
| and co pretend it doesn't happen or they immediately go
| into damage control if it spreads, right?
| moogly wrote:
| > Kamala never talks like just a normal person.
|
| And Trump does? He says absolutely insane things.
|
| However, "normal people" don't run for president.
| alach11 wrote:
| In an age of inauthenticity on social media, people are
| inherently drawn to someone who appears authentic. Trump
| comes across as a straight-shooter. People may not love
| everything he says, but they feel like they can trust him
| because he isn't hiding behind a mask.
| 9dev wrote:
| Do you even notice yourself how you consistently refer to
| Harris as "Kamala", but Trump by his last name, and what
| that means in terms of respect towards the candidates?
| dxbydt wrote:
| The blame for why nobody says Donald goes to Walt Disney.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Lame, boring
| bitsandboots wrote:
| > Pro war
|
| I was surprised to see Trump not entertain much war during his
| last term but I don't agree. Both parties equally entertain war
| and I fear any Republican anti-war this time will be pro-Russia
| and further destabilize the world.
|
| > Working class party
|
| I think the voters see it that way and it's a real win for
| Republicans since they're the opposite and get away with it for
| who knows what reason
|
| > Pro free speech
|
| I've absolutely no idea how you came to this conclusion
|
| > Skeptical of large corps
|
| I'd love for that to be true but I bet they'll be just fine
| with any large corp that helps them remain in control.
|
| And yes, the entire topic of religion has not only remained the
| same but perhaps gotten worse.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| > Both parties equally entertain war and I fear any
| Republican anti-war this time will be pro-Russia and further
| destabilize the world.
|
| Trump is emphatically anti-war and he's dragging the
| Republican party kicking and screaming to that position. Just
| look at his relatively low-war presidency and his rhetoric on
| war throughout the years.
|
| > I've absolutely no idea how you came to this conclusion
|
| Free speech? The Dems are calling left and right for
| censorship. The only person that has stopped it is Elon Musk,
| now a vital facet of the Trump coalition. I have no idea how
| you can make the case the Dems are the free speech party.
|
| > I'd love for that to be true but I bet they'll be just fine
| with any large corp that helps them remain in control.
|
| Again, this is something that the MAGA types are dragging the
| Republicans kicking and screaming. MAGA abhors big pharma,
| whereas Dems trust it. Was the opposite in 2008 or even 2012.
|
| We like to discuss Trump so much, but a lot of this shift is
| actually the Dems moving their positions too.
| bitsandboots wrote:
| I guess you've not been paying attention to MAGA types who
| equally as much want censorship and who are for any person,
| corporation, or government who will help them to further
| their goals on that front. I would love for "MAGA" to come
| to represent the genuinely good things that Trump said on
| the campaign trail for 2016, and none of the bad things are
| associated with the those who claim to be part of "MAGA",
| but fool me twice shame on me.
| ausbah wrote:
| calling elon a proponent of free speech is hilarious
|
| trump is so anti-war he increased troop presence in the
| middle east while biden pulled out of afghanistan
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| > _trump is so anti-war he increased troop presence in
| the middle east_
|
| Gonna need a citation for that one.
|
| > _while biden pulled out of afghanistan_
|
| That's ridiculous. By the time Biden came into office,
| the pull-out had been long decided. If anything, Biden
| inherited a messy situation because Trump had rushed the
| exit too much.
| schmorptron wrote:
| >Skeptical of large corps They will surely get rid of Lina Khan
| almost instantly, who is one of the few people in a position of
| power who is actually poutting skepticism of large companies
| into action.
|
| Granted, there is a good chance that she would be fired either
| way if Harris had won.
| kristopolous wrote:
| Name one, just one antiwar group that's pro Republican. They're
| all on the left, who was once again, excluded from
| participating.
|
| The Democrats think that by going harder right, the Republicans
| would stop calling them Communist.
|
| They don't realize the accusations are pulled out of thin air
| to begin with. The Democrats pushing harder right won't quiet
| the right wing bullshit machine.
| dgfitz wrote:
| > The Democrats think that by going harder right, the
| Republicans would stop calling them Communist.
|
| Is that why there were all the college protests? I had no
| idea college kids did it hoping that the right would stop
| calling the left communists.
|
| Oh, wait, that __isn't__ why they did it.
| kristopolous wrote:
| If you think the Democrats who did what the students were
| protesting and sent in the cops to beat them up are on the
| same team, you're cooked.
|
| They sent armed people in to round them up and destroy
| things.
|
| The kids were protesting the Democrats because the
| Democrats have become the right wing party for those who
| dislike Trump. Foreign policy, economic policy,
| immigration, it's all right wing
|
| Multiple people in this very thread are claiming the
| Republicans have more left policies on these issue.
|
| Harris is a prosecutor cop. She also wanted to round up
| immigrants and toss them in camps:
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kamala-harris-immigration-
| borde...
|
| How is that left wing unless you're definition of left wing
| is "not Republican"?
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| While I disagree on your other points, I agree that
| traditional left wing is totally dead in this country.
| It's been co-opted by wacko identity politics.
|
| The politician closest to the traditional values of the
| left wing is ironically Trump.
| kristopolous wrote:
| It has not been coopted by wacko identity politics.
|
| That's a made up story by right wing podcasters who sell
| boner pills.
|
| For instance, here's the schedule for a socialist
| bookstore in LA https://allpowerbooks.org/ ... There's
| Zero idpol. Here's the books they're highlighting,
| https://allpowerbooks.org/collections/books here's a
| publisher https://www.versobooks.com/ scroll and read the
| titles.
|
| Here's the upcoming schedule for DSA, https://dsa-
| la.org/calendar/list/ again zero. Nothing here
| https://jacobin.com/ either.
|
| Then there's anarchist groups like the ones that try to
| prevent drug overdose https://www.ieharmreduction.org/ or
| feed the homeless. Here scroll through the Instagram,
| https://www.instagram.com/lafnb they give no shits about
| idpol.
|
| It's manufactured presentation by right wing media celebs
| - a projection of their characters like Milo Yinnapolis,
| Andy Ngo and Oli London onto what they imagine the left
| is doing.
|
| The right is full of loud bombastic personalities like
| Alex Jones, Nick Fuentes, Steven Crowder, Ben Shapiro,
| Mike Cernovich, Baked Alaska, Cat Turd, Libs of Tiktok
| and all the plastic surgery ladened evangelical TV
| pastors dripping in make-up. It's just psychological
| projection.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| > It has not been coopted by wacko identity politics.
|
| Proceeds to quote wacko communist politics.
|
| When I say traditional left, I don't mean far, academic,
| elitist left. I'm talking union, FDR, JFK, LBJ, Bernie
| Sanders types. Not academics who write books about the
| role of Cuban women in the Communist revolution.
|
| You hilariously proved exactly my point.
| kristopolous wrote:
| You think "identity politics" means "communism", that
| "communism" means "socialism" and that "liberal" means
| "left"?!
|
| Alright. We're using different dictionaries.
|
| Sometimes Democrats are like "but I'm a woman" because
| their policies are otherwise indistinguishable from the
| Republican, ok sure. Democrats are just Republicans that
| wave a pride flag. If that's the claim than agreed.
| yencabulator wrote:
| > - Pro free speech party: Dems -> Repub
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/22/media/trump-strip-tv-station-...
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Those broadcast licenses are not a god given right to CBS.
| Did you see how CBS cut up Kamala's and Mike Johnson's
| quotes?
|
| The US government is under no obligation to CBS to give them
| airwaves to propagandize fake news.
| yencabulator wrote:
| Have you ever seen Fox News?
| NoLinkToMe wrote:
| What?
|
| Trump pulled out of the Iran deal, which pushed Iran to
| redevelop its nuclear program. Anti-war what?
|
| Trump signed the abraham accords with Saudi/Israeli
| appeasement, which Israeli intelligence notes pushed Hamas to
| attack on oct 7 and launch this war. Anti-war what?
|
| Trump withheld military aid from the Ukraine until Zelensky
| provided dirt on Joe Biden, which was critical for Ukraine's
| defense against Russia's aggression in Eastern Ukraine, leaving
| Ukraine weaker and invaded in full two years later, anti-war
| what?
|
| Trump has threatened to jail his opponents and go after the
| press, free speech what?
|
| Republicans have banned books, want to ban teachers and fire
| massive amounts of civil servants, free speech what?
|
| Elitist party, Trump is literally a billionaire who is
| supported by other billionaires, some of whom he will put in
| his cabinet. His biggest two policy positions are tax cuts for
| big corps (elitist) and deportations of the lowest class of
| people in the US. But Dems are elitist?
|
| I don't think there is much that they've switched on actually
| in the last election, other than Republicans convincing the
| working class that they're their party, something republicans
| have done on and off for many decades.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| This reads like TDS.
|
| Simple facts: Trump had _way_ less war than now. Ukraine,
| Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen. Dick Cheney supporting the Dems is a
| simple way to look at it.
|
| Free speech: Random local Republicans have proposed all sorts
| of things, but Trump's circle is more pro free speech than
| the Dems right now. And Republicans as a party have stated
| free speech as a policy position. Whereas Dems state they
| want to "combat misinformation". They do not advocate free
| speech. There's even a clip circulating today where "The
| View" hosts call for cracking down on "misinformation"
|
| Trump has literally been brought to a courthouse and had his
| mugshot taken and you're talking about "jailing opponents"?
|
| Your arguments basically boil down to: "Trump bad, half
| country stupid" which is absolutely elitist.
| NoLinkToMe wrote:
| You've proven yourself incapable of a normal argument. If I
| tell you that Israel itself thinks that Trump's actions
| caused the Hamas attacks and Israeli's retaliation, you'll
| respond to that by saying 'but the attacks happened during
| Biden's presidency thus it's Biden who started the war',
| then I really don't know how to have a conversation with
| you.
|
| If you cite Yemen without understanding that the civil war
| started in 2014, and the cease-fire started in 2022 under
| Biden, as a reason for why Biden is pro-war, then I don't
| know how to have a conversation with you.
|
| If you think the guy who literally says journalists are the
| enemy of the people, the enemy within, and that that
| national guard or the military can resolve it, that he
| wouldn't mind if journalists get shot, that he'd take away
| broadcasting licenses, that he'll throw journalists in
| jail, that he'd bring the independent FCC under white house
| control, ban books, teachers and civil servants if they
| don't align with his views, is a guy who made free speech a
| genuine policy position, then I don't know how to have a
| conversation with you.
|
| If I give counterpoints to your arguments and you
| paraphrase that by me saying 'trump bad, half country
| stupid', which I've not said, and then go on to classify
| that as elitist when the ENTIRE cabinet is envisaged to be
| (billionaire) elites with two major policy proposals
| benefitting elites and deporting the opposite of elites,
| then I don't know how to have a conversation with you.
|
| So I won't.
| 9dev wrote:
| > Trump had way less war than now. Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon,
| Yemen.
|
| That's about as accurate as saying that I "had" less war on
| my previous job. As it turns out, though, the world doesn't
| revolve around me, and neither around the US president.
| Other actors exist, and they make their own decisions.
|
| I don't know how to take your rambling around free speech
| seriously. Do you really argue that we should treat
| ,,alternative facts" as valuable free speech? That we
| should support people actively deceiving others? Maybe,
| just maybe, when free speech collides with basic democratic
| resilience, democracy itself ought to win out?
|
| > Trump has literally been brought to a courthouse and had
| his mugshot taken and you're talking about "jailing
| opponents"?
|
| For an actual _crime_ he committed. As it is supposed to
| be. Yet, he pushed for legislation to ensure he's literally
| above the law.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| > the world doesn't revolve around me, and neither around
| the US president
|
| lol, yes you are as important as the US president.
|
| > maybe, when free speech collides with basic democratic
| resilience, democracy itself ought to win out?
|
| Exhibit A of how libs now are against free speech^
|
| > For an actual crime he committed
|
| For "mislabeling campaign funds", something the DNC and
| Clinton was _fined_ for doing but never criminally
| prosecuted. It 's simply because people don't like Trump
| the actual thing he did doesn't matter.
| 9dev wrote:
| > lol, yes you are as important as the US president.
|
| That's besides the point. The recent wars didn't start
| because Trump wasn't president, and that wouldn't have
| prevented them.
|
| > Exhibit A of how libs now are against free speech^
|
| That... doesn't relate to what I said. Well. I don't
| think I want to continue this discussion.
| culi wrote:
| Dems are the only ones pushing antitrust. The Republicans
| taking over is dominated by CEOs of large companies. How could
| you possibly say its Reps that are skeptical of large corps not
| dems. Antitrust is probably gonna die now because of this
| outcome
|
| Also, thinking that Republicans aren't just as, if not more,
| bought by the military industry complex is just sticking your
| head in the sand. The GOP is more adamant about funding Israel
| than Dems are
| BryantD wrote:
| I am honestly unsure why the characterization of Trump as anti-
| war overlooks his stated desire to "order the Department of
| Defense to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber
| warfare, and other covert and overt actions to inflict maximum
| damage on [Mexican] cartel leadership, infrastructure, and
| operations." Whether or not you think that's justified, it is a
| very clear statement of intent to use military force on foreign
| territory, at our discretion. And that's a quote from 2023.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Bill Clinton didn't have major wars, but did have wars. Bush Jr
| had major wars and the dems fought like hell against that, but
| then Obama had a bunch of wars and kept one major war going.
| Trump didn't have new wars and insisted on ending the one major
| war (which didn't happen until Biden). Biden has a major war.
| Harris got the endorsement of the Cheneys and some Bushes.
|
| There was no party switch. Both parties love the money flow
| that wards create.
|
| Trump is not a party; he's the only one against the wars.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| You just made a great case for voting for Trump.
| dtquad wrote:
| Keep in mind that "Union Joe" holding a pro-union EV summit in
| August 2021 arranged by anti-Tesla unions is what radicalized
| Elon Musk and a lot of the Silicon Valley billionaires to openly
| come out as right-wing.
|
| The union members ended up voting for Trump.
|
| American unions are a joke and should never be pandered to.
| metabagel wrote:
| Disagree. We need to build unions back up.
| m4r1k wrote:
| the biggest problem is the climate. with trump winning, most/all
| of the climate policies will be revered irreparably damaging our
| planet bringing us to the brink of extinction. ofc it won't be
| all trump fault, current trends are gloomy enough yet those are
| the very last few years to actually do something..
| _heimdall wrote:
| I also expect Trump to roll back many of those policies _and_
| create new, worse ones like opening up more federal land for
| drilling and mining.
|
| That said, you must have a lot more faith in the current
| policies than I do. The sole focus on limiting carbon in the
| atmosphere has been woefully misguided in my opinion. We need
| to focus on reducing our _total impact_ on the planet, not just
| trying to mitigate it a bit while we continue to consume more
| resources and use use more energy every year.
|
| If human impact on the planet is going to kill us all with
| Trump in office, it was going to happen either way.
| reportingsjr wrote:
| > opening up more federal land for drilling and mining
|
| I'm honestly not sure how much a difference Trump will make
| in this. The US greatly increased oil and gas production
| under Biden.
|
| It seems that policies that supported an energy transition
| were generally working. If those get rolled back, hopefully
| things are in a good enough place that more sustainable
| energy continues dominating.
| _heimdall wrote:
| I'm still not actually clear how an energy transition will
| even work unless its paired with a huge reduction in how
| much total energy we actually use.
|
| Moving from fossil fuels to renewables or even nuclear is
| all well and good, but it takes a huge amount of natural
| resources to pull off. Nuclear may be easier, renewables
| require a lot more resources than we currently have.
| moogly wrote:
| > unless its paired with a huge reduction in how much
| total energy we actually use.
|
| This is very unrealistic IMO. That will never happen. It
| flies against the whole idea of civilization and the
| development of human history.
|
| Energy consumption will rise on larger timescales. Best
| you can do is to tame the growth by efficiency and using
| more renewable, greener energy generation.
|
| If you want to keep bees on your apartment roof that is
| fine, but we are not all going back to being subsistence
| farmers at this point.
|
| Defeatist? Perhaps, but I don't think so.
| _heimdall wrote:
| While I do agree that its unrealistic to this people
| collectively will learn what it means to have "enough", I
| don't see another realistic solution.
|
| We're not only increasing total energy consumption every
| year, we're increasing energy consumption per capita. It
| may be one thing if the argument is that energy use will
| rise or fall inline with population, but that's not the
| case.
|
| This is the main crux of why climate change debates have
| always felt hollow to me. We can argue about plastic
| straws, diesel engine emissions, or what an acceptable
| level of parts per million in the atmosphere is but those
| are all surface level problems. Assuming the science
| linking human impact to climate issues is accurate, we're
| screwed no matter what we do on those issues if we
| continue to demand more power from whatever today's
| preferred energy source is.
| moogly wrote:
| I fully agree that all these things don't _solve_
| anything and it never will, it just delays the inevitable
| a little bit.
|
| But it is not completely out of the question we could
| solve abundant nonpolluting energy. Failure there is not
| inevitable.
|
| > people collectively will learn what it means to have
| "enough"
|
| Maybe I am too cynical, but I think the problem with this
| is that means, in practice:
|
| "OK, everyone. Let's stop accelerated technological
| progress, and the level of civilization we have today,
| that's where we're going to stay at from now on, with
| maybe some smaller bugfixes rolling out once every 50
| years or so.
|
| The quality of life you have today? That's it.
|
| Oh, and all you guys still in poverty [there are still
| billions of people who use very little energy], you're
| also going to have to stay there. Sorry."
|
| That will in turn cause civil unrest and even more
| unhappy people than we have today, which means increased
| totalitarianism, oppression and violence to quash that to
| keep societies "stable". For all the ills of consumerism
| and aspirationism, it _is_ serving as an opium to keep
| people distracted from the harsh realities of the world.
|
| We'd go back to the Middle Ages, in terms of the rate of
| improvement of the quality of life. I don't think many
| people are OK with that.
| _heimdall wrote:
| > But it is not completely out of the question we could
| solve abundant nonpolluting energy. Failure there is not
| inevitable.
|
| I am pretty cynical and skeptical, so that may be
| tainting my view here for sure. This idea of abundant,
| nonpolluting energy feels like a perpetual motion machine
| to me. Energy systems require control to be useful, from
| storage to transmission to heat dissipation. Energy
| systems are inherently lossy and though we could one day
| find a cleaner or even truly clean energy source, that
| energy still has to be stored, transmitted, and used.
|
| > OK, everyone. Let's stop accelerated technological
| progress, and the level of civilization we have today,
| that's where we're going to stay at from now on, with
| maybe some smaller bugfixes rolling out once every 50
| years or so.
|
| The opposite side of the coin is interesting to consider
| as well. We will always think things could be better, and
| maybe we even can make them better. We need to know what
| "enough" is though, and that would mean that we could get
| to a point where we have consumed enough resources and we
| should slow down or stop. "Progress" as a goal always
| sounds great on the surface, but it has to be directional
| (we need to know what we're progressing towards) and it
| must be bounded when goals are reached.
|
| This is really where my cynicism steps in though. I just
| haven't seen many examples of people who can actually
| find "enough" and stop there. We tend to get used to what
| we have now and imagine ways things could get better. If
| energy were better used today, for example, I strongly
| believe that everyone could have the basics of food,
| water, shelter, and community covered and we wouldn't be
| stuck hating our jobs and always stressed out. We just
| collectively don't seem to want that.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > The US greatly increased oil and gas production under
| Biden.
|
| And critically, I think, the Harris campaign failed to
| highlight facts like that, and emphasize how she will be
| different. Instead she completely bungled the messaging and
| went for "I'll do nothing different from what Biden did
| except add a Republican in my cabinet".
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/06/politics/harris-
| campaign-...
|
| > "What, if anything, would you have done something
| differently than President Biden during the past four
| years?" co-host of ABC's "The View" Sunny Hostin asked
| Harris, looking to give her a set for her to spike over the
| net. "There is not a thing that comes to mind," she said.
|
| Talk about a monumental failure.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Her campaign, and the democratic party more broadly, made
| a lot of mistakes. Her failing to distinguish herself
| from Biden was one of them, but I don't actually think it
| was the worst. They believed that Biden was going to win
| and waited way too late to swap in a replacement, it kind
| of makes sense that they wouldn't try to differentiate
| _if_ they honestly believed Biden was a good candidate
| with a viable platform.
| rdtsc wrote:
| That's fair, they definitely waited too late. I guess I
| also wonder, what if they just left Biden as is. They
| believed he was going to win, heck he got 80M+ popular
| votes when he ran. Why risk swap him out. But then, I
| think, once they did swap him, she could have boosted her
| position by emphasizing how she will do things better.
| But perhaps she was also honest and didn't want to lie
| and she didn't really plan on changing anything.
| _heimdall wrote:
| The only conclusion I could make from the DNC dropping
| Biden so late was that he was so clearly slipping that
| they couldn't hide it, or ignore it, anymore. I have to
| assume that if they kept him on the ticket we would have
| seen a few months of campaigning that could look an awful
| lot like elder abuse.
| AndyJames wrote:
| For me the biggest problem is Ukraine, the country I live next
| to. Trump is more than happy to pull out of NATO
| tekknik wrote:
| Trump doesn't want to leave NATO, that would be dumb. He
| wants those not "paying their fair share" to pay more or the
| US will leave. It's a negotiating tactic. So if you don't
| want the US to leave NATO and you're in a NATO country then
| get them to spend more on NATO.
| hfsh wrote:
| And by 'pay more' he means 'buy more US weapons'. NATO is a
| conveniently captive market for the US arms manufacturers,
| and no way they're going to want to pull out of that while
| they still have stock to sell.
| tekknik wrote:
| you're free to make your own weapons, plenty of NATO
| countries do.
| codersfocus wrote:
| Turkey bought Russian weapons and wasn't kicked out. They
| were barred from buying more US weapons for a while.
| AndyJames wrote:
| Before 2020 elections John Bolton said that Trump doesn't
| see the point for NATO and will consider withdrawing if he
| wins in 2020. Because of that a NATO Support at was passed
| in Congress to block the president from single handly
| withdraw the US from NATO. That was over 4 years ago,
| hopefully he changed his mind.
| kyleee wrote:
| Reminder that Bolton is an insane person, so who knows if
| what he says publicly about Trump's intentions are true.
| Epa095 wrote:
| You probably know this, but just in case: NATO is not a
| club you pay 2% in to for protection. The 2% is the
| required spending on YOUR OWN defence. In practice this
| benefits USA as a major weapon producer, at least it has
| until now. I have a feeling Europe feels less certain that
| they will buy American next time.
| tekknik wrote:
| OK? how did this statement change anything I posted?
|
| I guess you didn't know this, the idea is strength in
| numbers. If you can't provide for personal and collective
| defense, gtfo.
| gcr wrote:
| Doesn't strength in numbers contradict your idea of
| kicking out the weak?
|
| When I hear phrases like strength in numbers, I think of
| elephants. When a herd of elephants watches lions circle
| their community, the strong ones stand around their young
| to protect them.
|
| That's analogous to "strong" countries subsidizing ones
| who can't provide for themselves, because having an
| allied presence is helpful.
| lukas099 wrote:
| It's not that they _can't_ protect themselves, it's that
| they would rather spend the money on their own social
| programs.
| Epa095 wrote:
| Your wording, both the use of "paying their fair share"
| and "get them to spend more on NATO"-part made it sounds
| like countries actually pay money into NATO. Trump also
| makes it sound like that, and he certainly gave the
| impression that if other NATO countries started "paying
| more" (aka spending more) that would mean more money for
| the US. The fact is that as long as the USA wants to be
| able to win two world wars at once, they still need their
| astronomic millitary budget, and what tiny European
| countries spend makes no difference. My comment was not
| about "changing your post", it was to make sure nobody
| else is confused about this after reading your post.
|
| When that is said, its good that most NATO countries are
| hitting and exceeding 2%. It's clear that Europe can not
| rely on USA to be the "world police", we need to be be
| able to defend ourself.
|
| Also, friendly reminder that article 5 has been used
| exactly once, and that was to defend USA. Soldiers of my
| country has died defending USA.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| > _In practice this benefits USA as a major weapon
| producer, at least it has until now._
|
| This feels like a club you pay 2% for protection...
| bee_rider wrote:
| I disagree with the guy you are responding to as well.
| But I don't think he's saying that Trump wants people to
| pay the 2% like it is a subscription fee. I think he's
| just saying that Trump is using the possibility of
| leaving as a threat in the hopes that countries will meet
| their 2% obligation.
|
| As to what Trump _actually is saying,_ I have no idea,
| he's hard to parse.
| timeon wrote:
| Maybe EU countries should be those that leave NATO so they
| won't be blackmailed. They have some nuclear capable
| countries already. It would be much weaker alliance but
| with nuclear warhead one just need to press the button.
| Since EU states are getting more and more populists leaders
| this can happen eventually.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| My theory is that we will leave Nato because he won't want
| war when Putin pushes into Europe. His base doesn't care
| frankly. The direct cost is too high and they can't see
| past grocery prices.
|
| That will all depend on how worn down the Russian military
| actually is and how long it needs to rebuild. And at any
| rate the threat of Russian military action will be used to
| punish any European country that doesn't accept Russian
| influence. It will be used on former Soviet republics.
|
| The only thing that may stop Trump and saving Europe is his
| ego now that he has effective immunity from prosecution as
| Putin is no longer a threat to him.
|
| We will see who the bigger narcissist actually is. Putin is
| probably smarter though.
|
| We need some seriously smart republicans.
|
| Countries with right wing Russian aligned puppets may
| prevent direct conflict by appeasement but nevertheless
| they will be under Putin's control.
|
| China will continue being China. Where semiconductors fall
| will be interesting as will access to battery tech.
|
| Trump will print money to appease his base and we will see
| exactly how economic forces evolve beyond control.
|
| Buying crypto now seems like a good idea.
| sensanaty wrote:
| He was _very_ correct in calling out EU countries on
| Russian gas reliance (which is _still_ somehow an issue!),
| and also on the EU being way too comfortable with letting
| the US pick up the slack when it came to _our_ defense.
|
| The EU SHOULD be spending the agreed upon 2%, all this
| weasley shit the EU gov'ts are pulling is a complete joke
| considering the massive Bear in the room that is Russia.
| on_the_train wrote:
| Not an American issue
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Until it is. But statements like this are why the world as
| a society is backsliding, countries putting up walls and
| isolating themselves instead of seeing the benefits of
| cooperation in terms of stability and economy. Just look at
| the economic downturn that happened in the UK when they
| withdrew from the EU, or how Russia was shunned, excluded
| and sanctioned for starting an unprovoked war.
|
| Any benefit the US thinks they get for the policies that
| Trump and his ear-whisperers wants to enact will be short-
| term. Which is not a problem for Trump as he won't be there
| to see the long term consequences.
| gcr wrote:
| Reagan saw the Soviet rise to power as a critical American
| issue. The cold war was _the_ defining foreign policy issue
| of his era.
| jacobgorm wrote:
| Just like 9/11 and the fake thread of Iraq WMDs weren't
| other-NATO-contries' issues, but we still stepped up to
| help.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Have you considered what happens if someone decides to bomb
| an ASML factory?
| monero-xmr wrote:
| The EU can pay for their own defense now I guess
| chris_wot wrote:
| And they almost certainly will. In fact, I predict military
| spending is going to rise exponentially.
|
| Can you imagine what the world might look like if all of
| the EU spend as much on the military as the U.S.?
|
| Be careful what you wish for.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I absolutely hope the EU ramps military spending and
| negates the need for US support. Sometimes, you need a
| catalyst, and clearly another nation should not be
| beholden to US defense agreements.
|
| Decoupling globally continues.
|
| https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/368528/us-military-
| army-n...
|
| https://indi.ca/the-us-military-is-in-a-death-spiral/
|
| https://www.rand.org/nsrd/projects/NDS-commission.html
| rdtsc wrote:
| > Trump is more than happy to pull out of NATO
|
| Why, what's the idea behind it? Isn't he big on military and
| showing power?
| lukas099 wrote:
| Congress already passed a law requiring Congressional
| approval to pull out so he can't do it unilaterally.
| account42 wrote:
| Emissions in the US are pretty much negligible compared to
| China and India. It would have to be a radical shift that is
| going to take way more than four years to make US climate
| policy even relevant to the planet as a whole.
| dtquad wrote:
| In emissions there is just China and then the US as a
| somewhat distant second. But to be honest the whole world is
| using China as their factory.
|
| Europe and India are the regions that are actually
| surprisingly negligible. Africa and the rest of the
| developing world doesn't make a blip.
| palata wrote:
| You need to account for indirect emissions. Because all the
| factories are in China means that China emits more, but
| those iPads are not being sold and used in China.
|
| When you import goods, you import their emissions. It's
| just super hard to measure (and we like to blame it all on
| China).
| belorn wrote:
| The solution there is to create tariffs based on
| emissions so that the costs of the emissions get
| accounted when people import goods.
| palata wrote:
| I don't understand the word "tarries", somehow even after
| looking it up :-). (Not my first language, sorry)
|
| I meant that in practice it's very difficult to track,
| because it involves a lot of actors in a lot of
| countries.
| billyoyo wrote:
| What are you talking about? The US has the 2nd heighest
| emissions behind China, almost double India's. The only
| countries higher than it per-capita are Canada, Australia and
| petro-states or tiny countries.
|
| And China is already leading the world in moving to renewable
| technology, they are moving in the right direction (not
| entirely for altruistic reasons - it fulfils their ambitions
| of energy self-sufficiency).
| km144 wrote:
| Another example of Democrats being really poor
| communicators on specific important issues--they could
| easily frame renewables as a protectionist issue and make
| it relevant but instead they don't know how to talk about
| it so they just avoid it whenever possible.
| gcr wrote:
| I do wonder whether democrats will shift to post-
| conservative messaging. "Let's preserve what we have left
| of our beautiful American forests" might be able to
| resonate. Idk.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| I'm sure in some meeting somewhere someone floated that
| exact idea and then got promptly laughed out of the room
| by a bunch of people who live in a filter bubble in which
| protectionism is too politically close to populism to be
| palatable.
| vundercind wrote:
| That exact message has been tried and energy
| independence/stick-it-to-OPEC remains fairly common way
| of trying to sell it. Actual measures to onshore
| renewable industry were successfully demonized as
| corrupt, didn't go over well.
| somerandom2407 wrote:
| Why cherry-pick per-capita when what matters to the climate
| is actual output, not output per capita. Lets take
| Australia, as an example, their total co2 output is around
| 1% of the world's co2 output. If Australia ceased producing
| all of its co2, it wouldn't make much difference at all.
| Per capita figures are just a waste of everyone's time.
| benrutter wrote:
| As someone from a smallish country (UK), I don't think I
| agree. Per capita is the _only-)_ way of measuring
| emmissions that doesn 't wind up a proxy for just listing
| the biggest countries.
|
| Almost 1/5 people are in China, if tomorrow the country
| divided itself up into smaller nations would thay change
| anything about the pollution bring emmited?
| fastball wrote:
| I always try to convince people the best metric is
| CO2/land area. It actually adjusts for the size of your
| country without the silly idea that having more people
| means your country is doing "better" from an emissions
| perspective.
| itishappy wrote:
| Great, let's just move everyone to Australia! Or wait...
|
| Unless you have policy recommendations to change the
| total number of people on Earth (please don't) then
| global emissions per capita are the only stat that
| matters.
| lavela wrote:
| Per-capita is a hint to the capacity of reduction or a
| measurement of the inefficiencies of a country.
| throwaway4220 wrote:
| If the tariffs are as agressive as promised china may drop
| its emissions? I don't know what hope to hold onto anymore.
| selykg wrote:
| God, this stupid tariff thing again. All tariffs are going
| to do is raise costs, so we'll go back to inflation being
| insane.
| vundercind wrote:
| And if the economy starts to turn (or maybe even if it
| doesn't) say good by to the relatively apolitical Fed and
| rate-setting. Which'll bring a boom, more inflation, and
| a _hard_ crash on the other side.
| xnx wrote:
| I think you might be in agreement with the parent.
| Increased costs (due to tariffs) will reduce consumption
| and therefore emissions.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| It will just make solar more expensive and increase the
| attractiveness of US oil and gas to the US electorate
| further entrenching Trumpism.
| tynan wrote:
| We currently have a lot of tariffs. Should we remove all
| of them, some of them, or do we have exactly the correct
| amount?
| dionian wrote:
| If we ship all our jobs overseas we can increase profits
| significantly. The poor and middle class will suffer in
| our country, and so will our economy.
| gosub100 wrote:
| Or maybe people stop buying crap they cannot afford
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| US is not negligible. They are number 1 per capita.
|
| China just had an astronomically high population. They will
| always be higher overall due to this.
|
| An actual measurement of this needs to be performed capita.
| lavela wrote:
| Trump is going to reduce the USA's proxy-emissions in China
| if he pulls through on tariffs at least I guess.
| eggnet wrote:
| If prices go up Americans will buy less.
| wbl wrote:
| No, the reverse. Tariffs Trump style mean that final
| goods get imported not intermediate so production moves
| away especially for the global market.
| belorn wrote:
| If the issue is emissions per capita then the solution is
| simply to increase the population faster than the increase
| in emissions.
|
| Similar, countries with aging population will see an
| increase in emissions per capita regardless if they are
| actually decreasing emissions, as long the population loss
| is greater than emissions decreases.
| xyst wrote:
| Climate policies were already getting gutted under this
| administration due to reversal of Chevron deference by SCOTUS
| (packed by previous Trump/Pence administration).
|
| EPA and other regulatory agencies have been stripped of their
| regulatory powers. Any "vague" law which was interpreted by
| agencies can now be challenged in courts.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| as someone from eu - doesn't us now/under dems extract top
| amount of fossils from all the time? I mean it's not like it
| was good now. It looks like it'll get worse but the current
| path wasn't good either...
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| The US has been on a strong downward trend for CO2 output per
| capita for decades now [1]. The IRA is expected to
| significantly accelerate this trajectory, although it's
| unclear how much of that will now come to pass.
|
| [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-
| carbon...
| tekknik wrote:
| Im excited too, I also hope they stop with the EV mandates
| in various states by removing their ability to override the
| EPA.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| There is the short term reality that we are dependent on gas
| and oil and, decreasingly, coal. The difference between the
| two parties is the long term vision.
|
| Dems want to have international treaties to address the
| problem and are willing to spend money to move away from
| fossil fuels. Republicans downplay the science (or outright
| deny it) and think international treaties make the US less
| independent and therefore weaker, and they would much rather
| cut taxes for Elon Musk than spend money on energy
| infrastructure.
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| It does, thank goodness. Otherwise it would come from Saudi
| and other despots. We should be producing as much as we can
| in the US to quit funding horrible regimes.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Maybe Elon can do something about that once he's on the
| cabinet.
| Comfy-Tinwork wrote:
| Ah great, we can pin our hopes on elon-fucking-musk.
|
| It's fair to say that we're "cooked" in ever sense of the
| word.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Elon knows his shit. The media sensationalizes his antics
| but he knows his shit and is very capable.
|
| The only thing bad about Elon is business interests he will
| make policies that promote his own businesses. But trump
| will likely do the same.
| l33t7332273 wrote:
| > Elon knows his shit
|
| I've been saying since the hyperloop in like 2014 that he
| doesn't, and he's done nothing to convince me otherwise.
| eftpotrm wrote:
| Elon who's company SpaceX are firing large quantities of
| Methane-powered rockets into the sky?
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Rocketry is not exactly a field that lends itself to
| battery power.
| eftpotrm wrote:
| No, but the volume of hydrocarbons SpaceX are burning to
| provide a broadband network by cluttering low earth orbit
| with shiny things is hardly an obvious win.
| kzrdude wrote:
| The biggest problem is gradual deterioration of the rule of law
| and functioning of the civil government
| xenospn wrote:
| *gradual and accelerating
| llm_nerd wrote:
| What could Trump do in that respect? Bring back coal? Coal
| isn't coming back. The economics aren't there short of
| literally paying for the burning of coal. And while Trump seems
| to lean into the AGW deniers, he does seem to at least respect
| reducing the classic "silent spring" sorts of pollution that
| obviously dirty air and water.
|
| US oil production is the highest in the world, the highest in
| its history, and is so maxed out that there are loads of
| drilling rights that aren't even being exercised as oil
| companies all realized that it was pyrrhic with current low oil
| prices.
|
| On the climate position I don't think things can go back. Wind,
| solar and evolving nuclear just make it a silly thing to do.
| thrance wrote:
| He can, and has basically promised to massively subsidize
| fracking. Fracking is still not profitable, never has been,
| probably never will be. It's existence is purely political.
| ethagnawl wrote:
| This is intriguing and I've actually never heard this take.
| (Not disagreeing, to be clear.) My laymen's understanding
| is that domestic natural gas production has gone way up in
| this century and I lazily assumed this was why.
| thrance wrote:
| Yes, there is strategic value in being able to extract
| fossil fuels domestically, and fracking allows this, only
| at great economic (and environmental) cost.
| causal wrote:
| Source? Searching on this I'm only finding evidence that
| fracking has been extremely lucrative
| echoangle wrote:
| Wasn't a large part of his platform ,,drill baby drill"? If
| he's lowering cost of fossil fuels, guess what will happen to
| consumption.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| That promise played upon the listener thinking the US had
| somehow suppressed oil production. In reality oil/gas
| production has gone wild, now with a large surplus over
| domestic consumption. There are huge numbers of rights that
| have been granted but not exercised because the world is so
| awash in oil that the price makes most non-conventional
| fields unprofitable.
|
| There just isn't anything to really be done there.
| swasheck wrote:
| " That promise played upon the listener thinking the US
| had somehow ... "
|
| this is the summary of trumps entire campaign platform.
| i'm honestly not even sure he expressed a concrete policy
| on anything. he said he wants even more aggressive
| tariffs and will start deportation on day 1 (and was
| relatively nonchalant about some "legal" immigrants being
| caught up with "illegal" ones). cut dei.
|
| there's honestly no plan or policy, just a nebulous wish
| list that appeals to the base impulses of humanity.
|
| the only real expectation that i have is that justices
| thomas and alito will retire early in his term to allow
| him to appoint new ones early enough to not allow
| democrats to stall like mcconnell did.
| pc86 wrote:
| The same thing that happens when you subsidize EVs - we
| just use more. If you lower the cost of consumption,
| consumption goes up. If you lower the cost of alternative
| means of consumption, total consumption still goes up.
|
| It goes up either way, you might as well have the source be
| here instead of from a foreign adversary.
| echoangle wrote:
| Maybe the real solution would be to move to renewable
| energy sources instead of making fossil fuels cheaper.
| kromokromo wrote:
| Opening up coal mines just to bring back jobs in the rust
| belt does not make any sense. Start mining silicon and other
| minerals used in solar, batteries and chips instead. It makes
| a lot more sense even though the initial investment is
| higher.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| He could take away government subsidies and incentives for
| clean energy production. And subsidies for converting
| consumption to electricity (like EVs, heat pump furnaces,
| water heaters, and stoves).
|
| He could target research into clean energy technology, ending
| government initiatives and taking away research grants.
|
| He could remove regulations on energy efficiency.
|
| He could put giant tariffs on anything made in China that is
| used in clean energy production (like solar panels,
| batteries, and electronics).
|
| He could make it harder to get approvals to install clean
| energy production, siding with NIMBYs who oppose solar, wind,
| and battery projects.
|
| He could cut federal funding for public transit.
|
| I don't know how much of that he would actually do, but in
| the past he has expressed support for a lot of it. So I think
| he will try to do some of it.
|
| It's possible we have already reached a tipping point where
| the total cost of clean energy production and consumption is
| cheaper even without all of these subsidies and so on. If so,
| then the transition might continue anyway. But if so, I think
| it will still be a slower transition.
| mk89 wrote:
| I am not sure that's the case. The main supporter is a guy who
| produces e-cars with all the interests to sell more of them.
|
| The way I see it, he will continue with the transition whenever
| it benefits him/the country. Which means some programs might be
| canceled, especially if they go against such interests.
| lavela wrote:
| > The main supporter is a guy who produces e-cars with all
| the interests to sell more of them.
|
| Sure Elon might have an impact on CO2 emissions in the
| transport sector but I don't see him moving things that don't
| directly benefit him, say, electricity/heat production or
| agriculture.
| mk89 wrote:
| Transport is the 2nd sector in terms of CO2 emissions. If
| we solve that alone, I am happy.
| FrankyHollywood wrote:
| Actually it's only 16%
| https://www.visualcapitalist.com/a-global-breakdown-of-
| green...
| mk89 wrote:
| I found it here: https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-
| sector
|
| Not sure how reliable all this is... Yet it seems "road"
| is nearly 10-11% which is big enough to solve and to have
| already an impact in everyday life. Then it cascades to
| other sectors too.
| cdrini wrote:
| That visual shows that road transport is 11% , making it
| the second highest category, as the poster said. This is
| a great graphic though, thanks for sharing!
|
| Edit: actually in the graphic it's the largest sector! My
| bad
| foobazgt wrote:
| Tesla literally has a massive (electrical) energy storage
| business alongside solar. There are huge battery
| installations that are helping regions like Hawaii and
| Australia pivot to renewables.
| TomK32 wrote:
| An e-car is still a car and a more environmentally friendly
| public transport or bicycle.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| Musk does seem to have gone bonkers in the last two years or
| so, but I agree. I suspect he might end up being a
| surprisingly moderating, rational influence on Trump. He
| might have (at least publicly) aligned himself with
| conspiracy theorists, outrage merchants and general grifters
| for now, but I think at heart he's still pro-science.
| mk89 wrote:
| I guess he is pro science indeed. And opportunistic too. He
| might also morally align with Trump more than with Dems,
| who knows. These elections were just an unfortunately
| ridiculous show.
| kelnos wrote:
| You know you're in trouble when _Musk_ of all people is
| considered a moderating influence compared to your
| president.
|
| I'm not convinced Musk cares all that much about the
| environment anymore, if he ever truly did. EVs were a bet
| that car buyers (and governments) would care about the
| environment.
|
| Musk just wants to go to Mars and leave Earth behind.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| True. The world is certainly in trouble. I'm just saying
| it _might_ not be as bad as it immediately looks.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Why wouldn't we take his public rhetoric and actions at
| face value? Why is this possibly a good idea to simply say
| 'well in his heart he trusts science' when he is
| demonstrating the contrary?
|
| I don't want to live in fantasy land here. Based on
| observable actions, Musk isn't brining any positive force
| to the table
| xanderlewis wrote:
| Isn't that obvious? He knew he could only get to the
| position he's now in (or at least have the best chance of
| doing so) if he joined in with the MAGA brigade.
|
| He clearly does align with the movement in some ways, but
| he also is responsible for SpaceX, for example. Don't you
| think that marks him out as being a bit different from
| the others?
|
| Also, there _are_ observable actions. If you listen to
| some of the podcasts he's been on recently (as painful as
| they can be) you'll hear him very flatly rejecting
| suggestions of quackery and 'vaccine scepticism'. He's so
| obviously not stupid, even if he's degenerated somewhat,
| as many of us have, by constant exposure to poisonous
| social media.
| no_wizard wrote:
| He had some wins (SpaceX, Tesla) certainly, but that
| doesn't mean his bizarre behavior and clear display of
| bizarre beliefs aren't concerning or he's somehow immune
| believing other nonsensical things.
|
| You can't predicate the fact he has had success with
| those companies and somehow say his actions are some
| undercover operation to gain a position of power that
| will help average Americans or moderate the
| administration or whatever you want to say with that.
|
| We should be focused on public actions and as it sits
| over the last 4 years in particular, Musk's actions are
| very concerning and there is serious cause for concern.
|
| You haven't proven he isn't fully bought on MAGA bullshit
| with this. Its fantasy thinking running contrary to
| available evidence. He's broadly bought into Trump and
| the policies that brings, that much is clear.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| > You haven't proven he isn't fully bought on MAGA
| bullshit with this.
|
| Have you listened to his interviews? I don't think you
| have.
|
| By the way, I'm saying _has_ bought it to some extent --
| just not fully.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Yes I have, he's broadly comfortable with MAGA ideas.
| Taken together with rhetoric and how he acts, it seems
| like a rationale conclusion.
|
| Just because someone does a sit down interview and nudges
| around the edges about things they disagree with doesn't
| mean he's not fully bought in. There is zero evidence he
| meaningfully disagrees with Trump on anything of
| consequence
|
| He donated at least $132 million dollars to the Trump
| campaign and GOP allies[0], for god sakes. Do you really
| think anyone donates $132 million dollars to something
| they aren't fully bought in to?
|
| When someone shows you who they are, you should believe
| them.
|
| [0]: https://fortune.com/2024/10/26/elon-musk-political-
| donations...
| xanderlewis wrote:
| He's not bought in to the anti-vax movement, and he
| doesn't deny anthropogenic climate change. Aren't those
| both quite MAGA?
|
| > There is zero evidence he meaningfully disagrees with
| Trump on anything of consequence
|
| What I just said above is evidence, I think. There
| certainly isn't _zero_ evidence.
|
| > Do you really think anyone donates $132 million dollars
| to something they aren't fully bought in to?
|
| Yes -- absolutely. People make compromises all the time,
| and employ strategies that exchange short-term (even
| reputational) cost for long-term benefit.
|
| > When someone shows you who they are, you should believe
| them.
|
| He has shown us who he is, so far, by his actions in
| building companies and promoting rationality and science.
| Yes, he's also recently gone down the rabbit hole of
| nonsense on Twitter, but for now I don't think that fully
| represents his underlying nature.
|
| I have no particular dog in this fight. I'm not American
| and nor do I have any particular love of Musk. However, I
| think you're overreacting.
|
| As for your source: I know how much he's donated, and it
| is a shocking amount. However, in the wake of Trump's re-
| election, the share price of Tesla has just gone up 15%
| making Musk $15 billion richer. Makes that $132 million
| seem like pocket change. At worst, he's a self-interested
| opportunistic capitalist. But he's not a moron or a
| religious zealot as others are.
|
| I expect he will either indeed be a moderating influence
| on the administration (remember this is in the context of
| Trump; I'm not saying he counts as a moderate in the
| usual sense) or will quickly lose favour or otherwise
| become disenchanted with Trump and Trumpism and vacate
| whatever position he's granted and move on.
|
| Also remember: I'm not arguing he's particularly sensible
| or even acts like a grown up (he doesn't). I'm arguing
| that he's not 'literally Hitler' as some seem to be
| insinuating.
| fakedang wrote:
| What makes people think Trump is going to run the show? I
| have a feeling he's going to be the rubber stamp while
| Vance, Thiel and Musk and gang will run the show behind the
| scenes.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| He's also the rocket guy with private jets.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| It would appear that neither party actually does _anything_ to
| change the rate of CO2 emissions.
|
| https://x.com/ChrisMartzWX/status/1854161121193714102
| bdcp wrote:
| That's CO2 measurements taken in Hawaii so it's global
| measurements. Do we have a USA only emissions graph?
| thanatos519 wrote:
| What a subtle exponential curve!
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| I feel like they were not only the most useless policies, with
| decades away targets, but also had the most damage on labour,
| see car manufacturers all in crisis cutting jobs
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > most/all of the climate policies will be revered irreparably
| damaging our planet bringing us to the brink of extinction
|
| The valid policies will remain. I've been hearing the rest for
| decades now.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| When someone's grocery bill exceeds 40% of their total income,
| they're not going to worry about the climate.
| causal wrote:
| These things are not disconnected
| brodouevencode wrote:
| How are they connected?
| intended wrote:
| Global energy prices are high because of wars in Europe.
|
| The rise of right wing forces globally and anti
| immigration forces, is a consequence of immigration from
| regions that are not only crushed by wars, but also by
| climate instability.
|
| Since solutions are too complex and require global
| cooperation, its easier for governments to not do
| anything.
|
| As this keeps up, and larger areas of the world become
| uninhabitable, more migration will occur, leading to more
| power to demagogues and dictators.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| That seems sufficiently disconnected.
|
| Alternatively, if the fed didn't just print money to pay
| for unnecessary vote-buying schemes then the inflation
| rate would have been only minimally (if at all) impacted
| by the points you made.
| intended wrote:
| Sure.
|
| If you want a straight line drawn in markers for
| something like the global economy - I mean, sure?
|
| Given the forum though, I hesitate to place you amongst
| such company. I am guessing you know what the Fed's remit
| is, and therefore WHY they are printing money.
| causal wrote:
| Unsustainable practices lead to exhaustion of resources
| and subsequent spikes in prices. Prices today will be
| nothing compared to the prices we face when the earth
| exhausted of topsoil, the sea is exhausted of fish, and
| the water table exhausted of clean water.
|
| Voting against the environment in favor of lower prices
| will ultimately lead to higher prices.
| swasheck wrote:
| shame they're either unwilling or unable to trace the source
| of the inflation.
|
| also, it's going to get worse for that person's grocery bill
| under trump. the middle class will come under even greater
| short-term pressure over the next few years as trump's
| "concepts of a plan" begin to materialize.
|
| but hey, at lease my kitten is safe. just wish someone would
| do something about all the geese here.
| camdenreslink wrote:
| Climate change won't bring us to the brink of extinction.
|
| It will cause huge amounts of human suffering though.
| pvaldes wrote:
| We can't be 100% sure about that. We know that agriculture
| can't survive a constant rise of temperature. At some point
| the roots are unable to grasp water from the soil, and then
| everything dies at the same moment.
| arp242 wrote:
| Isn't "bringing us to the brink of extinction" rather
| hyperbolic? As far as I know there is no indication that
| climate change will be an extinction-level threat? What it will
| be is hugely damaging for all sorts of other reasons, both to
| humans and other life.
|
| Beyond that, I agree with you, and it's one of my major
| concerns as well.
| this_user wrote:
| Entire regions of the planet could very well become
| uninhabitable, which would affects hundreds of millions,
| potentially billions of people. Migratory flows of that size
| would almost certainly lead to armed conflicts. It's hard to
| tell how this would end, but it is certainly not going to be
| pretty.
| hedora wrote:
| It could easily lead to the end of civilization. We've been
| seeing global production disruptions for years now.
| (Currently, quartz for semiconductors. During the pandemic,
| climate events knockout out PVC production, which meant a
| global disruption of construction work.)
|
| We're at the beginning of the exponential ramp on this sort
| of stuff, where the changes are barely noticeable. For
| example, until last night (so, assuming best case
| greenhouse projections), there was roughly a 50% chance
| that some people reading this will live to see the northern
| half of Europe turn into a glacier.
|
| Anyway, without modern civilization, we probably won't
| survive 10,000's of years of such stuff. The global
| population bottlenecked at a few thousand the last time
| this happened.
| palata wrote:
| > As far as I know there is no indication that climate change
| will be an extinction-level threat?
|
| We are currently living in an era of mass extinction. It's
| not something that's coming, we are in it, it is measurable.
| 75% of wild animals, insects and trees have disappeared. That
| is _a fact_ , and it is not related to climate change at all:
| "just" to how we humans organize the world (mostly habitat
| loss).
|
| Climate change will bring famines, natural disasters, and
| global instability (that means wars). This is yet to come.
|
| It is fairly likely that at this rate, we will reach 4
| degrees of global warming. At 4 degrees, a large part of the
| Earth (around the Equator) becomes unlivable for humans (it's
| too humid and hot, we can't regulate our temperature by
| sweating, we die). Which means that billions of people will
| need to relocate. This is not just normal wars: think entire
| countries that decide to leave their territory and go
| somewhere else, together with their army.
|
| I don't know what the definition of "extinction-level" means
| (maybe you only care about some individuals of the human
| species surviving), but in my book that's as bad as it gets.
| christiangenco wrote:
| > in my book that's as bad as it gets.
|
| In the book of world history things have been way worse[0].
|
| In the book of world futures things could get way way
| worse[1].
|
| 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_e
| xtin...
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_holocaust
| palata wrote:
| > In the book of world history things have been way
| worse[0].
|
| Has it been way worse, really? I think that the climate
| change that ended the dinosaurs happened slower than what
| we are expecting with ours (but I didn't check it and I
| am not completely sure).
|
| I am sure of this, though: the mass extinction we are
| living now is the fastest we know. Let me rephrase it: we
| human have made 75% of wild animals, insects and trees
| disappear faster than it ever happened in the history of
| Earth.
|
| > In the book of world futures things could get way way
| worse[1].
|
| "Way way worse"? Do you realise what "20 degrees around
| the equator becomes uninhabitable" means? It's like half
| of the inhabited world becomes mars, and the people
| living there have no choice but to move where the other
| half is.
| arp242 wrote:
| I agree with much of that, but I don't think that will
| really bring us to the "brink of extinction". That said,
| I'm not keen to find out as we don't really get to reload a
| save game if you mess up. Sadly, not many seem to agree :-(
| Or maybe they found a cheat to load save games, idk.
| palata wrote:
| > I agree with much of that, but I don't think that will
| really bring us to the "brink of extinction".
|
| I think that it was a figure of speech. Whether it brings
| the human species to the brink of extinction or makes
| life unbearable for 90% of humans and destroys
| civilization as we know it is a bit of a technicality, if
| you ask me.
|
| In any case it is one of the biggest problems of our
| time.
| arp242 wrote:
| > I think that it was a figure of speech
|
| Maybe. But in the face of a malicious misinformation
| campaign, I think it's important to be accurate and
| careful with our words. Hyperbolic statements are not
| really helpful as it adds just the right ring of truth to
| the "it's all a load of bollocks by climate alarmists"
| claims, so it ends up just helping the misinformation
| campaign.
| a-saleh wrote:
| Unfortunately, it will get really grim and bad that even if
| literal extinction is improbably (humanity seems to have
| already bounced from less than 10k people) it seems to be bad
| enough to warrant this hyperbole.
|
| Like, if most of the tropics reach wet-bulb temperature and
| more than a billion people live there - that will be grim.
| intended wrote:
| I'm sure you will agree that for most people, the difference
| between extinction level and civilization ending is academic.
| everdrive wrote:
| If we had a functioning congress, laws could be set. The
| president really is not _meant_ to have a lot of power here.
| Administrations have been trying to do more, as congress really
| won't pass laws any longer. However, each administration just
| throws out the policies of the last administration. Actually
| passing laws in congress does not necessarily have this same
| problem.
| ghouse wrote:
| Though to become a law, the president would need to sign it.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| Not necessarily:
|
| "The President might not sign the bill, however. If he
| specifically rejects the bill, called a veto, the bill
| returns to Congress. There it is voted on again, and if
| both houses of Congress pass the bill again, but this time
| by a two-thirds majority, then the bill becomes law without
| the President's signature. This is called "overriding a
| veto," and is difficult to do because of the two-thirds
| majority requirement."
|
| https://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_law-html/
| ghastmaster wrote:
| Precisely. Regardless of your political leaning, Congress has
| been playing hot potato for a long time. Instead of actually
| creating rules or regulations, they do nothing and let the
| administration or courts decide. That way they can go to
| their constituents and beg for votes or contributions to
| fight the same branches that they relinquished power to by
| not doing anything.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _let the courts decide_
|
| A large part of the Republicans' strategy is to appoint
| partisan judges & let them legislate from the bench for the
| rest of their lives. Talking up thread about "the biggest
| problem", this is probably it. In the context of climate
| change, recently we can see SCOTUS shooting down
| environmental protections. This happens in lower courts
| too, but those don't make national news.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| Congress has also flipped, so even if the system was working
| as intended, we'd end up in the same situation.
| area51org wrote:
| The problem is that trump believes the president is king of
| America, and that a dictatorship is the best form of
| government. Even bigger problem: far too many Republicans
| seem to agree with him and will try to hasten the descent
| into a fascist authoritarian dictatorship. I have no idea if
| they will be successful, but it doesn't look like there will
| be much to stop them.
| everdrive wrote:
| I think the problem is that when the Democrats are in
| power, they also attempt to inflate the power of the
| executive branch. Both parties have been doing this for a
| while, and are AGHAST when the opposing party gets elected.
| No one seems to want to take back the power the executive
| branch, which makes each new bad president more and more of
| a disaster.
| sanderjd wrote:
| I don't think the president does have much power over this?
| The most important things are indeed enshrined in
| legislation. I think it's pretty unlikely they are going to
| spend any political capital on undoing any legislation in
| this space.
| colechristensen wrote:
| We don't need climate policy any more. Solar is by a wide
| margin the cheapest electricity and will continue growing at a
| wild pace.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Until the tariffs hit[0] because the reason solar is so cheap
| is due to cheap Chinese panels.
|
| Not to mention, this is a very naive take, at best.
|
| [0]: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-solar-
| industry...
| oliver-rock wrote:
| I think solar is only cheapest at point of production. Once
| you factor in transmission costs, grid congestion,
| intermittent supply, etc. Solar is still expensive at point
| of consumption.
|
| It's not to argue directly against your point but just that
| we still have a lot of work to move over to a sustainable
| electrical grid. And that will be helped by favourable policy
| jjallen wrote:
| He already pulled the US out of the Paris accord his last
| presidency and the US is producing all-time high oil.
|
| I guess another angle is that he is best buddies with Elon who
| could potentially do some interesting things there.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Until Elon falls out of favor.
|
| In reality we are dealing with Putin having effective control
| and is now basically unrestrained.
| palata wrote:
| > I guess another angle is that he is best buddies with Elon
| who could potentially do some interesting things there.
|
| Elon is comoditizing space. If that's profitable, he will get
| SpaceX to a point where people go on holiday in a rocket.
| That's exactly going in the wrong direction in terms of
| climate.
| antihero wrote:
| What about the threats to civil liberties, especially for women
| and LGBT+ people?
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Trump already was president before. What "civil liberties"
| did those groups lose?
| antihero wrote:
| Well he appointed Supreme Court Judges that overturned Roe
| vs Wade, and he's promised a rollback on trans rights.
| mypgovroom wrote:
| The biggest problem is the climate to those who profit off this
| agenda.
| pvaldes wrote:
| And for Floridians also. I doubt that they will be happy with
| more natural disasters.
| mypgovroom wrote:
| Fear mongering doesn't help create change
| pvaldes wrote:
| Was Milton an illusion?
|
| At this moment it does not matter anymore. In the next
| decades Mar-a-lago will be hit, either if Trump likes it
| or if not. He just can make it sooner and worse.
| quotemstr wrote:
| Climate policies have failed. They're all either empty
| signaling exercises (carbon offsets, CAFE standards) or
| economically ruinous proposals to deliberately impoverish
| people (degrowth). The Paris accords penalize developed
| economies while giving developing countries a pass on emissions
| and an unfair advantage in trade. This idea that we can just
| sit down in a room with all the world's leaders and agree to
| just reduce emissions is a fantasy.
|
| The real climate policy we need, and one we might just get from
| the incoming administration, is support for startups that
| explore new geoengineering technology. We've on our way to
| being Kardashev type I civilization, and as such, we should
| establish explicit closed-loop control over our climate.
| gibsonf1 wrote:
| World War 3 is clearly a bigger problem than the climate.
| purple_ferret wrote:
| States like New York and California can become Carbon Negative
| on their own if they wanted to.
|
| The Federal government is not needed for liberals to take the
| lead on this, but the mediocre center left Democrats who run
| everything in Blue States refuse to lift a finger.
| dopamean wrote:
| I was of the impression that US contribution to global
| emissions was relatively low for our population size and per
| capita energy usage thus making domestic climate change policy
| relatively small potatoes. Is that not true? Is there more to
| it than that?
| lief79 wrote:
| https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-
| pe...
|
| Per capita energy usage is an interesting choice of metric.
| dopamean wrote:
| Thanks for the info!
| shreve wrote:
| The United States is ranked 16th highest in the world for
| emissions per capita.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di.
| ..
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| US is 12% which is second highest. But you're right that it's
| too small a percentage to have enough effect on its own.
| dionian wrote:
| Really? Are you still buying all your stuff from China where
| they are standing up new coal plants every day? Just because
| the pollution doesn't happen here doesn't mean it doesn't
| happen.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| Its increasingly difficult for me to believe that climate
| change is a critical issue when the attendees of World Economic
| Forum + Al Gore + Bill Gates + Leanardo Dicaprio all fly around
| in private jets while lecturing me on why i should be not be
| eating meat.
| sanderjd wrote:
| I think this is doubtful, and it's a testament to the way the
| IRA was written. There are now bipartisan constituencies who
| support different parts of it. And there was no real chance we
| were going to get anything _new_ on the climate regardless of
| the outcome. I think this issue will just be status quo for
| this term.
| cranberryturkey wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1gkwo2u/chatgpt_bl...
| nemo44x wrote:
| Republicans did a great job mobilizing voters. They've learned
| from the tactics the Democrats pioneered and it worked well.
| Things like early voting, etc. This election will be a landslide
| but looks like and I believe in large part because of how they
| exploited the early voting opportunity.
| amelius wrote:
| Made possible by the internet.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| The outcome elon musk paid $44 billion for.
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| If Reddit isn't real life, then twitter definitely isn't. No
| website could do what you saw.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Well, what I saw was the culmination of a multi generation
| plan by wealthy and organized far right activists to
| accomplish this result or one similar to it. I'm not saying
| twitter alone accomplished that, I'm saying musk bought it
| in order to make it part of that project.
| mbg721 wrote:
| No organized right-wing group tipped the scales in this
| election. Aside from the Democrats' weak presidential
| candidate and last-minute substitution, arrogant and
| clearly biased big media organizations annoyed people
| enough to turn out and vote against what they were
| selling.
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| Maybe. I would argue that while he is fully on board the
| trump train now, he was not a few years ago. When you are
| harshly criticized for a few unorthodox views, it's not
| surprising you embrace those treating you legitimately.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Like this? https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/8/8/1786
| 532/-Cartoon-Y...
| anonfordays wrote:
| Linking The Daily Kos is like linking Infowars and
| expecting to be taken seriously.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Matt Bors is a pulitzer finalist but ok.
| anonfordays wrote:
| _[Matt Bors] was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in ...
| 2020_
|
| Ah, the year Nikole Hannah-Jones won the Pulitzer Prize
| for Commentary for her work on The 1619 Project.
|
| lol. lmao even.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Purely based on gut feeling, Twitter had less of an impact on
| this election than it did in 2016.
| meowster wrote:
| Personally, I think it was the Joe Rogan podcasts (they got an
| insane number of views). I figured Trump would win the
| Electoral College votes, but I was surprised when Trump also
| won the popular vote.
| phplovesong wrote:
| [flagged]
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| Yet no-one will ever admit they regret voting for him. They'll
| blame everyone else including themselves, but will never
| criticize their leader. The parallels with religion are
| frightening.
| siffin wrote:
| The parallels with fascism are frightening. We're 8 years
| down a path of followers being endeared with trumpet, hard to
| walk that back now and admit mistake.
|
| What you're talking about is already happening. Every fourth
| or fifth comment in this thread is already blaming the left
| for making the right what it is.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| First past the post voting made USA polarized, time to
| modernise politics!
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| That's why religious leaders came up with the concept of a
| devil. So they can always say someone else is responsible
| for when their god seems to fall short.
| jeffhuys wrote:
| You can't admit to something you don't feel.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| That's why I never heard an empathetic comment from a Trump
| follower.
| nickreese wrote:
| As an American living in Europe, it is fun to see the filter
| bubble Europeans live in with regards to how the US is framed
| in the media here and even in common coversation. I was talking
| to my French buddy about it and we were comparing our filter
| bubbles. Please realize that there is a filter bubble that all
| of us live in.
| lifeinthevoid wrote:
| Can you give a brief comparison of the different views? I'm
| European and watch/read a lot of US news sources from both
| sides and still think "European" about Trump.
| vundercind wrote:
| You're missing the political viewpoint of 45% of the
| country if you're not main-lining right-wing radio and Fox
| News. No, stop--don't google what they just said, imagine
| you just believe it and see where that takes you.
|
| [edit] if you want root-cause for how we got here, look
| into media ownership laws in the US, and into the Citizens
| United court case (check out the 5-4 podcast for a
| fun/horrifying take). Single entities can own unlimited
| reach of media, which didn't used to be the case, as
| recently as the very early 2000s IIRC, and Citizens opened
| up unlimited corporate spending in elections, with exactly
| the implications you'd expect for e.g. foreign spending on
| US elections. Er, I mean, the actual root cause is kinda
| the system of elections the slave states pushed into the
| constitution, if you wanna go way back, but the proximate
| cause of the current political landscape is that.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| I'm Italian and the views I have here (left/center
| left/center friends/relatives) is that he's a crazy nut job
| that's gonna hurt europe as well as limiting abortion
| rights and similar things. I'd say there's not much talk
| about economy because we don't understand shit in our own
| economy either, let alone a foreign one... Except that we
| think the rich are gonna get much richer and he's gonna cut
| social spending (ie, less Healthcare and similar things)
| and he's gonna crackdown on immigration. Not expressing our
| own views on it, that's just what i think it's talked about
| Trump here
|
| Oh, he's also a misogynistic, convicted felon that spews
| lies. This is partially our view in my bubble, if I had to
| say it entirely I would get flagged lol
| nickreese wrote:
| Note: Running out the door, here is a brief summary that
| hasn't been deeply considered.
|
| ======
|
| Example: I casually commented at the gym that I thought
| Trump would win about a week ago and went into a very long
| conversation/debate with several people in the gym.
|
| I asked each of them to show me their filter bubbles...
| once I had explained it to them. 2 Spaniards, 2 Andorran, 1
| French guy. The general consensus seemed to be that Trump
| was a major step back socially and would pollute the
| environment, not care about climate change, etc.
|
| Their information came from traditional news,
| Instagram/Tiktok and one from Reddit/HN/X. The only one
| that was even open to hearing my views during the
| conversation was the guy who read Reddit/HN/X. Everyone
| else had their minds made up.
|
| Today at the gym, I had the 2nd part of this conversation
| with 3 of the guys that were there this morning. The
| general take away that the guy who read Reddit/HN/X summed
| up is one of: "Europe has yet to reach "peak tolerance"
| where it appears the US is already there." This realization
| was came to due to the issues of immigrants in both
| Spain/France who don't assimilate which was a hot button
| issue for them.
|
| I kinda agree with this sentiment. I think that Europe (at
| least the part I'm in) doesn't seem to have a great immune
| system for people who abuse the system and generally
| punishes tall poppies both socially and economically. The
| US is completely different, tall poppies are celebrated and
| if you fail or get sick you have no safety net.
|
| For me the difference in world views is best summed up by
| what people are focusing on. Climate, equality, and
| tolerance are the key issues I see pushed heavily in
| Europe... I see this as stemming from the "tall poppy"
| syndrome that is prevalent in both Spain/France. In the US,
| people care about other things and are generally focused on
| things that directly impact them. That is what this
| election was about. Less focus on perceived injustices or
| injustices of the past and more focus on making the future
| better with something different.
|
| Is Europe a great place? For sure... but it has wildly
| different problems and world views than the US does. I
| think it is hard to appreciate that until you've bene
| immersed in both cultures long enough.
|
| In general, I'd just say there is more nuance to everything
| than our brains can handle. My little mission has been to
| try and bring back nuance into the conversation. Black and
| white thinking is lazy. Nuance exists, find it and
| challenge your filter bubble.
|
| I'm excited to see how this casual gym conversation
| continues.
| decide1000 wrote:
| Filter bubble or not; it's a disgrace. A fallen nation. A
| violent dictator. Lies, racism, sexism, violence. People vote
| for this!
| pknerd wrote:
| As if Biden/Harris has set some high standars
| decide1000 wrote:
| Explain. Did he send their private army to overturn an
| election? Did they grab them by the pussy? I am glad I
| have some standards.
| pknerd wrote:
| Atleast Biden Administration is blamed to topple our
| Pakistani govt.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| You know, it's interesting that you don't seem to care
| what American Pakistanis think. Ham sab gaye tel lene
| kya? Ham bhi bhugtenge
| pknerd wrote:
| Munnay Muslims have already given vote to Trump.
| Especially Arab due to genocide support by Biden
| Administration
|
| Tail tu tab lene ata jab tumhare bacha LGBT ghar may
| late. Shukar karo bach gayae
| pknerd wrote:
| > Ham sab gaye tel lene kya? Ham bhi bhugtenge
|
| Pakistani Diaspora agar Genocide aur LGBT enabler say
| hamrdari rakhta tu unsa bara beghairat aur kanjar koi
| nahi, un k baghair tel ke danda dia jye ga
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Yeh Adeel Mangi ko bata do
| pknerd wrote:
| Do not know who that guy is, just googled and found out
| he was Biden's buddy hence irrelevant and it does not
| change my opinion of they supported genocide enablers.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I refused to vote for Hillary in 2016 because of the
| drones so please don't lecture me about chitre urana
| pknerd wrote:
| Tu ab kio Kamla aur Biden k uthate phir raha hay, hain??
| pknerd wrote:
| Dear Salty Dems, downvoting me won't help to hide Harris'
| incompetency and getting votes
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Sure, The Dark Lord is evil, but did you notice how the
| Mayor of Michel Delving failed to do anything about that
| rabbit plague that decimated the Longbottom tobacco
| harvest two years ago?
| pknerd wrote:
| Read my reasoning:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42061182
|
| I am not American but my country has suffered due to
| Biden policies
| Freak_NL wrote:
| The Mayor of Michel Delving flat out _refused_ to help
| the tobacco growers of Longbottom, letting the rabbits
| have their way. The Dark Lord will surely treat them
| better! Or at least kind of ignore them. Or, well, he
| does seem supportive of the rabid rabbit leader, but just
| as often as not he 's just incoherent on the topic of the
| plight of the Longbottom tobacco growers, and I'll take
| that as a good sign!
| cassepipe wrote:
| Leaving policies aside, on purely moral standards, it
| seems hard to "both sides" this.
|
| The people that attempt this were _incredibly_ bad faith
| i.e. for example equating Hillary 's "[Trump] knows he's
| an illegitimate president" which is calling out shady
| voter suppression tactics and the fact that Trump did not
| win the popular vote with the staunch denial of the 2020
| election result by Trump to this day and the organisation
| of a (failed) plot to remain in power.
| decide1000 wrote:
| These situations aren't really comparable. Clinton
| questioned procedural issues and the popular vote
| outcome, while Trump's actions following the 2020
| election (including his continued denial of results and
| attempts to overturn them) represent an unprecedented
| challenge to American democratic institutions. It's
| deeply concerning how many people continue to accept
| claims that have been thoroughly debunked by election
| officials, courts, and independent observers. This
| erosion of trust in democratic processes and willingness
| to embrace demonstrably false narratives suggests a
| troubling shift in American political culture. It's a
| fallen nation.
| tim333 wrote:
| I'm not a Trump fan but the immigration situation was
| getting a bit out of hand. It was a bit do you want the US
| to be the US you knew or have the whole of south and
| central America move in.
| gambiting wrote:
| And Harris or Democrats couldn't fix this? US had to
| elect an actual criminal to fix the issue?
| decide1000 wrote:
| Let's vote for a dictator! That must solve it! Last time
| he was sooo successful.
| VagabundoP wrote:
| I consume a lot of American social media as a European, what
| about his comment was wrong?
|
| Fox News, Twitter, Facebook etc have really done a number on
| the US (and the rest of the world to some extent). The lack
| of regulation of these companies have brought us to the Post-
| Truth world we're living in now.
| taneq wrote:
| I wonder how it compares to the filter bubble with regards to
| North Korea. What if it really is a communist utopia?
| hggigg wrote:
| Buying shares in popcorn here.
|
| Our company, US based, thinks this is bad enough that we have
| contingency plans for his presidency.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| What industry if I might ask?
| hggigg wrote:
| Finance
| bfrog wrote:
| If only, somehow any failures will still be placed on a
| different plate. This is the winner of a dying/dead empire.
| piuantiderp wrote:
| At least they get to vote... Did you vote for Ursula?
| bojan wrote:
| No, but yes for the people that elected here. It works the
| same here in the Netherlands.
|
| Nobody actually voted for the Dutch PM.
| isaacremuant wrote:
| The parliamentary systems in Europe are appalling and
| ensure "status quo" of elites.
|
| After watching it enough at play, you understand.
|
| There's absolutely a sovereignty problem with the EU, which
| is not necessarily fixed by getting out because the
| lobbyists can pay the politicians no matter what.
| bojan wrote:
| I'm watching it for 25 years now, I'd dare say understand
| it well.
|
| And yes, the EU has a sovereignty problem. However, that
| is by design, as the member states wish to keep control.
| It's certainly not my preference, but with the current
| political climate it won't change.
| AndyJames wrote:
| I'm seriously worried about the Ukraine since I live in a
| country next in line for invasion if Ukraine will get defeated.
| cranberryturkey wrote:
| Which country is that?
| gambiting wrote:
| I'm Polish and I'm mega worried about it too. If Trump
| decides to pull US support for Ukraine and be best buddies
| with Putin I don't think it's crazy to imagine Poland
| getting pulled into the conflict within couple years, which
| depending on how things go could mean the involvement of
| all of NATO.
| cranberryturkey wrote:
| He wants the baltics back, not poland.
| VagabundoP wrote:
| I hope EU really steps up, because its looking like the start
| of WWIII, where the EU will have to defend its border.
|
| We all know Putin is not interested in stopping where he is.
|
| I've seen some articles about Trump admin Minsk III and that
| he'll threaten Putin with blah blah if he doesnt sign up. Its
| a long shot but we'll see.
|
| I want the EU to really take this seriously. Ramp up arms
| manufacturing to supply Ukraine will send a message that
| Ukraine will keep fighting until Russia implodes.
| dtquad wrote:
| Ironically a lot of the American Right was actually
| radicalized by the 2015/2016 Syrian refugee crisis in Europe.
|
| Tim Pool went from being an #OccupyWallStreet Berniebro to
| one of the biggest US conservative commentators after he saw
| brown people in Sweden. The Ron Paul crowd (who pretended to
| be "socially liberal & fiscally conservative") posted
| borderline "white genocide" conspiracy theories about what
| was happening in Europe.
|
| Brown people in Sweden is "an invasion".
|
| Russia invading Ukraine is merely "self-defense against NATO
| enlargement".
|
| Don't let them pretend they are just isolationists. They
| explicitly support Russia because of the "white christian"
| racial identity politics they actually align with.
| tgma wrote:
| Poorer and poorer? Hard fact is that Trump presidency delivered
| actual (i.e. inflation adjusted) wage growth for people in many
| years, so your perception of reality might not be accurate as
| what media propagates and makes people believe. As for "women's
| rights," I take it as abortion policy in particular, which
| compared to your baseline of Europe is actually not that far
| off, depending on the state/country used as a point of
| comparison. There is a reason a majority of people vote for
| him.
|
| I can see how Europeans are particularly put off by President
| Trump. His trade and NATO policy requires Europe to uphold
| their end of the bargain, right or wrong, as he sees it, and
| increase trade with their US ally, which is not necessarily
| what Europeans or globalists want.
| tonmoy wrote:
| > Hard fact is that Trump presidency delivered actual wage
| growth for people in many years
|
| Do you have a source for this claim? Covid did end up causing
| salary increase I know, but we can hardly attribute that to
| the president
| tgma wrote:
| BLS data is public and can be crunched from here
| https://www.bls.gov, but posing the basic question to
| ChatGPT:
|
| Wage Growth:
|
| Obama: Modest but steady wage growth, particularly from
| 2015 onwards. Real wage growth averaged 0.5%-1.0%.
|
| Trump: Stronger wage growth pre-pandemic, with real wage
| growth averaging 1.0%-1.5%, but the pandemic and high
| inflation in 2021 dampened these gains.
|
| Inflation:
|
| Obama: Inflation was relatively low and stable, averaging
| around 1.3%-1.5%.
|
| Trump: Inflation was low until 2021, when it surged to
| 5.4%, outpacing wage growth.
|
| Real Wage Growth vs. Inflation:
|
| Obama: In the later years of his presidency, wage growth
| generally outpaced inflation (2015-2016).
|
| Trump: Wage growth outpaced inflation until 2021, when
| inflation surged and surpassed wage increases.
| tonmoy wrote:
| I don't think ChatGPT should be cited as source
| tgma wrote:
| I cited the actual source. You can do the analysis
| yourself to verify. I'm sorry I don't have time to
| manually distill it further for you.
|
| That said, I also don't think my specific claim is
| commonly disputed by the other side.
| wslh wrote:
| Simple answer: two parties, there should be more people
| engaging in politics and less armchair critics.
|
| BTW I don't see Europe in good shape either, even when I would
| prefer to live there for other reasons that are not connected
| to business at all.
| imgabe wrote:
| Do you notice how nobody in America cares who the leaders in
| Europe are? Because it doesn't matter. Which should tell you
| that you guys are bad at picking leaders.
| piltdownman wrote:
| Or it could just be because of the real fear of the
| consequences of the mindset of American Exceptionalism
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-
| Members%27_Pr...
| imgabe wrote:
| The only reason there are US military bases in your
| countries is because TWICE you idiots started wars that
| almost destroyed the world.
| piltdownman wrote:
| Are we just ignoring the Bay of Pigs? The Iran-Contra
| Affair? Vietnam? Desert Shield? Desert Storm?
|
| I hesitate to even mention Kissinger who was effectively
| an autonomous nation-state during the carpet-bombing of
| Cambodia.
|
| This is non-withstanding the fact that WW2 was
| effectively a result of punitive measures and economic
| destruction following WW1 (a blueprint for the post-
| Charlie Wilson's Afghanistan if you will).
|
| The causes of WW1 however - bad faith alliances during
| the right-wing rise of imperialism, militarism, and
| nationalism - look to be back in play in the North
| American Continent.
| kukkamario wrote:
| In well functioning democracy the government policy shouldn't
| flipflop constantly and president shouldn't have enough power
| to break everything.
|
| In Europe, president's power is much more limited, there are
| more political parties and one party winning elections
| doesn't immediately change the country's policy to
| everything, even winning parties need to consider opinions of
| other parties. So overall country's policy more closely
| reflects the average opinion of the whole population instead
| of just the currently ruling party. Changes are much more
| slow and gradual and a single leader change doesn't
| immediately affect that much.
|
| Politics are boring as they should be.
| imgabe wrote:
| Yes, a nice boring decline into global irrelevance. Sorry,
| but being leader of the free world does not allow much room
| for boredom.
| olalonde wrote:
| If your idea of Trump was formed from reading mainstream media,
| you likely have a very distorted idea of who he is. The amount
| of misinformation around him is next level.
| gigatexal wrote:
| Trust me. There are plenty of us Americans -- just not enough
| in the right counties and states -- who are just as upset as
| you.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| I voted Trump. Biden was an absolute failure. I guess HN is a
| bubble to the extreme because anyone could have saw this coming
| but elite leftists
| cbeach wrote:
| As a European I'm glad that Trump was elected, despite his
| personality flaws.
|
| Biden was openly hostile toward my home country (the UK), and
| was a dead end when it came to negotiating the free trade deal
| we should be aiming for now we're free of the EU.
|
| Trump, and the Republicans have more love for the UK than the
| Dems have shown, although this isn't reciprocated by the
| current UK regime, which allegedly attempted to meddle in the
| US election https://theconversation.com/what-us-election-
| interference-la...
|
| At the end of the day I want to see a strong and safe USA,
| because the US is our #1 ally. The markets have responded very
| well to the Trump victory, and I believe that the world was a
| more stable and safer place under Trump than it was under
| Biden. If Trump can complete his Abraham Accords he will be
| remembered as a remarkable peacemaker in the Middle East.
|
| I suspect most people haven't even heard of the Abraham
| Accords, because the mainstream media is so weaponised against
| Trump.
| synergy20 wrote:
| the left went too far,it forces so many people used to be in
| the middle to the right.
| cranberryturkey wrote:
| back in the 80s and 90s politicians strived to be just right
| or left of center. That's who won. Now its those are furthest
| away from it.
| moomin wrote:
| If Biden's trade policy pushed you to the right, maybe you
| weren't that centrist to begin with.
| tofrankfurthbf wrote:
| Just go to Frankfurt Hauptbanhof then see there the real
| effects of European policies. Make up your own mind then.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| What is at Frankfurt Hbf?
| BadHumans wrote:
| I genuinely hope every non-racist that voted for Trump gets
| exactly what they want because I genuinely believe they will rig
| future elections so that Dems don't get the chance to take office
| again.
| Kye wrote:
| All I'll say right now is to not focus so much on the half that
| voted against your rights that you forget about the half that's
| behind you.
| montagg wrote:
| To be fair, it's not half, and it's shrinking.
|
| Best bet is to find a way to build up states that can defend
| those rights and concentrate people there. In response to the
| evisceration of the federal government, set up equivalent
| agencies in those states that can do those jobs. The rest of
| America should be abandoned.
| lymbo wrote:
| Wouldn't this just cause progressives to lose every
| subsequent presidential election, with those rights
| eventually being federally outlawed? 270 gets harder to reach
| the more concentrated a mindset is.
| montagg wrote:
| Yes. In my opinion, it's clearly been a wasted effort to
| try to convince the rest of the country those rights are
| important. They need to be defended where they can, and the
| states that defend them need to separate themselves more
| and more from their parent country. Secession is silly, at
| least today. If what you're saying comes to pass--and it
| could even without what I'm suggesting--then at that point
| secession is the _only_ correct answer.
|
| Either way, it doesn't make sense to spend effort where
| it's not making a difference.
|
| EDIT: Another part of this idea that I struggle with, is
| that we shouldn't ask people who aren't accepted to _stay_
| in places where they aren 't accepted. They deserve rights.
| They should go to places where they can get them, and we
| should get them out of the places that don't respect them.
| And doing that, which I think is the moral thing to do,
| leads to what you're describing.
| tech_ken wrote:
| Also federal government will continue to weaken under
| Trump. Its primary domestic power is by acting as a big
| hose of money, if that dries up then what does it matter?
| EPA, NLRB, all the executive offices are basically gone
| already anyways, and it's not like they've even had teeth
| for the last two decades. Strong blue states enacting
| their own agendas aggressively, independent of and
| unassailable by the federal government is a way more
| achievable goal IMO, especially if the alternative is to
| pin everything on being able to sufficiently turn out the
| entire blue coalition one day every four years. I _can_
| make a difference at the county and state level, and I
| have lots of opportunities to do so. My heart goes out to
| people stuck in red states right now, but at the end of
| the day some things are within my power and some things
| are not.
| lymbo wrote:
| Good points. I've always had negative preconceptions
| around secession, but I suppose that if the government
| fails to be productive in adding value to its people and
| the world, I can see the benefit in being broken up into
| smaller, more independent or interdependent components.
|
| Appreciate your thoughts.
| anon291 wrote:
| Many conservative accounts have been banned. Many
| conservatives doxxed or threatened, for exactly the sorts
| of comments you make.
|
| I would not though, because you have every right to want
| to self-govern. Good luck!
| user3939382 wrote:
| The corporatist warmongers in the DNC represent my rights?
| drawkward wrote:
| No, the corporatist warmongers in the RNC obviously do.
| kwere wrote:
| Cheney and CO. jumped ship and endorsed another party, they
| fear Trump
| consteval wrote:
| As opposed to the republicans, who are famously not
| warmongers and are also communist or something.
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| Somehow I doubt that those are the half the population GP was
| referring to. I think they were referring to voters.
| culi wrote:
| Depends on who you are. If you're trans then, unfortunately,
| they're all you have
| cruffle_duffle wrote:
| Only one of those political parties kept my kid from going to
| school for two years. Only one of them chained up their
| playground and shut down their community. Only one of them
| forced small businesses to close, cheered on when people where
| getting their cars towed from trailheads. Only one of them
| forced state employees to get a so-called vaccine or lose their
| job.
|
| This is fall out from democrats disastrous covid policies. Well
| deserved fall out.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| >so-called vaccine
|
| What?
| latexr wrote:
| Does that half have any meaningful power? People are more
| polarised than ever1 and one half of the choices controls the
| presidency, the Senate, probably the House... And they have a
| very public plan to do a lot of oppressive stuff to ensure they
| keep themselves and their ideals in power for decades. And
| their fans are cheering it all.
|
| I'm not American, and in theory I appreciate your positive
| messaging, but realistically it doesn't seem like you do have
| _half_ of the voters or the power behind you.
|
| I hope this finally stops blind democrats from saying crap like
| "this is not who we are" and "when they go low, we go high" and
| invoking American exceptionalism and crying for God to "bless"
| your country specifically. Don't be surprised nationalists won
| the day, this _is_ who you are. You had an excuse in 2016, but
| not this time. You made your bed, and the worst part of it is
| that it affects the rest of the world so meaningfully. You
| fucked up. Again. Maybe try changing strategies a bit? If you
| keep turning the other cheek while the other party is punching
| you in the face, all you're going to get are more bruises.
|
| 1 I don't have any data, this is observational, and I would
| welcome being proven wrong.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| In what way is that better than to vote for your own rights
| even if it means voting for the vice president of the
| administration that provided almost total support for a country
| that killed 60 000 people in the past year? Mostly with
| american weaponry too.
|
| (And before you say that the other side would do it too, even
| Trump, that seems to show total support for Israel at least
| keeps talking about how the entire thing needs to stop asap. No
| such urgency from the Biden administration, at least that's not
| what their actions show as they keep providing even more
| material support by the day).b
| kccoder wrote:
| Trump will give them license to completely wipe Palestine off
| the map, which will make this issue moot in future elections.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-
| israel-g...
|
| What are your thoughts and level of concern for the Ukrainian
| people in the near future? Do you believe that Trump is going
| to bring that conflict to a close agreeably for the people of
| Ukraine, or will he follow through with his promise to let
| Russia "do whatever the hell they want"?
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/10/politics/trump-russia-
| nato/in...
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I'm curious, what exactly did Biden do to stop Israel from
| wiping Gaza off the map? What restraints has Israel shown
| up until now? So even assuming you were right, what exactly
| would Trump do that could be worse than what Biden has done
| (eg. Support for everything, and providing for most of the
| material that led to almost complete destruction of Gaza
| and now soon Lebanon too).
|
| And in any case my point was more that it is funny to see
| people talk about how one side only thinks about their
| rights and not those of the others and how their side has
| more compassion and empathy. While actively campaigning for
| the candidate that has been completely supportive of Israel
| for the past year. Using the reasoning that hey, foreign
| policy is one thing but at least Biden is better for "us
| Americans". That to me sounds exactly like thinking about
| your own rights first, at the detriment of those of all the
| people who died and suffer from what Biden's administration
| has enabled.
| harimau777 wrote:
| What's the best way for someone from one of the groups that
| Republicans hate to move to a Western European or Nordic nation
| where they are less likely to be marginalized or threatened? I'm
| sure there will be plenty of time to analyze exactly what
| happened, but right now my only concern is getting out.
| olalonde wrote:
| The USA is probably one of the countries that is most tolerant
| of illegal immigration. I doubt there is a good alternative in
| Europe.
| bbor wrote:
| Yes but many European countries process asylum applications.
| For software engineers, you may be able to just migrate
| legally using a work visa anyway -- even the notoriously
| picky New Zealand has a special program just for us, though
| it's limited to Auckland de facto.
|
| Sending love and can relate, original commenter. I wouldn't
| pick anywhere in Eastern Europe, that's for sure. Get
| prepared for lots of "it's just a little fascist rhetoric, he
| doesn't really mean it when he says all trans people are
| pedophiles and he's gonna deport legal immigrants who seem
| illegal" comments
| Muromec wrote:
| Don't do asylum, asylum is the worst thing ever to do in
| Europe now.
| bbor wrote:
| Why...? In _all_ of Europe?
| Muromec wrote:
| Being asylum seeker is not cool at all, as you don't have
| agency.
|
| If you are asking for worker's visa, you will get it (or
| very unlikely not get it) and be done with it in a few
| weeks. Then you just live your life normally, have access
| to job market, pay taxes and all that. Maybe even have a
| nice tax deal.
|
| If you submit for protection, then government will
| consider your application in maybe 2 years, but no
| promise (subtext: we don't want you here anyways, you are
| not a priority). While it's not approved, your access to
| labor market is limited (because they take your jobs!).
|
| If you are a tech worker with a visa, you may learn the
| language or not, do it fast, slow and decide yourself. If
| you are a status holder, you have an obligation and a
| case worker. Generally speaking you have a case worker
| and government wants to know you are still in the country
| and how you are doing.
|
| Now since you can't have a job, you will also have a
| problem finding a normal free market rent in a place that
| suits your vibes, so you will be at the mercy of the
| government as well. Happening be happening in places
| where a lot of people with no access to labor market are
| concentrated and conditions will be, lets just say
| _cheap_. Once you are _processed_ you may get social
| housing. There isn 't a whole lot of it sitting free in
| the center of the capital 5 mins aways from the you dream
| tech job.
|
| Now as to _all_ of Europe? Probably not all of it, but
| affluent tech worker probably wants to go to a nice part
| of it, where everyone also wants to be, including all the
| actual refugees from the previous three wars and people
| who joined them on the way and put the foot into the door
| and don 't want to be kicked out. System can handle it in
| case of emergency, but then the flow has to subside and
| thing have to be back to normal. Well having constant
| inflow is a new normal, so what does political body do
| with it? Downscale and slow down to throttle it.
|
| On the off chance of picking the place that isn't nice
| for everybody's liking, the burueacracy may be
| specifically optimized to reject everyone and not speak
| languages. Bureacracy is also very local and doesn't
| always match political speeches of the supreme leader
| whenever you agree with them or not.
|
| Do the normal tech visa, it's fine.
| alibarber wrote:
| Reading a lot of these comments it does feel like the
| Michael Scott "declaring bancruptcy" approach but with
| asylum.
|
| For starters, you'd be quite limited in your personal
| freedoms until the application is processed [years],
| unlikely to have the right to work, or the right to leave
| the country you just landed in without the application
| being automatically cancelled.
|
| If, and really I can't see this happening, as a US
| citizen, you were to be granted asylum; then you ever
| travelling back to the US for any reason would make it
| likely that you would immediately lose the status (hence
| right to work, etc), likely with a future entry ban
| thrown in on top.
|
| Work visas in the European countries I know of are not at
| all like the US H1B/Green Card style system. There are
| plenty of Americans here who just did it the 'normal way'
| and got a job offer and filed the paperwork for that
| [weeks]
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| Who said anything about illegal immigration? Presumably they
| hope to get a work visa.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| We (Americans) are so used to just picking up and moving
| within the country, and seeing so many people move here,
| that we just assume we can pick up and (legally) move
| anywhere in the world.
|
| Moving somewhere is very different than being a tourist, or
| an extended stay.
| fastball wrote:
| The main group the Republicans were hating on this cycle is
| illegal immigrants, so maybe GC assumed that's what OP was.
| fazeirony wrote:
| in the last two months leading up to the election, the
| GOP spent more on anti-trans lies than on all other
| issues combined, including immigration. at least in so-
| called battleground states.
| fastball wrote:
| Do you have a list of the anti-trans lies they were
| peddling that I could peruse? Also how do you know how
| much they spent?
| fazeirony wrote:
| i'm sure you can do your own homework because i'm
| guessing nothing i offer will be good enough or that you
| are not living in a battleground state...
|
| https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-goes-all-in-on-anti-
| trans
|
| "In the past five weeks, Trump's operation has spent more
| than $29 million on TV ads criticizing Vice President
| Kamala Harris for supporting transgender surgeries for
| inmates and illegal immigrants in detention, according to
| data from the media tracking firm AdImpact. That makes
| the topic, by far, the biggest focal point when it comes
| to Trump's ad spending"
|
| https://michiganadvance.com/2022/11/11/michigan-gop-
| finger-p...
|
| "There were more ads on transgender sports than
| inflation, gas prices and bread and butter issues that
| could have swayed independent voters. We did not have a
| turn out problem -- middle of the road voters simply
| didn't like what Tudor was selling."
|
| https://www.wmur.com/article/chuck-morse-kelly-ayotte-
| debate...
|
| in NH, ayotte wanted forced outing of transgender
| individuals.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TSoTOuo9L0
|
| in ohio, moreno ran ads saying brown "would allow sex
| change surgery for young kids."
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E73kKnbpAVw
|
| in WI, hovde said his opponent (baldwin) supported
| 'castration' for minors.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl1Y2dTzvAU
|
| and in PA, mccormick said his opponent (casey) wants to
| "force hospitals to perform sex change surgeries on
| kids."
| bojan wrote:
| If you are serious about it, which I must at this point assume
| you are not, you need to at least tell us what is your
| education level and what are you good at.
|
| You might also want to take a look at the Dutch-American
| Friendship Treaty.
| harimau777 wrote:
| I have a masters in CS and ten years of work experience in
| software engineering.
| bojan wrote:
| Awesome! This is the list of companies that are registered
| by the government to employ highly educated migrants:
| https://ind.nl/en/public-register-recognised-
| sponsors/public...
|
| A lot of them are looking for software engineers. Just go
| through the list one by one and keep applying.
|
| However - the salaries in Europe are significantly lower
| than in the US. Be prepared for that.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Netherlands is very friendly for tech worker immigration.
| I've known a person who did it, and heard quite a bit about
| it.
|
| Or you could come here to Canada.
|
| The problem is you're going to find the same attitudes
| outside of the US, just a few years behind.
| jahnu wrote:
| You can probably walk into Ireland with that resume.
| scrollaway wrote:
| If you want to move to Belgium, send me an email (cf site
| on my profile) and I can help you with the decision and the
| integration. We need more good software engineers and
| especially founders here.
|
| Be ready to take a paycut. Salaries in Europe aren't what
| they're like in the US. But we make it up in many other
| ways.
|
| (Offer applies to anyone else who sees this)
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| It's kind of a best kept secret, but for US talent (bay
| area, EX-fang) there's a great market in Europe. 95% comp
| what you'd make in the US. Virtually unlimited leverage
| when negotiating.
| wheybags wrote:
| Ireland is a solid democratic European, English speaking
| country with no significant hard right presence in
| government.
|
| Culturally I think an American would find it easier to
| adapt than eg France or Germany. The anglosphere
| individualism is present but watered down from the American
| extremes. Bureaucracy is low compared to the rest of
| Europe. People are superficially friendly, but it can be
| hard to penetrate social circles as an outsider. It is a
| more high context society than the US - you will be seen as
| a loud annoying yank, at least at first, but people can
| forgive, and you can adapt.
|
| There's a functional social welfare system, free education
| and free Healthcare. All three have their problems, but are
| ultimately doing way better than our neighbours in the uk.
|
| If you're black you will experience some racism, but not on
| the same level as in the us. When people hear you speak
| with an American accent a lot of that will probably
| evaporate. If you're hispanic, I don't think it will really
| register as an issue. Spanish speakers in europe are
| generally spanish, and are considered European, not some
| other lesser race the way they are in the us.
|
| With a career in cs it should be easy to find a company
| willing to hire you, and sponsor your visa. Alternatively
| there is a special visa system (very badly advertised) for
| founders to move to Ireland and open a startup. Regardless,
| once you've been resident for 5 years you have the right to
| get citizenship.
|
| This is all my opinion as an Irish developer who has been
| living in mainland Europe for the last 6 years or so.
| userabchn wrote:
| > free Healthcare
|
| It is not free for all.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Ireland is a solid democratic European, English
| speaking country with no significant hard right presence
| in government._
|
| This is of course anecdotal, but my partner spent a
| couple weeks in Dublin and a couple other Irish cities
| recently for a work thing, and was surprised to feel
| unsafe there. One of her co-workers was physically
| attacked by two drunk men, completely unprovoked, and
| several of her LGBTQ colleagues had disgusting things
| shouted at them in public, multiple times.
|
| Depending on what group the toplevel poster is in that
| makes them feel wary about remaining in the US, I'm not
| convinced Ireland is a good choice.
| indigo0086 wrote:
| >If you're black you will experience some racism, but not
| on the same level as in the us. You have no clue what
| you're talking about.
| Halian wrote:
| High school. Am disabled, too. ;-;
| bojan wrote:
| I'm not sure how many immigration paths are available
| without a University degree.
|
| Maybe look into Dutch American Friendship Treaty?
| Muromec wrote:
| You don't need a degree for kennismigrant thing.
| wendyshu wrote:
| > one of the groups that Republicans hate
|
| Illegal aliens? Criminals in general? Trying to think what else
| cma wrote:
| Parsing this for people that didnt get that it was a clear
| joke: Musk worked without a work visa and Trump is a
| convicted felon.
| doom2 wrote:
| Transgender people
| fastball wrote:
| Hate is a fairly strong word. I think a more accurate
| description of the Republican stance on transgenderism at
| the moment is "don't want to support it at all". And even
| then, that is almost entirely in reference to children. But
| it sounds like OP can perfectly well support themselves, so
| not sure that would be an issue as a member of that group.
| pix128 wrote:
| This is just not accurate.
| fastball wrote:
| Feel free to expand on that.
| fazeirony wrote:
| again, the GOP in the months leading up to the election
| spent more on anti-trans rhetoric than all other issues
| combined, including immigration and the economy. if you
| saw any of these ads and the literal hate being spewed,
| you maybe would understand better.
| fastball wrote:
| I haven't seen these ads, happy for you to link them (as
| I said in my other comment).
| fazeirony wrote:
| linked them in a reply to your other comment
| brodouevencode wrote:
| For most of the right, as I hear it: if the trans community
| left the kids alone and trans women didn't insist on
| playing sports (especially contact sports) with biological
| women, they really wouldn't care.
| wetmore wrote:
| I don't know if you saw the "Kamela is for the/them" ads,
| but they stoke a much more general fear and hatred of
| trans people than the issues you are referring to. Those
| issues are picked because they are most popular amongst a
| broad swathe of the electorate, but they are couched in a
| deeper hate and distrust.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| I probably did see them and just forgot about it because
| it's a political ad. I can tell you, living in a fairly
| red area, these are the only concerns I've heard from
| friends/family/people in my church and community. They
| don't _care_ what trans people do to themselves but have
| strong opinions on that they're being forced to not only
| accept but agree with that lifestyle.
| deathanatos wrote:
| A central tenant of the mainstream LGBTQ community is to
| "live authentically". That tenant cuts both ways, in that
| nobody in the trans community is going to force someone
| to be trans -- they wouldn't be "living authentically" if
| someone were forcing them to be trans. I've seen this
| point expressed in the LGBTQ community _countless_ times
| _outside_ of political discussion, usually to someone who
| is self-questioning, and asking someone else if they 're
| gay/trans/etc., which is community, more often than not,
| will respond to with "we can't decide that for you."
|
| As for hatred of trans people:
| https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/cpac-
| spe...
|
| The last political ad I saw, and it was _endorsed by
| Trump_ , featured a segment furthering the conspiracies
| around Imane Khelif, implying she was a man, etc.
| fiffled wrote:
| Every piece of evidence revealed so far points towards
| Imane Khelif being male. Two blood tests from independent
| labs showing an XY karyotype, a member of Khelif's
| coaching team describing problems with chromosomes and
| hormones while also mentioning that Khelif has been on
| medication to adjust testosterone levels to bring this
| closer to the female range, and most recently, a leaked
| medical report showing that Khelif has a male-specific
| disorder of sexual development: 5-alpha reductase
| deficiency (5-ARD).
|
| We can ascertain from all this that Khelif went through
| male puberty and has the male physical advantage in sport
| that is caused by male sexual development.
|
| Interestingly this is the same DSD that Caster Semenya
| has. Semenya is another male athlete who competed in a
| women's category at the Olympics, for the 800 metres
| track event, and who also won gold.
|
| Individuals with this condition are sometimes mistaken
| for female at birth due to internal testes and an
| underdeveloped penis. And are then issued identity
| documents erroneously stating that they are female. This
| is what happened with Semenya and almost certainly is the
| case with Khelif too.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| They don't hate either of those. They cheer them on.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| You'd be surprised how many hard-core xenophobic Europeans are
| there in Western Europe and Nordic nations...
| harimau777 wrote:
| I'm well aware that the world in general is taking a hard
| right wing turn. However, it's not like I have a lot of other
| options.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > I'm well aware that the world in general is taking a hard
| right wing turn. However, it's not like I have a lot of
| other options.
|
| yes you have. Unless you are in US illegally, you have 50
| states to chose from.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Canada is closer, why not there? Just curious. I'm from a
| Nordic nation but don't know how easy it is to immigrate.
| junon wrote:
| Canada is famously difficult to emigrate to.
| intunderflow wrote:
| It's really difficult unless you're in tech, in tech the
| immigration system melts away at your feet
|
| Idk which Nordic country you are in but for example in
| Denmark there's a scheme called fast track quick job
| start that can get tech workers (among others) a
| residence permit the same day someone applies, often
| within an hour of the application being filed assuming
| you go straight to their office to get fingerprinted.
|
| SIRI puts a lot of work into making moving here easy if
| you're a net tax benefit (and imo that's a good thing)
|
| Outside of skilled work and tech though I've heard
| getting a visa is pretty much impossible for non EU
| citizens
| SadTrombone wrote:
| For me personally as a person of Indian descent raised in
| the US, the anti-Indian sentiment that seems to be
| rapidly growing in Canada makes me feel uncomfortable
| with moving there (and I'm sure many Canadians are just
| fine with me staying out.)
|
| That's not to say that Canadians are right or wrong in
| having issues with the levels of Indian migration to
| Canada, I just don't want to end up on the bad side of
| that.
| ValentinA23 wrote:
| Voting intention (%) for LGBT people in France during the
| 2022 presidential election +---------------
| ----+-------------+-------+-------+------------+------------+
| | Political Group | LGBT Voters | Cis | Trans | Non-
| Binary | All Voters | +-------------------+----------
| ---+-------+-------+------------+------------+ |
| Radical Left | 17 | 16 | 33 | 16
| | 14.5 | | Moderate Left | 16 |
| 20 | 13 | 10 | 10 | | Center
| | 22 | 24 | 20 | 17 | 25 |
| | Moderate Right | 15 | 15 | 7 | 17
| | 15 | | Radical Right | 30 |
| 25 | 26 | 40 | 34.5 | | Other
| | - | - | 1 | - | 1 |
| +-------------------+-------------+-------+-------+----------
| --+------------+
|
| Source: https://www.ifop.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2022/03/118851_Rappo...
| patatero wrote:
| go get em tiger
| michelb wrote:
| I think progressive American women are generally welcome in The
| Netherlands?
| stego-tech wrote:
| As someone who researched this, you have three options: Golden
| Visas (expensive and being phased out, but good if you have
| ~$500k sitting around in cash), Ancestry (a recent direct
| relative who was a citizen of that country), or asylum.
|
| For LGBTQ+, asylum is the likely option, but one that cannot be
| exercised until you have demonstrable proof you'd come to harm
| here in the States. That'll be easier for folks in Red States
| whose policies are already openly hostile to our mere
| existence, but you'd likely get pushback since there are other
| states to move to and the Federal policies remain unchanged at
| this time.
|
| Right now, your best bet is to sit, analyze, and prepare. Get
| your passport and make copies of any identity documentation. Be
| ready to leave at a moment's notice, because we don't have the
| luxury of believing that man, his party, or his electors are
| just joking around or otherwise not serious.
|
| EDIT: one other thing you can do is _get the hell out_ of a Red
| State ASAP and move into one of the "Blue Fortresses" of New
| England or the Pacific Coast. Equality Map has a good breakdown
| of states' laws and protections broken down into LGBTQ-specific
| categories, and that's going to be of critical import if
| Federal protections are tossed out. Those areas also have the
| added benefit of plentiful immediate transportation options out
| of the country, either by land, sea, or air if need be.
| 0x3444ac53 wrote:
| What do I do with no degree and very little money? I feel so
| trapped here.
| Johanx64 wrote:
| If you have little money and no degree and are incapable of
| making it in one of the most prosperous countries in the
| world, where software engineers are better paid than
| anywhere else in the world... you will be trapped literally
| anywhere else, especially in a foreign country where they
| are under no obligation to speak to you in english.
| SadTrombone wrote:
| Not everyone on HN is a software engineer.
| stego-tech wrote:
| Asylum is an option, if you can prove harm. In the
| meantime, work on your qualifiers: education, income, etc.
| Unfortunately, no country is going to willingly take
| someone they feel cannot contribute to their society, so
| you need to prove to them that you will.
| 0x3444ac53 wrote:
| You can look through my recent post if you want, but I
| can contribute if given then chance. It's just hard to
| prove to people that I'm worth taking that chance on.
| jkman wrote:
| Look man, nations don't have any obligations to the
| citizens of other countries. Why would any other country
| want to take in another uneducated and poor individual?
| 0x3444ac53 wrote:
| Yeah, I'm aware. I don't need my own demotivating
| sentiment reflected back to me, thanks.
| Muromec wrote:
| You don't need a degree to get working visa in the
| Netherlands (source: I don't have a degree). You can even
| use Dutch-US treaty to basically hire yourself.
| pumanoir wrote:
| (Honest question) Can you share how to use Dutch-US
| treaty to basically hire oneself?
| Muromec wrote:
| Official source: https://ind.nl/en/residence-
| permits/work/residence-permit-se...
|
| I'm not privileged enough to have first-handle experience
| and have the normal knowledge worker visa, but I worked
| with a dude, who had this setup.
| Epa095 wrote:
| You forgot work visa completely. Many places have a skilled-
| worker visa, where if you have higher education AND a job
| offer you get a work visa.
| stego-tech wrote:
| I didn't forget work visas, I just opted to exclude them
| given their typically steep requirements and how they're
| typically sourced through the employer. That takes it out
| of your direct control, as opposed to the others I
| mentioned.
|
| My intention was to empower readers to take charge of their
| outcomes, something work visas aren't reliable for in most
| cases (though in HN readers' cases, it could be a valid
| one; I will be curious if any big tech employers offer
| relocation and visa assistance in the coming years).
| whyever wrote:
| Not sure what you mean by "sourced through the employer".
|
| Usually you need to have enough qualification and a job
| offer to apply for a work visa that is bound to the
| employing company for two years. Switching jobs requires
| reapplying. Afterwards, you can usually get a work visa
| that is not bound to a specific company, and less time
| limited.
|
| Normally it's you applying for the visa, but in some
| cases the company hiring you can file the application,
| which can drastically reduce the time you have to wait,
| but cedes some control.
|
| Of course, all this depends on your nationality and the
| country where you are applying.
| Epa095 wrote:
| For the HN crown I think you should consider skilled
| work-visa if you want to move, and I don't think it's
| unrealistic. You will probably need a job wherever you
| move anyway, this just means you need to find that job
| before you move. Without doxing myself completely, I know
| several North-Americans with that kind of visa here in
| Europe.
|
| You need to apply for a position and get it. Then you
| need to apply for the visa. That can take a couple of
| months to process, which sounds like a lot, but remember
| that in many European countries this is on par with, or
| less than, the notice period for changing a job. So for
| the employer it won't make a big difference.
|
| You will probably have to pay for moving yourself though.
| Muromec wrote:
| What requirements? The only real requirement is to have
| someone sponsor you.
|
| Everything else, including having passport and no
| previous history of war crimes, raping and pillaging for
| 5 years also applies to other visas anyway.
|
| It's also not H1B type of slavery, there are not quotas,
| you can change employer whenever your want and not even
| lose fancy tax ruling. Work visa is the easiest way.
| alibarber wrote:
| To be honest I think that Ancestry and Asylum are about
| as much "out of your direct control" as you can get, the
| latter especially (as in, unable to work, or leave that
| particular country, until the application is decided
| upon)
|
| Remember that 'the EU' is around 30 individual countries
| each with their own work visa issuing procedures and
| rules - none of which are really at all comparable to the
| US system.
|
| Seriously just choose a country and apply for a job with
| a company that doesn't explicitly state that they need
| you to already have the right to work in that country and
| see where it goes.
| araes wrote:
| Having done this the first time Trump got elected, there is
| actually another alternative.
|
| Girlfriend and I ended up moving over to Morocco on a
| temporary visa. That didn't end up working. However, I ended
| up then moving by myself from country to country for about a
| year, becoming a nomad and mostly living out of a backpack
| and sleeping bag. Basically walking and hitchhiking across
| portions of Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
|
| Admittedly, this is rather challenging. However, many areas
| of the Earth are "ok" with 30-180 day stays, and the
| experience itself can be rather life changing. Got to go and
| teach children in Palestine because of that choice, which
| felt like at least contributing slightly to solving the
| issues in the Middle East. Here's the list as far as how long
| they'll allow legal stays per country (for Americans, since
| American perspective).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_United_S.
| ..
|
| The other issue though, is if you're looking now, you're
| already kind of behind. Google says the numbers have doubled
| since 1999, and I've heard much larger numbers (like 17
| million in the last three years). If you believe World
| Population Review, then there's about 8 million registered
| expats existing abroad.
|
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-
| rankings/american-...
|
| Here's another table from Wikipedia that "mostly" lines up
| with similar population percentages. Notably, those who have
| declared residency.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigration_from_the_United_Sta.
| ..
| carlob wrote:
| I'm sure Morocco was fun and there are loads of really
| beautiful spots to visit, but I don't think it's a place
| that rates very high in democracy or in personal freedoms.
| Furthermore it's extremely sexist and somewhat racist.
|
| It would definitely not be my choice if I was actually
| persecuted in my country.
| carlob wrote:
| > For LGBTQ+, asylum is the likely option
|
| Do you have any data points on this, I remember reading that
| some Americans have tried applying for asylum in Canada, but
| no one has ever been accepted.
| stego-tech wrote:
| I do not, because there haven't been sufficient points
| shared reflecting US -> Elsewhere asylum seekers outside of
| High Value Assets (think Snowden). That said, I have heard
| anecdotally that the Canadian government would consider
| LGBTQ status for asylum - though again, a US Citizen
| seeking asylum is a relative novelty in general, so I have
| no concrete data.
|
| As with all plans, this will not withstand enemy contact.
| You will need to adapt it to survive as required.
|
| I just honestly hope it doesn't get to that point.
| XajniN wrote:
| Being from the USA, you cannot get asylum in the EU, no one
| is in danger there. Try Russia.
| jacooper wrote:
| Stay in the U.S. It not much better elsewhere.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Not so 'much better' elsewhere, rather, not as bad as there.
|
| Not being a sore second-hand loser much, may I offer my
| sincere congratulations to Presidents Putin, and Xi on their
| successful re-elections.
| dmazin wrote:
| Hey, if you are a tech worker, UK has a very good tech worker
| visa called Tech Nation. Happy to answer questions about it,
| look it up online and email me!
| intunderflow wrote:
| If you're a software engineer email me for referral to Uber
| Denmark, email in bio
|
| TLDR of work: We write the global platform
| jzackpete wrote:
| You mean a country that is more white?
| futureshock wrote:
| I think people get ridiculed for thinking like this, but as a
| gay man married to a EU citizen, I am 100% ready to pull up
| stakes. We spend months at a time in the EU and have several
| favorite places we've talked about returning to. Western Europe
| has a progressive, pro-worker culture that the US will never
| have. I live in Florida and am financially independent. The
| moment the mood darkens, I'm off to greener pastures. I think
| the key here is that political stability is the icing on top of
| a great lifestyle we are already enjoying for part of the year.
| kranke155 wrote:
| Europe is the next target. The people who got Trump elected
| will be spending a lot of time and effort into reshaping
| European politics now.
|
| I'm European and most likely the overall effect you'd have,
| unless you went to a high income country where your impact is
| minimised, is likely to be net negative by raising housing
| prices in some poorer country like Portugal. Don't be too
| surprised when their own Trump gets elected.
| tmountain wrote:
| American expat living in Portugal here. The chega party is
| indeed on the rise here, but politics are less about
| personal identity and more focused on issues. A lot of
| chega's rise has been attributed to dissatisfaction with
| the status quo and a warning shot to the incumbent
| government. Time will tell which direction things go, but
| the affordability of housing and low wages top the list of
| concerns.
| sparky_ wrote:
| Howdy, neighbor! Am also an American expat living in
| Portugal. We've been living in Lisbon for about a year,
| and so far I really love it here. People are friendly,
| the vibe is relaxed, and life is peaceful with a glass of
| inexpensive wine never far away. Highly recommend anyone
| looking for an exit plan to consider sunny Portugal.
|
| So far, there are no indications of the far-right gaining
| any amount of power with which they could govern. In a
| broader sense there have been a number of rightwing
| victories across Europe, but thus far Portugal (and Spain
| next door) don't look poised to join that trend.
| kranke155 wrote:
| I am Portuguese. You are delusional if you think the far
| right won't be in government soon.
|
| Of course you are an American expat in Lisbon, so I
| assume you are living a life that's likely not very
| connected to local concerns. I assure you, Chega is
| growing like hell. I am not a supporter, I just see it.
|
| Expats and the ballooning cost of housing is a part of
| it. The fact that you moved to Lisbon will have the
| victory of the far right here as a second order effect.
| Think about that.
| kranke155 wrote:
| Chega will win soon. Sorry.
|
| The fact that there are so many expats blowing up the
| cost of living doesn't help.
|
| Enjoy it.
| thenaturalist wrote:
| You are in tech? EDIT: Heck even if not, just come over.
|
| Come work in Berlin.
|
| Very LGBTQ friendly.
|
| The current gov. reduced the path to citizenship down to 5
| years and allows for dual citizenships.
|
| Get a permanent residency earlier, go live and work in the EU.
| 015a wrote:
| The number of republicans in a fifty mile radius of you, or
| even across the country, did not change between yesterday and
| today. What happened during your local government elections
| yesterday? State government?
|
| There is nowhere to run to. When the Right felt like they were
| losing the soul of their country, they stayed and they voted.
| When Democrats feel the same, you want to run? I hear this
| everywhere and its literally the sensibility destroying
| America; not because the right is going to destroy America, far
| from it, but because any _unchecked_ side will.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| >When Democrats feel the same, you want to run?
|
| They want to run because the right is using violent language
| and saying they are going on a revenge tour. Why is that
| weird to you?
| atonse wrote:
| Do you have examples? I'm genuinely asking. Just started
| reading online after going to bed last night.
| TheSisb2 wrote:
| Not sure why this is being downvoted, also curious
| harimau777 wrote:
| At CPAC, Michael Knowles said:
|
| "for the good of society ... transgenderism must be
| eradicated from public life entirely"
|
| Trump banned trans people from serving in the military.
| More broadly, trans people routinely lose their jobs.
|
| Trump has repeatedly called for socialists to be
| destroyed. For example:
|
| "We pledge to you that we will root out the communists,
| Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live
| like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie
| and steal and cheat on elections..."
|
| Trump has called for socialists to be deported:
|
| "Today I'm announcing a new plan to protect the integrity
| of our immigration system. Federal law prohibits the
| entry of communists and totalitarians into the United
| States. But my question is, what are we going to do with
| the ones that are already here, that grew up here? I
| think we have to pass a new law for them."
| Spivak wrote:
| They're saying their plan out loud on TV and people still
| don't believe it. It's maddening. It's not that your
| Republican neighbor is going to bust down your door and
| string you up, it's much slower and subtler than that.
| Institutional subjugation is much easier to pass and for
| people to quietly ignore. Elimination from public life
| was literally part of the Nuremberg Laws! And Florida
| _right now_ has a law on the books that on paper bans
| transgender people from being in public if they ever felt
| safe to enforce it.
|
| Calling Trump Hitler gives Trump too much credit, but the
| political conditions of 1930's Germany and economic anger
| giving rise to a desire for national purity and
| scapegoating minorities is pretty dead on. And it's not
| like Germany is unique, we're really not much more
| advanced than ritual sacrifice of people taken by demons
| to bring about a good harvest, err economy. This has been
| a persistent bug in Human we keep hitting.
| 015a wrote:
| I don't perceive this to be happening in any systemic way.
| I think (in fact, I know) that social media is really good
| at magnifying the extremes, and the extremes of the right
| are scary, mean, and evil. That doesn't remotely represent
| the majority of people in the country. Less than 28% of US
| adults voted for Trump this election, its a single-digit
| percentage of even those individuals who would even
| consider acting out the rhetoric, and let's be real:
| They're mostly in those very isolated parts of the country
| like the west or apalachia which _does_ have internet but,
| sadly, not much else (least of all, good public education).
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Roughly the same level of support that allowed the Nazis
| to rise to power. Even if it doesn't end up happening in
| a systemic way - (a) there is no way to know that right
| now - powerful republican factions have clearly signaled
| they want to go in that direction; and (b) it won't be
| any comfort to those targeted, because there is quite a
| bit of non-systemic discrimination inherent in another
| Trump term.
| prh8 wrote:
| When the right felt like they were losing the soul of their
| country, they weren't being told they would be exterminated.
| They were afraid they wouldn't get to hate other people the
| way they like to.
| _gabe_ wrote:
| Who's talking about exterminating people?
| chris_wot wrote:
| I remember when Obama won, plenty of Republicans expressed an
| interest into moving to Australia. We don't want them.
| Arubis wrote:
| If a visibly armed convoy of folks that oppose your vote and
| your existence slow-rolled past your house, you might
| consider options other than staying and voting.
| 015a wrote:
| Has this happened in a non-isolated fashion? Please cite
| examples.
| Muromec wrote:
| It's okay to rely on feeling and vibes alone. Feeling and
| vibes are real, important and precede outright
| indiscriminate violence
| 015a wrote:
| Your feelings are within your control. So: be an adult
| and control them. In this case that oftentimes means: Do
| research. Consume media from as many sources as possible.
| Do research. Try to find the good. Do research. Channel
| your feelings into improving the world, not retreating
| inside yourself or to somewhere else.
| Muromec wrote:
| It's also okey to not share the feeling that the other
| person on the internet is having. Just saying. I would
| even argue it's mildly impolite to dispute the feelings
| of other people when your have a different vibe about the
| situation.
| 015a wrote:
| You're misunderstanding my motivation.
|
| I am a progressive. I'm obviously dissatisfied with the
| results of this election. But I'm even more dissatisfied
| with the reaction I'm seeing from the left. I cannot and
| won't respect the "vibes" of "we're all gonna die,
| there's roving gangs in F150s in the streets, I'm leaving
| for Canada, the country hates me". I won't respect that.
| It is not indicative of any reality outside today, or in
| the immediate future (and I live in an extremely right-
| leaning place).
|
| The reality that I want the left to adopt is: Its not
| that bad. The world isn't going to end. Both Trump and
| Kamala received fewer votes this year than in 2020.
| Progressive policies are majority-popular in the United
| States. Kamala was just a (very) bad candidate. Don't let
| that energy you're feeling go to waste by planning your
| escape to Thailand or laying in bed all day wrapped up in
| a cocoon. Educate the people around you. Be out in your
| community. And prepare for an even more important
| election in 2028.
| temptemptemp67 wrote:
| You are deluding yourself. This country is finished. Why
| on earth would they allow there to be legitimate
| elections in 2028? You know they have "elections" in
| Russia, China, and Hungary, too.
|
| The people who voted for Trump want people like you and
| me to die. (And fair enough, I want THEM to die!) You can
| choose how to respond to that, but you cannot deny it.
| For me, I don't think I have good prospects for leaving
| the country, but I am investing in a weapon. "Be out in
| your community" -- fuck that. I am acting for me and mine
| alone at this point, EVERYONE else can go to hell.
| pix128 wrote:
| We're talking about the right to life here and you're
| trivializing that.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| If you wanted to move, that information is freely available
| with a simple Google search. What you are doing here is
| feigning disgust, but you won't move or you just would.
|
| No one is out to get you. You are a victim of propaganda.
| pix128 wrote:
| It's smart to explore your options.
| Muromec wrote:
| It's trivially easy to get a knowledge migrant visa to the
| Netherlands. Just find a tech job. There is also Dutch-US
| friendship treaty, so you can found a company, employ yourself
| and do the contract type of thing too.
|
| You will not get your SV salary ofc and maybe even less than
| 100k, but hej, you flee the opressive regime, right?
|
| Now if things are _bad_ and you are targeted personally and
| have a paper trail, there is also asylum thing. You don 't want
| to do that thing, it sucks. Just get a job in whatever country
| you fancy and they will move you.
| rolandog wrote:
| But aren't we supposed to wait out the Red Mirage / Blue Shift
| [0] before calling a winner? (Linked to timestamp of where former
| political director of Fox News testifies about it being a known
| thing).
|
| [0]: https://youtu.be/5XEQ_7zZ-bw?t=93
| AndyJames wrote:
| I think that's it. What could happen overnight already
| happened.
| rolandog wrote:
| Indeed. By the way, for anyone that's interested on the
| topic, I just stumbled onto a nice Stand-up Maths video that
| goes more in-depth on the subject and cautions against "nice,
| simple, neat, easy narratives" [0].
|
| [0]: https://youtu.be/KXQ1ieFRr0o
| sitzpinkler wrote:
| As an example of how pushing a message too hard can have the
| opposite effect: In "The Last of Us" (the series, I haven't
| played the game) the bad people are white (and are especially bad
| if they are also Christian), while the good people are generally
| some combination of black, homosexual, and "neurodivergent".
| Three of the four groups we meet are led by women. The two good
| ones are led by black women. The only group doing well is a
| communist commune. When I feel like I am being manipulated I not
| only discard the message, but actively rebel against it.
|
| Donald Trump disgusts me, but it feels to me like he at least
| authentically represents a viewpoint.
| remram wrote:
| Democrats made The Last Of Us and that losts them the election?
| minimaxir wrote:
| The racial composition of characters in The Last of Us series
| is the same as it was in the game, released in _2013_ before
| identity politics was even on the zeitgeist.
| Xortl wrote:
| I say this as a straight non-religious white man who is
| disgusted by Trump and the fact that people support him.
|
| Making the main character and his brother hispanic is not
| "the same" as the game, especially when the remaining
| straight white non-hispanic men in the show are absolutely
| awful.
|
| Or take the US version of The Office, where the one Christian
| character is a running joke, an awful person with terrible
| takes not meant to be taken at all seriously. Can you imagine
| how it would've gone over if the one black or hispanic
| character on the show was just a running joke?
| tekkk wrote:
| You just gotta laugh at this point. It wasn't even that close so
| people have spoken. What hopefully we all have learnt from this
| is that average American is mostly concerned with themselves and
| how their lives can get better. For others, boo-hoo. Especially
| with this economy.
|
| And I wish the politics would move towards less vitriol. It's
| just sad how both parties are so dug in with their opinions. I'm
| sure there could have been reasonable discussions with regards to
| eg economy and immigration where the concerns of the large
| portion of the population had been seriously addressed.
|
| Being practical isn't a fault, in fact one of the things I think
| Mr Trump got elected. We'll see does it translate to reality but
| he definitely has ideas.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| >he definitely has ideas.
|
| 'Concepts', he has 'concepts'. You'll hear about them in about
| two weeks time.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I worry that these concepts are actually already fleshed out,
| but having not said anything about them already, he had free
| rein to implement whatever he wants since no one voted on a
| campaign promise.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Politics is not going to move toward less vitriol until the
| primary source of that vitriol exits the stage... Unfortunately
| he was just elected to a new four year term.
| wslh wrote:
| I am at work on the mobile phone and quickly checking: does Trump
| made an incredible election (more than what was expected)?
| whoitwas wrote:
| I predict Trump dies before 2028 and JD Vance is the last
| American president.
| siffin wrote:
| Noway JD has the charisma to pull that off, trump would have to
| carry out the coup and cement it before another could continue.
| whoitwas wrote:
| He doesn't need to do anything. Trump dies, he's prez. There
| are no more elections.
| gigatexal wrote:
| And if the GOP wins the house god help us. Smh.
| pknerd wrote:
| Pakistanis in the majority and Muslims in general supported Trump
| because Biden's govt is alleged to have toppled Imran Khan's govt
| and supported genocide in Gaza. American Muslims have voted for
| Trump
| siffin wrote:
| Good for them, anyone can see that trump isn't just going to
| give the zionists everything they want and make it far worse.
| It's not like he's said as such or anything, and they could
| have known beforehand.
| pknerd wrote:
| No US President by design could go against Israel. His SIL is
| an Israeli American.
| siffin wrote:
| One thing for sure, is you're part of the zionist brigade
| (you're easy to spot from a mile away, showing up in every
| comment thread to blatently support zionism).
|
| Any US President, by design, can go against israel, because
| the US is a free nation not beholden to israel.
| pknerd wrote:
| > because the US is a free nation not beholden to israel.
|
| Google APIAC and how much donations they give to senators
| and check their recent statements in favor of genocide.
| Get out of the cave
| siffin wrote:
| I know about that, can you explain how that corruption
| actually makes the US not free to decide not to support
| Israel?
|
| I'll repeat. The US is free and not beholden to israel.
| They could decide tomorrow to stop support, they won't,
| but they are absolutely free to.
| pknerd wrote:
| > They could decide tomorrow to stop support, they won't,
| but they are absolutely free to.
|
| LOL
| selimthegrim wrote:
| They should look up Adeel Abdullah Mangi. Do they think Trump
| doesn't support genocide in Gaza?
| pknerd wrote:
| Trump is antiwar.. what else do we want? Regarding Gaza,
| there was no escalation during last Trump era
| pknerd wrote:
| > Former President Trump is projected to win the presidency
|
| He has already won. 277 votes
| metta2uall wrote:
| I think this short video explains a lot - basically the
| establishment Democrats look after their donors & don't do much
| for everyday people who are struggling economically - hence the
| appeal of Donald Trump who promises to shake things up &
| generates hope - for many voters this "trumps" his bad qualities
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYGy-Ea7jMw
| Havoc wrote:
| Well this is going to be a wild ride.
|
| Dreading it on one level but also looking forward to the
| entertainment of a watch a slow motion train wreck. If he
| actually follows through on promises like mass deportation and
| forcing Ukraine peace that could get intense.
| trickstra wrote:
| We will also blow through any chance of stopping climate
| change.
| jnmandal wrote:
| That was going to be the case either way. In fact we have
| pretty much already blown through that
| jajko wrote:
| Well yes but thats not a binary situation, is it. We can
| fuck up future of our kids a lot, a lot more or way a lot
| more. And so on.
|
| Anyway, our descendants will hate current generations for
| what we have 'achieved' with the only place we can
| realistically live en masse for next 1000 years at least,
| almost all in in past 20 years, I'd say rightfully.
|
| But as long as their stocks are up many folks here properly
| don't give a fuck. Tells you something too, don't put
| automatic morality into folks just because they have above-
| average intelligence, selfishness is a very powerful
| emotion from which none of us is completely immune from.
| stellalo wrote:
| So, screw the planet?
| latexr wrote:
| In the words of George Carlin: "The planet will be fine.
| _The people_ are fucked."
|
| Perhaps that was the problem with the messaging from the
| start, it didn't appeal to people's selfish nature
| enough.
| copperx wrote:
| "The planet" has always been about humanity. Of course
| floating rocks in space will be fine for billions of
| years.
| latexr wrote:
| > "The planet" has always been about humanity.
|
| No, no it has not. It has been about a multitude of
| subjects like the oceans and forests and preserving
| habitats from human interference. Humanity mishandling
| those has consequences for humans, but that has
| historically not been the crux of the message.
|
| It has never been about "floating rocks" either, but the
| life in it, nature as a whole.
| fastball wrote:
| https://x.com/ChrisMartzWX/status/1854161121193714102
| czottmann wrote:
| > Until China and India take steps to decarbonize their
| economies as opposed to making empty pledges we all know
| will never be met, then whatever the U.S. or the rest of
| the West does will not matter.
|
| This is such a bullshit way of thinking. No one snowflake
| feels responsible for the avalanche. "But China...", "But
| India..." is not an excuse for not giving a shit. I hear
| the same arguments over here in Germany, and they're
| usually coming from the "I don't want to change" crowd.
| fastball wrote:
| Well then, the good news is Trump has the guy more
| responsible for electrifying American cars (a major
| contributor to CO2 emissions) than anyone else on his
| team.
|
| Also the state that has more renewables than any other
| state voted for Trump.
| komali2 wrote:
| Are you referring to Elon Musk? He also torpedoed a mass
| transit project in California and built the stupidest
| version of a train ever conceived in Las Vegas. It's not
| clear that Elon Musk has a good sense for efficient means
| to reduce climate harming activity - just that he wants,
| and is good at getting, government money for his
| projects.
| sneak wrote:
| > _It 's not clear that Elon Musk has a good sense for
| efficient means to reduce climate harming activity_
|
| I think that this is one of the most incorrect, and,
| what's more, _plainly and obviously_ incorrect things
| I've ever read. I am almost at a loss for words when I
| read it.
|
| Are we going to pretend that people would have adopted
| EVs anyway in the west without Tesla? Did you think we
| would just abandon the entire western auto manufacturing
| infrastructure and start driving BYDs? Did you forget
| what the auto industry looked like before (and during, in
| the early years) Tesla?
|
| This is like saying that he doesn't have a good sense for
| building orbital rockets. The guy has basically only done
| two big and meaningful things with his life and attacking
| the #1 carbon emission source is the bigger of the two.
| komali2 wrote:
| Improved private cars, electric or otherwise, are an
| unserious solution to climate change or a sustainable
| future. Simple geometry makes this obvious - they're
| quite literally the worst solution to moving many people.
| If I asked someone, "move ten thousand people ten
| kilometers," and they came back with "I will put each one
| in a 2x2 meter box with four seats, but only one will be
| occupied by a person. The box needs to be stored at the
| origin and destination, and independently operated by
| every single person," how could I do anything but laugh
| them out of the room? Addendum: "by the way, the
| infrastructure to sustain this means the box is required
| for trips of all lengths greater than 1.5 kilometers, and
| sometimes even less!"
|
| Attacking cars as a carbon emission source would not mean
| killing an HSR project on purpose. It would mean building
| public transit.
|
| Anyway EVs aren't special. Every major car manufacturer
| has them now, and the PRC makes shitloads too. Elon Musk
| probably beat the market, but it's not like his designs
| were genius - they lacked critical, simple safety
| features for example. Need I truck out the stories of
| people slicing their hands open on the cybertruck frame?
|
| As for orbital rockets, that doesn't really have anything
| to do with climate change.
| sneak wrote:
| The fact that EVs aren't special, and that every major
| manufacturer has them now, are almost entirely the result
| of his hard work. I think a lot of people forgot what the
| world was like before Tesla. This is sort of like saying
| "every phone manufacturer makes touch screen phones". The
| foregone conclusion that "this is just how phones/cars
| are now" wasn't foregone until someone made it that way,
| at scale, first to show everyone the better way.
|
| Also, I think your idea that cars themselves are the
| problem is probably incorrect. Decarbonization isn't
| primarily about reducing overall energy use per person,
| although you can possibly deflect with the argument that
| it requires both that and also clean energy.
|
| In any case, American culture and cities are car culture
| and cities, and even if you could do the impossible and
| magically deploy tons of HSR between every metro in the
| US it wouldn't make people stop driving. Any solution
| that requires first rebuilding the whole country and
| replacing its whole population with people who don't want
| to drive a large vehicle to the grocery store is
| obviously a nonstarter.
| NoLinkToMe wrote:
| Nah the nissan leaf was released about 15 years ago.
| Electric mobility was a proven use case years before the
| release of the roadster or model S. It wasn't the
| paradigm shift that the iPhone was. (and I don't have any
| doubts we wouldn't have gotten to an iPhone experience a
| few years later, either. I used smartphones before the
| iPhone with touchscreens, less smooth and intuitive, but
| already had miniaturized mobile-first apps based on
| touch. Android was released a few months after iOS and
| had been in parallel development for 5 the previous 5
| years prior to iOS being unveiled...)
|
| Tesla accelerated the electric car market several years,
| that's for sure. But nothing more than that.
|
| The most important development for the feasibility of
| electric cars has not been automotive innovation (not the
| powertrain, the motor, the wheels, the interior or
| whatever), but battery innovation.
|
| And battery innovation (i.e. cheaper, lighter, more
| capacity, better heat management, better durability) has
| been ongoing regardless of automotive even existing as an
| industry.
|
| This has been the driving factor for the electrification
| of cars, not any one car company but the battery
| industry. Tesla simply was the best first mover.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/images/published/Battery-cost-
| dec...
| margalabargala wrote:
| > Are we going to pretend that people would have adopted
| EVs anyway in the west without Tesla?
|
| EVs are growing, and will continue to grow, for reasons
| unrelated to climate.
|
| They are the superior product in nearly every way.
| Regenerative braking is a huge objective improvement. The
| acceleration and torque control is a huge improvement.
| The lack of maintenance is a huge improvement.
|
| The only downside of EVs is range and charge time, and
| both of those are being actively improved.
|
| Elon deserves some credit for joining on to Tesla in
| 2004, long before these benefits were clear, and for
| being at the first company to really demonstrate these
| benefits in reality with the Roadster in 2008. But I do
| not think the existence of Tesla accelerated the adoption
| of EVs by more than a couple years.
|
| The Model S was released in 2012. The Nissan Leaf was
| released in 2010.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| It's not an excuse. It's reality, if the US stopped all
| CO2the 2023 total would drop by 11%.
|
| China is 30% of global emissions in 2023. India is 7%.
|
| You can't get one country to stop all, so you have to get
| everyone to cut as much as they can.
| joshlemer wrote:
| > you have to get everyone to cut as much as they can
|
| But the point being made isn't to emphasize the
| importance of everyone collaborating on cutting
| emissions. The point being made is that we may as well
| not cut back because someone else might not. It's
| especially disingenuous to bring up India when they emit
| less than the US does (and especially on a per-capita
| basis).
| simgt wrote:
| China is producing roughly all of our shit and like India
| is 1/6th of the global population.
|
| > You can't get one country to stop all, so you have to
| get everyone to cut as much as they can.
|
| Exactly, but the US accounts for 11% of emissions for 4%
| of the population. Maybe they have more fat to cut than
| others.
| nixdev wrote:
| What do you propose we do about the volcanoes that in a
| single eruption emit more methane and carbon than human
| activity does over a span of two centuries?
| ArtixFox wrote:
| I am pretty sure india is taking more steps than USA. you
| cannot blame them anymore. They are even pushing more money
| into nuclear and created a breeder reactor.
| devnullbrain wrote:
| And China is producing over 50% of the world's EVs while
| also having over 50% of the cars they buy be EVs.
| nickspag wrote:
| You would be wrong. The IRA is projected to remove a
| California-sized block of US emissions by 2030. The IRA
| is the single strongest climate action tried by any
| country since the Paris Accords.
|
| KH was also pro nuclear.
| trickstra wrote:
| sorry, can someone copy&paste what's on that link? (how are
| people still on that site anyway?)
| tiahura wrote:
| Atmospheric c02 has been on a straight line since 1985,
| i.e. 0 correlation to changes in presidential party.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Rehosted on imgur: https://i.imgur.com/FxyqTaC.png
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| Can you post the content instead of just the link, for
| those of us who cannot access it?
| danudey wrote:
| It's a graph that shows a steady and consistent increase
| in atmospheric CO2 for the last 40 years regardless of
| the elected political party in the US at the time.
|
| In other words, it seems to indicate pretty strongly that
| no matter how you vote, climate change is going to
| destroy us.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Image rehosted on imgur: https://i.imgur.com/FxyqTaC.png
| pphysch wrote:
| Climate change was barely a political issue this cycle
| because China is the runaway leader renewable energy tech
| (solar, batteries) and the Biden Admin SANCTIONED them for
| it.
|
| It's difficult for many people in America to accept that
| the "climate change" narrative is _primarily_ a propaganda
| tool and wedge issue to rally votes, and that the DNC doesn
| 't actually care about "solving" it. Just like abortion.
|
| Two things are true: climate change and reproductive rights
| are genuine issues, and they are also weaponized for
| political nonsense. People need to be away more skeptical
| around these debates and stop getting so angry/depressed
| about them (which is the goal of those groups trying to
| manipulate you through powerful emotions).
| NoLinkToMe wrote:
| That's extremely short sighted.
|
| It's clear that Trump pulled out of the Paris climate
| accords and famously wants to start up a massive amount of
| drilling for oil.
|
| Whereas recent democratic cabinets banned certain oil
| drilling, dedicated the US to the climate accords,
| installed large subsidy programs including one that
| prevented Tesla (fully kickstarted the electrification of
| the entire automotive industry indefinitely) from going
| bankrupt, and just recently launched the IRA which is the
| biggest climate change prevention investment ($3 trillion)
| in the history of the world, prompting the EU to follow
| with a similar program to compete to attract green
| investments and innovations.
|
| There is simply a massive policy difference between the two
| parties here. And showing a graph of world emisions that
| have kept going up in the decades prior to mainstream
| climate change awareness, is grossly misleading. For one
| because it says nothing about US policy. Two because it
| happened prior significant climate change policy and a
| divergence between republicans and democrats on this issue.
| And third because without frontrunner countries there is no
| way that you can ever overcome the tragedy of the commons
| issue with climate, because India/China are certainly not
| going to make investments if the US doesn't and fucks the
| climate anyway. We can't all use that excuse, certainly not
| if you're the richest and most innovative country.
| thehappypm wrote:
| IMO, climate change policies directly caused this election.
| People are very price sensitive. Biden enacted some policies
| (Keystone XL pipeline) that contributed to higher energy
| costs.
| trickstra wrote:
| Sure, so let's vote for the felon who openly wants to
| become a dictator, makes so much sense...
| leesec wrote:
| Can you knock off this garbage?
| p_j_w wrote:
| Is he wrong?
| rvz wrote:
| Yes, they are wrong and it is complete garbage.
|
| Otherwise, why didn't Trump already abolish the entire
| constitution and voting straight after the 2016 election
| just to make himself a dictator?
| p_j_w wrote:
| Because there were guard rails in place. Now the Supreme
| Court has said he can't be prosecuted for official acts
| and he has a VP in place who is on record as saying he
| wouldn't have certified an election that Trump
| legitimately lost.
|
| Things have changed since 2016, go ahead bury your head
| in the sand about it. Don't come crying to anyone else
| when the leopard eats your face, though.
| tines wrote:
| He tried, and failed. I guess we want him to try again
| though.
| thehappypm wrote:
| I mean, that's what 51% of the US decided to do.
| Gormo wrote:
| The chance of stopping climate change through politics has
| always been zero.
| trickstra wrote:
| There is no other way though. Climate change is not a
| technical problem, it's political. We've had the tech to
| fix climate change for long time, we know how to do it,
| that part is quite easy and obvious, we are just not doing
| it.
| leesec wrote:
| It's cool when people say things like this so definitively
| when there's no basis in anything
| tech_ken wrote:
| That happened like 6 years ago, now it's just a question of
| high score
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _If he actually follows through on promises like mass
| deportation and forcing Ukraine peace that could get intense._
|
| Peace and enforcing laws are now negatives to Democrats, that's
| why you lose.
| komali2 wrote:
| I would genuinely like to see your thought process on this:
|
| Trump promised to deport all the undocumented migrants. All
| of them. That's roughly 10 million people.
|
| How would you, within 4 years (he is famously a man of his
| word and we can count on him to accomplish his campaign
| promises within his presidency), find and then move 10
| million people, and to where would you move them?
|
| What does it look like to move 10 million people against
| their will? What mechanisms would allow for this?
|
| I have an idea, but I'm curious your alternatives:
|
| First, to find them, you could create a federal bounty
| program. Rat out illegals, get 100$ a head. Well, that might
| lead to rampant suspicion and neighborly misbehavior...
| somewhat exploitable too since you can get ICE to kick your
| annoying neighbor's door down by claiming they're harboring
| an illegal... not ideal. Maybe instead give NSA blanket
| wiretapping access to root them all out? Well, now they're
| listening to everything everyone says, but hey, anything in
| the name of freedom!
|
| Regardless, awesome, now we've got ICE kicking down doors and
| dragging screaming families into the street. Part 1
| accomplished. They load them into paddywagons and take them
| to local jails. Oops, those filled up within the first five
| days of the program. Now what? Stadiums? We're using those.
| Walmart parking lots with UNICEF tents? Sure, but what's to
| stop them from simply running away? Fences. We need lots of
| fences, and lots of UNICEF tents. Cut in some latrines
| (jobs!), run some plumbing, done. We've got some great
| staging areas.
|
| Obviously, we should centralize these, right? We don't want
| to just take over every walmart parking lot in the country.
| Instead, while we negotiate with mexico and some other
| countries about how we're going to dump 10 million people
| over the border, we'll park them in several centralized
| locations, preferably out in the middle of nowhere because
| nobody wants a concentra--- sorry, undocumented migrant
| staging area, in the middle of their town!
|
| That's a lot of people to move, 10 million. A greyhound bus
| fits, what, 30 people? 50? That's too many busses. We need
| trains. We can build the undocumented migrant staging area in
| remote areas with train access, just add an offramp straight
| into the camp- sorry, undocumented migrant staging area. Fix
| up some cattle cars, jam the people in there, gorgeous!
|
| Oops, mexico told us to fuck off and won't take these
| migrants, now what? We can't just let them loose after having
| stuffed them up in there for a couple months, can we? I guess
| we can just keep them in there a bit longer while we try to
| negotiate with a couple other countries...
|
| This sounds like the good version of America, right? With the
| screaming families being dragged onto mass transit and shoved
| into unicef tents? The alternative (aka, status quo for
| decades) is just lawlessness.
| nixdev wrote:
| The larger voices on the more milquetoast side of the
| original "alt right" crowd who are still online and
| streaming push for two broad ideas to implement as policy:
| - any business that employs someone who is not a citizen of
| the federal government and also not a US National, forfeits
| their business - all welfare benefits for non-citizens
| cease
|
| They believe that with these two major policies in place,
| most of the unlawful aliens will self-deport, and just
| considering human incentives on an elementary level, yes
| most of them will self-deport.
| blockmarker wrote:
| The argument that mass deportations are some impossible
| ordeal is only defended by those that are deeply invested
| in that they don't happen.
|
| Most illegal immigrants are only in the US for economic
| reasons. Don't give them any welfare, make hiring them
| actually illegal and punish the companies that hire them.
| When this happens, many of them will just go back to their
| country.
|
| Then if somehow their countries refused to take in their
| own citizens, they can just be sanctioned, or stop being
| given foreign aid by the US.
|
| The only reason you believe that mass deportations are
| impossible and would cause an apocalyse, is because you
| really want it to be true.
| DinoDad13 wrote:
| Asylum seekers are here legally.
| dark_glass wrote:
| This is the problem.
| DinoDad13 wrote:
| But they are not illegal. That is dehumanizing.
| RetpolineDrama wrote:
| Not for long :)
| DinoDad13 wrote:
| Human suffering is the US conservative platform :)
| huhtenberg wrote:
| The Ukraine bit may have absolutely devastating Europe-wide
| side effects.
|
| The EU can't let Russia "win" as it would set a precedent. If
| the US withdraws their support, the EU will have no choice but
| to ramp up theirs, meaning funneling money to the military
| complex. Double or triple that if Trump goes through with his
| NATO defunding/withdrawl threats. This could easily destabilize
| the EU economy, cause internal friction, provide fertile ground
| for nationalism and, ultimately, lead to the fracture of the
| EU. Now recall Trump's cordial alignment with Putin, which will
| undoubtedly encourage this sort of development, and it all
| starts to look outright scary.
| medo-bear wrote:
| No one (great majority of people) in the EU wanted/wants this
| war. It was a dish put on the stove put by the hawks in Obama
| administration. But I think it is way too naive to think US
| can just pull out. They are far too financially invested. The
| question is, ia Ukraine too big to fail for US imperialism
| luuurker wrote:
| Russia invades Ukraine (2014), launches a full scale
| invasion (2022), talks about fluid borders, and so on...
| but of course tankies blame "US imperialism". It's
| everyone's fault, everyone's but the country doing the
| invading part. lol.
| medo-bear wrote:
| Only naive people can think that the prior government
| would have been brought down without substantial US
| support
|
| ...
|
| This is not about what Russia is doing. Russia, like the
| US, is an imperial power that cares little about the
| rights of other. This is about the US testing how much it
| can get away with by enroaching on what it mistakenly
| thought was a much weaker Russia than it turned out. And
| Ukranians are paying the price in blood, often against
| their will.
| luuurker wrote:
| Again shifting all blame to the US without mentioning
| what Russia is doing... I'd call you biased, but this
| feels more than that.
|
| The US supports what benefits them, so I'm sure they were
| supporting the opposition. Russia was supporting the then
| president Yanukovych because that was the best for them.
| That's what countries do.
|
| The protests started when Yanukovych decided to cancel
| the EU - Ukraine Association Agreement[0] to go do a
| similar agreement with Russia[1]. Now, while the US might
| be supporting the opposition, this decision was made by
| the government supported by Russia in a country that was
| turning to the EU for a long time (the exception was the
| Donbas and Crimea)... of course people were going to
| protest. After what they experienced in the 90's and
| early 00's, with many working in the EU for a while and
| seeing it as a better option, are you surprised that many
| would want to be aligned with the EU?
|
| How do you go from a protest to killing protestors? That
| I don't know. Are you going to blame the US for the
| actions of the Russia-backed government? Maybe they were
| also part of the conspiracy... /s
|
| In any case, this doesn't justify Russia's invasion of
| Crimea or the infiltration of the Donbas which preceded
| many of the horrors that are now known. Their actions and
| their president history lessons are examples of the
| imperialism you blame the US for. As someone that seems
| to have a problem with imperialism, you should be
| criticising them, but are not... why is that?
|
| ---
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union%E2%80%93U
| kraine...
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customs_Union_of_the_Eur
| asian_...
| medo-bear wrote:
| Sure I hate Russian imperialism. But ambitions of Russian
| imperialism dont scare me as they are confined to areas
| of their own borders. Those of US do
| huhtenberg wrote:
| Nobody ever wants a war.
|
| However the world let the annexation of Crimea slide in
| 2014 and that emboldened Russia. Let them chop off a piece
| of Ukraine now and that will embolden them even more. After
| all Finland was a province of the Russian Empire before the
| revolution of 1917 and parts of Poland were under Soviet's
| control prior to 1941. And that's without going back into
| middle ages. Lots of places to take back.
| medo-bear wrote:
| The irony for Ukranian nationalists is that Lenin gave
| them their state, and another Communist later gifted them
| Crimea. Today they are fighting for things Communists
| gave them. Even most of their buildings and homes were
| made in Communist times. But they tear down staues of
| their fathers
| joshlemer wrote:
| Yes, their "fathers", that also intentionally starved
| millions of them to death in one of the worst genocides
| in world history.
| medo-bear wrote:
| Some interesting facts about that. The guy running the
| state at that time was Georgian. It was not Ukranians per
| se that were targeted by government policy of
| collectivization, it was the land owning peasant class,
| kulaks. Whether the famine itself was intentional is very
| debatable ie it wasnt an official policy to kill people
| krick wrote:
| You (and people like you) are way too bold to allow
| yourself to speak for "the world" or for "the EU". As a
| member of the world and the EU, I'll say that _I
| personally_ never wanted for my taxes to be spent to
| prolong this war. Moreover, if it turns out, as you
| suspect, it all can change on a whim of a president of
| the USA, it logically follows it never in fact was "the
| world" or "the EU" who decided that in the first place.
| It definitely wasn't mine decision, and I'm pretty sure
| it wasn't yours.
|
| In fact, it won't even really be the voting citizens of
| the USA who make any decisions, because when red/blue
| splits 50/50 it isn't "tyranny of the majority" anymore,
| it's tyranny of luck.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| I was nowhere close to "speaking for the world". I merely
| stated an obvious fact - one country chopped off a piece
| of another and it got off scot-free.
|
| Re: your taxes - it'd be prudent to look beyond short-
| term effects and consider what different scenarios would
| lead to in the long-term. The EU had no choice but to
| help Ukraine to resist. Consider where things would've
| been now if they didn't.
| medo-bear wrote:
| The EU begrudgingly gives assistance to Ukraine, because
| the US forces them to
| paganel wrote:
| The EU will do nothing if it falls outside of the US imperial
| mantle because it's not a proper political entity, it never
| was, it never will. Maybe individual countries like Poland
| will try to do something, but they're too small in the great
| scheme of things.
|
| If Germany had any strategic autonomy left (which they don't,
| they're just a US vassal through and through) they would do a
| second Rapallo, maybe this time also involving China, at that
| point they'd still have a chance to put their economy back on
| track.
| anuraj wrote:
| EU does not have money to spare. Their economies are on the
| brink of collapse. They have committed harakiri by sabotaging
| their own energy security and industrial might. EU do not
| have they any clout on world stage and will decline. Without
| US - ukraine is sitting duck.
| api wrote:
| It's extremely gross that I already see Democrats blaming the
| fact that Harris was a woman. They're going to play _that_ card
| rather than admit that their message and agenda is falling flat.
| Trump should not be hard to beat. He has _never_ been broadly
| popular. Democrats keep losing to him because they refuse to
| listen to anyone but their own echo chamber. They lost in 2016
| and _almost_ in 2020 and learned nothing.
|
| Speaking of... this has firmly convinced me that deplatforming is
| the wrong answer. All it has done is create echo chambers. All I
| see is Democrats scratching their heads and blaming and fuming
| because they can't possibly understand why they lost. That's
| because they hang out in places like this or /r/politics and
| they've all moved to coastal cities with left-leaning political
| environments. If Harris had won in a landslide you'd see the
| exact same thing on the other side because they, too, are in echo
| chambers.
|
| I did get one thing I was hoping for: a clear result. I was
| hoping whichever way it went it would be unambiguous to avoid a
| bunch of conspiracy theories and fighting.
|
| Edit: one more takeaway: the traditional media is dead. Toast.
| They had no idea what was happening and all their takes are
| basically empty hand waving. They're absolutely clueless and out
| of touch and no longer have any influence.
| bennettnate5 wrote:
| Shout out to dang for all the hard work at moderating he does--
| there's going to be a _lot_ of flagged comments to slog through
| in the coming days if this thread is any indication
| sanderjd wrote:
| Maybe because of how good he is at moderation, I would say that
| this seems to be the least awful one of these threads that
| we've had during the Trump era.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| That's because the US west coast is just waking up and
| sitting down at their computers right about now. The next few
| hours will undoubtedly be, um, challenging for the
| moderators.
| xnorswap wrote:
| Also shout out to HN for fixing whatever it was that caused
| threads as large as this to slow down the whole of HN to the
| point where loading _any_ thread would take forever.
| sctb wrote:
| That's also dang.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Give that man a raise.
| ugh123 wrote:
| Seriously. Managing these threads must feel like tax season for
| a CPA
| dang wrote:
| Believe it or not, the hardest part right now is Javascript's
| lack of tail recursion. The browser extension I rely on for
| moderation (written in Arc and transpiled to JS) is stack-
| overflowing on this thread because there are so many
| comments.
|
| Not sure whether it's more efficient to fix these errors
| first, or just power through moderating the thread manually,
| but boy does the latter suck.
| arp242 wrote:
| I have a little extension I wrote for myself to improve
| some things, and that's also having difficulty. So yeah,
| not just you.
| broodbucket wrote:
| The hardest part of moderating a big, high-traffic, heated
| political thread being JavaScript's lack of tail recursion
| is the most HN thing I've ever seen.
| xnx wrote:
| > The browser extension I rely on for moderation (written
| in Arc and transpiled to JS) is stack-overflowing
|
| Throw more hardware at it! Get a maxed-out Macbook same day
| delivered.
|
| Server(s?) seems to be holding up well given what must be
| record activity levels.
| ckcheng wrote:
| > Javascript's lack of tail recursion
|
| Even in Safari? [1]
|
| [1]: "As of July 22, 2023 Safari is the only browser that
| supports tail call optimization"
| https://stackoverflow.com/a/37224563
| bru3s wrote:
| uh yeah suck on that mod's cock harder, yeah
| Animats wrote:
| Foreign policy under Trump will generally be isolationist.
|
| - US out of NATO? Trump will at least threaten that. The larger
| European countries are currently weak militarily by historical
| standards. There does not seem to be enough will in Europe to
| spend at US levels, outside of the countries on the front line,
| such as Poland and Finland.
|
| - Ukraine war: Heavy US support for Ukraine probably stops.
| Whether Ukraine surrenders is up to Ukraine. Ukraine can fight
| on, but won't win much. Trump will meet with Putin and will give
| Putin much of what he asks for.
|
| - Israel's wars: US support continues.
|
| - China vs. Taiwan: Reduced support for Taiwan. China starts
| treating the area inside the nine lines as their own lake, and no
| US Navy craft go there. Pressure on Taiwan increases. China will
| attempt to get Taiwan to cave without actually invading. A
| blockade is possible.
|
| - Trade with China: heavy protectionism on the US side. Few other
| countries will go along. Overall, China's influence in the world
| will increase.
|
| - China's influence in South America will continue to increase.
| This isn't noticed much in the US, but it's big. South America
| now trades more with China than with the US. China controls about
| 40 ports in South America. The US had military bases around the
| world. China builds ports.
| presentation wrote:
| Can the EU muster political capital to fill the void that the
| US will leave in Ukraine?
|
| I am most worried about East Asia, really hoping Taiwan
| survives the next 4 years.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| They will have to when Russia knocks against their borders.
| aprentic wrote:
| Theoretically, yes. It's pretty unlikely.
|
| The US alone currently has more than 2x the military
| expenditure of the entire EU. The US also has a larger GDP
| than the entire EU.
|
| The US supplies the main bulk of Ukrainian military aid.
| https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-
| ukraine/ukraine-s...
|
| The EU would have to make some very serious budgeting changes
| if they wanted to fill that void. A bunch of EU politicians
| would need to make the case for deep budget cuts, tax
| increases, war bonds, or some combination of those.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| I just want to mention that EU has around EUR200 billion in
| frozen Russian assets. On top of that the various countries
| will contribute.
|
| Even if it turned out that Trump has some backroom deal
| with Putin, and pushes hard for Ukraine to surrender - he'd
| be an absolute fool to not take that kind of money, and
| sell arms to European allies, and Ukraine.
|
| That's money in the pocket for the US arms industry.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Why don't they? Isolationist USA is not ideal, but USA
| spending way more defending Ukraine than the combined EU is
| also stupid. Russia is literally knocking on their doorsteps,
| they should be the first to push back.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| I really hope too. If Taiwan falls, what message does it send
| to Japan, South Korea, the Philippines? Are the US willing to
| lose their influence there and give a free pass to China?
| SimianSci wrote:
| This tracks with some of the models we have been dealing with
| in the defense industry. Big reason why a lot of our national
| security types did not want to see Trump reelected.
|
| I don't think your average US citizen realizes how expensive
| and difficult things are going to get as US global influence
| eventually hits an "unrecoverable dive"
| dtquad wrote:
| There are American right-wing commentators who are praising
| "de-dollarization" and the rise of BRICS. It's a combination
| of having half your lifesavings in crypto and letting anti-
| LGBT/immigrant identity politics override the geopolitical
| interests of your own country.
| dotancohen wrote:
| US global influence, at least militarily, hit an all-time low
| when Biden twice said to Iran "don't", then Iran did, and
| Biden did not respond. Decades of investing in a Navy that is
| literally one of the most expensive enterprises in human
| history have been eroded as Biden demonstrated to the US's
| enemies that American deterrence means literally nothing.
| sanderjd wrote:
| This is incredibly ahistorical.
| dotancohen wrote:
| What is ahistorical here? This is the video of Biden
| stressing "don't":
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=aWFefjhPtQk
| sanderjd wrote:
| That this is "an all-time low".
| dotancohen wrote:
| I see, and yes I agree. I should have said "all time low
| since the second world war". I did carefully state "at
| least militarily".
|
| The point is that US enemies are now openly mocking the
| US for stating "don't" so blazingly, then doing nothing.
| They see that the US will not use real force, so they
| openly defy the US now.
| nprateem wrote:
| The US will back Taiwan once musk tells trump that's where the
| AI chips come from. After that there will be no guarantees.
| hayd wrote:
| Biden's Chips Act attempts to onshore chip production,
| arguably so that we wouldn't have to protect Taiwan in the
| future (or mitigate against it's eventual capture). However,
| were Trump to allow China to take Taiwan it would make him
| look incredibly weak - he won't do that.
|
| If it happens, it happens this year.
| sobellian wrote:
| I doubt we see the same isolationism w.r.t. China, who remain
| Trump's main bogeyman (other than immigrants). The policy will
| probably make less sense, since as you mentioned his tariffs
| and transactional diplomacy may confound US efforts to build an
| anti-China alliance in the Pacific.
|
| It would probably be a poor move for China to blockade Taiwan
| (an act of war). If the US decides to intervene, it would be
| very painful for China without a pre-emptive strike on US bases
| in the region. For all the talk of Trump as an anti-war
| candidate, he didn't seem to say no to many military strikes as
| POTUS, and this hypothetical would represent the US' best
| possible entry into a war over Taiwan.
| aprentic wrote:
| China has repeatedly demonstrated 2 things WRT Taiwan.
| They're patient and they're serious about their red lines.
|
| I can't recall a single instance where China announced
| anything about Taiwan that wasn't reactive. They just keep
| repeating the "one China" policy.
|
| Their official stance is that there's no need to invade
| Taiwan because Taiwan is already part of China and they
| reserve the right to use force to enforce their territorial
| integrity.
|
| The practical manifestation of that policy has been that
| China and the US both get to pretend that their view on
| Taiwan is the reality and nobody will do anything if the
| other side doesn't rock the boat.
|
| Their red line is a formal declaration of independence by
| Taiwan. As near as I can tell, all but one of their "military
| exercises" has been in response to actions that get close to
| that line in diplomatic terms
| https://globaltaiwan.org/2024/10/chinas-military-
| exercises-a...
|
| During many of those exercises effectively blockaded Taiwan.
| They did that for a week after Pelosi's visit and they
| experienced no pain in response.
|
| I draw 3 conclusions from these observations:
| 1) China will not invade Taiwan without some external
| stimulus 2) China is prepared to blockade Taiwan in
| the event of any attempts at secession 3) China has
| established that secessionist behavior is casus belli for a
| blockade in the eyes of the international community
| ajsjfnfnjf wrote:
| > Israel's wars: US support continues.
|
| This means US soldiers dying in Iran if the escalation
| continues. I'd hardly call that "generally isolationist".
|
| Israel has no chance of fighting Iran without US troops. Trump
| received a hefty amount of Zionist money this time around (Bill
| Ackman swinging right is crazy) and is cozy with pompeo et al.
| The writing is on the wall.
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| Wouldn't it be amazing if we had a viable third party? I can
| dream, can't I?
| dtquad wrote:
| Number of parties don't determine ideological span. For example
| the 14 political parties in the Danish parliament all support
| Ukraine.
| jacooper wrote:
| That's one issue of many. You vote for the party which maches
| your ideas and opinions on many issues, not only one.
| slothtrop wrote:
| The other interesting thing about Denmark is that most
| parties are similar on immigration. Across the pond it's
| likened to a Social Democracy, but it's also a high-trust
| society with low crime rates.
| skinkestek wrote:
| That hasn't always been the case though, has it?
| slothtrop wrote:
| Which part? The country is over 80% ethnic Danish, so I
| imagine some aspect of that has been consistent a long
| time.
| skinkestek wrote:
| I mean, what is now the new Danish immigration policy was
| considered racist by every mainstream party until a fee
| years ago, wasn't it?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Irrelevant. In this country, there _is_ large ideological
| span. And allowing new parties a chance to succeed allows
| old, co-opted ones to die.
| runeks wrote:
| Agreed. And preferably a fourth, fifth and sixth as well.
| lobsterthief wrote:
| Ranked choice voting is the only path to this.
| clolege wrote:
| Have you not heard about approval voting? Or do you not see
| it as another path to multi party elections?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Approval voting would be better than what we have now,
| but I think ranked choice is easier for people to
| understand.
|
| I think putting preferences is more comforting to people
| than the idea of approving people equally if you have
| preference.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > I think ranked choice is easier for people to
| understand
|
| I strongly disagree. "Vote for one _or more_ candidates "
| is even easier to explain than "sort all these candidates
| in the order of your preference".
|
| And once you start trying to explain the potential
| adverse effects there's no contest. Approval voting
| today, tomorrow, forever.
| buzzy_hacker wrote:
| Proportional representation is more important than RCV vs
| approval voting for single-winner elections. And, in the
| US, multi-winner RCV (single transferable vote) is the
| most viable approach to achieve that.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| * You can cap the number of candidates to rank (in other
| words cap the number of instant run-offs before another
| election may be needed). Or you cap the number of
| candidates, or determine a tie-breaker strategy after X
| rounds.
|
| * What adverse effects are there that are worse than
| FPTP?
|
| * I think if someone loathes candidate A, doesn't like
| candidate B but would tolerate them, and REALLY LIKES
| candidate C, they should be able to express that
| preference. Approval voting demands they express B and C
| with equal endorsement. Personally, I think that's
| discouraging.
| clolege wrote:
| > what adverse effects are there that are worse than
| FPTP.
|
| * The results of close elections become basically random
| (due to results swinging wildly depending on the order in
| which the first few candidates are eliminated)
|
| * You have to convey results with a _series_ of graphs
| rather than a single graph (confusing for voters)
|
| * You need all ballots in-hand to start an official
| count. You can't call elections early. It is easy to
| affect the outcome of an election by delaying or
| destroying a few mail-in ballots
| magaaaa wrote:
| RFK Jr tried, the dems shut it down.
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| Ralph Nader is a better reference point for the dems shutting
| down the possibility of a third party candidate
| frank_nitti wrote:
| Nader is the kind of leader we need, but don't deserve.
|
| Dems employed some similar strategies with Sanders in 2016,
| despite his decision to run as a Democrat.
|
| It is interesting to look at the intersection of positions
| held by the likes of Ralph Nader and Ron Paul, especially
| where they differ from their respective "most aligned"
| mainstream party platforms, where they are marginalized.
| The most prevalent of these are the Military and Prison
| Industrial Complexes, and in my anecdotal experience 98% of
| the people agree regardless of their socio-economic status
| frmersdog wrote:
| You're thinking of Ross Perot.
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| I'm not, Ross Perot played a big part in getting Clinton
| elected so it'd be weird for them to take issue with him.
| More recently the democrats blamed 2000 on Nader running
| third party on the assumption that all of his votes
| would've gone to Gore otherwise.
| thrance wrote:
| He joined the Republicans... he was always one anyways, just
| trying to divert democrat votes.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| I guess he has been playing the long game then right?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr. >He
| said that the financial industry and the military-
| industrial complex are funded at the expense of the
| American middle class; that the U.S. government is
| dominated by corporate power; the Environmental Protection
| Agency is run by the "oil industry, the coal industry, and
| the pesticide industry";
|
| >In an interview with Andrew Serwer, Kennedy said that the
| gap between rich and poor in the U.S. had become too great
| and that "the very wealthy people should pay more taxes and
| corporations". He also expressed his support for
| Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax plan,
| which would impose an annual tax of 2% on every dollar of a
| household's net worth over $50 million and 6% on every
| dollar of net worth over $1 billion.[147]
|
| >Kennedy attacked the operations of former CIA director
| Allen Dulles, condemning U.S.-backed coups and
| interventions such as the 1953 Iranian coup d'etat as
| "bloodthirsty", and blamed U.S. interventions in countries
| such as Syria and Iran for the rise of terrorist
| organizations such as ISIS and creating anti-American
| sentiment in the region.
|
| >In an article titled "Why the Arabs Don't Want Us in
| Syria" published in Politico in February 2016, Kennedy
| referred to the "bloody history that modern
| interventionists like George W. Bush, Ted Cruz, and Marco
| Rubio miss when they recite their narcissistic trope that
| Mideast nationalists 'hate us for our freedoms.' For the
| most part they don't; instead they hate us for the way we
| betrayed those freedoms--our own ideals--within their
| borders".
|
| >Kennedy has advocated for a global transition from fossil
| fuels to renewable energy,[169][170] but has opposed
| hydropower from dams.[129][130][131][132][133][134] He has
| argued that switching to solar and wind energy reduces
| costs and greenhouse gases while improving air and water
| quality, citizens' health, and the number and quality of
| jobs.[171] Kennedy's fight to stop Appalachian mountaintop
| removal mining was the subject of the film The Last
| Mountain.
|
| >As a "well-respected climate lawyer" in the 2000s,[204]
| Kennedy was "often linked to top environmental jobs in
| Democratic administrations", including in the 2000, 2004,
| and 2008 presidential elections.[209] He was considered as
| a potential White House Council on Environmental Quality
| chair for Al Gore in 2000 and considered for the role of
| EPA administrator under John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama
| in 2008.[209]
| thrance wrote:
| Yeah, OK, he was a center-left guy once, who embraced the
| grift like so many other did.
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| You'd need proportional representation or something like the
| French system or you wind up with very skewed results
|
| for example the UK's most recent election had the following
|
| - one party has 410/650 of the seats in government with a third
| of the popular vote
|
| - they gained 211 seats from the previous election off the back
| of a 1.5% swing in the popular vote
|
| - another party has 65/650 of seats with 12% of the vote,
| another has 5/650 seats with 14.5% of the vote
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Runoff voting or something similar would work too. Tons of
| people don't vote for their preferred 3rd party because they
| realistically want to help their slightly-aligned major party
| defeat their not-aligned other major party.
| manmal wrote:
| That reminds me a lot of South Park episode 8 of season 8.
| paldepind2 wrote:
| > You'd need proportional representation or something like
| the French system or you wind up with very skewed results
|
| Is the French system a good example of a multi-party system?
| It currently seems to be struggling with handling three
| parties and it doesn't guarantee proportional representation.
| The presidential election is a winner-takes-all system and in
| the election for the Assemblee Nationale each constituency is
| a winner-takes-all.
| unbrice wrote:
| > Is the French system a good example of a multi-party
| system?
|
| I would say yes in the sense a new party can (and did)
| emerge and rise to power when there is demand. Even before
| that you had some healthy rise and fall of political
| parties and political alternance beyond just two main
| contenders.
|
| > It currently seems to be struggling with handling three
| parties
|
| There are like 6 parties with more than 10% of seats, the
| current government is a coalition of five parties (from two
| main "families") and no shutdowns or hung parliament.
|
| > Doesn't guarantee proportional representation
|
| That however is true, and by design. This is a property the
| french voting system share with eg: ranked choice and other
| systems that aim at resolving the compromise as part of the
| election rather than afterwards.
|
| I don't mean to say that the french voting system is
| perfect (I quite like ranked choice), simply that it is a
| functioning one with interesting properties.
| paldepind2 wrote:
| Thanks. I had no idea there where that many parties in
| the parliament. At the last election I got the impression
| that it was just Le Pen's party, Macron's party, and a
| left-wing coalition. But I guess that was simplifying
| media coverage.
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| not necessarily, I just wanted to give an example of the
| kind of measures that would be required to handle multiple
| parties that people might already know.
| kelipso wrote:
| The House of Representatives in the US gets voted in the
| exact same way that Parliament in the UK gets voted. Yet
| there isn't a single third party seat in the House. The
| problem is something non-electoral, like the third parties
| are not trying hard enough, or they are being blocked
| somehow, if they don't have even one seat in the House.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/how-us-states-make-it-
| tough...
| throwaheyy wrote:
| Not the exact same way -- far from it. Look up ranked
| choice voting. It makes third (and beyond) parties actually
| viable.
| kelipso wrote:
| I was talking about the US House and UK Parliament,
| neither of which use ranked choice voting.
| samier-trellis wrote:
| I don't think third parties even really try to organize and
| do the boring work of proving themselves in local/state
| office.
|
| They are just spoilers; you don't see the Libertarians or
| Greens saying "you know what, forget the presidency,
| obviously we aren't going to win--let's field candidates
| for like mayor, city council, DA, state legislature, etc.
| in really swingy/purple districts and show people what we
| can do"
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| Yep, but it actually breaks the UK system to have more than
| two parties so the existence of two parties there isn't
| actually a very good alternative. There's a lot of seats in
| the most recent election where the Conservative party lost
| only because the even further right wing Reform party took
| so many votes.
|
| If I were to guess why third parties don't make much of a
| dint it'll be because successful movements gradually get
| incorporated into one party or the other via the primary
| system. Once a party has drained away the core appeal the
| third party or outside movement will flounder.
| n4r9 wrote:
| And get this, fewer people voted for Starmer in 2024 than
| voted for Jeremy Corbyn in either 2017 or 2019.
| kobalsky wrote:
| you need a different voting method first, either ballotage or
| any of the other systems that don't destroy parties with
| overlapping voters
| randomdata wrote:
| Is the destruction a problem? When a viable third-party rises
| up, you will again return to a two party system, that is
| true. But it will be with the new party that you want, not
| the old party that wasn't cutting it.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Ranked choice solves the vote splitting issue.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| Ranked Choice is an improvement, but please research
| Approval Voting. Simpler and better.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I have always thought that it would be interesting to see an
| "Ordinary people party" that focuses on the silent majority,
| held by someone who never wants to be the president but loves
| to hold a percentage as a bargaining chip.
| maxehmookau wrote:
| > I have always thought that it would be interesting to see
| an "Ordinary people party" that focuses on the silent
| majority
|
| There is no silent majority. Turnout was >60% in 2020, so by
| that measure there's a silent minority at best.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Yeah, I was about to write "But looks like Trump kinda does
| that", but thought that could be a bit controversial so I
| didn't.
| odo1242 wrote:
| Silent as in public discussion, not votes, I think.
| umeshunni wrote:
| > an "Ordinary people party"
|
| Hate to break it to you, but that's the GOP at this point.
| mbesto wrote:
| The ONLY way this gets fixed is if ranked choice voting is put
| in place. But this also requires the people in power implement
| it. Good luck with that.
| Taikonerd wrote:
| The good news is, RCV is getting good traction at the city
| and state level. Actually it was on the ballot in several
| more places yesterday: [0]
|
| (I haven't seen which of those passed or failed yet.)
|
| [0]: https://fairvote.org/ballot-measures/
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| Approval voting please. RCV is better than we have, but it
| makes zero sense next to approval voting.
| max51 wrote:
| I don't remember who said it, but I loved the idea of an extra
| option on the ballot for a redo. If it gets a big enough
| percentage, you redo the election with new candidates and the
| old ones can't be candidates ever again.
| ss64 wrote:
| The problem with that is everyone might vote for it
| repeatedly, making more and more politicians ineligible. You
| could end up with 10 or 20 elections in one year and you
| wouldn't be able to repeal the rules without a government in
| place.
| petesergeant wrote:
| No. For both France and Canada it's hollowed out the middle,
| and both are facing upcoming elections between hard right and
| hard left as a result
| VancouverMan wrote:
| Canada doesn't have any "hard right" party of note at the
| federal level.
|
| Today, the Conservative Party is a centre-left party. They
| support big government, taxation, immigration,
| interventionism, and other policies that are inherently not
| compatible with "right wing" ideologies.
|
| Comparing the Conservative Party's platform to that of the
| centrist People's Party makes the Conservative's centre-left
| positioning more obvious.
|
| Recently, the Conservative Party's platform has more closely
| resembled the farther-left Liberal Party's platform than it
| has the centrist People's Party platform.
| danbolt wrote:
| I would think that the social policies of the federal
| Conservative Party place it in Centre-Right to Right. It'd
| be closer to what you mention if Peter MacKay or Erin
| O'Toole had no opposition in 2020.
|
| I understand that your political views might see the Tories
| as Centre-Left, but your pegging of the PPC as centrist
| strikes me as mischaracterizing the present federal
| landscape.
| zawaideh wrote:
| Canada does not have a hard left party.. The NDP is at best
| social democratic which is centre left.
|
| Even the conservatives, while courting some hard right views,
| is arguably not that far right.. evne though I would put them
| firmly in the right wing.
| 8note wrote:
| The biggest issue facing Canada is that all of the parties
| support rising house prices. There's no variety, even under a
| multi-party system
| vecter wrote:
| As long as America has a first-past-the-post voting system,
| then game theory dictates that it will always be a two-party
| system.
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| Canada has FPTP and has 5 parties represented in parliament.
|
| Right now the governing party is a Liberal/NDP alliance, and
| it's possible that the next election will result in a
| Conservative government with a Bloc opposition.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| The bloc only exist because Quebec is special. The NDP only
| exist because the liberals just pander and then do whatever
| they want once elected and everyone knows it. (and
| Canadians in the east are afraid to vote conservative
| federally because they are mostly a western thing)
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| The bloc only exist because Quebec is special. The NDP only
| exist because the liberals just pander and then do whatever
| they want once elected and everyone knows it. (and
| Canadians in the east are afraid to vote conservative
| federally because they are mostly a western thing) And
| greens having one seat is not anything real
| samsartor wrote:
| Unfortunately first-past-the-post was on the ballot in a lot
| of states this year, and absolutely crushed ranked-choice:
| https://ballotpedia.org/Ranked-
| choice_voting_(RCV)#Ballot_me...
|
| I live in Colorado and couldn't be more pissed off. We had a
| shot at viable 3rd parties and blew it.
| culi wrote:
| Alaska might even repeal it's RCV. Mostly due to voter
| confusion blaming it for the reason Dems had some minor
| successes after it was adopted
| edm0nd wrote:
| Even if a 3rd party got elected president, the Senate and the
| House are Republican/Democrat, they wouldnt be able to get
| anything passed and it would be largely useless.
|
| The entire system needs an overhaul.
| cryptonector wrote:
| You did. His name is RFK Jr.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Don't you worry, even with the large number of parties in the
| Austrian Nationalrat, German Reichstag or even in the Dutch's
| Tweede Kamer you still have people who are unhappy with all of
| the parties.
| scotty79 wrote:
| We would have it if Republicans didn't bend their knee to Trump
| in 2016. We'd have Democrats, Trumpists and Republicans. But
| Republicans didn't want to become a third party so they let
| themselves get completely consumed by Trumpists in exchange for
| letting them keep the branding.
| jesseab wrote:
| You're not alone, friend. A three body problem would make for
| more interesting dynamics.
| Molitor5901 wrote:
| What needs to happen is that the American people need to RUN.
| Every single time. Take Colorado as an example: A third party
| candidate could get on the ballot for congress for as little as
| 1,500 signatures from registered voters. To change the two-
| party system will be like legalizing marijuana. City by city,
| state by state, all the way.
|
| The problem is that there's not much money in third party
| politics...
| calebm wrote:
| All magnets are dipoles.
| ajot wrote:
| I salute my brothers in Istanbul, the argentinean peso and
| turkish lira will fall, but they will have each other again.
| tomohawk wrote:
| Harris couldn't even address her people last night. That pretty
| much sums up her ability to be a leader. We dodged a bullet.
| archagon wrote:
| No, you shot yourself in the head to spite your face.
| stuckkeys wrote:
| I had to double check if I was on reddit...these are some wild
| comments lol
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Well, I guess that shows our collective feeling toward democracy.
| Is it too much to hope that USAv2 adopts a parliamentary form of
| government? Or is it necessary to step through an authoritarian
| phase first?
|
| For the sake of my kids I'm glad we live in a blue state, so we
| might be somewhat insulated from the immediate consequences. Even
| then, I'm glad I'm a gun toting liberal and have the means to
| defend myself against those who wish me and my family harm.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| At least 30% of any blue state voted for Trump. If you actually
| believed 30% of the walking public wanted to do your family
| harm, you'd be in another country.
|
| You're just being dramatic because you think everyone who voted
| for Trump is stupid.
|
| Try taking a different tack. Maybe over 50% of the country is
| not stupid and don't wish you harm? Your family will be
| stronger if you try to understand your fellow man.
| archagon wrote:
| My fellow man voted for an obvious sexual predator, felon,
| and insurrectionist. What more is there to say, really?
| People are disgusting.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Sounds anti-human.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I'm not calling anyone stupid. I'm saying that when they say
| hateful things about my daughter and her right to exist, I
| take that threat seriously. When they say they won't protect
| me because of how I voted, I need to plan on protecting
| myself.
|
| I'm just listening to what you say and believing that you
| really mean it.
| NemoNobody wrote:
| What about me? I'm gay and they have promised to make this a
| christian nation - they think God made me wrong so how am I
| supposed to feel when he wins like this?
|
| I'm supposed to think my fellow man has made any attempt to
| understand me? I'm not supposed to be afraid after they
| support someone who has said they want me gone??
|
| I'm a white man in America, the most powerful country in the
| history of the world and I'm considering fleeing this place
| like a f*king refugee - it is obscene that I'm in a position
| to even be considering such a thing.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| You're just being dramatic for the purpose of
| argumentation.
|
| Trump has never said he wants you gone. It's simply not
| true.
| psychlops wrote:
| > I guess that shows our collective feeling toward democracy.
|
| It doesn't, it shows a majority reject major narratives that
| have been used. Part of that rejection of the idea that an
| authoritarian regime just came to power.
|
| If you are worried about violence, consider the origin of the
| assassination attempts.
| doom2 wrote:
| And what of the origin of the violent attempt to overturn the
| 2020 election by Trump's supporters?
| psychlops wrote:
| I'd suggest that the majority of people rejected that claim
| last night.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| You say that but then demand we don't call such people
| stupid. The actions at the Capitol were very well
| documented. It's implausible that people see it for
| anything other than what it was. The obvious conclusion
| is that these people support the attempt.
| psychlops wrote:
| I support free speech, you may call people what you like.
| As you say, people see it for what it was and voted that
| way yesterday. I do find it implausible (even radical)
| that the majority of people in America support a coup
| attempt and find it more likely that they don't believe
| what they see on the news any more.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I do find it implausible (even radical) that the
| majority of people in America support a coup attempt
|
| Agreed. The winner of the popular vote yesterday had only
| 27% support of people in America, not anywhere near a
| majority.
| NemoNobody wrote:
| Well the voters were wrong.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| The desire for Trump to remain a marketable symbol without
| actually having him rule is one of the only taboos left. I
| suspect the hardest he has ever listened was when Pompeo
| described precisely the box he was allowed to think in.
| dsabanin wrote:
| Another country succumbed to a fascist moron, such a shame.
| bravetraveler wrote:
| What a truly amazing series of events
| grahamj wrote:
| smh something is very wrong with the US
| a_thro_away wrote:
| The game we have now is you win by the most voters, might as well
| be the most voters to sit on a scale and weigh more, wins. It is
| Mob rule. A significant portion of the electorate has no real
| idea of what is being asked, nor if its true, just that it sounds
| good. And we will never get good governance out of that.
| dathinab wrote:
| The main question here is:
|
| Did they include into the prediction the fact that in many state
| mail in ballots have to be counted after normal ballots and that
| for a lot of reasons Democrats are way more likely to vote by
| mail.
|
| EDIT: Not that it matters anymore by know.
| linsomniac wrote:
| My impression is that that is not the case as it was 4 years
| ago. Many of the swing states seemed to be committed to having
| all the results in within a few hours of polls closing, with
| some small exceptions. I believe that was the case in NC and
| GA, and with PA being expected to be closer to 4 hours after
| polls close.
| dathinab wrote:
| It's definitely still a thing at least in some states.
|
| And takes up to 3 days as it's more work then processing the
| normal ballot votes (especially if the normal votes are done
| with voting machines).
|
| but is quite unlikely to change the outcome with how things
| look by now.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Reddit is finding out that if you block everyone not inside your
| echo chamber, but are still in the smaller echo chamber, every
| election will shock you
|
| It unfortunately sits on the shoulders of progressives seeking
| change to convince the conservatives not seeking it to do so. By
| choosing not to do this asymmetric work, this is the consequence
| warner25 wrote:
| I'm not a Reddit user (or any social media user unless you
| count this) but one of my big takeaways from this election is
| how out-of-touch I am, apparently, with the majority of
| Americans; I've been shocked for months (years?) that Trump was
| even still a contender.
|
| I guess I've just been living in heavily blue places, and
| working alongside highly educated people, since 2016. I thought
| that _everybody_ could see Trump and Trumpism for what they
| really are, but I guess not, and I 'm left wondering: "Who
| _are_ these 70M+ people? "
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| "Highly educated" - told on yourself pretty quick
| pmarreck wrote:
| Highly educated [?] intelligent.
|
| You can be quite highly educated and still sit inside an
| ideological bubble and have no clue that anything is wrong...
| until it is.
|
| "Heavily blue" is definitely an ideological bubble, because,
| as it turns out, and this may shock you (!!!), no political
| party has a monopoly on truths. There are bad things about
| Kamala and good things about Trump that you would literally
| never encounter if you only read "blue media". If you only
| read blue media, you will also consume a lot of BS (good
| things that are untrue about Kamala and bad things that are
| untrue about Trump). Same is true about red media, except
| with the poles reversed.
|
| And echo chambers just reinforce all this BS.
|
| Intelligent people question the sacred cows, and the most
| intelligent question the most sacred cows. James Damore was
| intelligent, wrote an intelligent paper, and instead of
| engaging with him and his ideas, he got eviscerated. And that
| was at Google, a supposedly "highly educated" place.
|
| If you just can't say certain things, you are in an
| oppressive society, or sub-society, end of story.
|
| I got eviscerated on Facebook 2 days ago merely for saying
| "so I investigated this claim that Trump is fascist, found
| the attributes of fascism, tried to rate him along those
| attributes, and he got a C (where F is Fascist)" (for
| comparison, Kamala got a B somehow, Putin an F, H__ler an F
| of course). Were there actual counterarguments to it? Nope.
| Someone asked for evidence, and I cited 3 links with a total
| of 20+ experts in them who on average said "no, not fascist
| enough to be labeled it". Then they attacked me for using
| ChatGPT to help put it all together (genetic fallacy). They
| kept attacking me and not my analysis. One was a fairly smart
| individual, but in this case he did not use it.
|
| Since they were mainly attacking ChatGPT at that point, I
| asked ChatGPT to eviscerate every one of their arguments,
| defending us both and speaking as itself, which it did, with
| aplomb, and was amazing.
| warner25 wrote:
| > Highly educated [?] intelligent.
|
| I didn't necessarily intend to say that it was. I'm just
| saying that support for Trump has been inversely correlated
| with education level, so I ended up in a bubble by virtue
| of working alongside people with advanced degrees (even
| more so than just living in a blue area). When ~90% of
| people in one's real life, day-to-day social circle are not
| Trump supporters it starts to feel like _everybody_ must be
| of the same opinion, and it 's shocking to find out
| otherwise.
|
| I agree with you about the importance of engaging in
| independent, critical thought and allowing real discussion.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| To the people that are very upset about this, I'd like to offer
| some silver linings.
|
| A blowout in either direction was necessary here. A clear result
| is better for everyone.
|
| The press can go back to being adversarial to power (Although
| straight faced bullshit like the Cheney firing squad thing will
| probably only be more common, so thats a double edged sword).
|
| The dems will likely stop anointing people.
|
| We never have to sit through a Trump election campaign again.
|
| The first woman president will likely be a much stronger
| candidate. Kamala could have potentially really ruined it for
| women going forward.
| rocky_raccoon wrote:
| > The dems will likely stop anointing people.
|
| I thought that after 2016...
| km144 wrote:
| 1. The margin of victory does not matter--If Trump won, the
| Democratic establishment would have largely accepted the
| results and if Harris won, the GOP would have fully rejected
| the results. Everyone knew this was true. There is a
| fundamental asymmetry in respect for democracy between the
| parties.
|
| 2. Harris actually did just ruin it for women going forward.
| The Democratic party has now put forward two women against
| Trump that arguably both failed in spectacular fashion. It's
| not really clear to me why they did this, but they did it, and
| I don't know why we'd see a woman secure a major party's
| nomination for president in the next couple decades as a
| result.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| 1. Maybe. I am happy to not be testing this hypothesis.
|
| 2. I think the problem is inserting women that the voters
| aren't asking for. They could try asking who to run instead
| of telling people who to vote for, and they just might get a
| woman into the office.
|
| There are women out there that have their own real following
| that could probably get there with the machine behind them,
| but the machine doesn't want any of them.
|
| Depending on how things go, Tulsi could be the next best
| chance, if people stop making up shit about her being a
| Russian asset. But shes on the red team, so the dems will
| tear her down if she tries.
| km144 wrote:
| Amy Klobuchar is probably the Democrats best example--she
| just once again significantly outperformed the other
| national Democratic candidate (Harris) in Minnesota.
| Personally I wouldn't trust Tulsi Gabbard to win anything.
| what the Dems need is someone who is a strong political
| force that has a track record of winning elections and
| winning over people who voted for Trump. I don't think
| gender is necessarily important but I do think that the
| results of Clinton and Harris against Trump should
| rightfully scare Dems away from that idea going forward.
| kelnos wrote:
| Tulsi Gabbard is a Republican now; the Democrats won't
| put her up for anything.
| kelnos wrote:
| Regarding (2), I agree, but I don't think the electorate is
| in for such nuance. Two women failed to win the presidency,
| and that simple fact is all that matters. I agree with the
| other commenter that we won't see the dems put another
| woman up for president for decades, and that's a damn
| shame.
|
| We might even see the GOP successfully get a woman into the
| White House before the dems do it, which is just
| embarrassing.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > We might even see the GOP successfully get a woman into
| the White House before the dems do it, which is just
| embarrassing.
|
| That happened in the UK with Thatcher.
| sanderjd wrote:
| This was not at all a spectacular failure. This election was
| an uphill battle from the start.
|
| Mitt Romney did not fail spectacularly when he couldn't beat
| a popular incumbent. It was impressive that he got as close
| as he did.
|
| The fundamentals here were similarly harsh for Harris, just
| for different reasons.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| Why was this election an uphill battle from the start? This
| was the dems election to lose as far as I can see.
|
| And isn't Harris the incumbent in this situation?
| sanderjd wrote:
| Because of the pandemic, the aftermath of which was awful
| inflation. This has been the pattern globally for a few
| years now. And US-specific, because of immigration.
|
| Yes, Harris was treated by voters as the incumbent, and
| the incumbent administration was unpopular. That is
| usually an uphill battle for the incumbent.
|
| It was never the dems election to lose. It's too bad you
| only saw that narrative! Plenty of people wrote about the
| possibility that this would be a pretty bog standard
| "reject the incumbents" election.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| > It was never the dems election to lose. It's too bad
| you only saw that narrative!
|
| I find this baffling. With the dems tying themselves to
| biden and then Harris, it was absolutely an uphill
| battle. But that was an unforced error.
|
| If they had a robust primary, you have to assume there
| was someone on the blue team that could beat Trump. If
| not, then they deserved every bit of this anyway.
| kelnos wrote:
| Yes, and that's one of the problems: the DNC defers to
| tradition and "politeness" rather than what will win
| elections and keep the party in power. Right up front
| they should have told Biden he was not going to be the
| presumed nominee, and that he would have to fight it out
| in the primary like everyone else.
| sanderjd wrote:
| No, it was an uphill battle regardless of the candidate,
| is the point. The fundamentals were always difficult for
| Democrats in general, for non-candidate-specific reasons.
| Primarily this was due to inflation, which in my view
| Biden actually handled about as well as he could have, it
| just still sucked and pissed everyone off. But also
| because of immigration, which was indeed a policy error,
| but one which happened years before the campaign began
| and was not fixable at that point.
| consteval wrote:
| IMO the fact that Harris is a black woman meant this was
| always going to be an extremely uphill battle. Someone
| like Harris winning would be completely unprecedented.
| I'm not surprised she lost, but I am disappointed.
| sanderjd wrote:
| I think the results demonstrated that it would have been
| an uphill battle for a white man as well. I think this
| result was pretty much a foregone conclusion after the
| 2022/2023 inflation surge.
|
| Edit to add: I _now_ think that. It isn 't what I
| expected to happen until the results actually came in
| last night.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| I see, the past becomes a forgone conclusion after it
| happens.
| hajile wrote:
| Hillary Clinton still complains about the election being
| stolen by Trump (there were riots by Democrats back then
| too). Democrats still complain about Bush beating Gore in
| 2020. To say that Democrats would simply accepted the results
| if Trump won only the electoral college defies past history.
|
| Election denialism is found in both parties in large
| quantities.
| ks2048 wrote:
| > The dems will likely stop anointing people.
|
| You assume the dems will learn from this loss, which is a big
| assumption.
|
| > We never have to sit through a Trump election campaign again.
|
| If Trump is alive and well in 2028, I'm sure he will try to run
| again (ignore rules or change them). But, he also said you'll
| never have to vote again after this one, so we'll find out what
| he means by that.
| kelipso wrote:
| We really should fund an anthropological study in the people
| who overreact to every little thing Trump says. I'm sure
| there is an entire media niche to go along with these
| overreactions too. I would read that.
| jayrot wrote:
| You don't need an anthropological study, friend. There's
| already an apt slang term for it.
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bitch_eating_crackers
|
| Personally, I absolutely despise Trump but he's been firmly
| in that realm for quite some time now.
| zamalek wrote:
| > We never have to sit through a Trump election campaign again.
|
| I wouldn't count on that. There is a chance that he'll abolish
| term limits.
|
| There's also a chance that you're right, but only because we've
| installed a monarch.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| How likely do you think either of those things are? 2%
| chance? 20% chance?
|
| I think hes too old to have to worry about that. And I don't
| think the republicans would try to weekend at Bernie's him
| after hes gone too far.
|
| I also think its more likely someone succeeds at
| assassinating him during his term than he tries to overstay
| his welcome.
| xnx wrote:
| 3rd term of Donald Trump seems very low percent chance, but
| appointment of Donald Trump Jr. to president (through some
| means) seems much more likely
| throwaway106382 wrote:
| > We never have to sit through a Trump election campaign again.
|
| He has children who are very much like him and popular in the
| "MAGA Movement", Donald Trump Jr. specifically. Political
| dynasties exist in America. Just sayin'.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| > The first woman president
|
| And that's why the blue folks lost, all about identity politics
| rather than realpolitik.
| iammjm wrote:
| I can't decide if it's more like a 1930s Europe or the Fall of
| Rome -type situation
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| Why not both? We are absolutely an empire in decline. And we
| just elected someone who spoke about the "enemy from within"
| and made numerous threats of turning the military on the
| American people.
| tgv wrote:
| Time will tell, but the 30s also ended in the fall of Europe.
| It's only one economic crisis to the fall of the American
| empire.
| bitsandboots wrote:
| I'm going Fall of Rome because of the potential for the end of
| Pax Americana
| krageon wrote:
| It's not been a hugely impactful country in the way that the
| roman empire was, so at the very least it's not the latter. I
| know people like to say "pax americana" was a thing, but let's
| be real - even when the US was actually doing well it wasn't a
| force for peace and development.
| seydor wrote:
| I wish the people who are frustrated would actually come to
| europe for once. We do need a dose of american optimism and
| dynamism , but alas you never come guys. What s wrong
| cglace wrote:
| It is expensive to leave. . .
| gwbas1c wrote:
| The US needs a dose of Europe's civility and modern approach to
| democracy.
|
| Are student exchanges still a thing? Maybe we need more of
| that.
| drawkward wrote:
| Don't speak the local language, not sure where I'd find
| employment. My Italian passport is ready!
| vintagedave wrote:
| Estonia. Tech country, advanced, lots of startups, in the
| capital and in tech companies most people speak English,
| easily understandable tax system, stable political climate,
| and a good standard of living including public healthcare.
|
| I live there, happy to discuss if there's interest!
| benabbott wrote:
| Seems like you are not native but moved there. What made
| you choose Estonia over anywhere else in the world?
| vintagedave wrote:
| Originally, chance. Over a decade ago I was traveling
| country to country a year at a time, and had never lived
| somewhere so far north. I booked a ticket and landed with
| a suitcase knowing nothing about it (no exaggeration, I
| had no idea.)
|
| Once there I realised it's an amazing place. Lovely
| people. Peaceful and quiet. Good rule of law and
| stability combined with kindness (you can trust the
| police here.) High tech. Beautiful nature. Very clean
| air. Lots of forest. Big enough to have a big city;
| small-town living if you want.
|
| It's very business-friendly and I started a company here.
| Then, married an Estonian, so I guess I'm staying here
| now :)
| gnfargbl wrote:
| I can guarantee that there is at least one country in
| [geographic] Europe where you do speak the language, and you
| are likely to find employment. Whether you would want to
| accept the change in lifestyle and living standards is
| another question.
| tgv wrote:
| I'm not of that opinion. At all. They should stay and clean up
| their own house. And I don't know what optimism you speak
| about: the people who I assume are frustrated right now, are
| not whose optimism I miss.
| flurben wrote:
| I tried! No country would let me in without a job, and no
| company in Europe would even interview me from America.
| km144 wrote:
| If you work in knowledge fields, I'd imagine it's not too
| difficult to immigrate to certain countries. But also those
| fields pay far more in the United States than any other country
| in the world, so it's a tough thing to commit to.
| Tainnor wrote:
| idk, Berlin is full of Americans
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| I moved to the Netherlands a few years ago. Although my wife
| and I are independently wealthy I've had a great time
| consulting over here.
| dopamean wrote:
| I've considered it many times and I cant afford to make so much
| less money when I have a family. Presumably we'd end up back in
| the US at some point basically broke.
| kristopolous wrote:
| You're extremely anti immigrant as well. Tell me how and I'm on
| the plane tomorrow
| Taikonerd wrote:
| Thank you for saying so! I'm American, but I lived in the
| Netherlands for 7 years, and absolutely loved it there.
|
| I think the biggest barrier for young Americans is getting
| through the paperwork. The EU doesn't make it easy to immigrate
| (legally). You generally need an offer of employment in hand.
| fullspectrumdev wrote:
| I remember a fair few moved after the last go around (2016) to
| Berlin and the ones I met found German bureaucracy _incredibly_
| stifling in terms of business, which was a major fumble of the
| ball.
|
| Same with Brits moving post Brexit vote, finding the German
| environment difficult to do business in.
|
| Really, Europe needs to be able to capitalise on whatever
| amount of talent flight from the US happens, instead of ...
| whatever the fuck they are doing currently.
| welder wrote:
| I'm here
| Nasrudith wrote:
| While I appreciate the compliment, I think the issue is mostly
| that European employers aren't used to paying competitive with
| the United States for one which helps lead to the flow mostly
| occurring in the opposite direction. I understand there are
| also complex reasons behind it making it less viable, like not
| having as much in terms of private investors willing to fund
| start-ups and such.
| currymj wrote:
| I was in Europe for a while recently (Switzerland). Thought
| about staying but when I realized that even if I naturalized, I
| could never really be Swiss, and furthermore future children
| would not really be Swiss (even if they too naturalized), and
| at best perhaps my grandchildren could be considered somewhat
| provisionally Swiss... not appealing. Too much old, too much
| history, if you aren't embedded in it you are permanent
| outsider.
| d--b wrote:
| On a side note: thank you HN team for fixing the large-number-of-
| comments issue.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| [flagged]
| ozgrakkurt wrote:
| As a foreigner, it seems like both sides are super extremely
| marginalised. Both sides believe everything will be done and
| there will be a big change if the other side wins. Reality is
| really not that radical, people are being lit up by propoganda.
| Saying this as a Turkish person, this has been happening in our
| country almost since I was born and it destroyed politics,
| normalisation and being calm is much better than sensationalising
| everything. Imho biggest issues are related to economics, like
| housing, like dark money in elections. Meaningless topics are
| sensationalised to marginalise people and unfortunately it works
| every time. Politics shouldn't be right vs left, it should be
| rich vs middle class vs poor, as economics is the single most
| impactful aspect on most people's lives. But politicians want to
| rile everyone up and put them against each other.
| Liquix wrote:
| In the US, it seems the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests were
| the last time it was really the people vs. the incumbents. Ever
| since then all there's been are carefully manufactured
| conflicts with two sides to choose from, which divide the
| common class and cause them to argue amongst each other.
| slibhb wrote:
| There's no reason at all to say Occupy was "real" whereas
| current conflicts are "manufactured."
| boxed wrote:
| I think you have a too rosy image of the ineffective and
| confused Occupy Wall Street protests.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| A lot of whom were paid to be there.
| gcr wrote:
| Where did you hear this?
| gcr wrote:
| Now now, OP never implied that Occupy Wall Street was
| effective. :-)
|
| If anything, it points to the stark lack of class
| consciousness in America that even our biggest protests
| aren't generally able to create long lasting change.
|
| Personally, I'm reminded of MLK's Poor People Campaign
| shortly before he got FBI'd. Him and the black panthers
| were both trying to agitate around this issue in different
| nonpartisan ways, and they faced extreme prejudice from the
| state for their trouble.
| nargella wrote:
| GME was, in my opinion, what occupy wall street should have
| been. Much more effective even.
| surfpel wrote:
| You'll never beat the house.
| dtquad wrote:
| >Politics shouldn't be right vs left, it should be rich vs
| middle class vs poor, as economics is the single most impactful
| aspect on most people's lives.
|
| I agree but ironically this kind of rhetoric is actually how
| the American left (not the Democrats) were undermined and now
| Americans are overworked slaves working two or more jobs to
| live paycheck to paycheck.
|
| "Right vs left" does matter and it was organized left-wing
| efforts that created the superior life-work balance and
| healthcare in Europe.
| pc86 wrote:
| > _it was organized left-wing efforts that created the
| superior life-work balance and healthcare in Europe_
|
| The US economy thanks you for getting out of the way, I
| guess. Americans aren't flying to Europe for healthcare -
| it's the other way around (if you can afford it). So it may
| be "superior" in the sense that you're just paying for it
| your entire life via taxes instead of at the time of service
| and through employer-subsidized insurance, but it's not
| "superior" in terms of care.
|
| Politics shouldn't be anyone "vs" anyone else. It should be
| "how can we fix what's broken, how can we make what's good
| even better." Trump's message was largely "here's how I will
| fix the economy" and "here's how I will fix the border."
| Harris's message was "I'm not Trump" and "I won't change any
| policy of the Biden administration."
| lolc wrote:
| That "if you can afford it" is an important qualifier. I
| read people struggle to source insulin in the US.
| pc86 wrote:
| I meant "if, as a foreign national, you can afford to fly
| to the US for healthcare." Rich Europeans flying to the
| US for specialized healthcare happens a lot more than
| rich Americans flying to the EU for specialized
| healthcare and there's a reason for that.
| kelnos wrote:
| So what, though? Is the US's advantage in specialized
| healthcare worth the income inequality and multiple-jobs-
| just-to-survive culture? I think it's not hard to make an
| argument that it isn't worth it.
| lolc wrote:
| So what's the reason? Or why should I care about the
| quality of life of the richest?
| nullandvoid wrote:
| So when I'm down on my luck I shouldn't be entitled to
| healthcare?
|
| Living in the UK I'm more than happy to contribute my way
| in taxes, knowing I'm always looked after regardless of my
| employment state or wealth.
|
| Additionally we can also pay for American style (private)
| healthcare, but aren't paying 10x markup on treatment as is
| the case for America (see Ozempic pricing for example).
|
| American healthcare is one of the worst in the developed
| world, it shouldn't be celebrated.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > see Ozempic pricing
|
| Let me just take this opportunity to point out that
| Ozempic is the product of a European company. So you can
| tell me how American healthcare is absurdly expensive,
| and how it is much cheaper for you, all while you are the
| ones making it so damn expensive for us.
|
| Along the same lines, lets hear more about Norway being
| the shining beacon on the hill, the hero come to save us
| from climate change, while behind the scenes they finance
| the entire country by exporting pollution to the rest of
| the world.
|
| It's really difficult to stomach the hypocritical
| arrogance of some Europeans. Y'all seem so nice in
| person, I am hoping a lot of the online rhetoric is just
| Putin doing his thing.
| wormlord wrote:
| > Americans aren't flying to Europe for healthcare - it's
| the other way around (if you can afford it)
|
| Missing in your analysis is health outcomes for the poor.
| Maybe you don't view them as human?
| pc86 wrote:
| Hard to imagine how you guys lost an election.
| wormlord wrote:
| I didn't vote for Kamala. Also I'm sorry you feel bad
| when people point out your callousness. Think about how
| people must feel when they die for want of healthcare.
| p_j_w wrote:
| So you don't have a substantive reply? In that case you
| maybe shouldn't hit the reply link.
| gcr wrote:
| My dad is a P.T. and he recounts how after the ACA passed
| in 2008, his fellow therapists saw tons of people from
| poor communities going to the doctor for the first time
| in years. His practice was backed up for a while because
| there were so many new patients who suddenly had
| insurance.
|
| Folks missing teeth, folks with broken bones who set
| improperly, folks who couldn't afford preventative care.
| gcr wrote:
| Anecdote: my middle school P.E. teacher took her class down
| to Juarez Mexico for a "school" mission trip.
|
| She left the group on the way back so she could stop
| elsewhere and get her teeth cleaned. She said it was a
| common sentiment for Americans to cross the border for
| dental work like that.
|
| (That trip was odd for many other reasons ...)
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Trump's message was largely "here's how I will fix the
| economy" and "here's how I will fix the border."
|
| I read an opinion piece a week or so ago that sounded just
| like this. It was even more explicit about the point.
| Paraphrasing, she said 'I know he says really hateful
| things, but you guys don't get it, at the rallies everyone
| is giddy and happy, it's such a joyful place to be!'.
|
| The point being that Trump is about joy. Not that his
| supporters were giddy about his promises of retribution.
| Totally honest perspective from someone deep in that
| bubble. I actually appreciate the honesty.
|
| Dems listen to Trump talk about how much he wants to hurt
| them. They recall that he did exactly that the last time he
| was president. So of course the democratic candidate says
| she won't be like Trump. Her supporters don't want to be
| targeted by their own government again.
|
| That's the thing the dems just don't get. Saying you'll be
| president for _everyone_ isn 't what sells. It's a high
| minded ideal, like civil rights. Sounds good, inspires a
| lot of breathless agreement, but most people don't actually
| care in their hearts, they just care about #1. Appealing to
| their basest instincts seems wrong, but it's how you _win
| in politics_. Stop trying to take the high road that doesn
| 't exist except in your dreams.
| pc86 wrote:
| What exactly did Trump do to hurt Democrats in his first
| term?
| bikamonki wrote:
| Very well put. I also live in a country where this kind of
| politics is everyday politics. Nothing really changes for good.
| aurareturn wrote:
| I agree. American has more wealth than ever but it's not
| distributed. All these issues that serve to distract people
| from the one thing that will make the biggest difference in
| their lives: personal economics.
|
| Elites are really good at doing that. Go pay attention to
| China, Russia, gun control, birth control, diversity, BLM,
| transgender rights. Meanwhile, I will continue to
| disproportionately take more of America's wealth.
| behringer wrote:
| We're definitely going to be seeing big changes. Trump and the
| conservatives are in charge. They are going to execute project
| 2025. They setup all the ground work during Trump's last term.
|
| Ukraine will be lost. Russia will encroach on Europe. The
| Republicans will staff Judges everywhere and build a stronger
| conservative justice system.
|
| The rich will dominate even further over the poor and the US
| will become an extension of the Kremlin.
|
| Trump may also try to set the stage for more dictatorial
| control. The only good thing about this election is Trump is so
| old he probably won't try to create a dictatorship since he
| won't benefit from it.
|
| But have no doubt the democrats will not be taking back control
| within the next generation or two.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Next president will be a democrat, calling it now.
|
| You are doing the exact type of sensationalising that OP was
| talking about
| behringer wrote:
| I'm not convinced but I got the popcorn ready.
|
| And it's not sensational ism when it's exactly what Trump
| has promised to do and was in the process of doing when he
| was fired the first time.
| arolihas wrote:
| So as a Turkish person do you believe the other side is just as
| bad as Erdogan? Do you think inflation would be just as bad?
| entropi wrote:
| As another Turkish person, I find the resemblence between this
| election and the one we had a year ago rather uncanny.
|
| - election between rightist strongman vs. boring guy whose most
| important selling point is not being the other guy. Also a
| somewhat controversial candidacy.
|
| - Deep divide between coastal lines vs. the rest; educated and
| the rest.
|
| - Polls not being confident on either candidate, but the
| strongman gets mire votes than expected.
|
| Etc. etc. I find it rather strange. (I do enjoy the memes on
| the Turkish social media though)
| whall6 wrote:
| "Ask HN: So who did you vote for?"
| christophilus wrote:
| It would be interesting to see an anonymous poll of HN to find
| out how many silent Trump voters there are here.
| swat535 wrote:
| Judging by the comments here, it will be majority democrat.
| christophilus wrote:
| > silent Trump voters
|
| If it's anonymous, we might be surprised. I know a number
| of HNers personally in my life, and they'd never admit to
| voting for Trump here or to anyone in their day jobs.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > If it's anonymous, we might be surprised.
|
| Fully agree.
|
| Admitting you supported Trump on HN is suicide.
|
| But then more than half of the country voted for him, so
| I guess ... do the math, even if HN's participants are
| biased blue.
| HeavyStorm wrote:
| My condolences to all north americans.
| knicholes wrote:
| Over half who voted chose him.
| kurante wrote:
| There is more to North America than the United States.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| And he got 71M votes, not even half of the US population.
| voisin wrote:
| "It's the economy, stupid" has never been truer. People will
| trade their rights for more basic needs being fulfilled and most
| people simply aren't happy with the one sided economy that has
| prevailed since the late 80s. Interest rates were too low for too
| long beginning circa 2000, and the massive flood of QE led to an
| explosion in house prices, car prices, and food. This is what the
| world gets for poor monetary and fiscal management for more than
| two decades.
| tlogan wrote:
| Exactly. The Harris team made a key mistake by responding with,
| 'No, you're wrong. The economy is doing great--just look at the
| stats.' They needed a concrete plan to address people's
| concerns directly, but that was missing.
|
| Personally, my issue with the Democrats is how they mishandled
| the electric vehicle charging network initiative. [0]
|
| [0] https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/05/congress-ev-
| charger...
| lesuorac wrote:
| > the massive flood of QE led to an explosion in house prices,
| car prices, and food.
|
| That's not really the case though.
|
| We had a similar QE in '08 with pretty much no effect on CPI
| [1] or Housing [2]. As well as the increase in pricing has
| occurred _when the money printing stopped_ and not _while the
| money was printing_ [3].
|
| The current inflation isn't caused by money printing. It's
| caused by pricing power by conglomerates. We've allowed energy
| companies to join together and they've agreed with OPEC to cut
| production to lead to price increases. We've allowed rental
| companies to join together and raise prices. We've allowed meat
| companies to join together and raise prices. The lack of anti-
| trust enforcement along with a trigger (Covid) is what caused
| inflations, companies realized they had a talking point (supply
| chain problems) that they could pin price increase on
| regardless of if it was true.
|
| [1]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEDCPIM158SFRBCLE
|
| [2]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIEHOUSE
|
| [3]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MBCURRCIR#0
| randomdata wrote:
| _> The current inflation isn 't caused by money printing._
|
| I'm not sure that is fair. Nothing is ever caused by just one
| thing, of course, but it is unlikely that money printed and
| given to average Joes was not a significant contributor.
| COVID relief saw money flow into the hands of regular people,
| which was quite unlike 2008.
|
| 2008 was different as it only went into the hands of the
| rich. You can print money endlessly and give it all to Jeff
| Bezos and inflation will never occur. It's just another
| number in his bank account, so to speak. But if you give it
| to poor people on the street, soon they are going to start
| buying things with it, increasing competition for goods and
| services and thus driving up prices.
|
| Although I would say the biggest factor was the devastating
| crop failure in 2020 with a dash of COVID problems on top,
| followed by the EU shutting down their fertilizer plants in
| 2021, and then Russia invading Ukraine in 2022 which both
| complicated access to Ukraine food production as well as
| denying trade with Russian fertilizer. This left food stocks
| in a precarious situation and thus sent the price of food to
| the moon. Everyone else followed as best they could to ensure
| they could continue to eat. Now that we're getting our food
| house back in order, the inflation panic has started to
| subside in kind.
| braiamp wrote:
| Saying that the current drive of inflation is a monetary
| expansion must demonstrate that there's a significant
| component of the inflation to be attributable to monetary
| expansion. M0 has been stable, M1+M2 components as whole
| have also followed a stable route.
| randomdata wrote:
| When you consider the slow reaction of the economy, the
| money supply and inflation do track fairly well. It is
| not like if the money supply goes up today that inflation
| will also go up today. If the money supply goes up today,
| you wouldn't expect to see to see an inflation reaction
| for quite some time.
|
| Hell, look at how long it took grocery stores to react to
| the aforementioned food crisis. Us on the farm saw the
| price of food we were selling double (or even more) from
| the price norm early in the crisis, but it took another
| year or so before the consumers of that food started
| complaining about how much grocery stores were charging.
| Things happen very slowly.
|
| Indeed, the money supply has been stable for a while,
| only veering of track for a short time, but inflation is
| also now stabilizing and only veered off track for a
| short time.
| lesuorac wrote:
| > Us on the farm saw the price of food we were selling
| double (or even more) from the price norm early in the
| crisis
|
| Because conglomerates (ex. Tyson Foods) were upping their
| prices as shown by gross margins of 10% increasing to 15%
| [1].
|
| > but it took another year or so before the consumers of
| that food started complaining about how much grocery
| stores were charging. Things happen very slowly.
|
| Uh. More like immediately people complained; just throw a
| max date on a web search [2] and you'll find them
| readily.
|
| I can't speak to your own personal anecdotes. But the
| price of eggs has been talked about ad nauseam since
| start of covid.
|
| [2]: https://www.google.com/search?q=rising+food+prices&t
| bs=cdr%3...
|
| [1]: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSN/tyson-
| foods/gr...
| randomdata wrote:
| _> Uh. More like immediately people complained;_
|
| Did they? You seem to only be able to go back to 2021,
| whereas I was seeing substantial gains in the price of
| food I was selling on the farm as early as 2019, thanks
| to another devastating (albeit less so) crop failure.
|
| It is not like the price was $x one day and then $x*2 the
| next. It ramped up over time. Just like the price of
| groceries did, albeit on a later timeline.
| lesuorac wrote:
| I mean all you have to do is change the 2021 to 2020 [1]
| and you immediately get an article talking about 4.8%
| increase in May 2020 [2].
|
| [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=rising+food+prices&t
| bs=cdr%3...
|
| [2]: https://www.cbpp.org/blog/rising-food-prices-means-
| rising-ne...
| randomdata wrote:
| Right, which is in line with the approximately one year
| lag I spoke of. Thanks for validating my earlier comment.
| tchock23 wrote:
| Voting for lower interest rates to come back will certainly fix
| that. https://www.reuters.com/article/business/trump-heaps-
| pressur...
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > People will trade their rights for more basic needs being
| fulfilled
|
| Seems like people got the best of both worlds - they will be
| able to keep more rights than they otherwise would have _and_
| they will enjoy a better economy. Win-win!
| voisin wrote:
| Can you elaborate on how there will be more rights under the
| GOP, which just spent significant energy reducing women's
| rights to bodily autonomy, and Trump threatening the free
| speech of media companies he doesn't like?
| kelnos wrote:
| Regardless of the causes, Harris should have acknowledged that
| things have been bad for a lot of people, and presented a plan
| for how to make it better.
|
| Instead, she insisted the economy was doing great, and the
| millions of people whose wages have not risen enough to offset
| inflation just didn't know what they were talking about.
|
| The economy has been doing great for some people, but not for
| the voters who ended up mattering to the election outcome.
| tlogan wrote:
| It's all about the economy (remember, 'it's the economy,
| stupid').
|
| We keep hearing statistics showing that the economy is doing
| well, but I have yet to meet anyone who feels like they're
| actually better off.
|
| I'm not saying that the stats are wrong, but when it comes to
| politics, you can't address economic anxiety by just pointing to
| statistics and saying, 'Look, the numbers say everything is
| fine.'
| tootie wrote:
| Polling clearly indicates that the percentage of Americans who
| feel financially secure has been steady for years while the
| percentage who think the economy is in poor shape is increasing
| rapidly. It is 99% perception. People who are better off just
| won't say it when they think everyone else is struggling. The
| bull market in stocks and rising home values indicates anyone
| who owns any assets is doing very very well.
| brink wrote:
| Posts on HN about tech workers struggling to find jobs and
| mass layoffs reaches the front page every week. Half my tech
| friends are laid off right now. That was not the case four
| years ago. Everyone I knew had a job, everyone had money.
| tootie wrote:
| That's perception. In reality layoffs happen all the time
| even in a growing labor market. I saw tech layoffs in my
| network up to maybe a year ago and almost everyone is
| employed again. We had a correction after what was the most
| overheated job market ever.
| Uncouple4063 wrote:
| > half my friends
|
| Yes, this is
|
| > 99% perception
| squigz wrote:
| Can you link to some of that polling, please?
| slothtrop wrote:
| What motivated people according to polls was firstly inflation,
| then a distant second was either abortion or illegal border
| crossings. You're pretty much correct. It's been pointed out
| this quarter that inflation has been abated and wage growth has
| improved, but notwithstanding that people continue to feel
| worse off financially, they remain resentful.
|
| The DNC made some blunders. Leaving aside covid spending, they
| screwed up reverting Trump's border policy and waited too long
| to fix it. Harris was weak on messaging and came up with the
| Housing plan too late, didn't champion the CHIPS act enough.
| Also, the newscycle was constantly showing the US spending
| large sums both domestically and abroad which had an impact on
| inflation. And of course there's all the other culture-war/DEI
| stuff that isn't strictly within the purview of the feds but
| feeds into resentment.
| cbsks wrote:
| > I have yet to meet anyone who feels like they're actually
| better off.
|
| Hi! I'm doing better than ever before. It's hard to attribute
| that to a political cause, however. I expect to be doing even
| better in 4 years, regardless of who's in office.
| llm_trw wrote:
| I'm doing great.
|
| That doesn't mean I don't notice my grocery bill is three
| times what it was in 2019 after being pretty much the same
| from 2009 till then.
|
| It's kind of annoying having people tell me this doesn't
| impact me. I'm literally spending more money for the same
| thing and my salary hasn't tripled in the last 5 years - my
| shares though. Which is kind of the point.
| mikehearn wrote:
| To me, this is at the heart of why Trump won this election.
| I honestly do not believe your grocery bill has tripled.
| That's 200% inflation, which is an insane number. The
| statistics we have are that groceries have gone up ~25%. I
| have such a hard time imagining any combination of products
| that would add up to 8x the national inflation average of
| groceries.
|
| But, I also don't think you're lying. I think you honestly
| believe your grocery bill tripled, and I think a lot of
| people have a similar internal impression about how bad
| inflation got. It's not useful for me (or, for politicians)
| to try and argue it logically. No one can check your
| receipts from 2019 and 2024 and say, look, things aren't
| actually that bad. Dems needed to kind of take it at face
| value and come up with a solution to something that people
| feel is real, and they just did not do that.
|
| Editing to add: I might as well add the lowest effort
| source to the ~25% number, which comes from using the
| search feature of ChatGPT (sorry). https://chatgpt.com/shar
| e/672b7e09-4b58-800e-a3df-58f38c33bc...
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| What is the 25% figure coming from? Not disputing it,
| just curious.
|
| Unable to give US equivalents but I think the price
| increases were pretty significant on the lower end and
| less so the higher you go up.
|
| Until a few years ago it was possible to get instant
| ramen noodles for ~15p, you could get 6 eggs for like
| 80p, baked beans for 20p, etc. All of these things and
| similar spiked massively very very quickly. There was
| also a kind of double inflation where a lot of the value
| offerings seemed to disappear from shelves for an
| extended period (e.g. I remember a patch of several
| months where those instant ramen noodles weren't stocked
| in any supermarket near me at all while the 90p branded
| version was).
|
| They've actually gone back down somewhat since but what
| you're looking at is people barely scraping by seeing
| drastic increases in their grocery bills.
|
| Similar issues occurred with energy costs in the last few
| years; along with the rates going up the companies
| drastically bumped up the standing charge so even if you
| almost cut out all usage entirely you still could wind up
| seeing an increase.
| mikehearn wrote:
| Aggregate data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
|
| https://www.in2013dollars.com/Food/price-
| inflation/2019-to-2...
|
| https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/price-of-food
|
| It's closer to 28%. I wrote the initial post from my
| memory of the stat, which is why I approximated it.
| cdrini wrote:
| I'm in Canada, but anecdotally, in 2019 I wouldn't buy
| tomatoes if they were over 0.99/lb . Meanwhile today, I
| bought some at 2.49/lb, and only see them below 1.99/lb
| maybe once every 4 mo.
|
| Similarly cucumbers I'd buy at 0.99; now I get them at
| 1.99 . Those are the ones I personally remember best.
| VancouverMan wrote:
| It goes well beyond fresh produce.
|
| Over that time period in Canada, I've also seen a 2 to 3
| times increase in the unit price of many other basic
| grocery items, including dried pasta, rice, bread, canned
| goods, bags of frozen vegetables (peas, corn), meat, and
| so on.
|
| The government-reported inflation numbers are well below
| what I've experienced and what many people in Canada I've
| talked to have told me they're experiencing.
| llm_trw wrote:
| > I honestly do not believe your grocery bill has
| tripled.
|
| So much the worse for you.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| why do you people insist on using hilariously stupid
| numbers? you legitimately think we've had 300% inflation in
| 5 years?
| goosejuice wrote:
| Three times? The CPI increased by 25% from 2019 to 2023.
| That's a lot but not three times. Major grocery retailers
| cut prices earlier this year as well.
|
| I have a feeling that increases like you describe are
| likely due to lack of competition and much exaggeration.
| When I lived in rural area my closest grocery was over 30
| min away. Where I live now there's probably 50 within 30
| minutes.
| llm_trw wrote:
| The cpi is not the price of groceries, that's literally
| its definition.
| xnx wrote:
| It seems like food prices are up 28% since 2019:
| https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/price-of-food
| dgfitz wrote:
| Everyone does, that's the point. Most people aren't doing as
| well as they were before covid.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| I'm doing better than ever too, but my family talks about how
| prices have gone up crazily while service and everything else
| has gone down. You have to be blind to not notice this, and
| the stats don't reflect what you see when you go around
| anywhere
| from-nibly wrote:
| look, whatever the charts say is a 100% bold faced lie. have
| you seen the price of a little ceasars pizza? it's jumped
| nearly 50% in the last 4 years. my salary has not gone up 50%
| relative to my experiece in the last 4 years. most recently i
| got a salary cut. you can't make me believe the economy is
| doing fine.
| slothtrop wrote:
| I mean, there's more than one dimension to "the economy".
| Unemployment rate and GDP recovery is good, inflation
| curtailed, wages are growing - but obviously not enough. Then
| Harris proposed a decent policy to improve housing
| affordability, but that would only beg the question "why
| didn't Biden do this?".
|
| Basically, too little too late. They fucked up that, and
| fucked up on the border, when there was no excuse to fuck up.
| I believe the Harris' policies would have been better for the
| economy than tariffs and deportations, but it's a moot point
| in voters' minds.
| pc86 wrote:
| Your first paragraph should be printed, framed, and put in
| a museum as a perfect example of why the Biden-Harris
| messaging around the economy fell flat. Nobody gives a shit
| if unemployment is down and GDP is up when a pizza that was
| $10 3 years ago is $15 now. The answer to someone saying
| that they can't afford as much as they could a few years
| ago is not to tell them that they're wrong.
|
| Her housing credit suggestion a) was less than the amount
| the median home price increased by under Biden, and b)
| would have only served to increase the price of housing
| further by increasing the supply of money available,
| exactly the same thing ZIRP did.
| slothtrop wrote:
| I'm not referring to the credit. She had proposals to
| boost supply.
|
| Tax incentives for builders that build starter homes sold
| to first-time buyers
|
| An expansion of a tax incentive for building affordable
| rental housing.
|
| A new $40 billion innovation fund to spur innovative
| housing construction.
|
| To repurpose some federal land for affordable housing.
|
| To remove tax benefits for investors who buy large
| numbers of single-family rental homes.
|
| as per - https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/harris-has-the-
| right-idea-on-h...
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| > I'm not referring to the credit. She had [all these
| things]
|
| ... that people didn't believe.
|
| She ran for her first 50 days claiming Bidenomics was
| working. That term was so stupid I thought it was a joke
| that conservatives made up. Surely they weren't trying to
| say the economy was good right?
|
| Well, no surprises on my end last night.
| slothtrop wrote:
| They plainly had no awareness of them, nevermind believe,
| but even if they did it probably would not have sufficed
| for the aforementioned reasons. Like you said, no
| surprises.
| frmersdog wrote:
| No one is talking about the real source of a lot of these
| problems: there was supposed to be a minor collapse/major
| correction of the economy around this time in 2022.
| Essentially, there were signs that people were preparing
| for a major recession that was going to be precipitated by
| a collapse in one or more major markets (probably real
| estate, either American CRE or Chinese residential);
| inflation necessitating rapid FFR hikes would have played a
| part in this. Instead, everything was backstopped by
| various means, and the Fed went for a "soft landing". This
| didn't solve the problem, it just shifted the burden onto
| people who didn't own the assets that were backstopped. A
| number of other actions (breaking the rail strike, a number
| of actions taken to prevent turmoil in securities markets)
| also forestalled the correction.
|
| The result is that, instead of taking a big blow early in
| his presidency, leaving us currently in the recovery
| period, Biden disrupted every "attempt" by the market to
| correct. This allowed for common economic metrics to read
| as healthy, even while the portions of the economy that
| most effect the average American were distorted.
| flakeoil wrote:
| But it was Trump demanding lower interest rates while he was
| president and which in turn created the high inflation we
| have today.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Yeah, unfortunately voters cannot connect inflation to the
| ramp up in COVID spending and stimulus checks and free PPP
| money Trump gave out.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| Interest rates remained relatively low compared to history
| throughout the 2010s and the year over year inflation
| figures for that decade remained below 2.5% throughout
| those years, during both Obama's and Trump's presidencies.
| Inflation spiked after the Feds debasement of the currency
| in 2020 and 2021, during both Trump and Biden's
| presidencies, when it expanded the money supply at an
| unprecedented rate.
|
| Money Supply: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WM2NS
|
| Consumer Inflation:
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FPCPITOTLZGUSA
| braiamp wrote:
| Do all the population eats Caesars pizza? Inflation (or more
| accurately CPI) is a weighted average where the items that
| represent the biggest spending on the consumer (not on
| volume, but also relative to their income) is calculated and
| changed over time. Housing is the biggest item there, then
| there's food, energy and health services and communication.
| How does Caesars pizza change of price affects inflation: via
| restaurants, an item that has lost relevance after the run
| away price increases over covid.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| I don't agree with the idea of everything being a "lie" as
| they put it, but I have also noticed prices have risen over
| 50% for a number of food items. I'm a regular consumer of
| dark chocolate and brands that used to cost $2.50 or less
| just four years ago are now $4.00 or more.
| braincat31415 wrote:
| What is pizza made of?
| prepend wrote:
| For purposes of GP's example, yes, the entire population
| eats Little Caesars.
|
| Even worse, my Kombucha went from $3->$4.
|
| But, GP's example vibes with pretty much all food prices
| I've seen. McDonalds went from 2 for $3 to $3 each. It's
| really kind of surprising. Easy to avoid all this junk
| food, but price increases are very substantial.
|
| Here's the CPI numbers for food [0] where we saw increases
| from 261 to 332. 27%
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIUFDNS
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| Okay, I hear you. But can you tell how Trump is gonna fix it?
| Pizza price won't go down from $15 to $10. If anything, it
| will be $25.
| alibarber wrote:
| But Trump _was_ president when it was $10, and now he is
| not president it is more than that. People are going to
| make that connection even in the absense of a ten point
| pizza price plan or whatever and are going to think that
| they will be better off with him.
| from-nibly wrote:
| He's not gonna. It's related to the fact that people are
| saying the economy is fine and people don't like being lied
| to.
| NoLinkToMe wrote:
| Nice anecdote, but that's not how we arrive at the truth.
| Good data and a scientific approach does.
|
| Now there are tens of thousands of highly educated credible
| economists with enormous amounts of good data in the US. It'd
| be for them, trivially easy, to constantly hit news headlines
| with a couple of papers substantiating why certain official
| inflation statistics are wrong and actual inflation is much
| higher, and we're all actually much worse off than before.
|
| But there is no such widespread consensus economic research
| being published, I wonder why. I guess the quarter million
| people in the US who graduated with an economics degree in
| the past decade are all corrupt, as are all the institutions
| who report on inflation, captured somehow by Joe Biden... /s
| slibhb wrote:
| > I'm not saying that the stats are wrong, but when it comes to
| politics, you can't address economic anxiety by just pointing
| to statistics and saying, 'Look, the numbers say everything is
| fine.'
|
| So improving the economy can't address economic anxiety? That's
| a pretty grim picture of human nature.
|
| For what it's worth, I feel better off than 4 years ago. My
| investments are up ~20%, which is a lot considered it's all
| diversified funds.
| weberer wrote:
| The Cumulative inflation rate since 2020 is 21.8%.
|
| https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
| pc86 wrote:
| SPY is up 70% in the last 4 years.
| Jcampuzano2 wrote:
| I think people fail to understand is that a large portion of
| the population has literally 0 investments, let alone
| diversified portolios that are technically up.
|
| These people give absolutely 0 shits about the stock market
| being up and the economy being considered fine.
|
| We on HN are sheltered and generally have decent jobs which
| do allow us to have investments and thus don't see the impact
| as much as those who don't see the bullish line of the
| stockmarket driving their portfolios up.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Only ~61% of Americans have any stock holdings and most of
| those are pretty minor and/or locked up long term in
| retirement vehicles like a 401k. For practical purposes that
| money doesn't exist for people which is why a well performing
| stock market is a crappy indicator for how people will
| actually feel about the economy. My 401k is up 30% YoY but I
| can't feel that because the money is locked up for another
| 30-35 years and I can't access it via the stock market
| because of my job.
|
| A much better view IMO would be median real wage growth vs
| inflation because that's how people mostly interact with the
| economy, simple day to day purchases of food, shelter, and
| fuel/power.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I think people stop believing in statistics when they don't
| feel it is related to their daily life.
|
| Looking at the prices of bread, eggs, meat, car price and
| rent/mortgage interest from another country, it's a lot of
| burden. Meat shoots up really a lot in Costco, and mortgage
| payment went up 50% as well.
|
| Talking about the cars, the exactly same car was 30K when I
| bought it 4.5 years ago, and now it is 45K+ (Same model
| different year). It's hard to explain the differences by "the
| advancement of technology". And not to say that back then I
| got a 0% interest rate and nowadays it's at least 5% or 6%.
|
| IMO, for ordinary people, this hike of interests does nothing
| to prevent real inflation that they care about, but simply
| increasing everything.
| greggroth wrote:
| The frustrating thing is that the economy lags policy, and
| policy has limited influence on the economy to begin with.
| Inflation rose because the US consumer was ready to spend much
| faster than the supply chain could recover from the COVID era.
| The Inflation Reduction Act could only do so much to soften
| inflation, but the whole thing was blamed on Biden by the
| average voter.
| alibarber wrote:
| I live in Finland which is a pretty 'expensive' country, I come
| from the UK which is less so but not really cheap. I live/lived
| in the capitals of both countries pretty much exclusively.
|
| I visited the States in 2019 (Boston), and then didn't until
| last week (NYC).
|
| The level of inflation in the US for everyday things between
| that time seemed insanely high compared to anything I'd seen in
| Europe. How anyone couldn't look at the price of rent and food
| and whatever and think "5 years ago I was paying a lot less"
| and have that not feed massively into their decision making
| process at the (private) ballot box is beyond me.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Now have a party telling you things were fine, and that at
| the same time they would fix them, while ignoring they were
| the party that was in power.
|
| Add in a terrible candidate who nervous laughed nonstop, did
| almost nothing but attack the other side, and here we are.
| darknavi wrote:
| > Add in a terrible candidate who nervous laughed nonstop,
| did almost nothing but attack the other side, and here we
| are.
|
| I can't tell which person you're talking about.
| alibarber wrote:
| Apart from the laughter bit that sounds a lot like the UK
| government going into the last election there and we know
| how that ended for them...
| jiggawatts wrote:
| There's been crazy high inflation of everyday goods in
| Australia too, and government officials went on TV saying
| that inflation is not really that high. They were factoring
| in things like bulk industrial products, which are purchased
| in such high volumes that if their price doesn't change (or
| decreases), the overall average inflation is depressed.
|
| Meanwhile rents went up 60%.
| mdgrech23 wrote:
| honestly feel like we're actively being lied to about how
| "good" the economy is.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Turns out a majority of Americans agree with you.
| yndoendo wrote:
| Lewd charisma wins over kind intelligence.
| antonyt wrote:
| If you can point to any video from the last several months
| where he comes across as charismatic, I'd be genuinely
| interested to see it. Maybe I've lost touch with what charisma
| is.
| 56w4574 wrote:
| He was fairly down to earth on the Joe Rogan and Andrew
| Schulz podcasts. I'm not saying everything he said was true
| but the tone of the conversations was fairly different from
| how he conducts himself at other moments.
| dartharva wrote:
| He seems to have realized lately that it's a better idea to
| take his "unhinged" persona mask off in one-on-one
| interactions like in podcasts or personal interviews. He
| wasn't like this before, a lot of his interviews used to be
| disastrous.
| dmonitor wrote:
| Joe Rogan's #1 talent is making crackpots seem reasonable
| and chill. It's what makes his show interesting.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Kind intelligence? Harris can barely string a sentence
| together.
|
| We had two horrible choices.
| consteval wrote:
| I mean, this just isn't true. She's extremely educated and
| well-spoken. Generally I think the attacks on her
| intelligence come from her being a black woman - I have
| doubts anyone would question her high qualifications if she
| was a white man.
|
| EDIT: If you're going to downvote me I expect at least some
| explanation of how she is uneducated, unqualified, or not
| articulate. I have yet to see any, from anyone, which
| unfortunately leaves me no choice but to make unfavorable
| assumptions.
|
| If your opinion is not fueled by racism or sexism, that
| should be extraordinarily easy to prove, and you should be
| motivated to do so.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Yes, noticing her word salad is racism.
| consteval wrote:
| What word salad? You can't just make things up. Even
| republicans can admit that she is pretty well-spoken.
| Lying about her doesn't make you look better, it actually
| makes you look worse.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| I'm hardly the first to notice it. Just google, there are
| lots of examples. Here's one.
| https://m.youtube.com/shorts/zgifVPolWi8
| consteval wrote:
| First off, I am perfectly able to understand what she
| means. Perhaps it was not the most eloquent way to put
| it, but I understood every word and the sentence made
| sense.
|
| Secondly, I can match your examples 1000 to 1 of times
| she was very well-spoken. One example, one in which she
| does not stutter or mispronounce any words, means
| nothing. I know you know it means nothing. She has spoken
| so, so, so many times throughout her career.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| Since you are looking for examples of her word salads,
| please feel free to comment:
|
| https://x.com/Sansa314159/status/1854196650178175101
| kccoder wrote:
| Perhaps she would've better served learning Trump's
| "weave".
|
| As far as word salads go, Kamala side salad doesn't
| compare to Trump's Seinfeld "Big Salad".
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| To be generous I will assume you just haven't seen enough
| of her.
|
| This is just one of dozens of examples that have convinced
| _me_ personally that she 's legitimately not the brightest
| lightbulb out there:
|
| https://x.com/Sansa314159/status/1854196650178175101
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Nonsense. I've met her, she's very intelligent. The problem
| is that she thinks and talks like a lawyer and it rubs a lot
| of people the wrong way, so she is constantly trying to
| maintain a 'relatable!' public filter so she doesn't get
| called a bitch.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| I can't opine on how she thinks. But the way she talks is
| not like any lawyer I've ever worked with.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| The kind intelligence was kicked out in July. The brat is as
| sharp as a rolling pin.
| drdrek wrote:
| LOL democrats really did a number on themselves here!
|
| The majority of the country was telling them "We are having
| change anxiety after Obama and we are having distrust in
| institutions after Covid". So what did they do? Cling to the same
| power structures with a dead man walking, doubled down on gender
| politics, devolved internally into morality based foreign policy
| shout match and the cherry on top put an uncharismatic non white
| woman as the candidate. At every step of the way they very
| eloquently and academically explained why they have the right
| solutions while completely ignoring the emotional state of the
| nation.
|
| All they had to do was bring a calming white man that is not in
| cognitive decline that would reassure the nation that everything
| was going to be alright. That the America they know and love is
| here to stay.
|
| You may don't like that this was reality, that your progressive
| views are more "right" than that, but it is. So now enjoy being
| factually, morally, academically correct with trump as the
| president with control on the congress. What a joke.
| slothtrop wrote:
| > The majority of the country was telling them "We are having
| change anxiety after Obama
|
| Biden came after Trump.
|
| > All they had to do was bring a calming white man that is not
| in cognitive decline that would reassure the nation that
| everything was going to be alright
|
| What motivated people is inflation and border crossings.
| drdrek wrote:
| > Biden came after Trump.
|
| Exactly, Yeah! He was the white man not in mental decline
| that said that everything is going to be alright.
|
| > What motivated people is inflation and border crossings.
|
| Yes, these are some of the issues that needed to be addressed
| instead of gender politics and foreign policy.
|
| What is the disagreement?
| Capricorn2481 wrote:
| The disagreement is that Fox News focused on gender
| politics, but it was largely absent from both Biden and
| Kamala's campaign.
|
| I guess congrats to Fox, because focusing on it all day
| every day worked. The average joe thinks that's all the
| Democrats care about. It's extremely transparent when
| someone says "gender politics" what media they're
| consuming.
| mtswish wrote:
| Yeah man, the only people talking about gender politics
| at this point are Republicans.
| dead_gunslinger wrote:
| Have we been following the same campaign? These were at
| least in the top-5 messages from their campaign:
|
| - Kamala is not only black, but she is ALSO a woman!
| Please vote for her otherwise you won't only be a racist
| but a misogynist too.
|
| - If you are a woman your rights are in jeopardy and
| Trump will put you back in chains or something. If you
| are a woman and not voting for Kamala you are doing what
| your husband is telling you to do obviously.
| Capricorn2481 wrote:
| Interesting, those are two things I heard on Fox but not
| from Kamalas campaign. Weird how that works.
|
| I did however hear some gender politics from the Trump
| campaign, whether it was accusing boxers of being men or
| railing against childless cat ladies.
| dead_gunslinger wrote:
| Well you must not have been paying much attention then.
| It's straight from Kamala's ad:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaCPck2qDhk
| mrguyorama wrote:
| So, when the democrats finally said "hey, we were wrong,
| here's a boarder bill to limit entry into the US", and
| Trump said "don't fix the boarder",
|
| Why did Trump then get votes?
|
| Nobody is confused as to why people _SAY_ they support
| Trump, people are confused that you can show someone who
| supports Trump objective evidence that he hurts them, works
| against his wishes, etc, and they will support him
| _harder_.
|
| The "backfire effect" doesn't replicate, but boy IDK if we
| can call two elections anything more than an adequate
| sample size.
|
| If Gender politics is such a nothing-burger that the
| president shouldn't care about it, why did they vote in the
| party who is enthusiastic about hetero-normativity? Why did
| so many republicans devote airtime and debate time to
| talking about the double digit number of trans people in
| sports?
| tim333 wrote:
| I did think at the time when Biden had to step aside that it
| was a shame they didn't try to choose the most competent
| replacement (maybe Shapiro?) rather than just going with Kamala
| who I think everyone agreed wasn't very good.
| drdrek wrote:
| Yup, its hard to claim you are going to address systemic
| issues when you are unable to get over internal petty
| politics of your own party system
| lt_snuffles wrote:
| may be Sapiro didn't want to run this time.
| akkad33 wrote:
| > think everyone agreed wasn't very good.
|
| Isn't this what people said after Clinton lost in 2016?
| Hindsight is 20/20
| max51 wrote:
| >At every step of the way they very eloquently and academically
| explained why they have the right solutions
|
| Part of the problem is that they didn't explain anything. Even
| in friendly interviews, the best kamala can answer when asked
| for specific is a big word salad that can be summarized as
| "Trump is evil and a danger to democracy, vote for us". Saying
| you have a plan and shitting on the other party for not having
| one is not the same as having a real plan and communicating it
| properly.
| realce wrote:
| In an opportunity economy, you'll have OPPORTUNITY!
|
| I think Harris 2024 is the worst campaign I've ever seen in
| modern American history.
| fourside wrote:
| > You may don't like that this was reality, that your
| progressive views are more "right" than that, but it is.
|
| This made talking politics with my social circle difficult.
| Don't shoot the messenger. This was not the time to run a risky
| candidate. I actually think Harris ran a decent campaign, much
| better than I thought she would, but I don't think she had much
| of a chance. I remember when Biden dropped out several groups
| came out saying that if the DNC didn't give Harris the
| nomination, that they would consider than to be a betrayal and
| that they'd lose their support. It was frustrating to see them
| so focused on what was "right" or "fair" when the stakes were
| so high.
|
| The crazy thing is that we already went through this in 2016.
| We had people protest voting against Clinton. It didn't work.
| And yet we seem to have been ok letting unyielding idealism
| sabotage important elections.
|
| That said, I think a huge problem was Biden's ego and his
| inability to stick to his campaign promise of being a one-term
| president. With him dropping with only a few months left,
| democrats didn't have many options.
| jdelman wrote:
| Agreed on Biden's ego being a problem, but when did he ever
| promise to be a one term president?
| FreeRadical wrote:
| But Trump didn't do any of things you suggested either. In fact
| he was barely coherent in his ideas most of the time.
| keb_ wrote:
| Yeah this always surprises me when people compare the
| candidates. OK, Kamala was mediocre. But a ham sandwich is
| better than Trump's inane incoherent rambling. His positions
| are a vague protectionism.
| RajT88 wrote:
| It kind of makes sense from a certain angle.
|
| Trump is a known quantity - people know what they are
| getting with him and have made their peace with him being
| how he is.
|
| People expect more from Democrats. Harris would get dinged
| for saying things that Trump says, _by the same people who
| are fine with Trump saying those things_.
|
| If that seems irrational and hypocritical, well, that's how
| people are, regardless of their politics.
|
| Another model of how to think about the candidates is that
| human beings make decisions based on how the person or
| thing in front of them makes them feel - and afterward they
| come up with post-hoc rationalizations as to why. Even
| smart people do this. To some extent, we're all lying to
| ourselves about this.
|
| So it makes sense that this time around both candidates ran
| campaigns focused on emotions, instead of policy specifics.
| Jeema101 wrote:
| He is barely coherent most of the time, but several of his
| ideas do resonate with people and are easy to understand:
|
| 1 - Other countries in the world have taken advantage of the
| US
|
| 2 - Illegal immigrants have changed the country for the worse
| and are taking jobs
|
| #2 in particular has been framed as being racist. There IS a
| good deal of racism mixed in there, but the truth is that low
| skilled illegal immigrants DO compete for many of the same
| jobs as lower-skilled Americans.
|
| None other than Bernie Sanders said as much about the subject
| right around 2007. His stance at that time was that we needed
| to do something about illegal immigration specifically to
| protect the jobs of American workers, but then later he
| changed his tune to fit in with the rest of the party.
|
| If you address the majority of people's concerns and worries,
| they'll vote for you.
| seaal wrote:
| I am indeed very worried about all these illegal immigrants
| taking our very important jobs.
|
| When I order food delivery, get in an Uber, and drop off my
| laundry at the wash and fold I want an under-educated
| American!
| Throaway116 wrote:
| This is such a goofy response. Are you aware that under-
| educated Americans need jobs, and in fact vote???
| seaal wrote:
| That's why we have surging high unemployment! Oh wait
| it's still lower than when George Bush was president.
| hext wrote:
| People want prosperous livelihoods not just jobs. Do you
| think those working those low paying dead end jobs are
| just completely content with having zero mobility or
| financial security?
|
| That uber driving might be living in their car but at
| least they are employed right??
| foolfoolz wrote:
| if you are buying delivery food, taxis, and laundry
| services you are clearly an upper class net worth
| individual. surely you know what's best for working class
| americans
| seaal wrote:
| Yes I'm a super high net worth individual with a
| household income of $60K a year.
|
| It's called living in a city, I don't own a car or have a
| laundry machine.
| ptek wrote:
| A laundry machine today could be a risky investment as
| you don't know how many years it will last. My old flat
| had a machine that broke down (It was less than 6 months
| old) and there was a known problem with the model which
| was to do with the input pad to set the settings. Luckily
| it was under warranty, but even still the stop was
| fighting hard to replace it :/ (I think it was fisher and
| paykel, they used to be good but they moved the
| manufacturing base from New Zealand to overseas).
| ithkuil wrote:
| My take away from those kind of exchanges is that most
| people have no idea how other groups of people live
| teitoklien wrote:
| Do not insult a person's honest earned livelihood that
| they work for to support their families.
|
| There are tens of thousands of Americans who are forced
| to live in Trailer trucks or from their car who often do
| those sorts of jobs.
|
| They just want an honest living and do not have the
| opportunities to get higher college education to land
| well paid white collar formal jobs.
|
| That uber job is often their way to save up for their
| truck driving license so that they can move to a decent
| wage to get his/her kids a nice christmas gift,
| nutritious daily meals for their kids and other emotional
| needs.
|
| To them, seeing their jobs being taken up by illegal
| immigrants for lower wages, no payroll taxes to pay, etc.
| is a very very very real issue to them and a zero sum
| game being played against their life.
| Vaskerville wrote:
| Taking jobs? Who, is giving them illegal jobs?
|
| Why aren't people talking about this and doing something
| about it?
| seaal wrote:
| Americans. Plenty of business owners happy to pay under
| the table, steal wages and take advantage of illegal
| workers with no protections.
|
| People rent out DoorDash and Uber accounts for 20% of the
| income from people that can't sign up themselves.
| ithkuil wrote:
| It's again our limbic system: it's easier to assign all
| the blame outsiders
| jedberg wrote:
| > 2 - Illegal immigrants have changed the country for the
| worse and are taking jobs
|
| > #2 in particular has been framed as being racist. There
| IS a good deal of racism mixed in there, but the truth is
| that low skilled illegal immigrants DO compete for many of
| the same jobs as lower-skilled Americans.
|
| There is only one group for which that is true -- men
| without a high school diploma. Otherwise, immigrants are
| generally taking jobs that Americans won't do.
|
| Case in point, picking produce at farms. The last time they
| cracked down on immigration, a lot of those farms had to
| spoil a lot of crops because no one would pick them.
| WgaqPdNr7PGLGVW wrote:
| > Otherwise, immigrants are generally taking jobs that
| Americans won't do.
|
| Because the pay is terrible. Start paying well and plenty
| of Americans will want the jobs.
|
| Working a low skilled job like fast food should be enough
| to pay for college so that it is possible to lift
| yourself up out of poverty.
|
| We have created a two tier system and the educated class
| just makes excuses about why the system has to work the
| way it does today.
| Bostonian wrote:
| "All they had to do was bring a calming white man that is not
| in cognitive decline"
|
| They did that with VP Walz, but it did not help. Their policies
| are the problem.
| svnt wrote:
| But surely you can tell that putting him in a subordinate
| position does not produce the same emotional effect, if
| anything it amplifies the negative reaction by baking the
| problem into the ticket.
| ajdude wrote:
| I've read in a few places that if Walz was the presidential
| pick and Harris the VP, he would have probably been able to
| beat Trump.
| dead_gunslinger wrote:
| Purely delusional.
| Klonoar wrote:
| Nobody gives a shit about the VP.
| mnau wrote:
| Vance Rogan interview got 15 million views compared to
| Trump's 45 million. Not overwhelming, saying nobody gives a
| ship about VP is kind of a stretch.
|
| Especially since we had 3 assasination plots on Trump. It's
| quite possible he won't live the end of his term and not
| because of his age.
| pier25 wrote:
| It's the limbic system vs the frontal lobe.
|
| The limbic system won.
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| My take is that people are attracted to fascists and
| authoritarians for similar reasons as many people are
| fascinated by serial killers and the evil protagonists in TV
| shows. Something about watching evil and cruelty appeals to
| human nature.
| nick3443 wrote:
| subconscious desire to follow & make one's self appealing
| to those with more charisma and power than ourself, despite
| the harm that comes with it
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| People are attracted to power. It's that simple.
| kypro wrote:
| The best explanation I heard for the appeal of fascism was
| from someone on the far-right - that fascism is basically
| an immune response of a nation.
|
| When enough people are hurting from the status quo voting
| for "sensible" policies of soft reform isn't going to cut
| it. At some point you need to blow up the existing system
| so you clear out the rot.
|
| This immune response might be costly to the nation in the
| near-term but the hope is when it's over it will have also
| have destroyed the infection.
|
| When it's put in these terms I can begin to relate more
| with the appeal of Trump, and while I'm not personally
| convinced he is a fascist, I do get why people say that. I
| can be nervous and unhappy with the result, but also
| acknowledge that the US needs significant change and voting
| in Biden or Harris was never realistically going to bring
| that.
|
| There's clearly something wrong with democratic party.
| They're no longer appealing to the working class they claim
| to speak for and instead their primary supports now seem to
| be suburban white-women and the college educated
| metropolitan class. Today they're also supported by the
| media establishment, war-mongers like Dick Cheney, most
| billionaires, Hollywood celebs and pop-stars. Given this
| it's really no surprised we smart well off people on HN
| don't like Trump and quite like the sensible status-quo
| Harris promised.
|
| I hope this immune response doesn't kill the host and I
| hope something positive comes out of all of this. We should
| take comfort in the fact that the US is the most resilient
| democratic nation on Earth and Trump probably won't be
| alive in another decade. Those who worry about an actual
| fascist up rising probably need to relax a little. The
| great risk over the next few years is probably just
| geopolitical stupidity and we've seen plenty of that in the
| last 4 anyway.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| > The best explanation I heard for the appeal of fascism
| was from someone on the far-right - that fascism is
| basically an immune response of a nation.
|
| This is some really low-tier fascist apologia, in my
| opinion. Fascism isn't an immune response, it's a cancer.
| Once active in the host, it tries to sap it of whatever
| resources it can to enrich itself. Rooting out fascism
| has, historically, come at great personal and political
| cost to the countries that manage it.
| nixdev wrote:
| The original year 1919 definition was actually a response
| to an openly belligerent threat.
| https://external-preview.redd.it/bgOMQfMeKo_CF5XXqX485aPK
| RvwVc_P5ue0EW5S_9dk.jpg?auto=webp&s=49296031d016df4f5380c
| 78d7b41981b03ba035d
| gosub100 wrote:
| Would you use those adjectives to describe Obama? "People"
| certainly must have been attracted to those traits if he
| served two terms.
| pier25 wrote:
| Maybe the fascination from people who never actually lived
| through fascism. Like people who fantasize about BDSM or
| CNC sex but would never really do it in real life.
|
| I'm from Spain and even to this day we hear old people
| saying that "life was better with Franco". I think it's
| more about a need to have a homogenous society with very
| clear rules and boundaries.
| jffhn wrote:
| >The limbic system won.
|
| The limbic system always wins.
|
| "The mind is always the dupe of the heart." (La
| Rochefoucauld)
| pkoird wrote:
| Not necessarily. Only when people are afraid or anxious.
| akkad33 wrote:
| Well then isn't the limbic system in charge? Because
| those are like two major emotions most people feel
| jffhn wrote:
| >those are like two major emotions most people feel
|
| "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and
| the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the
| unknown." (H. P. Lovecraft)
| pier25 wrote:
| It often wins, not always. Otherwise we'd be all monkeys
| out of control and we're not. We're often capable of
| handling our basic animal instincts.
| sjducb wrote:
| The limbic system is a neural net that's been training for a
| billion years. It's probably right.
| kaba0 wrote:
| I'm sure voting sensibly in a democracy, understanding all
| the consequences it will have on oneself, the nation and on
| foreign people was definitely part of the function to be
| optimized for (besides that evolution doesn't work like
| that)
| nixdev wrote:
| Not having an unending war with a power armed with nuclear
| weapons appealed to voters.
| keybored wrote:
| This self-righteous narrative is way off.
|
| The Democrats would rather lose with a neoliberal+unpopular
| candidate than win with a popular candidate. Because they serve
| similar corporate interests as the Reps. Only with a completely
| different Culture War shtick than the Reps.
|
| That you frame this as being "factually, morally, academically"
| correct is funny--what justice does the Dems fight for? Not
| Palestinians. Not the average American. Just well-off women
| (now white or Jamaican) having "their turn" as the commander in
| chief.
| scoot wrote:
| > put an uncharismatic non white woman as the candidate
|
| As a "white" man (no more white than native Americans are
| "red", Chinese are "yellow", or Africans are "black"), I take
| offence at the suggestion that skin color or gender should be a
| defining characteristic to determine who should be the US
| president (or anyone else in power).
|
| Charisma is a different story, but boy, if Trump is the
| benchmark for what counts as having charisma, we're in even
| bigger trouble than I thought.
| okdood64 wrote:
| Think you missed the rest of the post:
|
| > You may don't like that this was reality, that your
| progressive views are more "right" than that, but it is.
| cryptonector wrote:
| You imply that Americans are racist. You're making the same
| sort of mistake that you ascribe to the Democratic Party.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Pretty much. The country loudly said a few things. The economy
| is shit for me. Women do not belong anywhere near power and her
| place is in the home. No one is buying any of the trans
| ideologies. LGBTQ is acceptable if you keep quiet about it.
| squigz wrote:
| Ahhh yes, a calming old white man would've solved everything.
|
| I guess we'll see in the next 4 years.
| bandyaboot wrote:
| Can everyone acknowledge that this would have been flagged out of
| existence within minutes if it had been a story about the
| opposite result?
|
| edit: acknowledging that I was wrong about this.
| tyleo wrote:
| I don't think that's true. I feel like we get an allowance of
| one of these posts per election if you go back in HN history.
| bandyaboot wrote:
| Ok, fair enough. I was going from the assumption that
| political posts generally are removed from hn. But, clearly
| there's just some nuance that I didn't recognize.
| tyleo wrote:
| I appreciate you acknowledging this. Something not done
| enough. Thanks a ton!
| drdrek wrote:
| There were posts left up on many divisive issues with a "Be
| kind" message on them. I think what you are thinking of is a
| "election stolen, storm the capitol" posts :)
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| "Can everyone acknowledge" is such a weird phrase, just like
| "can we all agree". No, we can't, this isn't how things work,
| everyone has a right to their own opinion etc.
|
| And it wouldn't have been flagged out of existence, see this
| post from 4 years ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25015967
| bandyaboot wrote:
| Ok, I'll acknowledge that I'm incorrect about this.
| infotainment wrote:
| It was actually flagkilled almost immediately, but was
| eventually revived. I assume this particular one was picked
| because it was the first article posted about the topic.
| hiergiltdiestfu wrote:
| absolutely bonkers, this is the shittiest timeline
| stevev wrote:
| The left and the Democrats has become so far left and radical
| that their party didn't resonate with everyday Americans for the
| past several years.
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| Have they? They've been consistently trying to chase moderates
| for years. Harris had Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney backing her.
| I'd say their attempt to capture these people has largely
| failed.
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| very funny to watch this post go from +3 to -1 as the
| Americans woke up
| greenie_beans wrote:
| this is so wrong. the dems have shifted rightward. they
| would've won if they were further left.
| deergomoo wrote:
| The Democrats are firmly centre-right when compared against
| most of the rest of the western world. They wouldn't know far-
| left if it slapped them in the face.
| drdrek wrote:
| Can the doomers relax? He is mentally unstable and egomaniac, but
| do you really think the US is this fregile? Have you met CEOs and
| politicians? most of them are egomaniacs and some are mentally
| unstable. If the system could not handle them in power the
| country would have crumbled long ago... Will it be better or
| worse? who knows. but definitely not OMFG ruined everything gone.
| Have a day off and calm down.
| lifeinthevoid wrote:
| I think you underestimate the guy. Or do you believe that a
| president that orchestrated a riot on the Capitol is just a
| minor issue? The guy has learned a lot from his first
| presidency, he has had 4 years to think about what went wrong
| and now we're about to experience it.
| Krasnol wrote:
| Obviously, the US is VERY fragile.
|
| Their egos are fragile, they're afraid of women, LGBT, people
| who don't look like the default Caucasian stock and so on.
|
| This is why they elect idiots who don't educate them and
| instead play their fears because he shares so many of them.
| linotype wrote:
| Or they're tired of being told their trash because they're
| young white/latino males. Trump clearly spoke to them.
| sourcepluck wrote:
| From far away, it looks obvious.
|
| When he ran the first time, the tactic was "oh easy, we'll say
| we're not as _egregious_ as that guy ".
|
| They even sabotaged Bernie to this effect (see Podesta emails),
| even though he was polling much better than Clinton. This failed
| miserably, probably in essence because the Democrats were
| underestimating the power of clicks to drive reality, which Trump
| understood, at least intuitively.
|
| This was a historical moment where the Democrats could have
| reorganised things and refocused on their traditional base,
| namely, the working class. It seemed obvious they should, I
| personally really thought they would have to.
|
| No no, it turned out. We were treated to years and years of full
| on circus shenanigans. They doubled down, blamed others - the
| Russians, Wikileaks, whoever really. Anything but blame
| themselves and admit that they were offering nothing which was
| substantively different enough from the Republicans, in the eyes
| of the voters.
|
| And here we are again. Will they be able to gut the decrepit
| power structures keeping the zombie Democrat party afloat this
| time, injecting new life? Or will they find a new scapegoat,
| treating us to more utterly pointless pontificating through a
| series of never-ending media cycles.
|
| In summary, it seems they think pandering to identity tropes will
| be enough to distinguish them in the eyes of the voters, but that
| is simply playing on Trump's territory where he decides the
| rules. He does it better than them. It's one of the quite few
| things you could say he's "good" at.
| natch wrote:
| This was a self-inflicted wound.
|
| * Weak, deceptive, evasive candidate
|
| * Entitled attitude in the party
|
| * Unknown people running the party. Still.
|
| * Full embrace of cray cray ideologies, rejection of meritocracy
|
| * Disengagement and withdrawal from free discussion forums
|
| * Using X to talk only about sports. Looking at you, Gruber
|
| * Constant ineffective, ignorant, and ill-informed trolling of
| their perceived opponents while unwittingly creating new ones
|
| * Disingenuously labeling the other side as "garbage" (said by
| Biden, and he is President, not a jerk racist comedian)
|
| * Assuming and never questioning the assumption, that people
| voting for a bad candidate love that candidate.
|
| * Taking the low road
|
| * Hiding Biden's incompetence, then, when caught, letting him
| stick around
|
| * Accepting the notion that one can negotiate a peace deal with
| Hamas
|
| * All the other things people are pretending were the only
| problems: the economy, immigration, etc. which genuinely also
| were problems.
|
| There are a lot of things the Democratic party had going for it.
| They really snatched defeat from the jaws of victory:
|
| * The Republican candidate is one of the worst people you could
| possibly imagine for the job.
|
| * He is (I believe) a rapist, for god's sake
|
| * He's nearly as demented as Biden
|
| * He lies even more than Kamala
|
| * Anti-woman is an understatement
|
| Democrats have to ask themselves, who is running our party, and
| for what ends? I don't think they know. I don't even recognize
| what they are now.
|
| It's not the economy, stupid. It's the trolling, the
| disengagement, and the entitlement. They are off-putting.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| There is quite a bit of pessimism here.
| 93po wrote:
| i blame the media for "trump is literally hitler" for the past
| ten years
| BadHumans wrote:
| You act like the guy didn't himself say he wanted to use the
| military on people who disagreed with him or that he just
| needed people to vote one more time and after that they would
| rig it so you didn't need to vote again. Comments like this
| make me wonder if people are actually paying attention.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| The rhetoric has only amplified in negative ways since he
| came on the scene in 2015. I don't know who kicked it off,
| and don't think it matters. Both sides are equally guilty
| for the hatred they've spewed.
| BadHumans wrote:
| Both sides are not equally guilty and the "both sides are
| the same" rhetoric is tired and old.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| > Both sides are not equally guilty
|
| Yes they most certainly are.
| BadHumans wrote:
| You're going to have to point me to when the Democratic
| nominee said we should kill political rivals. Since both
| sides are equal. Because I can point to when the
| Republican nominee said it[0].
|
| [0] https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/01/politics/donald-trump-
| liz-che...
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine
| barrels shooting at her, OK?
|
| You generally don't give a rifle to people you want to
| kill. Trump was making an obvious and anodyne point,
| which has been made time and again, in song and story,
| which is that war hawks generally don't fight in the wars
| they cheer for.
| 93po wrote:
| trump is the most anti-war president of my lifetime, i
| don't know how anyone is accusing him of using or misusing
| the military.
|
| what is it specifically about a second term that allows him
| to rig all future elections? what is different this time
| that wasn't true in 2016?
| BadHumans wrote:
| > trump is the most anti-war president of my lifetime, i
| don't know how anyone is accusing him of using or
| misusing the military
|
| Trump is going to let Israel flatten Gaza, Russia take
| Ukraine, and possibly China engage Taiwan but anti-war.
| No one is accusing him of misusing the military yet.
|
| > what is it specifically about a second term that allows
| him to rig all future elections? what is different this
| time that wasn't true in 2016?
|
| A majority in Congress, a loyal Republican heavy Supreme
| Court, and the presidency as well as the desire to stay
| out of jail.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| Exactly their point - I/they _don 't want_ the US to get
| directly involved in those situations. It would make it
| worse. The US doesn't need to be getting into wars,
| especially not with nuclear superpowers.
|
| The supreme court balance is the same as it was when he
| was president, Republicans had the majority in the House
| from the beginning of Trump's presidency in January 2017
| until the 2018 midterm elections, when the Democrats won
| control of the House, and Republicans had the majority in
| the Senate for the entirety of Trump's presidency.
|
| literally nothing is different this time that's going to
| let him round up people into camps and turn himself into
| god-emperor. if he was interested in abusing power in
| completely new ways he would have pardoned himself before
| he left office.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _The supreme court balance is the same as it was when
| he was president_
|
| I think it's a safe bet that Thomas and Alito will step
| down in the next two years and be replaced by similarly
| right-wing justices, just much younger. The court will be
| majority hard-right for the rest of my life.
|
| > _literally nothing is different this time_
|
| This time he and his supporters are _prepared_. If you
| look at Trump in 2016, he seemed genuinely surprised he
| won. His transition team was ad-hoc and clumsy. His
| cabinet and advisory picks ended up being sub-optimal for
| him, as he kept appointing people who wouldn 't go as far
| as he wanted to. Project 2025 is a thing now, and is a
| playbook for weakening and subverting the US federal
| government -- except in areas where conservatives want to
| keep power so they can impose it on states that don't
| share their ideology.
|
| And any time states complain, SCOTUS will tell them to
| stuff it.
| BadHumans wrote:
| The US is not directly involved in any of those
| situations and all of those situations have consequences
| for the US even if they are not involved, especially
| Taiwan.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| No he isn't. He crapped all over Obama for ending the war
| in Iraq, along with most other Republicans. He kept the
| US in Afghanistan for his whole term and sabotaged the US
| exist on the way out, by setting a date far in the
| future, drawing down most US military assets, and
| negotiating the release of ~5000 Taliban who went right
| back to fighting. His policy toward Putin was pure
| appeasement.
|
| Please find me _any_ Republicans who gave Obama credit
| for ending the Iraq war - in his first term no less.
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fact-checking-donald-
| trumps-...
| consteval wrote:
| > i don't know how anyone is accusing him of using or
| misusing the military
|
| Because he explicitly stated he wants to use the military
| domestically to retain power and clean out the US?
|
| Are we really meant to just... not believe the words
| Trump says? On the topic of Trump?
| BadHumans wrote:
| When they agree with him he's serious and when they don't
| he's joking or being misunderstood. That is how cults
| operate.
| foxglacier wrote:
| I've never heard that before. Have you got a link to those
| statements? I suspect you're not accurately representing
| their meaning in your summary.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Does he have any responsibility at all for the words that
| come out of his own mouth? Blaming the media has been the
| right wing propaganda strategy for the last 3 decades. Fox
| News and the alte unlamented Rush Limbaugh have made entire
| brands out of blaming the media, while also crowing about
| being the most successful media brands in the country.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Well yeah, because Trump is a very bad person and a very risky
| choice to lead an important nation like the US. He'll also be
| our oldest ever president if he serves this full term, and even
| now shows clear signs of decline. We just went through that
| same thing, but with a person who was younger at the time of
| the election, and it's not good.
|
| I think there are plenty of reasons to remain optimistic for
| the US on longer timescales, but for the next few years, this
| was a terrible outcome for which pessimism is warranted.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Even people who don't like Trump voted for the man. That's how
| bad Democrats have become, that even Trump could win. Selecting
| Chauncey Gardener as their candidate, especially after a term
| spent under an man who was in no condition to be president (watch
| old footage of Biden for comparison) was the coup de grace.
|
| Of course, in a general sense, the GOP is the Democratic party on
| a time delay.
|
| There are deep problems that partisan politics cannot fix, but
| perhaps it is time to begin taking third parties seriously and
| break away from the two-headed uniparty monopoly. Ranked-choice
| voting is one way to help this happen, but of course, the
| uniparty won't hear it.
| whatever1 wrote:
| I try to understand why Trump lost the 2020 election and won the
| 2024.
|
| My reading is that people vote with a punishment mindset. Aka the
| only way to punish Trump for his horrible term was to vote for
| Biden. And the only way to punish Biden for his bad financially
| term was to vote for Trump.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Whoever is in charge gets the heat for any problems.
|
| He happened to be at the wheel, when COVID hit, and that did
| all kinds of damage. His handling of it was clumsy.
|
| Biden was at the wheel when we had high inflation (because we
| fixed the COVID slump with free money). I think the dems did a
| shitty job with our borders, and that hit him.
|
| Check back in 2026, to see what people think.
| crusty wrote:
| Our political system is dominated by a group of voters who are
| basically Sideshow Bobs wandering around yards strewn with
| rakes.
|
| https://giphy.com/gifs/season-5-the-simpsons-5x2-3o6Mbtdd7dh...
| cultureswitch wrote:
| It's getting sort of ridiculous how much each party is stuck in
| an electoral strategy where they have to pretend to be on one
| side of an issue which is objectively against the interests of
| the people they pretend to be representing.
|
| Dems have to appear to be pro-immigration for reasons (honestly I
| don't know why this is like this, historically). They are
| genuinely less xenophobic than the Reps, so they respect the
| rights of recent immigrants much better. But when it comes to
| preventing more poor workers coming in, they are just as tough as
| the Reps. And I believe that's because ultimately they are
| slightly less captured by capital and therefore more amenable to
| balance the economy in favor of workers.
|
| Reps on the other hand have to appear xenophobic once again for
| reasons that aren't super clear to me, but when it comes to
| actually preventing immigration, they always manage to torpedo
| their own proposals. And arguably that's because if they passed
| effective anti-immigration laws, that would negatively affect the
| interests of capital, the very obvious reason they're in politics
| for (and Trump is certainly no different).
|
| Maybe now we can resolve this apparent paradox and simply accept
| that the Democrats are first and foremost the party of the
| educated, metropolitan and utterly disinterested in matters of
| material conditions. Whereas the Republicans are the party of
| people who are bitter towards the first group. Which leads to the
| conclusion that exceptionally few people in the US are voting
| according to their own economic interests.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| Thanks for actually getting this
| markus_zhang wrote:
| From an outsider's view (and many of my friends hold the same
| view), the two parties are not that different. They are
| different in some minor issues that grab eyeballs so that to
| create drama, but for the big ones (foreign policy, economics),
| they are not that different. I mean look at those bi-partisan
| issues, they are all big ones.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I think this is sort of the result of looking at any
| country's politics as an outsider. For Americans, most of us
| are in between the parties and so they point in different
| directions for us. Also, because the specific policies impact
| our lives, we are more interested in the details (where the
| parties actually do look pretty different) than some
| aggregation or big picture view.
|
| In terms of some big issues being bi-partisan... I mean, it
| would be sort of weird if the broad strokes weren't somewhat
| bipartisan, right? Like if we actually switched between
| having a capitalist and a communist economy every four
| years... that would not be a feasible way to run a country,
| haha.
|
| But I mean we're going to see some pretty big differences:
| support for our allies in NATO will look different (I don't
| think we're pulling out or anything but the relationships
| will change). The parties seem to have different visions of
| how we should try to get semiconductor manufacturing back
| over here (an industry that basically... determines what a
| lot the overall economy will look like). Abortion access will
| probably be determined by states (which will be a life-
| altering change of circumstance for some folks).
|
| These are big differences.
| sanderjd wrote:
| This is a common, but fundamentally incorrect, assessment.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| > Reps on the other hand have to appear xenophobic once again
| for reasons that aren't super clear to me,
|
| It's not complicated. It's the Christian Nationalist agenda for
| the last 50 years. They don't want white people to be the
| minority and most immigrants don't fit that profile.
|
| > but when it comes to actually preventing immigration, they
| always manage to torpedo their own proposals.
|
| Because they have to win elections. They do this by declaring
| something bad, doing nothing about it, then blaming democrats
| so they can get re-elected. Look at Florida. They've been
| republican for over two decades, they have a super majority and
| they don't solve any of the problems they run against the
| democrats on.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| > the Democrats are first and foremost the party of the
| educated, metropolitan and utterly disinterested in matters of
| material conditions.
|
| This is absolutely true. Though most people on the Left are
| terrified to face this fact.
|
| > Whereas the Republicans are the party of people who are
| bitter towards the first group.
|
| This was true in 2016, probably 2020. But definitely not this
| election. Just to use myself as an example: I'm an Obama ('12),
| Clinton ('16), Biden ('20), Trump voter ('24).
|
| I'm not motivated by animosity against Democrats because I was
| voting for them. Trump's message now is way more positive. It's
| a message of peace with Russia, making America healthy again,
| getting competent people in government (Musk), etc.
|
| And that's actually also what a lot of the most influential
| Trump supporters (Musk, Rogan, RFK, Dana White, Nelk boys, Theo
| Von, etc) have been espousing too, pretty much all of whom used
| to be Democrats.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Trump 's message now is way more positive._
|
| I feel like I've been listening to a very different Trump
| than you have. Most of what he says involves demonizing
| various groups of people, cozying up to dictators, or putting
| his political opponents in jail. His rallies are about
| stoking outrage and fear.
|
| > _It 's a message of peace with Russia_
|
| At the expense of Ukraine's sovereignty.
|
| Is peace with Russia going to look like what happened with
| Afghanistan? The withdrawal plan and timeline was Trump's,
| not Biden's.
|
| > _making America healthy again_
|
| Every concrete proposal of his (not that he has many) that
| I've heard will bring us back on the inflation train,
| increase the deficit, reverse our declining reliance on
| fossil fuels, and increase income inequality even further.
| And on top of that he'll even further paralyze the federal
| government. Which is of course the conservative agenda in a
| nutshell: dismantle the federal government and let the states
| decide their fates, except where they want to impose their
| "values" on blue states.
|
| > _getting competent people in government (Musk), etc._
|
| If you think Musk is competent and should be anywhere near
| government, our fundamentals are so different that there's
| probably no point in discussing it further.
| newfriend wrote:
| > I feel like I've been listening to a very different Trump
| than you have. Most of what he says involves demonizing
| various groups of people, cozying up to dictators, or
| putting his political opponents in jail. His rallies are
| about stoking outrage and fear.
|
| It sounds more like you've been listening to what the news
| tells you Trump is.
|
| "cozying up to dictators" is exactly the language used by
| MSNBC, CNN, CBS, et al. Putting his political opponents in
| jail is what his opposition tried.
|
| The withdrawal plan is different from the execution,
| especially when only the high-level is followed. That is on
| Biden.
|
| > Every concrete proposal of his (not that he has many)
| that I've heard will bring us back on the inflation train,
| increase the deficit, reverse our declining reliance on
| fossil fuels, and increase income inequality even further.
| And on top of that he'll even further paralyze the federal
| government. Which is of course the conservative agenda in a
| nutshell: dismantle the federal government and let the
| states decide their fates, except where they want to impose
| their "values" on blue states.
|
| Again, this just sounds like what certain media tells you.
| I have never heard Trump say his goal is to "paralyze the
| federal government".
| kelnos wrote:
| > _It sounds more like you 've been listening to what the
| news tells you Trump is._
|
| I've been listening to the literal words that Trump says,
| by watching videos of his rallies.
|
| Regardless, I'm not really interested in engaging with
| someone who's going to argue that "I'm listening wrong"
| instead of presenting a coherent argument.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Trump 's message now is way more positive._
|
| I feel like I've been listening to a very different Trump
| than you have. Most of what he says involves demonizing
| various groups of people, becoming a dictator, or putting his
| political opponents in jail. (And no, I haven't just been
| listening to sound bites or the most inflammatory short
| clips.)
|
| > _It 's a message of peace with Russia_
|
| At the expense of Ukraine's sovereignty, appeasing a dictator
| and emboldening him to take other territory in Eastern
| Europe. (I bet China is happy with this, too.)
|
| Is peace with Russia going to look like what happened with
| Afghanistan? The withdrawal plan and timeline was Trump's,
| not Biden's.
|
| > _making America healthy again_
|
| Every concrete proposal of his (not that he has many) that
| I've heard will bring us back on the inflation train, and
| increase the deficit. And on top of that he'll even further
| paralyze the federal government. Which is of course the
| conservative agenda in a nutshell: dismantle the federal
| government and let the states decide their fates, except
| where they want to impose their "values" on blue states.
|
| > _getting competent people in government (Musk), etc._
|
| I see Musk as a deranged man who has succeeded through luck,
| timing, and rhetoric, rather than skill or talent. He can't
| even focus properly on the important things anymore (Tesla,
| SpaceX), and would prefer to spend his time making sure no
| one says mean things about him on Twitter. If he were a
| family member I'd be worried about his mental health. I don't
| say that to be flippant or cruel; I'm dead serious.
| havblue wrote:
| One of my "friends" bragged to me this year about how he
| threatened to replace one of his underperforming programmers
| with someone from Pakistan for $10 an hour.
|
| Say you're on the receiving end of this threat. Do you really
| care what country your replacement is from? Is my "friend"
| really all that benevolent to fire someone for less money?
| sanderjd wrote:
| What is the political salience of this anecdote, in your
| view?
| TrackerFF wrote:
| This is in no way a shot at the Latino population. But they are
| unfortunately a group that are stuck in a hard place.
|
| On one side, they have a very religious population. Some of
| their core values align with republican values - i.e., freedom
| of religion, pro-life, and what have you.
|
| But they're also voting for the very same people that vows to
| deport them.
|
| And before anyone tries to argue "But they only want the
| illegal ones deported!" - we all know damn well that the most
| vocal part of the republican party couldn't care less if
| thousands of legal immigrants are deported by "accident".
|
| In the end, people vote against their own interest, and
| rationalize it with "But it wouldn't happen to me!" (or anyone
| they know or love).
|
| Same goes for the "fiscally conservative, socially liberal"
| crowd, and what have you.
| pcunite wrote:
| He never lost. Where are the missing 20M+ voters this time
| around?
| kwere wrote:
| Covid
| Xortl wrote:
| ...missing? They're waiting for their votes to be tallied.
| laniakean wrote:
| 2016 : Hilary Clinton - People felt that she was chosen because
| it was her turn 2020 : Kamala Harris - A candidate who never ever
| even did well in the primaries.
|
| I hope DNC learn from this and let people choose a candidate next
| time.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| The real problem was Biden not dropping out early enough so
| that they could have a fair selection process.
|
| But tbh I'm not sure how much it mattered. With the high
| inflation levels it was always an uphill battle for the
| incumbent.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Inflation caused by Trump (Covid) and greedy corps. Stocks at
| all time highs baby.
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| Underlying that problem were the Administration thinking they
| could fool us all into believing that Biden's faculties were
| unaffected. This was a two-edged sword because it also
| demonstrated that maybe it doesn't matter so much who is
| president, at least as domestic affairs go, because the
| administrative state runs so much on autopilot.
| throw_that_away wrote:
| That's the thing about the left, they think the "machine"
| could just run things. You actually have to have someone
| that fires people. Think about it, Even Kim Cheatle had to
| resign! Biden did not ask for ANYONE to do a good job. No
| one was in control of that admin, it was a complete mess.
| If there is an atmosphere of governance/leadership that no
| matter how shitty a job you do, but you get to keep your
| job, then no one will care about anything at the top.
| tartoran wrote:
| You may be right but short to remember the chaos in
| Trumps administration from 2016 to 2020. It really seemed
| like the country was about to burst. I hope it won't
| happen this time though...
| lolinder wrote:
| > thinking they could fool us all into believing that
| Biden's faculties were unaffected
|
| Yeah, this was a big part of a general trend of the
| Democrats treating voters like children to be coddled and
| lied to. Voters don't like being treated as less-than just
| because they're less educated, and uneducated doesn't mean
| stupid. They can see through it.
|
| My county went >75% for Trump, and the reason is because
| Trump is the only presidential candidate in most of our
| lifetimes who treats working-class voters as his equal. He
| doesn't talk down to them, he _talks like them_ , and they
| eat it up.
| tfehring wrote:
| I think it _is_ stupid to vote based on how a politician
| talks rather than the expected impact of their proposed
| policies, though of course I realize that that's how
| elections have been decided in practice for as long as
| representative governments have existed.
| astroid wrote:
| The thing is, when you "talk down" to people, chances are
| pretty good those people's best interested aren't being
| represented by the one doing the down-talking.
|
| However, if you "talk to" them, you are in a much better
| position to actually hear and respond to their concerns -
| with the added bonus of seeming actually human.
|
| The way you frame it seems to imply that people are
| voting for him because he talks 'like them' while
| ignoring the 'to' them. I believe the hot leftist term
| for this is 'code-switching' which just means talking to
| your audience with language they understand and relate to
| -- and it's usually portrayed as a virtue, not a defect.
|
| In reality, these people voted for Trump because as a
| result of him talking to them like equals rather than
| down to like subjugated servants left many feeling that
| he was in fact advocating for policies that support their
| best interests and would be impactful in their day to day
| lives.
|
| Obviously personality matters more than it should - but
| in Trumps case the entire media apparatus was single-
| mindedly determined to make sure they dictate what his
| personality is, rather than his words or actions. So if
| anything this win shows that policy matters more than
| personality at this point anyway.
|
| Now of course, if you see his policies as wrong and evil
| and dictatorial and the embodiment of fascism, none of
| that will matter and no lessons will be learned from this
| absolute rejection of the democrats platform.
| dickersnoodle wrote:
| You're not wrong about people resenting being talked down
| to. I've tried to make this point to Democratic
| (especially progressive) activists for years and years
| and it's like talking to a dog that just heard a new
| noise. The fraction of people in the country that
| _actually_ care about religious culture wars is
| relatively small; it 's one reason why seven states
| passed initiatives enshrining abortion rights in their
| state constitutions this go-round. Voters care deeply
| about concrete things that affect their lives and they're
| not receptive to someone haranguing them to care about
| something else entirely.
|
| If you want to catch a fish, you bait the hook with
| something the fish wants to eat instead of something you
| want the fish to eat.
| tartoran wrote:
| >who treats working-class voters as his equal
|
| Maybe that's the message he was sending but is that
| really true?
| lolinder wrote:
| It doesn't matter if he actually perceives them as his
| equal (I frankly think he doesn't perceive anyone as
| equal to him, he appears to be something of a sociopath),
| what matters is that he successfully _treats_ people that
| way.
|
| Democrats would be welcome to continue believing voters
| are children as long as they don't project it so
| blithely.
| tartoran wrote:
| > Democrats would be welcome to continue believing voters
| are children as long as they don't project it so
| blithely.
|
| I hear you and found it irritating as well. Republicans
| don't even treat their voters as children, it's far worse
| in my opinion, and yet they reap all the benefits. I
| think that if Democrats want to continue treating their
| voters as children they should go all the way and use the
| same dirty lies in the republican handbook, at least we
| could finally say they're all the same.
| pvaldes wrote:
| > who treats working-class voters as his equal
|
| As long as they aren't blacks, or muslims, or Asians, or
| Mexicans, or Puertoricans...
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| Citation, please? I think you're making the error that
| the media loves to commit, which is to forcibly
| reinterpret _everything_ as racism.
|
| For example, in the recent Puerto Rican "garbage"
| kerfuffle, the comedian never said that Puerto Ricans _as
| such_ were garbage - that was a fabrication of the media.
| What he said was that the island of Puerto Rico is an
| island of garbage, which is figuratively true as it has
| an acknowledged a problem with garbage disposal.
|
| Similarly, Trump never said that Mexicans are rapists,
| etc.; that's another media fabrication. What he said was
| that those in America illegally are disproportionately
| criminals. That may or may not be true, but it's not a
| statement about Mexicans as a race, but about a
| particular subgroup set apart by their own behavior of
| illegal immigration, and notably NOT directed at their
| cousins in America legally, or still back in Mexico.
|
| Trump says a lot of crap. But if you find it particularly
| egregious, chances are that it was fabricated by the
| media. Another very recent example is when the media told
| us that Trump said that Liz Cheney should be put in front
| of a firing squad. In reality, the topic of conversation
| was her attitude toward war, and his statement was that
| _if_ there were guns pointed at her, she 'd feel
| different about soldiering.
| pvaldes wrote:
| > Citation please?
|
| Behavior of Trump in the Black lives matter movement
| speaks for itself.
|
| Muslim ban:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_travel_ban
|
| Trump tried hard (but failed) to deport dreamers out of
| USA: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/trump-
| dreamers-...
|
| "Puerto Rico is a garbage island" and Trump trowing paper
| toilet rolls to victims of natural disasters with a clear
| purpose of humiliating them.
|
| The problem in this thread is that everybody is trying to
| find what Democrats did wrong, or say that Kamala was not
| well known. Well, every voter knew who was Trump, and
| they still voted him, so changing the candidate by
| "better" does not matter if people wants "worse". If a
| country can't use the best people that they had ("elite
| thinks that are better than us") the outcome is
| predictable.
|
| And we aren't even daring to discuss the elephant in the
| room that is "Can't be really, (really) sure that they
| didn't just cheated?
|
| After all wouldn't be the first time, so is legit to
| speculate about it. Lets imagine [hypothetically] that in
| an alternate timeline they just learned from past fails
| and cheated better this time. How that could be disclosed
| or done? Was mail vote altered?. How could we spot it in
| this case?. This is the real meat in this discussion.
|
| How strong or weak is a candidate does not matter if a
| party just can jump over the game rules.
| astroid wrote:
| Blacks:
|
| 1)Got the platinum plan which provided half a trillion
| dollars to black communities
|
| 2) He also was very involved in the 'first step' act,
| helping address 'over-incarceration'.
|
| 3) He secured funding for HBCU via the FUTURE act, some
| of which were at risk of closure.
|
| 4) Prior to covid, black unemployment was at record lows
| (5.4%)
|
| I keep hearing it repeated over and over again that black
| people hate him and he is racist, but I have yet to see a
| non-hyperbolic example. Whereas Biden is on video making
| incredibly racist remarks throughout his career like "I
| don't want my kids to grow up in a racial jungle" and
| speaking at a 'Grand Cyclops" KKK members funeral... not
| to mention he was largely RESPONSIBLE for the 1994 Crime
| Bill, which led to the over-incarceration of black people
| to begin with.
|
| Surely you have something at least that damning, if you
| are going to casually label him as anti-black - right? I
| mean I know that supposedly the fact that the KKK guy
| later said 'oh no this was bad for my image' absolves him
| of THAT infringement for some reason, but it doesn't
| square the other stuff.
|
| I'll keep the rest short, but the point I am trying to
| drive home to anyone reading this far: Just because you
| were told 'trump is super duper racist and hates
| minorities' by the TV every day, doesn't mean it was
| reflected in his actions.
|
| Muslims:
|
| Less of substance here admittedly, but he did sign an
| executive order in 2019 to promote religious freedom
| WORLDWIDE, which included efforts to protect Muslims from
| persecution.
|
| Asians:
|
| As a large contingent of 'small business owners' the tax
| cuts for small businesses were a major boon.
|
| Mexicans:
|
| Honestly the fact that you listed this one is kind of
| weird - like what is he supposed to do for citizens of
| another country? Or did you mean Latin Americans but just
| reducing them to 'mexicans' would elicit the mental
| imagery you were hoping for?
|
| All the Mexican Americans I know voted Trump, and if you
| look at the voting history in 2020 he got 32% of 'latino
| voters' and in 2024 that is looking like a jump to 45%.
| So roughly half seem to support him.
|
| Puertoricans:
|
| If you are going to exploit a minority group to make a
| mis-guided political point, at least type out the proper
| 'Puerto Ricans'... but I see clearly you just want to
| appeal to the 'coloring box of oppression' and throw some
| minorities out there and see what sticks.
|
| Again, this group went from 30% supporting trump in 2020
| to 40% in 2024 -- something tells me droning on and on
| about how the 'insult comic' harmed Puerto Rico (who does
| have a garbage crisis) didn't really have the effect you
| or the media or whoever formed your opinion were shooting
| for
|
| Anyway, now that the facts are out I think it would be
| pretty hard to seriously claim Trump is a racist bigot
| without also conceding that 'your guy' is demonstrably
| more so -- but at the end of the day these identify
| politics games are getting tiresome, and no one is
| listening anymore.
|
| Unless of course, you never cared about facts.
| astroid wrote:
| Update:
|
| In an interesting twist "American Indians" showed 65%
| support for Trump! That kind of damages the 'muh racist'
| narrative too.
|
| Oh and 'Latino's are exceeding the 45% projection at
| least a bit, so even closer to a 'tie' sitting at 46%
| currently.
|
| This is per NBC, who tend to lean left:
| https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-
| polls
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > who treats working-class voters as his equal. He
| doesn't talk down to them, he talks like them, and they
| eat it up.
|
| No, he demonstrably doesn't _treat_ them as his equals -
| however, you 're absolutely right, he does talk to them
| like they are, and in this sense, it is one of his
| strengths.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| Trump also lies to voters. For instance every
| sophisticated analysis of his tariff plan have shown it
| will do the exact opposite of what he promises. The
| analysis is as bad as the analysis of Bernie and Warren's
| Medicare for all plans where magically everything was 50%
| cheaper.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >Yeah, this was a big part of a general trend of the
| Democrats treating voters like children to be coddled and
| lied to.
|
| Meanwhile the rest of this comment section is talking
| about how democrats lost because they tried to talk about
| complex policy issues instead of just giving vague
| promises. Which is it?
|
| >He doesn't talk down to them, he talks like them, and
| they eat it up.
|
| "He says it like it is" right next to "But he didn't mean
| that", and he also literally talked about how devastated
| he was that the Jan 6 supporters were so shitty looking.
| He spends all sorts of time shit talking veterans who
| sacrificed for our country, even when the wars they
| fought were caused by dumb Republican policy.
|
| It's fucking schrodinger's reality when it comes to
| Trump.
| marcuskane2 wrote:
| Tangential, but I think a big problem for the world going
| forward is that modern technology has made the average
| voter unable to really understand things important to
| their lives.
|
| People who don't know what RNA, lymphocytes or spike
| proteins are, are nonetheless trying to make decisions
| about taking a vaccine.
|
| People who don't understand statistics, can't comprehend
| graphs and don't understand fundamental physics are
| nonetheless trying to make decisions about climate
| change.
|
| See also corporate tax law, Middle East ethnic divisions,
| AI, pollution, etc.
|
| Our innate intuition is often entirely wrong and
| disinformation can often make compelling arguments that
| sound correct to non-experts. I'm not sure what the
| solution is. We all have to put our trust in others about
| the many things where we're non-experts, but obviously
| many people are choosing the wrong people to believe.
| asveikau wrote:
| I believe his faculties got substantially worse in 2024. He
| was a lot more present in speeches in 2021 for example.
| Mental decline isn't black and white, and you tend to see
| people as your mental model of how they used to be, so you
| can look at brief moments of clarity and declare him
| "well", so many did that. But it doesn't work that way.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _I believe his faculties got substantially worse in
| 2024. He was a lot more present in speeches in 2021 for
| example._
|
| Well, you're wrong. That's when _you_ noticed, but many
| others were talking about it for years. It was denied.
|
| > _so you can look at brief moments of clarity and
| declare him "well", so many did that_
|
| Nobody dealing with Joe Biden daily thought he was well.
| They were intentionally lying.
| asveikau wrote:
| I've followed politics for my whole life and watched tons
| of Biden speeches going back decades. I was seeing his
| old "spark" quite a bit well into 2024. The debate, he
| fell off a cliff, and his follow-up interviews were even
| worse. 3 months before he competently delivered a barn-
| burning SOTU address. IIRC a few months before _that_ ,
| he delivered a good NATO speech. He'd slip up minor
| points but he also did that in 2002. Back then they used
| to call him a gaffe factory.
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| He was cooked by 2022, Biden was stumbling over tele-
| prompted speeches.
| asveikau wrote:
| The gap between his last state of the union (March 2024)
| and the debate (June 2024) seemed pretty big, and I'm not
| the only one to say that. But again, it isn't black and
| white. Maybe the speech format suited him better.
| anon291 wrote:
| Biden barely campaigned in 2020.
| astroid wrote:
| "you tend to see people as your mental model of how they
| used to be" Pot? Meet Kettle.
|
| I worked in an advanced Alzheimer's ward for about 4
| years when I was younger. There is a look that happens in
| the eyes which is a sure-sign they are effectively gone -
| it's like a light has been turned off. (even if they have
| moments of lucidity, there is a clear switch that is
| talked about in exactly these terms if you work in these
| places and are close to them every day.)
|
| Biden clearly had 'the look' back in 2021, and was making
| enough gaffes for people who maybe aren't as familiar
| with the signs of mental decline could clearly see it.
|
| Just because you didn't, doesn't mean everyone else was
| wrong and saw what they wanted to see.
|
| If you are going to argue 'well, that's just like your
| perspective man' you have to at least see how that same
| argument can be turned towards you.
|
| You are absolutely right that it is not black and white -
| I fully believe that back in 2021 he had enough moments
| of lucidity (which generally are somewhat reliable, which
| appear to be tied to the circadian rhythm hence
| 'sundowners') -- so if all you watched were his scheduled
| speeches I could see how you may have been left with that
| impression.
|
| There were plenty of other opportunities to watch his
| decline in real time however.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Plus with every iota of decrease in the government's
| credibility, the relative credibility of candidate's
| promises and proposed policies also matter less too in
| deciding between them...
| 8note wrote:
| Given Trump's current faculties, it might show that people
| are more willing to trust that he probably won't do much
| either. He'll be on a similar auto-pilot at this age
| asveikau wrote:
| Inflation is a complicated topic that doesn't get adequately
| captured in the sound bites.
|
| I kept hearing clips of voters saying they want prices to go
| back down, but my understanding of the economics is that this
| would be terrible. Instead, IMO, what we need is for wages to
| increase while minimizing the inflationary effect of wage
| increases. That's not a catchy slogan, however.
|
| Parallel to this, I don't think the post COVID inflation is
| really due to politicians.
| caeril wrote:
| > my understanding of the economics is that this would be
| terrible
|
| Deflation is only "terrible" because we have collectively
| decided to build an economy on debt instead of savings
| (Keynesian instead of Friedmanian).
|
| In a different economic order, prices declining would be a
| good thing for everyone.
|
| But we're stuck with it, so inflation it is.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Doesn't deflation especially disadvantage the young -
| since you're usually not born with savings of your own.
| RpmReviver wrote:
| Depends how much deflation there is with wages compared
| to everything else, there's a scenario that they have an
| opportunity to start saving
|
| The majority of the expenses for the disadvantaged young
| are housing, gas, and food. With housing being 4x more
| expensive than 4 or 5 years it basically puts all the
| disadvantaged from even buying a house and then puts them
| at the mercy of the renters market
| atq2119 wrote:
| There are a number of issues with this comment. One of
| them is that debt and saving are just sides of the same
| coin.
|
| More importantly, everybody can see that debt for
| investment allows more growth. Just think about how many
| more people can afford to own their own home thanks to
| taking on debt. This allows them to pay a mortgage
| instead of rent, which allows them to build up wealth.
|
| Equivalent effects exist in industry.
|
| Debt is an extremely useful tool. We made the right
| choice here as a society.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| What?? This isn't correct at all. A deflationary economic
| environment is bad _no matter the fiscal policy or
| monetary policy_ we have in place. You propose it would
| be better if we pushed for savings. Well if we all know
| that prices in a few weeks /months/years will be less
| than today, then spending drops. Friedman pushed velocity
| of money, even he would agree that a lower velocity would
| crush an economy.
| rdlw wrote:
| I never got this line of thinking. I'm already
| disincentivized from spending because simple investments
| are likely to outpace inflation. That's a good reason to
| save as much as I can, but I still buy things, and it's
| not like I can put off buying food for a year so that
| prices drop. What's so different about this incentive to
| save and it being a part of the economy?
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| And Friedman never pushed an economy of savings, not sure
| where you're getting that from. If anything, he wanted
| people spending faster.
|
| * https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/milton-
| friedman.asp
| pyrale wrote:
| A working economy means professional activity to make
| goods and services. Deflation actively kills that by
| incentivizing people to defer or cancel their purchases
| in favor of savings. So economic activity collapses.
|
| There is no such thing as a durable deflationary market
| if it's not justified by productivity gains and volume -
| and there is definitely no such thing as a durable
| deflationary economy.
| Detrytus wrote:
| The US was "a durable deflationary economy" for pretty
| much the whole 19th century, and first decade of 20th
| century. Things started to change once FED was created
| and given power over money supply.
| dead_gunslinger wrote:
| "Trust us, the ONLY solution to our disastrous
| intervention is MORE intervention!!"
| pyrale wrote:
| > for pretty much the whole 19th century
|
| Not sure what you're refering to, the 1873 panic wasn't
| exactly the finest hour for US economy. I guess that's
| not what you want to get back to.
|
| As for the rest of the 19th century, the data we have is
| mostly consumer price indexes, but I can't recollect
| another durable deflationary period in the century.
| zzbzq wrote:
| You save money in a bank, they lend it out to someone,
| that someone is now in debt
|
| Debt = Savings
| ArnoVW wrote:
| Actually, banks can "create" money from nowhere. It's
| called fractional-reserve banking. When you deposit money
| into a bank, the bank is required to keep only a
| _fraction_ of that deposit as reserves. The rest can be
| used for lending.
|
| The exact fraction is determined by the central bank's
| reserve requirements. And since 2020 it has been set
| to... zero percent.
|
| So essentially US banks can infinitely create money.
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| >> in a bank, they lend it out to someone
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/022416/wh
| y-b....
|
| >> Debt = Savings
|
| That's only true for public debt, excess spending (that
| which is not deleted through taxation) by the government
| shows up in savings
| throw_that_away wrote:
| We need prices to go down in specific places, like CA where
| I live.
|
| https://www.raleys.com/product/10400953/raley_s-shredded-
| fou...
|
| I was looking at the price of Lays chips and it's sitting
| at $6 a bag ON SALE!
|
| https://www.raleys.com/product/30031044/lay_s-potato-
| chips-s...
|
| Yes prices need to specifically go down. CA decided to
| DOUBLE DOWN on raising gas prices during the pandemic, and
| apparently they're slated to vote on another change that
| could raise prices by $0.45 a gallon. The world has had
| CHOICES to go in a specific direction, and this
| administration and all LEFT administrations are pushing for
| prices to rise, and replace all the failing families with
| people from China, Venezuela and whoever wants to cross the
| border.
| caekislove wrote:
| If you live in California, why are you paying for things
| at stores when it's optional?
| asveikau wrote:
| I think California just passed the prop to escalate some
| crimes to felonies, so I feel like the policy commonly
| used to justify this joke may be dead.
| caekislove wrote:
| That's great to hear!
| asveikau wrote:
| I actually disagree, but I'm glad you're happy.
| codedokode wrote:
| Look from the good side: you will be much healthier
| without those potato chips.
|
| Also, from my experience, prices never go down.
| astroid wrote:
| This post is a wonderful microcosm of why everyone is so
| divided and tribal now.
|
| Here we have someone sharing a real world example of out
| of control inflation, which is true across all groceries
| no one grounded in reality would deny that.
|
| Rather than acknowledge these concerns in anyway, you
| took time out of your day to imply because they used 1
| unhealthy example this runaway inflation is actually a
| good thing because they will be forced to eat
| 'healthier'. Completely ignoring how expensive those
| 'healthy' items are as well (and that they continue to
| rise).
|
| Then you use your anecdotal experience to further your
| dismission with 'well, ackkkstually ime prices don't go
| down so your concerns are invalid.'
|
| This exact attitude is why there is nation-wide a mandate
| to eliminate the left from all pillars of power. And this
| is coming from someone who campaigned for Bernie.
| cloverich wrote:
| Prices wont come back down; but few if any swing voters
| understand that. They just see high prices under biden and
| remember lower ones under Trump. Him losing would have
| taken a very strong candidate given the predicament.
| therealpygon wrote:
| Well, with a less than 6th grade literacy rate for 54% of
| Americans, it isn't exactly surprising that many people
| have a hard time understanding any nuance. I once heard a
| woman explaining to her captive audience's amazement how
| the colors of a "yingyang" were because "ying" means
| white and "yang" means black. Aside from being wholely
| incorrect (reversed), the concepts and meaning behind the
| yin yang of the balance between "light and dark" is
| completely lost on her. The extent of her knowledge will
| always be whatever someone she believed told her.
|
| Edit: I forgot to mention, the reason for the colors.
| "Ying" has an i, for wh"i"te, "Yang" has an "a" for
| bl"a"ck. It wasn't even a light/dark thing, it was
| because she believes the translated name shares a common
| letter with the color, so that is the reason for those
| colors. That is the reason why I'm not surprised by the
| results.
| barake wrote:
| Over 50% of the increased prices are from producers not
| just recouping their additional expenses, but also
| increasing profit margins.
|
| Typically you would expect this to be an opportunity for
| competition, but generally speaking companies are
| suspiciously raising prices together. They've taken
| advantage of the COVID shortage and inflation narratives to
| squeeze consumers.
|
| https://fortune.com/2024/01/20/inflation-greedflation-
| consum...
|
| https://www.marketplace.org/2024/08/05/ftc-grocery-prices/
| stackskipton wrote:
| >Typically you would expect this to be an opportunity for
| competition
|
| What competition? Most of them have merged into massive
| blobs.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Corporate consolidation is one of the biggest and least
| talked about boogeymen of our current era, one which is
| set to get even worse under Trump's second term. The
| Biden admin barely, kind of, got anti-trust authorities
| somewhat working again, and that will be demolished on
| day 1 of Trump.
|
| Bigger corpos means bigger donations to bigger
| candidates. The entire system runs on money and nobody's
| got money to put in like these supercorps. We live in
| Gerontocracy that is actively building a Corporatocracy
| to replace it after the Boomers die off entirely and no
| money will ever go to the working class again.
| mtswish wrote:
| > The Biden admin barely, kind of, got anti-trust
| authorities somewhat working again, and that will be
| demolished on day 1 of Trump.
|
| You are grossly underselling the work of Lina Khan and
| the FTC.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| And what will it matter when on day 1 of the next
| administration, it's all blown out the airlock?
|
| If your change is no more durable than a single election,
| you didn't accomplish _shit._
| mtswish wrote:
| > If your change is no more durable than a single
| election, you didn't accomplish shit.
|
| That is the way that the country works! The system is
| working as intended if a single government appointment
| can't unilaterally destroy monopolies in a single term.
| nsokolsky wrote:
| Could you name the top-3 examples of the FTC's work over
| the past 4 years that were net-helpful to the future
| GDP/capita of the US economy?
| tiahura wrote:
| Inflation isn't just a fiscal (even though Biden failed
| on the fiscal side as well) or monetary phenomena, it's
| psychological - i.e. expectations about future prices.
|
| Because the Biden administration was characteristically
| incompetent (Remember Treasury Secretary doing interviews
| saying that inflation was just a short-term blip and not
| persistent?) inflation started to get out of control.
| Once that happened, 30+ years of low inflation
| expectations went out the window. Market psychology
| changed, and because people now expected prices to rise,
| they weren't as resistant to individual price changes.
| This gave producers (along with legit covid supply side
| issues) breathing room to increase prices.
| yazantapuz wrote:
| This. Just have to look at the last twenty years of
| argentina.
| wbl wrote:
| What do you think inflation is? Demand shoots up,
| suppliers raise prices or run out, and it takes time for
| new capacity to be rewarded and created. There's no
| collusion here.
| kccoder wrote:
| Of course deflation would be terrible for the economy.
| Expecting the average voter to understand the intricate
| complexities of how economies work vs I don't have enough
| money to buy things, so I want prices to drop, is sadly a
| losing proposition.
| FuckButtons wrote:
| Any real political problem is multifaceted, deeply
| interconnected with the way the country works and its place
| in the world. But peoples experiences of them are not,
| inflation manifests as someone being able to afford rent
| one year, and not the next.
|
| A good politician, can speak to the experience, but fix the
| problem. A good salesman can sell you a solution, even if
| it doesn't fix the problem. And the democratic party, seems
| mostly interested in talking about the problem and ignoring
| the experience.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > The real problem was Biden not dropping out early enough so
| that they could have a fair selection process.
|
| This is why it's important for the media to hold politicians'
| feet to the fire - even if they agree with them. I think
| there was just a murmur[1] of Biden's problems before the
| catastrophic debate. Imagine if the media had been hammering
| the administration on this point 6 months prior.
|
| [1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13102973/New-
| York-T...
| nataliste wrote:
| Dean Philips attempted to primary Biden on the basis of age
| and low favorability. The media shut him out.
| mtswish wrote:
| The media didn't shut him out, no one would have voted
| for that guy.
| nataliste wrote:
| The media and the party had many opportunities to deal
| with Biden's age. They didn't. And yes, they did shut out
| Dean Philips, on the basis of exactly this kind of "he's
| an unknown, therefore unelectable." Well, they went with
| a known, and now they're paying for it.
| xienze wrote:
| > I think there was just a murmur[1] of Biden's problems
| before the catastrophic debate.
|
| Before the debate, anyone talking about Biden's obvious
| decline was dismissed as a right wing troll parroting
| Russian propaganda.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| There was not enough focus on economy in a way that actually
| mattered, certainly - though it probably wouldn't have made a
| difference.
|
| Biden absolutely should have dropped out earlier. It made
| Harris look like a last minute sub (which she really was).
|
| It's telling (on a number of levels) that one of the most
| popular Google searches yesterday, on election day, was "Did
| Biden drop out?"
| dehrmann wrote:
| > There was not enough focus on economy in a way that
| actually mattered
|
| Between price controls, tariffs, and excepting tips from
| taxes, I had no confidence either candidate could pass Econ
| 101. The proposals can play well politically, but it leaves
| people who have a basic understanding of economics at a
| loss of who'd be better.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| That mattered quite a bit for a three reasons.
|
| 1. Kamala isn't a great candidate shown by her poor primary
| results in 2020.
|
| 2. She has all the baggage of running pretty far to the left
| in 2020. (Like saying she was for performing gender affirming
| surgery on trans illegal immigrants, agree or disagree with
| the stance this is a deeply unpopular position)
|
| 3. She was tied to the current administration which meant she
| couldn't distance herself from the inflation issue or attack
| Trump on age and fitness as much as another candidates not
| tied to the administration.
| dehrmann wrote:
| One of the more insightful things I heard in the last few
| days was this generation of politicians got a lesson in how
| toxic inflation is politically. And inflation wasn't even
| that bad, but it felt bad.
| philodelta wrote:
| I think a democrat who could actually distance themselves
| from Biden, someone who had more leeway to criticize his
| policies without the obvious "if current policy is wrong,
| what's stopping you from changing it" question, would have
| faired better. Maybe not won, but done better. Certainly
| there was no way Biden would have won re-election and
| switching was a good choice, but too little too late.
| kristopolous wrote:
| They won't.
|
| These candidates are aligned with the Democrats.
|
| That's what the party is.
|
| It's not a party of the left or liberals or whatever you
| imagine it to be. They've been extremely clear on this.
|
| Go over the historicals. I have. Many times. This is correct.
| adastra22 wrote:
| The Republican Party seems to be able to put forward a
| candidate the electorate want. What can't the democrats?
| mjamesaustin wrote:
| The Democratic primary process is rife with superdelegates
| and other rules designed to promote candidates aligned with
| the party insiders.
|
| The Republican primary process doesn't have as many ways
| for party members to put their fingers on the scale.
| kristopolous wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| Also they've misappropriated words like "leftist" and
| "socialist" so much that in my interaction with Trump
| supporters, at Trump events, I hear plenty of actual left
| and actual socialist policies presented as new ideas or
| attributed to Trump.
|
| At a policy level, these people actually don't want
| neofascism, I've interacted with plenty. They really
| don't.
|
| The Democrats tried to appeal to the hard right voter who
| found Trump icky. For that they were called socialist so
| and I know this is hard, people I spoke with associated
| the word socialism with the policies of Harris
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >For that they were called socialist so and I know this
| is hard, people I spoke with associated the word
| socialism with the policies of Harris
|
| What the hell are the democrats supposed to do to oppose
| a party that gets to redefine language however it wants
| with seemingly great effect?
|
| America spent 100 years demonizing socialism. Not the
| policies, the word. And now republicans can just deploy
| it against whoever, because it _doesn 't have a meaning_
| to US voters.
|
| What possible strategy is there against that? My
| "democrat for life" (because republicans wanted to
| fucking murder the french catholics in the area, lookup
| the KKK in Maine) would vote against "socialism"!
|
| The US is a uni-party state at the federal level. You
| either play with the republicans, or you will be labeled
| "socialist", no matter the objective reality, and you
| will lose.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| The same response if someone calls you a racist white
| man. Dgaf
| kristopolous wrote:
| Because they're a specific political project. Radical
| centrism is a common term but the "left/center/right" is a
| bad name. Things are much more complicated.
|
| There was clearly a winning path with say, Bernie in 2016.
| The state by state Bernie/Trump matchup polling data
| consistently predicted a clear and decisive victory. Or,
| maybe Estes Kefauver 1952, or go back to the 40s and Gallup
| predicted Henry Wallace would have had a 1936 style
| landslide instead of the squeak they won with Truman.
|
| As a hobby I've poured over archives of primaries, old
| newspapers, speeches, going back even to Hannibal Hamlin,
| Lincoln's first VP and how he got replaced.
|
| I continue to claim that any actual left project (as
| opposed to whatever the propaganda industry is deciding to
| imagine the left is) would be far more successful under a
| Republican flag because they aren't as committed to the
| neoimperialist project.
|
| That's why the Democrats had all the warring Republicans on
| their side this time.
| ragnese wrote:
| Both Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden got more votes than
| Donald Trump. The Democrats have a better track record of
| picking the more popular candidate that the electorate
| wants in recent history.
|
| In fact, the Democratic candidate has won the popular vote
| in all four of the most recent elections before this one
| (from 2008 - 2020, inclusive).
| kristopolous wrote:
| Except maybe for Obama, they were all lousy. Barely
| beating an incompetent criminal who sold presidential
| powers as private services and stole stuff from the
| Whitehouse, that's not impressive.
| ragnese wrote:
| 1. I didn't say it was impressive. Just refuting the
| claim that the Republican party puts forth candidates
| that the electorate wants while the Democratic party does
| not.
|
| 2. Nobody has beaten Trump since he's been a convicted
| criminal, lied about winning an election he didn't, or
| stole classified documents from the White House. So it
| doesn't make sense to discuss "barely beating an
| incompetent [...]" in the context of my comment that
| refers only to Democratic candidates who ran before those
| things happened.
| kristopolous wrote:
| The sentiment is Republicans are focused on winning while
| Democrats are focused on a deeply unpopular corporate-
| imperialist political project and scolding people into
| voting for them.
|
| They will occasionally virtue signal elsewhere but their
| policies only align with the project
|
| Progressive policies on minimum wage, labor and other
| things won in Red States once again. Nebraska's minimum
| wage increase, for instance, went 75-25. 60% for Trump,
| 75% for minimum wage increase.
|
| It's important to realize the Democrats have no interest
| in those. Absolutely zero.
|
| Their project is bowing down to companies like Wells
| Fargo, Equifax, Lockheed Martin, and General Motors and
| that's it.
| parasubvert wrote:
| The base of the Democratic Party are moderate black people.
| They elect the candidate they want.
| kwere wrote:
| DNC argued that they are a private organization and can do
| what they want In "Wilding v. DNC Services Corp." case (2017)
| in response to screwing the dem nomination from Bernie hands
| in favour of Hillay
| gosub100 wrote:
| > let people choose a candidate next time.
|
| You mean like a _democracy_ ? Surely you must be joking.
| marcusverus wrote:
| By the time Primary season kicks off in early 2028, it will
| have been _twenty years_ since the last time the Democratic
| Party membership selected a new candidate without direct
| interference from party bigwigs.
|
| Twenty. Years.
| encoderer wrote:
| They held a primary in 2020. Kamala, Warren, Beto, Bernie and
| more all ran with Biden.
| _heimdall wrote:
| That definitely feels like the forgotten primary. My best
| guess is that its because that primary was book ended by
| primaries that were heavily influenced and controlled by
| the DNC.
| odo1242 wrote:
| I mean, primaries usually aren't generally heavily
| remembered.
| eschulz wrote:
| Many believe that the party gave Biden and unfair advantage
| using their superdelegates. The Republican Party does not
| have such super delegates, and in fact in 2016 Trump won
| solely due to his ability to organize and rally a well-
| working campaign even as party elites were seething at his
| ascendency and insulting him in public.
| 1024core wrote:
| DNC was worried that Bernie would be nominated.
| anon291 wrote:
| Super delegates are undemocratic, and always have been.
| How does the party of 'democracy' get away with this? The
| GOP has never used them and always just let its voters
| vote. When the voters chose Trump despite the leaderships
| hatred of them, they all stepped aside. Are they
| perfect... of course not? But compared to the democrats,
| they've always stood by their voters.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Yep, the DNC has lacked the self-awareness in these past
| few years to gaze within and cull the cruft that 100% of
| their voter base hate. Superdelegates need to go. They're
| this generation's Korematsu (as in they are still active
| while people would rightfully think they're gone). I feel
| confident that superdelegates will come back to bite the
| DNC decades down the line.
|
| In fairness, they actually did change the rules around
| them after 2016 but stopped short of removing them.
| anon291 wrote:
| I hope they get rid of them!
| jes5199 wrote:
| the way I remember it, it was a competitive primary with
| Bernie and Warren competing for the lead when suddenly
| Biden mysterious knocked them all out, as if the party had
| suddenly overruled the process. Maybe that was an illusion
| but a lot of people interpreted it this way.
| BadHumans wrote:
| Biden won pretty handedly because moderates didn't like
| that Bernie calls himself a socialist. If you're
| chronically online it might seem like Bernie was leading
| the pack but I've had many conversations with the older
| voting population that echo the sentiment that he was
| never their guy.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| The Democrats even tried to drop the primary here in New
| York by striking Bernie and everyone from the ballot
| because they had decided Biden was going to get the
| nomination.
| caekislove wrote:
| Because everyone besides Bernie dropped out right before
| Super Tuesday and endorsed Biden, hoping to get
| appointments in a future Biden Admin. Many, like Buttigeg
| were well rewarded for this.
| whynotminot wrote:
| This conspiracy from Bernie bros is so deeply stupid.
|
| The democratic coalition depends on black voters, and
| they decisively chose Joe Biden in South Carolina,
| sending a clear signal about who would have the strength
| to beat Trump (and in the end they were right).
|
| It was not a party conspiracy.
| wbl wrote:
| No mystery about it: after South Carolina a bunch
| realized they couldn't win.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| It's not so crazy, Biden was more appealing to moderates.
| lysace wrote:
| Kamala dropped out early.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Democratic_Party_preside
| n...
| zusammen wrote:
| Democrats have more popular positions, but their problem is
| that nobody likes them. The DNC is part of the problem. They
| disenfranchise their own base and it looks weak.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| The 2020 primary went without large interference. Lo and
| behold, the democratic candidate won that election. The
| lesson is clear: to win elections hold actual primaries
| instead of appointing candidates.
| racl101 wrote:
| Too bad they usurped Bernie. Now Bernie too old to run by next
| election. Dude was legit Bona Fide.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| How do you tell the difference between someone who would
| suffer a Jeremy Corbyn style catastrophic defeat, and a Keir
| Starmer who is the PM of the party by the same name but is
| basically completely different in every other way?
| thorin wrote:
| Correct, bernie and corbyn were both well meaning with
| genuine ideas and were lambasted by the press, opposition
| and even their own parties to never stand a chance of
| election. Tulsi had similar issues.
| digging wrote:
| Tulsi Gabbard??? She is completely different, she is an
| opportunistic cult follower without ideals or ideas of
| her own. Doesn't really matter much now though.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Agree with the Corbyn analogy, but let's not overstate
| Starmer's electoral appeal. He got less votes than Corbyn.
| What got him elected is that tory voters didn't show up to
| vote because of tory policies.
| modeless wrote:
| I don't think Bernie could have won.
| Glyptodon wrote:
| I do. Even my Fox News grandma liked him. So many people
| were looking for an excuse to not vote for Trump without
| feeling blackmailed into HC in 2016.
| adamtaylor_13 wrote:
| The number of people I know who voted for Trump, AND Bernie
| --is incredibly high. Now we'll never know!
| roncesvalles wrote:
| Only Bernie had a personality cult to rival Trump's. I
| don't think a single person _loved_ Hillary - they were
| just okay with her. Many, many people fanatically loved
| Bernie.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| Bernie definitely would have defeated Trump. He had unique
| crossover appeal. Trump was extremely unpopular in 2016 and
| it took a historically disliked candidate to lose to him.
| dom96 wrote:
| I'm almost certain he would have.
| _dark_matter_ wrote:
| Honestly I think Trump would have labeled him "3-home
| Bernie"[0] or something and sunk him, similar to how he sunk
| Warren (w/ the Pocahontas meme). Don't get me wrong, Bernie
| is my favorite, but no one is immune to Trump's attacks, and
| there is just no way to attack him back (in a way that his
| supports care about).
|
| [0] https://heavy.com/news/2019/06/bernie-sanders-house-home-
| pho...
| fire_lake wrote:
| Kamala dominated Trump in their debate, but clearly it
| didn't matter.
| x2tyfi wrote:
| Yeah. It feels like we missed our one chance to get money out
| of politics
| Molitor5901 wrote:
| The way the party worked against Bernie Sanders is a prime
| example of how it treats the average American: We make the
| decisions, not you, and if you don't fall in line we will
| crush you.
|
| Conformity, if you'll pardon me, is not a trait all those
| Americans who voted for Trump have, nor want. They are
| individuals and would like to be treated as one.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| He is a successful politician. The party is giant and
| complex. To me, the biggest factor was his support of
| wealth taxes, which puts him firmly in a different camp
| than Biden, Warren and Bloomberg, and caused him to be
| opposed by everybody with power in the DNC. That is the
| only "line" they really mean to fall into, and it doesn't
| even affect the average American.
| peppers-ghost wrote:
| The DNC will learn nothing from this just as they learned
| nothing in 2016. They will move further rightward and will lose
| again.
| pineaux wrote:
| This true. They will keep playing this stupid game. Thinking
| they are on the right side of history, which might be true,
| or it might not be true; but in the end, the right side of
| history is decided by the winners. And their current strategy
| is to alienate as many voters as possible by powering through
| on issues nobody cares about and acting as if there are no
| real issues left to fix.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| This is interesting as others have asserted that they lost
| because they were still too leftists.
|
| What data would settle this?
| cowboyscott wrote:
| An election.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| Look at senate and governor candidates that over performed
| and underperformed vs Kamala in their state. People have
| studied it for years and the basic finding is the classic
| one. Moving to the center wins you votes. You'll find that
| moderate/centrist dems over perform and leftist dems
| underperform.
|
| They've studied this. And the cause is is the following.
| Yes you get your base to turn out more. But extremism
| motivates their base even more than your own, and switched
| vote from an independent is twice as impactful as an extra
| vote. A simple example is you get one more of your base to
| turn out. You lose an independent, and you get 2 of their
| base to turn out. And end up down 3 votes.
| martindbp wrote:
| Hotelling's law should apply, no?
| itsmek wrote:
| This sounds plausible to me. Can you please link to some
| of these studies you mention?
| JamesBarney wrote:
| https://www.andrewbenjaminhall.com/Hall_Thompson_Base_Tur
| nou...
|
| Here's the study on turnout. And basically comes to the
| conclusion extremists motivate the opposing party base
| more than their own.
|
| Here are a couple of journal articles.
|
| https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-
| political-s...
|
| https://academic.oup.com/poq/advance-article-
| abstract/doi/10...
|
| Note: There is small minority that show that this is
| effect shrinking with time. My personal belief for why
| this is happening is basically voters are judging
| individual politicians more by the moderation/extremeness
| of the party's positions and less by the politicians
| personal beliefs.
| matthewfcarlson wrote:
| Part of the problem is that our primaries are weird.
| Primary voters tend to be more extreme (left and right)
| and when moderates show up to vote in the election,
| they're upset there's no moderate choice. I was talking
| to some colleagues from Australia and not voting is a
| fine. Makes primaries much more representative of the
| actual election when you get everyone to vote.
| llm_trw wrote:
| There are no primaries in Australia.
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| I've had the thought that the US primary system prevents
| any meaningful application of Ranked Choice, or other
| alternative methods. Currently there's no other
| proximate-choice candidates that make it to the general
| election; i.e., the case where Kamala and Bernie _and
| Trump_ are on the General Election ballot can 't happen
| in most places right now, which narrows the choice field
| significantly.
| xnx wrote:
| > Moving to the center wins you votes.
|
| I'm confused. No one moved further from the center than
| Trump and it worked fantastically for hm.
| clcaev wrote:
| A linear model (liberal vs conservative) is not great.
| Consider a planar model with two dimensions: social and
| economic policy. Trump combined conservative social policy
| with populist economic policy. Harris promoted liberal
| social policy. However, in her last town hall, framed
| herself as a "pragmatic capitalist" (her emphasis). This is
| a continuation of Democratic rightward shift, the
| Neoliberal compromise, that was crystallized by Clinton
| with NAFTA in the 90s. In this election, like 2000, the US
| public had to choose: a liberal social policy -or- a
| populist economic policy. What was not on the ballot:
| liberal social policy with populist economic policy.
| adventured wrote:
| The problem with the left is they're now completely out of
| touch with the bottom 75%, which is what the massive Hispanic
| vote swing should be throwing alarms for.
|
| The left is filled with richer, coastal elites (top 25%); and
| impoverished minorities in blue cities that vote
| overwhelmingly left traditionally. On what planet does that
| recipe work out over time?
|
| The left became a gross contradiction. It should be for the
| masses, it should be primarily focused on the working class.
| All those elitist Hollywood endorsements are just a big
| obnoxious joke, they repel the average person and amplify the
| point that the left is out of touch.
| zusammen wrote:
| The Democratic Party keeps moving left on cultural issues
| and right on economic issues, when the world (not just the
| US) is starting to move in the opposite direction.
|
| These things aren't actually either/or, but when you
| pontificate on gender-affirming care in a country where
| half the population can't afford just regular healthcare
| because of high deductibles... the feeling people get is
| exactly what you expressed.
| mtswish wrote:
| In what world is the Democratic party moving to the right
| on economic issues?
|
| 1. Tax breaks for first time home buyers 2. Tax breaks
| for families with a new born 3. Pondering an unrealized
| capital gains tax
|
| > pontificate on gender-affirming care This is such a
| hackneyed point and it surprises me that this is
| something anyone considers. We should be able to walk and
| chew gum at the same time. Trans issues should not be
| difficult to 'pontificate' on. There is gender affirming
| health care for trans individuals, Democrats broadly
| support those individuals having access to that care.
| Democrats are also the party that is aggressive on
| healthcare and supporting government programs for
| reducing healthcare costs.
|
| In all seriousness, do trans issues actually impact your
| day to day in any way? Trans people seem to live rent
| free in people's minds and I only ever hear about it in a
| political scenario. It seems like the most manufactured
| issue aside from immigration in recent memory.
| astroid wrote:
| I think a lot of people are probably not exactly thrilled
| about the 'extra' provisions for "first generation home
| buyers" (meaning the parents didn't own one).
|
| In the current political climate, with the current border
| policy, that sounds an awful lot like a two-tier
| entitlements system where the more significant help will
| go to 'illegal immigrants', 'asylum seekers' etc.
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/harris-
| propose-25k-payment-s...
|
| Also $25,000 really doesn't mean much when the entire
| housing market is set to double or even triple when you
| look at the last 5 years and project into the future. If
| your mortgage is still going to be $2,500 for a run-down
| house that would have cost $40,000 25-30 years ago but
| it's more like $400,000 and rising now... it's not
| exactly the 'lift' I think most people want.
|
| Honestly as someone who has been scrimping and saving to
| try to buy a home for the last 6 years, I would be
| somewhat annoyed if suddenly every broke first generation
| person is thrust to first in line for the limited housing
| supply we have, driving prices up further. The fact that
| it is specifically structured to exclude people with
| roots here is kind of a slap in the face -- there is no
| reason it shouldn't just be tied to income, so suddenly
| it is needlessly political.
|
| My point isn't really to argue the merits of either
| approach though - just wanted to give you some insight
| into why as a 'first time' but not 'first generation'
| potential home buyer I find her plan to be a short-
| sighted attempt at grabbing votes. Not that it matters
| now - clearly there is a mandate to swing the opposite
| direction we have been going.
|
| I'll also add this though: Under the last Trump
| presidency, I made literally 50% less than I do now
| (thankfully got a solid 50% bump right before covid
| happened) and I had MUCH more disposable income. It's
| crazy that I am longing for the days and economy where I
| made $60k and could go out AND save money regularly. Now
| I have to plan any extra expenses, I have moved back in
| with family to be able to save, and even without the
| $1,800 rent payment I am still behind where I was in the
| last Trump economy.
|
| I can't be the only one.
| cdelsolar wrote:
| Things are 20% more expensive now. How do you have less
| disposable income with 50% more money?
| astroid wrote:
| The economy is approaching great depression levels of
| 'bad' - and plenty of things have inflated 100% or more,
| 20% is more like the general 'average'. And plenty of
| those things are critical items, like laundry detergent,
| gas, and insurance.
|
| I'll put it this way: When I was making $60k 5 years ago,
| a night out for two in my preferred 'fun time out' would
| be: $35 concert ticket x 2, $20 ride x 2(to and from show
| to avoid dangerous driving), $6 drink x 6/2 -- so a
| complete fun time out was roughly $140
|
| Now the same concert venue and ticket is $85 x 2, the
| ride is $40 x2, the drinks (if you don't abstain due to
| the previous costs) are $14 x 6 and suddenly $140 turned
| into $354 (more than double). And honestly depending on
| the day or event that could be more.
|
| This is just one example of how 'going out and enjoying
| life outside your cubicle' has easily doubled in cost.
|
| You can zoom in on any portion of the economy and find
| similar. Laundry detergent isn't only up 20%. Gas isn't
| only up 20%. Insurance isn't up 20%. Groceries have
| easily doubled, regardless of which basket item you
| decide to focus in on to obscure that.
|
| Great question though - How have they managed to crash
| the 'living wage' economy so badly that I either have to
| live like a broke college student with six figures, when
| I used to be able to go out weekly.
|
| Averaging out the inflation across the economy doesn't
| really work for those of us 'making it' -- but if you
| already made it and the increase in price for laundry
| detergent, gas, food, or whatever else doesn't actually
| impact you I'm sure it's difficult to see how bad things
| have got.
|
| I think you'd have to ask Biden or Yellen or someone in
| the outgoing administration exactly how they pulled it
| off though.
|
| EDIT: This graph actually does a decent job of
| demonstrating that exactly what I experience was
| happening nationally: https://media.gettr.com/group28/get
| ter/2021/12/14/02/c8e93c4...
|
| The inversion happened in April of 2021 per the graph,
| and per my memory.
| cdelsolar wrote:
| I'm just wondering where in the country you live with
| those prices. When I used to go out _10_ years ago
| there's no way I would ever find a $6 drink. Right now a
| cocktail costs me $13-$15. 10 years ago, a cocktail used
| to cost me $13-$15. Gas is back to pre-covid prices.
|
| I don't know. I've seen prices go up, but I honestly
| think people are exaggerating. I buy groceries and food
| too. I don't spend anywhere close to double what I did
| even 10 years ago.
| astroid wrote:
| Drink = Canned Beer @ one of the countries best music
| venues outside a major metro area.
|
| I'm not going to be posting more details regarding my
| location on a public forum however.
|
| "I don't spend anywhere close to double what I did even
| 10 years ago."
|
| I bet you also have had to tighten your belt buckle to
| achieve that - if not, you are an anomaly.
|
| Really though my anecdote about my personal inflation
| woes is not the point, and I just included it as an after
| thought to provide some context. The core message I am
| trying to convey is before that, and I don't see much
| value in comparing individual items in different
| geographic regions.
|
| If you are genuinely as unaffected as you say, good for
| you - the only people I know who are in that position are
| retired already and insulated from changes more than
| most.
| cdelsolar wrote:
| it sounds like price gouging to me. The venue is more
| than doubling its price and charging you $14 for a can of
| beer. How is this Biden's fault, of all things?
|
| Anyway, I'm relatively cheap so I always pay attention to
| prices. Eggs, milk, bread, chicken, etc have all gotten
| slightly more expensive. Nothing even close to double. I
| don't understand what people are buying.
| astroid wrote:
| "it sounds like price gouging to me. The venue is more
| than doubling its price and charging you $14 for a can of
| beer. How is this Biden's fault, of all things? Anyway,
| I'm relatively cheap so I always pay attention to prices.
| Eggs, milk, bread, chicken, etc have all gotten slightly
| more expensive. Nothing even close to double. I don't
| understand what people are buying."
|
| This is exactly why I tried to redirect you to the core
| point of my message, instead of the 'addendum'. It was
| obvious you were looking for some 'leverage' to declare
| your perceived experience as the 'correct' one.
|
| Now you have pivoted to 'inflation isn't really real,
| that venue is screwing you' because of zeroing in on one
| item. I can assure you, prices are similar throughout the
| city I am referencing. It wouldn't matter one bit which
| venue I chose.
|
| Perhaps you are OK with staying home and watching every
| penny and never doing anything enjoyable in life that
| costs a few bucks. For the rest of the country, they are
| feeling it in their everyday lives - whether that is food
| costs, hobby costs, or whatever matters to them
| -personally-.
|
| Under Trump we were doing demonstrably better. It took an
| immediate nose dive under Biden, and his entire
| administrations policies have made things worse - and
| most importantly, there is no sign they had a real plan
| to fix that, and it showed at the polls.
|
| It's fine if you want to get hyper-fixated on the one
| statement you feel compelled to 'debunk' my lived
| experiences and observations, but that wont change the
| fact that entire metro areas are becoming either
| unlivable or pointless to live in unless you are making
| $200,000+ (in that you can afford the rent but not to
| enjoy the local attractions).
|
| I'm glad you aren't feeling the squeeze, genuinely.
|
| According to PBS / NPR roughly 60% of the country believe
| we are in a recession.
|
| You can count me amongst them, because of my lived
| experiences. I'm not going to continue to quibble about
| what -I- am doing wrong budget wise accourding to your
| tiny little insight into my life which this comment
| provided.. and I think you'll find if you approach most
| anyone who has legitimate concerns in this manner you
| will have changed exactly 0 minds.
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/05/23/views-of-
| the... - 60% number from here
|
| https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/2024-exit-polls-
| fear... - exit polling showing the current economic
| outlook is WORSE than after the 2008 crash.
|
| By all means though, if you are comfortable then I'm sure
| 60+% of the country who feels like they are living
| through something worse than '08 must bet making up
| things to complain about and hoarding their money
| secretly to plan an epic prank on... someone
| rwyinuse wrote:
| Yea, inflation sucks. But it's not like Trump can fix the
| fact way too much money was printed during COVID crisis.
| The crisis should have resulted in a major economic
| depression, but instead we got a big party through
| stimulus. Now we're suffering from a hangover, and Trump
| can't change that.
| astroid wrote:
| Trump can absolutely reign things in, I don't think
| anyone thinks he can snap his fingers and 'fix' something
| broken this badly.
|
| But yeah, he 100% can take a different direction than the
| administration that printed more USD than had previously
| existed in the entirety of the countries history.
|
| 'Trump can't wave a magic wand and un-do what the current
| admin did, so it doesn't make sense to change directions
| best to stick with the current administration that
| doesn't think there is anything they could or should have
| done different' is not the rationale for my position.
|
| Just look at how the stock market responded today -
| clearly I'm not the only person who thinks 'this will
| position our economy much better than it is today'.
| dickersnoodle wrote:
| >Honestly as someone who has been scrimping and saving to
| try to buy a home for the last 6 years, I would be
| somewhat annoyed if suddenly every broke first generation
| person is thrust to first in line for the limited housing
| supply we have, driving prices up further. The fact that
| it is specifically structured to exclude people with
| roots here is kind of a slap in the face -- there is no
| reason it shouldn't just be tied to income, so suddenly
| it is needlessly political
|
| Yeah, this was my reaction to it as well. The only real
| way to bring down housing prices is to drastically
| increase the housing supply and find a way to prevent
| companies like Blackrock from snapping them up and
| leaving them empty to keep rental prices high. The "enemy
| within" is actually PE firms...
| astroid wrote:
| "The only real way to bring down housing prices is to
| drastically increase the housing supply and find a way to
| prevent companies like Blackrock from snapping them up
| and leaving them empty to keep rental prices high"
|
| This is exactly the change that needs to happen - the
| fact that entire subdivisions of housing are being built
| specifically so these multi-national conglomerates can
| use them as an investment vehicle, AND all the existing
| homes are being snatched up by them is criminal in my
| eyes.
|
| The most impactful thing anyone could do to improve the
| housing situation in this country is to prevent these
| operations from using single family homes as investment
| vehicles. I don't know the 'exact right' way to achieve
| this - but I'm certain the exact legislative language
| could be hammered out to make things better for EVERYBODY
| except the bottom feeders.
| zer8k wrote:
| 25,000 for first time homebuyers will just raise prices
| on homes by 25,000.
|
| This is simple economics.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Im pretty left, I just also recognize demand-side
| provisions (tax breaks) dont work when the enemy is asset
| inflation (housing costs). In reality, that extra capital
| would just flow into the hands of people already holding
| the assets, and the now financially stretched buyer has
| to hope housing price growth continues (making the
| situation even more dire for future buyers), or the bet
| they've made doesn't make sense.
|
| The reality with housing is: someone has to take the
| loss, but we keep choosing to double it and give it to
| the next generation.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| Not sure why you're being downvoted, as this is spot on.
|
| The Democratic part has completely lost touch with the
| working class. Harris struggled to articulate any sort of
| economic policy other than "we're going to ban price
| gouging, give money to people to start businesses, and
| help people make down payments on houses" with no
| details. Meanwhile, they latched onto some of the most
| fringe culture war issues like making sure that trans men
| can compete in women's sports.
|
| I voted for her because another Trump presidency is
| literally an existential threat to the country, but I saw
| this coming from a mile away.
| matt_s wrote:
| I believe the Dem plan contributed to the massive apathy
| or large cohorts voting for the GOP candidate. People
| that have houses, school age kids and aren't planning on
| starting businesses see nothing valuable with those
| plans.
|
| The Democrats are ignorant that their open arms
| (accepting everyone, working for everyone) policies and
| rhetoric will sway minorities when culturally there are
| strong christian and catholic populations amongst
| demographic minorities that have firm beliefs that are
| conservative.
| x2tyfi wrote:
| > pontificate on gender-affirming care
|
| Dems have not pontificated on gender-affirming care. It
| is an insignificant issue that affects a minuscule amount
| of the electorate. There would be minimal discussion on
| it if it wasn't for the incessant harping from the right
| to rile up their base.
|
| It is so simple and effective to weaponize social issues.
| This is easy to see when you read right-wing discussion:
| they believe that the left is absolutely obsessed with
| gender-affirming care, because that is the reality they
| are fed.
|
| I have a conservative relative who talks about 'wokeness'
| and gender-affirming care almost non-stop, because he
| believes that it's being 'shoved down his throat', when
| in reality, it is right-wing media that is doing the
| shoving.
| peppers-ghost wrote:
| You're thinking of liberals, not the left.
| rwyinuse wrote:
| At least in my country it's hard to find prominent
| leftist politicians who aren't also liberal.
| rwyinuse wrote:
| I agree. It actually looks quite similar to the situation
| here in EU, with traditional leftist parties losing
| popularity to right-wing populists. Leftist parties should
| focus first and foremost on protecting worker's rights,
| anything else should come second. Supporting open migration
| policy in particular is problematic, as it drives down
| wages to the very workers who might want to vote leftist
| parties. People who are struggling financially also don't
| particularly enjoy hearing how they are privileged because
| of their gender/skin color or whatever.
|
| The left should simply recognize that distribution of
| wealth and means of production is the number one factor
| affecting equality. It's their job to lobby for things like
| progressive taxation and social safety nets.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Leftist parties should focus first and foremost on
| protecting worker's rights
|
| They should focus first and foremost on improving the
| economic condition of the average American. The low
| income, as well as the middle class slipping into
| poverty. Worker's rights is a major part of that, but
| only one part of it. Watching the prices of basic
| necessities like housing, food, and healthcare while
| billionaires and corporations are making record profits
| is bound to piss off the people.
|
| That said, Trump certainly isn't going to make any of
| that better. In fact, it'll all get much worse, but on
| the slim chance democrats actually try to win voters back
| vs just counting on America to come crawling back to save
| the US from the four year shit show we've just started
| and if our new dictator allows us to have fair elections
| in the future, I think you've got the right idea for
| where they can start.
| xnx wrote:
| The #1 takeaway should be tell people whatever they want to
| hear. Factual basis and consistency count for nothing.
| nosequel wrote:
| The DNC has some serious soul-searching to do. If they didn't
| figure out that people wanted Bernie over Hilary, I doubt
| they will learn that the US voter didn't like getting lied to
| about Biden's mental fitness and then just inserting someone
| we never voted on.
| autoexec wrote:
| I think they knew full well that people wanted Bernie over
| Hilary, and they just didn't care. They believed that they
| could shove Hilary down our throats and actively colluded
| with her campaign to undermine Sanders. When people
| objected they fought to defend the position that they
| aren't required to hold a fair primary election. I doubt
| they'll learn anything from this and that they'll never
| give up the ability to make backroom deals then force their
| chosen candidate regardless of how democrats feel about
| them.
| adamtaylor_13 wrote:
| I think you hit the nail on the head here. The general
| "air" about the democratic party seems to be that they
| know what's best for you, so shut up and vote blue so
| that we can "save democracy" (by the people who inserted
| a candidate that no one voted for).
|
| Regardless of policy, which I won't get into here, we
| have to acknowledge that treating adults like children
| isn't a rock-solid battle strategy.
| daveguy wrote:
| Hillary Clinton defeated Bernie Sanders in the primary
| thing. That's not some big bad Democrat party. That's
| literally how Democratic primary voters voted in 2016. I
| don't know where you're getting your information, but it
| is completely opposite reality.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| They completely ignored the crypto vote, while both RFK and
| Trump pandered heavily
|
| They never listen and are just encased in their chrysalis
| where everyone's a joke to them if you arent automatically
| about the party lines
| Scarblac wrote:
| Trump has tried a coup and illegal intervention in the election
| before and now has the SC on his side. It remains to be seen if
| there will _be_ a next time.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| He has literally said, and not paraphrasing, to his crowds...
| "You need to get out and vote, and if everything goes well,
| maybe you won't need to vote again."
| c420 wrote:
| "You know, FDR, 16 years -- almost 16 years -- he was four
| terms. I don't know, are we going to be considered three-
| term? Or two-term?" also said
| paganel wrote:
| For those curious like I was, he actually said that last
| May [1] I think though that age is strongly against him,
| had he been 10 or 15 years younger he could have probably
| pulled it off.
|
| [1] https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/18/trump-at-
| nra-conven...
| kevmo wrote:
| Another Trump quote taken totally out of context. He was
| encouraging people who don't normally vote to get out and
| vote this time.
|
| People who oppose Trump don't do themselves any favors by
| misrepresenting this stuff. The guy is a ghoul and says
| plenty of terrible things that don't need misrepresentation
| to make him look bad.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| It seems like it has the necessary context and is without
| any sort of "misrepresentation".
|
| Your reply explains the _" You need to get out and vote"_
| part, but it doesn't explain the _" and if everything
| goes well, maybe you won't need to vote again"_ part.
| What context do you believe makes the 2nd part alright?
| carry_bit wrote:
| The country is in good enough shape that they can go back
| to not caring if it's a Democrat or Republican in the
| White House.
| jjulius wrote:
| This perspective is willfully ignorant towards social
| issues.
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| And yet, that was probably what he meant.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| Ok, that is also a valid interpretation
| cap1434 wrote:
| If you heard this quote without knowing who said it, you
| would think it is most likely that the speaker meant
| "vote again for me". When a politician says "go vote",
| it's normally implied "go vote for me".
|
| In context, I think it is obvious that is what Trump
| meant. People that have been told Trump is a dictator
| that wants to end democracy obviously won't approach that
| quote with normal grace they afford others.
| davorak wrote:
| Lets say you are right and the correct interpretation is:
|
| "and if everything goes well, maybe you won't need to
| vote for me again"
|
| Trump would be term limited, so they would not be able to
| vote him in as president again anyway. That is why this
| interpretation does not make sense to me.
| carry_bit wrote:
| It would just be a useful reminder of that fact.
| Remember: you're trying to sell voting to someone who
| doesn't normally vote. It's easier to sell it as being a
| one-off thing versus sell them on voting in all future
| elections.
| davorak wrote:
| > It's easier to sell it as being a one-off thing versus
| sell them on voting in all future elections.
|
| So a promise to permanently and irrevocably change the
| country? If it is truly one off that is what it would
| have to be, which is not possible via normal legal
| mechanisms in the USA.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| If one heard this quote without knowing who said it, they
| would think it is most likely that the speaker meant _"
| If I win, I will make sure further consent of the
| governed, unnecessary"_, which is why the quote got the
| attention it did, and why, to my knowledge, no other US
| presidential candidate in the entire history of our
| nation has ever dared utter it.
| valval wrote:
| He will have fixed things to the point that voting
| someone else in won't undo the good?
| rlt wrote:
| The context of that was he was addressing a subset of
| voters (Christians) who didn't particularly like him but he
| needs their votes in this elction, possibly due to the
| perception that Democrats would somehow cheat without a
| decisive victory.
|
| Trump says a _lot_ of things and does not choose his words
| wisely. Or maybe he does and these are all dog whistles. I
| guess we'll find out.
| toephu2 wrote:
| To be fair and objective, he didn't attempt a coup...
|
| Did he ever tell the rioters to storm the capital?
|
| He literally told them to be peaceful: "Stay peaceful!"
|
| "I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain
| peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law &
| Order - respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue.
| Thank you!"
|
| You can see the Tweets yourself on Jan 6 from Trump:
| https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/tweets-
| january-6-2...
|
| Or actual Tweet:
| https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1346912780700577792
| jb1991 wrote:
| Misinformation. He was actually silent during the
| insurrection, and he was very strongly encouraged to issue
| public statements after the attack happened.
| dangoor wrote:
| "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?"[1]
|
| Trump is very good at covering his own language and
| culpability. What were Trump's actions while the mob was
| storming the Capitol? How long did he wait to even put
| forth those tweets? In his speech before they stormed the
| Capitol, he said[2]
|
| "We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell,
| you're not going to have a country anymore"
|
| but he also said
|
| "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to
| the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make
| your voices heard."
|
| Does saying the latter negate the former in the minds of
| the mob that had been primed for nearly two months, without
| real evidence, to think the election had been stolen?
|
| Does it matter that that there's evidence, presented in
| court, that Trump _knew_ he had lost the election and
| further knew that attempts to overturn the result were
| illegal? [3]
|
| We all saw _with our own eyes_ what the mob did at the
| Capitol that day. There were people there with differing
| motivations and different understandings of what they were
| trying to accomplish by storming the Capitol. They've
| received differing levels of punishment as a result. But, I
| find it hard to not view the totality of the evidence
| presented to date and say that Trump wasn't trying to stay
| in power through unlawful means (i.e. "attempt a coup").
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_th
| is_tur... [2]:
| https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-
| jan-6-s... [3]: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/jack-
| smith-makes-his-ca...
| kevmo wrote:
| The DNC's #1 goal is to stop socialism in the primaries. A
| distant #2 is winning general elections.
| anonfordays wrote:
| >The DNC's #1 goal is to stop socialism in the primaries.
|
| "The DNC's #1 goal is to stop _democracy_ in the primaries. "
|
| FTFY.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| Goal #1 is just an instrumental goal to goal number #2.
| Socialists underperform moderates in general elections. Hell
| even Kamala, a terrible candidate who just got trounced by
| Trump outperformed Bernie (who has literally everything going
| for him) in his home state by a slim margin. Where as a
| moderate like Dan Osborn without the backing of the party
| outperformed Kamala by almost 14%.
|
| Americans don't want to pay European style taxes even for
| European services. And our public sector is far less
| efficient than Europe's so we wouldn't even get European
| level of services for that taxation rate.
| kgwgk wrote:
| Fun fact: Harris is the second-most liberal Democratic
| senator to serve in the Senate in the 21st century.
|
| "During this period, there were 109 different Democrats who
| served in the Senate and cast a sufficient number of roll
| call votes for a reliable analysis of their ideological
| position. Of these 109 Democrats, Harris has the second-most
| liberal voting record. This makes her slightly less liberal
| than Warren, but more liberal than all of the remaining 107
| Democrats, and significantly more liberal than all but a
| handful."
|
| https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4816859-kamala-
| harris-i...
| SturgeonsLaw wrote:
| Liberalism and Socialism are two very different things.
| Liberalism is squarely in the Capitalism camp. There are no
| workers owning the means of production under Liberalism.
|
| The DNC's bread and butter are Liberals. Not Socialists.
| Not anyone even approaching Socialist. Bernie, AOC, etc are
| SocDems at best. There are no Socialists in office in the
| United States.
| kgwgk wrote:
| I don't disagree. I guess the DNC objective of stopping
| socialists in the primaries takes care of itself because
| there are no socialists in the party.
| jellicle wrote:
| The definition of "liberal" being used here by The Hill is
| "voting with the Democratic Party". Their definitional left
| end of the spectrum is "bills put up by the Democrats" and
| definitional right end of the spectrum is "bills put up by
| the Republicans". These are not actually meaningfully
| "liberal" and "conservative" as the terms are used
| elsewhere.
|
| Harris is a party-line voter (pretty obviously, as an
| insider she's defining the party line in the first place).
| The Democratic Party isn't leftist and nor is Harris. It's
| routine in most democracies for elected representatives to
| be party-line voters.
| jmyeet wrote:
| > I hope DNC learn from this
|
| They absolutely will not. History shows us this.
|
| In 2016, the Democratic establishment forced Hilary down the
| voters' throats because, hey, it was her turn, despite her
| being a terrible candidate with huge negatives.
|
| America, thanks to the Red Scare has no viable leftist
| momentum. But even in the USA, the Democrats _almost_ chose an
| _open socialist_ (ie Bernie Sanders) as the Democratic nominee
| in 2016 rather than Hilary Clinton. I remember saying at the
| time that the DNC are missing how upset ordinary people are at
| the status quo. The DNC establishment couldn 't care less.
|
| What did the DNC learn from 2016? Absolutely nothing. They
| blamed Bernie voters (even though Bernie voters overwhelmingly
| came out and voted for Hilary in spite of their reservations).
|
| Trump only really lost in 2020 because of Covid. Yet Biden's
| campaign did have a sprnkling of progresive policies that
| people got behind, so much so that it looks like he got 10-15
| _million_ more votes than Kamala got. There 's a lesson in that
| but it won't be learned.
|
| I saw someone describe this election as a Republican primary
| between a moderate Republican (Kamala) and a far right
| Republican (Trump). It's accurate.
|
| Kamala's immigration policy was the Trump 2020 policy. She is
| to the right of Ronald Reagan on immigration.
|
| And that's before we even get to the Middle East policy, which
| is not only bad policy but it's bad politics. Why? Because it
| gains her zero votes but loses a bunch. Anyone who hard line
| suports Israel is voting for Trump (and did). This was
| foreseeable. People were screaming about it for a year.
| Ignored.
|
| So what lesson will the Democrats take from 2024? That they
| need to run _even further right_.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I had the same thought. When Democrats run a likable, popular
| candidate they win. Bill Clinton, Obama being the two most
| recent examples. Trump won largely because his brash, crude,
| swaggering demeanor appeals to a lot of people and Harris was a
| candidate that was defaulted in because Biden was just out of
| gas; nobody really wanted her. Not saying that the Democrats
| should look for someone like Trump but first and foremost they
| need someone that a lot of people find likable.
| glitchc wrote:
| It was easy to do:Just run a proper election at the
| convention instead of parachuting in the candidate.
| 8note wrote:
| I think Trump won more on him being not in the current
| administration, and that people want the current admin out.
|
| Overall the past couple elections have been about kicking
| people out more than putting people in, and Americans are
| unhappy with the state of their society.
|
| Trump has at least shown an ability to just ignore the law to
| get whatever he wants done, and no candidate on the current
| Democratic party is going to have that
| sn wrote:
| I'm not sure any party in office this last term could have
| won this election, given there was going to be significant
| inflation as a rebound from COVID.
| lazyeye wrote:
| You cannot be serious. The Democrats regularly ignored the
| first amendment.
| randomname11 wrote:
| Obama and Clinton both were not at the top of the party
| apparatus at the time of their first runs. Compare to Gore,
| Harris, and the other Clinton in 2016. I think the DNC
| clearly needs to step back and let the party make its own
| choice.
| nineplay wrote:
| I hate to say it as a progressive woman, but the DNC has a non-
| minority problem.
|
| They need a good white/Hispanic Christian heterosexual male and
| they just don't seem to have one at this point. Gavin Newsom is
| the face of everything that is ( allegedly ) wrong with
| California. Mark Kelly is not a great speaker. They tried with
| Walz, but even I had a trouble imagining him going face-to-face
| with Putin.
|
| If there was a democratic Mark Rubio he would have mopped the
| floor with Trump. I wouldn't necessarily say that the country
| is not ready for a black female president, but I think a lot of
| people think that Democrats only care about minorities and I
| think Harris just enforced that belief.
| tim333 wrote:
| Josh Shapiro probably would have been a good candidate and
| quite likely would have been selected if there had been any
| competitive process to choose the best candidate rather than
| anointing Kamala. He may be jewish by birth but seems popular
| and competent.
|
| I think one of the problems with the Democrats and modern
| left is they have moved away from
|
| >I have a dream that my four little children will one day
| live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color
| of their skin but by their character.
|
| And towards a DEI set up where Kamala is hired because she
| ticks the colored and woman boxes rather than because of
| competence.
| nineplay wrote:
| > And towards a DEI set up where Kamala is hired because
| she ticks the colored and woman boxes rather than because
| of competence.
|
| Biden said as much ~4 years ago and this election was
| probably doomed from that point on. I don't know how they
| are so tone-deaf.
| bbatchelder wrote:
| > He may be jewish by birth but seems popular and
| competent.
|
| I want to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but what
| in the hell man.
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| I get what you're seeing but it's very clearly not what
| that poster intended to communicate.
|
| Not:
|
| > Even though he's Jewish, meaning you would expect him
| to be despised and incompetent, he seems to be popular
| and competent
|
| Instead:
|
| > He may be jewish by birth, violating the condition for
| a Christian, but since he seems popular and competent
| that shouldn't matter so much.
| tim333 wrote:
| Yeah.
| exolymph wrote:
| The point was that he's not Christian, which is a much
| more marketable religious affiliation in America.
| giardini wrote:
| As one of my friends says, Democrats were running around
| yelling
|
| 1."Women have the right to abortion." and
|
| 2."Everyone has the right to alter their own gender!"
|
| and, while I support the above [well, not exactly: I prefer
| that one should, when possible, _pay for their own_
| voluntary medical procedures].
|
| But, in any case, the above rights have no particular
| appeal _at all_ to people who are neither pregnant nor
| gender-uncertain, which is _by far the majority of the
| voting population._
|
| In contrast, Republicans focused on the economy and the
| border, two things affecting _everyone_.
| nineplay wrote:
| I think they really overestimated how many people were
| single issue pro-choice voters. Looking back it was the
| biggest part of their platform but it probably didn't
| move the needle much. I could tell you much more about
| Trump's economic plans than Harris's.
|
| I also really wish they could just stop talking about
| trans rights. I support them too but its a tiny part of
| the population and anyone who supports them is voting
| blue anyway. A lot of people don't get it, don't like it,
| and are going to vote against them given the chance.
|
| I'll also reluctantly agree with the right and say I
| don't see the need for trans women to compete in sports
| against cis women. Playing sports is not a constitutional
| right and I think sometimes its ok to say "I'm sorry but
| no."
| xienze wrote:
| > Playing sports is not a constitutional right and I
| think sometimes its ok to say "I'm sorry but no."
|
| The problem is that the left has really painted
| themselves into a corner with the whole "trans women are
| women" thing. To say that they ARE women but CAN'T
| compete in women's sports would be to admit that trans
| women are not, in fact, the same as biological women.
| danparsonson wrote:
| Well the Republicans also spent a good amount of time
| yelling that the Democrats were yelling about those
| things, which is perhaps part of the reason your friend
| thinks the Dems only care about those issues.
| nineplay wrote:
| I think Shapiro would have good _except_ for what's
| currently going on in Palestine. Palestine was always
| divisive among the left and now more than ever.
| NickC25 wrote:
| Josh Shapiro has also stated in writing that he
| volunteered with the IDF, which under traditional norms
| is completely disqualifying for the Presidency or Vice
| Presidency as it's service to a foreign military.
| danmaz74 wrote:
| I agree that this perception about modern leftism in the West
| is a very big issue. Through no personal fault of Harris, I
| think that a lot of non-white men and white women voted for
| Trump because they feel like progressives don't care about
| (or even hate) men, whatever their color, and don't care
| about (or even hate) white people, whatever their gender.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| I agree. Crazy as it sounds but in the electorate's mind they
| blame the Democrats and DEI for their economic struggles. I
| blame the ineptness of the Democratic Party that in the
| voter's mind Trump represents the working class.
|
| When Biden ran, he pointed to his working class roots at
| every opportunity. I believe what cost the election was that
| KH simply was not believed by the people working minimum wage
| and couldn't afford rent.
| _vOv_ wrote:
| This. Kamala is a very weak candidate with no real platform of
| her own.
| joshjje wrote:
| Yet Trump rarely articulates any policy, beyond incoherent
| rambling, except "I will fix it!". I guess it works...
| indigo0086 wrote:
| he sat down on a podcast and talked for 3 hours about his
| policies
| jeifneioka wrote:
| DNC has done as much for Trump as the RNC ever did.
| error9348 wrote:
| Post hoc ergo propter hoc
| cryptonector wrote:
| Hillary Clinton won the primaries in 2008.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| She also turned many working class voters into Republicans
| with her "deplorables" speech.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Ok, but she won the primaries and was denied the
| nomination. What's the use of complaining that in 2016 she
| only got it because "it was her turn"? As if being denied
| what she rightfully won eight years earlier was somehow
| fair.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| I agree. Instead of navel gazing about internal
| Democratic Party machinations. I would argue it is the
| policy platform and messaging is what wins. In swing
| states, the issue that dominated by far was the economy.
| vvpan wrote:
| It's one unlikable candidate after another. How does one fire
| Democratic party leadership? How is it all democratic to leave
| the choice of the only "left" candidate be down to... who? Some
| boomers?
| slibhb wrote:
| The idea that the DNC stole the 2016 nomination from Sanders is
| silly. Sanders had no path to beating Hilary.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Kamala was, shockingly and as a surprise to all, an incredibly
| capable candidate in 2024. She didn't underperform yesterday
| relative to other Democrats.
|
| This year, it wasn't about the candidate. It seems clear there
| wasn't any Democratic candidate who could have won.
| rwyinuse wrote:
| Nah, Harris wasn't an ideal choice, just like Hillary Clinton
| wasn't. Ideally for next elections democrats would need
| someone likable with plenty of charisma and moderate stance
| on social issues. Being male would be a plus too,
| unfortunately.
|
| I think Tim Walz would have done better than Harris.
| dickersnoodle wrote:
| I think so, too. He has a much more direct, down to earth
| way of talking to people.
| dbish wrote:
| Charisma wins elections and she was not terribly charismatic
| https://paulgraham.com/charisma.html
| iamsaitam wrote:
| Apparently being a clown and a liar wins elections
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
| screye wrote:
| In the interest of HN guidelines, I won't respond with
| sarcasm.
|
| This is a bad opinion. Kamala was a terrible candidate by all
| metrics. Definitely, the worst Democratic candidate I have
| seen in my living memory.
|
| It should've been a dead giveaway that now a single Indian or
| Black person has a good thing to say about her. Her only
| victory was in California (single party & famously misaligned
| with national voting trends) and her only televised primary
| performance was a disaster. Democrats didn't run open
| primaries because they knew she'd lose.
|
| She didn't have concrete policy proposals, talks like an
| under-performing consultant and had zero charisma.
| gizmo wrote:
| Not by all metrics. She did very well in the debate against
| Trump. She drew huge crowds with her rallies.
| xienze wrote:
| You'll notice a pattern with those "huge crowds" -- they
| had a free concert attached.
| indigo0086 wrote:
| she didn't outperform 2020 biden in any county in the united
| states.
| supportengineer wrote:
| Gavin Newsom is up next
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| I can see the idiotic thinking:
|
| "The public wants a straight white man, and they want
| something more conservative... I know, let's run Gavin Newsom
| on a pro-business platform!"
|
| It's like the very categories they use to interpret the world
| have blinded them.
|
| Jimmy McMillan ("The rent is too damn high!"), for example,
| was the opposite of several of those things, but, if he were
| still around, he'd mop the floor with Gavin Newsom in an
| election.
| guluarte wrote:
| DNC: People aren't happy with the current administration, let's
| put the VP as our candidate!!
| Molitor5901 wrote:
| I think the DNC was caught between two kinds of politics:
| machine and identity. The party is very interested with
| controlling everything, but they couldn't take the nomination
| from the first black Vice President. Michelle would not run,
| and so it would presume that to keep dark horses and other
| members challenging The VP, something had to have been
| offered or promised. Also the optics of someone like Newsome,
| white, affluent, and male, challenging the _first black
| woman_ etc. etc. It doesn 't look good for democrats and
| could have been very messy.
|
| Kamala, for better or for worse, was their only choice.
| diob wrote:
| They won't learn because ultimately this isn't painful for
| them, just their constituents. They're fine.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Hopefully there is still time to give Edward Snowden a well
| deserved pardon, before he becomes a bargaining chip to be
| extradited in exchange for something (less sanctions, etc) in a
| US-Russia, or better, Trump-Putin deal.
| Taikonerd wrote:
| Don't move to Canada; move to a swing state.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| There's an interesting heatmap to be made of how recently each
| state was considered a swing state. Anyone remember 2004 Iowa?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| As an expat, you can vote as a resident in the last state you
| claimed residency before leaving the country. So, if you're
| headed out for a bit, establish residency in a swing state
| before you go, and remember to vote while you're out of
| country.
|
| https://www.overseasvotefoundation.org/content/what-state-do...
| agubelu wrote:
| It's quite funny how people talk about "immigrants", but when
| they are themselves the ones living in another country, then
| they are "expats".
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20170119-who-should-
| be-...
|
| > The difference between an expat and an immigrant?
| Semantics
|
| > "Immigrants are usually defined as people who have come
| to a different country in order to live there permanently,
| whereas expats move abroad for a limited amount of time or
| have not yet decided upon the length of their stay," he
| says.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Migrants then because Trump told you it's the last time
| you have to vote.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Trump says lots of things. Too early to tell imho if the
| authoritarianism and populism is going to stick.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps
| -fa...
|
| > Trump's false or misleading claims total 30,573 over 4
| years
| TomK32 wrote:
| Trump 2016 got reasonable republicans into his cabinet
| that prevented worse, his new team (anyone seen his old
| VP Mike Pence?) will be unchecked and unhinged.
| agubelu wrote:
| Now that you cite the BBC, there are quite sizable
| communities of UK citizens living in Spain after
| retirement (ie permanently, without a short or medium-
| term intention of going back) and they consistently refer
| to themselves as "expats".
| alexlur wrote:
| Not to mention that temporary seasonal agricultural
| workers have ever been called "expats" either.
| intull wrote:
| There still is a double standard though.
|
| People from the wealthier first-world nations enjoy more
| international privileges -- visa-on-arrival, stress-free
| travel, higher rates in currency exchange, dual
| citizenships, better societal structures and support for
| assimilation into foreign cultures.
|
| Immigrants are either fleeing persecution or leaving
| their countries seeking a better life, requirements for
| visas and security checks, usually with not enough money,
| little privilege, and defacto distrust from foreign
| societal structures.
|
| Relatively speaking, the typical expat can move around
| the world as they wish. Immigrants can't. So yes,
| immigrants, when they move, often do so, seeking to live
| elsewhere permanently.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| It's never used that way in practice. No one calls
| Mexican seasonal agriculture workers in the US and Canada
| expats. No one calls Filipino maids and nannies in
| Singapore expats. No one calls Indian construction
| workers in Saudi Arabia expats. Regardless of the
| dictionary definition, expat is only used to refer to
| people coming from rich countries (US/UK/Singapore/etc.).
| Terms such as "migrant worker" are used for people coming
| from poor countries.
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| Well it's a question of perspective, isn't it? You're an
| expat to your birth country and an immigrant to your
| country of arrival.
| edanm wrote:
| But in this case they're talking about rights in your
| origin country, so "expat" is the only term that makes
| sense.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| Expats typically aren't immigrating permanently to a
| country, or even trying to establish new citizenship, only
| residing to the medium to long term, with the option of
| returning to their home country where they have
| citizenship. If they do renounce their citizenship, then
| they are just immigrants.
| _heimdall wrote:
| This feels like a very disingenuous way of participating in a
| democracy, and sounds like the kind of strategy that people
| would be up in arms over if MAGA voters were doing this.
| seanw444 wrote:
| Absolutely. "I'm going to leave America but participate in
| its elections anyways." Sounds like foreign influence to
| me.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| US citizens are required to pay taxes on global income,
| regardless of where they live. The US is unique in this
| regard. Why would US citizens not continue to have the
| right to vote while out of country? Certainly, if they
| renounce their US citizenship (and hence, the ability to
| be taxed as a non citizen non resident), they lose their
| right to vote.
|
| "No taxation without representation."
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >"No taxation without representation."
|
| So you're in favor of exempting minors from federal
| taxation?
|
| After all, their income is basically a rounding error
| economically and most don't make enough to pay net
| federal taxes so it might even be a net loss. There's no
| real reason to tax them unless it's some perverse
| Cartmanic exercise in making them accustomed to it.
| Klonoar wrote:
| America dictates that you have to participate unless you
| fully give up citizenship. America makes it difficult to
| do so.
|
| It's not foreign influence when America more or less
| demands it.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| How is it more disingenuous than any other way of
| participating, I wonder?
|
| What difference does it make where you vote when you're an
| expat? You're still taxed and represented.
|
| It would be a different matter if taxes were not involved,
| at least in my humble opinion. Other countries have revoked
| voting writes when you're no longer a tax paying citizen.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Well for one thing, the aim is for those leaving the
| country to change their last registered residence to an
| area where their vote may have more impact. They never
| lived there and have no ties to that jurisdiction. You
| don't see anything wrong with voters that have nothing to
| do with your area casting votes there on everything from
| federal elections to local elections and ballot measures?
|
| To me this feels like the kind of strategy that leads to
| us removing voting rights for expats. If the rule is
| meant to allow expats to still participating in voting in
| their hometown, and people abuse that to impact elections
| they have no real business voting in, eventually that
| right will just be removed.
| yencabulator wrote:
| It's the bottom-up variant of gerrymandering, and GOP/MAGA
| heartily embraces the top-down variant of gerrymandering.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Sure, I guess that's fine if you're okay with playing
| dirty because the other side did.
|
| Personally that feels like a great way to make sure we
| ruin things, rather than just arguing that those GOP
| members helping gerrymander might ruin things.
| lolinder wrote:
| Trump won the popular vote this time. The swing states were
| still where all the action was, but I hope this spells the end
| of the Democratic Party blaming the electoral college for their
| losses. This time, they just screwed this race up _badly_.
| tharmas wrote:
| The leadership of the DNC should be purged. They are clueless
| idiots.
| labster wrote:
| Don't worry, the purges will begin soon enough.
| kwere wrote:
| they will purge the token hires to show a return to
| "normalcy" and thats it. Young grassroot talents will be
| ignored or marginalized as always. DNC is such a small
| club, even Gavin Newsom, the most "presentable" dem is an
| outsider. He left out some snarky remarks on how "the
| machine" works on pod save america podcast.
| labster wrote:
| No, the purges will take out the entire senior leadership
| of the Democratic Party. You need to stop thinking like
| it's 2020 and start thinking like it's 1932.
| umeshunni wrote:
| Most of them are geriatric at this point and will naturally
| be purged.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| >Trump won the popular vote this time.
|
| Do we know that yet? Last I checked, there were still
| millions of votes not counted. (California alone still has
| enough to change it, if they all went one way.) They just
| aren't in areas that would swing the overall electoral vote,
| so the people doing the math can call the race overall.
| marcusverus wrote:
| He's up by almost 5 million votes. There are enough votes
| outstanding to flip the race, but it seems unlikely that
| they'll break Democrat hard enough to make up the
| difference.
| dawnerd wrote:
| I'm still on team end the EC. It really does cause states
| like California to have people shrug thinking their vote
| doesn't matter. Moving to popular would end swing states
| period. Elections shouldn't be decided by a couple states
| that may flip flop. Campaigns spend ridiculous money in only
| those places and ignore everywhere else.
| SEJeff wrote:
| These folks are trying to do what you are suggesting here:
|
| https://www.nationalpopularvote.com
|
| It is an interesting idea.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I would rather every American vote and Trump receive 99% of
| that vote, than what we have now.
|
| I'm more committed to democracy than politics.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > I'm still on team end the EC.
|
| One (of many) arguments against it: We were promised the
| costs of the indirection-layer of sober statesmen would
| provide a feature, protecting against a patently
| unqualified demagogue. The feature broke spectacularly.
|
| That said, if I had a magic-genie wish between (A) popular
| vote for President and (B) replacing all our plurality-
| voting schemes with one of the _many_ better systems, I
| would choose the latter.
| creato wrote:
| This was not just a screwed up race. The far left and
| identity politics have made the democratic party unelectable
| and they'll continue to do so until a strong leader can evict
| them from the party.
|
| I really hope this clear loss without the excuse of the
| electoral college leads to a total reformation into a sane
| party. I just wish that had happened to republicans first.
| komali2 wrote:
| > This was not just a screwed up race. The far left and
| identity politics have made the democratic party
| unelectable and they'll continue to do so until a strong
| leader can evict them from the party.
|
| This is a really interesting analysis that differs greatly
| from how I'm seeing it - in particular your
| characterization of the democrats as "far left." What
| policies of theirs would you describe as "far left?"
| Specifically ones that don't have to do with identity
| politics, since you categorized that as something else.
|
| In my opinion, leftists in the USA are effectively
| disenfranchised and there's votes on the table for a
| leftist voting bloc. The democrats this election turned
| hard _right_ (immigration, law enforcement, Israel weapon
| sales, etc), which is a strategy that has never really
| worked for them but remains their favorite thing to
| continually try. If someone didn 't want immigration, why
| would they vote for the candidate that's light on
| immigration when they could vote for the guy promising to
| deport (somehow) millions?
|
| I saw another interesting chart that showed that something
| like 4% of registered republicans voted for Biden and 3%
| for Kamala. Capturing right wing votes seems to be a fools
| errand for the Democrats that they simply won't give up.
| Meanwhile there's a whole entire political spectrum
| unrepresented in the USA - and it's not like there's no
| historical precedence for demonstrable popularity of
| leftist candidates, one of the most popular and
| consistently reelected senators is an out and out
| socialist.
| creato wrote:
| I agree that in general, democrats are not far left, and
| it's a small minority of the party. But democrats are
| beholden to them, and can't bring themselves to disavow
| and condemn their fringes.
|
| > The democrats this election turned hard _right_
| (immigration
|
| After 3.5 years of scolding everyone for being racist for
| being against uncontrolled immigration, they tried to
| pass a weak compromise bill that acknowledges the
| problem, while continuing to advocate allowing a "first
| come first serve" border policy to the tune of thousands
| of people a week. That failed, then after years of saying
| their hands were tied, suddenly decide that they actually
| can do something, a few months before the election.
|
| > If someone didn't want immigration, why would they vote
| for the candidate that's light on immigration when they
| could vote for the guy promising to deport (somehow)
| millions?
|
| It's clearly not a binary issue. That's exactly why
| Democrats need to reform themselves into a party of
| sanity, instead of e.g. this:
| https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-reopens-
| asylum-a.... The idea that a local domestic violence
| issue becomes a case for asylum is _insane_ on so many
| levels.
|
| > law enforcement
|
| Again, too little too late, and after too much scolding
| about racism.
|
| > Israel weapon sales
|
| I won't comment on Israel "weapon sales" specifically,
| that is missing the big picture. I'll just give a few
| perspectives on how I reached the conclusion I posted
| about democrats.
|
| Biden's diplomacy in the middle east has been just
| totally pathetic. Every week for months we got the
| headline "Cease fire coming tomorrow - Biden". Biden's
| desperation makes it crystal clear to both sides that he
| has zero leverage and can be ignored. And why is he so
| desperate? Because he has to entertain the demands of the
| far left of the democratic voter base.
|
| More generally, this is an issue where Democrats have
| allowed their weird obsession with colonialism to cloud
| their judgement. At the end of the day, the middle east
| is almost exclusively theocratic dictatorships that have
| ethnically cleansed their populations of jews over the
| last 50-100 years, or failed states controlled by Iranian
| proxy militaries. And then there's Israel, a secular
| democracy (for now) with a 20% Arab population, including
| Arab elected officials.
|
| It's very distressing seeing college students in Iran
| protesting at very real risk to their lives and freedoms
| against the very same forces that college students in the
| US are protesting (effectively, wittingly or not) in
| support of.
|
| I remember watching the raw unfiltered video from Oct 7
| and thinking this was the clearest casus belli for a
| total war for a regime change and occupation since WWII.
| Hell, even WWI and WWII still did not have such a clear
| singular provocation. Yet, democrats find themselves
| muddled and confused about the issue. Not at first, but
| democrats proved themselves beholden to their fringe
| lunatics on this issue.
| talldayo wrote:
| > the middle east is almost exclusively theocratic
| dictatorships that have ethnically cleansed their
| populations
|
| ...and Israel didn't?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cast_Thy_Bread
|
| Supporting relatively better theocratic democracy is how
| the United States ended up justifying weapon sales to
| Iran and Pakistan. Are we holding Israel to the standards
| of America, or to the standards of their reprehensible
| peers? Are we looking at this from a flawed relativist
| standpoint, or are we willing to identify flaws before
| they spiral out of hand?
|
| This feels like something we should clear up before the
| Gaza death toll surpasses Bangladesh. Alternatively,
| America can also admit that we never cared in the first
| place and announce that we're open for business to any
| sufficiently rich nationalists. Israel represents the
| point at which America can either bring down the hammer
| or double down hoping _this time_ is different than the
| other nationalist theocracies that imported US weapons
| under the premise of fighting terrorism.
| drivebyhooting wrote:
| > What policies of theirs would you describe as "far
| left?
|
| Student debt cancellation
| maxehmookau wrote:
| The idea that America has a far left party, let alone that
| the democrats are a "far-left" party, is hilarious to the
| rest of the world.
|
| The democrats, by european standards, are about as centrist
| as it gets.
| umeshunni wrote:
| Sure,but this isn't Europe and neither is Europe a gold
| standard of any sort.
| maxehmookau wrote:
| The US is the outlier here though. I don't think any
| other country's political norms would describe the US
| Democratic Party as "far-left".
|
| Describing any policy of the dems as "far-left" is just
| nonsense. It's used as an insult rather than to further
| actual political discourse.
| umeshunni wrote:
| Let's see
|
| - Decriminalization of theft (now overturned via prop 36
| in California) - Wealth redistribution via wealth taxes,
| unrealized gains taxes etc (Kamala policy proposal) -
| Support for anarchist movements (support for Jihadist
| elements, 2020 riots etc)
| SturgeonsLaw wrote:
| Far left is when they appropriate property from the
| ownership class and hand it over to the workers. Not
| increasing taxes, lol.
| kristjansson wrote:
| > Decriminalization of theft
|
| Take all the issue with prosecutorial discretion that you
| want, but don't pretend that an adjustment in the
| misdemeanor/felony threshold by $450 means theft is no
| longer a crime.
| umeshunni wrote:
| maybe I should call it petty theft instead of theft.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| It absolutely isnt, democratic party social policy side
| wouldn't fly even in the most liberal parts of Europe.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| All the pro EU social left democrats would be horrified
| if they looked at abortion policy of the noridcs.
| jb1991 wrote:
| What policy are you referring to?
| sneak wrote:
| I think it is perhaps both inaccurate and, at this point, a
| trope, to blame the failures of the US democratic party on
| IdPol or "wokeness" or DEI/CRT, etc.
|
| This is a red herring, and ultimately thinking it had any
| real effect on the race (beyond being used as fodder for
| mocking them) is a dangerous distraction.
|
| Despite the fact that the president doesn't have that many
| short term economic levers that aren't
| destructive/wasteful, the fact that most USians have worse
| economic circumstances now than they did four years ago is
| probably the main driver.
|
| The big irony of this is that a lot of it is probably the
| lingering echoes of the massive economic damage from the
| pandemic, most of which was not only not mitigated, but
| massively accelerated by Trump's policies during the main
| sequence of same.
| qwerpy wrote:
| I disagree. Pointing to some of the more extreme beliefs
| held by the left on those topics has been very effective
| in pushing people away. My wife, active on Chinese social
| media, forwards me a lot of indignant videos about some
| of the things the left does. Ignoring the fact that many
| otherwise moderate people _really_ dislike {IdPol or
| "wokeness" or DEI /CRT} is a huge factor in the election
| results.
| easterncalculus wrote:
| Lib migration really hasn't worked out well for Democrats.
| Texas is their white whale and a big reason they haven't won it
| is because they just change to another version of their same
| bubble and bring center-right people with them.
| dkarl wrote:
| I live in a pretty red state, but there are only 9 or 10 states
| swingier than mine. Progressives I know are moving to solid
| blue states and feeling virtuous about it. Two of my friends
| moved to the west coast, and I can tell they're looking at me
| like if I can stand to live here, I must not feel as strongly
| about politics as they do.
|
| This despite the fact that we're all old, white, and
| economically privileged enough that we're for all practical
| purposes immune to the awful policies that are being put in
| place.
|
| The sad thing is, the idea that moving away is a constructive
| political act comes straight from Atlas Shrugged. It's right
| wing logic. Express your consumer preference, and through the
| magic of the invisible hand, that becomes political power.
| Making yourself happy is the only form of political engagement
| you need.
| tessierashpool wrote:
| _we 're for all practical purposes immune to the awful
| policies that are being put in place._
|
| this is probably not going to pan out. Trump's become the
| figurehead for an organized and motivated movement to
| completely dismantle the administrative state. nobody's going
| to be immune to the effects of that. Project 2025 includes
| shutting down the weather service, even to the point of
| _privatizing tornado warnings_. he 's also talked many times
| about replacing the entire income tax system with hefty
| tariffs, which literally hundreds of economists say would be
| a disastrous move.
|
| they're also talking about a national abortion ban. you might
| indeed be old enough for that not to affect your life any
| more, but if you have extended family, it will affect someone
| you care about, guaranteed.
|
| last but not least, Trump's stated goal of mass deportation
| would require intense surveillance, broad leeway for law
| enforcement agencies, and drastically reduced civil liberties
| protections. once you've got that, you can target a lot of
| people. a site like Twitter is going to have a lot of data
| about political inclinations, and cultural factors like
| sexuality or race that can get you targeted politically.
|
| the real problem that got Trump in office was _normalcy
| bias_. what we 're dealing with is so bad that if you tell
| people who don't already know, they assume you're
| exaggerating.
| maxehmookau wrote:
| > the real problem that got Trump in office was normalcy
| bias. what we're dealing with is so bad that if you tell
| people who don't already know, they assume you're
| exaggerating.
|
| This is understated IMO. In almost every other democracy in
| the world, 1% of the mess that comes out of Trump's mouth
| would deem him utterly unelectable on account of how crazy
| he sounds. The US seems to lap it up though.
| tessierashpool wrote:
| that's also partly because of Fox News, which was
| explicitly founded to ensure that the next Nixon would
| survive his Watergate.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| This is true, and it's probably because he now operates
| in an altered context -- the narrative of persecution,
| especially by those perceived to be 'elite'. Without
| that, all Americans would see through his nonsense just
| as the inhabitants of democracies elsewhere do.
|
| His opponents have done a very bad job of _not_ making it
| look like everyone 's simply biased and out to get him,
| and he's capitalised on that.
| dkarl wrote:
| > they're also talking about a national abortion ban. you
| might indeed be old enough for that not to affect your life
| any more, but if you have extended family, it will affect
| someone you care about, guaranteed
|
| I do care about the people who will be affected. But it
| won't be people in my social class.
|
| There's a lot of hypocrisy built into the social
| conservative mentality. I've seen the world they want to go
| back to, and it was never about eliminating, say, abortion.
| Progressives think that right wingers want to eradicate
| abortion the way progressives want to eliminate malaria and
| poverty. There are a few extremists who do, yes. But most
| right wing people just want to institute social rules that
| stigmatize abortion. They want people who get abortions to
| be discreet about it, and they want to shame and punish
| anybody who gets caught. They want abortions to be a crime
| for the poor and a scandal for the rich. That's all they
| want. If they get that, they don't care how many abortions
| people get.
|
| My friends are sophisticated enough and have enough
| resources that they would be able to get an abortion if
| they needed one. They would find an anonymous way to get a
| pregnancy test. They would not share knowledge of their
| pregnancy with anyone. They would schedule a holiday in an
| abortion-friendly place and Instagram every step of it. In
| this way, they would respect the taboo, and that's all that
| most right wing people care about. Rich people being able
| to break the rules is very much part of the plan.
|
| The burden of punishment will fall on people who weren't
| wealthy or sophisticated enough to navigate this hypocrisy,
| or who belong to disfavored groups (racial minorities,
| etc.) who are specifically targeted for enforcement.
|
| Think of how Alan Turing was punished for homosexuality.
| The nature of his sexual behavior was obvious to the
| police, but he was not going to be punished for it. All he
| had to do was deny it. Show respect for the taboo. But he
| didn't deny it, he didn't participate in the hypocrisy, so
| he was punished.
|
| > last but not least, Trump's stated goal of mass
| deportation would require intense surveillance
|
| You're thinking like a progressive technocrat. You're
| thinking, how would I institute a fair, efficient, and
| effective program of mass deportation? Trump doesn't care
| how many people he deports, or even whether he deports the
| right people. He's not going to be surveilling rich white
| people to catch people like Elon Musk who overstay their
| visa. Any mass deportations will be like his wall: a half-
| assed, purely symbolic stunt that makes his supporters
| happy and confuses progressives because of the blatant lack
| of ambition to accomplish anything.
|
| Again, the victims will be people that right wingers
| consider fair game because of their economic status and
| their skin color.
| tessierashpool wrote:
| _You 're thinking like a progressive technocrat. You're
| thinking, how would I institute a fair, efficient, and
| effective program of mass deportation?_
|
| I'm really not.
| Taikonerd wrote:
| _> the idea that moving away is a constructive political act
| comes straight from Atlas Shrugged_
|
| Heh. I read _Atlas Shrugged_ in college, and at the time I
| liked it pretty well. I was hungry for a book about The Big
| Questions.
|
| But now, I see the protagonists saying, "these leeches keep
| taking advantage of me! I'm going to move to a secret town in
| the middle of nowhere, and deny them my genius!" And it's the
| most teenaged, self-important thing I've ever heard.
| d0gsg0w00f wrote:
| What's the alternative to refusing to work without just
| reward?
| prepend wrote:
| I would love to move to Galt's Gulch. Sadly, I'm not worthy
| enough to be selected for inclusion. It's an enticing idea
| of just moving away to live with all the other smart
| people. The trick is being smart enough to fit in.
| atourgates wrote:
| As a progressive in a deep red state, there is a certain
| amount of exhaustion that comes with feeling like an
| outsider.
|
| I like many things about where I live, and I've become
| practiced at getting along with people that I have deep
| disagreements with on politics.
|
| But particularly this morning, I can sympathize with the urge
| to move to a place where I'm more likely to share a common
| set of values with the average person in the grocery store,
| and those values are more likely to be reflected by the
| institutions around me.
|
| I wouldn't feel any virtue moving to a deep blue area, but I
| would feel a bit of relief.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Don 't move to Canada; move to a swing state._
|
| Who, exactly, are you targeting with this message? You realize
| you are in the minority, right?
| Taikonerd wrote:
| I'm speaking to the roughly 49% of Americans (and ??% of HN
| readers) who are unhappy with the outcome. And if that's not
| you, that's OK; just keep scrolling.
| sophacles wrote:
| How did you determine this? Less than 50% of the population
| voted.
| doubleyou wrote:
| Less than 1/3 of eligible voters voted for trump
| https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/10-things-to-
| know-202...
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| I was told Charli XCX, Chappell Roan, and Ethel Cain would
| deliver this for the Dems months ago
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41020940 and that Musk's
| actions wouldn't matter.
|
| More recently Joe Rogan
| arwhatever wrote:
| For some reason I can't help but read this in the voice of
| Milton, from Office Space.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| I'm very African unfortunately
| xdavidliu wrote:
| It's because Milton said "I was told..."
| bsnnkv wrote:
| > Chappell Roan
|
| She actually received a great deal of backlash from "vote blue
| no matter who" liberals for her criticisms of Kamala Harris and
| the Democratic Party.
| potsandpans wrote:
| > If you have no idea who Charli XCX, Chappell Roan, or Ethel
| Cain are, you're going to miss what's going to happen this
| year.
|
| That's the most chronically online thing I've read in a while.
| dmonitor wrote:
| Chappell Roan famously did not endorse Harris, so maybe the
| poster had a point haha
| culi wrote:
| Chappell Roan and Ethel Cain didn't endorse Harris due to
| Palestine
| adfjalkfja wrote:
| Women endorsing Kamala was expected for obvious reasons. And I
| guess mocking women after the loss should've also been expected
| for... obvious reasons
| drawkward wrote:
| It's the economy, stupid:
|
| -Inflation is not prices; it is the rate of change in prices. Low
| inflation doesn't imply low prices. -Aggregate statistics don't
| necessarily explain individual outcomes.
|
| The Dems failed on this count massively, and have, for maybe the
| last 40 years, which is about the amount of time it took for my
| state to go from national bellwether (As goes Ohio, so goes the
| nation) to a reliably red state. This cost one of the most pro-
| union Senators (Sherrod Brown) his job.
| consteval wrote:
| Trump's economic plans are extremely inflationary, and even a
| freshman economics student can point that out. It's just that
| nobody really cares, they just like Trump and will fill in the
| gaps to justify it.
|
| You can't put extreme tariffs like 200% and expect prices to
| come down.
|
| The reality is post-covid was an inflationary period because of
| hyper consumerism. Demand shot up, extremely quickly, and
| supply was still lagging due to covid. There was really nothing
| anyone could do. It's unfortunate, but voters don't consider
| these things. They just see the prices, see a blue president,
| and go from there.
| drawkward wrote:
| I understand all of this; I voted for Harris, despite not
| particularly liking her (or Biden)
| _heimdall wrote:
| I don't think hyper consumerism goes deeply enough to answer
| the question of why we saw prices change so rapidly. We
| printed trillions of dollars and flooded the economy with new
| money. We had extremely low interest rates, again creating
| more new money in the system. We stopped student debt
| payments, meaning people had more money in their pockets to
| spend. We also stopped evictions, though you would really
| have to be a special kind of asshole to skip paying rent so
| you can buy more random consumer goods.
|
| Its worth noting that printing new money was the actual
| inflation, inflation is a measure of the increase in the
| money supply itself. Prices did go up, or you could say the
| dollar lost value, but price changes aren't actually
| inflation (prices are tracked by indexes).
| intended wrote:
| Price rises are tied to higher energy costs, that are
| linked to the war in Ukraine.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Energy touches basically every corner of the economy. It
| seems like it'd be difficult to narrow down price
| increases to just one cause, especially a base resource.
|
| It looks like US electricity costs are up around 10%
| since 2022. How do you peel that apart to know
| electricity prices changed first, and that that is what
| caused all other prices to go up?
| intended wrote:
| I mean - you just said it didnt you? Energy touches
| basically every corner of the economy. Thats perfect.
| Yeah it does - and so it raises prices for everything.
|
| Also why do you look at electricity? Its not just
| electricity, its everything. The war disrupted oil supply
| from Russia, which is something like 11% of global oil
| production. On top of it they disrupted supply chains
| globally.
|
| Also, this is on top of the pandemic's economic hangover.
| This is pretty much up there from the first few searches
| on this topic, before you have to get into any detailed
| economic analysis.
| _heimdall wrote:
| I should have said energy there, I didn't mean to zoom in
| only on electricity. Oil priced are actually a worse
| comparison, I'm pretty sure oil is _down_ since the war
| started.
|
| > I mean - you just said it didnt you? Energy touches
| basically every corner of the economy. Thats perfect.
| Yeah it does - and so it raises prices for everything.
|
| That doesn't show direction though. Energy impacts
| basically everything in the economy, but energy can also
| be impacted by the rest of the economy.
|
| > Also, this is on top of the pandemic's economic
| hangover. This is pretty much up there from the first few
| searches on this topic, before you have to get into any
| detailed economic analysis.
|
| Doesn't that go against the earlier comment that prices
| are tied through energy costs and directly linked to
| Ukraine?
|
| I wouldn't put to much faith in top search results for
| what its worth. Those are almost never going to include
| detailed economic analysis. Most people don't click on
| detailed analysis, search engines won't promote those
| first.
| truckerbill wrote:
| Sources and sinks - where does the money go? What is it
| subsequently used for?
| mindslight wrote:
| "Inflation" by itself has come to be synonymous with
| consumer price inflation. This rubs the Austrian in me the
| wrong way, but it is what it is. Personally I always make
| sure to use an additional term like "monetary inflation",
| "price inflation", and "asset inflation". For example,
| Trump created trillions of dollars in _monetary inflation_
| , succeeding at the goal of creating immediate _asset
| inflation_ , which then a few years later caused massive
| _price inflation_.
| Lonestar1440 wrote:
| Trump talked about inflation, and his desire to fix it,
| constantly.
|
| Harris did not.
|
| Once again, Republicans Show Up and they win by default. Yes,
| his "plans" are nonsensical, but the opponents decided to
| forfeit the match!
| consteval wrote:
| This isn't true. Harris has talked about fighting inflation
| many, many times. The issue is nobody listens, ultimately
| republicans have been able to support the lie that they are
| the "party of economics". Past that propaganda piece,
| nobody cares.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Where are the long form interviews that cover the policy
| from her point of view?
| gizzlon wrote:
| afaik, Inflation in the us i quite low. Isn't it almost
| at the target? So why would she have a policy?
| rawgabbit wrote:
| To beat a dead horse, the working class cannot afford
| grocery or rent. If you say that inflation is not that
| bad, in their mind you dismiss their suffering and
| dismiss them entirely.
| gizzlon wrote:
| I'm saying that because inflation is what we're
| discussing.
|
| I have no trouble believing many people are worse off,
| which sucks. And many politicians should care more and
| try to do more.
|
| But: 1) I would attribute that to low wage increases for
| several decades, not the last 4 years. 2) there's no easy
| fix for these things. 3) Putting inflation in a global
| perspective is meant to show how this is not mainly
| Biden's fault, since he doesn't control the rest of the
| world.
| drawkward wrote:
| As I tried to imply in my original post: Harris' talk
| about low inflation or fighting inflation loses on a
| technicality, which is that people tend to experience
| inflation as _the current price_ not the rate of change
| in the current price. Thus, when Harris is talking about
| inflation fighting and inflation cooling down, you have a
| bunch of people who look at the price of eggs
| /pizza/houses and say, "this shit is still expensive,
| Dems are full of shit." They _are not_ looking at the
| CPI, and calculating the year-over-year change.
|
| Let me share an anecdote: I worked on a project to
| estimate household-level price sensitivities to the
| market basket of goods commonly used in CPI calculations.
| (My employer had shopper-card/upc/transaction-level data
| from tons of major grocery chains across the USA with
| which to attempt this project.) I tried to read through
| the docs on how CPI is calculated, and let me tell you:
| major snoozefest, and I consider myself "a numbers guy."
|
| I doubt the run-of-the-mill American can accurately
| define inflation. Consequently, "look at how we fought
| inflation" is the _wrong_ campaign slogan.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| People are suffering and the Dems ran on 'things are
| going great'. To the people suffering that feelz/vibez
| like 'our version of great DNGAF about you'. It's easy to
| see how that could be a less than optimal message for a
| candidate for election.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| "The Rent is too Damn High" is still a well-recognized
| meme. I doubt many people remember the gentleman's name
| or what he was running for. But the message worked! It's
| got to be simple and focused.
| LargeWu wrote:
| The issue is that she's part of the current
| administration and the current dominant party. That's all
| people care about. They look at who's in charge and vote
| the other way. It's really that simple.
| gizzlon wrote:
| That seems to imply that things can't get worse.. much
| much worse
| LargeWu wrote:
| Oh, they will get worse, much worse. But the simpletons
| who think the president is in charge of egg prices or
| whatever will never comprehend that. Maybe if it gets bad
| enough people will learn then.
| rightbyte wrote:
| > Harris has talked about fighting inflation many, many
| times.
|
| There was this Biden admin. push to not call things a
| "recession" due to technicalities that probably pissed
| people off? "Inflation" means 'higher prices' and
| "recession" means 'economy things suck right now'.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > The reality is post-covid was an inflationary period
| because of hyper consumerism
|
| That was just an outgrowth of high monetary supply during
| COVID to shore up the numbers and prevent economic collapse
| due to a steep and sudden drop of economic activity. All that
| money couldn't be immediately mopped up as soon as the
| economies opened up, so it sloshed around for a while longer.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| > You can't put extreme tariffs like 200% and expect prices
| to come down.
|
| I used to believe this, but the truth is we haven't been able
| to import food, energy or homes from China for a while. That
| leaves autos, and it's very hard to predict how auto tariffs
| would affect inflation, since people have always purchased
| more expensive cars over cheaper ones, for a variety of
| reasons. Meanwhile for stuff you and I care about like
| computers, well most of what you are paying for is software,
| which is all made here. Services like health care and
| education are insensitive to tariffs, and since grocery
| stores have to provide health care to some employees all the
| same, it affects prices for goods. Home prices rising is
| supported by both parties, and besides inflation the
| government basically guarantees market returns but risk free
| in owner-occupied real estate in this country.
|
| I wish what you were saying were true - that bringing tariffs
| down to zero would eliminate inflation - but if it were that
| simple it would have been done already.
| consteval wrote:
| I'm not arguing that bringing tariffs down to 0 will just
| magically eliminate inflation. But certainly, and without
| debate, the tariffs Trump proposes will grossly increase
| the price of goods for consumers.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Its not just China. Those tariffs he's advocating for are
| broadly speaking, against _all_ imports[0]
|
| >Trump proposed a 10% tariff on all U.S. imports and a 60%
| levy on Chinese-made products, which if enacted would
| affect the entire economy by pushing consumer prices higher
| and stoking retaliatory levies on American exports. Trump
| also threatened to impose a 25% tariff on all imports from
| Mexico.
|
| [0]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-suppliers-
| importers-prep...
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| > even a freshman economics student can point that out
|
| And that freshman would be more educated than 1/3 of the
| country.
|
| I don't mean that as an insult to 1/3 of the country. Trump
| wins because he messages in a way that EVERY person can
| understand. A huge portion of the country will disagree with
| his approach, but that's vastly different than relying on
| people to understand concepts they've never had exposure to.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| "You can't put extreme tariffs like 200% and expect prices to
| come down."
|
| See Smoot Hawley - it passed in 1930, and deflation
| accelerated. Economy is a complicated system.
| seadan83 wrote:
| Any other notable events that happened in the 30s that
| could have driven deflation? Could tariffs be linked to
| that event? (To be less coy, the great depression occurred
| in the 1930s. Counter tariffs led to less exports, which
| further hurt the economy. The arrow of causality is
| indirect, tariffs -> counter tariffs -> worse economy ->
| deflation) [1]
|
| Recent example: Gas prices deflated during covid. Why?
| Massive reduction in driving and buying of gasoline.
|
| [1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Smoot-Hawley-Tariff-
| Act
|
| "Smoot-Hawley contributed to the early loss of confidence
| on Wall Street and signaled U.S. isolationism. By raising
| the average tariff by some 20 percent, it also prompted
| retaliation from foreign governments, and many overseas
| banks began to fail. (Because the legislation set both
| specific and ad valorem tariff rates [i.e., rates based on
| the value of the product], determining the precise
| percentage increase in tariff levels is difficult and a
| subject of debate among economists.) Within two years some
| two dozen countries adopted similar "beggar-thy-neighbour"
| duties, making worse an already beleaguered world economy
| and reducing global trade. U.S. imports from and exports to
| Europe fell by some two-thirds between 1929 and 1932, while
| overall global trade declined by similar levels in the four
| years that the legislation was in effect."
| hackyhacky wrote:
| > they just like Trump and will fill in the gaps to justify
| it.
|
| You've hit the nail on the head. They "like Trump." They find
| him charismatic and entertaining. Democrat politicians are
| boring and starched. Politics is show business. Why can't the
| Democrats learn that?
| All4All wrote:
| THIS. Voting in America seems completely disconnected from
| rational policy discussion, people don't seem to care
| anymore. The average voter gets so caught up in the
| sensationalism and the most controversial candidates seem to
| appeal strongly to both Boomers and GenZ. Sadly, I think any
| successful Democratic candidate in the future will need to
| appeal to voters in this way.
| _heimdall wrote:
| > Inflation is not prices; it is the rate of change in prices.
|
| Inflation is actually the increase in the money supply. The
| term is used wrong almost everywhere today.
|
| Price indexes like the CPI are what measure the change in
| prices of a set of goods.
|
| Inflation can influence prices since the supply of money
| changed, but they aren't directly linked.
|
| Edit: getting plenty of requests for a source here, especially
| because you will find countless sources online using the price
| increase definition.
|
| https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/economic-commentar...
| adastra22 wrote:
| > Inflation is actually the increase in the money supply. The
| term is used wrong almost everywhere today.
|
| The word has multiple meanings. That's monetary inflation.
| The primary meaning in use today is price inflation.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Its used in many ways, that doesn't redefine the word
| though. Inflation is a policy of increasing the money
| supply, nothing more and nothing less.
|
| Inflation _is not_ price increases. If that is the
| definition then the metric is effectively useless. Prices
| can increase for any number of reasons, looking only at
| price changes doesn 't tell us anything meaningful or
| actionable.
| adastra22 wrote:
| "Inflation" doesn't mean anything by itself. It is a
| shorthand for either price inflation or monetary
| inflation. Or inflating a balloon. Context is needed.
| _heimdall wrote:
| > "Inflation" doesn't mean anything by itself.
|
| It absolutely does when the correct definition is still
| used. Inflation is an increase in money supply, that's
| really all there is to it.
|
| Your point is why the use of "inflation" to mean price
| increases is so meaningless. Prices change for any number
| of reasons and you need context. When "inflation" still
| means in increase in the money supply there is no context
| required to know what it means, though obviously that's
| not all the information you need to understand the
| economy.
| interestica wrote:
| What's "shrinkflation"?
| bluecalm wrote:
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inflation
|
| You are wrong and that's why you are misunderstood. I
| would suggest just saying "increase in money supply" if
| you mean increase of money supply instead of using a term
| that means "a continuing rise in the general price
| level". That will make people understand what you mean.
| monktastic1 wrote:
| It's not just "used in many ways," it has several
| definitions. The one that almost everybody uses --
| including the Fed[0], US Dept of Labor[1], and the ECB[2]
| -- is about rise in prices. Nobody is saying that your
| definition is bad or wrong, but to claim that it's the
| only (or even primary) one is disingenuous.
|
| [0] https://www.clevelandfed.org/center-for-inflation-
| research/i...
|
| [1]
| https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/statistics/inflation
|
| [2] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb-and-
| you/explainers/tell-me-mor...
| _heimdall wrote:
| Sure, though it makes sense that most economists use the
| price inflation term. The change in how "inflation" was
| being used largely goes back to Keynes and Modern
| Monetary Theory. Most economists today fall into that
| bucket, of course they use the term in the same way.
|
| That doesn't change the fact that the attempt to redefine
| it both co-opted the word and made it functionally
| useless. Prices change for all kinds of reasons. The
| amount of change alone is meaningless and using that
| meaning of the word allows economists today to play a lot
| of shell games with the numbers.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _change in how "inflation" was being used largely goes
| back to Keynes and Modern Monetary Theory_
|
| This is totally false. It dates to the inter-War period,
| specifically, to describe Weimar hyperinflation. (If you
| just look at money supply, it was bad. If you look at
| prices it was the disaster that it was.)
| jjk166 wrote:
| > Its used in many ways, that doesn't redefine the word
| though.
|
| That's exactly how words get redefined.
| erulabs wrote:
| > Word X means Y, NOT Z
|
| Wittgenstien would like a word. Words always mean whatever
| the hell the speaker thinks they mean, which is always
| unverifiable. We should always endeavor to understand what
| people _think they mean_ instead of insisting on some
| (faulty) denotation.
|
| The inflation argument is always frustrating. In a vacuum,
| inflating the _supply of money_ would delate the _price of
| money_ which inflates the _prices of goods_. Most people
| say "inflation" to mean the price of goods, but it does no
| good to insist that one definition means you can't use the
| word in other ways!
| lottin wrote:
| So I can use the word 'dog' to mean a cat? Nonsense. The
| purpose of words is to communicate meaning. Therefore we
| must agree on what that meaning is beforehand in order to
| communicate effectively.
| singlow wrote:
| Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense!
| But you must pay attention to your nonsense.
| erulabs wrote:
| What's a dog? Is a child's plastic toy in the shape of a
| dog a dog? Maybe. Is a cross-bread wolfhound a dog?
| Maybe. Language games! Meaning is "fuzzy around the
| edges".
|
| If you insist a cat is a dog, we're not playing a fun
| game - but that's up to me and up to you - Maybe someone
| in an undiscovered tribe doesn't know these words and
| wouldn't balk. If you say "dog" when you mean to insult
| someone, I might know what you're saying. But there is no
| mechanism to verify internal meaning.
|
| I _strongly_ suggest reading some Wittgenstien if you're
| interested in this topic! If I say I speak Swedish
| fluently but refuse to ever utter a word, do I speak
| Swedish? Only our actions can vaguely point at our
| meaning. Language is a game we play with each other which
| does not and cannot communicate ultimate meaning. All we
| can do is agree or disagree to play games - animals
| dancing around a fire.
| _heimdall wrote:
| This is my main beef with "inflation" being used
| differently now from what it had been historically. Going
| back to the roman empire it was always about money supply
| increase, Keynes and crew decided that didn't sit well
| with them since money supply manipulation was their whole
| game.
| lottin wrote:
| You're just parroting the same thing again and again
| without providing any evidence. For a start, the amount
| of money in circulation is an unobservable quantity. It's
| extremely unlikely that the Romans had a word for it.
| echoangle wrote:
| > Inflation is actually the increase in the money supply. The
| term is used wrong almost everywhere today.
|
| Do you have a source that this is the ,,correct" definition?
| Wikipedia for example uses the definition you think is wrong,
| and specifically says that CPI measures inflation.
| _heimdall wrote:
| You can see glimmers of the original definition on the
| wikipedia page, but the term has been misused for decades
| noe and basically anything you try to find for a definition
| of inflation will talk only about prices.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation
|
| I can't get deep links in wikipedia on my mobile browser
| for some reason, but here's the full page.
|
| The "Terminology" section vaguely references the original
| Latin word and gives a few nods to when currency was tied
| to gold. It is a bit hand wavy, though when it talks about
| new gold supplies being found or later mentions when the
| cost of money changes, those are both related to the
| original (correct) definition. Finding more gold increased
| the money supply, which _may_ change prices though it doesn
| 't have to.
|
| Toman history sometimes covers the idea well as they
| inflated the currency by minting more coins to increase
| supply. I can't find a great link at the moment that covers
| it well from that angle though, I'll try to come back here
| when I'm at my desk if I find a good link down that rabbit
| hole.
| drawkward wrote:
| >the term has been misused for decades now
|
| Am I out of touch? No it is all of modern economists who
| are wrong.jpg
| _heimdall wrote:
| Wait, is your argument that modern economists couldn't
| possible be wrong? Or in this case, that modern
| economists couldn't possibly have co-opted the term to
| better work with Keynesian economics and MMT?
|
| If physicists decide to reuse the word "meter" for a unit
| of measuring volume does that mean anyone that uses it as
| a measure of distance is wrong? Wouldn't it make more
| sense to create a new term for the new need, a term that
| doesn't collide with centuries of use?
| drawkward wrote:
| >If physicists decide to reuse the word "meter" for a
| unit of measuring volume does that mean anyone that uses
| it as a measure of distance is wrong? Wouldn't it make
| more sense to create a new term for the new need, a term
| that doesn't collide with centuries of use?
|
| Perfect question!
|
| In fact, the definition of "meter" _has_ changed over
| time, and if you stick with the old definition, you 'd be
| off by 0.2 millimeters:
|
| https://www.nist.gov/si-redefinition/meter
|
| Science changes as it needs to. (And the word "science"
| is doing a lot of heavy lifting here when we are
| discussing economics, aka the dismal science.)
| porridgeraisin wrote:
| A 0.2mm difference is so vastly different from the
| analogy he made to using it as a measurement of volume.
| Hopefully you're putting this forward as an interesting
| factoid and did not mean it as an actual argument.
| drawkward wrote:
| I contend his analogy is wrong; it's not like "inflation"
| changed from a money policy thing to a labor market
| thing.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Inflation historically was a measure of the change in
| money supply. They co-opted the same word to instead
| measure an entirely different concept, the change over
| time of a basket of goods.
|
| In my book that's very similar to taking a distance
| measurement and reusing the word to instead measure a
| totally different concept, volume. Curious how its
| different though, I may just be tripping myself up here.
| lottin wrote:
| Classical economists didn't seem to use the term
| 'inflation' in either sense. I can't find any evidence
| that 'modern economists' have corrupted the original
| meaning, like you imply.
| vundercind wrote:
| Could they be wrong about the well-understood label
| they've agreed upon to refer to a particular concept in
| their field? No, and in fact I'm tempted to class the
| answer as _tautologically_ "no".
| try_the_bass wrote:
| If a word has been "misused for decades", its definition
| has changed.
|
| It's a fool's errand to try to claim the original
| definition is the "right" or "only" definition at that
| point.
|
| You've lost this semantic battle against the world, and
| it's honestly pretty exhausting to see you wasting effort
| trying to continue fighting a lost cause.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Sure, we could always make a different term for monetary
| inflation and avoid the ambiguity with the new definition
| but that doesn't fix the underlying point.
|
| Monetary inflation is an important concept that is now
| almost entirely ignored. An increase in the cost of goods
| can be interesting, but its a second or third order
| effect of an extremely complicated system.
|
| Price changes are meaningless without context and
| extremely difficult to understand with context. Money
| debasement, or inflation, is easy to understand and is a
| primary input to the system rather than a downstream
| effect.
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| The increase in money supply means nothing if goods and
| services are produced in larger quantities.
| RpmReviver wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand this thought, it's possible
| producing larger quantities would actually increase the
| velocity of money which would increase money supply
| _heimdall wrote:
| Velocity of money itself is a funny term in modern
| economics. Modern monetary theory, or at least the
| economists that follow it, argue that the velocity of
| money doesn't mean anything and they basically ignore it.
|
| Arguably, with a fiat currency where they can freely
| manipulate the money supply, they aren't wrong. That's a
| problem of fist in my opinion though, there are too many
| moving pieces and the data can be too easily manipulated
| to say whatever you want it to say.
| drawkward wrote:
| I am sorry, but you are wrong, since about the 1960s.
| Inflation could be caused by money supply, sure.
|
| But don't take it from me:
|
| https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/Series/Back.
| ..
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/inflation.asp
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation
|
| https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-
| explaine...
|
| https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/statistics/inflation
|
| https://gisme.georgetown.edu/news/what-the-hell-is-
| inflation... (Inflation _used_ to mean what you claim it
| means...but doesn 't anymore)
|
| https://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/HighSchool/Inflation..
| ..
|
| https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/what-is-inflation
|
| https://www.rba.gov.au/education/resources/explainers/inflat.
| ..
|
| https://www.axios.com/2024/05/26/inflation-definition-
| evolut... (There is some argument that _I_ may too be wrong,
| and inflation is coming to mean high prices, but when the DNC
| campaign was talking about low inflation, it was not
| referring to prices, but change in prices.)
| _heimdall wrote:
| My point wasn't that the term is used this way, its that
| the definition of inflation has always been an increase in
| money supply. The common use of the term to mean a change
| in prices is a useless definition.
|
| Its extremely common to hear "inflation" used to describe
| price changes, but the number is then used in isolation.
| Prices change for countless reasons and without detailed
| context related to supply/demand, strength of the dollar,
| etc you have NP idea why prices changed. Maybe we printed
| trillions and prices went up because the supply of money
| went up Maybe prices increased because demand is outpacing
| supply. The response to those situations and economic
| sentiment should be wildly different, but the inflation
| number may be exactly the same.
| wasabi991011 wrote:
| > its that the definition of inflation has always been an
| increase in money supply
|
| Can you provide a single source for this?
|
| I'm looking at textbooks from 25 years ago
| (Macroeconomics by Doepke Lehnert Sellgren) and they also
| contradict you. How far back are we supposed to look for
| your definition?
| _heimdall wrote:
| https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/economic-
| commentar...
|
| Heres a good source I just found as so many were looking
| for sources here.
|
| I believe it was around the 1960s or 1970s when most
| economists started using "inflation" to mean price
| increases.
|
| The history there is pretty fascinating, it was basically
| a reaction by modern monetary theorists who really had to
| redefine it for their economic system to make sense. A
| core goal in MMT is to have a fiat currency and controls
| in place to let you manipulate the money supply quickly
| in an attempt to move the economy in one direction or
| another. With the original definition, inflation is
| actually the tool used by MMT rather than an indicator of
| economic health.
| shkkmo wrote:
| That history also pretty clearly explains the shift. The
| argument pretty quickly shifted to being based on the
| effects. Debtors favored currency supply inflation
| because it increased prices and thus decreased. Lenders
| favored the opposite.
|
| Since most of the people arguing about the term care
| about a specific class of effect, the term grew to
| encompass that type of effect. As our understanding of
| the cause of that effect grew, the term shifted to
| primarily meaning the effect.
|
| This all makes complete sense since most people don't
| care about the cause in itself but about how prices are
| changing.
| _heimdall wrote:
| > This all makes complete sense since most people don't
| care about the cause in itself but about how prices are
| changing.
|
| I would hope that isn't true, an economy would function
| horribly if we only cared about the price change
| percentage and didn't care why it happened. If prices
| went up because most people had more money to spend you
| should act much differently than if prices went up
| because supply collapsed, for example.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > I would hope that isn't true, an economy would function
| horribly if we only cared about the price change
| percentage and didn't care why it happened.
|
| That isn't what I said.
|
| The causes of inflation to matter, but we generally only
| care about them because they cause inflation. We don't
| tend to care nearly as much about the causes in and of
| themselves.
|
| Thus as the argument about how much inflation there
| should be progressed, it is perfectly natural that the
| term came to refer to the part of the debate we actually
| care (how fast prices rise) about rather than factor that
| can sometimes cause it.
| drawkward wrote:
| It's pretty cheeky, random internet guy, to tell multiple
| central banks--whose function can be placed squarely in
| the realm of economics--that they are wrong about what
| inflation is.
| lazyeye wrote:
| This Hacker News, people on here think they have a much
| better understanding than the experts about everything.
|
| And that would even include something like "As a poor,
| single mother working 2 jobs in Pennsylvania, how is my
| life better under the current administration?"
| DarknessFalls wrote:
| "You probably rely on medicaid or medicare or the AHCA
| for health coverage. The first two are going to get
| slashed and the third is going to get shit-canned. Oh,
| and if you have a pre-existing condition, that's going to
| come under consideration again. Price controls are going
| away for medications you or your kids might rely on.
| There will be no raise in minimum wage and with tariffs
| coming, you might as well get a third job."
|
| That would be my response, based on the past actions of
| republicans under Trump.
| _heimdall wrote:
| I didn't realize I was talking to central banks here,
| that's good to know.
|
| I believe your argument, though, is that those in power
| can redefine existing words to whatever best suits their
| current needs and we should all accept that and not
| consider why we had the original definition in the first
| place?
| wasabi991011 wrote:
| > Inflation is actually the increase in the money supply. The
| term is used wrong almost everywhere today.
|
| I'm sorry I just can't find a single source backing you up.
| All sources I find define inflation as increase in prices.
| _heimdall wrote:
| https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/economic-
| commentar...
|
| Here's a good one I just found as so many here were asking
| for sources.
| rodiger wrote:
| This doesn't support your assertion- in fact it does the
| opposite. The definition(s) of inflation has changed over
| time. That does not make the current definition(s) less
| correct
| _heimdall wrote:
| Well I did try to caveat it that its one of the few
| sources I could even find that reference the fact that
| the definition was changed.
|
| My argument isn't with the fact that "inflation" is in
| fact being used to mean "price increase of goods." My
| issue is that economists co-opted the word at all and
| made it functionally useless, especially in isolation as
| it is often mentioned with no other context of _why_
| prices changed.
|
| The use of "inflation" to mean money supply increase goes
| all the way back to the roman empire.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| "Inflation" is measured based on the prices of a
| predefined list of goods.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Have you ever read up on that list of predefined goods?
| It is pretty interesting to see how regularly the list is
| changed and how many different factors they add in to
| adjust prices.
|
| Someone did a study looking at magazine prices for
| example. They picked magazines because they almost always
| had prices printed on the cover and cover images are
| cataloged. I don't remember the exact numbers, but they
| found that the actual prices went up by a much higher
| rate than how the CPI calculated it because they were
| discounting price increase with a claim that quality got
| better. Meaning you may have seen the price double over
| time but the CPI only said it went up by 30% because you
| got more value from the newer issues.
| AdhemarVandamme wrote:
| > I'm sorry I just can't find a single source backing you
| up.
|
| As adastra22 points out: some authors define the term
| inflation primarily as the increase in the money supply
| ("monetary inflation"), others primarily as an increase in
| (consumer good) prices ("price inflation").
|
| At least in modern economic literature and usage, the term
| "inflation" (without modifier) is more often used to denote
| price inflation rather than monetary inflation.
|
| The insistence that the term "inflation" ought be primarily
| rather used for "monetary inflation" goes back to at least
| Ludwig von Mises, _The Theory of Money and Credit_ , 1912:
|
| "In theoretical investigation there is only one meaning
| that can rationally be attached to the expression
| inflation: an increase in the quantity of money (in the
| broader sense of the term, so as to include fiduciary media
| as well), that is not offset by a corresponding increase in
| the need for money (again in the broader sense of the
| term), so that a fall in the objective exchange-value of
| money must occur."
| wasabi991011 wrote:
| Thank you
| lottin wrote:
| As far as I know only economists of the Austrian school use
| the term 'inflation' to mean an increase in the money
| supply.
| vundercind wrote:
| Thank you for confirming my hunch that this level of
| confident-incorrectness and mixed up history could only
| have come from some damn article on mises.org.
| braincat31415 wrote:
| There are many faces of inflation. The "money supply" you are
| talking about was not the primary driver in the last few
| years and there was robust demand for the treasury issuance.
| You will see the money supply inflation pick up when treasury
| auctions start to fail. I believe this will happen down the
| road but not soon. Most of the inflation was driven by other
| factors: low-income labor shortage, and a supply side
| shortage that fueled an increase of prices for commodities
| and anything else up the chain.
| _heimdall wrote:
| > The "money supply" you are talking about was not the
| primary driver in the last few years and there was robust
| demand for the treasury issuance.
|
| Unless I'm mistaken, I don't believe we can be sure of
| that. The economy is extremely complex, ferreting out the
| impact of any one intervention is nearly impossible.
|
| On the surface it seems very unlikely to me that printing
| trillions in new money and giving it to banks, businesses,
| and directly to every citizen had no impact on prices. The
| supply of money increased dramatically and the cost of
| money (interest rates) was also extremely low.
|
| Beyond my hunch though, I haven't found any data that has
| clearly isolated the inflation out of the equation to be
| able to show that the price increases weren't driven by the
| new money at all.
| coryfklein wrote:
| This is oddly reflective of the elitism that cost the DNC
| it's victory. "Well actually, my poor man, a tomato is a
| fruit and every PhD economist knows that inflation is
| connected to fiscal policy's influence on the monetary
| supply"
|
| The every day person uses the _culinary_ definition of
| tomato, and inflation means that those tomatoes cost more at
| Walmart.
| _heimdall wrote:
| I would expect a botanist to know that a tomato is
| technically a berry, just like I would expect an economist
| to know that inflation is technically defined as an
| increase in the money supply.
|
| Everyday people can use whatever definition they want. That
| doesn't mean economists, the Fed, etc should say
| "inflation" when they mean "price of goods".
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| The tomato price is too damn high!
|
| Get it yet?
| aydyn wrote:
| This exchange is like a microcosm of the educated elite
| trying to talk to ordinary people.
| drawkward wrote:
| This comment made my day.
| lottin wrote:
| Inflation is technically defined as an increase in the
| price level. You'll find the term defined in this way in
| every single economics textbook.
| tiberious726 wrote:
| Entry level textbooks. It's one of those things they
| intentionally teach wrong to first year students in an
| attempt to "simplify"
| lottin wrote:
| No, it's not an attempt to simplify. Advanced textbooks
| define it in the same way.
| losvedir wrote:
| Do you have a source? I've only ever seen it defined the
| traditional way. Besides, you can increase the money
| supply and not get inflation (defined the usual way).
| Inflation happens when the money supply increases _more_
| than the economy needs.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Inflation happens when money supply increases more than
| the value of the goods that you can purchase with that
| money supply. It isn't about needs, but things that can
| be bought, especially those with limited supplies like
| housing.
| _heimdall wrote:
| That definition depends on where you look, and when the
| definition was written. Between the roman empire and the
| mid 1900s inflation always referred to an increase in the
| money supply.
| lottin wrote:
| No, it didn't.
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| Yeah, so instead they voted for the guy who printed the
| money. That'll show the DNC!
| _heimdall wrote:
| Both parties have been printing money since Clinton was
| in office. I don't really see debt or inflation as a
| problem of one party.
| kccoder wrote:
| Didn't Clinton basically balance the budget by the end of
| his second term?
| _heimdall wrote:
| Yes he did. I've heard interesting arguments that they
| did some clever accounting to hide a small deficit on the
| books somehow, but I didn't quite follow well enough to
| say for sure. That technicality aside, Clinton balanced
| the budget and every president since has apparently
| thought that was a terrible idea.
| tootie wrote:
| It's actually libertarian gibberish.
| evantbyrne wrote:
| Matter-of-fact discussion of the economy didn't cause
| people to vote for a serial sex offender promising to
| execute his political rivals and purge America of
| immigrants. The messaging could be better but don't
| gaslight us. Something is very wrong with the calculus
| being used by a great number of Americans.
| drawkward wrote:
| I think it is actually 3 things, but you can't do much
| about two of them:
|
| -1/3 economic/voters: we need better/different
| economics/policy
|
| -1/3 cultists/far right christians/nationalists: trump is
| how we finally rise to power/right the nation
|
| -1/3 lolz/nihilists: i hate everything; burn it all down
| evantbyrne wrote:
| 2 and 3 are the same group. Accelerationists and white
| Christian nationalists are just rebranded white
| nationalists, so there is nothing surprising there. Hard
| to say what the distribution of purely economic voters is
| given how illogical that is. I'm hesitant to believe the
| excuses people have given how extreme of the rest of the
| campaign was and its parallels to a particular historical
| figure, going to the point of nearly plagiarizing quotes
| from the man.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Inflation is actually the in the money supply_
|
| No, that is expansion of the monetary base. Inflation is an
| increase in price levels. If a country's money supply
| contracts while prices rise that's inflation.
|
| The problem with the metallic definition is a country that
| loses half its territory and most of its reserves after
| losing a 19th-century war, thereby setting off double-digit
| price increases across its economy, doesn't "inflate" from a
| monetary base perspective. Once we understood these concepts
| were separate, we segregated the terms. Insisting inflation
| refers exclusively to monetary-base expansion is phlogiston-
| theory stuff.
| _heimdall wrote:
| The problem with the metallic definition, meaning the
| definition of "inflation" from the roman empire until the
| mid 1900s, is that it didn't really work well with
| Keynesian economics or modern monetary theory.
|
| Inflation has a bad connotation historically due to the
| number of examples where increasing the money supply too
| quickly ruined economies and destroyed empires. MMT and
| Keynesian economics use the money supply as the primary
| tool for controlling the economy.
|
| They may not like that "inflation" described the exact
| mechanism for the main tool of modern economics, but that
| doesn't make it wrong. The easily could have come up with a
| new term for an increase in the price of goods rather than
| co-opting an existing term. That strategy seems very much
| like a play driven by ulterior motives.
|
| It isn't so much that we had to understand new concepts as
| it was they had to redefine terms to put their new game in
| a better light. That's also why they talk about price
| increases rather than currency devaluation or theft. Both
| would be accurate, but price changes sound more benign.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| "Inflation is actually the increase in the money supply."
|
| NO.
|
| It is the cost of the goods. What people will pay.
|
| Inflation Contributors:
|
| 30% money supply
|
| 30% was corporations raised prices specifically under cover
| of people blaming the government. This was actually listed on
| earnings calls, for profit.
|
| 30% supply chain shortages.
| _heimdall wrote:
| > It is the cost of the goods. What people will pay.
|
| No. Even in the modern definition I'm arguing against here,
| this isn't right. The cost of goods is just a number,
| inflation in the CPI sense would be the rate of change of
| prices.
|
| > Inflation Contributors:
|
| 30% money supply
|
| 30% was corporations raised prices specifically under cover
| of people blaming the government. This was actually listed
| on earnings calls, for profit.
|
| 30% supply chain shortages.
|
| Where's the last 10%? And how do you come up with such
| specific numbers? Economies are extremely complex, I don't
| believe you could have untangled them so precisely or that
| the numbers behind it would be so evenly distributed.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| That is needlessly pedantic.
|
| You said Inflation was Money Supply, I said it was the
| cost of what you are buying. YES, technically it is the
| "change" in the cost of what you are buying.
| Congratulations. I assumed that was understood.
|
| Percentages.
|
| Nothing is exact. There are ranges, and really more than
| 3 factors. I was going off memory. Congratulations again
| on your discernment.
|
| More ball park:
|
| "" While pinpointing exact percentages for each
| contributing factor to inflation is complex and can vary
| significantly depending on the economic context, a
| breakdown of major contributors could include: high
| demand for goods and services (30-40%), supply chain
| disruptions (20-30%), labor cost increases (15-25%),
| rising energy prices (10-15%), government spending
| (5-10%), and currency devaluation (5-10%); however, these
| percentages should be interpreted as a general guide and
| not a definitive breakdown"
|
| The point is, it is not Biden's spending, that is just
| another misleading right wing talking point. (lie)
| barrkel wrote:
| Inflation is increase in the cost of living.
|
| You've linked to a privately written article ("The views
| authors express in Economic Commentary are theirs and not
| necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland ")
| by someone who worked for the Cleveland Fed, who blames
| printing currency for inflation. No doubt that debasement of
| the currency increases the nominal prices of things. But it's
| hard to square the idea that that's all there is to inflation
| when you consider that lots of countries had inflation after
| COVID. They didn't all coordinate on printing currency.
| lottin wrote:
| > Inflation is increase in the cost of living.
|
| This isn't entirely accurate, either. An increase in the
| cost of living occurs when real wages fall (in other words,
| when workers paid less, in real terms (adjusted for
| inflation), for the same amount of work). In principle,
| inflation doesn't necessarily lead to an increase in the
| cost of living, although in practice usually it does.
| _heimdall wrote:
| I've never actually seen anyone use "inflation" to refer to
| cost of living. Most economists use the term to talk about
| price increases of a subset of goods, but that isn't
| directly measuring cost of living.
| Detrytus wrote:
| > Inflation is actually the increase in the money supply
|
| It's not that simple. That might be how it is defined in
| economy textbook, but in practice, how do government agencies
| measure inflation? You have predefined basket of consumer
| goods and record their prices over time, and that price
| increase is reported as "inflation rate", and that's what
| gets reported in TV news.
|
| And yet you somehow blame people for misunderstanding the
| term when the wrong definition is hammered into their brains
| all the time by all the mainstream media.
| aa_is_op wrote:
| The inflation was a false boogie man pushed by MSM. Inflation
| was never the problem, it's people lack of understanding that
| wars cause prices to explode.
|
| The Iraq 91 war literally ended the USSR, which dissolved a few
| months later because of soaring prices and economical failures.
| The Ukraine war might end up pushing the US into a second tier
| country, especially since Trump brings Musk and RFK into the
| government, who are literal morons when it comes to managing
| anything.
| drawkward wrote:
| "Ignore the fact that everything costs more; you're just
| angry at the war but don't realize it" does not _seem_ like a
| winning campaign slogan, but what do I know?
| trinsic2 wrote:
| The "Everything costs more" is a byproduct of something
| more important, not sure what that is, but focusing soley
| on econmoics as the cause of our issues seems shortsighted,
| but hey, what do I know.
| cryptonector wrote:
| The second derivative of prices hurts people hard when it is
| strongly positive because real wages lag real prices.
| NickM wrote:
| Even when real wages keep up with real prices, people still
| hate inflation, because they attribute their rising wages to
| their own successes more than macroeconomic changes. To most
| people it feels like "I'm working hard and getting big raises
| for it, only to be stymied by rising prices" rather than
| "this is all happening due to forces outside my control".
| noncoml wrote:
| It's not the economy. It's the charisma.
|
| Look at the history and you will see Americans want someone at
| least somewhat charismatic as their leader.
|
| Hilary and Harris have less charisma than my cat. They were
| simply unelectable.
|
| A choice with a slightly more charismatic person and we would
| see different results in my opinion
|
| Furthermore, and sadly in my opinion, I am not convinced that
| Americans are ready for a female president. Give it another
| 20-30 years
| scarby2 wrote:
| While I agree, I can't picture how trump was more charismatic
| than Harris.
|
| He seems like a used car salesman to me...
| noncoml wrote:
| He is not my cup of tea either but a lot of people like
| him.
|
| Harris on the other hand is like an EU Bureaucrat.
|
| Anyway. That's my take, doesn't mean I'm right.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Yes, but used car salesman are charismatic, and people are
| frequently hoodwinked by used car salesman. Despite
| everyone saying watch out for the used car salesman.
| ng12 wrote:
| Honestly while Trump is a little slimy he's also kinda
| funny. Visit some conservative spaces sometimes, they're
| having fun while liberal ones are all doom-and-gloom.
|
| It really does matter.
| matwood wrote:
| I heard an interesting thought on a podcast about Trump.
| Because he's always used and discarded his 'friends' his
| entire life, he's gotten very good at getting new people to
| like him. People say that 1:1 he can be very charming, just
| up to the point where he stabs you in the back.
| camel_Snake wrote:
| strong man rhetoric is shockingly effective.
| nosequel wrote:
| My $0.02, just one opinion yada yada.. Charisma was a part of
| it sure, but ultimately people _can_ look past that. Bush Sr.
| had zero charisma.
|
| The bigger part, amongst other things, Harris is part of the
| current administration, people are not happy about how things
| are going, or how much their groceries cost. People are not
| happy to get censored or called nazi's for having different
| opinions. When asked on a left-leaning show "The View" with
| people all on her side, what she would change about the last
| 4 years, she answered, "there is not a thing that comes to
| mind".
|
| Charisma didn't kill her, not being able to ask layup
| questions killed her. The American people are not as dumb as
| the Harris voters are now screaming about on Reddit/TikTok/X,
| the American people want to know what their president is
| going to do to change their lives. Trump is a sociopath,
| again amongst other things, but he is very very clear about
| where he stands on things and what he's planning on doing.
| bni wrote:
| So if Democrats want to elect a woman. Someone like Sydney
| Sweeney would crush it in US politics. Maybe they should try
| that next time.
| liveoneggs wrote:
| Politicians are very very similar to entertainers. Being on
| par with Sydney Sweeney would be a massive advantage.
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| Sarah Palin came close. Attractive powerful women with
| the intellectual horsepower of pillaf and she did
| remarkably well.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| I'm sure you have a lovely cat and I'd be inclined to agree
| with you, as I'm not a fan of Clinton or Harris and find cats
| typically quite charismatic.
|
| But saying Trump was more charismatic than Harris, your cat,
| or the shit I took this morning is certainly a divisive
| opinion at least.
|
| I've encountered farts which cleared a room and were still
| more "charismatic" than Trump according to 9 out of 10 people
| exposed to both.
| noncoml wrote:
| Ahh, I didn't explicitly say that he is more charismatic
| than Harris.
|
| I said, if the Democrats have chosen someone more
| charismatic than Harris, they would have won.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| You said "Hillary and Harris have less charisma than my
| cat. They are simply unelectable"
|
| Well.. Trump was elected. If you're not saying Trump is
| more charismatic then this all seems to contradict your
| point that charisma is necessary for electibility.
| noncoml wrote:
| Just arguing for logic's shake now.
|
| You are making a logical jump there. Hillary and Harris
| are Democrats. Trump is Republican. Based on logic, just
| because Trump won doesn't automatically make him more
| charismatic, as there are other factors that play role.
|
| So logically you cannot assert that this is true; Trump
| winning <==> Trump more charismatic
| chucke1992 wrote:
| Harris has zero charisma. She cannot talk without creepy
| laugh or jokes that nobody laughs at, she can't work with
| crowds.
|
| She was in primaries some time ago and gain less than 10%
| votes.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > The Dems failed on this count massively
|
| What was their failure here? The failure to explain to the
| economically illiterate that while inflation is now about where
| it was prior to covid that prices won't be going down (unless
| there's some sort of major recession leading to deflation)?
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| They failed to hammer home that Trump printed the goddamn
| money.
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2NS
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I'm not sure this would've helped. It require more than a
| 10 second attention span. Explaining inflation is a 120IQ
| problem whereas most campaigns are aiming at sub 100IQ
| communication.
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| I'm sure that the idea was raised in Democratic campaign
| strategy meetings and likely rejected for exactly that
| reason, but I don't think the reasoning is correct.
| "Trump printed the money" isn't hard to understand. Hard
| to believe, perhaps, and I'm sure he would deny it, but
| it puts him on the defense and beats the hell out of a
| thundering silence that implicitly accepts his premise
| that Dems were responsible for inflation.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| They couldn't blame Trump for printing the money because
| nearly all of them voted for the stimulus.
|
| Blaming Trump for printing money when you voted on it,
| too, is a bad strategy.
| burningChrome wrote:
| This is precisely why you lost in 2016 and why you lost
| in 2024.
|
| Thinking you're always smarter than the electorate is
| never a way to win elections. fixing inflation is pretty
| easy. Telling people how you're going to do that is
| pretty easy.
|
| Not doing it because you think people are too stupid to
| understand it is why you lost. Harris never had a plan to
| fix anything and it was obvious to voters. Its funny you
| think this way when Trump swept all the battleground
| states - states Biden won in 2020. Were you saying the
| same thing about THOSE areas too then?
|
| I somehow doubt it.
| EricDeb wrote:
| they did fix inflation. they told people it was fixed,
| which it is. What they failed to message well was why it
| happened in the first place and that it was a global
| phenomenon
| meta_x_ai wrote:
| Except Trump's stimulus was needed because of the lockdown
| (and people were losing jobs).
|
| Biden stimulus was the one that
|
| a) Ignited demand > Supply
|
| b) provided no incentives for people to go back to work
| (Biden also had extended mortgage, rent, loan payment
| programs) which exacerbated inflation
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| $4T in 1yr vs $1.5T in 3 years. Trump was printing at
| 80mph, Biden was printing at 10mph.
|
| Must have been a pretty fast 10mph.
| iinnPP wrote:
| But if Trump didn't print it then somehow Biden would've
| worked with 1.5T?
| justsocrateasin wrote:
| I don't think any dem is saying that. I think they're
| saying that inflation is the result of a global pandemic,
| not Dems printing _another_ 1.5T. I think by all accounts
| the economic landing after a global pandemic was _really_
| good, certainly better than 2008. We aren 't in a
| recession. Prices are high, but so is employment and job
| growth. The government failed at something, whatever that
| something was: was it a failure in signaling that yeah,
| these times are hard but guess what, it's because of
| COVID and buckle up because we did the best we could? Or
| was it that they let inflation rise too high? I'm not
| sure.
| vundercind wrote:
| What we've learned is that a politician should
| _definitely_ not pull the lever in the trolley problem.
| Let four die instead of one, then claim credit for the
| one.
| Cornbilly wrote:
| Let be real though. The majority of the Trump stimulus
| was either a campaign stunt (I received a letter from
| Trump stating that he gave me, someone that makes 6
| figures, a few hundred dollars) or a huge spending
| program with no accountability (the PPP "loans").
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _They failed to hammer home that Trump printed the
| goddamn money_
|
| loose monetary policy was the right thing to do after the
| COVID downward economic shock. But not extending it over
| and over, and that's when/why the inflation kicked in.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _What was their failure here?_
|
| One, that last round of stimulus. Two, not agreeing to
| cutting spending when prices continued going up. Three, not
| massively greenlighting permitting around new energy and
| fossil fuels to bring energy prices into a deflationary
| stance. (Note: this is Monday-morning QB'ing from me.)
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| All tiny next to the money trump printed.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Sure. But that's the last guy. The question is what
| Democrats could have done in power. With the benefit of
| hindsight, it would have been massively over correcting
| on prices and the border.
| tunesmith wrote:
| That stimulus thing seemed like a double bind. Lower
| stimulus would have meant less inflation but worse
| unemployment, right?
|
| The whole pattern feels like a repeat of the country using
| Democrats to clean up messes (in this case, the mess was
| more Covid's than Republicans'), at which point they kick
| out the Democrats again. I don't think another massive tax
| cut (or extension of the last one) is a good idea.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > Lower stimulus would have meant less inflation but
| worse unemployment, right?
|
| Yes, this is likely what would have happened. And in that
| case the Dems would still lose because people would be
| upset about the high unemployment.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Lower stimulus would have meant less inflation but
| worse unemployment, right?_
|
| Yes, but you can target where that unemployment goes.
|
| Democrats were probably too fair in distributing the
| pain. (As well as the fruits. Both the IRA and CHIPS Acts
| massively invested in counties that would have always
| voted Republican. That boosted turnout in an adversarial
| way.)
| kagakuninja wrote:
| The US is, right now, producing more crude oil than any
| other nation in the history of the world. Harris repeatedly
| stated that she would not ban fracking. And yet, we keep
| hearing this BS about how Biden / Harris needed to do
| something about fossil fuels.
|
| Of course what we need to be doing is halting all burning
| of fossil fuels ASAP, but that would be a losing electoral
| strategy. Who cares about the looming climate disaster, we
| need cheap gas...
| vundercind wrote:
| The only actual issue there is that energy companies want
| a fire sale on perpetual resource rights on protected
| federal land they don't already have access to.
|
| The rest, and the part communicated to voters, is yet
| another fake issue. It's exhausting.
| drawkward wrote:
| Yes! That is exactly their failure! As explained by the
| venerable poets, "The Doobie Brothers":
|
| >But what a fool believes, he sees
|
| >No wise man has the power to reason away
|
| >What seems to be
|
| >Is always better than nothing
|
| >Than nothing at all
|
| By failing to meet the economically illiterate at their
| level, the DNC campaign looked completely oblivious to those
| they were trying to help.
| aorloff wrote:
| Pretty much this.
|
| DNC forgot that in polls, the American electorate prefers a
| bigger 1/4 lb hamburger to the smaller 1/3 lb one.
| drawkward wrote:
| The bigger one is the one with the 4 in it, obviously!
| crazygringo wrote:
| Yup, there's nothing they could have done. That's the tragedy
| of it.
|
| You can't just educate people in a campaign that the
| President doesn't cause inflation, when it's the result of a
| global pandemic. They just don't listen and don't care. The
| different campaign messages get tested among focus groups.
| The ones that try to teach economics or explain inflation
| perform _terribly_.
|
| This isn't a failure of Democrats at all. This is just pure
| economic ignorance among voters.
| drawkward wrote:
| To paraphrase Rumsfeld: "You go to elections with the
| populace you have."
|
| If the Dems don't/won't/can't account for it by changing
| their messaging, devising better or more readily understood
| platforms, then it is on them. You have to meet people
| where they are, not where you think they should be.
| crazygringo wrote:
| But the Dems _did_. They did everything you 're asking
| for. Their messaging was totally different from 2020,
| everything was clear and understandable.
|
| That's what's so sad. The Democratic campaign was A+ in
| execution. The Republican campaign was a disaster in
| execution, but they won anyway.
|
| The message of this election isn't that Democrats did
| something wrong. It's that they did everything right, and
| a majority of voters simply _still_ don 't care. They
| don't think the insurrection mattered, and they think
| Trump will fix inflation because he's a strong
| businessman. And they don't _listen_ to anyone who says
| otherwise.
|
| I don't see anything the Dems could have done about that.
| You can't _force_ people to listen, you can 't _force_
| people to understand economics. That 's not something
| campaigns can do.
| si1entstill wrote:
| Its hard to say what happened internally, but Biden could
| have stepped down in time for them to have a proper
| primary.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| The democrats told people who are suffering 'the economy
| is great, this is what great looks like to us'. How is
| that a winning message with people suffering?
| drawkward wrote:
| >The Democratic campaign was A+ in execution.
|
| Objectively untrue; Harris lost.
|
| >You can't force people to understand economics
|
| You're correct. So you have to reformat the message. The
| Dems failed to do this. I can tell you have never been a
| teacher: teachers are _forever_ having to change their
| messaging because different people understand in
| different ways.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| This teaching thing is a terrible comparison. As a
| teacher you have a captive audience with a (somewhat)
| agreed upon goal: the student(s) are going to learn
| something.
|
| This is absolutely not the model for
| candidate<->electorate relationships in any way. If
| anything, the elector(ate) wants the candidate to simply
| tell them things that confirm what they think they
| already know.
| aydyn wrote:
| Are you serious? The entire nation was fully captivated
| this election cycle.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Captivated is not captive, and even if it is
| etymologically adjacent, most of the electorate did not
| expect to have to learn about stuff like econometrics ...
| aydyn wrote:
| Then I meant captivated AND captive. Why are you being
| pedantic?
| intended wrote:
| > Objectively untrue; Harris lost.
|
| Yeah, sometimes if you play by the rules you lose.
|
| > So you have to reformat the message.
|
| They did, and it didnt matter.
|
| The argument here is essentially: 1) IF the dems
| communicated correctly, they would have won 2) They did,
| and it didnt matter. 3) If they had communicated
| correctly they would have won.
|
| Correct communication here is a place holder for winning.
|
| Consider the many things the Dems did pull off, including
| Biden dropping out, and the massive massive outreach and
| funding they used to get the message out.
|
| Consider that Trump is definitionally reprehensible, as
| just a human being, forget the standards America used to
| have as a presidential candidate. Seriously - tell me you
| think that Trump <the person> is actually what you want
| in a Republican candidate. Every single time, Trump
| supporters have to resort to some variant of "he didn't
| really mean that", to defend him.
|
| There is FAR more incorrect in Dem electioneering than
| just communication. I think the fundamentals of how
| elections are held have changed. You dont really need
| policy any more.
| abridges6523 wrote:
| Because you guys twist everything the guy says
| intended wrote:
| This is nonsense.
|
| From the memorable "grab them by the pussy", to
| fabricating stuff about the draft recently.
|
| " She's already talking about bringing back the draft.
| She wants to bring back the draft, and draft your child,
| and put them in a war that should never have happened."
|
| The only twisting here is when people try to ignore what
| he is saying and pretend he meant something benign.
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| They could have also not perpetrated a genocide. I
| haven't committed a single genocide during the biden
| term. How hard can it be?
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > Objectively untrue; Harris lost.
|
| I would fault the Democratic party platform itself, not
| the campaign. It's valid to say the _campaign_ was
| executed well and that the failure was due to
| disagreement with the Democrat party line.
|
| Trump has a policy platform they agree with more --
| that's something that is not easily overcome by how the
| campaigns are run.
|
| E.g. "secure the border". Trump fought to build a wall
| during his first term. To voters who want a more secure
| border, that speaks louder than anything either candidate
| can say (or not say) during their campaigns about what
| they will or won't do.
| indigo0086 wrote:
| > The Democratic campaign was A+ in execution.
|
| She had 0 counties where she outperformed 2020 biden.
| vladimirralev wrote:
| > can't force people to understand economics
|
| People were actively deceived along the way. Do you
| remember that intially Yellen (and Powell together)
| called the inflation "not broad enough to be considered
| inflation", then called it "transitory" and justified
| printing so much money all the way into 7% inflation. At
| 3% PCE, Powell said everybody to relax, that nobody
| should doubt they will use every tool they have to fight
| inflation. Bostic at 2% PCE said he is not worried, he
| welcomes higher inflation, approaching 4% inflation would
| be cause of concern and would require action. Action that
| never came. They just lied and misinformed the people for
| years. People listened to this, it was all over the
| media. It's wrong to suggest people didn't listen.
|
| Do you remember after 5 years of review they came up with
| symmetric inflation target of 2% and they instantly
| abandoned it because that would require lower inflation
| for decades to come. And nobody in media questioned it,
| they said people "misunderstood the target".
|
| They don't want to educate people about the economy, they
| want people as stupid as possible.
| jkubicek wrote:
| Your criticism of Yellen and Powell's messaging is valid,
| but I have a very hard time believing that had any impact
| on this election.
|
| The US fared better than almost industrialized nation
| post-pandemic. Our inflation is currently under control,
| unemployment is low, wages are rising. I have a hard time
| believing that anyone could have handled a hard situation
| better than the Biden administration. Meanwhile, Trump's
| stated economic policies (no income tax, make it up with
| tariffs) are unequivocally bad ideas that would make the
| prices paid by most Americans far far far higher than
| what they're paying today.
|
| The overlap between "People who know Jerome Powell and
| think he did a bad job" and "People who think Trump's
| fiscal platform will be good for the average American" is
| close to zero people.
| drawkward wrote:
| >Trump's stated economic policies (no income tax, make it
| up with tariffs) are unequivocally bad ideas...
|
| ...but they are very good _memes_ , as in units of
| information that compete for attention. I think we are
| now, post-2016, in the social media era of elections,
| where policy content matters far less than policy vibes.
| avereveard wrote:
| Is it? Because between part time job, gigs, and people
| falling off unemployment benefits from receiving them too
| long I don't trust unemployment figures, they are
| measuring the wrong thing. It seem people work longer
| hours, for less disposable income overall.
| burningChrome wrote:
| >> Their messaging was totally different from 2020,
| everything was clear and understandable.
|
| But when you have the VP is running for the office that
| her boss has just occupied for the last four years, the
| whole point of the VP running is to continue what they
| started - not suddenly say you would do a bunch of stuff
| differently when YOU were riding shotgun on the poor
| economy, inflation, immigration and crime.
|
| Harris was asked _repeatedly_ what she would do
| differently and said "nothing". She was a horrific
| candidate. She couldn't speak to voters without a
| teleprompter, she was a cringe worthy public speaker, she
| was never on message and always reverted back to, "Well
| Donald Trump did this and that." which never connected
| with voters.
|
| She also had a front row seat to Biden's mental decline
| and _repeatedly_ went in front of the media and defended
| him to the very end when he was removed and she replaced
| him. Harris was the same person who got zero financial
| support from democrats during the 2020 campaign, had to
| drop out and didn 't even make the primaries because of
| the lack of support from voters.
|
| If you were paying attention, this was completely
| predictable.
|
| By contrast, Trump was on message, had a plan, left all
| of his divisive rhetoric at the door. He connected with
| voters, reached across the aisle and formed a coalition
| with RFK, Gabbards and Musk. He went on podcasts to reach
| younger voters. Anybody else see Vance on the Theo Von
| podcast? He campaigned relentlessly in the key
| battleground states, he did tons of impromptu interviews.
|
| There's a reason he's projected to get 300+ electoral
| votes AND win the popular vote and nothing in your
| comment would seem to understand why.
|
| Take a look at the markets today. Take a look at the
| price of Bitcoin right now.
|
| The country wanted significant change and they voted that
| way.
| msie wrote:
| _Trump was on message, had a plan, left all of his
| divisive rhetoric at the door_ - Hardly.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| "By contrast, Trump was on message, had a plan, left all
| of his divisive rhetoric at the door."
|
| This is when I knew you were screwing with us.
| nrdvana wrote:
| I think every single thing Trump did during the last 3
| months hurt his campaign, actually. It had just already
| gotten to the point where nothing he said mattered,
| because people were choosing him based on their
| experience in 2019
| yumraj wrote:
| > That's what's so sad. The Democratic campaign was A+ in
| execution. The Republican campaign was a disaster in
| execution, but they won anyway.
|
| So, put differently, you're saying that Democrats did not
| have Product-Market fit, while the Republicans did. Yes?
| EricDeb wrote:
| Dems are not in the venues where people are talking about
| these issues. I see tons of right wing youtubers,
| tiktokers, podcasts, and there is just far less dems in
| these environments or willing to go to these places. You
| need more Bernie types (not necessarily his politics
| exactly) but the willingness to go these places
| repeatedly and talk about ideas.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| > The Democratic campaign was A+ in execution.
|
| polls had 'country on the wrong path' at ~75%
|
| Kamala Harris wouldn't break from biden on anything, even
| when she was begged by the media to do it several times
| over several days.
|
| That's just one example of dumb shit the dnc/kamala did.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| There is no competing message to be had. The people
| believe that whoever is in charge is bad because their
| lives are terrible. They just ping pong between parties
| without caring to investigate policies.
|
| You can't appeal to voters like this apart from not being
| the person in charge.
| nightski wrote:
| The election was close. I don't believe this at all. It's
| simply being tone deaf. Not to mention the strong
| democrat support in the mid terms (when inflation was
| arguably worse).
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Just a guess but midterms probably emphasised the
| educated vote which seems to have swung Dem recently.
| vundercind wrote:
| The college educated have been trending strongly toward
| Democratic affiliation since some time between '04 and
| '11, depending on your source.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| The election wasn't close at all? I'm not sure what you
| mean by this. Trump won both the popular and handily won
| the EC.
|
| I'm willing to put money down right now that the next
| president is a Democrat. Not by virtue of messaging or
| campaigning but just because people will still be
| suffering and the dems will be the opposite of the status
| quo.
| xnx wrote:
| It's hard to conceive of a change in the Democratic
| strategy that would have gained more votes without losing
| others. In contrast, there is seemingly nothing that
| Trump could say that would lose him support. Trump had a
| very high "floor" that he could not fall below.
| Democratic voters are fickle and would just as soon stay
| home or vote third party as a protest vote.
| vundercind wrote:
| You can _manufacture_ a favorable electorate. Republicans
| have been extensively working on that far harder than the
| Dems have since some time around Goldwater and the last
| great re-alignment, and it kicked into overdrive in the
| 80s. They pushed for loosening rules around mass media
| _so they could do it better_ , and they succeeded. This
| current re-alignment of their party is an outcome of that
| "farming" they did over decades growing out of control of
| the party leadership post-Citizens United and the huge
| shake-up in campaign spending that brought in.
|
| This observation admittedly provides little actionable
| for democrats in the near-term. But one strategy that
| demonstrably works is picking demographics and pushing
| media at them that creates a demand for solutions to
| issues they didn't previously think existed (and need not
| necessarily exist). Look at e.g. the molding and
| elevation of the modern pro-life movement for an early
| example, or at _their entire current platform_ , very
| nearly, for a bunch more-recent ones.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| Trump's a pretty singular personality. He floods the zone
| with bullshit and denigrates vast swathes of the
| electorate. His insane ramblings are just considered by
| his adherents to be part of his allure and mystique. The
| American people can't seem to get enough of it,
| presumably because they so strongly identify with his
| character.
|
| I have no love for Democrats but it's unclear to me that
| there's really anything they could have done. The common
| wisdom in the past had been that Trump is some kind of
| liability for Republicans, but at every turn he has been
| underestimated and I question that assumption.
|
| To me Trump looks like a true master of his craft, and
| there is no line of carefully triangulated messaging that
| will resonate more with typical Americans than his stream
| of vitriol and lies.
| nxm wrote:
| Covid was coming to an end, and yet Democrats decided to
| still go on another trillion dollar spending spree,
| inevitably leading to inflation.
|
| It's incorrect to characterize this as "pure economic
| ignorance among voters"
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| Trump printed $4T in a year, Biden printed $1.5T in 3
| years. 80mph vs 10mph.
|
| The 80mph is what got us to inflation town. If someone
| looks at 80mph and 10mph and says "I'll elect the 80mph
| guy because 10mph is irresponsible" then yeah, I'm pretty
| comfortable characterizing that as pure economic
| ignorance.
| indigo0086 wrote:
| Glad someone understands inflation. This is true and all
| we can hope is that someone close to him understands
| this.
| nightski wrote:
| Trump didn't print $4T, the bi-partisan effort in
| Congress for COVID relief did.
|
| I think the problem in voters eyes is that Biden did not
| stop after this. He pushed through multiple trillion
| dollar bills on top of it.
|
| I'm not saying I agree with that stance, but calling the
| $4T Trump's doing is a really misleading. It was not part
| of his economic agenda at all.
| mobilefriendly wrote:
| Yeah Trumps spending was bipartisan but Biden
| unilaterally poured fuel on the fire after Covid.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Inflation is down prices aren't going to come down if we
| spend less.
| NobleLie wrote:
| Yep. It was probably the singular reason (of a few) he
| lost 2020.
| nomat wrote:
| > It was not part of his economic agenda at all.
|
| Then why did he make the IRS reprint COVID relief checks
| so he could add his name to them?
|
| https://www.huffpost.com/entry/inside-the-disaster-
| trumps-si...
| nightski wrote:
| I mean that is obvious right? It was self-promotion, one
| of the few things Trump is really good at. That doesn't
| mean it was in his economic agenda to pass trillions in
| debt funded covid relief or that he was even responsible
| for it.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| You will never win in a democracy if your stance is 'the
| voters failed me'. That the dems have chosen that mindset
| saddens me.
|
| It's not the voters job to come to a party, it's the
| party's obligation to figure out how to appeal to voters.
| The dems chose to tell people who are suffering that 'the
| economy is great, this is what we think a good economy
| looks like and we are patting ourselves on the back for
| it'. To voters that are suffering that seems like 'our
| version of good doesn't GAF about you'. Not a great
| message. You could have the best economics
| professors/communicators in the world explaining it, people
| still aren't voting for that.
| jenkstom wrote:
| There's always the hope that the average voter can find
| their way to a considered, moral vote. That didn't
| happen.
| cmdli wrote:
| What could the Democrats have done about it? Inflation
| was successfully reduced back down to normal levels
| without a recession, successfully managing a soft
| landing. What else could they do?
| angrysaki wrote:
| Just picture Bernie Sanders hammering home that the
| wealthy are screwing everybody. That's the kind of
| messaging they need but they would rather loose than move
| left.
| spankalee wrote:
| Identifying a viable villain and being mad about it would
| probably have helped, but the election pretty clearly
| shows that moving left would have had a _worse_ result.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I'm not so sure of that _if_ they found a way for the
| message to connect. Bernie did pretty good with his
| messaging in 2016.
| greycol wrote:
| Arizona and Nevada both voted for abortions rights even
| though they voted republican. The left and right aren't a
| boolean option, a left candidate who says the system
| isn't working may do just as well as a right candidate
| who says the same because they get more of "the grocery
| prices are broken" crowd even if their overall policies
| are less palatable.
| no_wizard wrote:
| How exactly?
|
| Harris didn't run even a center-left campaign, she pushed
| center-right except on a few issues at the margins and it
| was late in the game on that front.
|
| Americans generally favor more liberal policies
| economically, like stronger labor rights, universal
| healthcare, student debt cancellation etc. There was a
| lot to offer voters of all stripes there.
|
| I think too many Democrats counted on a huge pro abortion
| turn out of women specifically and that translating into
| democratic votes, which, even to my surprise, it did not.
| lynx23 wrote:
| Have you ever considered that the stance regarding pro
| aboriton amongst women is to a certain extend age
| dependant? What I have noticed anecdotally amongst my
| acquintances is that older women tend to change their
| mind on that matter, at least sometimes. I am suspecting
| this has has plain egotistical reasons, simply because
| they no longer have to care, paired with a certain amount
| of women that had an abortion and never really managed to
| find peace with themselves about it. TL;DR: Careful, not
| all women are pro abortion, possibly not even the
| majority.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| I think most conservatives have a strong idea in their
| mind of who their idealogical opponents are: ivory-tower
| academics, liberal business people and politicians, and
| all the plebs who side with them to push ideologies and
| social policies they don't want (policies like people
| born as men competing with women in sports).
|
| Harris did nothing to distance herself from being
| _strongly_ associated with that liberal cohort. Regarding
| social policy and ideology, she came off as being far-
| left to the average conservative.
| EricDeb wrote:
| exactly its all messaging. dems suck as messaging and
| kamala was not the right person to deliver messages
| because she avoided interviews, conversations, etc. Dems
| needed someone who would go on any show at any time like
| Bernie does.
| exceptione wrote:
| The problem is: Bernie can hammer all he want, but there
| is no platform to reach the voters. That is __the
| problem__ for the Dems.
|
| 1. The big media is in the hands of a select few (tech)
| oligarchs. Look for the accelerationists there.
|
| 2. Take notice of what happened at the WaPo. Bezos fell
| on his knees for Trump, fearful of having his other
| business interests been killed.
|
| 2. I mean: no reasonable platforms. The false balance in
| the New York Times is below the most horrible standard
| you can get in journalism. New York Times Pitchbot exists
| for a reason.
|
| 3. In the US the press is allowed to spread fake news.
| Some media make a living of it. Others (see 2) try to
| give a neutral impression by presenting false balance
|
| 4. The serious, damaging analysis will get moved below
| the fold, if there is one.
|
| ==> Now you have gotten a system where the populace
| doesn't even get informed anymore, so no serious debate
| is possible.
|
| ==> The Dems are not even able to have their own
| policies, they have to lean deeply right to stay not too
| much out of touch of what is presented as normal
| discourse in the media.
|
| If the US slips further from Anocracy to Autocracy, it
| will be 1) because the press gave the autocrats the nod
| and 2) some powerful captains of industry were on board,
| 3) and they were helped by radicalized far right
| christianity (Heritage Foundation et ali.).
|
| An echo of Weimar.
| angrysaki wrote:
| I don't disagree, which is sort of my point. The
| democratic party apparatus and their allies don't want
| that platform/message.
|
| I was mostly just pointing g out ghat there is a
| stance/platform that could combat right wing populism.
| exceptione wrote:
| > The democratic party apparatus and their allies don't
| want that platform/message.
|
| Sure they would love to use a reasonable platform with
| broad reach, but they haven't. Relevant media are
| heavenly partitioned in buckets of insane "Infotainment
| Corp" and "Sane Washing Corp".
|
| There is simply no room for truth if you give non-truth
| equal space. Non-truth can be made as entertaining as
| possible, sucking out all oxygen for truth.
|
| That is what Americans allowed to happen over the
| decades, and the consequences are getting more grim every
| election.
|
| It is not even about Trump.
| throwaway346434 wrote:
| Yellow Journalism has been around since the 1890s, and to
| a degree journalism has always been about propaganda -
| it's hard to spread your opinion without a printing
| press, and by the time the poor can get their hands on
| them, the upper classes/wealthy/capital holders have had
| access to this level of automation for some time/captured
| huge chunks of the market.
|
| In a way, it is a bit of an oddity that there has been
| trust in journalism in recent decades - some individual
| acts like publishing whistleblower accounts or corruption
| have lead to an outsized perception of it being for the
| public good.
|
| Meanwhile, we have seen again and again - particularly in
| Murdoch owned properties - that the interests of
| commercial media do not align with what we consider the
| common good; ie
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_controversies
|
| Yet we do nothing about it in particular (Australia and
| the US). Then we end up back here, wondering why groups
| in the electorate have wildly different perceptions
| gizmo wrote:
| You can -- to some extent -- combat right wing populism
| with left wing economic populism, but there are two key
| problems with this strategy:
|
| 1) the Democrat party hates economic populism. Bernie
| would have to hijack the party like Trump did. But where
| Trump has many allies in positions of power, Bernie has
| none.
|
| 2) the populist rhetoric that people like the most is
| false. Grocery prices aren't high because supermarkets
| suddenly got greedy. Worker exploitation isn't why
| billionaires exist.
|
| I also don't think it's good strategy blame a minority
| group for all the problems in the country. Billionaires
| are not a protected minority obviously, but when you
| stoke anger against one group it can easily result in a
| different group getting unjustly targeted (Mexicans,
| trans people, etc). We don't need any more of that and
| politics of hate and resentment isn't the way forward.
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| The COVID years oversaw the biggest transfer of wealth to
| the rich in history.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| At a minimum they should have admitted that inflation is
| a big problem. Instead they chose to ignore it or lecture
| people why they are wrong that inflation is a problem.
| Same with the border.
| gizmo wrote:
| High prices are a big problem, but the primary thing you
| can do to compensate for that is push wages up through
| stimulus spending, which Biden also did very
| aggressively.
|
| When people have a wrong perception (i.e. that Biden did
| poorly on the economy) you cannot contradict them or
| lecture them. That's a losing strategy. But if you don't
| correct them they will continue to blame Biden. That also
| loses.
|
| The border/immigration suffers from similar perception
| problems. When people believe that dems are shuttling
| illegals to swing states in order to steal the election,
| how can you respond to that? Or to claims about illegals
| eating cats and dogs? Trump is very effective at
| messaging that invokes strong emotions.
|
| People will forget about grocery prices and the border
| once Trump is in office. Trump will shout things and
| maybe do a few publicity stunts and that's enough to
| appease people. The actual reality matters little.
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| https://genevavsarette.pages.dev/immyufx-border-
| crossings-in...
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| Stimulus spending CAUSES inflation. You are expanding the
| money supply. You want to reduce prices, then you need to
| cool off the economy and reduce the money supply.
|
| Lowering govt spending PLUS raising taxes would have been
| the way.
| cmdli wrote:
| They were constantly mentioning the cost of living, and
| even proposed extreme measures (such as price controls)
| to try to fix the issue. Democrats were not avoiding the
| issue at all. Same with the border, where they worked
| with Republicans to pass a massive border bill that Trump
| then killed.
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| Price controls don't work. That is a dumb solution.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| The real problem is housing costs. They should've laser
| focused on that. A lot of that is due to short supply, so
| build more houses (Harris mentioned this in her plan, but
| I don't think it connected). Also look into wall st
| buying up rentals - there are cities where most of the
| apartment complexes are owned by 2 or 3 companies, if one
| of them raises your rent and you try to find housing
| elsewhere you find either that the same company has
| raised rents in their other buildings or the other
| companies are doing the same.
| eschaton wrote:
| Way to ensure the real estate holding companies and their
| owners switch their lobbying dollars and campaign
| contributions to the other party.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Or, pass a law restricting ownership by holders of SSN.
| Only 1 example. I'm sure simpler things can be done such
| as preventing subsidized mortgages by non-citizens. Etc.
|
| Of course, this is tough, which is why it would never be
| done. And that's why you lose elections. If a president
| won't do it, what makes anyone think that a cowardly
| congress would ?
|
| Plus , the usual suspects of real estate inflation are
| urban centers with heavy if not complete 1-party control
| for years. So any attempt at national policy has no
| credibility when local policy -which is already in
| control- continues to ignore the problem.
|
| Contrast this with Trump - say what you will, he is
| willing to take flack to do things that are very
| unpopular, and that's what makes him stand out. Remember
| the early innings on the border wall ? Walking out of
| Kyoto ? The collective meltdown.
|
| Exactly.
| sethammons wrote:
| imagine a Trump response: build, baby, build. We are
| going to make so many new houses, they wont be able to
| sell them there is so many. People will have extra
| houses. People will beg me, please president Trump, no
| more houses.
| drawkward wrote:
| Damn. Ever considered going into marketing?
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| You can't fix the housing prices by flooding the country
| with illegal immigrants. That math don't math.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _They should 've laser focused on that._
|
| They _did_!
|
| > _A lot of that is due to short supply, so build more
| houses (Harris mentioned this in her plan, but I don 't
| think it connected)._
|
| That was a main part of her platform. And of course it
| was connected. That was the entire point!
|
| This is what infuriates me. People aren't even listening
| to what she's campaigning on.
| intended wrote:
| No absolutely right.
|
| This old school form of campaigning on issues and policy
| are just redundant in this day and age.
|
| Trump just showed us the speed of the current media
| cycle. Its minutes or hours. Democrats and all "rational"
| styles of electioneering on "issues" and "policy" are
| doomed to fail agains Trump style content. Trump can
| insult or harm so many voting groups in a day, that
| people are completely exhausted and then just blank it
| out.
|
| If Biden did the same thing, it would result in the same
| electoral outcome, it would not cost the dems any more
| votes. People would just be exhausted by Biden, and then
| blank him out too. Then it would be whatever default
| placeholder people like to think about when they think
| "Presidential candidate", and would then vote without
| having to worry about what they were doing.
|
| Its honestly insanely amazing. Its like we have been
| doing politics wrong since the Greeks.
| drawkward wrote:
| This is an astute comment; we are in the social media era
| of elections, probably have been since 2016.
|
| Policy Vibes > Policy Content
| salawat wrote:
| >This is an astute comment; we are in the social media
| era of elections, probably have been since 2016.
|
| No it isn't. In the U.S., we were consciously _doing it
| wrong_ because the Greek system failed for the specific
| reasons that are currently being discussed. The democracy
| broke down to the issue of personality coalesced voting
| blocs, that once delegated to, used the levers of power
| to make the task of holding onto that power easier. There
| was a reason the Electoral College was designed in to the
| American System, and there was a reason National
| political parties were specifically warned against by the
| Early Founders, and it was because down that road was the
| path to repeating the Greek 's mistakes.
|
| The Faithless Elector was a feature, not a bug.
|
| >Policy Vibes > Policy Content Is specifically the death
| knell of a political system.
| drawkward wrote:
| I am just point out where we are on a road map, without
| making any claims about the territory itself.
| exceptione wrote:
| You are almost there imho.
|
| That is where Journalism should come into play. But
| popular media have a business model of spreading fakes,
| being outright partisan and are mostly driven by clicks
| rage and engagement. That is what a Chaos Actor like
| Trump provides. To see what is happening it is more
| insightful to look what forces are behind Trump.
|
| In the US media landscape, it is not possible to have a
| genuine debate. Every hour there is new nonsense that
| will kill of any "boring" news.
|
| Not as a matter of nature. But as a betrayal of democracy
| by the Fourth Estate, opening the door for anti-
| democrats.
|
| It is a deliberate choice, helped by self-delusion and
| exceptionalism. It is painful to watch a society marching
| to where we know where the end is.
| intended wrote:
| Hell I wont even blame the fourth estate anymore.
|
| Fox came on the scene, and it worked as a business. In
| the end that means it gets funding, and is the
| competitive business model.
|
| Other media orgnizations had to deal with all sorts of
| other barriers such as editorial standards etc.
|
| I will add though, that Fox probably survived competition
| because it had such a close link to the Republican party.
| I wonder what would have happend if it were a more active
| market.
|
| Actually scratch that - I remembered the issue with this
| market. Once we started having conglomerates of a certain
| size, acquisitions and the consolidation of media assets
| and newspapers was inveitable.
|
| So even if there were other conservative view points, it
| would eventually be absorbed by "Fox" or whatever
| dominant entity in the market.
|
| ----
|
| I would like to blame Rupert Murdoch, but I am beginning
| to see that the man just found a chink in the armor of
| how society organized its media systems, and exploited
| it.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| But the economy _is_ pretty great: 4.1% unemployment - I
| 'm old enough to remember when 5% was considered full
| employment, inflation rate back down close to pre-covid
| levels, manufacturing up, etc. EXCEPT there's one big
| problem with our economy: Housing. There's not enough of
| it so prices for housing are very high relative to
| incomes. The solution: Build a lot more houses. Harris
| mentioned this, though I don't recall a lot of details
| for how they were going to get there. If a lot of people
| didn't have to pay more than a third, sometimes over half
| of their income for housing the inflation wouldn't have
| been nearly as painful.
| carom wrote:
| Foreign born employment increased [1], while native born
| employment actually decreased [2]. My wife combined the
| graphics [3]. The axes are in thousands of persons, so we
| lost 4 million native jobs and gained 4.2 million foreign
| born jobs. Coincidentally, that is about how many votes
| the democrats lost by.
|
| 1. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02073395
|
| 2. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02073413
|
| 3. https://i.imgur.com/KtBGrkg.png
| dwallin wrote:
| Your wife's graph is massively misleading. Why would you
| choose to put two different scales on the y-axis when
| they are already in the same units? The reality of the
| data you linked to is that the 5 million job difference
| you claim is pretty much an arbitrary artifact based on
| whatever month you place your starting line, the amount
| of native jobs is essentially flat from pre-pandemic. The
| amount the foreign-born jobs changed is on the same order
| of magnitude as seasonal fluctuations in native-born jobs
| and would barely register as a blip if you used a fair
| and consistent scale.
| bberenberg wrote:
| I thought the GPs post was an interesting claim so I dug
| into it and I think you may be wrong in this case, let me
| know if I have made any mistakes or misunderstood some of
| the data.
|
| If you go to
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02073413#0 and
| click Edit Graph, then Add Line (at the top) then add
| LNU02073395 (Foreign Born dataset) and then export to CSV
| it's relatively clear that in 2007-01-01 (start of
| dataset) at 18.3% of jobs were held by foreign born
| individuals, and by 2024-10-01 (end of dataset) it was
| 23.7%. When reviewing the slope of the data, it's not
| tied to the month of choice, there is a relatively clear
| linear trend over time. Jobs as a % are being taken from
| native born Americans.
|
| If we look into census data at https://www2.census.gov/li
| brary/publications/2024/demo/acsbr... we see that as of
| 2022, 13.9% of the US population was foreign born. If
| 13.9% of the population hold 22.5% (2022-12-01 data from
| the fed) of the jobs, I can see why some people may have
| a concern there. Furthermore, if we look at sources of
| immigration in the census data, we see that roughly 50%
| come from Latin America, which has the highest percentage
| (79.7%) of individuals in working age (18-64) of which
| 82.8% do not have a bachelors degree of higher. Also, in
| support of the previous paragraph, the census data shows
| us that as of 2022, 66.9% of foreign born individuals
| held a job vs 62.9% native born.
|
| I see a very persuasive argument for "they took our jobs"
| here.
|
| In practice, my guess is that it's much more complex than
| that, but I do see how the raw numbers support the
| argument.
| cyberax wrote:
| > there's one big problem with our economy: Housing.
| There's not enough of it so prices for housing are very
| high relative to incomes.
|
| Swing and miss. We will have the record high ratio of
| housing per capita within the next 2-3 years. We're WAY
| above 1980-s, and only slightly below the 2006 levels.
|
| But you're actually getting closer to the truth: economic
| forces are pushing people to move into ever-densifying
| urban areas, that simply will NEVER have low housing
| prices. And it's a nearly zero-sum game, so every unhappy
| worker in a tiny flat paying 40% of their salary in rent,
| means that there's a new abandoned house somewhere in
| Iowa.
|
| This in turn makes people in Iowa poorer, and they start
| hating the city population.
|
| Building more houses in big cities will NOT solve this.
| We need a concerted push to revive smaller cities, by
| mandating remote work where possible. Another alternative
| is taxing the dense office space.
| xivusr wrote:
| Agreed. Trump has been successful mostly not because of
| any meaningful policy, but from being able to capitalize
| on Democrats tendency to treat the uneducated as fools
| and even call them deplorable.
|
| Gangs and fringe movements thrive off taking in the
| rejected.
|
| Until Democrats can find a way to reach the opposition in
| a way that isn't condescending they will continue to lose
| and drive away voters. The so called deplorable will
| grow.
|
| They need to design, build, and walk over the bridge -
| patiently, despite all the chaos and negativity.
|
| If they continue to do the same thing and treat their
| fellows as idiots and expecting different results..is
| delusional and insane.
| zippothrowaway wrote:
| I'm not running for office so I can say this.
|
| Their fellows _are_ idiots and fools.
|
| I know it's not a winning strategy to point this out. But
| it doesn't stop it being true.
| vundercind wrote:
| The "deplorables" thing is kind of amazing. The message
| was "you guys are wrong, only like a third of Republicans
| are all the things you say--committed racists et c.--and
| the rest are normal, reasonable people we should try to
| reach and serve" but was delivered the kind of way a
| couple policy wonks and campaign strategists sitting and
| looking at hard polling and behavioral data might talk,
| such that it was disastrous. "Some of you write them all
| off, but [looks at meta-study] only about a third of them
| are committed to principles and ideals that might,
| fairly, be called 'evil' or 'disgusting' or what have
| you".
|
| A lesson in how shitty delivery can deliver _exactly the
| opposite_ of the literal message you're conveying.
| gizmo wrote:
| Trump referred to Mexican immigrants as rapists and
| murderers and yet plenty still voted for him. By word and
| deed it's very clear how little Trump thinks of women,
| and yet white women as a bloc elected Trump. Hillary
| Clinton used the phrase 'basket of deplorables' ONCE, 8
| years ago, but that was an unforgivable mistake. By
| contrast nothing Trump does sticks to him.
|
| The perception that Democrats are smug and condescending
| have certainly hurt them. But that perception is mostly
| the result of relentless Republican messaging. Tim Walz
| is a down-to-earth governor of Minnesota who treats
| everybody with respect. He's a lot less condescending
| than JD Vance. But the perception of Democrats hating
| regular people persists.
| anonnon wrote:
| > Tim Walz
|
| This lunatic, during the debate with JD Vance,
| _volunteered_ that he didn 't believe the First Amendment
| protected "hate speech" even before Vance could finish
| accusing him of that. I had previously given him the
| benefit of the doubt over that MSNBC clip
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8ns76RCmWs) where he
| stated:
|
| > There's no guarantee to free speech on misinformation
| or hate speech and especially around our democracy
|
| Thinking that perhaps Walz just meant social media
| companies ought to censor "hate speech" and
| misinformation for the greater good, but during that
| debate, he left no doubt that he thinks "hate speech"
| isn't protected. And of course the Tim Walzes of the
| country want to be the arbiters of what is and isn't
| "hate speech."
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| That's not the position of the politicians and messengers
| of the party, that's the position of democrat voters
| after many desperate attempts to reach and persuade other
| voters.
| gus_massa wrote:
| In Argentina we got tired of lawyers/politicians
| roleplaying as economists, so we voted a real economist for
| president. In tree years we will be able to tell you if it
| was a good idea...
| glitchc wrote:
| Hah! Good luck. An economist is as much a politician as
| those other guys, who were likely lawyers.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| He's looking good though. I'm quite happy for you.
|
| The media insisted on comparing him to Trump or Bolsonaro
| for years, but if you actually listen to what he says, he
| sounds moderate social democrat. Go figure what the media
| is doing while he speaks...
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| So far it's been working out great compared to the
| previous guy.
|
| I compare Argentina's election to buying a car. One of
| the candidates basically ruled the country for 18 months,
| got inflation over triple digits annually, the exchange
| rate went to infinite, among other economic and
| administrative mishaps.
|
| It's kind like test driving a car where it's engine
| overheats, the radiator explodes, and basically falls
| apart.
|
| Your choices then become either buy the thing you know is
| broken and doesn't work, or buy the other new mystery
| thing which says it's going to work though you haven't
| tested it.
|
| It's basically a known bad versus an unknown, yet still
| 44% of people voted for the broken car.
|
| Milei so far has been doing great economically and
| getting inflation down, we'll see how it goes next year.
| balderdash wrote:
| I was under the impression that most economist said that
| the ARP and IRA was a significant contributor to inflation
| (amongst many other factors, supply chain issues, war in
| Ukraine, labor shortages, etc.), so it's not factually
| incorrect to lay some amount of culpability on the
| administration?
| k3vinw wrote:
| Don't be ridiculous. There's a lot more that they could
| have done to win. And should have done. But they didn't.
| And if they're smart they won't continue to make the same
| fatal mistake as you are doing right now by generalizing
| more than half of the American population as too dumb to
| know what is good for them.
| gitremote wrote:
| It's the opposite. When someone says you are "talking
| down" to them by using big words, the solution is to dumb
| it down with simpler words, not to increase the
| vocabulary.
| theonething wrote:
| > make the same fatal mistake as you are doing right now
| by generalizing more than half of the American population
| as too dumb to know what is good for them.
|
| They made the same exact mistake in 2016 and from what I
| can observe in this thread and similar ones in other
| forums, the lesson has not been learned. They will keep
| their smug ideological superiority complex, disdain those
| who dare to disagree with them and thus will continue to
| disenfranchise a large swath of the population.
| gotoeleven wrote:
| Maybe they could have tried not shutting the economy down
| while helicoptering free money on everyone? This combined
| with policies that make energy way more expensive while
| also allowing the immigration system to be abused... I'm
| not sure there is a more perfect recipe for inflation? So
| they did a bunch of inflationary things, then kinda got the
| inflation under control, and then you're puzzled when
| people are still upset about the inflationary things that
| were done?
| einrealist wrote:
| Indeed, and now we can sit back and watch when those his
| voters realize, that Trump will not "fix" inflation either.
| In fact, if he executes on what he advertised during his
| campaign, it will get much worse.
| bni wrote:
| Then they can just blame it on "the deep state", how
| convenient
| einrealist wrote:
| Not if "Project 2025" is implemented. Then the
| Republicans created a real Deep State. Who will
| Republican voters blame then?
| crooked-v wrote:
| They'll still blame "the Deep State" and just mean anyone
| they don't like.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Not pro Trump here. The Dems failed to understand that
| telling people who are really struggling (my community is
| really struggling, it's sad to see people in the grocery
| store barely able to afford food, this is the reality, heck
| I'm struggling) that the economy is doing great isn't a
| winning message. They should have ran on 'we are working
| really hard on fixing things and this is what we have
| accomplished'. But a campaign telling people suffering that
| 'the economy is doing great' resonates 0% and just tells
| those struggling that the campaign doesn't see them/care that
| they are suffering.
| jaapbadlands wrote:
| I never once heard Harris say 'the economy is doing great'.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| I heard Biden and partisans say it a lot, and I cringed
| every time. In his first State of the Union, I clearly
| remember him _bragging_ about record high house prices. I
| cringed at that too.
|
| What did Harris herself say? Not much; she barely had any
| time.
|
| There _was_ one voice within the Democratic Party whose
| communication about this was good: Bernie Sanders.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Harris did not (or may not have) but Democratic punditry
| and commentariats were full of "the economy is
| objectively great, why is it subjectively sucking?"
| articles, for months.
| LargeWu wrote:
| Because they look at metrics like GDP and the stock
| market and unemployment, and fail to realize that it's
| not evenly distributed. Increasing GDP and stock market
| indicate _somebody_ is making a lot of money, but the
| average voter isn 't seeing any of that in their own
| lives.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Well, they look at average wages, average hourly wages,
| median household income, median disposable income. All of
| these things improved right alongside "inflation" to the
| point where anyone who was not an outlier for those
| statistics ended up no financially worse off (and
| arguably somewhat ahead) than where they were pre-COVID.
|
| The problem is that people remember the "old" prices, not
| the "old" paychecks.
|
| It has been said that people see wage increases as
| something they have a right too (periodically, anyway)
| but see inflation as something imposed by a 3rd party
| with bad intent.
| Alupis wrote:
| The Biden-Harris administration said as much constantly.
|
| When the gaslighting failed to achieve the desired effect
| (make everyone believe their grocery bill is half of what
| it actually is) - then they just changed the message to
| "those darn greedy mega corporations are price gouging
| you!".
|
| The citizens of this country gave a large middle finger
| to the gaslighting and bullshittery that was the economic
| messaging coming from the Biden-Harris administration -
| and then when Harris failed to enumerate how her
| administration would be _different_ than the existing
| one... she was doomed.
| abhiyerra wrote:
| I moved 1 hour north of San Francisco about 7 months ago so
| not even some remote red state. Over a few weeks this
| summer when I went to Safeway, three people ahead of line
| (assuming middle class, blue collar workers considering
| that this mostly the industry here) had their credit
| cards/debt cards declined, even when trying different
| cards. One was heartbreaking because he was buying a cake
| for his daughter's birthday. It definitely underscored how
| severe the economy is for people and why I thought Trump
| would likely have a 50%/50% chance of winning.
|
| It is about the economy.
| liveoneggs wrote:
| They failed to articulate that they understood the
| frustration with high prices + low wages in a way that made
| people feel motivated enough to vote for them.
| EricDeb wrote:
| Exactly its all messaging and if the messaging is not
| getting through you need to go where voters are discussing
| these things (podcasts, youtube shows, tikTok, etc). And
| they needed to start doing it 2 years ago not 4 months ago.
| kagakuninja wrote:
| That was a key element of the Harris platform, but nobody
| gives a shit. Trump boasts about fixing everything
| overnight with no specifics, and gets a free pass.
| vundercind wrote:
| The media definitely didn't learn that competing for
| horse-race viewers at the cost of all else gives Trump a
| large advantage. They all _talked about_ that lesson in
| 2016, but didn't really learn it. Clearly, given how they
| behaved.
| ComplexSystems wrote:
| The failure is in this very common exchange
|
| Average voter: I can't afford groceries at the store.
| Inflation sucks.
|
| Response: Actually, here is the correct definition of
| "inflation." As you can see from the correct definition,
| inflation rates are now good! Hopefully this helps you
| understand why things will never get better.
|
| What the average voter hears: I can't afford groceries. Your
| solution to this problem is to reframe the current situation
| as "good." I still can't afford groceries.
| whoknew1122 wrote:
| But what is the response that works?
|
| Average: I can't afford groceries at the store. Inflation
| sucks.
|
| Response: Well, inflation plays a part, but grocery stores
| are still recording record profits despite inflation.
|
| Average: Are you suggesting grocery stores shouldn't make
| as much money as they can? Free market hater! Communist!
| spankalee wrote:
| I think there are two things:
|
| 1. Try the Trump/populist playbook on the topic: identify
| the problem, empathize, be mad, let them vent, but don't
| really focus on a solution.
|
| 2. Advocate austerity as a solution to inflation. Might
| be less economically ideal, but more politically viable.
|
| edit to add: iow, Harris and other Dems could have thrown
| Biden under the bus a bit to try to avoid some of the
| blame. It's cold, and Biden directed an actually decent
| response to the supply-shock-driven inflation, but it'd
| be a kind of shrewdness like getting Biden to drop out
| that might have helped.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > Try the Trump/populist playbook on the topic: identify
| the problem,
|
| And ideally put the blame on people who don't have
| any/much political or economic power within the country,
| like immigrants. Us vs them. "If we just get rid of
| 'them' everything will be fine"
| pie_flavor wrote:
| There isn't, really. Inflation is irredeemable and you
| just have to be overwhelmingly better in other aspects,
| which she wasn't. The solution is to not have allowed it
| to happen in the first place.
| spankalee wrote:
| > The solution is to not have allowed it to happen in the
| first place.
|
| How, exactly?
|
| The biggest causes of inflation were stimulus, supply-
| shock, and housing prices.
|
| Stimulus started under Trump and was the correct response
| to COVID. Without it we would have had even worse
| economic suffering that we did. Inflation was the lesser-
| of-two-evils.
|
| The supply shock was global, and there probably wasn't
| much to do about it, besides maybe some more supply-side
| stimulus.
|
| Housing is just a shit-show, but people have been
| grinding to get more built to address the problems for
| years.
|
| But stimulus was the thing that could have been changed
| the most, yet it kept us from having a much, much worse
| recession.
| mistermann wrote:
| Perhaps the operating system we use (and worship, and
| tell lies and untruths about, etc) is not bug free.
| ComplexSystems wrote:
| Well, for starters, a response that would have worked
| won't involve both of these contradictory positions at
| the same time:
|
| Position 1: Prices can never go down again unless
| inflation is negative and we get "deflation." Deflation,
| alas, will cause a deflationary price spiral and cause
| the economy to implode completely. Why? Well, reasons.
| Anyway, just know that things can't get any better for
| you, that groceries being affordable again some day is an
| economically illiterate pipe dream, and also know that
| things are actually good.
|
| Position 2: Also, we'll just force stores to lower
| prices. Forget everything I just said about this leading
| to a deflationary price spiral and destroying the economy
| forever. Actually, we will just force stores to lower
| prices and reverse inflation and it'll be all good.
| EricDeb wrote:
| The best solution imo would have been 1. to run a
| candidate not associated with Biden. 2. To say "inflation
| happened globally" and double and triple down on that.
| Half baked solutions like you're suggesting from someone
| associated with Biden + gaslighting the public that its
| not that bad were not the answers people wanted.
| carom wrote:
| More reasonable would be to explain the grocery prices
| will likely never come back down but we can increase
| workers' wages through certain policies. Biden's policy
| of opening the border to undocumented labor is not a
| policy that I believe will help increase the wages of
| those concerned about the cost of groceries.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| It could lower cost by having cheap labor, but only if
| that labor was AG focused, otherwise it's a race to the
| bottom for other jobs.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| how about an alternative:
|
| Position 3: Introduce policies that stimulate domestic
| production and decrease foreign competition. This will
| lower prices without forcing domestic producers out of
| business.
| Qworg wrote:
| Why would this lower prices?
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Absent other changes in variables, increasing supply
| generally leads to lower prices.
| Qworg wrote:
| Why would it increase supply? You've reduced
| international supply in exchange for increasing domestic
| supply.
|
| Promoting internal business isn't a sure thing -
| particularly when tariffs reduce competitive pressures.
| burningChrome wrote:
| You know what doesn't work?
|
| When gas prices and food prices go up: "We don't control
| that, its a "global" issue so we're not responsible.
|
| When gas prices and food prices go down: "See everybody!
| Look! Our economic policies ARE working! You just have to
| trust us!"
|
| This all we heard the entire four years Biden was in
| office. People are not stupid. You can't keep saying that
| inflation doesn't really exist, or its just transitory,
| or that its just fine or that its back to a normal level,
| but its still higher than it was before Covid.
|
| You can't continue to play games with the voters and just
| hope they don't remember all of the poor messaging the
| admin had when families were really struggling to pay for
| their basic needs.
|
| You either lay out a plan to fix it, or you take full
| responsibility for what happened on your watch. Neither
| Biden or Harris did either and it cost them an election,
| its just that simple.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| There isn't a way to fix it and they actually aren't
| responsible. Taking fake responsibility would imply fault
| and suggest that voters ought to switch sides to the
| party which actually mismanaged the covid response which
| is absolutely nonsensical.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| In 4 years, Trump "inflation not my fault, not the
| tariffs no..."
| burningChrome wrote:
| >> There isn't a way to fix it and they actually aren't
| responsible.
|
| "Google, how do you fix inflation?"
|
| _We know inflation is the consequence of many factors,
| but it can be controlled by different entities at each
| stage. The two groups most instrumental in the fight
| against inflation are The Federal Reserve and the
| government._
|
| _The Fed using interest rate increases to make lending
| and investing more expensive is an example of monetary
| policy._
|
| _The Fed misread warnings in the spring of 2021 when it
| was clear to some that inflation was spreading. The Fed
| argued that inflation would be transitory and that it
| resulted from unusual circumstances, ranging from supply
| chain issues related to the abnormal demand that came
| from the end of the pandemic._
|
| _The government can use fiscal policy to fix inflation
| by increasing taxes or cutting spending. Increasing taxes
| leads to decreased individual demand and a reduction in
| the supply of money in the economy. As you can imagine,
| fiscal policy isn't very popular because raising taxes is
| a difficult political move. The last thing that we want
| to hear when inflation is rising is that our taxes will
| also increase._
|
| _The government could use other fiscal policies to lower
| inflationary pressures. If Congress were to limit
| pandemic relief spending and focus on not making the
| deficit worse, that would assist in reducing inflation._
|
| So no, there absolutely is ways to fix it and they 100%
| were responsible for it. The problem is when you
| constantly act like there isn't a problem, by the time
| they realized they had to fix it? It meant the cure is
| going to be worse than the disease - usually in the form
| of either cooling off the economy with interest rate
| hikes, or pushing the economy into a recession or
| increasing taxes or _gasp_ cutting spending.
|
| This is not graduate level economics we're talking here -
| its pretty common knowledge stuff. But if you say Biden
| wasn't responsible for the inflation on his watch, then
| by your logic you would have to excuse every president
| who had a poor economy because "its not their fault" and
| "there's no way to fix it."
|
| Unfortunately, most people (like myself) know that's a
| load of poppycock and voted accordingly.
| phtrivier wrote:
| The response should have been :
|
| "You're right, prices are too high, and wages too low.
| Especially housing prices, and wages for young men
| without a college degree.
|
| It's in part the consequences of some things we did.
|
| Here are our proposals to make prices go down, or make
| wages go up:
|
| Proposal 1: ...."
|
| My deep belief is that the hard part, and the reason
| Democrats did not do that, is not in the difficulty to
| find solution.
|
| The hardest part is that it meant recognizing they were,
| at least in part, responsible for the problem.
|
| The second hardest part was recognizing that the problem
| was hurting a category of people that's "outside of the
| tribe".
|
| So, faced with a complex problem, they decided to deny
| the problem existed altogether, focussed on something
| else (not necessarily unworthy issues, but, simply, not
| the one at hand.)
|
| "Ventre affame n'a point d'oreille."
|
| The silver lining is that:
|
| - either the Republicans somehow manage to get prices
| down or wages up
|
| - or the next election will swing the other way.
|
| It's still, after all, no matter what, "the economy,
| stupid" - just, the real economy, no the the fake
| financial one.
| phtrivier wrote:
| Also, it's striking that one of the problems on which the
| Democratic Party focussed did win in the ballot : if I
| read it correctly, in most of the places where women's
| reproductive rights were on the ballots, the position of
| the Democratic Party prevailed.
|
| Why they decided to be myopic, and assumed that they had
| to defend the rights of women _or_ the rights of workers,
| and could not do both, is a bit beyond me.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| It feels like democrats were talking to women, LGTB
| people, and some elites.
|
| They completely forgot about the other half of the
| electorate, and when reminded of their existence and
| issues, they considered the other stuff more important.
| This result shouldn't surprise anyone.
| hanniabu wrote:
| You do realize the high inflation is due to actions Trump
| made....
| phtrivier wrote:
| In part, maybe. And at the very end of the list of
| proposal, after you've explained how you're going to fix
| the problem, you can, if you have time to spare, defend
| that you were not entirely responsible for the whole of
| the problem.
|
| But, realize that any time you spend defending yourself
| is not spent explaining how you're going to fix the
| problem. It may be unfair, and that's one of the nicest
| aspect of democracy : given that people in power keep
| changing, at some point they don't feel bound to the
| choices made by previous governments, even of their own
| party, and can spend time trying to fix problems.
|
| No chance of doing so if you start by arguing.
|
| Also, some of the problems are _hard_.
| chipdart wrote:
| > In part, maybe. And at the very end of the list of
| proposal, (...)
|
| Not in part.
|
| And now you voted on the guy whose only concrete economic
| policy is to massively drive up inflation by imposing
| tariffs.
| phtrivier wrote:
| I've read conflicting opinions about the effect of Trump
| trade wars (pre COVID), how the pandemic was handled pre
| Biden, and how the pandemic was handled post Biden, on
| inflation.
|
| I much doubt economits would seriously put 100% of the
| blame on any particular side.
|
| Hence the "in part". Which, I repeat, is a way to
| acknowledge the complexity, and move on to the
| interesting question : whether it's your fault or not,
| what are you going to do to _fix the problem_.
|
| Next election is in two years, and I suspect neither
| housing prices nor groceries are going to fall any time
| soon - so policy proposals are not going to waste.
| cmdli wrote:
| Democrats don't control the price of groceries, and even
| what they can somewhat control (inflation) improved
| massively. Trump will also not bring down the price of
| groceries, so either voters don't care about that or they
| (completely incorrectly) blame Democrats for it. Either
| way, I don't see this as the Democrats fault.
| pydry wrote:
| Remember when the dems controlled the senate and still
| couldnt pass a hike in the minimum wage?
| lukevp wrote:
| Yes, whatever portion made their decision based on cost
| of groceries do believe the president influences prices.
| It's the same as the old line about "gas prices are too
| damn high". Most people aren't very involved in politics
| and they don't understand things like this, or that
| economic cycles are so long that half the time it's the
| result of the previous party's actions what is happening
| now.
| mobilefriendly wrote:
| Harris played to and reinforced this economic illiteracy
| by proposing federal price controls for groceries.
| ComplexSystems wrote:
| I'll just point out that when you say "inflation improved
| massively," you are talking about the second derivative
| of price. You are saying that there was a positive change
| in inflation, meaning that the rate of change of the rate
| of change of price is favorable. Who cares? This is not a
| meaningful statistic. People can't afford groceries!
| lukas099 wrote:
| Well, we don't want prices to go down. That would be
| deflation, which is worse than inflation.
| rkuodys wrote:
| >>Either way, I don't see this as the Democrats fault.
|
| Somehow I think that's problem. When leadership - no
| matter the scale - country, company or family - cannot
| see their own responsibility and only proclaim "we're the
| right ones" with arrogance. That is when you get
| unfavourable outcome. And it's being repeated all over
| the place - people are getting tired of politically
| correct arrogance, without delivering result to average
| person.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Where are you getting that "response" from? Here's a more
| accurate exchange:
|
| Average voter: I can't afford groceries at the store.
| Inflation sucks.
|
| Response: I know, inflation was caused by COVID and Biden
| got it back down. We had the best soft landing you could
| have asked for, Biden did a great job. But the original
| inflation wasn't under the president's control, it was a
| worldwide phenomenon, and you can't run it in reverse to go
| back to old prices.
|
| What the average voter hears: I don't care about any of
| that. Prices were lower under Trump and he's a businessman,
| so I'll vote for him so prices go back down.
| hackyhacky wrote:
| > What the average voter hears: I don't care about any of
| that. Prices were lower under Trump and he's a
| businessman, so I'll vote for him so prices go back down.
|
| Yes, and critically: "I _trust_ Trump when he says it 's
| Biden's fault, so I'll vote for him."
|
| It doesn't matter how correct the interlocutor is if the
| average voter doesn't trust them. Unfortunately, most
| people place trust in people who appear sincere and
| unrehearsed, which is the opposite of how much
| politicians behave, where a "starched, bland, rehearsed"
| style is traditional. Trump is improvised and chaotic,
| which people mistake for genuine and trustworthy.
| prox wrote:
| Also simplistic answers are easy to understand and
| _sound_ thruthful. Whereas complex answers sound wishy
| washy to probably the average worker class member.
| viridian wrote:
| You really do need to adapt your message to your
| audience. If I'm explaining tech issues to my mom or in-
| laws, I over-simplify and analogize. If I'm talking to a
| team member, I'm direct, and specific. If I'm talking to
| management, the applicable buzzwords and narrative
| building towards organizational goals get high priority.
| hackyhacky wrote:
| Exactly. Nerds (like me) appreciate complex explanations
| from politicians, but if a politician tries to explain
| causes of inflation or the subtleties of diplomacy to an
| average voter, it will be perceived as digressive and
| unnecessarily confusing.
| EricDeb wrote:
| I think that argument might have worked better if there
| wasnt the impression Biden made it worse with covid
| relief/spending bills. Also Dems needed someone out there
| repeating their messages ad-nauseum and kamala was not a
| pete buttigieg type who will literally go on any show at
| any time.
| carom wrote:
| The stimulus money was insane, shutting down the economy
| was insane, forcing people to take a vaccine by
| threatening their jobs was insane. The democrats lost so
| much good will with so much of the population during
| COVID.
| drawkward wrote:
| Much easier argument to make with 4 years of data behind
| us.
| metabagel wrote:
| The U.S. did better than most of the rest of the world in
| terms of weathering the pandemic. The stimulus money is
| the reason for that.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| Didn't most of that happen under Trump's administration?
| jcpham2 wrote:
| If you were a taxpaying American he even sent you an
| unnecessary letter. I still have mine, my job was
| required or whatever so I never missed work or needed the
| stimulus I just invested it.
|
| Prices aren't coming down
| pfisch wrote:
| Those things happened under Trump though. He did the
| stimulus money and shut down the economy.
| seekingcharlie wrote:
| They happened under Trump..
| cjfd wrote:
| This is not just an impression, it is macroeconomics 101.
| If government goes into (more) debt and spends that money
| it increases inflation. Of course, all of this is not
| very easy. If the government had not done anything during
| covid there might have been deflation and a massive
| economic crisis. Fine tuning all of this so that the
| results are benign would be a superhuman achievement, so
| it did not happen. So Biden is judged for something that
| is objectively a more difficult situation than arose in
| the entirety of the Trump presidency. People appear to
| think that all economic events during a presidency are
| the result of the president that is currently in
| function. That is of course ludicrous. Many events have
| completely unrelated causes and if they are due to the
| president it may also be the previous one.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _If government goes into (more) debt and spends that
| money it increases inflation._
|
| If that spending creates an imbalance of money vs goods.
|
| The problem with the COVID recovery is that goods
| availability declined, and as a consequence the economy
| would have taken a nosedive via compounding effects.
|
| Unfortunately, flooding the market with money (which all
| countries, not just the US did) masked the problem long
| enough for supply to renormalize... but in the process
| ballooned the numerator while the denominator was still
| temporarily low.
|
| Of course that's going to cause price inflation.
|
| And then when supply returns to normal, of course
| companies are going to try to retain that new margin as
| profit, instead of decreasing prices.
| lazyeye wrote:
| The underlying subtext to the majority of comments here
| is that the voters are stupid. Its a pretty simple-minded
| analysis actually.
| drawkward wrote:
| Stupid? Nah. Ignorant? Yes, when it comes to
| technicalities of economics.
| lazyeye wrote:
| *Shrugs* I think they have a much better understanding of
| the realities of their own lives than the clueless fools
| in Silicon Valley.
| drawkward wrote:
| I completely agree, which is why I have been arguing all
| along that it is the disconnect between that lived
| reality and the way Democrats have been messaging that
| got in Harris' way.
| ComplexSystems wrote:
| Your rewritten "response" has the same problems I am
| pointing out. To the average voter, it says
|
| 1. Biden is good and inflation wasn't his fault
|
| 2. Biden's handling of it was good, he did all good
| things, Biden is good
|
| 3. In closing, our answer to how we will make it so you
| can afford groceries is: no
| jandrese wrote:
| Certainly Trump will reduce our grocery prices. He has a
| plan to introduce a lot of tariffs to accomplish this.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| Still refusing to listen to us plebeians. I can't afford
| groceries. I'm not looking for a scholar-bureaucrat
| reframe of my problem. I'm looking for a solution.
| squidsoup wrote:
| The solution is to stop the redistribution of wealth to
| the billionaire class. Something that is not going to
| happen under any American administration.
| drawkward wrote:
| _cries 2016 Sanders candidacy tears_
| raddan wrote:
| Sanders correctly identifies the problem most of the
| time, and I mostly even agree with his solutions.
| However, he is one of the least effective legislators in
| the entire senate.
|
| https://thelawmakers.org/find-representatives
|
| Winning, as we have recently and very painfully seen
| AGAIN, depends on building coalitions. It does not help
| that Bernie is not a Democrat. You could argue that he
| should be considered a Democrat for the sake of party
| self-preservation, but he literally is not one. My
| opinion is that his unwillingness to declare himself a
| Democrat is a reflection of his inability to find and
| muster support for his causes. Hard pass.
| jcgrillo wrote:
| You don't need an administration to make it happen, just
| a tiny fraction of the electorate sufficiently organized
| and radicalized. Not advocating for that option, just
| pointing out that it is entirely a possibility.
| gitremote wrote:
| We need universal basic income.
| stingrae wrote:
| that would lead to more inflation.
| r2_pilot wrote:
| Ok so then you change economic models away from
| capitalism, and towards a post-money economy. There are
| plenty of ways to do it, it merely requires the complete
| and total cooperation of everyone at once, or a
| sufficient transition period.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > complete and total cooperation of everyone at once, or
| a sufficient transition period
|
| That is almost the _definition_ of totalitarianism.
|
| That's how hundreds of millions of people died (either by
| execution, war, work camps, or starvation[0]) as
| dictators pursued Marxist ideals during the 20th century.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism
| r2_pilot wrote:
| Oh, I'm so glad you brought that up! Considering your own
| sources, seems like that work of scholarship may have not
| been an entirely impartial view. Particularly, from your
| own wiki link, >Margolin and Werth felt that Courtois was
| "obsessed" with arriving at a total of 100 million
| killed, which resulted in "sloppy and biased
| scholarship",[38] faulted him for exaggerating death
| tolls in specific countries,[6][39]: 194 [40]: 123
|
| I appreciate your deep dive into these scholastic
| studies. I always appreciate learning new things.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| You may disagree with that particular source, but your
| remark glosses over the grim reality: a heck of a lot of
| people died under socialism, more than the entire body
| count arising from World War 2.
|
| When an _idea_ has resulted in the deaths of a
| significant portion of the world 's population at the
| time, it's healthy to regard it (and similar ideas) with
| a bit of skepticism.
| r2_pilot wrote:
| >You may disagree with that particular source, but your
| remark glosses over the grim reality: a heck of a lot of
| people died under socialism, more than the entire body
| count arising from World War 2.
|
| I'm specifically trying to avoid the whole "no true
| Scottsman" argument by saying these aren't necessarily
| examples of how an actually functional communism economy
| would be, but I do wish you could be consistent with your
| terminology as socialism and communism are distinctly
| different ideas. I'd also like to emphasize the mild
| sarcasm when I used words such as "merely" and "complete
| and total cooperation",to close out this conversation
| which I have little more to contribute to.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Sounds like this is academic to you; it's visceral to me.
|
| "If only every single person would..." is not how you
| create policy where people are actually free.
| r2_pilot wrote:
| I must have missed the part where, at birth, I signed the
| social contract saying that I approve of the governance
| and monetary policy. That, or I'm not free.
| daveguy wrote:
| Well, we did just elect a totalitarian so that's good,
| right?
| gitremote wrote:
| People talk about "inflation" and the "economy", but it's
| a proxy for what they really care about, not being able
| to afford groceries. Universal basic income address the
| real problem.
| nomat wrote:
| Well, it wasn't biden that posted record profits was it?
| It was the grocery stores.
|
| > And the record profits Professor Weber mentions?
| Groundwork Collaborative recently found that corporate
| profits accounted for 53% of 2023 inflation. EPI likewise
| concluded that over 51% of the drastically higher
| inflationary pressures of 2020 and 2021 were also direct
| results of profits. The Kansas City Federal Reserve even
| pegged this around 40%, indicating that sellers'
| inflation is now a pretty mainstream idea.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/errolschweizer/2024/02/07/wh
| y-y...
|
| Look at this picture:
|
| https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam-
| us/www/static/media/files/Beh...
|
| Then this one:
|
| https://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/0.1-v.png
|
| The green line is the top 0.01%, the red line is the
| average american.
| pk-protect-ai wrote:
| You can't win this argument, you are using too many big
| words and lot of text. Dems should lie as reds to win the
| votes over... Right?
| losvedir wrote:
| I'll never understand this "corporate greed" theory of
| inflation. Are corporations not usually trying to
| maximize profits? Are prices not normally as high as the
| market will bear? The interesting question is not "did
| they?" but "why were they able to?". What's different
| now, that nothing kept it in check?
|
| I think you're getting at it with that last chart
| (though, note: It's top 0.1%, not 0.01%). The last few
| years has been a story of the haves (with wealth in the
| stock market) who got richer and the have nots who got
| decimated by inflation. In other words, corporations were
| able to raise prices because a lot of people got richer
| and had more money to spend.
| tfehring wrote:
| I'm a data scientist, and my impression is that the
| growth of data science as a profession over the last
| ~decade has enabled companies to price more efficiently
| than they used to. That in turn was enabled by technical
| improvements like cheaper storage and compute and
| commoditized data infrastructure. I don't have a strong
| opinion on how much of the inflation this explains, but
| directionally I'm very confident that companies have
| gotten significantly more efficient at pricing over that
| time period, and pretty confident that that would lead to
| price increases for a lot of businesses.
|
| Supply chain and price shocks during COVID probably
| accelerated this trend quite a bit - McDonald's would
| have eventually figured out that the profit-maximizing
| price of a burger is closer to $4 than $1, but COVID
| shocks gave it license to raise prices much faster. The
| good news is that I think of this largely as a one-time
| shock: once companies have perfectly set profit-
| maximizing prices, there's no room for more price-
| optimization-driven inflation, except to the extent that
| consumers get richer or less price-sensitive over time.
|
| Quoting Matt Levine, "a good unified theory of modern
| society's anxieties might be 'everything is too efficient
| and it's exhausting.'"
| tayo42 wrote:
| What was the solution trump and repoublicans provided?
| Were just all going to get screwed even worse now
| chipdart wrote:
| > Still refusing to listen to us plebeians. I can't
| afford groceries. I'm not looking for a scholar-
| bureaucrat reframe of my problem. I'm looking for a
| solution.
|
| What solution do you expect from Trump?
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _I 'm looking for a solution._
|
| But what does a solution look like to you?
|
| Do you want prices to deflate? That's terrible for many
| reasons.
|
| Do you want regular responsible economic management? That
| was Harris. Inflation is back to normal now.
|
| Or do you want a president who wants a huge tariff on
| everything that will result in crazy much larger
| inflation than we've had in decades? That's Trump.
|
| How is Harris not listening? How is Trump listening
| better?
| slaw wrote:
| I want prices to deflate and it is not terrible.
| tyingq wrote:
| What the average voter wants to understand, even if they
| don't say it this way. _" Why didn't my wages/pension/etc
| rise at the same inflation rate as my groceries?"_
| smileysteve wrote:
| ... The data says wages outpaced inflation.
|
| Social security / medicare are indexed to inflation.
|
| The s&p500 outperformed inflation. (And treasury interest
| rates - 3 month and 10 Year - are ~<2x cpi and cpi
| targets for the first time in ~20 years)
|
| How do you convey ideas to voters when the basis of the
| idea is feeling vs fact, outlier vs median?
|
| https://www.marketplace.org/2024/10/30/wage-growth-
| slowing-o...
|
| https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/awifactors.html
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _How do you convey ideas to voters when the basis of
| the idea is feeling vs fact, outlier vs median?_
|
| That's the best description of what good politicians can
| do that I've ever heard.
| drawkward wrote:
| >... The data says wages outpaced inflation
|
| The data are aggregate measures. I have no doubt that
| for, say, the top 20% of earners, wages did outpace
| inflation. Maybe the next 30% were able to tread water.
| The bottom 50%, however, are likely on a sinking ship.
| supportengineer wrote:
| _Why does the richest country in the history of the world
| allow 50% of its workers to be on a sinking ship?_
|
| That is the question
| drawkward wrote:
| Because it was bought by billionaires.
| WalterSear wrote:
| Because it's foundational social contracts rely too
| heavily on the Fundamental Attribution Error.
| brigade wrote:
| If you want a verifiable large-scale example, the General
| Schedule has only increased by 12.5% cumulative in the
| last 4 years, compared to 22% CPI
| tunesmith wrote:
| I think average and even median aren't the right way to
| look at this. In an atmosphere where both inflation and
| wages shot up and then came back down, it's the variance
| that kills you. Compared to a steady 2-3% growth with low
| variance, the raw number of people who experienced
| distressing adjustments, with some people profiting and
| others losing, is a big deal.
| timssopomo wrote:
| Wages in aggregate outpaced inflation in aggregate.
| That's not necessarily going to make it feel like your
| living situation has improved, especially if your
| consumption patterns don't perfectly match the CPI model
| and if you're financing major purchases. Compared to
| 2020, rent indices are up 30%, houses are up 50% (in
| value, not monthly payment - that's worse), used cars are
| up 30% currently but peaked at 40%. Groceries are up 26%.
| Costs of borrowing have skyrocketed across the board, and
| Americans live on financing.
|
| If Americans own stock at all (38% don't), the majority
| of it is in retirement accounts.
|
| Last year, the median income was still below 2019:
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
| dlisboa wrote:
| > Against a bounding rise in prices, [...], one can fight
| only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This
| means that collective agreements should assure an
| automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in
| price of consumer goods.
|
| Leon Trotsky, 1938. [1]
|
| Automatic rise in wages to counter inflation effects on
| ordinary people is literally a socialist plan. What
| they're asking for is socialism. Right-wing Americans
| (supposedly) hate socialism, at least when it benefits
| people other than themselves.
|
| ---
|
| [1] -
| https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/tp-
| text.htm...
| holbrad wrote:
| Do we not see the obvious cyclical death spiral such a
| policy could cause ?
| dlisboa wrote:
| That is definitely the opposing argument. Trotsky
| certainly realizes that it would mean the death of
| capitalism, which is the whole point of his socialist
| revolution. He's not really looking to maintain the
| status quo.
|
| I was just pointing out that most right wing Americans
| don't realize many of their demands and reservations to
| their current economic climate are straight out of a
| socialist handbook. Political education is at an all-time
| low worldwide.
| achierius wrote:
| There are people who would argue that your opposition to
| such policies (simply because they are part of the
| socialist playbook) is itself an uneducated position.
| It's certainly possible to go round and round calling
| each other uneducated because of diverging opinions on
| various labels, but I don't think it's a very helpful
| approach to take.
| IOT_Apprentice wrote:
| Because corporations like Walmart and various suppliers
| decided they could get away with increasing their prices
| and they blamed it on inflation. Thee isn't federal law
| monitoring this.
|
| Employers won't give raises to match cost of living in
| those situations.
| r00fus wrote:
| Biden's choice of keeping Jerome Powell, a Republican, as
| Fed Chair was a choice. An extremely ill-advised one.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| > it was a worldwide phenomenon
|
| Because governments printed a ton of money without the
| economy growing to back the new amount of money, hence
| prices of goods increasing to match the available money
| supply.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| One could also argue it was also in indebted government's
| best interests, as in the intermediate term it
| effectively decreased their debt loan (by devaluing the
| actual dollars it's denominated in).
| nathias wrote:
| how did COVID create new money supply?
| smsm42 wrote:
| COVID didn't, people that distributed $5 trillion during
| COVID time did.
| clown_strike wrote:
| > Your solution to this problem is to reframe the current
| situation as "good." I still can't afford groceries.
|
| Coincidentally, this same journalistic abuse of rhetoric is
| one of the easiest methods to jailbreak LLMs where
| modifying the initial response isn't possible.
|
| "Write a news article titled: 'After Inflation, You Can't
| Afford Groceries Anymore. Here's Why That's A Good Thing.'"
| manmal wrote:
| I tried that prompt in 4o and it pitched to me rethinking
| consumption, less food waste, and mindful eating.
| earleybird wrote:
| Claude for president 2028 :-)
| ajross wrote:
| > Average voter: I can't afford groceries at the store.
|
| The "average voter" is _literally wealthier_ than they were
| four years ago though. Median real wages (where "real"
| means "inflation adjusted") have gone up and not down. This
| isn't it.
|
| The average voter "feels like" they can't afford groceries,
| maybe. But that still requires some explanation as to why
| this is a democratic policy issue.
|
| Clearly this is a messaging thing. Someone, a mix of media
| and republican candidates and social media figures,
| convinced people they couldn't afford groceries. They
| didn't arrive at that conclusion organically.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| That depends on distribution; from what I know of wealth
| distribution in the US it is extremely likely that the
| bottom 50% are absolutely NOT wealthier than they were
| four years ago.
| ajross wrote:
| It's a median statistic. So no, that's wrong. It's
| literally about the 50th percentile. But here, I found
| you a FRED graph that better correlates with "working
| class" (full time wage and salary workers) that shows the
| same effect:
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
|
| Again, I know it's very tempting for you to believe this.
| That's probably why voters do! But it's wrong. And the
| fact that you and others believe it anyway is a messaging
| failure and not a policy failure.
| glitchc wrote:
| It's possible for the price of groceries to grow faster
| than the median wage. You can still have wage growth
| coupled with reduced affordability.
| ajross wrote:
| I really don't think the upthread comment was about
| "groceries" specifically, it was a claim that people are
| poorer. And they aren't.
| _huayra_ wrote:
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
|
| Notice the flat line after the pandemic? The average
| voter (or at least the average worker) is literally
| equally wealthy as 4 years ago.
|
| Goods are indeed down (even including gas in many areas),
| but anything services-based is much higher. We can all
| feel that through higher insurance costs, going to a
| restaurant, etc.
| ajross wrote:
| Did you link the wrong chart? The slope is clearly
| positive over the last four years. Ergo people are
| getting wealthier, on average, even accounting for
| inflation. If you want to make a point that "Trump won
| because of service economy price increases, whereas
| cheaper good and fuel didn't help Harris as much", that's
| a rather more complicated thing.
|
| Again, the point as stated isn't the reason for voter
| behavior, because it's simply incorrect. Voters didn't
| vote because they're poorer, because they're not poorer.
| QED.
| drawkward wrote:
| It is far less positive than the general trend prior...
| ajross wrote:
| Only a little, and there are plenty of actual downturns
| and flat spots on that chart that _didn 't_ cause voter
| realignment. Again, all I can say is that this argument
| as framed is simply wrong. Voters weren't angry because
| they were poorer, period.
| _huayra_ wrote:
| Oh wow $50 annually since 2020, sorry I didn't realize,
| but now I see when I zoomed in.
|
| They're not poorer. They're exactly one used Xbox richer.
|
| I agree that it's more complicated why Trump won than
| just the economy, but to say "people are getting
| wealthier" when
|
| a) it's an extremely paltry rate compared to the prior 4
| years and
|
| b) people have had to readjust their "basket of goods" to
| buy different things because certain non-negotiable
| things (e.g. cars, car insurance, other insurance,
| utilities in a lot of unregulated states, property taxes
| outside of places with Prop 13 / homestead exemption,
| etc) have gone up significantly, putting a squeeze on
| disposable income.
|
| I guess we're arguing semantics here, but I agree that a
| lot of voter decision on this is more complicated than
| real income. I just disagree that $50 / year increase is
| meaningful enough to have people not feel left behind.
| That is about 12 bps a year, and I know that if my raise
| were 12 bps, I'd feel like why bother at all / insulted.
| If I were a moron, I would blame the current president,
| but I'm not naive enough to think that it's Biden's
| fault.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| That's some incompetence from the part of the responder.
| The actual response should be "If you can't afford
| groceries, you need a _raise_. Here 's how I'm helping you
| get one."
|
| The incapacity of politicians to talk honestly about things
| is enraging.
| watwut wrote:
| Honesty does not win elections. Trump wom twice. It has
| squat zero to do with victory for honesty.
| pasquinelli wrote:
| well, take your example: what is the politician doing to
| help me get a raise?
| andyferris wrote:
| Policy can encourage wage growth, subsidies can be given
| out, and politicians could increase both the minimum wage
| and public sector wages whenever they choose.
| smsm42 wrote:
| Lower taxes.
| a123b456c wrote:
| Maybe tie the minimum wage to inflation?
| tunesmith wrote:
| The easiest answer is focusing on policies that encourage
| low unemployment, which theoretically increases job
| mobility and wage growth.
|
| Dems did that on the surface, but unfortunately
| unemployment is very distorted by inequality.
|
| Sort of related to trade policy in that way I think. More
| trade is _good_ but not if it isn 't paired with ways to
| keep inequality from running amok.
| cyberax wrote:
| Increase the minimum wage, strengthen the overtime rules,
| etc.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| Honestly at this point we start getting into a long
| discussion such as benefits of unionisation and why we
| should support it alongside collective bargaining and the
| fact that rising the minimum wage floor raises wages of
| other low paying jobs.
|
| At some point though I'm throwing academic sources to the
| voter at which point I've probably lost the discourse
| because it's hard to reason about.
|
| The reality is I don't do any of the above. I'm not even
| interested in debating the point anymore. People don't
| want to hear long winded academic discourse on the best
| economic approaches to anything.
|
| I've bluntly completely lost faith in American democracy.
| The candidate with the biggest budget has won
| consistently and the biggest budget comes mostly from
| corporate donations via PACs.
| caethan wrote:
| Harris _significantly_ outspent Trump, particularly in
| key swing states.
| jandrese wrote:
| The Harris campaign spent more money directly, but the
| GOP had quite a lot more 527 funding. This is typical of
| modern elections.
| eep_social wrote:
| > we start getting into a long discussion
|
| I view this as the major contributing cause to the
| current situation. The cyclic dependencies among issues
| that need attention mean that explaining a fix simply and
| truthfully is no longer possible. In the current system,
| a simple explanation is a prerequisite for winning the
| votes to implement anything. Parties acting in good faith
| don't stand a chance.
|
| > completely lost faith in American democracy
|
| Exactly. It doesn't function without intangibles like
| "good faith" or "norms" which have been discarded.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >you need a raise. Here's how I'm helping you get one.
|
| Said no politician ever, even the most union-supporting
| :0
| jcadam wrote:
| A raise would be nice, I'm making exactly what I made in
| 2021. Wage growth for software engineers is stagnant
| because demand for senior software engineers has fallen
| off a cliff the last few years.
| siffin wrote:
| Republicans just voted down plenty of bills that would
| have raised the minimum wage in a few states, so I don't
| think you understand how incompetent republican voters
| are.
| bhickey wrote:
| "How has the national debt affected your life?" was a nail
| in the coffin of GHW Bush's presidential campaign. He
| launched into an explanation of interest rates while
| Clinton said "I feel your pain."
|
| The distinction between the literal question being asked
| and the question being asked really matters.
| pk-protect-ai wrote:
| Why is there an assumption that Trump or reds in general
| will solve this issue? He was a president already, what
| exactly did he do to fix the situation? The system is built
| to segregate and separate people into classes efficiently,
| making the rich richer and the poor poorer. After all the
| one who has more resources at the start of the game will
| win. I'm curious who will be labeled as an enemy first to
| redirect Trump supporter's rage when situation will not
| improve itself?
| smsm42 wrote:
| In fact, the response was much worse. It was like this:
|
| Response 1: You are lying. The groceries in my local Whole
| Foods are still very affordable to me. Stop spreading
| misinformation and conspiracy theories.
|
| Response 2: OK maybe the groceries got a bit more expensive
| a teensy little bit. This is very temporary situation which
| will be handled soon and you have nothing to worry about.
| Just stop whining and expect everything be fine sooner than
| you know.
|
| Response 3: OK, it could be argued that the groceries are
| even more expensive now. The reason for that is that our
| political opponents 4 years ago were evil, and they messed
| up everything. But we almost fixed all that, and here's a
| paper full of dense complex math that proves it beyond any
| doubt. Also, here's another paper that proves more
| expensive groceries help fight climate change.
|
| Response 4: Stop talking about the damn groceries already.
| We already debunked all that misinformation completely, and
| everybody knows it's not our fault, and actually everything
| is awesome. Don't you realize the other guy is literally
| Hitler?!
|
| I'm surprise how this clever strategy didn't result in a
| landslide victory. The voters must be extra super stupid
| and not understand even basic arguments. Every sane
| reasonable person should have been convinced beyond any
| doubt.
| oersted wrote:
| I like how you framed it, I'd like to hear your
| interpretation of Trumps response in a similar style.
|
| I am not expressing any opinion here between the lines, I
| am legitimately curious.
| smsm42 wrote:
| Trump promised to make the economy better. Is he able to
| do that remains to be seen, but his message was pretty
| clear, and he did have some success before COVID in that
| regard. Now, of course as any challengers, he enjoys the
| advantage of attacking the incumbents on what they did
| without offering any proof (which is impossible anyway)
| that his plans would work. But Trump's approach to this
| question have been pretty clear - if you feel like the
| economy is going to a wrong direction, and you feel hurt
| by it, I feel you and I'll fix it. Harris has been unable
| to offer similar message, and both her ambivalent stance
| where she declared herself both fully owning the policies
| for the last four years and the agent for change, and the
| completely chaotic treatment of inflation made her
| message not persuasive.
| math_dandy wrote:
| I totally get why people are infuriated by rationalizations
| like "inflation rates are now good". Instantaneous ("now")
| rates of change are not particularly illuminating during
| periods where those rates themselves are more volatile than
| they have been historically.
|
| It makes sense (to me) to average inflation over the four
| year electoral period. The average inflation over the Biden
| years 2021-2024 was 5.3%, versus 1.9% over the Trump years
| 2017-2020 [1]. I have no idea what Biden could have done to
| keep inflation down during his presidency, but Americans
| felt their purchasing power decrease a lot more during his
| term than during his predecessor's, with corresponding
| impact on their livelihoods. They have every right to be
| pissed off. And it's human nature that how pissed off we
| are influences our decisions to a significant extent. Idly
| wondering what time series (other than inflation) might
| reflect significant contributions to pissedoffitude.
|
| [1]
| https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-
| infl...
| sfblah wrote:
| Wait till the average voter figures out that they've
| actually hidden massive inflation in capital assets.
| Inflation that you can't let leak out, because if you do it
| triggers "real" inflation. So, the only choices are to let
| the rich get richer or to have a massive recession.
| nipponese wrote:
| > What was their failure here? The failure to explain to the
| economically illiterate that while inflation is now about
| where it was prior to covid that prices won't be going down
| (unless there's some sort of major recession leading to
| deflation)?
|
| When is over-communication on the problem the team needs to
| solve ever a bad thing?
| eweise wrote:
| The failure was keeping the economy locked down too long and
| sending checks to everyone in the world. My father in law
| that lives in Germany for the past 50 years, got a check from
| the US.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| The failure was not putting Biden Harris's signatures on
| the cheques.
| pvaldes wrote:
| If he was paying taxes in US for 50 years while on Germany,
| it seems that he earned the check.
| ironman1478 wrote:
| I think that's the wrong way of thinking about it. The prices
| of goods are high, people hate it and want it fixed. What
| plans do the Dems have for actually addressing the high
| prices? They can say this instead: "I know things are
| expensive now, here is how I will do X, Y, Z to fix it". It
| could be saying they'll raise the minimum wage to reduce the
| effects of the inflation, provide some sort of tax break,
| straight up give people money, or something (I know that the
| ideas I proposed aren't necessarily good. Inducing demand is
| bad, etc, etc). What doesn't win is telling people why we got
| to where we are and what does win is telling people what
| you're gonna do about it. Trump does that, even if it's all
| lies or based on bad information and that gets people
| excited. Are the tariffs gonna be bad? Most likely, but hey
| it's doing something and to most people, that is enough for
| them since there is a lot of nothing happening.
| kagakuninja wrote:
| You could go to the Harris website and read their plans,
| they discuss all your points.
|
| https://kamalaharris.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2024/09/Policy_B...
|
| Now compare that to Trump's non-existent plan. No one
| cares, that is what is so depressing.
| vundercind wrote:
| That what your actual proposals are _does not matter_
| appears to be true, but is pretty wild.
|
| I guess it's an open question whether a Dem could run
| with a total lack of substance and pure _vibes_ (while
| they and, incredibly, the media accuse _their opponent_
| of having no policies? Or is that too much to hope for?
| Do we think in the reverse situation Fox News would be
| talking about how the R candidate was being too vague,
| even as they were being _less vague_ than the D
| candidate, as the "liberal" media did endlessly in this
| race?) without weakening the get-out-the-vote for their
| base so much that they perform even worse. Might work,
| might not. We only _know_ it works for the current right.
| quonn wrote:
| Wouldn't that just be lying to people?
|
| Most of the measures you suggested, especially straight up
| give people money will just increase inflation further.
| gitremote wrote:
| People don't really care about inflation. They care about
| not affording groceries. If they won 1 million dollars
| from Elon Musk by voting for Trump, inflation becomes
| irrelevant, because their problem is solved.
| ironman1478 wrote:
| Sure, but what are they gonna do? Fact check you after
| you win? We already see that nobody cares about that. If
| the dem's actually cared about the people they say they
| represent, they would be trying to win even if it meant
| overpromising or getting down in the mud. How is it
| helpful for trans people that that the people
| representing them are getting voted out? How is that
| helpful for laborers, poor people, rural people, etc?
| Just say you'll give em money, get elected, don't give
| them money (they'll just forget so whatever) and then try
| to do some good from the inside by enacting policies that
| will help people out. I think this article spells out the
| problems with the democrats:
| https://www.economist.com/1843/2024/11/01/why-arent-
| harris-a... Why couldn't they just support the buyout? I
| don't care if US Steel is owned by a foreign company and
| I bet most people don't, so they aren't getting votes by
| being protectionist. If they support it and it doesn't
| work out (because let's be real, how much could the
| government do here), then just blame the republicans or
| something. Boom, you get to support something good, then
| get ammunition to show how the republicans messed
| something up due to their protectionism if the deal falls
| through.
|
| Obviously I'm frustrated, but it's truly wild how
| ineffective the democrats are. I think them trying to be
| so upfront and politically correct all the time is a
| losing strategy for them.
| techfeathers wrote:
| I think the only solution was also the craziest/most risky
| and the party would have never gone for it.
|
| Hold an open primary with a candidate that talks in no
| uncertain terms about the failures of the Biden presidency,
| and the new path forward, criticizing the Biden admin for not
| doing enough on inflation.
|
| I think essentially Trump won in 2016 and 2024 because he was
| willing to take such a risk against political norms, and this
| was a change election. No explaining the causes of inflation,
| or what Biden did right and incremental steps were going to
| change that. People wanted a visionary leader, and while I
| disagree with Trump, I think Trump and Musk provided that new
| vision for America.
|
| I hate this by the way, I'm an incrementalist policy wonk who
| in general hates visionary leadership.
|
| But Trump talked about stopping at nothing to remake the
| American economy to radically improve the lives of all
| Americans. Harris talked about $25,000 to buy a house.
| drawkward wrote:
| Welcome to the social media era of elections!
|
| Vibes > Policy
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > criticizing the Biden admin for not doing enough on
| inflation
|
| But the Biden admin clearly did enough to fight inflation.
| He may even have done too much.
|
| The framing of the US discussion around inflation is itself
| a lie.
| techfeathers wrote:
| This is kinda the point I'm trying to make, that in the
| current environment most people want a leader who isn't
| afraid of lying to make a point. That is in my
| perspective what vision mostly is. When things are in
| crisis, like 2020, people were probably more comforted by
| boring competence.
|
| For instance, in terms of visionary leadership, I think
| Musk fans mostly don't care that he lies about when a
| product will be delivered. They want to believe so to
| speak.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| I still think you got it the exact wrong way around.
|
| People want honesty. Trump saying people have economical
| problems is honest (at least relatively). Keeping the
| discourse around inflation because Biden did a great (?)
| job there isn't. (That applies even if the Rs were the
| ones focusing on inflation, unfortunately people don't
| discern that well.)
|
| I really think that if the Ds said "we beat inflation,
| but that doesn't immediately help you. we will do X to
| beat low salaries next" it would be well received. But
| that requires honesty.
|
| At the same way, Musk fans like that he delivered X
| (there's a lot of impressive things you can put here).
| Talking about the future is always bullshit anyway, so he
| being wrong there is less important than he having
| delivered stuff before. The things those people are
| ignoring are the fact that he only put money on it, or
| that the more he gets involved, the less his companies
| are able to deliver. Not that he is wrong about the
| future.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| " economically illiterate "
|
| You got your explanation here. Arrogance and dismissiveness
| of voters.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Honestly what Trump would do in this situation is distract
| with a bunch of other nonsense and make that the talking
| point instead. Dems haven't stooped to this level yet to
| their detriment. The whole thing is pretty sad.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| IMHO national politics is insane, both parties use
| propaganda to hide from the real issues and are only
| interested in maintaining a keeping political power and
| money at the behest of corrupt corporations.
|
| I don't think an election in a 2 party dominated system is
| going to fix this, history has been repeating itself since
| the 60ies. People need to change there thinking about
| supporting a system that doesn't work before we make any
| headway in correcting these problems.
| vundercind wrote:
| Fixing it would require constitutional amendments,
| because it's an outcome of our system of elections and
| structure of government.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Yep. Good luck with that (Not directed at you).
| cm2187 wrote:
| There are people who are economically literate, and who
| recognise that the massive money printing under trump to deal
| with the covid shut down of the economy contributed to
| inflation, as did the war in ukraine and supply chain
| disruptions, but that also, everything the dems did after
| that made the problem worse. By the time Biden took power,
| vaccines were getting rolled out, lockdowns were not
| warranted anymore, and the massive spending that Biden pushed
| was unnecessarily inflationary, as Manchin said at the time.
| And the fed kept printing money way after it should have
| stopped, most likely to support Biden's spending plan.
| epolanski wrote:
| Inflation happened globally not just in the US.
|
| Also salaries in US kept with the inflation while globally
| they didn't.
|
| The US economy is doing great, but inflation doesn't make it
| feel like it.
|
| I myself feel it.
|
| I'm not from US, I'm European and make around $110k per year.
|
| Yet I skip on 5EUR/kg tomatoes even though I made 28k just 3
| years ago and they costed half of it.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| The sad fact is that if you have to explain something to
| voters, you've lost.
|
| Voters don't want explanations, they want solutions.
|
| You be correct and say something factually as "The economy is
| fine, all indicators are moving the right direction - we're
| back to pre-COVID levels" but still lose massively on that.
|
| And as it turns out, whether or not your solutions is rooted
| in reality - apparently doesn't mater for the average voter.
|
| Harris went with the "We're not gonna make any changes", when
| people are moaning about the economy. That was her fatal
| error.
|
| Trump and MAGA continued to hammer on about how terrible the
| economy is, and how they're going to make China pay, while
| lowering taxes.
|
| Again: voters don't want explanations, they want solutions.
| timssopomo wrote:
| No, it's the failure to do anything about it.
|
| Americans got robbed of something between 20-40% of the
| purchasing power of their dollar depending on what they're
| buying. People aren't stupid, they know they're getting
| hoodwinked when someone focuses on the fact that the rate of
| robbery is slowing down rather then the fact that they didn't
| stop the robbery in the first place.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Do you find it strange that to get cheaper groceries you had to
| vote for a convicted criminal?
|
| Can I even work in America with a criminal record?
|
| How do people look past this, I'm really having a bit of a
| moral crisis today about why I even bother paying taxes or
| obeying any laws since this whole thing happened.
|
| Do I just tell my kids to be successful, jut be like Trump?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > Do I just tell my kids to be successful, jut be like Trump?
|
| Trump is a failed real estate tycoon, his companies went
| bankrupt three times; banks won't lend him money anymore
| because he always shafts them. He got a big inheritance and
| lucky that he had some charisma so could make it on TV. He is
| not successful role model (well, con-man maybe).
| lazyeye wrote:
| A very large number of Americans (100 million+?) dont see
| Trump as a convicted criminal. They see a govt that
| weaponized the justice system to target their political
| opponent. It's a reason to vote for Trump, not against him.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Yeah, I do see that side of it too, I think it was
| incredibly stupid to try him for anything if he wouldn't be
| jailed.
| speeder wrote:
| It was monumentally stupid to convict Trump for a "crime"
| that was basically someone else filling his taxes wrong.
| Something most USA people would feel is unfair and could
| happen to them.
|
| Also I am not from USA and very happy I don't have to
| deal with TurboTax lobbying and shenanigans thar make the
| USA tax code to be just crazy.
|
| Also the "bank fraud" trial is also monumentally stupid
| when they wanted to convict him and close his companies
| (thus making people lose their jobs) for doing something
| that resulted in profits for the supposed victim. Victim
| in fact that explained multiple times they were pleased
| with the business and would do it again.
|
| The message in the second case was: we will take your
| jobs because your boss made a good deal, don't vote for
| him!
|
| And of course this is just idiotic.
| Bhilai wrote:
| He was convicted by a Jury not any left leaning judge or
| whatever.
| xienze wrote:
| Yes, for the crime of the century of... classifying hush
| payments to a porn star (which is legal) as a legal
| expense instead of a campaign expense. And then they made
| each time he signed a check a separate count, so they
| could make a big deal of "34 fElOnIeS!!!" Not weaponized,
| indeed.
|
| It's the most mundane thing that has been "Trumped up" to
| the extent that anti-Trumpers act like he murdered
| someone. Everyone else thinks "oh wow, improperly
| classifying an expense, who cares."
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| He is technically convicted by a jury. It will be
| interesting to see how they get around that, it doesn't go
| away just because he was elected president, and he can't
| pardon himself from a state charge.
| lazyeye wrote:
| In the most left-wing jurisdiction in America by a DA
| that campaigned on "getting Trump", who was famous for
| reducing felonies to misdemeanors, but in the case of
| Trump raised a misdemeanor to a felony. And this was for
| a charge for which there was no precedent, and nor was
| there any victim. And the judges daughter had connections
| to the Democrat party too. People arent stupid.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Just to make sure you have all the legal facts:
| https://youtu.be/KnapsSRptqg?si=7C_tqLO9UGlGxYQA
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Well, if they want to use conspiracy theories in their
| appeals, they are welcome to, and the Supreme court is
| basically in Trump's pockets, so they could always just
| make a "because we say so" ruling that annuls the state
| jury verdict.
| Glyptodon wrote:
| You are experiencing Lincoln's Lyceum Address in action.
| drawkward wrote:
| The groceries won't get cheaper--deflation is arguably worse
| than inflation.
| Redoubts wrote:
| > How do people look past this
|
| Why should we discriminate against justice impacted
| individuals?
| Bhilai wrote:
| Absolutely! You are not alone. We have elected a convict as a
| president. The person who instigated a mob in attacking the
| Capital. The person who misled his base about 2020 election.
| Got impeached... the Trump saga goes on.
| ComplexSystems wrote:
| I don't think that the problem is that Democrats didn't explain
| the technical definition of inflation well enough. The problem
| is that people can't afford to buy things. Having better
| infographics on how inflation is the derivative of price
| doesn't really solve that problem.
| drawkward wrote:
| That's my point! By talking about how great they are doing on
| inflation, the DNC campaign was LOSING votes because people
| experience _prices_ which don 't go down when inflation is
| "normal".
| akira2501 wrote:
| They lost because they forgot about wages and retirement
| savings.
|
| Inflation was uneven. It impacted prices but not wages or
| savings. It reduced citizen wealth directly and transferred
| it to corporations and the already wealthy.
|
| They wanted to publicize the problem but not actually take
| the cure. Now they have zero mandate in any institution.
| That's what selling out your base gets you.
| startupsfail wrote:
| The media wasn't talking about that, it was repeating in a
| loop: "The economy will be better with Trump", including
| the media in the far left.
| no_wizard wrote:
| And with tariffs incoming, this is going to get worse, not
| better.
|
| Trump is very serious about tariffs, and the president has
| more unilateral authority in this arena than folks realize,
| he wouldn't even need an act of congress to do alot in this
| arena
| ComplexSystems wrote:
| No arguments there. I certainly expect tariffs will lead to
| inflation getting much worse.
| vundercind wrote:
| If it hits major economic metrics in a way that makes him
| nervous, watch out for what he might do to the Fed. So
| long to a relatively-depoliticized institution. He was
| already grumbling about them in 2020. Hell he might just
| lead with politicizing the Fed. Guess we'll see.
| r2_pilot wrote:
| >Hell he might just lead with politicizing the Fed. Guess
| we'll see.
|
| Why would he not? It's not like he respects institutions
| such as the Supreme Court. And what repercussions has he
| ever faced for the destruction of norms and guardrails?
| If anything, he gains even more support.
| vundercind wrote:
| I'm banking on the resulting stupid-low interest rates to
| refi my mortgage to help survive the guaranteed crash
| after. Not even joking. Great sympathy to those for whom
| that's not an option. I figure there is an outside chance
| that such a move will _fail_ to drop rates to the level
| it normally would because banks will _also_ be worried,
| in which case I guess I'm just screwed as much as
| everyone else.
|
| Damn whoever used that "may you live in interesting
| times" curse once to many times.
| ToDougie wrote:
| What disrespect has he shown, ever, for the Supreme
| Court? And if the norms mean giving all of our tax
| dollars to NATO for nothing in return, why wouldn't you
| destroy those norms? After all, I voted for him on that
| basis.
| belorn wrote:
| View the tariffs as carbon tax that represent the true
| cost of goods being produced in a coal heavy country and
| transported on boats that burn the most dirty kind of oil
| possible. It makes the whole thing look quite nicer and
| the economic cost a bit more worth it.
| xnx wrote:
| > It's the economy, stupid:
|
| It's the [perception of the] economy, stupid:
|
| As I'm learning, perception beats all.
| talldrinkofwhat wrote:
| "You're supposed to make only two quarts of Kool-Aid from a
| package, but he always made a gallon, so his Kool-Aid was a
| mere shadow of its desired potency. And you're supposed to
| add a cup of sugar to every package of Kool-Aid, but he never
| put any sugar in his Kool-Aid because there wasn't any sugar
| to put in it.
|
| He created his own Kool-Aid reality and was able to
| illuminate himself by it." -Brautigan
| hackyhacky wrote:
| > It's the economy, stupid:
|
| You are giving Americans too much credit.
|
| Regular Americans don't have any idea what's going. They don't
| know what inflation is, or what is causing it. They only know
| what they're told, so what matters is who they listen to. (Look
| at recent polls that show that Republicans _feel_ that they are
| heavily impacted by inflation, and Democrats much less so.)
| Unfortunately, the traditional sources of information have lost
| the trust of a large body of the American people, so they look
| elsewhere for a source of trust, and they find it in a
| charismatic con-man.
|
| Trump spent years pretending to be a businessman on TV, and
| that skills pays off at his rallies and his interviews, where
| he perfected the improvisation that rubes mistakes for
| sincerity. Any other politician speaks in rehearsed cliches,
| which Americans have been accustomed to, and which they
| associate with dishonesty, even when they're telling the truth.
| It helps, and does not hurt, that Trump says crazy shit that
| keeps people entertained. I don't believe that politics
| _should_ be based on that kind of thrill, but apparently it is.
|
| Trump's actual policy proposals are mostly nonsense, but it
| doesn't matter. If you want to compete with him, you have to to
| be (a) interesting and (b) persuasive.
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| Yes, exactly.
|
| The election results don't make much sense in terms of
| serious policy. Voters worry about inflation: they vote for
| tariffs? Voters worry about democracy: they vote for the guy
| responsible for J6? Voters are 50% female: they vote for a
| SCOTUS that care less women's issues? The only issue where a
| vote for Trump coincides with voter concerns is immigration.
|
| It's easier to explain this election in terms of "Trump seems
| confident and strong... Harris seems scripted and phony." The
| closest thing to a real issue is probably the impression that
| "Democrats are a bunch of radical woke communists"
| deepsquirrelnet wrote:
| Amusingly/sadly JD Vance could tell you exactly why Trump wins.
| The secret is empty promises. In an unfortunate way, it's a
| kind of empathetic approach.
|
| It's why he called Trump the "opioid of the masses"[1]. You
| just make promises even when you know it's total BS. But at
| least people are feeling heard.
|
| I think the average voter really doesn't want to have a nuanced
| discussion where they learn about the problems that they're
| experiencing. They just want to hear someone say "I got
| this"... even if they don't.
|
| [1]
| https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/opioid-...
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Czechia was hit by pretty bad inflation too, after decades of
| very low inflation rates. Our current government will likely
| lose the election in a year as a consequence.
|
| Being in office when inflation hits is a recipe for electoral
| disaster, regardless of actual culpability, which, in this
| interconnected world, is likely lower than perceived.
| deepfriedchokes wrote:
| I would argue it's not just the economy, but capitalism in
| general is no longer serving the public well, and hasn't for a
| long time. It is corrupting our public institutions, it is
| creating poverty and suffering, and it abuses power to exploit
| people. Capitalism is abusive, and very often the things that
| we aren't supposed to talk about are what we need to talk about
| the most.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| I agree, Capitalism is not working any longer. Maybe changing
| it would be a start in the right direction (Not that it would
| ever happen)
| NobleLie wrote:
| Schumpeter called it the eroding foundation of Capitalism.
| Its not technically Capitalism, as the system, at fault
| though. It's interesting. Feel free to explore it more. Or
| perhaps you already do
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Can I ask, what do you think is likely to happen to inflation
| when you slap tariffs on imports?
| drawkward wrote:
| Oh, it's gonna send inflation through the roof. Trump's
| economic policies are likely disastrous, and I am fretting
| about my 401k.
|
| That said, I have been contending that people experience
| _prices_ and talking about lowering _inflation_ when _prices_
| have recently gone up is net negative for the incumbent
| administration.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Trump has also proposed devaluing the dollar, on top of
| tariffs.
|
| Imposing tariffs, and starting a trade war, will surely mean
| that imports will shoot up in price for the consumer. Exports
| will suffer, which is likely why he'll also try to devalue
| the dollar - to make exports be more attractive amid the
| receiving countries tariffs.
|
| So that's a double-whammy as far as prices go, for the
| consumer.
|
| His grand plan is of course to bring back manufacturing to
| the US - or that foreign companies will set up plants in the
| US. But that doesn't happen overnight, and there's no
| automatic mechanism that will make the companies do so.
|
| And Trump has been clear about imposing the highest tariffs
| on all Chinese imports. Now look around you, and try to
| estimate how many things you see that are made in China.
|
| Then you have the other countries, too, which will get hit
| with tariffs.
| throw_that_away wrote:
| I think people keep saying crap like this: Prices can
| absolutely come down without killing the economy. It's done by
| doing smart things that republicans were making talking points:
|
| * Drill for oil, lower the price of gas, prices at the store
| come down.
|
| * Stop the wars that make for unstable access for gas.
|
| * Create pipelines so that instead of "flaring" Natural gas, we
| transport it cheaply to be used for electricity generation
|
| * Change the tariff structure so that American goods are worth
| something against Chinese imports that raises the value of the
| dollar which lowers the cost of goods
|
| * Stop the insane energy policies that raise gas prices by 45
| cents per gallon (in CA for example) for 0.0001% change in
| climate
|
| NONE of these were democrat talking points.
| mike_d wrote:
| > * Drill for oil, lower the price of gas, prices at the
| store come down.
|
| Strategically and economically stupid. Buy oil when everyone
| has it, sell oil when everyone else has ran out.
|
| > * Stop the wars that make for unstable access for gas.
|
| The US military is the largest socialist jobs program in the
| world and is the single greatest creator of skilled labor for
| our economy.
|
| > * Change the tariff structure so that American goods are
| worth something against Chinese imports that raises the value
| of the dollar which lowers the cost of goods
|
| Lets say you make widgets for $9 and sell them to me for $10
| (a healthy 10% profit). The government comes along and tells
| you there is a $2 tariff on widgets. Are you going to sell me
| widgets at $8 (a $1 loss) or raise the price to $12? Tariffs
| are a tax on goods paid by the buyer and a way to de-
| incentivize overseas production. But here is the problem - do
| _you_ want to make 39 cents an hour sewing soccer balls or do
| _you_ want to pay 10x for that soccer ball so that an
| American can have a livable wage doing the sewing for you?
|
| The "American Dream" is exploitation of cheap overseas labor
| because of our superior economic position. Regardless of how
| you feel about that morally, Trump's economic plan is to try
| and figure out how to on-shore the lowest paid factory jobs.
| seadan83 wrote:
| Oil production is at all time highs (AFAIL). Further,
| drilling locally for oil does not directly reduce local
| prices. It is still shipped abroad to the highest bidder.
| That is ignoring the refinement issues that not all oil is
| equal and needs to be refined.
|
| 'Just' stop wars short of surrendering is easy to say. No
| evidence Republicans actually could deliver or prevent. Just
| talk.
|
| The tariffs were largely kept in place between Biden and
| Trump. The criticism here would apply equally to both but
| also ignores trade wars.
|
| The pipeline bit is perhaps viable, but a drop in the bucket
| (with respect to at least the keystone XL [1])
|
| [1] https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-895299166310
|
| "Even if the Keystone XL pipeline had been completed, the
| amount of oil it was designed to transport would have been a
| drop in the bucket for U.S. demand, experts noted. The U.S.
| used nearly 20 million barrels of oil a day last year, while
| global consumption of oil was near 100 million barrels. The
| pipeline would have contributed less than 1% to the world
| supply of oil, according to AP reporting.
|
| "The total volume of additional supply is negligible in a
| market that uses 100 million barrels of oil every day,""
| hokumguru wrote:
| I think the way I am interpreting the parent comments is
| that whether or not these Republican promises are true or
| viable is beside the point.
|
| The right still has them as talking points, where the left
| has failed miserably. Talking about any potential solutions
| seems to have enticed American voters more than trying to
| sweep it under the rug.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| > Stop the insane energy policies that raise gas prices by 45
| cents per gallon (in CA for example) for 0.0001% change in
| climate
|
| You mean the gas taxes that fund road maintenance? That tax
| is a tyranny imposed by how much we rely on cars, not by
| climate change.
| throw_that_away wrote:
| It's funny how other states must use magic wands to fix
| their roads, obviously since the gas prices are not jacked
| up as high elsewhere.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| I don't understand the sarcasm. Comparable states like
| Texas and New York charge far more in tolls than
| California. Many states have far fewer roads (with less
| usage), or they underfund their road maintenance, don't
| repair them, and then rely on federal funds to make
| emergency repairs after something critical breaks.
| aydyn wrote:
| Underlying the sarcasm is the assertion that California
| is not fiscally responsible with its budget. Understand
| now?
| tomrod wrote:
| The tolls are 1. Used to fix toll lanes, much more
| prevalent now than in the past 2. Payments to private
| companies who siphon the proceeds out of the area they
| services
|
| Gas tax is much better in this regard, but all of these
| are pretty extortionary.
| mpalczewski wrote:
| California has the worst roads of any state I've driven in.
| San Fran and San Jose, rank among the top 10 in the country
| of the worst roads. Whatever they are using it for, isn't
| for road maintenance.
| elif wrote:
| >Drill for oil
|
| Current admin did this at record rates
|
| >Stop the wars that make for unstable access for gas
|
| The US is a net exporter of energy so the instability is
| helpful
|
| >Create pipelines
|
| We have already entered the late stage hydrocarbon era.
| Massive imminent domain projects for a decade or two of
| utility are I advised
|
| >Change the tariff
|
| We cannot go to a pre-globalization time. Alea iacta est. The
| only way for tariffs to work against BRICS would be a
| unilateral tariff which would affect all American commerce.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| "It's the economy, stupid:"^1
|
| That unoriginal theory as applied to this election appears to
| be based on exit polls. History has shown these polls are
| unreliable.
|
| 1. Pundits like the one who penned this quip^2 just aren't
| worth much anymore.
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Carville
| fizx wrote:
| Prices always go up. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower. We can
| slow it, but it's a fool's errand to make them go down. When I
| was a kid, I could get an ice cream cone for a 50 cents. That's
| never coming back.
|
| Now that we've slowed inflation to a manageable level, we need
| to grow wages to catch up. I never heard a good plan on that
| from either side.
| SuperNinKenDo wrote:
| There's a reason the term "deflation" exists, and it's not
| simply a theoretical concept. Constant inflation is a
| political choice, entirely so in the age of fiat currency,
| whatever you think of it.
|
| The reason you never hear a good plan for growing wages to
| catch inflation is because inflation is a form of
| intentionally regressive taxation. For reasons of
| macroeconomic theories meeting special interests with socio-
| political leverage.
| teeray wrote:
| > There's a reason the term "deflation" exists
|
| Which has always been treated as a spooky four-letter word
| in economics. I remember the news stories in 2008 when we
| had a brief period of deflation and the headlines were
| particularly apocalyptic (even despite the overall grim
| economic news of the time).
| nickfromseattle wrote:
| >The Dems failed on this count massively
|
| The Dems failed to communicate inflation is a global phenomena
| and that the US has faired far better at reducing inflation,
| unemployment and GDP growth then the rest of the developed
| world.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Current news stories seem to suggest that the upcoming
| administration will likely worsen inflation.
|
| https://0x0.st/XDTK.png
| typeofhuman wrote:
| Inflation is the devaluation of currency. Lowering purchasing
| power.
| DEADMEAT wrote:
| No, it's definitely the sexism and racism.
| bagels wrote:
| Most people are completely innumerate. It's an impossible task.
| hintymad wrote:
| Yet Paul Krugman told us that inflation was going down if we
| didn't include food, gas and etc. Just for this kind of
| gaslighting by the elites, the democrats deserve a giant middle
| finger.
| tomrod wrote:
| Absolutely, 100%. Biden and Harris have failed in the messaging
| all along, dramatically and obviously!!
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| They failed on the policy too. Good policy makes for good
| messaging.
| hintymad wrote:
| I'm better off than 4 years ago, thanks to stock market. I
| guess that has to do with Biden-Harris' policies. That said,
| people are not just economic animals, right? My blood boils
| when the left attacks 1A, and when Kamala blames retailers for
| price gauging.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| It doesn't help that they've let retailers merge into
| monopolies for the last 40 years.
| dcchambers wrote:
| The Democrats need to figure out how to recapture the favor of
| young men. The Joe Rogans/Logan Pauls/Elon Musks/Tiktok/Podcast
| bros are doing serious damage to that demographic. Almost a +30
| swing to the right in the 18-29 M category from 2020.
| downrightmike wrote:
| No, those young men need to stop being losers and get their
| shit together, they aren't kids anymore
| cheapsteak wrote:
| Telling people to stop being losers is a not winning
| strategy; might feel good, wouldn't do good.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Someone has to tell them.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
| keep doing what you're doing. It's working.
| anthomtb wrote:
| Since promoting a secure economic future is clearly not in the
| Democratic party game plan, maybe trick the Republicans into
| starting a war and then campaign on stopping it?
|
| I am not sure what could hit at the self-interest of the 18-29M
| demographic other than the Selective Service.
| raintrees wrote:
| One of the original predictions that might be entertaining(?) to
| see would be the US having its first President "run" the country
| from prison... And the follow-up situation to witness, how
| different would that look, in the end?
|
| For those who think rather than just react, I guess it would not
| be as entertaining...?
| takinola wrote:
| No chance he gets a prison sentence for the NY case. He will
| get a suspended sentence or some other slap on the wrist. The
| Federal cases are dead. There is no chance they can continue
| while he is in office and they will be killed by the time he
| leaves.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Trying to overturn the 2020 election turned out to be a great
| move because the Dem institutionalists were too sclerotic to
| prosecute the case aggressively and wasted massive amounts of
| time and resources on going after proles while letting the
| architects of the plot get off more or less scot-free.
| pitaj wrote:
| It will be overturned on appeal
| ljsprague wrote:
| Is our current president even "running" the country?
| satisfice wrote:
| The garbage states have selected the garbage president.
|
| I suppose, as a man, I should feel exultant in the power of my
| gender to dominate women and flout the rule of law. But I just
| feel like garbage.
| imperialdrive wrote:
| There are beautiful peaceful and kind neighborhoods in every
| state. I hope you are in one of them. Take a nice walk and have
| some tea or coffee at a local cafe. It's the local atmosphere
| and government that matter most.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > The garbage states have selected the garbage president.
|
| Language and attitudes like this are a big part of how we got
| here.
| satisfice wrote:
| No, it isn't. Being able and willing to tell the truth has
| never been the problem.
|
| The man just elected is a derelict. A twice impeached,
| incompetent, convicted criminal. A tool of Russian
| propaganda. This is fact. The people who elected him knew
| this or should have known it.
|
| Anyone can be randomly abusive-- Trump does this all the
| time. Literally every day. It's documented. It's fact. That's
| not what I am doing.
|
| My contempt is warranted.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Calling people "garbage" is unacceptable.
|
| I fail to see how 'Trump does it' is supposed to be any
| kind of ethical argument.
| nixdev wrote:
| > I should feel exultant in the power of my gender to dominate
| women and flout the rule of law.
| http://stonetoss.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/male-feminist-
| comic.png
| borg16 wrote:
| one thing i definitely worry is about using public lands for oil,
| mineral extraction purposes.
|
| while America has a bounty of public land acreage wise, 4 years
| and a complete control of the government is a lot of time to do
| some lasting damage to the ecosystem by opening up these areas
| for privatization.
| _heimdall wrote:
| The recent media attention on possible lithium fields in and
| around Arkansas was an interesting one to me. It seems like one
| that I could see the DNC latching onto for battery capacity
| despite the fact that it would still likely meaning he same
| kind of impact in federal land as mining oil, coal, etc.
| fraserharris wrote:
| Lithium deposits are common -- Nevada has significant ones
| too. The question is if the lithium is concentrated enough to
| make extracting it financially viable.
| _heimdall wrote:
| That wasn't really my point though. The discovered
| deposits, well expected deposits since its based on
| modelling data, could easily lead to a massive mining
| operation to extract it. That will do damage very similar
| to the exact kind of fossil fuel extraction that is a main
| argument against fossil fuels and for alternative energy
| sources.
| Sabinus wrote:
| Republican voters apparently like digging up coal and
| working in factories, they'll be fine.
| danudey wrote:
| 4 years and a complete control of the supreme court guarantees
| lasting damage to the ecosystem (and all other aspects of
| society) since all the conservative/right-wing issues just need
| to be appealed up to SCOTUS and they'll get their way - and set
| legal precedent on the way.
|
| There's two justices ready to retire, and if Trump replaces
| them (and he will) that'll be five supreme court justices
| appointed by Trump and chosen by his cronies. The entire legal
| system will be corrupted for decades.
| qingcharles wrote:
| Right. This is the biggest damage Trump can do because it
| lasts so long after his presidency.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Well, the size of the Supreme Court is not fixed at nine. A
| future Democratic president might just work to increase it
| to give it more balance.
| jayGlow wrote:
| wouldn't that just start an arms race of each side trying
| to stack the court whenever they're in power?
| nateglims wrote:
| Yeah, same with ending filibuster and other speculated
| tactics. I don't think you can close the door behind you
| without a constitutional amendment, which won't happen.
| nocoolnametom wrote:
| Yes, but each time diluting the power of the justices
| individually. Right now if you have one wacko justice who
| decides on the basis of political ideology instead of
| some of the established legal theories they have 11% of a
| say in things. Add another few justices who are
| relatively normal and the ability of the wacko to swing
| things into dangerous territory goes down. Even if the
| tit-for-tat tries to cram more wackos in you have to try
| to convince the Senate to let more and more obviously
| terribly choices through.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Everyone thinks that the Dems and Republicans are
| different sides, but they are on the same side, money.
| This has been going on for at least 50 years. Every 5
| years I hear this bull shit. IF the dems got in it would
| be more balanced. Nothing changes until we reevaluate our
| support for system that doesn't serve us.
| scotty79 wrote:
| You can't really tell how long his presidency lasts. Two
| term limit is just a rule that can be changed with help of
| judiciary branch. If Americans want him for a third term
| who'd object?
| lelandfe wrote:
| Trying to reinterpret "No person shall be elected to the
| office of the President more than twice" to allow for
| that would be quite a spectacular feat of jurisprudence.
| scotty79 wrote:
| It's just 22nd amendment. Can't be more important than
| the will of the nation. The only question is do the
| Americans like Trump as much as they like booze or can it
| be at least made to look like they do.
| barkerja wrote:
| Theoretically, if changes were put into place to allow a
| run for a third term (which is highly unlikely given
| age), then that also opens the door for someone like
| Obama running again.
| sirbutters wrote:
| Key word here is "elected". Prepare for their
| justification like "well XYZ is not _really_ an election
| so.... "
| psunavy03 wrote:
| People don't seem to understand that even Trump's judges
| still see themselves as JUDGES. They're not going to just
| make stuff up that's not in the law, and there were
| several instances in his first term where his own SCOTUS
| Justices told him to pound sand. It's not so simple as
| "nominated by Trump == inherently corrupt," much as he'd
| like it to be that way.
| lelandfe wrote:
| As a counter point, almost all of the _Trump_ decision
| was "made up." Especially all of the stuff about
| admissibility of evidence is whole cloth law.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > They're not going to just make stuff up that's not in
| the law,
|
| The mechanism is that Trump makes up the law, then it's
| sent to judges and they say "yup, this law is fine and
| just and in line with US law system".
|
| > Justices told him to pound sand
|
| He learned. Now he selects for loyalty alone.
| chucke1992 wrote:
| Trump is too old at this point.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Only saving grace. Although Putin is just 6 years younger
| and his strive to leave legacy already messed up the
| world. One can only wonder what mess will Trump's
| attempts at leaving legacy cause.
| lelandfe wrote:
| Bingo. The Tea Party went away. MAGA, though, is now
| harpooned straight into the checks and balances for a
| lifetime.
| chucke1992 wrote:
| Yeah, well essentially republican went through 2
| transformations over the last 8 years.
| bas wrote:
| Indeed. 5th Circuit -> SCOTUS will easy mode for right-wing
| causes (if it isn't already).
| crdrost wrote:
| One irony atop another: securing this land (against the
| onslaught of big business) was a celebration for Conservatives,
| not Liberals.
|
| That and, I miss the Republican party that didn't actively try
| to piss off the ACLU every hour on the hour. It's just
| nonstop...
|
| * book bans * rhetoric about sending the military after
| political opponents * politicians ruled as being above the law
| * short circuiting due process with immigrants, both illegal
| and not * breaking up families of would-be asylum seekers for
| no damn reason * the Trump Muslim ban * the constant erection
| of/for Ten Commandments statues
|
| It used to be a thing in some conservative circles, "No, that
| teacher is Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region
| Council of 1912, not Council of 1879, I don't want _his people_
| educating my child about what he thinks the Ten Commandments
| really mean!!"
|
| I used to fancy myself a conservative back then. The ACLU and
| libertarians were the people that the Left had kind of given up
| on, and we were happy to say "yes, come be conservative with
| us, and we will try not to piss you off." Now everyone has
| given up on them, they had to hold their noses and vote Kamala
| and pray for a few more years of "not again."
|
| I'm not even a libertarian, just don't understand why we are
| wasting resources pissing them off
| autoexec wrote:
| The environment is certainly screwed. I also expect that
| regulations against air and water pollution will be on the
| chopping block so not only will the ecosystem suffer, but the
| population will too.
| culi wrote:
| It's hard to see Trump do any worse than Biden on this front,
| but I'm sure he'll try. Biden admin approved over 50% more
| oil/drilling permits than Trump. More than any president in
| history
| kagakuninja wrote:
| And yet people continue to blame Biden for high energy
| prices. Boggles the mind.
| aksss wrote:
| In short, granting permits from lease sales performed in
| the last administration is a trailing indicator of.. the
| last administration's activity.
|
| The more important measure for the Biden administration's
| energy development policy was how many new lease sales were
| performed, and how many leases were effectively cancelled
| or otherwise put in limbo.
|
| Some resources to help "unboggle" the mind:
|
| https://www.energyindepth.org/why-bidens-oil-drilling-
| permit...
|
| "Mixed messages from the administration - like canceling
| lease sales one minute and touting approved permits to
| drill the next - create uncertainty within the energy
| industry, hindering long-term investments and exacerbating
| challenges for the United States"
|
| https://archive.is/9x1an "The Biden administration has
| leased fewer acres for oil-and-gas drilling offshore and on
| federal land than any other administration in its early
| stages dating back to the end of World War II, according to
| a Wall Street Journal analysis."
|
| "The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 requires onshore oil and
| gas leasing "at least quarterly." While the Biden
| administration has been in office for six quarters, it has
| conducted auctions in just one of them. That happened in
| late June, after the administration came under increasing
| pressure to tame soaring gasoline prices at the pump in the
| wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine."
|
| "Mr. Biden pledged to stop drilling on federal lands as a
| candidate, saying the nation needs to transition to clean
| energy. He softened his stance as oil prices soared
| following Russia's invasion of Ukraine--calling for
| boosting oil supplies to ease runaway inflation--but he has
| nonetheless spurned a leasing program that for decades has
| been a go-to asset for presidents looking to raise U.S.
| energy production."
| niuzeta wrote:
| If this is what America wants, then it is what America deserves.
|
| Political parties and candidates may sway the public one way or
| another, perhaps even deceive them. But in the end, it is the
| populace that ultimately decides.
|
| The first time may have been a mistake, but the second time is a
| definite intentional.
|
| I'm just not sure if the world deserves this.
| keybored wrote:
| The man was given the choice of what to eat: manchineel bark or
| feces. The man made a choice. "Ah", said the offerer of two
| choices: then that is what you deserve.
| aredox wrote:
| Don't worry, in 2028, you won't even have any choice, you
| will be force-fed forever and there will be only one thing on
| the menu
| medo-bear wrote:
| As opposed to what the mass media has been doing and will
| continue to do ?
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| Ah, the self-proclaimed mass media critics! Everyone else
| is somehow badly influenced by the nasty mass media but
| they see right through it with their superior intellect.
| They don't need correspondents and professionals to
| actually go where something is happening, they _know_ the
| truth intuitively, perhaps even a priori.
| keybored wrote:
| One role of the media is to set the Overton Window. And
| to more generally set the confines for reasonable
| opinion. Have you been living under a rock?
| RpmReviver wrote:
| It's not about superior intellect, it's about incentive
| structures
|
| Looking at how the incentive structures are laid out,
| it's clear there's no incentive to be honest to normal
| people. They need the advertising dollars to exist, and
| we are suppose to trust big pharma's enormous advertising
| budget doesn't impact the business decisions at media
| companies? That's just big pharma, who else is playing
| the game?
|
| There's no medical test to diagnose depression, all you
| can do is observe behavior and talk about it
|
| Seeing bad behavior and lies over and over, decade after
| decade erodes trust and reveals the kind of people they
| are, if it was some radical group with no real power
| there would be less concern, but they have a tremendous
| amount of money and influence
| EricDeb wrote:
| Equally bad incentives apply to smaller ("alternative")
| media outlets right wingers consume.
| wahern wrote:
| Fox News is by a huge margin the most popular news
| outlet. Throw in the New York Post (huge presence on the
| internet) and the WSJ, and conservative media _is_ the
| mainstream media at this point.
|
| They also shilled for Trump relentlessly, without
| pretense. But that's beside the point. The left should
| accept that they no longer represent the aspirations and
| priorities of the mainstream or even of ethnic
| minorities, and the right should stop with the underdog
| charade. They've swapped sides. Of course, neither side
| will make that admission anytime soon.
| lynx23 wrote:
| You can defend the ministry of truth as much as you want.
| There has been too much deception in recent years, people
| simply stop believing it. The meda were always there to
| steer "democracies", they even outright admit it by
| saying they are an integral part of the democratic
| process. People start to see through this deception.
| repeekad wrote:
| You won't get much traction on here but you're right, I
| think democrats often project issues actually happening
| on their own side
| cjfd wrote:
| Meh, you can watch MSNBC or Fox for quite different
| messages. Of course, the fascists are not complaining
| about the media because there is actually something wrong
| but to justify the eventual censorship.
| stormfather wrote:
| You're right. The media has been corrupted. It's only
| logical, over time the media is corrupted as an outgrowth
| of the Pareto principle applied to politics. Eventually
| all political systems are corrupted because those with
| power use their advantage to accrue more power in a self-
| reinforcing cycle. The media, as an obvious lever of
| power, is subject to this, just as are regulatory
| agencies, congresspeople, social media sites, etc. I
| don't understand how such an intelligent userbase can be
| so willfully blind and naive. What began to open my eyes
| was the pandemic and the Ukraine war. Not that the
| establishment positions were necessarily wrong, but I
| felt the manipulation was easy to sense.
| lolinder wrote:
| Part of the reason why Harris lost is because this line
| about democracy ending if Trump wins is about all she could
| offer as a reason to vote for her, and the average voter
| doesn't believe it. I guess now we'll all get to see if the
| dire warnings were at all founded in reality, but it was a
| critical mistake to turn up the rhetoric so hot and not
| realize that it made the moderate voters take her _less_
| seriously.
|
| It was just a bad strategy in every way: it reduced their
| odds of winning the election, and if they were right it
| won't matter because there will be no election. If they
| were wrong, then they burned a whole bunch of credibility
| pushing what turned out to be a conspiracy theory.
|
| And if both parties are conspiracy theory parties, the
| moderate voter can't use that as a razor.
| BWStearns wrote:
| It's not a conspiracy theory. Trump literally tried
| overturning the last election via fraud and violence.
| It's incredibly well documented.
|
| In any case we're entering the find out phase.
| lolinder wrote:
| It's literally a conspiracy theory, the question at hand
| is whether there really is a conspiracy.
|
| My point is not that they're wrong and Trump won't
| successfully end democracy (I think the odds are low but
| non-zero), my point is that the strategy blew up in the
| DNC's faces and should have been identified as a terrible
| plan from the start.
|
| Being a Cassandra is not a winning playbook. Being able
| to say "I told you so" is small comfort, and that's the
| package they chose when they decided to make themselves
| _look_ crazy to the electorate. If they believed
| democracy to be in danger the correct move was to
| nominate an electable candidate last year, not wait until
| Biden turned out to be unelectable and then start
| screaming about the end of democracy.
| klipt wrote:
| Now Trump in 2024 is even older than Biden when he
| assumed office in 2020. I doubt Trump will be calling the
| shots for all four years.
| iinnPP wrote:
| Casual age discrimination.
| klipt wrote:
| Have you listened to Trump's recent speeches? In 2016 he
| was very articulate and persuasive in his own way, but in
| 2024 his brain is clearly on the way out.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| It's not, but, you have to ask a question - if democrats
| believe this, and this is the correct messaging, why did
| they do practically _nothing_ to prevent things like this
| from becoming a reality? Or even propose a plan going
| forward as to how to prevent this again? Nothing came of
| Jan 6, nothing came of any of this, no matter who won,
| and it was very obvious that the plan was just "well as
| long as we're in power we won't slide into
| authoritarianism," but even if it wasn't Trump,
| eventually someone else is going to come along and beat
| them and begin wherever Trump left off.
|
| It's not very good messaging at its core. You can't say
| something is an existential crisis, and then spend 4
| years doing absolutely nothing about that crisis other
| than to say "vote for me again so that won't happen _this
| time_. "
| klipt wrote:
| > why did they do practically nothing to prevent things
| like this from becoming a reality?
|
| You mean like passing "The Electoral Count Reform and
| Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022"? That
| was literally written to support democracy and prevent
| another Jan 6.
|
| Obviously you can't write legislation to stop Trump
| winning _democratically_ while still supporting
| democracy.
|
| Dems have at least shown they're the party of supporting
| real democracy.
| hipadev23 wrote:
| > why did they do practically nothing to prevent things
| like this from becoming a reality
|
| https://www.npr.org/2022/12/22/1139951463/electoral-
| count-ac...
| JohnMakin wrote:
| This is like using a squirt gun in a forest fire. A
| meaningless change to a meaningless procedural "loophole"
| that had no chance of working whatsoever.
| mtswish wrote:
| They impeached him. Counter to Republican's rhetoric, the
| Democrats can't force the DOJ to press charges in a
| timely manner, but the DOJ eventually also pursued
| charges. So they attempted to fix this with:
|
| 1. Impeachment 2. Congressional Acts 3. Independent
| action from the Department of Justice 4. Individual
| states attempted to get him off their ballots for treason
|
| How about you describe what they should have done?
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| The whole artifical limitations on discourse and topics
| is a poisoned chalice the democrats seem not to be able
| to let go of, no matter how much depends on it. Ad to
| that a aristocratic inability to even perceive problems
| and a getting high on their own supply of virtue
| signaling and you get a recipe for disaster.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| > this line about democracy ending if Trump wins is about
| all she could offer as a reason to vote for her,
|
| This is a lie.
|
| > I guess now we'll all get to see if the dire warnings
| were at all founded in reality
|
| So, if he was lying or telling the truth?
|
| > If they were wrong, then they burned a whole bunch of
| credibility pushing what turned out to be a conspiracy
| theory.
|
| No they didn't. Republicans run the same claims every
| election and they win off it.
|
| > the moderate voter can't use that as a razor.
|
| Any informed voter would now Kamala offered more then
| "this line about democracy ending." Anyone who thinks
| this was "all she could offer as a reason to vote for
| her," you are really just saying "I was not informed."
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| I don't think it would hurt their credibility if they're
| wrong. It's not like they created that idea, they were
| just pointing out Trump's words and actions.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Nah, she was an utterly normal Obama era democrat, which
| is basically it same as an Obama era republican. She
| offered normal and reasonable level-headed leadership.
| Welcome to the FAFO era.
| curt15 wrote:
| Compared to Trump the Democrats are amateurs at messaging
| who seem to have no clue how to talk to the average Joe
| or Jane. Instead of using the Jan 6 riot to attack
| Trump's "law and order" image, they choose to frame it in
| terms of "democracy".
| anon291 wrote:
| Given the complete discrepancy in voter turnout for dems
| in 2020 v 2024, I think the core claim of the J6ers,
| namely that there was fraud that affected the 2020
| election, is becoming more and more likely. Especially
| since the only person to be killed on that day was a
| regular American (no cops were killed), I think, based on
| the voting, that most people see it as justified. I mean
| they just elected the guy who lost with huge margins in
| the _popular vote_
| yonaguska wrote:
| Roseanne Boyland was arguably killed by the police that
| day as well. Her death was ruled an amphetamines overdose
| to cover this up, she had a prescription for ADHD.
| curt15 wrote:
| If you want to know what Trump really believed about the
| 2020 election rather than what he wanted his supporters
| to think, look at the allegations that he and his
| election lawyers were actually willing to present in
| court. Since there would have been legal consequences for
| making stuff up, the court filings were far less
| sensational than his public PR.
| anon291 wrote:
| I don't know and don't really care. When I vote I don't
| rely only on evidence admissible in court. Most of the
| country does not follow politics as closely as some of
| the people here. We see what we see and vote on how that
| seems it will affect us.
| something98 wrote:
| I also like to keep my anti-tiger rock on me at all
| times. I don't really care that there's no evidence that
| it works. All I know is what I see, and I haven't seen
| any tigers.
| equalsione wrote:
| Given the generally high regard that the US has for
| service people - military, police, emergency services etc
| - it always puzzled me that Trump was never held to
| account (in a political, rather than legal sense) for the
| harm caused.
|
| Is there a reason why this has been glossed over? I
| thought that would surely be a red line for many of his
| supporters.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| "Law and order" was clearly a dog-whistle for 'treating
| suspects and minorities badly will make you feel safer'
| from the start . As evidenced by the blazing hypocrisy in
| a fucking felon running on "law and order" from a
| straightforward interpretation.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| So many reasons to vote for her and you remember only the
| democracy ending part? Also, the moderate voter would not
| take her seriously because of her saying that? Did you
| wipe out your memory about what happened when he lost not
| so very long ago?
|
| To me this all feels like a far fetched tv drama became
| reality. It goes beyond any human understanding.
| xvector wrote:
| I want my taxes to go down, I want illegal immigration to
| end, and I don't give a shit about identity politics.
|
| I didn't vote for Trump but these are the fundamental
| truths the democrats keep on missing. This is what
| Americans care about.
|
| When you blather on about the other guy being Hitler
| instead of presenting real policy that people want,
| people are just gonna ignore you.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| I want my taxes go down and want illigal migration to end
| as well! I want illegal drugs and illegal weapons and all
| wars to disappear as well. I want everything to be great
| and florishing for all Americans and the world. Still I
| would never vote for Trump because he just shouts he will
| 'fix' it, as if he would be some kind of Messias with
| some magic powers, without explaining realistically how
| that it can even work. A lot of people seem to believe it
| just because they 'want to believe' or maybe because he
| says it in such monotonic (hypnotising maybe?) way.
| danielktdoranie wrote:
| Their "Trump is a dictator, literally Hitler, who will
| take away womens right to vote" didn't work the first
| time in 2015/2016 and it didn't work this time either.
| The U.S.A knows what a Trump presidency is like and they
| voted to have it again: it was that good.
|
| Democrats got their chance the last 4 years and instead
| of making the lives of U.S. Citizens better, they made it
| much worse, and shoved social justice issues down their
| throats that they didn't want.
|
| Cop on.
| munksbeer wrote:
| > Cop on.
|
| This sounds British. Are you American or British?
|
| I think your view is also largely hyperbole. It is a nice
| vote winning narrative to suggest that democrats did
| nothing but shove social justice issues down people's
| throats, but like you, I'm not American and I suspect
| that is just as much hyperbole as "Trump is literally
| Hitler".
|
| You're part of the division of hate that you seem like
| you're raging against, using messaging like that.
| butler14 wrote:
| I'm British and that phrasing jumped out at me too. Few
| year old account, no surprises... Probs a bot.
| anon291 wrote:
| According to the exit polling, voters most concerned
| about democracy voted Trump.
|
| My guess is that the worries on democracy have nothing to
| do with regular Americans getting riled up when their
| candidate lost (jan 6), and more to do with the entire
| political machine coming down on Trump after his loss in
| an attempt to take his wealth and imprison him in
| politically motivated lawsuits with made up charges.
| intended wrote:
| This is fiction, and we should not persist in describing
| politics in this term, since it doesnt help us see whats
| going on.
|
| It does sound harsh, and it is. We (people on HN), tend
| to talk about both candidates as if it was some equal
| comparison.
|
| However, this is adamantly not the case. Trump is not
| like _any_ candidate America has voted for in living
| memmory. He is SO outside of bounds, that frankly we
| collectively fail to understand him, and have to
| substitute some "default republican" candidate in our
| minds to deal with it.
|
| Even in your comment - "it was a critical mistake to turn
| up the rhetoric so hot", even you will agree that Trump
| is incredibly toxic and out there in his comments.
|
| Yet, you will genuinely feel that Harris/dems turned up
| the rhetoric. Not just this, there are a million places
| where blame is placed at the feet of Dems, for things
| that Trump or the GOP has done.
|
| Nothing the dems can do will make a difference, because
| the Republicans have the _superior_ model. Republicans
| can focus entirely on psychology, without having to worry
| about being called out on it, because Trump is simply
| causing an overflow whenever anyone has to deal with him.
|
| We all just end up "ignoring" whatever new incendiary
| thing he has done, and instead deal with the
| office/position of either "candidate" or "president",
| because those make sense.
|
| The dire warnings are literally founded in documents that
| are going to be enacted, based on what people are
| actively building teams for and recruiting.
|
| However, there is no measure of evidence, including
| action that has happened, that will move the needle. It
| simply wont, because its not what people care about.
|
| Some group will go to Reddit, to console themselves, the
| other group will go to Fox and the Consvervative bubble
| to reassure themselves. They will be given the same info
| that sells, and then they will learn to ignore everything
| that causes cognitive dissonance.
| aydyn wrote:
| It wasnt just Harris but the entire media and entire
| democratic establishment fabricating claims of Trump
| doom.
|
| The best thing Kamala could have done is to downplay that
| rhetoric and focus on issues. If she did that, I believe
| she wouldve won. But you can hardly blame her to go with
| the grain.
| knowitnone wrote:
| the reason Harris lost is because the Democrats are soft
| on everything. Soft on immigration, soft on crime. Even
| though I dislike Trump, I wouldn't vote for Democrats
| ever.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Ironically, the Democrats had a much more comprehensive
| policy position of course. But what matters to voters is
| what they _perceive_ and "what will you do for me". It's
| a propaganda war, and not yet clear to me whether we
| should blame the party or "the media" for losing it.
|
| The 13 Keys to the White House model finally failed. I
| don't think it's because of the subjective keys, but
| rather the objective keys don't match what people
| actually believe about the world. Again, Democrats lost
| the marketing battle somehow.
| aydyn wrote:
| > Ironically, the Democrats had a much more comprehensive
| policy position of course.
|
| Given all the buzz around Project 2025, thats certainly
| not perceptually true _even to democrats_.
|
| If Trump really had less comprehensive policy positions,
| then why did the media go on for months about this
| 1000-page policy document?
|
| You cant have your cake and eat it too.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| That's a fair point. I guess Democrats should have
| focused more on the "real policy" aspects of Project 2025
| (besides abortion?) rather than the "completely
| reorganize the Executive" (implement fascism) parts.
|
| Of course, Trump did distance himself from Project 2025,
| right? He clearly didn't like sharing the spotlight. How
| do we get to a situation where a candidate disavows
| knowledge of their presumptive policy paper, yet all the
| voters still believe that's his policy? Seems like an
| even more absurd example having your cake and eating it
| too.
| fulladder wrote:
| An underappreciated reason why Harris lost is that
| Democrats tried to switch candidates just a few months
| before the election. I'm not on one side or the other,
| but when I heard that Lorraine Jobs was pushing for a
| different candidate last July, I thought to myself, this
| is the dumbest idea I've ever seen. Indeed, it was.
| encoderer wrote:
| This is hyperbole.
| hobs wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/article/2024/jul/30/dona... from the man's lips to
| your ears.
| lolinder wrote:
| Did you even listen to the video clip in the article?
|
| > It's true, because we have to get the vote out.
| Christians are not known as a big voting group, they
| don't vote. And I'm explaining that to them. You never
| vote. This time, vote. I'll straighten out the country,
| you won't have to vote any more, I won't need your vote
| any more, you can go back to not voting.
|
| I hate Trump as much as anyone, but deliberately
| misconstruing every word he says is part of what cost
| Democrats the election. People saw through it.
| rkeene2 wrote:
| I think that given the context that he illegally tried to
| retain power after losing in 2020 that many people infer
| something into his words about reducing the need to vote
| dgfitz wrote:
| No, I think lolinder is correct.
|
| People don't like being told "here is what was said, here
| is what was MEANT because you're not educated enough and
| can't possibly understand" did Harris zero favors.
| rkeene2 wrote:
| I'm not sure in what respects you are disagreeing with me
| on, since I didn't mention anyone's level of education or
| intelligence -- I didn't mention anything about the
| people who interpret the statement in a benign way at
| all.
|
| I added my thoughts on why people would take that
| statement and infer some other meaning than his literal
| words, since those words are said as part of a broader
| context. This says nothing about the people who didn't do
| so.
|
| So, you starting a comment with "No" but then not
| addressing any point I made is confusing to me.
| cogman10 wrote:
| No, what cost them the election was the fact that Kamala
| ran a campaign of "I'm actually just a republican so you
| can vote for me". She dumped any sort of policy or
| position that'd scare away the mythical disaffected trump
| voter. She paraded around Liz Cheney FFS. WTF likes the
| Cheneys?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _She dumped any sort of policy or position that 'd
| scare away the mythical disaffected trump voter_
|
| We just saw a national rejection of progressive
| politicians. To the extent she screwed up, it was in
| having a numpty VP instead of Shapiro and declining to be
| more specific on policies that would offend the left wing
| of the base. We'll probably see a midterm backlash,
| however, so the message isn't "everyone tack right."
| cogman10 wrote:
| What policy?
|
| The only leftwing policy she adopted was abortion.
| Otherwise, she ran on being tough on the border,
| upholding the 2nd amendment, and being an awesome cop.
| Her platform silently dumped policies like the death
| penalty.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| One was conciliation on Gaza, an issue inflamed by the
| protests and that was material in Pennsylvania, the
| tipping-point state she lost in. She also wasn't "tough
| on the border" in any specific way--Trump channeled that
| anger effectively.
|
| Another was student loan modifications. This transferred
| wealth from non-college taxpayers to college graduates.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| And hyperbole like this is why democrats lost in such a
| devastating fashion.
|
| + the fact that they had no brand power and marketing.
| Trump in a garbage truck is great marketing.
| CabSauce wrote:
| Ah, yes. Trump won because of his well-known ability for
| measured and rational speaking.
| lolinder wrote:
| That's not what they said. "Measured and rational
| speaking" is usually terrible marketing. It barely works
| on college-educated adults and certainly doesn't work on
| the mass market.
|
| The example they gave is Trump in a garbage truck, but
| that's just one way in which Trump made himself
| enormously appealing to the non-elite.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| They can not even understand that 80% of the country does
| not talk like a rich, educated liberal. It is so
| frustrating.
| lolinder wrote:
| Worse, they don't see that a near-majority of the country
| is actively put off by someone speaking like a rich,
| educated liberal.
|
| The #1 exercise Democratic politicians should do over the
| next 4 years is to spend hours and hours and hours
| _actually listening_ to working-class people in flyover
| country and trying to really understand them. They just
| don 't get it yet.
| belter wrote:
| Good luck with your Health Insurance:
| https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/31/politics/aca-trump-
| repeal...
| lolinder wrote:
| Shifting the goal posts much? Grandparent says democracy
| will end, parent says that's hyperbole, you bring out
| healthcare?
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| I am on disability and use Medicare. My health access has
| diminished to almost zero over the last four years.
|
| What has any Democrat done fro me, the poor and
| suffering?
|
| Give me a break. Obama Pulled a Lucy with Medicare for
| all and I hate him for it.
| ben_w wrote:
| Obama wasn't a candidate since 2012 or president since
| 2016.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Presumably the person you're replying to knows these
| things? Try and respond to the best interpretation of a
| comment instead of assuming they're an idiot.
| ben_w wrote:
| What's the "best interpretation" of a non-sequitur look
| like, to you?
|
| A specific example for this particular comment would be
| ideal, as even their reply doesn't illuminate the value
| of mentioning Obama despite referring to it and
| attempting to justify it.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Obama is a Democrat. Neither Biden, nor Harris, nor AOC
| pushed for Medicare for all when it was probably the
| easiest and most helpful time to do so; during a
| pandemic.
|
| I brought up Obama's actions because it was just the
| ongoing legacy of neoliberalism that started under
| Clinton. They thought they would win elections by "going
| to the middle", and this is what happened.
|
| Obama was also campaigning for Harris.
|
| The Democrats are now the part of war and corporations
| and I was just done with it all.
| ben_w wrote:
| > The Democrats are now the part of war and corporations
| and I was just done with it all.
|
| So you voted Green, or Libertarian?
|
| Because if it was Trump, I have bad news on all that
| stuff, including healthcare...
| worik wrote:
| > What has any Democrat done fro me, the poor and
| suffering?
|
| That is a very good point
|
| Is it conceivable that Republicans will be any better?
|
| The hold big business has on the mechanisms of state in
| your country, that is the problem IMO
| anon291 wrote:
| Remember when all the brown people, gays, trans, blacks,
| and women were imprisoned in 2016? /s
| cglace wrote:
| I remember when he constantly inflamed a nation in
| turmoil and divided.
| anon291 wrote:
| We are not divided though. He overwhelmingly won the
| popular vote. Sure there is an opposition, but the truth
| is that the majority of American voters agree with Trump
| (currently winning by margins of 5 million according to
| NYT).
|
| Yes, there's still work to be done, but the real
| inflamers of the nation are the mainstream media. Luckily
| they're slowly going away, and uniting figures like Musk,
| Rogan, etc are taking their place.
|
| Also, he overwhelmingly wins with hispanic men (55-45).
| He is walking away with hispanics overall in many swing
| states. Black men are now 25% in his favor. Basically
| every single minority margin has shifted towards
| president trump (Including women). At this rate he will
| succesfully unite the country in a few more years as the
| remaining stragglers come over to see common sense.
| sulam wrote:
| Hey dude, you may be overdosing on those pills you're
| taking when you start saying things like Musk is a
| uniter. The red ones are fine, just limit it to one or
| two, okay?
| anon291 wrote:
| Of course he is. He and his companies are well loved by
| the American populace writ large.
| cglace wrote:
| That makes him a uniter?
| sulam wrote:
| The only thing he wants to unite are the dollars in your
| pocket with his wallet.
| cglace wrote:
| We have never been more divided. Neither side can even
| agree on definitions or facts.
|
| I'm glad the great uniters of Musk and Rogan can take the
| reins in delivering high-quality information to our
| nation. Maybe in a few years, we will all agree on which
| conspiracy theories we should all believe.
| anon291 wrote:
| > Maybe in a few years, we will all agree on which
| conspiracy theories we should all believe.
|
| One man's conspiracist is another man's freedom fighters.
| You can't honestly tell me that mainstream outlets were
| free of conspiracies the last few years? Remember Russia?
| something98 wrote:
| Don't be coy, please enlighten us as to what this
| conspiracy is involving Russia that you think the MSM
| peddled, and what evidence you have that disproves the
| narrative.
| anon291 wrote:
| The Steele dossier, which purported to contain evidence
| of the Trump camapign's links with Russia, turned out to
| actually be a Russian plant. That's what I'm talking
| about. People still peddle its contents as if they're
| anything other than fake news. That's a major problem.
| Same with Trump's 'very fine people' comment. You can
| accuse Rogan of spreading misinformation until the cows
| come home, but the mainstream media has also peddled its
| own share.
| cglace wrote:
| Now, let's tally how many just one of the prominent
| right-wing figures has pushed since 2016. It should be
| fun.
| something98 wrote:
| I don't think HNs database has the free space to contain
| such a list.
| anon291 wrote:
| How many have you been doxxed for or impeached for or
| censored from spreading. as far as I'm aware, all your
| conspiracy theories have been promulgated by everyone and
| allowed to spread everywhere. I think that's the major
| difference. You should create your list. Twitter/X is a
| great way to spread such information to the public at
| large! No one will censor you. You are free :)
| cglace wrote:
| Thanks I feel much better knowing that I am free to
| squash the thousands of untruths spread and believed by
| the masses.
|
| I guess there isn't a problem.
| something98 wrote:
| I haven't heard any mention of the dossier in years,
| other than as an artifact of the past. A quick search,
| and I can't find sources trying to claim its truth (or
| evidence of smoke, for which there might be a fire) in
| years.
|
| I certainly didn't mention Rogan--I'm aware of his
| existence, but I've actually never heard him speak nor
| seen any transcripts of anything he's said. But trying to
| minimize the flood of absolute obvious shit that comes
| from right-wing outlets by choosing to point to Rogan
| specifically is a bit telling.
|
| Anyone and everyone should be called out for lies they
| manufacture or spread. This includes lies on the left,
| lest you think I'm granting one side a pass.
| cglace wrote:
| See, we can't even agree on a starting point. Instead of
| admitting Rogan and Elon pedaling in absolutely insane
| conspiracy theories, you pull out your whataboutisms and
| think we are back on a level playing field. We aren't.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| The difference was one of symmetry, not magnitude.
|
| Biden (and Harris) have been no more "inclusive" of other
| political positions than Trump was.
| cglace wrote:
| Sure they were. Biden actively sought to pass bipartisan
| immigration legislation. Trump blocked it because it
| would hurt his chances at reelection. Neither Trump nor
| Vance denied this during the debates(they had multiple
| opportunities to do so).
| autoexec wrote:
| I remember when trump tried very hard to weaponize the
| justice department against his "enemies"
| (https://www.justsecurity.org/98703/chronology-trump-
| justice-...) but people stood up to him and refused, or
| just delayed acting as long as possible. Trump was very
| much "handled" by people all levels of government who
| tried their best to clean up after him, distract him away
| from his crazy plans, or obstruct him. Even in the the
| military. In the beginning it was the so-called "axis of
| adults" that kept things sane.
|
| That's all changed since he's spent a considerable amount
| of time removing anyone who disagrees with him,
| threatening those who would dare to, installing people
| who will do what he wants including the judges who have
| granted him total immunity which he didn't have before. I
| think we can expect things this time to be very
| different.
| malkia wrote:
| His words: "in four years, you don't have to vote again.
| We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to
| vote." - explain! -
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-tells-christians-
| they...
| lolinder wrote:
| Trump already explained [0]:
|
| > It's true, because we have to get the vote out.
| Christians are not known as a big voting group, they
| don't vote. And I'm explaining that to them. You never
| vote. This time, vote. I'll straighten out the country,
| you won't have to vote any more, I won't need your vote
| any more, you can go back to not voting.
|
| It was stupid phrasing and might have been a Freudian
| slip, but his explanation also makes sense. "The country
| is on the brink of {insert terrible fears here}, but
| we'll fix it up this term and you won't have to worry
| about it for a while." The man isn't known for his well-
| thought-out speeches, his entire schtick is speaking off
| the cuff, and most voters don't hold that against him.
|
| [0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/article/2024/jul/30/dona...
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| So even when the Christians don't vote in 4 years, they
| still get the things they want?
|
| What do the people who are voting get?
|
| I'd guess they get a government that via the Supreme
| court, gerrymandering, voter suppression, cowed media,
| doesn't represent their democratic interests.
|
| Which is a bad thing.
|
| There's abortion votes that passed the other day at state
| levels that will not be put into practice because
| Republicans don't want to.
| objektif wrote:
| It is a deliberate attempt to scaremonger people into
| voting for Kamala.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Give it some time; this hyperbolic election rhetoric will
| wear off and eventually you'll be ashamed to admit you ever
| fell for it.
| aydyn wrote:
| Given that this is a repeat of 2016, it wont wear off and
| they wont be ashamed. Yeah the crowd that touts itself as
| highly intelligent and techno-savvy apparently cant learn
| simple lessons.
| FredPret wrote:
| Given the voting trends, many who initially fell for it
| eventually recovered over the next 8 years.
| lymbo wrote:
| The way I see it is that Trump's policies, if acted upon,
| will have a delayed effect. I see it as a major event
| contributing to the rebirth of authoritarianism in the
| 21st century. I think selfishly doing Trump's America for
| four years by pumping money into oil production, cutting
| back on contributions to global stability, and creating
| distrust in alliances could have disastrous consequences
| over the next couple of decades. I believe the current
| structure of techno-feudalism will only become more
| concrete with the erosion of science and education.
| Whether there are immediate consequences to this
| leadership or not, I'm very pessimistic for the future.
|
| What are some other perspectives or predictions regarding
| how things will go under this current Trump admin; namely
| foreign policy, global stability, and school system
| reform?
| fire_lake wrote:
| I suppose it depends how much you take Trump at his word.
|
| Does he really intend to do the things he says he will or
| it just fun rhetoric for the base?
| andrewla wrote:
| I'm a little bewildered by this sort of prediction. How
| will you update your priors in 2028 when this doesn't
| happen? What will be the excuse for why this didn't happen?
| arcticbull wrote:
| I dunno, to quote the new top dog "in four years, you
| won't have to vote again"
|
| I'd say if it doesn't happen he failed to deliver on an
| election promise.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-tells-christians-
| they...
| marknutter wrote:
| Are you sure you know exactly what he meant by that?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That was the line the news media took for the first year
| or two - "we can't read his mind, so we can't call it a
| lie!" It's a mistake not to at least credit his own words
| and the logical conclusions they result in.
|
| https://apnews.com/general-news-domestic-news-domestic-
| news-...
| dimator wrote:
| Exactly how many times can "nah you're not getting what
| he meant" be repeated? Is anything he says anything he
| means?
| lolinder wrote:
| As many times as people deliberately twist his words to
| mean something different than he meant?
|
| I despise Trump, but it's really disheartening to see how
| the elite doesn't realize that they actually lost the
| election in part because they lost credibility by
| fighting dirty. The ends do not justify the means, and
| the means were deliberate distortions, out of context
| quotes, and politically-motivated prosecutions.
|
| I held my nose and voted KH because I think Trump
| actually managed to be even worse, but I can hardly fault
| other voters for deciding that the Democrats had it
| coming to them after all the intentional distortions.
| nrjames wrote:
| That will never happen because there are too many other
| power-hungry people in the GOP who are not going to just
| let Trump sit in the White House indefinitely, if for no
| other reason.
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| He's 78. I think there would be plenty of people willing
| to enable him to sit on his throne indefinitely because
| they know that's really only ten years or so at best. And
| then, once he's gotten it warmed up and did the hard job
| of making it the norm, they get to take his place.
| sirbutters wrote:
| Well said.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That is the same kind of thing people have been saying
| since the day he rode the escalator down. Ten years
| later, why does this argument still get made? Trump has
| power for one reason, and one reason only -- because
| enough voters _love_ him. Many people on the conservative
| side loathe him and want nothing more than to see him
| gone, but they kiss his ass and fawn over him anyway,
| because why? The voters _love_ him, and hate anyone who
| does not kiss the ring. Over and over and over this plays
| out.
|
| If Trump wants to stay in office after this term is
| finished, all that matters are what the voters think. The
| supreme court will likely side with him and find an
| interpretation of the constitution that makes it work.
| But even if they don't, so what? The court doesn't have
| an army. Even if they did, if the voters want a king,
| that is what they will get. The republic is a reflection
| of our collective will and we can destroy it if we so
| choose.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| This is just taken wildly out of context. And that's
| coming from me, who can't stand DJT. You're literally
| fishing for a retort that doesn't even make sense.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I am having a heard time reading his exact words and
| understanding them to mean something else. When he says
| to 'my beautiful Christians' that in four years you won't
| have to vote again, what is he trying to say? What is the
| missing context?
| squigz wrote:
| The full quote being:
|
| > "in four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll
| have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote."
|
| One can reasonably interpret that as meaning that in the
| next 4 years, Trump and his party are going to fix the
| country so much and so well that Christians won't have to
| go out to vote next time.
| lolinder wrote:
| Not only is that the most reasonable interpretation of
| the words, it's the one he explicitly gave when asked
| [0]. The only way to arrive at the alternate
| interpretation is to be coming from a place where you
| already assume Trump is a threat to democracy.
|
| I think there are reasons to have arrived at that place
| (Jan 6th), but this quote is not evidence for it unless
| wildly misinterpreted.
|
| [0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/article/2024/jul/30/dona...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > where you already assume Trump is a threat to democracy
|
| You know, the people who see him as a threat to democracy
| are not just putting words in his mouth. Maybe they just
| listen to what he says, _and believe him_. Is that
| unreasonable?
| squigz wrote:
| Well we've already covered one quote that was grossly
| misinterpreted. What others have you got that implies
| he's a threat to democracy in America?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The only people arguing it was misinterpreted are people
| who support him. Not by providing any context that
| actually supports it meaning something _different_.
|
| How about the innumerable times he claimed the election
| was rigged despite lacking any evidence to support it?
| Does denying that free and fair elections exist not count
| pretty specifically as being a threat to democracy?
|
| I totally get that he has an artful way of making
| alarming statements over and over, but doing it with just
| a hint of humor, so that his supporters can claim it was
| all just a joke. In your view, at what point do we get to
| take a politician at their word?
| lolinder wrote:
| > The only people arguing it was misinterpreted are
| people who support him.
|
| Bullshit. I'm as anti-Trump as they come, but I don't let
| that blind me to reality. What he meant is obvious to
| anyone who isn't already looking for proof of their
| preconceived ideas.
|
| I'm not even arguing that he's not a major threat to
| democracy--I think he is! I disagree that that quote is
| useful as evidence of that fact, and I disagree with the
| tactic that the left intentionally adopted of twisting
| the truth to make a point. People saw through that tactic
| and it contributed to Trump's victory.
|
| The facts about Trump are scary enough, there was no need
| to twist his words.
| dudefeliciano wrote:
| What you are doing has a name these days, they call it
| sanewashing. Had Harris or Biden said anything even close
| to trumps comments the maga crowd would have yelled
| bloody murder, but somehow for trump everything is
| excusable and can be explained away.
| PsylentKnight wrote:
| Everything he said and continues to say about the 2020
| election, and the attempts he made to overturn said
| election
|
| Makes me feel like I'm on crazy pills that this guy was
| electable after this
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_memos
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Raffensperger
| _ph...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempts_to_overturn_the_20
| 20_...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| So the most favorable interpretation of his words is that
| his supporters are delusional? What is their
| interpretation of "fix the country"? Because if it does
| not involve changing the constitution (a very tall order)
| then every single thing he does can be undone with the
| same effort by the next democratic president. Surely
| these people _know_ that, right? How could they possibly
| believe that he will magically "fix the country" so they
| don't have to vote any more, unless they anticipate that
| he means something _permanent_?
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Because they don't take things so literally.
|
| I'm not trying to be flippant, that's genuinely the
| answer to your question. Trump is literally being
| dramatic and funny by putting it like that. And you're
| taking the bait and missing the joke.
|
| I know I sound like the enemy and I dislike including
| this paragraph: But keep in mind, I can't stand Donald
| Trump and didn't vote for him.
| zo1 wrote:
| Come on. We all know Trump effing talks weird, that's
| just part of his weird personality that no one likes. I
| don't like it, think it's confusing and winding around
| requiring much mental parsing to understand even for
| normal stories/sentences. But to take this tiny little
| sentence as definitive proof of some giant plan that's
| coming to end democracy is just... mental gymnastics in
| search of meaning for a narrative that they've already
| decided it means.
|
| Here is the Full quote so everyone can see it. He even
| explains in the end what he means.
|
| > "And again, Christians: Get out and vote! Just this
| time. You won't have to do it anymore! Four more years,
| you know what? It'll be fixed, it'll be fine, you won't
| have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians, I love you
| Christians, I'm not Christian, I love you, get out, you
| gotta get and vote. _In four years you don 't have to
| vote again, we'll have it fixed so good you're not gonna
| have to vote._"
|
| From Snopes:
|
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/vote-four-years/
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I'm just listening to his words and assuming he means
| what he says. He is either insulting his followers, or he
| is telling them he will "fix" the country in such a way
| that they won't have to vote any more. You can interpret
| this to mean he will try to subvert the electoral result
| again, or you can interpret it to mean that he plans to
| make some kind of permanent change so that christian
| voters will no longer be required to vote to achieve
| their goals.
|
| Which is it?
| lolinder wrote:
| > I'm just listening to his words and assuming he means
| what he says.
|
| That's not how language works. There's a whole field of
| linguistics called pragmatics that is about how context
| contributes to meaning [0].
|
| You're taking a few seconds of his words, joining them to
| all of your priors, and interpreting them in that
| context.
|
| His original listeners were taking his words in the
| context of the whole speech, joining them to _their_
| priors, and interpreting them in _that_ context.
|
| It's entirely expected that your interpretation would be
| different than theirs given that disconnect, and the most
| reliable way to interpret meaning is to look at who the
| audience was and how _they_ would have interpreted it,
| because the speaker chose their words _for that context_
| , not for yours.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Okay, I'll bite. You make a plausible point. Now tell me,
| what did his supporters think he meant?
| lolinder wrote:
| Exactly what he said he meant [0]:
|
| > It's true, because we have to get the vote out.
| Christians are not known as a big voting group, they
| don't vote. And I'm explaining that to them. You never
| vote. This time, vote. I'll straighten out the country,
| you won't have to vote any more, I won't need your vote
| any more, you can go back to not voting.
|
| Basically "the country is screwed up right now because
| ${reasons}, if you get out and vote I'll fix it for you
| for good and you can go back to not voting again". It's
| more or less the same line that politicians say every
| election to try to motivate the less-likely-voters in
| their base, just said in Trump's classic meandering way
| and with explicit permission to vote only this once if
| you want.
|
| [0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/article/2024/jul/30/dona...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| So a couple untruths, and something ambiguous.
| Evangelicals have been a key voting bloc for years (I
| don't want to say Christians, because there are a huge
| number of Christian democrats too). If anything they're
| key to GOP success in the recent past.
|
| But you kinda skipped past what I was asking. How and
| what do those voters think he was going to fix for good?
| And do they perceive themselves as being politically
| inactive except for just this once?
|
| It sounds like you're just giving him a pass because hey,
| all politicians lie to get people to vote. At that point,
| why do we even care what a politician says, whether we
| agree with them or not?
| zo1 wrote:
| I'm a "supporter" and I know exactly what he means. Means
| he'll fix all the voting shenanigans so that illegals
| can't vote and so that democrats can't "rig" and stack
| the election like last time. See? Not so much a hateful
| whistle as it is understanding your supporters, what's
| important to them, and appealing to that with your own
| words.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Thank you for the actually plausible explanation.
|
| It does not even matter than there was no rigging, no
| illegals voting, no shenanigans. The truth has never been
| an effective counter to rhetoric, I get that. But it's an
| entirely plausible explanation for what a supporter would
| think.
|
| But after yesterday, maybe we will all agree together
| than the elections are rigged? ;-). You guys can't put
| that genie back in the bottle. Everyone thinks it's
| totally cool until the other side uses it right back.
| dudefeliciano wrote:
| We'll have it fixed so good could mean the system will be
| fixed, as in rigged. You are sanewashing the words of an
| unstable man
| dudefeliciano wrote:
| "You know, FDR 16 years - almost 16 years - he was four
| terms. I don't know, are we going to be considered three-
| term? Or two-term?"
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/article/2024/may/19/trum...
|
| he has vowed to be dictator on day one
|
| https://apnews.com/article/trump-hannity-dictator-
| authoritar...
|
| On February 27th-the Reichstag in Berlin was set on fire.
| 4 weeks before, Hitler was appointed to chancellor.
| Hitler placed an urgency regulation to ban all political
| activities. He destroyed democracy in one month. Trump
| can now do it one day.
|
| he is definitely signaling something, whether it will
| come true or not is another question.
| OmarShehata wrote:
| the missing context is that the Christian groups he was
| speaking to typically have low turn out/don't often come
| out to vote. He's asking them to please come out to vote,
| it's important this time. It's exactly the same rhetoric
| democrats use "this is the most important election, you
| really need to vote this time, this time it really
| matters"
| Latty wrote:
| He literally attempted a coup, it's pretty amazing people
| are still trying to act like this is exaggeration or
| unreasonable.
|
| It's not guaranteed, no, and I sincerely doubt we are
| going to see Trump literally cancel elections, but it's a
| very reasonable assumption that they are going to do what
| they've said they'll do and tried to do: install judges
| that will swing things their ways, suppress voters who
| don't support them, punish anyone who opposes them,
| inspire and promote political violence against anyone who
| opposes them, and gerrymander as much as possible. That's
| enough to functionally end US democracy if they do it
| well.
|
| That's not some wild prediction or unlikely outcome, it's
| the logical continuation of their previous actions.
| Someone attempting something they tried before isn't
| unexpected. He actively tried to subvert democracy and
| the public have rewarded him, why would he not?
| objektif wrote:
| He attempted a coup? It is obvious you do not do third
| world country much. This is not how it is done haha. The
| problem is will you admit you were dead wrong and
| potentially spewing propaganda if democracy survives
| Trump's second term?
| Ancapistani wrote:
| Yeah, I agree.
|
| If Trump had _actually_ attempted a coup, he would have
| had no shortage of participants, and they wouldn 't have
| walked into Congress with empty hands.
|
| Jan 6 was very poorly handled. The majority of that is on
| Trump. Many people - though not even close to "all", or
| even "most" - present committed crimes. All in all it was
| on the level of civil disobedience, not revolution.
| Filligree wrote:
| He _failed_ at a coup, but it 's hard to pretend he
| didn't make the attempt. You're right that the failure
| was inevitable.
|
| That time. Neither of us can read the future, here.
| Latty wrote:
| Attempting it and failing doesn't mean he didn't attempt
| it. He actively tried to stop the results being
| certified, he tried to get people to fraudulently invent
| votes for him. We have the Trump-Raffensperger call on
| tape, the evidence is right there, it's an indisputable
| fact by anyone who cares about reality.
|
| And no, I wouldn't be wrong, because it's a fact he _did_
| try to do that, and even if they did--for whatever reason
| --decide not to try it again, that doesn 't change it
| being what any reasonable person should assume they will
| do.
| flylikeabanana wrote:
| >The problem is will you admit you were dead wrong and
| potentially spewing propaganda if democracy survives
| Trump's second term?
|
| The answer to this question is the same as the answer to
| "what if climate change is a hoax", and that is that I
| would love to be wrong and would gladly admit it rather
| than live under a dictator or on a dying planet
| groestl wrote:
| > He actively tried to subvert democracy and the public
| have rewarded him, why would he not?
|
| That's the key observation.
| I-M-S wrote:
| The USA uses a gerrymandered, two-party, first-past-the-
| post system with electoral college to boot. I for one
| would stop short from calling that a system that
| accurately reflects the will of the populace.
| block_dagger wrote:
| I agree but in this case he won the popular vote and took
| the senate and house taboot.
| toephu2 wrote:
| Where is any evidence he actually attempted a coup?
|
| Here is evidence he told the protestors to be peaceful:
| https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1346912780700577792
|
| He never said "Storm the Capitol!!" or anything like
| that.
| Latty wrote:
| It's a fact he attempted a coup, the evidence is in the
| public record, the Trump-Raffensperger phone call was
| literally recorded and we have it. He was calling around
| everyone certifying the results pressuring them not to do
| so, and asking people to "find votes" for him. The mob
| storming the capital was a _part_ of the whole, not the
| coup in its entirety, focusing on it as though it was the
| whole thing is absurdly misleading.
| andrewla wrote:
| A big problem in general is that most people who do not
| oppose Trump have grown a little inoculated against
| accusations about his behavior. The first time I was
| exposed to a misleading Trump meme (the "fine people"
| comment) and I did the research to see what he said, I
| was astonished to find that the meaning of this statement
| had been distorted beyond all possible recognition.
|
| After a couple more of these, my priors switched -- I
| assume that accusations about Trump are always misleading
| unless I get the full context.
|
| The Raffensperger call seemed pretty bad from the
| descriptions, even by Trump standards, so I went and
| listened to it and read the transcript. I was unsurprised
| to find that the portrayal of it, as "find me votes"
| meaning "create fake ballots to elect me" is entirely
| inaccurate. Yes, he did offer a number of bizarre
| conspiracy theories about why the election outcome was
| fraudulent, and Raffensperger did an excellent job, for
| each one, of both acknowledging the theory and showing
| that he had taken it seriously and investigated and found
| no evidence or outright disproven it. The call ended not
| with Trump saying "make up those votes or else" but with
| Trump saying, essentially "I'll follow up with more
| evidence for voter fraud".
|
| If you have listened to the call or read the transcript
| and come away thinking "wow, Trump really tried to rig
| the election" then I don't know what to tell you. It's
| just plainly obvious that he did not do that, and I
| struggle to even comprehend how that could be a
| reasonable conclusion.
| Atreiden wrote:
| > If you have listened to the call or read the transcript
| and come away thinking "wow, Trump really tried to rig
| the election" then I don't know what to tell you. It's
| just plainly obvious that he did not do that, and I
| struggle to even comprehend how that could be a
| reasonable conclusion.
|
| This is probably just sea-lioning, but I went back to re-
| read that transcript on the chance that this was an
| earnest comment and my previous view was colored.
|
| There is no other way to read this transcript than Trump
| trying to strong-arm them into refusing to certify the
| election results. He says "find me this number of votes"
| multiple times, and the direct context was "you're facing
| criminal charges for this if you don't do as I am
| saying".
|
| Here's a few of the relevant snippets, with context, for
| anyone reading this far:
|
| ---- > Trump: But I won't ... this is never ... this is
| ... We have some incredible talent said they've never
| seen anything ... Now the problem is they need more time
| for the big numbers. But they're very substantial
| numbers. But I think you're going to find that they -- by
| the way, a little information, I think you're going to
| find that they are shredding ballots because they have to
| get rid of the ballots because the ballots are unsigned.
| The ballots are corrupt, and they're brand new and they
| don't have a seal and there's the whole thing with the
| ballots. But the ballots are corrupt.
|
| And you are going to find that they are -- which is
| totally illegal, it is more illegal for you than it is
| for them because, you know what they did and you're not
| reporting it. That's a criminal, that's a criminal
| offense. And you can't let that happen. That's a big risk
| to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. And that's a big risk.
| But they are shredding ballots, in my opinion, based on
| what I've heard. And they are removing machinery and
| they're moving it as fast as they can, both of which are
| criminal finds. And you can't let it happen and you are
| letting it happen. You know, I mean, I'm notifying you
| that you're letting it happen. So look. All I want to do
| is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one
| more than we have because we won the state.
|
| > Trump: No, but this was. That's OK. But I got like 78
| percent in the military. These ballots were all for ...
| They didn't tell me overseas. Could be overseas too, but
| I get votes overseas too, Ryan, you know in all fairness.
| No they came in, a large batch came in and it was, quote,
| 100 percent for Biden. And that is criminal. You know,
| that's criminal. OK. That's another criminal, that's
| another of the many criminal events, many criminal events
| here.
|
| Oh, I don't know, look Brad. I got to get ... I have to
| find 12,000 votes and I have them times a lot. And
| therefore, I won the state. That's before we go to the
| next step, which is in the process of right now. You
| know, and I watched you this morning and you said, uh,
| well, there was no criminality.
|
| But I mean, all of this stuff is very dangerous stuff.
| When you talk about no criminality, I think it's very
| dangerous for you to say that.
|
| Source: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/03/politics/trump-
| brad-raffenspe... ----
|
| You really 'struggle to comprehend how that could be a
| reasonable conclusion'? There's no hint of a threat
| anywhere in there, in your opinion?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I sincerely doubt we are going to see Trump literally
| cancel elections
|
| The logical path here is for red states to cancel
| elections and appoint electors to send in January 2029.
| The feds cannot do it themselves, but they do not need
| to.
|
| The elections clause of the constitution does not apply
| to presidential elections, and all the constitution says
| about that is that the states may choose how to appoint
| electors, as long as it all happens on the same day.
| gbalint wrote:
| I'm a citizen of a country where the authoritarian leader
| captured the state and mostly destroyed democracy. So we
| managed to find out whether he was a danger to democracy
| or not (he was). What sucks, is that when it is proved,
| then there is already too late to do anything about it
| (because by definition you can not send them away in an
| election). So my 2 cents: if there are any signs that
| someone is a risk to democracy, it is better be safe than
| sorry, and just choose a different candidate. Everything
| else can be corrected in the next election, but not this.
| andrewla wrote:
| > if there are any signs that someone is a risk to
| democracy
|
| All due respect, I'm curious as to what these signs
| actually are for Trump. Everything I've seen and heard
| has been horrifyingly taken out of context -- "dictator
| on day one" and "you won't need to vote in four years"
| and "he'll prosecute his political enemies", or
| exaggerated past the point of recognition, like "he tried
| to steal an election" or "he wants to put journalists in
| jail".
|
| Under the Biden administration, we have seen actual
| criminal charges against Trump. Not theoretical, not
| threats, not innuendo, but actual criminal charges for
| trivial administrative offenses. We have seen extensive
| media collaboration with the administration (and the
| opposition when Trump was in office) in an attempt to
| distort Trump's words to portray him as being dangerous.
|
| I do not agree that the US, under Harris or Trump, is at
| any risk of becoming an authoritarian nation. The "signs"
| here from both sides are all imaginary trivial things and
| political rhetoric. But if the watchword is "any signs"
| then I've got to say that I don't see how you can vote
| for anyone but Trump.
|
| My forlorn hope is that people who think that Trump
| represents a threat of authoritarian backsliding can, in
| four years, revisit their assumptions and realize that
| the markers they have chosen to represent that threat are
| all wrong. They're just incorrect. Update your priors.
| gbalint wrote:
| The most important sign is that he already tried to keep
| the power when he lost last time. And he still does not
| accept that he lost. This alone is more than enough
| reason to never vote for him.
| lm28469 wrote:
| It's insane, exactly the same slippery slope fallacy as
| "the left want to make your kids gay", people completely
| lost their mind on both side of the spectrum
| dudefeliciano wrote:
| "You know, FDR 16 years - almost 16 years - he was four
| terms. I don't know, are we going to be considered three-
| term? Or two-term?"
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/article/2024/may/19/trum...
|
| he has vowed to be dictator on day one
|
| https://apnews.com/article/trump-hannity-dictator-
| authoritar...
|
| On February 27th-the Reichstag in Berlin was set on fire.
| 4 weeks before, Hitler was appointed to chancellor.
| Hitler placed an urgency regulation to ban all political
| activities. He destroyed democracy in one month. Trump
| can now do it one day.
|
| he is definitely signaling something, whether it will
| come true or not is another question.
| sabarn01 wrote:
| I am 100% sure there will be an election in 2028.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| One candidate was a normal functioning human being with
| policy positions other normal functioning humans can agree or
| disagree with. A better analogy would be a choice between
| blue cheese and poison.
| kernal wrote:
| Calling the "blue cheese" a "normal functioning human being
| with policy positions other normal functioning humans can
| agree or disagree with" tells me that you've been eating
| rotten cheese all along.
| compootr wrote:
| are you saying the orange (70 something years old iirc?)
| was better?
|
| take the politics back to reddit!
| kernal wrote:
| The "orange cheese" has a brain and can talk without the
| need of a teleprompter. And more importantly, it wasn't a
| warmonger that put the lives of Euro cheese in danger.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Have you ever heard him speak?! Quite literally asking,
| are people just voting/liking him based on static images
| and deliberately cut to look somewhat acceptable videos?
| I swear his speech is worse than Biden's has ever been.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| As best I can tell, he speaks at the level of someone
| with about a fifth-grade education. I believe that to be
| intentional, as it means he's easily understood and not
| perceived as demeaning.
|
| More importantly, his speech is consistent and has been
| his entire political career.
|
| Biden's problem isn't that he's not able to speak at a
| collegiate level; it's that he's very obviously getting
| worse over time. The man is currently President of the
| USA - when's the last time you heard him speak publicly
| and take questions?
| newfriend wrote:
| It's not. You're just incredibly biased.
|
| Yes, I've listened to him speak many, many times. I
| listened to him speak for 3 hours on an unscripted
| podcast. I've listened to him speak (unscripted) to many
| other interviewers. Trump is charismatic, real, and
| genuinely funny.
|
| The media has been so unbelievably unfair to this guy. I
| feel sorry for him.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| As a moderate who voted for KH, the biggest problem with
| the DNC candidates in recent decades is that they do not,
| in fact, appear to be real human beings, but instead
| curated facades composed of politically desirable traits.
| Calavar wrote:
| I can see your point in the presidential race. For down
| ballot candidates though, I'd say exactly the opposite.
| So many GOP politicians who sing praise of Trump publicly
| have been caught calling him a moron privately. Or in the
| case of his VP, calling him Hitler publicly. The scent of
| insincerity is just rampant through the GOP.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| > I can see your point in the presidential race. For down
| ballot candidates though, I'd say exactly the opposite.
|
| I agree, however, most people separate one from the other
| sparingly.
| glimshe wrote:
| Totally agree. Thankfully, democracy ensured that Poison
| lost.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Tell me then, what are Trump's policy positions aside
| from keeping himself out of jail? Do you think he is
| actually going to impose across-the-board 20% tariffs?
| His big donors and the market don't because that would
| result in other countries imposing 20% tariffs on all US
| exports and trading with each other instead. That was
| just a story to tell his poor uneducated voters so they
| wouldn't think he would raise their taxes, reduce their
| benefits, or explode the deficit. There's no more build a
| wall rhetoric after he failed to do so in his first term
| and then blocked a border control bill. What he will
| support is cryptocurrency speculation, which he has
| personally profited from and his Silicon Valley donors
| hope to continue to profit from.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| If we want to be optimistic, he will cut regulations and
| probably also funding to our military-industrial complex.
| For the wealthy, he will transfer an immense amount of
| resources to us.
| keybored wrote:
| > For the wealthy, he will transfer an immense amount of
| resources to us.
|
| People complain about people not hating Trump on this
| board. Ostensibly forgetting that some people here are
| very rich.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| For one's 24h capital gains to exceed the median American
| wage only requires a few million at play in almost any
| asset. That is a fifth of households [1] and I'd guess
| around double that fraction of likely voters. (If you're
| in crypto, you could have done it with less than a
| million.) That will influence how folks think about
| Trump, at least in the short term.
|
| [1] https://www.fool.com/retirement/2024/05/27/heres-how-
| many-mi...
| 13415 wrote:
| The policies were laid out in Project 2025. Of course,
| Trump didn't endorse it. But they have the power now and
| that's the blueprint they're going to follow. They have
| said they will destroy democracy in the US and they will
| do it.
|
| That's just my personal opinion and prediction. I hope
| I'm wrong but in any case it makes no sense to discuss it
| now. We'll have to wait 2 years or so and see.
| cauch wrote:
| The fact that someone like Trump was given as choice is a
| result of a failure of "the man" from the start.
|
| It's just too easy to pretend it is not your fault if your
| society, the one that you are building with your neighbours,
| ended up giving you bad choices.
|
| Now that the man made a choice, what do you think will happen
| next time? This election just demonstrated that lying and
| using fear and hatred is working very well. Do you think that
| someone "normal" will invest in this knowing they will lose
| for sure?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| To some extent Trump is a singular figure. No-one else has
| quite the same charisma he has and his experience of
| getting shot makes him into even more of a legend.
|
| Daniel Boorstin observed the Kennedy administration and
| predicted in 1963 that it was just a matter of time before
| TV stars would dominate conventional politics.
| kaba0 wrote:
| The charisma of an old, demented moron? He failed as a
| public speaker even before he got this old, I have heard
| non-native 5 years old speak better than him.
|
| Plus he is spineless, lying, rapist.. well, sure it is a
| kind of a charisma. One fitting for some video game
| villain.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| What he says comes across as emotionally true to many
| people.
|
| I do remember that debate with Kamala were Trump came
| across as unhinged with that "eating cats and dogs" thing
| but I think one reason why he might have won was revealed
| in Harris's waffling around the issue of climate change
| where her answer was "drill baby drill", pandering to the
| Pennsylvania market.
|
| People who want to see climate action are discouraged by
| this but people who want "drill baby drill" don't believe
| she in sincere and think that she is pandering. So
| talking that way she just loses people she doesn't win
| them.
| danielktdoranie wrote:
| Except the Haitians really are eating dogs and cats. I
| have seen the video and photographic evidence. They see
| it as free food. You think cats and dogs wander Haiti in
| massive numbers? No, they eat them. They're starving.
| valval wrote:
| It demonstrated nothing of the sort. The better candidate
| won and that's about it. Even in the republican primaries,
| the best candidate won. What makes you think your opinion
| is above the system?
| earthnail wrote:
| Better doesn't mean good. A lot of people say that the
| choice was between bad and worse. Both the Economist's
| and the NYT election advice wasn't vote for Harris
| because she is great but because Trump is bad.
|
| When you observe a system like that it's reasonable to
| ask if you can improve the system. Imagine this was a
| football game and not politics. It would be reasonable to
| talk about how we can make the football league more
| interesting.
| Ekaros wrote:
| At least he was the choice by people. Someone else could
| have been choice, if they had more pull. Unlike the other
| side where no one voted for her to be the canditate.
| PsylentKnight wrote:
| What makes you think the system always chooses the best
| candidate? Most voters operate on very little or false
| information, they just vote on vibes or for whatever
| party they've always voted for
| sabarn01 wrote:
| Why do you think you don't. It could be you who is
| deceived. Everyone thinks they are the person that sees
| things for what they are but it can't be true for all of
| us.
| keybored wrote:
| > It's just too easy to pretend it is not your fault if
| your society, the one that you are building with your
| neighbours, ended up giving you bad choices.
|
| It's the man's fault because We Live in a Society? Maybe
| you ought to evoke the Butterfly Effect as well, it's all
| connected. The butterfly in Africa is probably also
| complicit in this Trump win.
|
| The Donor Class decided that this was the two options you
| had. I hope that I don't have to explain that the Democrats
| and Republicans are not grassroots, democratic
| institutions.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Trump crushed his primaries, he is absolutely the
| democratic choice of Republican voters.
| bumby wrote:
| Trump seems to be a refutation that the candidate is only
| chosen by "The Donor Class". He was nominated twice
| despite efforts of monied interests, not because of them
| (it's my understanding the money didn't go to him until
| it was inevitable that he'd be the candidate).
| keybored wrote:
| It's a refutation of the literal phrase "chosen by the
| donor class" because there are more players that have an
| effect.
|
| Trump is the candidate of the reactionary petite
| bourgeoisie.[1] These are not part of the Donor Class but
| they have enough power to, when times are "bad" for the
| lamestream candidates, elbow in their candidate.
|
| [1] The mainstream media likes to say that he is the
| "working class candidate" without any seeming basis in
| reality
| bumby wrote:
| How are you defining the "petite bourgeoisie"? I'm not
| sure your thought fits with my (perhaps incorrect)
| understanding of the term as sole proprietors and artisan
| workers. Is that term being used liberally to refer to
| the property-owning middle/lower classes?
|
| After a quick lookup, it seems like roughly 10% of
| Americans own a small business. (I'm assuming a
| relatively large portion is a side-hustle.) I don't know
| that I would say they have enough power (by themselves)
| to select a candidate.
| keybored wrote:
| I define it however all socialist writings define it.
| bumby wrote:
| IMO it seems like you're trying to make the situation fit
| your thesis and not the other way around.
| keybored wrote:
| IMO same for you.
|
| Where's your refutation? "I don't know that I would
| say"... okay.
|
| You think 10% is too small? What percentage of the
| country is the Donor Class?
| o11c wrote:
| > lying and using fear and hatred is working very well
|
| Counterpoint: R's perceive (sometimes not incorrectly) that
| lying is a "both sides" thing, and it's indisputable that
| the D's ran largely on fear/hatred this time (which clearly
| did _not_ get the D voterbase out where it counted).
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > R's perceive (sometimes not incorrectly) that lying is
| a "both sides" thing
|
| Lying is a politician thing. Anyone who thinks that any
| one politician or political party has a monopoly on lying
| is deluding themselves. Trump lies through his teeth,
| Biden lies through his teeth, Obama did, Bush did,
| Clinton did, etc. Honest politicians simply do not exist.
|
| And to be clear I think we should absolutely criticize
| our politicians for it. What I object to is this framing
| like only one particular politician is a liar. Bullshit,
| they all are liars to the same degree.
| cglace wrote:
| I would not say they lie to the same degree. Trump can
| not own up to the truth. The man took a Sharpie to a
| hurricane map to "prove" that he was not wrong. He has
| never and will never admit that he is wrong.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > This election just demonstrated that lying and using fear
| and hatred is working very well.
|
| All I heard from anyone left leaning (on this site or
| otherwise) in the last year is that we have to stop Trump
| because he's going to literally destroy democracy. That,
| too, is using fear and hatred. Don't act like only one
| political faction does it. We are trapped in a vortex of
| shit where both sides are using fear and hatred, and we
| need to criticize _everyone_ for it.
| pineaux wrote:
| Exactly
| beAbU wrote:
| The man must be reminded that he did not demand more than two
| options. He did not demand a system that guaranteed more than
| two options. He allowed the Excrement Party to bring forward
| feces as it's candidate, and he allowed the Bark Party to
| bring forward manchineel as it's candidate.
|
| The man is entirely responsible for this situation he finds
| himself in unfortunately. Also, if the man selected feces the
| first time round, and suffered for it, then maybe the deadly
| poisonous bark is the only other logical choice, if only to
| stop the torture?
| keybored wrote:
| The offerer of two choices then makes the man choose
| between his daughter getting shot and his wife getting
| shot. "Remember now", he says, "whoever I shoot will not be
| killed by me but by you." The Offerer cackles. "You could
| have prevented this from happening if you had only worked
| harder to thwart my first supervillain move fifteen years
| prior. You are entirely responsible for this situation."
| anon291 wrote:
| Oh no... Insult the voters yet again. That'll work this time!
| belter wrote:
| It seems to have worked for Puerto Rico....
| anon291 wrote:
| I mean if Biden called everyone garbage as humor, I would
| actually think it's funny. But he actually meant it lol.
|
| EDIT: MY guess is Biden is smarter than he lets on, and
| secretly supports Trump / hates the dems for what they
| did to him. I wouldn't be surprised if that comment was
| purposeful. It seemed a bit contrived.
| samatman wrote:
| Biden is sunsetting a bit, but is he "put on a MAGA hat,
| bust out a big smile, and give a thumbs up for the
| camera" sunsetting?
|
| Did Jill Biden wear a red dress to the polls on accident?
| Do we credit the idea that she, the First Lady, didn't
| look in the mirror and think about the political
| implications of primary colors in the USA?
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Looking at the numbers, it seems like apathy decided. Trump's
| numbers are equivalent to last election, but the Dems didn't
| show up by over ten million people.
| seanw444 wrote:
| > Dems didn't show up by over ten million people.
|
| It is a peculiar lack of votes, isn't it?
| junto wrote:
| Not really. The lack of votes seems to be in the younger
| "social media" generations. The lead up to polling day was
| very pro-Kamala and on polling day itself, sites like
| Reddit were a stream of "I voted Kamala" posts. Whether
| that was propaganda influenced or not is beside the point.
|
| What it seems to have done is convinced a subset of Kamala
| voters that they didn't need to go and stand in a 2 hour
| queue to vote because it was already won, which of course
| now we know to be very untrue.
|
| People assume that the bot armies are only pumping out pro-
| Trump propaganda. However, they only need to convince the
| Dems not to vote.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| Yes, it was the non-voters who actually decided the election,
| and in only a few states too.
| usaar333 wrote:
| They are still counting votes. Prediction markets have
| turnout at about 64%, which is more like 5 million less.
|
| That's still historically high
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Sure, but Harris won't come close to the 81M Biden got four
| years ago.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > If this is what America wants, then it is what America
| deserves.
|
| It's not really "what America wants". You are _drastically_
| overestimating how democratic the US system is if you think the
| fact that a very narrow majority picked one of the preselected
| candidates means that candidate has any kind of broad popular
| mandate.
|
| It's probably what a double-digit percentage of Americans want,
| but certainly not the majority, and only _barely_ the majority
| preferred it over the other extremely unpopular candidate.
| ein0p wrote:
| Nobody picked Harris. She hasn't won a primary even once.
| Trump won it three times. The primary is the only step in the
| whole election process where the actual "democracy" can even
| remotely happen.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| The truth is so painful that I'm not sure people will
| mentally accept this for a while
| lpa22 wrote:
| Not sure who is downvoting this, it's the truth and the
| exact reason dems lost
| ein0p wrote:
| I don't know why you'd expect any other reaction from a
| site where 80% of the readership loves to get high on
| their own supply from WaPo and CNN and reject the
| reality. The reality is we're 37T in debt, we're on the
| brink of a nuclear war due to our harebrained regime
| change efforts halfway around the globe, and your average
| American is barely surviving at this point. The latter,
| by the way is abundantly clear from the polls, too,
| including exit polls. I'm not sure the electorate
| particularly cares about the right to third trimester
| abortion or DEI as the mainstream media would like us to
| believe, especially when the DNC lost the airtight
| control over the narrative, and its ability to
| manufacture consent is getting more limited by the day.
| In 2020 they had enough control to elect a person who
| can't string two words together without a teleprompter.
| In 2024 they already could not. And the grip on the
| narrative is going to weaken from here on out. If they
| can still learn, they'll have to actually run capable
| candidates, who might even dare to have their own
| opinions about things. That's healthy and good. What
| doesn't seem feasible anymore are unilaterally anointed
| candidates who go from "nobody" to "our only hope" at the
| stroke of a pen of some unelected, non-replaceable
| bureaucrat.
| bena wrote:
| That's not entirely true. In 2020, a lot of states just
| cancelled their Republican primaries and pledged their
| delegates to Trump. Mainly because it's assumed that the
| incumbent will be the candidate.
|
| And all-in-all, that's fair play. The GOP and DNC are
| private entities and they get to choose who they put
| forward as a candidate in the manner they choose. Voting in
| presidential primaries is fairly recent. The DNC picked
| Harris, as is their right.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Fine and true, but setting aside the principle of the
| matter, did anyone actually prefer Biden over Harris?
|
| I held my nose as I voted for Biden in the primary, but I
| don't even recall anybody else being on the ballot. I was
| _elated_ that he stepped down and endorsed his VP.
|
| Admittedly, it sets a _scary_ precedent, I certainly won 't
| disagree. But setting the implications aside, was it really
| the wrong choice? Did Biden really fare better than Harris
| in the general? I certainly don't think he would have. I
| think Trump's margin of victory would have been even higher
| against Biden.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > Fine and true, but setting aside the principle of the
| matter, did anyone actually prefer Biden over Harris?
|
| Probably not, but does it matter? Biden was also not
| chosen in anything resembling a democratic way. US
| political primaries are not democratic.
|
| The general population being presented a choice between
| two options that were selected by two ultra-partisan
| entrenched entities is not democracy.
|
| To have a system somewhat resembling democracy you would
| have to either (1) open primaries to everyone regardless
| of party registration with no control by partisan
| organizations over who gets nominated or supported (which
| would mostly defeat the point of having political parties
| at all) or (2) have a more proportional system where it
| is meaningfully possible to create new political parties
| that gain a nonzero share of representation.
| rightbyte wrote:
| How did the "boot on head" guy run in the primaries?
| There has to be very little vetting, if any.
|
| Primaries where party members vote seems very much more
| democratic, than having the party elite decide in some
| meeting.
| j0hnyl wrote:
| How is ~8% (eyeballing) of the popular vote a narrow majority
| in politics? It's a pretty substantial majority. Apathetic
| non-voters don't really count because they don't care.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > Apathetic non-voters
|
| An important thing to keep in mind in American politics is
| the _massive_ amount of voter suppression. Not voting doesn
| 't inherently mean you were lazy or apathetic. It may well
| mean your vote was suppressed by any of a hundred tactics.
| Closing polling places in blue regions, requiring in-person
| voting on-the-day, restricting early voting, restricting
| vote by mail, failing at sending people ballots, spuriously
| dropping voter registrations...
| blodstone wrote:
| 20M is too much of a number to be attributed to voter
| suppression alone. I think the main issue here is still
| apathetic non-voters.
| yonaguska wrote:
| 20M ballots is not the same as 20M voters. I don't
| understand where those 20M people went. Kamala checked a
| lot more boxes than Biden.
| bhelkey wrote:
| > requiring in-person voting on-the-day
|
| Exactly three states don't offer early voting to all
| voters [1] and none of those three were battleground
| states.
|
| [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/map-early-voting-mail-
| ballot-st...
| xg15 wrote:
| All that is true, and to a great degree the reason why
| the concept of "swing states" (or rather the "non-swing
| states") even exists.
|
| It does not explain however why almost all the swing
| states aligned with Trump this time.
| jmpetroske wrote:
| It would be a tall feat to suppress close to a third the
| population from voting!
| ubermonkey wrote:
| What you forget, or may not appreciate, is that (for
| example) Blue voters in states that are absolutely going
| Red may stay home, because their vote won't really count.
|
| I've voted Dem all my life (since 1988), and while my
| preferred candidate has won several of those races, my
| actual VOTE never helped them because I voted in
| Mississippi (88), Alabama (92), and Texas (96 & thereafter)
| -- all of which have been GOP strongholds for a long, long
| time. (Texas, for example, hasn't gone for the Democrats
| since Carter v. Ford in 1976.)
|
| It's easy to imagine that a feeling of despair about the
| efficacy of one's vote would drive someone to stay home.
| leereeves wrote:
| > It's easy to imagine that a feeling of despair about
| the efficacy of one's vote would drive someone to stay
| home.
|
| That's true, but I don't think Democrats had a feeling of
| despair before the results came in. It seems like most
| Democrats are shocked that the election turned out this
| way.
| lupusreal wrote:
| If true, their media diet betrayed them. This outcome was
| obvious.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| If it helps, the right seems shocked it turned out this
| way, too.
|
| Personally, I realized last week that I had no reliable
| way to know what to expect. There was ample data to
| support predicting any outcome.
| xnx wrote:
| > Blue voters in states that are absolutely going Red may
| stay home
|
| Blue voters in states that are absolutely going _Blue_
| may also stay home.
| dead_gunslinger wrote:
| How does the exact same argument do not apply to
| Republican voters in e.g California, New York or Oregon?
| Scea91 wrote:
| For some reason I've not heard this argument 8 years back
| when Clinton lost. At that time the fact that she won
| popular vote was used to critique the electoral college.
| Maybe at that time republicans stayed at home in the blue
| states?
| nasmorn wrote:
| As a foreigner it seems like the electoral college is
| obviously stupid. No matter who wins why. It is pure
| conservatism to keep it like doing something because the
| Bible says so. Given that it mostly helps one party it
| will never be changed but it cannot be argued from first
| principles in the 21st century.
| Scea91 wrote:
| It can totally be argued from first principles. If you
| acknowledge that USA is a union and not a single state
| then it makes sense that the votes do not necessarily
| reflect the population distribution and there is some
| form of rebalancing. Then its a wuestion how much and
| whether the current balance is the right one.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| The US is a federal system. It serves the interests of
| the states, not the People.
|
| The electoral college - and the Senate - were intended to
| explicitly put power in the hands of the states, as
| equals, without regard for population. The House of
| Representatives was intended to be the counterbalancing
| voice of the People.
|
| I can totally understand disagreeing with the concept,
| but to say it's stupid tells me you likely don't
| understand its purpose and how it fits into the overall
| system.
| umanwizard wrote:
| This is circular reasoning -- "the system is the way it
| is because that's how it was set up".
|
| US States are not meaningful cultural units -- people in
| Philadelphia are much more like people in NYC than either
| are like those of the rural hinterlands of their
| respective states.
|
| > The US is a federal system. It serves the interests of
| the states, not the People.
|
| Indeed, and that's a bad system that makes no sense in
| 2024. Disliking it doesn't mean one doesn't understand
| how it came to be this way.
|
| (Tangentially related aside: plenty of federal systems
| have much fairer systems for election to federal office
| than the US does. For example Germany.)
| Ancapistani wrote:
| > This is circular reasoning -- "the system is the way it
| is because that's how it was set up".
|
| Maybe it's my lack of sleep from staying until until 7am
| watching election news, but I honestly can't see how this
| is applicable. My comment was explicit about _why_ the
| system was set up that way.
|
| > US States are not meaningful cultural units
|
| I very strongly disagree.
|
| The next time you meet a Texan, ask them if they think
| they are "meaningfully" culturally distinct from
| Californians.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > The next time you meet a Texan
|
| Texas is a cherry-picked example of one of the states
| with the strongest specific identities. Most states are
| not like this.
|
| Ask someone from Phoenix to explain how they are
| meaningfully different from someone from Denver and they
| will struggle.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| The same could be said for Germany and Austria. States -
| as in "nations", not necessarily US states - can have
| shared culture and history.
|
| Texas is the one that comes to mind as the strongest, but
| it's far from unique in that regard. Louisiana pops to
| mind next. Other examples of states with very strong
| cultural identities off the top of my head: Oregon, Utah,
| Tennessee, Florida, West Virginia, Michigan, Maine,
| Vermont, New York, Illinois... you get the idea.
|
| I'd say about the half the states have a strong, unique
| identity. The remainder are similar to their neighbors
| but the farther you travel the more apparent the
| differences.
| 0xBDB wrote:
| I mean, I'll take a stab at it... the electoral college
| can be argued from first principles if you consider that
| the U.S. was supposed to be a federal union of sovereign
| states. There are certainly reasonable arguments for
| federalism and devolution of power.
|
| The U.N. doesn't directly elect the general secretary.
| umanwizard wrote:
| The US is not, in practice, a union of sovereign states
| today, regardless of whether it was in 1789.
| 0xBDB wrote:
| Is that an argument against the electoral college, or an
| argument for re-devolution of power? Because the latter
| is probably easier to do than getting rid of the
| electoral college, given the requirements to pass a
| constitutional amendment.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| It exists to give outsized influence to small, rural
| (and, at the time, slave-holding) states -- which is also
| true of the Senate.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| It's not a partisan argument. It's a fact of the
| mechanics of US Presidential elections.
|
| If DJT ends up with a final popular vote advantage,
| though, it'll be the first time that a Republican has
| taken the Oval Office AND the popular vote since 1988.
| ufmace wrote:
| Why doesn't this apply both ways? Red voters in Blue
| states are just as likely to stay home because they think
| their votes won't count. And ditto the other point, Red
| voters in Red states may not feel like it's worth the
| bother to vote when they already know their state is
| going their way.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Because there was never a real choice. Put it this way:
| someone could give a choice between drinking arsenic and
| fertilizer. One of those options will win, probably by a
| wide margin. It doesn't mean it reflects the will of the
| people because, hey, people would rather drink neither.
|
| 2016 had the DNC force a terrible candidate down our
| throats because the establishment was more concerned in
| measuring offices in the West Wing that listening to
| voters. It was a spectacular failure and we got Trump as a
| result. The DNC did their utmost to ensure people didn't
| get a voice in the process.
|
| 2020 was unique for many reasons. Many, including me, said
| choosing Biden was a bad idea. He was even then so old that
| the DNC was giving up the incumbents advantage in 2024,
| partly driven by Biden alluding to him not wanting to run
| for re-election. Did the people choose Biden? Well, not
| really. Jim Clyburn did [1].
|
| People didn't choose Biden's "bearhug strategy". Biden,
| against all the cries not to, decided to seek re-election
| despite showing signs of cognitive decline a year ago. So
| there was no real primary process, no chance for the people
| to have a voice. The people also didn't choose for the DNC
| to burn to the ground young voter support (eg college
| protest response), the Arab-American vote (ie Gaza) or the
| Latino vote (with an immigration policy to the right of
| Ronald Reagan).
|
| If the DNC had listened to the voters, Bernie Sanders
| would've handily beat Donald Trump in 2016 and we wouldn't
| be here.
|
| [1]: https://archive.is/qSpNF
| sulam wrote:
| Bernie Sanders is your answer to Trump? Thankfully Trump
| can't run again because that kind of thinking would have
| him winning elections into 2030.
| belter wrote:
| > Thankfully Trump can't run again
|
| Yet...
| tengbretson wrote:
| Is apathy the only explanation for the non-voting?
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| That seems like an insane assumption to me. Maybe there's
| nobody worth voting for. If you don't interpret a non-vote
| that way what's the point of democracy?
| ultrarunner wrote:
| I wish people would probe this question a little more. It
| certainly seems to me, what with the party-based system
| (and all their rules, requirements, and other methods of
| disincentivizing non Republican/Democrat participation),
| the point is not democracy at all, but political power
| brokering. That's not a system I'm comfortable
| interacting with.
| kenjackson wrote:
| I'm seeing 3.5% -- where are you getting 8%.
| j0hnyl wrote:
| Trump is at 71.8 million votes compared to Harris at 66.9
| million votes according to AP. That's somewhere between
| 7% and 8%
| kenjackson wrote:
| OK, you're doing Trump has 7% more votes than Harris.
| Which is valid -- I think that's not the way most people
| report it though. I think most people say that Trump won
| by 3.5%.
| j0hnyl wrote:
| You're probably right, but I think the popular vote stats
| tell a more realistic story of how the population
| actually sees things.
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| That's too easy a get-out.
|
| A _lot_ of people voted for the rapist felon, as I write he
| is in fact winning the popular vote.
|
| This is on the people and the society they live in. It's not
| "the messaging" from either party - it's simply that Trump
| appeals to a lot of Americans, as unpalatable as that is.
| RpmReviver wrote:
| You don't think "the messaging" of "rapist felon" has
| anything to do with it?
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| I'm not trying to persuade you either way. Those are just
| the facts as assessed by the courts. If you don't like
| the facts, again, I don't care.
|
| IMHO people vote for Trump because he normalises the hate
| and jealousy that they feel themselves for their
| situation and their powerlessness to change it. How he
| projects his own narcissism makes him look like a kindred
| spirit to them, and the fact that over 50% of the voting
| American public can relate to this is a stunning
| indictment of US society.
| RpmReviver wrote:
| Then why isn't he in jail? Why wasn't he been impeached?
| Why can't they find something that sticks for the most
| smeared political figure in modern history? If we are
| bringing up his questionable legal past, then it's fair
| to bring up the legal past of the opposing side. The
| truth is the political class has done so much damage and
| far worse things than Trump.
|
| That's a whole lot of mind reading and guessing of what
| 50% of the country thinks, it's not simple, no one is
| that one dimensional and different groups have different
| reasons
|
| Gen Z, millenials, boomers, gen x all have slightly
| different social and economic goals
|
| The fundamental christians are not the same as the
| homeless bernie bros and classic liberals
| doubleyou wrote:
| He was impeached... twice! (Only president ever)
| CptFribble wrote:
| > why isn't he in jail
|
| In 2020, a Pennsylvania white man illegally voted via
| mail-in ballot on behalf of two deceased parents.
|
| Also in 2020, a black woman in Memphis voted while
| ineligible due to a felony conviction without being
| informed she wasn't allowed, and was convicted and
| sentenced to 6 years in jail.
|
| As for how this applies to why Trump is not in jail for
| his convictions, I will leave that as an exercise for the
| reader.
| lolinder wrote:
| > felon
|
| Just a note: a lot of people, including moderates, perceive
| his felony conviction (in the Stormy Daniels case) as a
| politically motivated prosecution engineered by his
| political opponents. Pushing that prosecution as far as
| they did almost certainly _contributed_ to Trump 's victory
| rather than having its intended effect of making him
| untouchable.
| sulam wrote:
| I don't think the conviction's effect on his support was
| lost on anyone who was paying attention. He was convicted
| for breaking the law by a jury of his peers. Should the
| case have been brought to trial? That's debatable, but he
| clearly is a felon. Not the first felon to run a country,
| as it happens.
|
| Btw I would argue the assassination attempt did far more
| for him than the felony conviction.
| lolinder wrote:
| The assassination attempt certainly helped, but it just
| solidified his ability to cast himself as a victim. That
| _started_ with the politically-motivated prosecutions.
|
| > Should the case have been brought to trial? That's
| debatable, but he clearly is a felon.
|
| I do not believe that the case would have been brought to
| trial had he not been Donald Trump, and that's a _major_
| problem. We can 't have selective enforcement of the laws
| against political opponents.
|
| I voted KH anyway because I think Trump really is a
| terrible person, but speaking from inside a deep red
| state: it's hard to overstate how much his conviction
| riled up his base and persuaded moderates to flip.
| sulam wrote:
| He's far from the first person to have been tried for
| something that is unevenly enforced at best. Talk to any
| black men in your community, it happens all the time.
| More relevantly, prosecutors have to decide which cases
| to pursue and that calculation seems to often involves
| factors like the notoriety of the individual and the
| likelihood of obtaining a conviction. Famous people are
| routinely prosecuted for things that regular schmoes
| don't even get arrested for. The latest example is
| probably Jason Kelce, being in the public eye means you
| get more legal scrutiny.
|
| Btw I'm not saying I think this is particularly fair, but
| it's been happening as long as we've had laws and likely
| will continue as long as we have some sense of privacy
| and humans running things.
|
| It's also not surprising to me that it amped up his
| supporters. As I said above it was completely
| predictable. Asking Alvin Bragg to think about the
| election when choosing whether or not to prosecute would
| be wrong whichever direction you think it should have
| been decided.
| lolinder wrote:
| > Asking Alvin Bragg to think about the election when
| choosing whether or not to prosecute would be wrong
| whichever direction you think it should have been
| decided.
|
| It's pretty clear to me that he _did_ think about the
| election. That 's the problem.
|
| Uneven enforcement against black people is unfair and
| awful and should be fixed. Uneven enforcement against
| whichever party is not currently in power is a threat to
| democracy itself.
| sulam wrote:
| > It's pretty clear to me that he did think about the
| election. That's the problem.
|
| I disagree with your analysis. I think it's likely that
| Alvin Bragg is not a dumb guy. It is well known that a
| conviction would not prevent Trump from running for
| President. He also probably had a number of smart people
| giving him advice that this was going to do a lot to
| increase Trump's visibility and in general energize his
| base. If anything, the degree to which he considered it
| probably acted as a detractor, not the reason he went
| through with it.
|
| I think Bragg prosecuted because of the reason that all
| prosecutors go after high profile cases in big regions.
| He knew it would bring him attention and he thought he
| had a good chance to win. In Alvin Bragg's world, that's
| enough to get you over the line.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > it's hard to overstate how much his conviction riled up
| his base and persuaded moderates to flip.
|
| I don't buy it, tbh.
|
| I truly do not think that is conviction _gained_ him any
| votes. I just don 't think it _lost_ him any. Anybody
| that claims "I'm voting for him because he's being
| charged with crimes for political reasons" was already
| going to be voting for him to begin with.
|
| Moderates that vote Trump are simply low-information
| voters.
| lolinder wrote:
| > Moderates that vote Trump are simply low-information
| voters.
|
| As long as this is the attitude of the Democratic
| establishment, Republican populism will reign supreme.
| This kind of condescension cost the election.
| yonaguska wrote:
| Several black friends and relatives cited the legal cases
| as just another thing that got them voting. Mostly it was
| immigration and the economy, but that specifically
| resonated.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Trump _is America incarnate_ and that 's something that's
| only just starting to be properly discussed. We can't
| reckon with him or avoid him because he _is this country,
| in spirit and in soul._ A morally bankrupt opportunist that
| uses and discards everything it can, and cloaks it all in
| slick business attire and insipid, empty words. Loud,
| stupid, ignorant, bigoted, and proud of all four because it
| has the money enough to make sure it never needs to explain
| itself to anyone. Believes in absolutely nothing beyond
| what can benefit him in that moment, and if it changes, he
| 'll turn on a dime. If the phrase "fuck you got mine" was
| turned into a real boy by some sick wizard, it would be
| Trump.
|
| Until we reckon with our true national spirit, which _is
| Donald J. Trump,_ we cannot kill the movement behind him
| because that IS America, in a very literal sense.
| kernal wrote:
| >we cannot kill the movement behind him
|
| You've tried twice. America has rejected your ideology,
| your violence, and your warmongering.
| subsection1h wrote:
| > _America has rejected your ideology, your violence_
|
| LOL. Red states have the highest firearm death rates:
|
| https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/firearms-death-
| rat...
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I think they were talking about the literal
| assassinations
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > warmongering
|
| Republicans calling Democrats warmongers is probably one
| of those hypocritical things I'm seeing in recent years.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Exactly. Nobody waved a magic wand and conjured up Trump,
| _causing_ people to become cruel and selfish. They are
| already cruel and selfish, and they simply found their
| man. It 's not like people are just going to just stop
| being this way once he's gone.
| abc_lisper wrote:
| And people who may not be that, and yet voted for him are
| not very bright. There are a lot of them, women included.
| lynx23 wrote:
| Can you please dial down the patronising sexism? Women
| have a right to vote, and it is not your call to declare
| if their decision is OK or not.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Look I don't know how to fly a helicopter but if I saw
| someone crash one into a tree, I can fairly confidently
| say he fucked it up.
|
| In the same way as if you're a woman who voted
| voluntarily for a man explicitly campaigning on policies
| that will harm you, you fucked up.
| lynx23 wrote:
| Again, that is your claim and your opinion. That doesn't
| mean you are eligible to decide what other people in your
| democracy are supposed to vote. NO, simply no. In fact,
| this attitude is a reason why liberals are struggling
| with support of the common man. You're basically implying
| that these women, that didn't vote like you wanted, are
| too stupid to realize what they did. This is plain and
| outright patronisation mixed with a heavy dose of old-
| school sexism. Stop it, you are making a fool of yourself
| and your political friends.
| I-M-S wrote:
| While I completely agree with you, I can also understand
| the reaction of people who happen to be passengers in the
| aforementioned helicopter.
| lynx23 wrote:
| Full ACK. Frustration is as human as an emotion can be.
| But that shouldn't lead to patronising sexism. To me,
| democracy is a life-long lesson. I see it as a pendulum,
| necessarily swinging from side to side to avoid a
| particular political party to establish a dictatorship.
| The USA, as the stereotypical two party system,
| demonstrates this pretty nicely. Democrats and
| republicans seem to pretty much take over in an
| alternating pattern. However, the life-lesson mentioned
| is, that if you're not completely centered, there will
| always be times when you have to cope with your political
| opponent having the reigns. I consider that a worthwhile
| challenge, to accept that you can't win all the time. In
| fact, its not acceptance, its the knowledge that you
| _shouldn 't_ win all the time, which goes much deeper
| actually...
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| I have LGBTQ+ friends who's lives are demonstrably,
| objectively worse as a result of Trump's first term. My
| wife got surgery to have herself sterilized out of fear
| that were something horrific to happen to her, she
| wouldn't be able to get the healthcare she needs thanks
| to the Roe v. Wade decision, which is directly traceable
| to the "other side." We're about to get a wave of
| suicides in this country as hopeless minority folks all
| over the country realize we are entering 4 years of yet
| more persecution, yet more official policy that will deny
| them the right to exist as the people they are and they
| simply can't take it anymore.
|
| All of your comment absolutely holds up when we're
| talking _what should be politics,_ which is shit like how
| you organize tax brackets, what priorities we decide are
| most important to fund, the directions in which we shape
| our societies. But I am long sick and tired of that same
| attitude being brought to bear on whether my friends and
| I have the right to exist as the people we are, whether
| my wife has the right to decide what happens to her body,
| and always, ALWAYS with this sardonic tone of "well you
| can't win em all champ!" as though we just have to accept
| our differences with people _WHO, LITERALLY, GENUINELY
| WANT US DEAD._
|
| I legit get flashbacks to putting up with bullies in
| school, where the teacher, bless her and her good
| intentions, would make you sit and "talk it out" with
| your bully, as though you _in any way whatsoever_ were
| responsible for your bullying. As though you and your
| abuser "just didn't get along" and "needed to work your
| differences out." And no, categorically, emphatically, to
| my dying breath, no. The problem between the LGBT
| community and the Republican party is not a "we just need
| to respect different opinions" situation. If your opinion
| is that certain groups of people do not have the right to
| exist, or should do so with some diminished set of
| rights, or whatever you'd like to couch it in: your
| opinion is _WRONG_ and if your paradigm of decision-
| making cannot see that, then your paradigm is _WRONG_
| too.
|
| I wish just ONE of you centrists would have to sit in a
| public forum as your right to exist is debated, and put
| on a brave, "rational," calm, and reasonable face and
| defend that in front of people who would love nothing
| more than to see you, and everyone like you, ejected from
| their society so they can freeze to death.
| abc_lisper wrote:
| Sorry, I didn't mean to be patronizing. I simply said
| that because, roe v wade didn't bother the women (who are
| more affected by it) who voted for him.
| stickfigure wrote:
| > he is this country, in spirit and in soul.
|
| He is _half_ of this country. That is a very important
| distinction.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| It's half of the _people,_ it 's the _whole country._ Our
| systems, the way we organize society, the behavior we
| reward, the people we idolize all fall under this. Every
| major (and minor!) industry is led by Trumps, tech
| included. Every business has a man at the top of it with
| not an insignificant amount in common with Trump. That 's
| not a coincidence, it's an ongoing process.
|
| A system's purpose is what it does, and our system makes
| Trumps on an industrial scale. Almost every boy in
| America goes through a phase, at least, of wanting to be
| Trump: to be rich, so goddamn rich that he can do
| anything he wants and just pay it off, and a distressing
| number of them never grow out of it, and to be clear,
| _that is a rational response._ They have witnessed
| firsthand with their eyes, in their movies, in the world
| around them, by virtue of who wins, that Trumps win. All
| you have to do is talk smooth, accept no responsibility,
| assert your dominance over reality itself over and over
| and over, and our system will, far more often than not,
| reward you handsomely.
| stickfigure wrote:
| I have no idea what you just said. Industry lead by
| Trumps? You're generalizing and stereotyping far too
| much.
|
| This world would be a lot better off with less
| generalizing and stereotyping all 'round.
| lynx23 wrote:
| You have to be an a-hole to float to the top in this
| materialistic system. Have you never had this realsiation
| until now?
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Berke Breathed captured this pretty accurately before he
| shut down Bloom County the first time.
| doubleyou wrote:
| Less than 1/3 of eligible voters voted for him 77/244
| million https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/10-things-
| to-know-202...
| lynx23 wrote:
| I dont know if I have ever read something as poetic and
| true to the point at the same time. Thanks for this
| priceless realisation.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Rap music taught me that being a felon is cool.
| kenjackson wrote:
| Crazy enough I've heard from some younger males that him
| being a felon was good because in order for him to make
| his life better (being a felon) he would have to make
| their life better (whether they were felons or felon
| associated) -- or so their thinking went.
| fulladder wrote:
| Trump wasn't convicted of rape. He lost a civil defamation
| lawsuit brought by an ex-girlfriend turned political
| activist.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Trump appeals to "a lot of Americans", sure. That doesn't
| mean he appeals to all or even most of us.
|
| An election result wandering from 46.8% to 51% does not
| indicate a huge shift in American culture in general. It
| just looks that way because of the flaws in our political
| system.
| slashtom wrote:
| I think you're double speaking here, the majority of the
| population who were eligible to vote, voted for Donald Trump
| in 2024.
| doubleyou wrote:
| Less than 1/3 of eligible voters voted for trump in this
| election.... how did you come up with your numbers????
| 78/244 (millions)
| https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/10-things-to-
| know-202...
| umanwizard wrote:
| The majority of the population who were eligible to vote,
| and actually decided to vote, voted for Trump, yes.
|
| That's not "America" for two reasons: "the majority of the
| population who were eligible to vote, and actually decided
| to vote" is not the same thing as "Americans", and choosing
| which option you prefer in a binary choice (where you have
| no influence on the two options) does not mean you like the
| choice you made.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Trump has had a ~43% approval rating from basically the
| beginning except for a very brief dip around Jan 6.
| kenjackson wrote:
| Why do people keep stating that the choices are somehow not
| Democratic. Who else beats Trump? Seriously. It's not like
| there were some great candidates out there that just didn't
| have the party machinery behind them. These were honestly,
| IMO, two of the best that the country had to offer. Sure, I
| personally would've loved to have Pete Buttigieg as
| President, but I also realize that he loses to Trump 10 out
| of 10 times.
|
| The fact is America would be happy with no one. But we got
| who America wanted -- even if its not who I wanted.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > Why do people keep stating that the choices are somehow
| not Democratic.
|
| Because they're not. It's virtually impossible to start a
| meaningful new party in the US due to the FPTP system, so
| you are stuck with whoever the two legacy parties decide to
| nominate according to their own rules.
|
| Compare Germany: nine parties represented in the federal
| parliament, a proportional system ensuring that getting
| 50%+1 of the vote doesn't mean you get 100% of the power,
| and relative ease of splitting and fusing parties making it
| so that previously unrepresented political views can easily
| gain representation (e.g. the socially conservative
| Russophilic left-wing party "BSW" recently splitting from
| the standard left-wing party).
|
| > Who else beats Trump?
|
| Most people selected out of the telephone directory at
| random could have beaten Trump. No, this probably doesn't
| include Pete Buttigieg.
|
| > The fact is America would be happy with no one. But we
| got who America wanted
|
| These two sentences contradict each other.
| kenjackson wrote:
| > Because they're not. It's virtually impossible to start
| a meaningful new party in the US due to the FPTP system,
| so you are stuck with whoever the two legacy parties
| decide to nominate according to their own rules.
|
| I just see no appetite for a 3rd party, much less nine in
| the US. It was amazing how people would complain that
| Harris provided no details about her plans, when 15
| minutes on her website provided more detail than most
| people would care for (although certainly not at the
| level of detail any wonk would want). Do you think people
| are really going investigate nine candidates?
|
| > Most people selected out of the telephone directory at
| random could have beaten Trump. No, this probably doesn't
| include Pete Buttigieg.
|
| Given that every Republican can't seem to beat him there
| must be some odd bias in the phone books you have.
|
| > These two sentences contradict each other.
|
| They don't. We got who we wanted -- we just aren't happy
| with it. And wouldn't be happy with anyone. No
| contradiction.
| umanwizard wrote:
| People don't really do deep policy research in any
| country, but, to continue the example of Germany, I think
| most people have at least a vague idea of what each party
| stands for, something like:
|
| * CDU - center-right, active everywhere except Bavaria
|
| * CSU - permanent ally of CDU, active only in Bavaria
|
| * SDP - center-left
|
| * Greens - center, ecology
|
| * FDP - pro-business, what Europeans call "liberal" and
| Americans would call something like "fiscally
| conservative" or "moderate libertarian"
|
| * AfD - right-wing populist, socially conservative, anti-
| immigration (closest analogue to Trump)
|
| * die Linke - Left (originally evolved from the
| totalitarian ruling party in East Germany, has since
| become much more moderate and accepted democracy)
|
| * BSW - Left on economic issues, conservative on
| social/cultural issues
|
| * SSW - Tiny regional party, irrelevant at the national
| level
|
| The current governing coalition is SPD - Greens - FDP
| although there are severe tensions between them currently
| and they will probably break up soon.
|
| I think it's relatively easy for most people to
| understand at this level of detail, and if the US had a
| working democratic system where getting X% of the vote
| roughly translates to getting X% of the influence and
| power, we probably would have _at least_ the following:
|
| * "Trump party" - Right-wing populist, skeptical or
| openly hostile to democratic norms
|
| * anti-Trump right - Bush, etc.
|
| * Centrist mainstream liberals - Biden, etc.
|
| * Left-wing - Bernie, AOC, etc. Possibly split into two
| parties, one that cares more about economic issues and
| one that cares more about progressive social issues.
|
| * Maybe some random minor parties like "Texas
| independence party" or similar.
|
| In such a system I really doubt that the "Trump party"
| would get more than 30% of the vote.
|
| So I think it's unfair to say that "Americans wanted
| Trump" when under a fairer political system he would not
| come close to a majority.
|
| > Given that every Republican can't seem to beat him
| there must be some odd bias in the phone books you have.
|
| No Republican has ever run against Trump in a fair
| democratic election. They ran against him in the
| _partisan Republican primary_ , whose voters do not come
| close to reflecting "Americans" in general. I very
| strongly suspect that e.g. Nikki Haley could have beaten
| Trump in a head-to-head nationwide general election.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| It's because the primary system favors candidates who pander
| to narrow slices of the voting public.
|
| Primaries have low turnout: Most elections are between two
| unpopular candidates who are chosen from vocal political
| minorities.
|
| According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Republican_Pa
| rty_presiden..., there were ~22 million voters in the
| Republican presidential primary, ~17 million voted for Trump.
| (~17 million voted in the democratic primary)
|
| According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States
| _presidentia..., there were ~139 million voters in the main
| election.
|
| So roughly 12% of voters got Trump to be the candidate. What
| if the other 72% showed up to the primaries and got different
| candidates?
| coliveira wrote:
| > only barely the majority preferred it
|
| If true, this is not really a democratic country and should
| stop lecturing the world about democracy.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Okay? I don't think this contradicts anything I said.
| Practically every country claims to be democratic (even
| North Korea). Doesn't mean they are.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| What horrible things happened because of the policies of the
| first trump presidency?
|
| COVID response seems like the biggest mistake, but that was a
| never before seen global pandemic, and it isn't clear to me
| that anyone else in office could have handled it differently.
| SpaceNoodled wrote:
| Spanish flu never happened in your timeline?
| whalesalad wrote:
| stacking our court with conservative justices, stacking other
| courts with his appointees who are already working to throw
| out his criminal cases. the rollback of roe.
|
| it's a very fucking slippery slope and everyone is too
| concerned with "but muh gas prices!" to think critically
| about the macro situation.
| valval wrote:
| What makes you think people haven't thought about those
| things the same as you or more, and still disagree?
|
| I think every little life saved is an absolute victory, and
| many people (as demonstrated) share my sentiment.
| whalesalad wrote:
| That _is_ an issue. You posses religious conditioning
| that makes you believe this. If you disagree with
| abortion that is fine, but your opinion /stance should
| not be projected on everyone else in the country. The
| problem with this situation is religious folks are so
| brainwashed they can't even comprehend a situation where
| "live and let live" is possible, because you all think
| that your way is right and everyone else is wrong.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > That is an issue. You posses religious conditioning
| that makes you believe this.
|
| Abortion is not a religious issue, it is an ethical
| issue. Some religious people are fine with abortion, some
| atheists oppose it.
|
| > If you disagree with abortion that is fine, but your
| opinion/stance should not be projected on everyone else
| in the country. The problem with this situation is
| religious folks are so brainwashed they can't even
| comprehend a situation where "live and let live" is
| possible, because you all think that your way is right
| and everyone else is wrong.
|
| This argument is a completely unworkable argument and I
| have no idea why people think it will hold water.
| Abortion opponents believe that abortion is _literal
| murder_. You can 't simply go "it's fine if you don't
| want to murder, but you shouldn't stop other people from
| murdering". I understand you disagree with the idea that
| abortion is murder, but you need to take that idea on
| directly rather than trying to paper it over and say "you
| need to live and let live".
| whalesalad wrote:
| > Abortion is not a religious issue, it is an ethical
| issue.
|
| Says you. I see nothing ethically wrong with abortion.
|
| Virtually every species of animal is known to kill their
| own young from time to time. Why should humans be held to
| a different standard? The earth is already overpopulated
| as-is.
| noworriesnate wrote:
| Just because people ate their own children during a siege
| doesn't mean it's morally acceptable.
| svieira wrote:
| Also a large number of animals cannibalize the weak
| (chickens, for example). Now, I presume that you hold
| humans to a different standard for that behavior - why?
| whalesalad wrote:
| I don't. Humans are animals, too.
| subsection1h wrote:
| > _Abortion is not a religious issue, it is an ethical
| issue._
|
| Every person I have interacted with in nearly half a
| century who has expressed support for the criminalization
| of all or most abortions believes in the existence of
| souls and believes that human fetuses have souls and that
| it's the presence of a soul that is the basis for
| personhood and a right to life. Please direct me to a
| real person who supports the criminalization of all or
| most abortions and who does not believe in souls because
| I want them to explain to me why an unintelligent human
| fetus that lacks a fully formed central nervous system
| and any activity in its cerebral cortex has personhood
| and a right to life while a pig does not.
|
| By the way, it's funny how people who say that opposition
| to abortion has nothing to do with religion are always
| religious:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38091407
| 7952 wrote:
| Another way to phrase it would be as self defense rather
| than murder. The baby is an unwanted intruder. And the
| only way to defend the mother is through the death of
| another person. And like self defense there are different
| interpretations of what rights each party has. And it is
| rare for anyone to be absolute in their support of the
| rights of one or the other party.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| I disagree that most people who are anti-abortion believe
| it is literal murder. More like "murder lite". Just ask
| them what the punishment for abortion should be for the
| doctor and woman, and then what the punishment should be
| for murdering a 1 year old. you'll get drastically
| different answers from I think 97% of people.
| nixdev wrote:
| > You posses religious conditioning that makes you
| believe this. > but your opinion/stance should not be
| projected on everyone else in the country.
|
| Wow. Talk about projection. Roe, a case where the woman
| involved later admitted to lying about being raped, that
| case, the repeal of that case moves the opinion/stance
| back to the states, where it should be.
|
| > they can't even comprehend a situation where "live and
| let live" is possible
|
| Funny someone in the "I NEED TO KILL MY BABY" crowd would
| write something like this. You people really have zero
| self awareness.
| whalesalad wrote:
| I do not value human life over any other life. Squirrels,
| frogs, birds, babies, they are all the same.
| justonenote wrote:
| So you are saying given an mutually exclusive choice you
| would save the life of 2 frogs over 1 human baby?
|
| If you really do believe this you are an outlier, and 99%
| of the population do not agree with you and would not
| want you setting any policy.
| whalesalad wrote:
| I don't think that you are qualified to make these
| remarks.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Because people are morons
| Conscat wrote:
| Appointing outwardly biased Supreme Court justices who
| prejudiced USA law against women and many minorities.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Arguably this stacking of the Supreme Court could have been
| prevented if Justices had retired when the Democrats still
| had control of appointing their replacements
| Shekelphile wrote:
| No, nothing would have changed if that happened.
| Republicans have no qualms about overtly breaking the law
| and abandoning their duty and decorum. If they did then
| Garland would be a sitting SCJ and Gorsuch wouldn't.
| mrbombastic wrote:
| Moving the embassy to Jerusalem and the U.S. recognizing
| illegal settlements as "legal" set the stage for Oct 7
| rozap wrote:
| I'm sure that situation be over with trump. And by over I
| mean that netanyahu will kill any and all remaining
| Palestinians and annex the strip and West Bank. Then the
| Zionists will set their eyes on Lebanon.
| loandbehold wrote:
| Nah, the goal of Hamas has always been to unexist Israel.
| That's been literally in their charter since Hamas was
| founded.
| slillibri wrote:
| The pandemic response, the Muslim ban, family separation at
| the southern boarder, repealing roe v wade, ending DACA. This
| doesn't even take into account the policies he wants to enact
| like mass deportations.
| laichzeit0 wrote:
| What is the problem with deporting people who are there
| illegally? As someone who doesn't live on the border of the
| United States do you know how incredibly hard it is to
| legally immigrate there? I don't see why other people
| should be allowed to jump the line. There's a legal way to
| get in, follow it like everyone else.
| foobarian wrote:
| Having gone through the legal immigration gauntlet, which
| took decades of sacrifice, I have no sympathy for illegal
| immigration either. But the other problem is that the
| economy is not so much about money as who does the work,
| and I suspect that cohort does a disproportionate amount
| of it and would crash the economy if actually deported. I
| predict the same thing will happen with Trump's
| deportation threat as has happened with the wall and
| Mexico paying for it.
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| Let me see now...
|
| - Forcibly separating children from parents, with no plan
| to reunite them. There are still _children_ missing, who
| were spirited off $deity-knows-where. If criminals do it,
| we call it kidnapping and people-trafficking, but this
| was official government policy
|
| - Let's focus on those kids, who were locked up in
| prisons, had any medication they were on confiscated, and
| we're not just talking teenagers here, some of those kids
| were under 5.
|
| - The conditions they were held in would make a grown man
| weep, held in iron cages, kids defecating and vomiting in
| the heat. Staff wouldn't help small children, it was left
| to _other children_ to try and keep the infants well.
|
| - Routine use of pyschotropic drugs to act as "chemical
| straitjackets" on older children, so they would be
| usefully docile while being caged like animals
|
| - Sexual assault on these unresisting, drugged children.
| That's rape. Of _children_ - usually girls but not
| always. Under government supervision.
|
| Personally I don't support the rape of children, but more
| than half the voting public seem to be "just fine" with
| it.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > Personally I don't support the rape of children, but
| more than half the voting public seem to be "just fine"
| with it.
|
| They're not just saying they're "just fine" with it. They
| are enthusiastically voting for it.
|
| We have to come to terms with the fact that very clear,
| consistent campaign themes of cruelty and selfishness won
| over a majority of voters. Deep, country-wide
| introspection is needed.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| I think that people really like violence, but no-one will
| publicly admit it. People want others to suffer. Nobody
| really cares about making the world a better place, or
| saving the climate or whatever. People just want a better
| life. But they have no perspective of getting a better
| life, so they will settle for everyone else to get worse.
|
| It's the only way it all makes sense. I don't think that
| all those voters who vote for Trump and Putin and Erdogan
| and all the other autocrats think they'll have a better
| life. But they know that all those other people are going
| to suffer, and it makes them feel a bit better.
|
| The most dangerous man (or woman) is someone who thinks
| they have nothing to lose.
|
| People feel dispair, and therefore they vote for people
| who will make others suffer.
| laichzeit0 wrote:
| Did you reply to the wrong comment? Nothing what you said
| addresses illegal immigration. Are you saying illegal
| immigration is something good and if you're against it
| you're for child rape?
| vile_wretch wrote:
| Everything they listed was the result of the Trump
| administration's immigration policies. Do you think human
| beings should be subjected to these things just because
| they're living somewhere illegally?
| duped wrote:
| You're taking what they're saying at face value. The
| policy goal of the Republican party is to create a white,
| Evangelical ethnostate.
|
| Their issue isn't legal vs illegal immigration. It's
| white vs nonwhite. They make "the legal way" harder for
| anyone that isn't white, which doesn't stem immigration.
| It just makes it easier to turn away non-whites at the
| border.
| newfriend wrote:
| Just a bunch of nonsense lies. You live in an echo
| chamber outside of reality. I suggest some introspection.
| duped wrote:
| I am very tired of defending this, because it's so self
| evident to me from listening to what Republican
| politicians say and do. The echo chamber isn't telling me
| that we're months away from concentration camps for brown
| people, that came from Stephen Miller. That's just one
| example among many.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Repealing Roe v Wade is a great thing, not a terrible
| thing. Highly contentious issues absolutely should be left
| to the states to decide, not forced upon them at a federal
| level.
| PsylentKnight wrote:
| Damn TIL, guess we need to roll back desegregation and
| abolition too cause that was so contentious
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Isn't slavery supposed to be a state's rights issue?
| Terr_ wrote:
| Only in the sense that slave-owners tried to _take away_
| the rights of other states to _not_ participate and
| assist in slavery, and then wrote their own constitution
| which _forced_ every state to have slavery forever no
| matter what.
|
| ... But in the conventional sense of _increasing_ state
| autonomy, no. :p
| newfriend wrote:
| Feel free to propose a Constitutional Amendment on
| abortion and get it ratified.
|
| Until then, it's a state's rights issue.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > Highly contentious issues absolutely should be left to
| the states to decide
|
| Alas, if/when the Republican party gathers enough power
| to finally pass a federal abortion ban (or an indirect
| Fugitive Pregnancy Act) that "principle" will vanish into
| the memory-hole with all the rest. The minority who
| sincerely held the belief will be sidelined, again.
|
| Another manifestation would be if state personnel and
| courts get conscripted into enforcing federal immigration
| policies.
| bionicthrowaway wrote:
| "Family separation at the border" started with Obama and
| the Democrats weaponized it to attack Trump. What did Trump
| do poorly during the pandemic? Operation Lightspeed was a
| success that the Democrats were happy to capitalize on. He
| correctly pointed to WIV as the like source of the
| outbreak, and despite the Democrats attempt to censor this
| in the media and online, it's now the widely accepted view
| among the academics who don't put politics above science.
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| This line of defense falls apart a bit when you add further
| context. It's my understanding that during his first term he
| was surrounded by many smart and experienced people who
| tampered down on Trump's worst urges. But for this election
| he made it an explicit goal to get rid of those people and
| put in place people who are more likely to be sycophantic and
| loyal to him.
|
| There's literally dozens of people who worked for Trump
| during his previous administration that have come out against
| him since then.
|
| Personally, when I read about the alternate elector scheme
| and the attempt to prevent Pence from certifying the 2020
| election, that was sufficient to convince me that Trump poses
| a real risk.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Yeah, I'm very concerned it's really only the grade A
| sycophants and zealots who have stuck around - the experts
| have fled.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Well, others probably wouldn't have fired the pandemic
| planning committee. Another one was created in 2022, but, as
| of 2024, Trump has said he'd get rid of that one too[1].
|
| [1] https://time.com/6972022/donald-trump-
| transcript-2024-electi...
| johnp314 wrote:
| "...anyone else would have handled it differently", yes, and
| very likely we would not have gotten the COVID vaccine as
| quickly as we did and hence Biden would not have been able to
| set us out on the road to the pandemics end (and been able to
| come out of his bunker). Who knows how much longer the
| pandemic would have lasted and how many more might have died
| had Trump not cut out the red tape and fast-tracked the pharm
| industry on the road to a cure.
| Calavar wrote:
| What red tape did Trump cut?
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| you realize that Trump cut the CDC branch that worked in
| China (and other countries) to look for and contain novel
| diseases before they become pandemics right? if Trump
| hadn't been president, COVID probably would have been like
| Ebola or Sars1 where it kills a couple thousand people
| without becoming a pandemic
| randerson wrote:
| A mistake he didn't seem to learn from, as he's said he'll
| appoint RFK (who is openly anti-vaccine) as being in charge
| of public health.
| lynndotpy wrote:
| This is an ahistorical view of things.
|
| Trump fired national security officials in charge of handling
| pandemics. Trump repeatedly claimed that covid was not a
| problem, and that it wouldn't come to the US, and then that
| it would disappear by April, and then easter, and so forth.
| He fought the CDC, NIAID. As we know now, he also sent test
| machines to Putin for his personal use while they were in
| short supply in the United States.
|
| This pandemic was rightfully and widely compared to the 1920
| pandemic, as well as the SARS scare in the 00s. We are very,
| very lucky that the SARS scare got a lot of the legwork done
| in advance on the RNA vaccines.
|
| It's hard to imagine any United States candidate handling it
| worse.
| LexGray wrote:
| Attempted disassembly of the center of disease control which
| led to less Covid lead time.
|
| Attempted disassembly of EPA and FDA in attempts to raise
| employment in exchange for consumer safety.
|
| Sale of federal lands that were preserves for future
| generations.
|
| Picking a Supreme Court based on politics rather than law.
|
| Preferring Totalitarian regimes when it came to diplomacy and
| snubbing our allies.
|
| Trying to use the FBI as his personal attack dogs.
|
| At least off the top of my head. Last term his goal was to
| undo a hundred years of progress as a constitutional
| progress.
|
| This term? I have no clue what his goals are. I just hope he
| lives because the VP Vance appears to support that project
| 2025.
| tootie wrote:
| He indirectly ended abortion rights and presidential criminal
| liability. And while it wasn't a single bad event, he spent 4
| years making climate policy worse. More directly he attempted
| to extort a foreign leader for political gain and sponsored
| an insurrection to stay in power that resulted in loss of
| life.
| BJones12 wrote:
| > I'm just not sure if the world deserves this.
|
| As someone who is part of the non-USA world, I'm fine with it.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| He says on a US made phone and computer, visiting a US
| website, using a currency tightly correlated to the US
| dollar, in a country which imports most of its services from
| the US, and he works in the services sector, or he works
| making goods which US consumers buy, speaking English out of
| necessity not just courtesy, in a country with a small
| defense budget, in a US military alliance, whose defense is
| ensured by US government institutions.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| I don't know which country the OP is from, but:
|
| > He says on a US made phone and computer
|
| All phones and ~all computers are made in China.
|
| > using a currency tightly correlated to the US dollar
|
| Many currencies in the world are strong and independent of
| the US dollar.
|
| > in a country which imports most of its services from the
| US
|
| [citation needed]. What sort of services? I've never heard
| of offshoring to the US, but I have heard of offshoring to
| places like India.
|
| > speaking English out of necessity not just courtesy
|
| Well, those guys from England surely have done a lot of
| conquering.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| All the software on your phone and computer is made in
| the US, and that's what you are paying for.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| I'm using a Samsung phone. A lot of the software on my
| phone (especially the software I paid for with the phone)
| is made in South Korea. I don't pay for a lot of apps,
| but the apps I paid for were made by developers from
| France, Spain, Japan, Austria/Germany, and the US, one
| each.
|
| My computers are running Windows, sure, but my most used
| software would be Firefox, built by people from all over
| the world. Second place would probably belong to
| JetBrains Rider, made by a company headquartered in
| Czechia.
| doubleyou wrote:
| LOL his phone and computer were NOT made in the US. Also US
| is a net IMPORTER not exporter...
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| As someone who is part of the non-USA world, I'm mostly
| disappointed in humanity.
|
| Promoting hatred & violence, justifying fraud as being
| normal, neglecting environmental damage for our children to
| solve, has won.
| tomcar288 wrote:
| We don't need to have a system where there are only 2 terrible
| choices.
|
| if the federal government wasn't so large but rather a looser
| organization such as the EU, then each state would be a
| sovereign entity and the presidency wouldn't matter so much.
| then you would have 50 or more choices (50x2=100)
| encoderer wrote:
| You look at Europe and seriously _want_ that?
| Scea91 wrote:
| I live in Prague but travel often to the DC area for
| business. I'd choose to live in Prague in about 70000 out
| of 80000 simulations.
|
| It just feels better to live here for many reasons (safety,
| culture, nature, walkability, quality of restaurants and
| clubs and overall you don't see many poor people around).
| Europe has economic issues but the quality of life is very
| high most of the time.
| encoderer wrote:
| I would also choose Prague over DC. Honestly DC is not a
| great place to live.
| imafish wrote:
| Over the American system? Anyday
| pelorat wrote:
| Multiparty representative democracy with a prime minister
| is a far superior system than a presidential republic.
| encoderer wrote:
| It has advantages but I don't see UK, Germany and France
| thriving.
| rc5150 wrote:
| I look at America and seriously DON'T want that.
| teknoxjon wrote:
| Universal healthcare, strong working class, strong k-12
| education, govt mandated work/life balance & child support,
| abortion, free from a large population of Christian
| (protestant) nationalism that influences politics at every
| level... why yes, yes I do.
| toephu2 wrote:
| Universal healthcare is usually not a plus.. ask any
| Canadian.
| kredd wrote:
| Meh, I personally like it. It's a bit of liberating
| feeling to never, ever think about health insurance here
| in Vancouver. Obviously has ups and downs (especially for
| non elective surgeries), but it's my personal preference.
| kbigdelysh wrote:
| I'm Canadian and living in California. I want Universal
| Healthcare.
| toephu2 wrote:
| Try living in Canada. And experience the healthcare and
| wait times there. Many Canadians come to the USA for
| healthcare, or wish they could.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Beauty, walkable cities, history, better workers rights? I
| have never found a reason to go to the USA besides jobs and
| your national parks, nothing else.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's an interesting idea, but it's more or less been tried.
|
| The conclusion of that experiment was that half of the
| country would gladly go to war to force the other half to
| stay as one country. I don't think that has changed.
| Especially given that the primary political divisions aren't
| between state lines; They are rural and urban divisions.
| marviel wrote:
| ranked choice voting!
| rmk wrote:
| This is already the case. American states have a lot of
| latitude in setting policy and governing themselves.
| huijzer wrote:
| > I'm just not sure if the world deserves this.
|
| So, I'm right and the other party is wrong? No questions asked.
|
| A more useful thing would be: WHY did people vote for Trump?
| They are surely intentional as you observe. What gave them this
| intention? Was it DEI? Did they like Trump's hair?
| disqard wrote:
| > They are surely intentional as you observe.
|
| I share exhibit A: a BBC interview with an "undecided voter".
| Excerpt:
|
| "I have no freaking clue man. It's so hard. When I voted for
| Trump, it came down to who would I trust with my kid alone
| and it wasn't [President Joe] Biden.
|
| I'm still undecided.
|
| All of my family is voting for Kamala and my friends are
| voting for Trump.
|
| I'm going to vote for one of them. I've got no idea which
| one.
|
| I'm still super-duper undecided. I think I'm leaning toward
| Kamala over Trump, if I think about who I would trust alone
| in a room with my daughter.
|
| I'm going to make up my mind when I go into the ballot
| booth."
|
| I share this, not to lampoon this human being, but to correct
| any misconceptions that human voters always have a rational
| model of who to vote for, and why.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7484kwl55qo
| anonu wrote:
| Why blame the Republicans? After all, the Democrats did pass a
| referendum on Trump 4 years ago and Trump lost. Since he wins
| now, I can only point to disarray on the Democrat side. Just
| look at NY State. 60% to Joe Biden in 2020 and 55% to Harris in
| 2024. Thats a big move.
| jeff_carr wrote:
| Thank god Biden legalized weed. Oh, wait, nope, they didn't
| even bother to do that.
| belter wrote:
| "Now there's one thing you mighta noticed I don't complain
| about: politicians.
|
| Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they
| suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from?
| They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a
| membrane from some other reality.
|
| They come from American parents, American families, American
| homes, American schools, American churches, American
| businesses, American universities, and they're elected by
| American citizens.
|
| This is the best we can do, folks. This is what we have to
| offer. It's what our system produces. Garbage in...garbage out.
|
| If you have selfish, ignorant citizens...if you have selfish,
| ignorant citizens, you're gunna get selfish, ignorant leaders.
| And term limits ain't gunna do ya any good. You're just gunna
| wind up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans
| [leaders].
|
| So, maybe...maybe...maybe it's not the politicians who suck.
| Maybe something else sucks around here. Like...the public.
| Yeah, the public sucks! That's a nice campaign slogan for
| somebody: "The public sucks! Fuck hope! Fuck hope!"
| - George Carlin
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Russia has 30 percentage points more tertiary educated people
| than the US does. 60 versus 30. Huge, huge difference in
| education levels. Better PISA scores. Better in many OECD
| measures that relate to measurements of "ignorance." How
| would George Carlin rate Russia's politicians?
| dehrmann wrote:
| Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos.
| indigoabstract wrote:
| I won't comment on the validity of this view, but I think the
| people who hold it miss one very important lesson from his
| unlikely comeback: the power of perseverance.
|
| The man was basically finished politically when he left office
| and not very far from actually ending up in jail. Most were
| pretty sure of that.
|
| So what happened?
|
| Not only did that not come to pass, he's the next U.S.
| president now. Out of all the detractors, who is still laughing
| now?
| shrubble wrote:
| I watched the Joe Rogan podcast (well 90% of it) with Trump -
| he talks about this in an intelligent way, which is, 3rd party
| candidates don't really have a chance in national politics.
| There are 2 choices and the system as currently set up, only
| allows there to be 2 choices.
| belter wrote:
| Did you watch this too?:
| https://twitter.com/i/status/1493519145144655873
| shrubble wrote:
| Not sure if I was clear that I was referring to Trump
| speaking about the issue, not Joe Rogan; sorry if there was
| any confusion.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Did you also listen to, or just watched and imagined
| something else?
| danielktdoranie wrote:
| Oh the salt and hyperbole.
| subsubzero wrote:
| Unsure what planet you live on but I would love to visit. Here
| on earth in the US it has been absolute hell incarnate the past
| 4 years with non-stop tech layoffs since 2022, soaring prices
| on everything(housing, food, insurance etc), crime/lawlessness
| on orders I have never seen and huge wars that have spawned in
| the middle east and Russia/Europe. Lets list all of the things
| that have happened since Biden/Harris and then tell me why
| people are flocking to Trump:
|
| - Forced vaccine mandates that have workers fired from their
| jobs if they do not comply even though it was obvious at the
| time that getting a covid vaccine does not prevent the spread
| of the virus(9/2021).
|
| - Huge payouts to illegal immigrants on the order of $450k per
| family(11/2021)
|
| - Homelessness at record high (12% increase from 2022 to 2023).
|
| - Botched rollout from Afghanistan that humiliated the US and
| led to 13 US service members deaths and lasting shame for the
| country on the world stage. (8/2021)
|
| - Housing affordability hits record low in 2023 - 98.2 (only
| 15% of homes for sale are affordable to the average household.
| (2023)
|
| - Biden shocks the nation and viewers and says behind a blood
| red facade that republicans are a threat to democracy (9/2022)
|
| - Colorado and a few other Dem states try to get Trump taken
| off the ballot in what is deemed a affront to any reasonable
| democracy and is swatted down 9-0 by a united supreme court
| (12/2023)
|
| - Legal warfare with anyone who disagrees with the sitting
| administration see Eric Adams Dem NYC mayor who complains about
| immigrants "will destroy NYC"(9/2023) and then the FBI then
| launches a full scale investigation into his
| administration(9/2024). Also see a myriad of accusations
| against Trump by Alvin Bragg who when running for office is
| running on the platform of "getting Trump"(12/2021). This is
| stuff that is typically seen in a totalitarian regime and it
| has shocked Americans from both political spectrums.
| xg15 wrote:
| Maybe for America, but then you can reasonably ask why the
| world is subject to American rules, yet only Americans are
| allowed to vote over those rules.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Because that's how power works.
| Calavar wrote:
| Any American who doesn't live in the states of Pennsylvania,
| Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, or Georgia can also ask that
| question.
| bionicthrowaway wrote:
| Your judgment won't endear Americans to vote for someone they
| believe is a worse candidate.
|
| We saw firsthand what a Trump presidency was like. He wasn't
| Hitler, despite what many in the political establishment would
| like you to believe. We saw firsthand what a Harris vice
| presidency was like, and for most Americans, it did not inspire
| confidence in a Harris presidency. More broadly, the Democratic
| Party has become weirdly fixated on policies that are more in
| tune with Reddit than with the average American, and that's a
| losing strategy.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Trump was fairly inept in his first term, making lots of
| mistakes and pissing off his advisors and allies. He wasn't
| Hitler because he just wasn't very smart, which was a saving
| grace to all of us.
|
| I've had a great 4 years, economically speaking, and I'm
| worried about the future a lot right now just in case Trump
| actually gets the competence to go along with his rhetoric.
| Hopefully he will be just as ineffectual as he was in his
| last term.
| bionicthrowaway wrote:
| The Hitler comparison is just so lazy and I don't think you
| can honestly believe it, unless you solely listen to the
| out-of-context sound bites used by his political opponents
| to attack him (ex. the Cheney thing recently).
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Hitler was a competent autocrat, really evil, but he had
| the brains to back it up.
|
| Trump is just...he says a lot of bad stuff, but he
| doesn't seem to be in Hitler's realm of competence. My
| beef with Trump is his simple non-understanding of
| economics, wanting to tariff everyone and expecting that
| they won't tariff us back, and wanting to juice interest
| rates by politicizing the fed, and then claiming that
| this will somehow reduce inflation, rather than cause it
| to explode. Trump, in that regard, is more Gustav
| Stresemann than Hitler.
| Calavar wrote:
| > We saw firsthand what a Trump presidency was like. He
| wasn't Hitler.
|
| This is something that I don't understand coming from the
| Trump camp. Concerns about Trump are dismissed as
| unsubstantiated despite the fact fact that Mike Pence, Mike
| Esper, John Kelly, and Mark Milley have all called Trump a
| threat to US democracy. These are people who held positions
| of power in his first admin and they warned us that the
| second one would be worse. Maybe you could reasonably dismiss
| the opinion of one, but all four? When does the weight of the
| evidence tip the scales?
| ithkuil wrote:
| The Democratic party indeed got entrapped by its fringe but
| the same thing happened to the Republican party. It's the
| result of the system incentives that favour such
| polarization.
|
| I think what's going on is that trump supporters don't quite
| take him literally on the details of what he says.
|
| Now, as to whether Trump will or won't do more damage in this
| term, that really depends on whether this time the people
| around him will stop him or whether he will choose people who
| will be more loyal.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > I'm just not sure if the world deserves this.
|
| That's the problem. Lots of people who don't have any say in
| this are going to get hurt. Ukraine first. Possibly the Baltics
| next? And then there are things like climate change: Trump's
| going to "drill baby, drill" and basically defund anything to
| do with climate change.
| mmooss wrote:
| > what America wants
|
| It doesn't represent what 'America' wants. Elections are
| dispute resolution mechanisms so people can move forward and
| get something done, but the dispute remains the same today as
| it did on Monday.
| hintymad wrote:
| You mean the world does not deserve 4 years of no wars? Or you
| mean the world does not deserve free press to the point that
| the president didn't do anything other calling the news
| organization "fake news" for their non-stop hoaxes? BTW, is it
| even normal that dozens of organizations used exactly the same
| peculiar language like "sharp as a tack"?
|
| On the other hand, do you think the world deserves that doctors
| like Jay Bhattacharya was blacklisted for simply raising
| questions about how school lockdowns might affect the nation's
| children.
|
| I'm not so sure.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| The numbers shows the dems screwed this one up in the worst way
| possible from top to bottom.
| amai wrote:
| Demxit (Democracy exit)
| totaldude87 wrote:
| For many this ended up with
|
| "Have i felt better over the past 4 years" .
|
| Imagine coming out of covid, without a recession, only to be hit
| with inflation (both parties to blame) and sky high interest
| rates coupled with all other stuff like illegal border crossing
| to lack of majority support from Women to Harris to Harris being
| a silent VP for 4 full years and thrown to lime light.
| tines wrote:
| > Have i felt better over the past 4 years
|
| I agree with you that for a lot of people this is what it came
| down to, which is so sad. Short-term thinking will lead us to
| destruction.
|
| Instead of asking whether things have improved over the last
| four years, think about what you want the country and the world
| to look like in ten, fifty, or a hundred years. And what other
| countries looked like ten, fifty, a hundred, a thousand years
| ago. Think about the rises and falls of other nations. Think
| about the fact that it's getting measurably hotter every year,
| and that one party doesn't even acknowledge that fact.
|
| Everything is more expensive, and yes, that sucks. But we've
| handed over the kingdom's keys to an authoritarian idiot who
| will dismantle the systems that took hundreds of years to
| establish. Rome wasn't built in a day, but it sure burned fast.
|
| > Harris being a silent VP for 4 full years and thrown to lime
| light.
|
| Funny that people constantly talk about how they're not voting
| for Trump, they're voting for the policies of the party etc.
| but then they can't apply the same rationale to the other side.
| tgv wrote:
| But that focuses on the person of the candidate. When you think
| that's important, there are a few remarks to be made about
| Trump. So why do you think this matters? The 15M missing
| voters?
| akira2501 wrote:
| > and thrown to lime light.
|
| She threw herself under the bus. She went thought a great deal
| of effort to end up there. It's the deftest act of self
| immolation I've seen in politics so far.
| tkz1312 wrote:
| The economy is broken. Facism rises. History repeats itself.
| winter_blue wrote:
| And it was just high inflation (albeit still lower than the
| inflation in other countries). Not the depression Weimar
| Germany had experienced in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| This my outsider perspective, I am not into US politics at all
| but I have spent a couple hours catching up today and my takeaway
| is simple (and probably wrong):
|
| the Democrat's messaging wasn't clear enough in my opinion and
| Kamala Harris was a weak candidate.
|
| I listened to some of her interviews and I had a really hard time
| understanding what her campaign was about besides not being
| Trump. She also failed to put some distance between her and Biden
| which means that in my mind and probably in the mind of a lot of
| voters, she was seen merely as a carbon copy of him but as a
| woman.
|
| Also the fact that KH was parachuted on the ticket without a
| primary vote because it was too late for that meant that she just
| wasn't ready. She put up a good fight but it wasn't enough to
| beat Trump who by that stage had been on the campaign trail for
| more than a year and spent time crafting responses, rebuttals and
| finding ways to attack his opponents.
|
| I think Biden shares some of the blame here but she must have
| known this was a suicide mission.
|
| All in all I don't think I missed anything by not paying
| attention to this whole circus.
| kelnos wrote:
| Biden should take on a lot of the blame by immediately deciding
| he wasn't going to run this year. Then we could have had a
| robust primary, hopefully ending with a more appealing
| candidate than Harris. Not a slam dunk, but better chances.
| ilaksh wrote:
| Well.. the last time he won, many people were literally expecting
| a nuclear holocaust. I remember a season of American Horror Story
| where the main part of the premise was that Trump became
| president.
|
| We survived the first time?
|
| I want to believe that somehow having Musk involved will help? I
| think there are a few people who feel encouraged by that based on
| how effective some of his companies are, and others think he will
| just call in a political favor for his own profit.
|
| There seem to be two alternate realities. Either we are on the
| brink of a horrific fascist cyberpunk dystopia, or we have dealt
| a massive blow to the war-profiteering drug-profiteering
| establishment.
|
| I don't think either is the real world, but the extreme
| divergence in predictions is confusing. I dislike this guy quite
| a lot but I also don't think the Democrats are trustworthy or
| honest.
| shkkmo wrote:
| There's two alternate fantasies and they are both increasingly
| detached from reality.
|
| In reality, the war and drug profitiers will be fine and the
| facist cyberpunk dystopia is still approaching at roughly the
| same speed.
| qzw wrote:
| I think a lot of people forgot that before Covid hit, Trump was
| headed for a fairly routine reelection. Many people thought he
| was doing a solid job, especially on the economy. All American
| elections still come down to the James Carville truism, "It's the
| economy, stupid!" Despite what the official metrics or stock
| market says, we've been in a "vibesession" due to inflation and
| elevated interest rates. Anecdotally, I'm still seeing stores run
| low/out of things far more frequently than pre pandemic times,
| which just adds to the feeling that all is not right with the
| world. America is actually in better economic shape than most
| other countries, but people are not feeling happy or optimistic,
| and the incumbent party is going to pay for it.
| qeternity wrote:
| > elevated interest rates
|
| Interest rates are either average, or below average, provided
| your lookback period is longer than the last 15 years of zirp.
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| You are technically right, but anyone 35 and younger is
| currently experiencing the highest interest rates of their
| adult lives.
|
| Whether higher rates are good or bad is irrelevant
| considering the economic churn that occurs when a system
| that's built up around one set of assumptions (cheap money
| and low return on fixed income) has to rebuild itself around
| a new reality.
| qzw wrote:
| 15 years is a long time and reshaped the entire economy
| around basically free credit, so any change to that was going
| to be painful. And one of the real disconnects between
| economists and regular people is around the term inflation.
| Ordinary consumers actually care about _affordability_ , not
| inflation. Raising interest rates to tame inflation does not
| improve affordability. In fact its goal is to further
| decrease affordability to reduce demand, which should then
| cause inflation to moderate. That works fine for economists
| and policymakers, but for ordinary people that's more of a
| bite off your nose off to spite your face kind of solution.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| Akstually stupid voter technically you're wrong. Don't
| believe your pocketbook. -Topkek
| morelandjs wrote:
| It's good to periodically reexamine your own positions against
| that of the majority and be open to realignment and different
| ideas, but remember that the collective opinion of society over
| the long term may look back unfavorably on the collective opinion
| of society over a period of time in the past. It's OK to hold
| minority opinions, and it's OK to disagree with the majority of
| Americans who voted for Trump.
| hakube wrote:
| Good luck to our American friends.
| drumhead wrote:
| My greatest fear is for America. He undermined it's institutions
| last time and there's no telling how much he'll weaken it now. I
| suspect the DoJ will be first to get gutted and then education,
| health, science. NATO, WTO, UN. I'm sure he'll embed
| gerrymandering to ensure republican victories. At the end of this
| we'll have a radically different America, domestically and
| Globally.
| adventured wrote:
| The US was supposed to be destroyed by Trump 2016-2020. That
| didn't happen at all. The US is now stronger, more powerful,
| richer. The corporate tax cuts have worked out extraordinarily
| well, like Ireland on steroids.
|
| Meanwhile the rest of the world has fallen behind the US. China
| is weaker and sliding (in part thanks to the expansive
| authoritarianism). Russia is a joke and has been for decades
| (now a regional power that struggles against Ukraine). Europe
| broadly is weaker and no longer competitive at almost anything.
|
| US GDP per capita is essentially now double that of Britain or
| France.
| ryanisnan wrote:
| This is the only thing that has me clinging to hope, is that
| last time it didn't turn out terribly. I have a sense of
| foreboding about what the supreme court will look like at the
| end of his term, and the consequences we'll have to live with
| for decades as a result. And a potential WW3, which seems
| more plausible on a daily basis. A large scale conflict feels
| almost unavoidable; I would prefer a cool, calm, collected
| individual at the helm when it hits.
| cloverich wrote:
| There is enough protections built into the system, and
| enough maturity of the system (the "deep state"), that
| outside of something like war on our shores, no single
| president can destroy it in one term. But each time its
| degraded it becomes more susceptible. We just (popularly)
| elected an election denier. That means future presidents
| can run this play and get away with it. The most likely
| scenario now IMO is we get a more cunning strongman who
| successfully overturns the democratic outcome when not in
| their favor. We don't have to speculate, as we've see this
| play out in several other countries. Of course this line of
| thinking was never a viable political strategy for running
| against Trump, because its far too abstract for the average
| voter.
|
| The reality is we are still benefiting from the leadership
| of some of our more visionary founders and leaders since;
| but without being reenforced in some way it won't hold up
| forever. Most people in the US are still under the guise of
| America being special, and hand waving those scenarios away
| thinking the worst can't happen here. Which makes it much
| easier to then vote for Trump, especially if you don't
| think the climate crisis is real or prescient.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _There is enough protections built into the system_
|
| I'm not even convinced of this. The problem is that that
| many of these protections aren't really legal (at least
| they aren't _all_ legal), they 're conventions and norms.
| They require the people in power to believe in them, and
| believe that they're good and useful, or they can be
| swept aside. The rule of law is a polite fiction that
| requires people to adhere to it.
|
| Take Elon Musk, for example, who will now likely be
| involved in government to an alarming degree. By all
| accounts, he got his start in the US by working here
| illegally. No problem; rules for thee and not for me. His
| publicly-admitted drug use should disqualify SpaceX from
| government contracts. No problem; what are they going to
| do, cancel them? Musk was unhappy a Delaware judge struck
| down his Tesla pay package. No problem; reincorporate in
| Texas and find a different legal framework and judges who
| like him.
|
| Musk is constantly flaunting norms and getting away with
| it, and he'll continue to push and ignore these
| boundaries with whatever government position Trump gives
| him. Trump does the same, but with a lot more power, and
| he and his cronies are actually prepared and organized
| this time, something that wasn't the case in 2016. He has
| a SCOTUS stacked in his favor, that has already given him
| broad immunity against illegal acts while in office. He
| has the Senate, again, and may have the House as well.
| This time the Senate will temporarily or permanently
| change the filibuster rules if they're having trouble
| hitting the 60-vote threshold on things to which it still
| applies.
| warner25 wrote:
| I share your sense of foreboding. See my other comment
| about how I'm feeling about last time vs. this time, but I
| have one other hope: In the US, the states still retain a
| lot of power. There are still a lot of states that will
| continue to be governed sensibly regardless of what's
| happening at the Federal level. I _think_ that state-level
| leaders tend to be more pragmatic and grounded, less likely
| to take things off-the-rails on impulse or to score
| political points, perhaps because they 're closer to "the
| people" and have to live more with the practical results.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Weakened institutions don't necessarily mean a weakened
| economy. You can have a strong economy and a high GDP without
| an independent judiciary or constitutional rights for
| example. (I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with either of you,
| but pointing out a communications mismatch between your
| comment and the GP that you replied to; I think you're
| talking about different things).
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| I wouldn't focus on Trump in terms of per capita GDP.
|
| During Trump's term, per capital gdp went from $58.2k to
| $64.3k, a 10% increase.
|
| During Biden's term, it went from $64.3k to $81.7k, a 27%
| increase.
| nick3443 wrote:
| GDP should be medianized or the top 100 most income people
| removed from it or something. That top echelon money isn't
| going back into the economy.
| munificent wrote:
| _> That didn 't happen at all. The US is now stronger, more
| powerful, richer._
|
| The proper comparison to make here isn't between America
| before and America after Trump. It's to America after Trump
| and a hypothetical America after Clinton.
|
| It may be that we're better off after Trump (though "we" is
| doing a lot of work in that sentence). But the relevant
| question to voters is whether we would have been _even
| better_ off if the other candidate had one.
| goshx wrote:
| He didn't have immunity from the Supreme Court, and majority
| of the Senate and the House back then. Some Republicans
| working with him still had integrity to prevent atrocities,
| but they are not there anymore.
| drumhead wrote:
| I'd argue that the war in Ukraine was caused by the State
| Department being weakend and not being able to effectively
| deal with Russian plans to invade. Yes the US economy has
| been phenomenally succesful over the last 8 years and thats
| in no small part due to Trumps deregulation of the oil
| industry which has become the largest in the world. But in
| the mean time China is dominating renewables which is the
| future. People also voted for Trump because they're feeling
| economically insecure, the distribution of wealth is skewed
| to the rich. the US middle classes have not been a
| beneficiary of this economic bonanza at all. Which explains
| why they voted Trump. So either wages have to rise
| significantly for them, which means corporates endure lower
| margins or prices fall because of a massive supply side boom,
| which can be met domestically because it would be
| inflationary, and cant be met by imports because he's
| promised to impose 20% tariffs on everyone. Is a circle that
| cant be squared.
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| The last time he was surrounded by chiefs of staff, generals,
| legal counsel, agency directors, etc. who would say "that's
| crazy, you can't do that" against his worst impulses. Now,
| all those people are gone and people like them will not be
| welcome. Now, he has a conservative judiciary (thanks to his
| last-minute appointees) who recently ruled that he will not
| bound by the law. Now, his inner circle has a plan to rapidly
| cleanse all non-partisan Federal government positions of
| anyone who might tell the Trump administration why something
| he wants can't be done.
|
| There is no reason to expect things to go like they did the
| last time around.
| warner25 wrote:
| Well said. Speaking as a registered Republican dating back
| to the early 2000s, I thought Trump was a clown when he
| first announced his intention to run in 2015 (you could
| call me a "Never Trumper"). I was shocked like everybody
| else when he won, but I took comfort in the fact that he
| was still mostly surrounded by old establishment
| Republicans who I figured would keep things on-the-rails or
| just impeach him within the first six months. I mean, he
| had some wackos like Bannon and Flynn and his family
| members, but he also had old establishment Republicans (in
| his cabinet and congress) and other non-politicians that I
| (as a career Army officer) really respected like Kelly,
| Mattis, Esper, McMaster, and Milley. My expectations were
| _sort of_ met.
|
| But now what? The Republican establishment has been re-made
| in his image. The people I respect have all gone public
| against him in the strongest possible ways. Who will serve
| under him? I really don't know what to expect this time
| around.
| sneak wrote:
| Even without Trump, there are lots of people in the US who have
| been relatively dissatisfied with the general trend of the US
| the last 60-ish years. Small-c conservatives have been just as
| horrified by the available options as small-l liberals have
| been.
|
| I doubt even the most radical president could do much to
| reverse or slow that trend. The strong central government
| permanent war surveillance state seems so much bigger and more
| powerful than even the highest office. It's not like breaking
| up or not breaking up Google is gonna change the fact that feds
| can read everyone's gmail without a warrant.
|
| I personally believe that the office of the president's effect
| on long term policy or institutions is generally massively
| overstated. Their main lever seems to be supreme court
| appointments and Trump has already pulled that one in his first
| term (to predictably destructive results). I am unsure whether
| that is because presidents generally "color inside of the
| lines" and haven't attempted sweeping and radical reform, or
| because the institutions ultimately have more inertia than the
| temporary machinations of the executive office.
|
| I guess we'll see if the institutional destruction he seems to
| seek a) is even possible or b) may result in unexpectedly good
| outcomes. Then again, most of the stuff he says he seems to
| speak just for the momentary sake of speaking it; only a small
| fraction relates to things he plans (or is effectively
| compelled) to do. I lost count of all of the promises he made,
| good and bad, that not only weren't kept, but weren't even ever
| mentioned again.
|
| I remain skeptical that his fervent drive during the campaign
| will translate into fervent reformation action, now that he has
| obtained what he wants. Despite the constant media hand-
| wringing, his first term wasn't as apocalyptic as everyone made
| it out to be, despite his two main legacies both being perhaps
| the most destructive things he could have wrought: the supreme
| court appointments and the insanely massive mismanagement of a
| deadly pandemic.
|
| His more hardworking and ideologically-motivated support staff
| have had a lot more time to plan on his behalf this time
| around, however. Perhaps his weaponized ignorance will be
| deliberately wielded this time around and his second term will
| turn out to be massively more destructive than his first, but
| that is a very high bar to clear given the outsized effect that
| mismanaging the pandemic response caused. Not many presidents
| can have that much preventable death in their legacy, even if
| they explicitly try.
| cloverich wrote:
| > Their main lever seems to be supreme court appointments
|
| The President has far more power than that.
| - Veto Power: Blocks congressional bills; overrides require a
| two-thirds majority, which is rare. - Executive
| Orders: Directives to federal agencies that bypass Congress
| (limited by courts and future presidents). - Foreign
| Policy Leadership: Sole power to negotiate treaties
| (requiring Senate ratification) and recognize foreign
| governments. - Pardon Power: Can pardon federal
| offenses, unchecked by other branches. - Appointment
| Authority: Nominates not only Supreme Court justices, but
| federal judges, and cabinet members, shaping long-term policy
| and judicial interpretation.
|
| What goes along with that is ability to get people elected
| (or not) by backing them, both actually and monetarily. Trump
| killing the immigration bill during Biden's term is a good
| example, and he wasn't even President (yet) at the time. I
| expect he'll focus on more palatable legislation during the
| first two years, to keep the senate majority through 2028,
| but we'll see.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| He only realistically has two years to get any legislation
| through, the last two years he won't have the house with
| him so either he is on the defensive or just doing
| appointments (he will start the term with negative approval
| rating, and probably will never get above that, so the
| house definitely flips in 2026 like it did in 2018).
|
| The question is how much damage can he do in two years? If
| he goes full loco and starts a global trade war with
| everyone via high tariffs, while at the same time juicing
| interest rates via a politicized fed, we will be in a
| depression within a year or two. If he uses his political
| capital more wisely, we might avoid that economic hit but
| have longer term damage to worry about. Thankfully, Trump
| is pretty impulsive, and he doesn't have a long list of
| good advisors to choose from (not that he would listen to
| them anyways), so I'm really just worried about the first
| scenario.
| drstewart wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Please don't do this here.
| bogota wrote:
| Its funny. Even after this happens the comments continue to keep
| the echo chamber going instead of wanting to understand how this
| happened. Until the DNC has an honest conversation with itself
| this will just keep happening.
| qwerpy wrote:
| Social media upvoting/downvoting that results in comments being
| hidden is the reason for this. Even a small imbalance in one
| direction or the other effectively silences one side. Perfectly
| legitimate, well-reasoned comments will get angrily downvoted
| into invisibility. Echo chambers get created and enforced. This
| is particularly bad on Reddit (low karma can get you banned
| from a sub) but even on HN I'll give anecdotes that go against
| the "party line" and I'll get downvoted.
|
| Problem is, this is the best way to increase engagement because
| it gives the most people the most compelling content. So this
| will never change.
| bogota wrote:
| I agree but i think HN does a somewhat Ok job with the
| upvoting system. Well at least compared to reddit which is in
| a full blown meltdown because their bubble popped.
| binary_slinger wrote:
| Some ideas I'd like to see implemented (in no particular
| order):
|
| 1. Eliminate anonymity by requiring real names and profile
| pictures attached to usernames. This humanizes users and
| encourages accountability, as attaching a real name can act
| as a natural filter for behavior.
|
| 2. Introduce a cost for downvoting to make it a more
| thoughtful action. This could involve a quota based on
| account age and karma, or my favorite option--having each
| downvote cost a bit of karma or an upvote on one of your own
| posts.
|
| 3. Discourage bot accounts by requiring a hard-to-obtain
| token, like a verified phone number, which is straightforward
| to implement and would reduce low-effort accounts.
|
| 4. Higher barrier to entry to join an online community. This
| doesn't parallel how communities work IRL. You need social
| credit to join a community.
| grumple wrote:
| I've already seen people posting absolutely unhinged comments
| on Reddit. They think they need to go further left, more
| extreme, completely ignoring the rightward shift of every group
| but white women.
|
| They don't want to understand why so many people see the appeal
| of Trump but not the Democratic Party. They are so caught up in
| whatever their personal ideological take on some fringe issue
| is that they miss the big issues and the popular support for
| change away from the status quo on those issues.
| bogota wrote:
| I won't lie it's been really fun to watch. I was so sick of
| all the self righteous posts they had going before the
| elections.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| Current DNC leadership needs to go. It's not enough to be on
| the right side of the issues - you have to also _win_.
|
| I hope this is a giant wake up call that causes them to clean
| house. The current leadership and strategists are clearly
| horribly disconnected from the average voter, and they should
| be replaced by a team that actually enfranchises its base by
| pushing for robust primaries (unlike this year), without
| putting a thumb on the scale (unlike 2016).
|
| You can't win with a backroom of overeducated analysts putting
| together a "platform" of issues that they feel like will appeal
| to the median voter, then trying to shove a pre-screened,
| crappy establishment candidate down everyone's throats.
|
| The best way to figure out what people want to vote for is to
| hold an actual vote.
| crazygringo wrote:
| It seems like what happened is that voters without economic
| knowledge think the president controls inflation, as opposed to
| it being the inevitable consequence of price rises worldwide
| due to a worldwide pandemic.
|
| They don't like that eggs went up in price so they elect the
| opposite party. They think Trump will bring prices back down
| because he's a businessman, even though his tariffs will be
| hugely inflationary.
|
| I'm not sure what kind of an honest DNC conversation would be
| able to address this.
| bogota wrote:
| I think this had very little to do with it. From the people I
| have talked with and also just looking at the latino vote i
| think people greatly underestimate how many people actually
| want our immigration system changed as well as being
| absolutely sick of identity politics.
|
| Also your view that dumb voters led to this is counter
| productive and insulting. It is what I am seeing in almost
| every reddit post as well. "Well people are just too dumb to
| know what they need"... yeah ok.
| csours wrote:
| I sometimes imagine what Science Officer Spock would really say
| to humans to help them understand themselves.
|
| Just saying "highly illogical" is not very helpful.
|
| (The following is all my imagination, any resemblance to reality
| is coincidental)
|
| So, I think he would talk about how the mind is not a machine
| designed for rationality. The mind is a holographic projection, a
| story told by a collection of organs in your head, fed by
| sensations from your body.
|
| I think he would talk about the dilemma of aspiration. If you
| aspire to rationality, and you feel that rationality is the best
| system of thought, then you will be driven to believe that you
| are highly rational. Unfortunately, in many things, you cannot
| differentiate between logical consistency and post-hoc
| rationalization.
|
| Humans know this; so we have things like peer review.
|
| Unfortunately you also cannot trust another person to rationally
| evaluate your beliefs - humans have a strong history of in-
| group/out-group dynamics. It is beneficial to signal agreement
| and trustworthiness; it is harmful and painful to signal
| disagreement with the in-group.
|
| And so rational thought requires rational communication with
| people you disagree with - and people in the out-group, because
| your in-group may have centered on a wrong, harmful or otherwise
| useless belief.
|
| Rational communication requires an overlap in perspective. Not
| the same point of view, but at least a minimal consensus in
| perception of reality and goals. For instance, most people
| believe that it is good to invest in young people in some way,
| though they may disagree about what that means.
|
| Unfortunately, in-group/out-group dynamics can make this very
| difficult in times of active conflict, as humans have a very
| strong sense of morality, and sending moral signals to your in-
| group is more important that rational communication.
|
| ----
|
| No one had a plan that got humans to this point in our story. No
| one has a plan for humans in an age of worldwide social media. We
| have to build it together.
|
| I don't like country music, but I can see the appeal. Things are
| simpler in the country - you have to believe in real things like
| trucks and cows, not theoretical things like software and
| commodity futures contracts.
|
| It's nice to deal with things that are simple and real.
| skeuomorphism wrote:
| About 20 million votes less than the 2020 election, with about 15
| million less for the democrats, and a measely 4 million less for
| the republicans. Thought that was interesting.
| zawaideh wrote:
| It's not like people warned that supporting a genocide would
| cost Harris the presidency...
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| Yes, and now those people are stuck with Trump who is far
| worse on that score.
| aa_is_op wrote:
| Yeah. They have no idea Trump is the biggest pro-Israel
| anti-Muslim fan out there. He'll literally give Israel
| anything they want, and those people will gasp and act
| surprised.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| We run our nation on oil. Our nation is built on good a
| relationship with Israel. Nothing about that will change
| until our priorities as a country change, dem or repb.
| zawaideh wrote:
| the devil vs the devil wrapped in a rainbow flag is still
| the devil...
| bbor wrote:
| The devil doesn't exist, and real life is complicated.
| Have fun telling the living Palestinians "whelp, a lot of
| you already died, so we're gonna let the rest of you
| die/be deported to a country you've never been to."
| sangnoir wrote:
| The oft-repeated question "What could be worse than a
| genocide?" was ill-thought-out, first-order thinking, IMO.
| Regardless, we are going to find out the higher order
| results soon.
| umeshunni wrote:
| Literally noone in America cares about this enough to swing
| their vote.
| keroro wrote:
| Personally I know plenty of people who didn't vote because
| of the genocide. Mostly Palestinian americans, arab
| americans, those on the far left.
| zawaideh wrote:
| the huge protests and the whole big fuss about Michigan
| disagrees with that statement...
|
| Maybe you do not care.. and I guess you wouldn't have cared
| about the Holocaust either.
| delichon wrote:
| It apparently was the thing that lost Harris the
| endorsement of the LA Times. That's worth a vote or two.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/26/us/los-angeles-times-
| endo...
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| When all is said and done I bet Gaza had very little effect
| on overall D turnout. If it did, those that either sat out or
| voted R specifically because of Gaza did so to spite their
| face. An R administration will turn their backs on a lot of
| geopolitical happenings and let those involved run wild, of
| which the Palestinians will have little to no voice at all.
|
| Also people vastly underestimate the political calculus in
| full throated support of Palestinians and by association,
| Hamas. There is a whole other side of this conflict and that
| is with Jews who also care about the resolution, but also
| care about Israel and the fact they've had rockets constantly
| fired into their territory. They also vote overwhelmingly D.
| You alienate one group for another and you've made no ground
| in terms of voter share.
| lanternfish wrote:
| Exit polls, especially in Michigan, seem to disagree with
| this.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| Wayne County was never going to be the lynch pin of the
| election and even so, exit polling is notoriously fickle.
| If we're taking exit polling at face value, across the
| country the economy was #1 followed by preserving
| democracy and immigration. Geopolitics is probably at the
| bottom of the top 10 nationally.
| knodi wrote:
| Dearborn alone voted 50% for Trump, 22% for Jill and 28%
| for Harris. Thats 50-100k votes right there. A clear
| message and an axe to the foot of Palestine.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| Looking at the Dearborn results[1], it looks like Jill
| pulled 10k votes at 20%. That's not winning MI.
|
| [1] https://dearborn.gov/sites/default/files/2024-11/UNOF
| FICIAL%...
| nick3443 wrote:
| There is probably a large non-vocal group of Democrats
| outside deep blue areas that doesn't agree, which is why they
| went that direction
| lynndotpy wrote:
| While I agree that genocide is bad, all the numbers point to
| this not even having had been a factor.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > It's not like people warned that supporting a genocide
| would cost Harris the presidency...
|
| That's fair. She lost a good number of votes, but 10M+
| popular votes? Would that account for it?
| nickvec wrote:
| Still a large chunk of votes yet to be counted on the West
| Coast.
| culi wrote:
| yeah California has between 5 and 7 million that will take
| weeks to count
| ggregoire wrote:
| Was expected, lot of Americans don't want to be represented by
| either of those two candidates.
| Cannabat wrote:
| Unfortunately, it's not possible to express this sentiment
| via election participation. Abstention ends up supporting one
| candidate more than the other. What seems to be an
| affirmation of neutrality is not that in practice.
| ggregoire wrote:
| You misinterpreted the massive disagreement of the
| population (20M people) with an affirmation of neutrality.
| One can hope the dems will not misinterpret it (as they
| often do, unfortunately, and they already started on
| twitter and the mainstream media). Hopefully they can
| recognize and acknowledge that a large portion of the left
| disagrees with their policies and start listening to their
| base, otherwise they will keep losing more votes every 4
| year.
| pie_flavor wrote:
| The national election is an exercise in partisanship. Your
| opportunity to feel represented is what the primary is for.
| And for once I'm not sneering at the sentiment because
| basically neither side ran a primary (the Ds managed to not
| run one twice!)
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| > Your opportunity to feel represented is what the
| primary is for
|
| This is why it was a major issue for me that the
| Democrats did _not_ hold a primary and just decided
| Kamala would be the candidate. If a major part of your
| campaign is "vote for us or democracy dies!" it's pretty
| hard to swallow if you increasingly feel that your voice
| doesn't matter in your own party.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I see this being pushed on Twitter as a proof of election fraud
| in 2020 but aren't the votes still being counted?
|
| Reporting appears to be %87 at this moment, expect the numbers
| to add up when it's %100.
|
| Don't you register to vote anyway? You can't be counting
| unaccounted for ballots, are you? You probably have a paperwork
| for for every vote, it's not like counting the cash after
| busking.
|
| Eventually You will have Total Number of Registered to Vote =
| Total Ballots + Total Absentees.
|
| This will also give you the turnout. You can't have the turnout
| first unless you keep track of number of votes casted and in
| that case you will be able to tell if there were fake votes by
| comparing the final ballots counted and the number of votes you
| counted when casting.
|
| This is all very basic, can someone explain what I'm missing
| here? Why people are pushing for this thing that doesn't make
| sense whatsoever?
| lelandbatey wrote:
| Not everyone who is registered to vote actually votes (as in
| they do not mail in their ballot nor do they go in to
| physically vote). Which is I think the more likely case here.
| culi wrote:
| That 87% figure refers to the number of ballots that have
| been counted. What you're thinking of is the turnout
| (usually measured by % of VEP).
|
| California, for example, has about 7 million ballots that
| haven't been processed
| bee_rider wrote:
| It doesn't seem like very good evidence that there was fraud
| in 2020, in the sense they even if (and it is an if) we end
| up with a decrease in turnout this year, there's no
| particular reason to believe that people didn't just... vote
| more when the pandemic was happening, they had more time to
| sit around, and mail in voting was easier. Is it possible
| that the people pushing this idea are just engaging in
| motivated reasoning?
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| > "motivated reasoning"
|
| Isn't that exactly what you're doing?
| Jerrrrrrry wrote:
| meta-whataboutism
| bee_rider wrote:
| Nope, it isn't.
| saghm wrote:
| > This is all very basic, can someone explain what I'm
| missing here? Why people are pushing for this thing that
| doesn't make sense whatsoever?
|
| You're assuming that the election fraud narrative is pushed
| by people who care about whether it's true or not. The goal
| isn't truth-seeking, it's disenfranchisement; any data point
| is either used in service of the narrative, or it's discarded
| as irrelevant.
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| 2020 was exceptional in the amount of voting that happened by
| mail. I hope nothing makes that necessary again.
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| > I hope nothing makes that necessary again
|
| I hope nothing makes it necessary, but I do hope it becomes
| commonplace. It's such a better experience to complete a
| ballot leisurely in one's own home, being able to discuss it
| with my own family and referencing a plethora of materials,
| than having to go out of my way to wait in line and have
| prepared everything ahead of time (and, hopefully, remembered
| it).
| cdolan wrote:
| Serious question:
|
| Are you certain your vote was counted and not lost? I vote
| in person because I know when I mail things they don't
| always get where I intended them to be (and especially when
| there is a deadline in place)
| siger wrote:
| At least NY lets you track your ballot online ("New York
| Ballot Tracker").
| anon84873628 wrote:
| I got a text message from my county telling me my vote
| was counted.
| palata wrote:
| In my country, I can just bring the letter and put it in
| a special mailbox in the city hall in the weeks before
| the vote. I would trust the mail system, too, but that's
| beside the point.
|
| Just to say it works "asynchronously", too.
| comrh wrote:
| In Utah I checked via state website on Election day
| psadauskas wrote:
| I got emails from the county (Boulder County, CO) when
| they mailed me my ballot, when they received it, and when
| they counted it.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Don't you receive a sample ballot that you can fill out and
| take with you to the polling location?
| aksss wrote:
| I don't equate easy with better. I miss the sense of
| community inspired by going to the local polling place and
| seeing your neighbors. It's a ritual that has value. Yeah
| it takes some effort, and if people want to make it a
| federal holiday, that's cool too.
|
| Mail-in ballots have so many more issues with them - lack
| of privacy (so more room for coercion and harvesting), they
| make auditability more difficult.
|
| Regardless of whether you think the relaxed voting
| requirements of 2020 led to widespread fraud, it inspired
| enough distrust that both parties should be advocating to
| bolster the reliability, auditability, and trustworthiness
| of the voting process, not decrease it further. The only
| thing that sucks more than losing an election is losing it
| under suspicious circumstances. Subject people to that
| enough times, and it doesn't lead anywhere good, regardless
| of your political team. Instead, create and enforce
| policies that improve trust rather than erode it.
| Egregore wrote:
| How can I be sure that you didn't vote under a gun point or
| you haven't been bribed?
| whoiskevin wrote:
| Yes let's make sure no one can vote conveniently ever again.
| :-p
| tux1968 wrote:
| Sometimes security and integrity matter more than
| convenience.
| lesuorac wrote:
| There really isn't more security and integrity with in
| person elections versus mail.
|
| Jimmy Carter spoke about this, literally in some town the
| sheriff watches you vote and chucks it into the trash if
| you didn't pick their candidate.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| This problem is quite easily solved via a correct
| procedure and poll watchers.
| brightball wrote:
| You can't verify a photo ID in the mail.
| lesuorac wrote:
| You can't verify a photo ID in person either lol.
|
| There's a whole industry about making fake IDs.
| arcbyte wrote:
| > There really isn't more security and integrity with in
| person elections versus mail.
|
| There's a big list of security and integrity problems
| inherent with mail in ballots that do not exist for in
| person voting.
|
| First and foremost: ballot canvasing.
| skissane wrote:
| > Jimmy Carter spoke about this, literally in some town
| the sheriff watches you vote and chucks it into the trash
| if you didn't pick their candidate.
|
| That is a flaw of the American model of allowing local
| governments to run state and national elections.
|
| In many other countries, local government has no role to
| play in non-local elections. All elections are 100% run
| by either a state or national elections agency.
| daveguy wrote:
| I believe locally run elections are a good thing. As
| fraud would have to be perpetrated against multiple
| election systems. However, I also think there should be
| standards such as electronically tallied, hand-marked
| paper ballots saved for potential future audit.
| skissane wrote:
| Several other countries have independent electoral
| commissions running elections, as opposed to elected
| politicians. It is much easier for voters to trust the
| people running elections when they are required by law to
| be apolitical.
|
| Look for example at the Australian Electoral Commission
| (AEC)
| waveBidder wrote:
| We need a national voting holiday.
| ipython wrote:
| I believe there is still more vote to count, so the absolute
| numbers may still increase dramatically, but your point on
| party affiliation is definitely on point
| culi wrote:
| The vote isn't even close to done. California will likely take
| weeks to count another 5 million, maybe more. In 2020 it took 2
| months to get the final count from all states (not including
| recounts)
| stopping wrote:
| 2020 vote count: 155 million
|
| 2024 vote count so far: 139 million
|
| 2024 vote percentage counted so far: 87%
|
| 139 million divided by 87% equals 159 million.
|
| Voter turnout this year will be higher than 2020.
| superfrank wrote:
| 2020 turn out was around 158.5 million https://en.wikipedia.o
| rg/wiki/2020_United_States_presidentia...
|
| Agree though that we'll get pretty close to that. CA,OR, WA
| alone likely have ~10 million votes uncounted.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The current prediction, when all votes are counted, is it to be
| just below the record turnout, which was 4 years ago.
|
| It not even guaranteed that Trump will win the popular vote, it
| depends on how the California votes land.
| richardw wrote:
| [flagged]
| cryptonector wrote:
| Noted.
| yadaeno wrote:
| The democrats have done many things that are undemocratic.
|
| * tried to remove trump from the ballot on Colorado * triple
| digit amount of filings from the justice department against a
| political opponent * refuse to remove rfk junior from the
| ballot
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| Is becoming a "political opponent" supposed to be a legal
| shield against prosecution? Are laws simply unenforceable
| against politicians who break them to pursue power or abuse
| their offices?
| dang wrote:
| No nationalistic flamewar on HN, please, regardless of nation.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| richardw wrote:
| Sorry dang. Emotions.
| quitspamming wrote:
| > When democracy and the rule of law are considered less
| important than (insert all the dem ills here), it's not dems.
| It's the voters.
|
| Democracy and rule of law like... covering up the mental
| decline of a sitting president, foreign leaders lying to the
| American public saying Joe Biden is fine, only for him to
| finally expose himself so badly live on TV they jettison the
| man off the 2024 ticket while leaving him in office? Then
| imposing a candidate by fiat?
|
| January 6th was absolutely a constitutional crisis, but it
| lasted less than a day. The cover-up of Biden's mental state
| was a multi-year constitutional crisis that still has not been
| fully acknowledged.
|
| When there are two competing harms you fall back to things like
| who is going to put more money in my pocket. This is 100% the
| dem's fault.
| intended wrote:
| Absolutely agree. This is like the discussions amongst brits
| during Brexit.
|
| This is not dems leadership fault. Many of the complaints that
| "oh they didnt do X or Y outreach" for example, are just
| strange, given that people OUTSIDE of America were well aware
| of Dem policies.
|
| Hell, the Dems ditched their candidate, to put forward a better
| candidate, against all conventional wisdom. A bold and honestly
| decent move.
|
| They communicated through word and action, and it still made no
| difference.
| zanfr wrote:
| I think its time for the EU to distance itself from the US
| trainwreck
| braincat31415 wrote:
| Who's a trainwreck? Volkswagen is closing plants. Siemens chief
| admitting recently that investments in Germany are a waste
| because of the high energy prices. EU can continue buying the
| overpriced US LNG, or "distance itself" and crawl back to the
| Russians begging for cheap gas that was driving the German
| economy. Europe is cooked.
| konschubert wrote:
| The EU is about to crash itself.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| We literally never think about you
| latino_voter_24 wrote:
| Born in Argentina. Legal immigrant. US citizen for over 30 years.
| Voter.
|
| Given the proclivities here on HN I fully expect this message
| will not be well received. I urge left-leaning visitors to read
| it, stop and think before the natural emotional reaction.
|
| What you lack is real exposure and knowledge of Latin American
| history and politics. Everything we see the Democratic party push
| for and do in the US has already happened in Latin America dozens
| of times over the last century. Pick a policy and you will find a
| country in LATAM that has done it, if not many.
|
| The result? Utter destruction. LATAM is a time machine for the
| US. You can rewind history and see how every single policy being
| pushed by the left will end. And the results are not pretty. My
| own native country, Argentina, was absolutely destroyed by this
| ideology. It went from one of the top economies in the world to
| something like 150 spots down the list.
|
| Poverty, destruction, massive unemployment, crime, intense
| lawfare, political prosecution, etc. You will find this in
| Argentina's history and that of most nations in LATAM. And the
| link to leftist/socialist rule is indisputable.
|
| As things hit rock bottom LATAM has been waking up. El Salvador
| is one example of this. And Argentina is now on it's way with
| Milei. Sadly the uninformed masses have to hit rock bottom before
| they understand that the people they have been supporting them
| only care about political power and not about their lives.
|
| Eventually reality vs. fantasy hits you hard enough that you
| cannot react like robot and keep supporting the same criminals
| that got you to the point of pain, misery and despair you find
| yourself pondering about. It's like being 30 meters down scuba-
| diving and your air tank suddenly going empty. There are
| realities you cannot ignore. And that's how Milei finally got
| elected.
|
| The problem with the American Left is that you are all utterly
| ignorant of the history of so many nations where everything your
| party and politicians do and proposed has been tried and failed.
| The fact that a Bernie Sanders or AOC are not summarily laughed
| off the stage says volumes about the ignorance of the people who
| vote for them.
|
| I am happy that Trump won. Not because he is the most ideal
| candidate. We can talk about how flawed the US process is that we
| usually end-up with two choices everyone hates. That's a
| different discussion. Whether you know it or not, what the Trump
| win represents is the US dodging the destructive forces of putrid
| leftist ideology that has destroyed so many nations.
|
| No, he is not Hitler or a fascist. Stop it. You have never lived
| under such regimes. You don't know what the hell you are talking
| about. As a teenager in Argentina I was held at gunpoint (as in
| multiple machine guns, with one pushing against my back) by
| military police in Argentina. What crime did my friends and I
| commit? We went to the movies, then to have some pizza at a
| restaurant and were walking home late at night. That's it. They
| slapped us around and took our money. Again, don't use terms like
| "fascist" like you know what the fuck you are talking about, you
| have no idea. Any immigrant who has actually lived under these
| ideologies thinks you are ignorant and stupid.
|
| My first-level filter when thinking about supporting a politician
| is:
|
| Would I hire this person to run a cookie baking operation?
|
| Simplistic, yes, however, it quickly gets to the core of the
| issue: Most politicians are just that, politicians, and know
| nothing whatsoever about making even a microscopic economy run.
| They know nothing about the consequences of their actions and
| have no exposure to them at all.
|
| A simple example of this was Obama and Obamacare. He passed a
| horrible law that caused incredible damage. He promised --dozens
| of times-- that your existing plans and doctors would not change.
| My family's health insurance evaporated. We were forced into the
| ACA. Our cost when from $7,800 per year to $28,800 per year. Yes,
| you read that correctly. Our deductible also went from $3,000 per
| year to over $9,000 per year. And yet, none of the politicians
| who supported this abomination have to live with the realities of
| effectively destroying a family's economy as well as generational
| wealth.
|
| For our family that represents being robbed to the tune of $210K
| every ten years. When one considers investing this on an ETF, we
| are talking about millions of millions of dollars over, say, 30
| years. Destruction at this scale should be criminal.
|
| The other problem with the ACA is that it pushed tens of millions
| of people into programs that, by law, require that their medical
| expenditures after 55 years of age be recovered. That recovery
| can include a lien on whatever assets they might have. Once
| again, destroying generational wealth.
|
| And yet, Obama, a person who nobody in their right mind would
| hire to run a cookie baking operation, is living large, has
| suffered no consequences for his incompetence and deceit and is a
| multimillionaire many time over.
|
| Another example of this is the utter destruction that the
| artificial raising of the minimum wage has caused. Financially-
| challenged and ideologically-brainwashed voters supported this.
| The result was that people lost their jobs, had their hours cut
| and everything they buy and consume is so unaffordable that their
| higher minimum wage has less buying power than their status quo
| ante. What's worse, it is causing irreparable damage to
| businesses and further losses to outsourcing in multiple
| industries, including manufacturing. Bravo. Ignorance is sad to
| behold.
|
| On to Harris.
|
| Incompetent as can be. The worst candidate Democrats have seen
| for decades. Once again, as a first filer, nobody in their right
| mind would hire this person to run a cookie baking operation.
| Race and gender have nothing to do with this. She is utterly
| incompetent and does not know what she is doing.
|
| Her ideology is putrid and would have damaged the US beyond
| recognition. The US would not survive another four years of this,
| much less four years going farther into the putrid left.
|
| You think you are suffering now? Inflation is too high? Once
| again, you have no clue what the fuck you are talking about. The
| population of the US is up in arms about 20% inflation. Meh! Try
| 250% inflation! The US would descend into civil war. Yet, that's
| precisely what happened in Argentina (along with many years well
| above 20%. Here:
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/316750/inflation-rate-in...
|
| Again, the policies and politicians you support are DESTROYING
| this nation. You don't know it because you are like the
| proverbial frog slowly being boiled and you are utterly ignorant
| about the world outside the US and their various histories.
|
| If we remained on our current path, the US would probably find
| itself in an unrecoverable position in another four years,
| certainly in eight. If you actually took the time to study, learn
| and think about this, you should come out with two conclusions:
| Trump voters saved your ass and gave the US the best probably for
| a turn-around (even as late as this is). Second, you should
| realign your flawed thinking, support the change and perhaps even
| thank your Trump-voting friends for saving this nation from an
| almost certain disastrous path.
|
| Well, like I said, I firmly suspect the HN crowd will not receive
| this message very well, hence the throw-away account. If I am
| able to make just a few people truly rethink their fake reality,
| mission accomplished. I do not want to see the US turn into
| Argentina, Venezuela, El Salvador and the dozens of other nations
| destroyed by leftist ideologies in many forms. That requires a
| voting population who is educated about how this has affected the
| world. We don't want the far right either. That is now where we
| are today. At all. If you care about your life and that of your
| family, kids, etc., you need to educate yourself, leave
| ideological indoctrination behind and understand reality. We were
| 30 meters down and air was about to stop flowing. We now have a
| chance to surface and live.
|
| If you got this far, thanks. I hope you are the type who is
| willing to reflect and understand.
| latino_voter_24 wrote:
| Some might ask: Well, if that's the case, why did Hispanics
| vote for Harris?
|
| Do you know about Evita in Argentina? Probably not. You think
| you know because you watched a movie or musical. Silly goose.
|
| This goes back to when my parents where young. Evita sent
| trucks full of bikes, refrigerators, appliances, etc. into poor
| neighborhoods to buy votes. Vote for her, get an appliance.
| Where did those appliances come from? They took them from "the
| rich", causing damage to manufacturers and destroying jobs.
|
| This was one of the many obvert ways in which they bought
| votes. People fall for this because they are desperate. And
| people are desperate because the left wants to keep them there,
| needs to keep them there.
|
| I think this observation is attributed to Gloria Alvarez: The
| left love the poor so much, they multiply them.
|
| The strategy is simple: - Keep them poor and desperate - Do not
| solve their problems - Blame the other side for their condition
| - Toss gifts and promises in the every election - Win elections
| - Make sure they stay poor and desperate - Ignore them until
| next election
|
| That's the playbook. This has been done across LATAM history so
| many times it's sick. And, yes, it works. Because you will
| always find people in every population who are desperate and
| uninformed enough to not be able to think past their current
| condition. Very few people make decisions with a ten+ year
| timeframe. This just happened in Argentina with Milei because
| people hit the bottom so hard they had to wake up and
| understand reality.
|
| Harris promised "appliances" to people in the form of $25K
| gifts to buy homes, free entry into the US and a path to
| citizenship and a whole host of horrible policies I don't have
| time to repeat. So, yes, once again, as the LATAM time machine
| shows us, these things will drive a percentage of the
| population to cast votes in favor of the candidate sending
| trucks with appliances into their neighborhoods to buy their
| votes. And they will do this without realizing they are
| contributing to the destruction of their society and economy
| until they understand they have been in water that is about to
| boil the entire time.
|
| Oh yes, and, of course, the other thing the left has done
| throughout LATAM's history (and Evita was no exception) is to
| control the media. If you control the media you can brainwash
| the shit out of people, as some of you are here in the US.
|
| Of course, here the media are not officially under government
| control. This has been accomplished through outright
| indoctrination at our universities. As a result, a large
| majority of the people who work at media organizations are
| leftist ideologs who will happily support someone as dangerous
| and incompetent as Harris because they can't think past their
| indoctrination.
|
| The messaging take-over by the left in the US was not done by
| force, like in most LATAM nations, it was done through shit
| ideologically-slanted "education" at our centers of "higher
| learning". I really hope Trump has a plan to slam these
| organizations (media and universities) hard. We need to fix
| this problem and do it quickly because it takes years for
| people who have not been subjected to indoctrination to emerge
| from university and join society.
| IWeldMelons wrote:
| LATAM has nothing in common with the Western thinking. You
| are people of passion, no matter who Argentinians vote in
| always ended in disaster. Milei if far right, and as big an
| idiot as your lefties.
|
| Meanwhile, anyone who ever been to developed Europe or Asia
| can attest, that although far left by American standards,
| average Joe has far greater quality of live; heck even Canada
| has affordable healthcare which is such a big problem in the
| US.
| latino_voter_24 wrote:
| > LATAM has nothing in common with the Western thinking.
| You are people of passion, no matter who Argentinians vote
| in always ended in disaster.
|
| Be careful, your ignorance is showing.
|
| On a more serious note, you clearly don't know what you are
| talking about.
|
| "People of passion". Give me a fucking break. So, Latin
| Americans are emotion-driven robots. Great. Stop getting
| your fake facts from movies and leftist media for goodness
| sake.
|
| > Milei if far right, and as big an idiot as your lefties.
|
| Your ignorance makes me want to vomit.
|
| Go live in an environment with 50% unemployment, massive
| government overreach and 250% annual inflation (after years
| of crippling inflation). Then come back and read your
| comment to understand what you sound like.
| modeless wrote:
| Hispanic men voted Trump. Overall Harris lost a _lot_ of
| ground in the Hispanic vote compared to Biden.
| latino_voter_24 wrote:
| Right. We need more Hispanics to vote Republican. One of
| the things I discuss with Hispanic friends is that none of
| us should vote for the kind of people who destroyed the
| countries we all came from. We have friends from Mexico,
| Guatemala, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, etc. Most
| are educated professionals who know their history and, in
| general, very aware of LATAM history and politics. Not ONE
| OF THEM votes on the left. Ever. Because they know where
| they came from.
|
| Quite a few of the Hispanics who vote on the left are low-
| information, low-education voters who can be bought with
| fake giveaways, not realizing they are shooting themselves
| in the foot.
|
| At the end it is always a matter of education. In the US,
| it is a matter of our educational institutions of "higher"
| learning having descended into becoming centers of
| indoctrination. I went to university in Argentina for
| engineering. We studied engineering, not the bullshit
| socially-twisted, time-wasting courses universities force
| students to take here in the US.
|
| My oldest son attended a top university back east for CS.
| He burned a year of his life in the aggregate taking
| bullshit courses having nothing whatsoever to do with CS.
| They also forced him to take classes on Marxism where they
| romanticized the ideology. How? The made it the only class
| available, and if he wanted to graduate that was the only
| choice from here to eternity. I don't even want to imaging
| what they do to liberal arts students. It is truly
| despicable.
| exabrial wrote:
| My analysis is the Democrat party leadership should have
| conducted a true primary election.
|
| She was "gifted" the nomination, vs being selected in the
| primary. I think the populace responded in turn: This wasn't
| their candidate. Compare this to the Obama vs Clinton selection,
| which I actually believe the populace would have supported
| either.
|
| btw: I'm not sure I'd compare this to the 2020 primaries as 2020
| was a special year, and I don't think really any of the
| candidates really resonated with the voters, Biden just "wasn't
| Trump".
| max51 wrote:
| The issue isn't how she got the nomination but how bad of a
| candidate she is. People did not like her before she was VP.
| She was considered a joke candidate was performed extremely
| poorly in the 2020 primaries. The main reason a primary would
| have been better is because Harris would have lost and been
| replaced with a better candidate.
| SirensOfTitan wrote:
| Yes, for sure, but the way Biden's mental fitness was poor-
| pooed as misinformation for years and then Harris was
| installed at the last minute really undermines the "we're the
| party of democracy" narrative.
| max51 wrote:
| If his VP was 2nd or 3rd place in the 2020 primaries, it
| wouldn't be a big deal compared to Harris because the
| candidate would be someone that a significant portion of
| the Dems actually support and want as a president.
| istjohn wrote:
| Biden picked a VP who wouldn't be able to mount a challenge
| against him for a second term, and now we're paying for it.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| And Biden was himself picked as a VP because Obama thought
| he'd be too old to run after his second term, and so would
| be completely loyal, rather then thinking about how
| decisions he made as a VP would affect his own future
| campaign.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| This is my take as well.
|
| I was opposed to Biden dropping out because skipping the
| primary means you go into the general election without the real
| pulse of the voters in your party.
|
| I think Democrats in general are putting far too much weight on
| survey based polls, and not enough on ballet box polls.
|
| I wouldn't even rule out 2020 like you're doing - I think Biden
| is actually a very compelling candidate for a lot of folks that
| don't get much mention in typical democratic discussion
| circles. Religious, relatively socially conservative but
| economically left (traditional union left, not neo-liberal),
| white, male.
|
| While people complained about it not being Sanders online -
| Sanders and Biden were fairly similar platforms in a lot of
| respects, with the difference being that corporate money was
| less hostile to Biden - and it's telling that they were the
| only two to take any significant percentage of the primary vote
| (no other candidate broke 3mm votes)
|
| ---
|
| Basically - I think there's a solid chance that despite the
| polling news around the first debate, Biden might have actually
| performed more strongly on election night.
|
| As an extra note - As someone who was initially very critical
| of Biden... I have a lurking suspicion that he's going to be
| considered an excellent president in a historical context
| because he managed to invest heavily in infrastructure.
| bamboozled wrote:
| If she lost on the economy, it wouldn't have mattered, no one
| was going to turn it aorund that fast.
| trts wrote:
| a lot of people were advocating for a primary in 2023 and got
| shouted down by the establishment dems
| throwaway55479 wrote:
| This is already the most commented post on HN. An intense thread
| for intense times...
| paradite wrote:
| Not sure why this is double the comments from the first time.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12907201
| anthomtb wrote:
| Tech employment had hockey stick growth from 2016-2021 and I
| suspect the number of HN users followed that curve. My guess
| is that the ratio of comments/users is the same or perhaps
| even slightly lower than 2016.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| "Every [democratic] country has the government it deserves." --
| Joseph de Maistre
| paxys wrote:
| This will sadly be the end of FCC/FTC and all the antitrust
| efforts that were graining steam over the last few years.
| nsokolsky wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Please make your substantive points thoughtfully, and omit
| name-calling, as the site guidelines ask:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| nsokolsky wrote:
| Hello, I apologize! I've edited the comment now to be much
| better, thank you for your feedback.
| PeakKS wrote:
| The FTC would be well within their duties to obliterate every
| single tech company in existence
| compootr wrote:
| > Lina Khan's policies were very harmful for the tech sector
|
| As they should! It's quite literally the whole reason they
| exist.
|
| Email unsubscribe links have worked well, and click-to-cancel
| hopefully can too! The only opponents of these policies are
| massive companies who rely on predatorial dark patterns.
| Everyone with a brain should support these "wasteful
| policies" because they benefit consumers.
|
| I absolutely LOVE having one link to instantly stop being
| emailed from mailing lists, and I can't be happier for click-
| to-cancel and related legislation.
|
| "oh no, big tech company XYZ will make 0.0001% less money
| this year!!!" is the energy you're giving
| mrkeen wrote:
| Would your arguments be any different if you switched them
| arbitrarily?
|
| Why can't monopolies instead be "very harmful for the tech
| sector", and Lina Khan's policies be "not a big deal"?
| behringer wrote:
| Prepare for the end of net neutrality, again.
| vuln wrote:
| Everyone already dead from the last time it was ended.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| I see this first hand. In my town, ATT owns the lines that
| supply our street that has fiber and our local ISP
| Sonic.net is prevented from using these lines to provide
| service. Its my worry that our local ISP's ability to do
| business in a market dominated by Comcast and ATT is going
| to be majorly impacted and its only going to get worse. Not
| saying it would be prevented if Dems where in office
| because they pretty much tow the corporate anti-competition
| line but are much more quiet about it.
| internet101010 wrote:
| And the DoJ, who recently sued RealPage for engaging in a price
| fixing scheme that has played a large role in the rise in rents
| across the country.
| api wrote:
| Price fixing only works if supply is constrained via some
| kind of cartel, which cities often have by way of density
| limits and NIMBYism.
|
| Not a Trump voter, but this is a huge area where many
| Democrats are flat wrong. Talking to some Democrats about the
| supply problem with housing is like talking to some
| Republicans about why a hard line abortion ban makes maternal
| mortality go up. It can't possibly be true because the
| ideology says it can't be true.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| There is collusion between real-estate owners and property
| management software companies that are using Large Language
| models to keep prices high. This has nothing to do with
| cartels.
|
| Here is an article [0] that talks about the issue. This is
| a real problem driven by this collusion, don't act like it
| isn't. And now that Trump is in office, these kinds of
| investigations are going to disappear and the housing
| crisis is going to get worse.
|
| [0]: https://thehustle.co/why-is-rent-skyrocketing
| bluesroo wrote:
| I don't think they believe collusion isn't happening.
|
| I think the argument above is that democrats are one of
| the drivers of building restrictions, leading to the
| ability to collude. If new entrants to the market were
| plentiful then the existing cartels would be undercut.
| Also, rent control puts a tight lock on the rental market
| by forcing landlords to keep their rents high lest they
| become locked into the low rents they may otherwise
| offer.
|
| I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader whether to be
| on board with that assessment, but there is a reasonable
| argument to be made that a free-er market could actually
| benefit housing costs.
| DoctorOW wrote:
| What this completely discounts is the existence of
| corporate landlords. Thousands of homes are being bought
| and kept empty to restrict that supply. It's ridiculous
| to destroy land used for other purposes just to build
| more empty houses and hope Blackstone et al. don't
| notice. It's also silly to hand those corporate landlords
| the right to jack up rents overnight as though they won't
| use it. The assumption that they'd rather have lower risk
| agreements over a longer period of time (e.g. lower rents
| now with slow increases year-to-year) is naively assuming
| that publicly traded companies will not attempt to
| maximize profits for the coming quarter.
| paxys wrote:
| As well as Live Nation/Ticketmaster
| cm2187 wrote:
| Don't think Trump is a great friend of Google
| prince_nerd wrote:
| He can be. He is extremely transactional in nature. So it's
| all about the right incentives for him.
| chucke1992 wrote:
| Considering how Google was suppressing the stuff related to
| elections - not showing Rogan's video, not showing
| directions (and was called out multiple times by Twitter
| and Musk) to voting locations etc. I don't think the new
| admistration will be nice to Google.
| hackeraccount wrote:
| So you're saying he's a politician?
| palata wrote:
| Good that Europe is working on that to some extent, I guess?
| chucke1992 wrote:
| helps to keep Europe as an open air museum
| palata wrote:
| I don't understand what this means.
| chucke1992 wrote:
| due to amount of regulations it is hard to start business
| in europe and thus they mainly have old business (like
| BMW etc.) that are in decline. but innovation happens in
| other places.
|
| There are two exceptions though - France (partially) and
| Sweden.
| Detrytus wrote:
| Well, many believe that Europe is falling so much behind
| US and China in areas such as economy, technology,
| innovation that it basically is just a tourist
| destination at this point, with no power or relevance in
| shaping the world's future.
| chucke1992 wrote:
| they will probably merge FTC back into DOJ
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Wouldn't that have already happened, given that he was already
| president for four years?
| galleywest200 wrote:
| > over the last few years
|
| He was president before it was gaining steam.
| mrkeen wrote:
| I think he was busy dismantling other stuff. He got anti- Roe
| v Wade judges installed. He got rid of net neutrality. He put
| a climate change denier in charge of the EPA. He got rid of
| the pandemic response unit in 2018, and will do that again
| this time. He pulled US out of the Paris agreement. He's
| threatened to leave NATO repeatedly. He pulled out of the
| Iran Nuclear deal.
| hintymad wrote:
| I don't agree with all your points, but I very much respect
| that you criticize Trump's policies. That is so much more
| reasonable and productive than using hoaxes after hoaxes
| like the media and Harris' campaign team did.
|
| Speaking of abortion rights, I believe few people will even
| talk about it in the next election cycle, as it has become
| a state issue. I also find it interesting that many pro-
| lifers hate Trump for overturning Roe vs Wade because they
| won't get millions and millions of dollars every year for
| the sake of fighting abortion rights.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Now it's up to see if the world will decouple form the US
| monopolies.
| ryan29 wrote:
| If you want a simple example of how important good regulators
| are, look at the NITA / DoC's handling of the .com cooperative
| agreement in 2018. The US gave up control of the most important
| technical asset on the planet and no one even knows it happened
| :-(
| ptek wrote:
| New Zealander here. I hope that now with Trump in office that USA
| will go back to the moon in 2025-2028 :).
|
| Hope more high income manufacturing jobs are created for the
| working class and they build a bigger middle class.
| anonnon wrote:
| The [flagged] [dead] silenced majority had its day, huh?
| anon291 wrote:
| Can we talk about how the voter turnout for the GOP and Dems both
| follow linear patterns in the last few races, except for Dem
| turnout in 2020? How do we explain the statistical anomaly, other
| than the obvious?
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| Yeah, I never believed any of the "stolen election" diatribe,
| but after last night, I'm actually starting to change my mind
| on that. I now think it's actually very possible.
| anon291 wrote:
| Notice also the lack of sudden 100% Trump vote drops and the
| lack of sudden shifts. Instead the election went off like
| literally every other election in our lifetime where most
| states are called on election night, and those that aren't
| are pariahs and we're all left wondering what the hell are
| they doing?
|
| No 'pipe leaks'. No videos of counters covering up windows.
| No sudden last minute rule changes. It was... unremarkable
| and normal.
|
| I think this is going to go down like the Kennedy - Nixon
| election where the allegations of fraud seemed made up at the
| time, but a few decades later, after we've calmed down about
| the candidates, we will uncover the truth. Whether it was
| enough to shift the 2020 election ... who knows, but the
| truth has the habit of coming out eventually.
|
| I mean 20 million people sat at home? Really? That's an
| insane amount.
| cryptonector wrote:
| You mean 100% Biden/Harris drops.
| anon291 wrote:
| Yes, in 2020 there were 100% Harris/Biden drops, but I am
| saying that this election, I don't know of any 100% Trump
| drops in counties with thousands of votes. That's why
| there's no contesting here.
| cryptonector wrote:
| That's right, there were no 100% Trump drops in 2016,
| 2020, nor 2024.
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| As of your post, several millions of ballots have not been
| tallied (half of California, for example).
| anon291 wrote:
| I would assume Trump has improved his margins in
| California. When I visited my in-laws a few weeks ago
| (hispanic immigrants with a huge family), many had voted
| trump and trump fervor in the town (Santa Maria) was
| higher than ever.
| stopping wrote:
| Well over ten million votes are still yet to be counted on
| the West Coast. Is there a reason why you haven't
| considered this? If you add uncounted votes then the total
| count is only 5 million less than 2020. Such swings have
| certainly happened before between adjacent elections, such
| as from 2000 to 2004.
| consumer451 wrote:
| I don't buy it. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary
| evidence. There were investigations by the GOP into 2020
| voter fraud for the last 4 years, and nothing of note was
| discovered. To go from that lack of evidence to large amounts
| of fraudulent votes is a bit much for me.
|
| Other explanations could include things along the lines of
| unemployed people/people at home (COVID) having more time to
| get into politics. Or, this election cycle burning them out,
| or Gaza, or all of the above and more.
| anon291 wrote:
| For prosecution, extraordinary claims require extraordinary
| evidence. As Americans think and look back upon the course
| of history in deciding whom to vote for, really their own
| gut feeling is all that is necessary. I mean, we all know
| that people like Al Capone tread very carefully to avoid
| any direct criminal liability. Yet, we all knew he did it,
| despite the lack of incontrivertible evidence that was
| admissible in court.
| consumer451 wrote:
| > For prosecution, extraordinary claims require
| extraordinary evidence.
|
| I was thinking more along the lines of, for me to believe
| the claims.
|
| No prosecution would have been necessary outside the
| court of public opinion. I mean if there is fraud,
| prosecute it no matter who did it. But Trump hired an
| investigator for the news cycle, and the guy found
| nothing.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| There have been so many investigations at the state
| (especially Georgia with Rs in control) and federal level
| that have surfaced no evidence.
| Funes- wrote:
| I'm being downvoted into oblivion for stating "the obvious"
| elsewhere in this thread. Look, I don't _know_ if they actually
| stole it, but after last night, many people is having your
| exact same thoughts. It doesn 't make any sense whatsoever from
| a statistical standpoint.
| anon291 wrote:
| Right, and once you accept that it's a possibility, the J6ers
| go from being criminals, to American _heroes_.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| It was the obvious: Mail-in votes favor Democrats. There were
| more available mail-in vote systems in 2020 due to covid.
|
| Mail-in voting favoring democrats is well known, and is why the
| Republican party vilifies it and and anything that may be
| biased toward Democrat votes.
| anon291 wrote:
| Except, mail-in voting does not favor democrats. It was about
| even, and the GOP actually had an advantage in many states in
| both the mail-ins and the election day votes. This bit of
| folk wisdom is done. Republicans have embraced early voting,
| and it only made more GOP voters.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Ah yes, the well known fact that Democrats love using the
| mail more than Republicans.
| vineyardlabs wrote:
| Is this a joke? It's widely known by anyone paying
| attention that Democrats embraced mail-in voting much more
| aggressively than Republicans, especially in 2020.
| matthew-wegner wrote:
| People were much more motivated to vote against Trump while he
| was actively president and his nonsense was dominating the news
| on a daily basis.
|
| But 4 years later? It's like making decisions when you're
| hungry versus the memory of hunger...
| matwood wrote:
| What's obvious? It was a weird election coming out of COVID.
| Trump also received a huge amount of votes, maybe more than
| he'll get this time. Should we investigate him now since Harris
| is back down the 60s? Where did all her votes go?
| anon291 wrote:
| Trump is on track to receive about the same amount. Maybe a
| bit more than 2020.
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| The only choice that made any sense at all. America is about to
| experience it's absolute Golden Age.
|
| 2026 will be the USA's 250th anniversary, we'll put men on the
| moon for the first time in 50+ years, and we'll land a rocket on
| Mars. The Supreme Court is secured for decades, immigration
| reform will now be swift and bipartisan, and we're moving
| manufacturing back to the US, including 4nm chip manufacturing
| with TSMC, avoiding escalation with China on that front.
|
| We are truly living in the best possible timeline, I'm literally
| so pumped and excited for the future of our country and world,
| and I'm ready to start building for the future!!!
| nick3443 wrote:
| CHIPS act was a democrat program
| rpmisms wrote:
| Credit to them, it was a good move.
| andrewla wrote:
| Yeah, it was really impressive how a law, passed in 2022,
| managed to travel back in time to 2019 and convince TSMC to
| start applying to build a plant. It then travelled back in
| time to 2020 to get Arizona to approve construction. Really
| an impressive bit of legistlation.
| nick3443 wrote:
| Thanks for the illuminating context
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| Yes, and that's great, credit to anyone who supports American
| industry!
|
| I'm looking forward to how much more manufacturing across
| different industries that this admin brings back to the
| States, too!
| rozap wrote:
| After Trump was shitting on the act, Mike Johnson said he
| plans to repeal the CHIPS act, but has since backpedalled.
|
| I agree American manufacturing is important. I don't see
| how the Republicans voting records align with it.
| atuladhar wrote:
| All the while pumping more and more carbon into the air and
| hurtling into bigger and bigger weather disasters.
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| Since 1950, the US has increased CO2 output by 102%. In that
| same time period, China has increased by 5,600%.
|
| Since 2005, the US has decreased carbon output by 17%, and
| China has increased by 93%. They emit 124% more Co2 annually
| than the US does.
|
| American manufacturing is not the issue when it comes to
| carbon emissions, China is.
| tcfunk wrote:
| US, stop that polluting! _US Looks at China_ Well they
| started it!
| lm28469 wrote:
| > America is about to experience it's absolute Golden Age.
|
| > 2026 will be the USA's 250th anniversary, we'll put men on
| the moon for the first time in 50+ years
|
| lmao this is exactly everything that's wrong, we keep looking
| back at the real golden age and want to do things that are now
| meaningless to celebrate random anniversary numbers, just
| "because". Putting a man on the moon today won't have a
| fraction of the glitter it had back then, not even 1%
|
| Look at the future, not the past
| doubleyou wrote:
| Just wish more than 1/3 of eligible voters voted for him. He
| doesnt represent tte country.
| https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/10-things-to-know-202...
| sneak wrote:
| It's hard to imagine a golden age being the one in which
| individual liberty and privacy for the median citizen reaches
| an all-time low.
| ssernikk wrote:
| > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or
| celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new
| phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal
| pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
|
| From: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| shaburn wrote:
| You should now assume your sources are compromised if you did not
| expect this
| simple10 wrote:
| For my friends here who are not Americans, here's my take on how
| the election played out. Please bare in mind I'm neither Democrat
| nor Republican. The analysis comes from commentators on both
| sides of the political spectrum. Since Trump won, the analysis
| focuses on the Harris campaign mistakes. I'll leave critiques on
| Trump for other commenters, as there are many.
|
| - Harris skipped the traditional primary which reinforced to many
| independent voters that she was appointed by the ruling class of
| the Democratic party; US voters are extremely tired of feeling
| like the political "elites" have more control than the actual
| voters
|
| - Democrats gaslit the American people for too long, claiming
| President Biden was not in mental decline; this created a lot of
| open questions about the inner workings of the Democratic party
| that were never addressed head on by Harris's campaign; to many
| independent voters, this left them feeling like Harris might be
| more of a political puppet than a qualified leader
|
| - Harris's campaign ran primarily on restoring Roe v Wade
| (abortion rights) which is a false promise; it was clear she
| would not have the necessary Senate majority to codify a new law;
| many liberal and independent voters were annoyed at this attempt
| at emotional manipulation; this was a critical campaign mistake
|
| - When Harris was trailing in the polls, she went on the attack
| against Trump with ads and chopped up sound bites instead clearly
| stating her plan for the country in longer form interviews; this
| left independent voters with a lot of open questions about her
| policies and plan
|
| Ultimately, Trump won the popular and electoral votes on more of
| a referendum against the Democrats political playbook. Most
| Americans are tired of being talked down to and gaslit. And yes,
| Trump does this as well, but he won the perception battle.
|
| The main takeaways on what needs to change in American politics
| to restore some sanity in future elections:
|
| 1. We need an overhaul in traditional media (or new media) to
| restore trust in sources of facts; all American traditional media
| is incredibly biased at the moment, leaving our politics up to
| the whims and misinformation of social media
|
| 2. We need a 3 party system; this is a long shot, but it's the
| only reasonable way to enforce accountability for the Democrats
| and Republicans since traditional press is failing to provide a
| balance of power; for the last 20+ years, elections have mostly
| been against the other candidate instead of for policy plans or
| candidates
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| My take (not that anyone will even see it, in a sea of 5000
| comments):
|
| Democrats were the party of the little guy - the minority, the
| immigrant, the working class. That worked pretty well for them.
|
| Democrats were in support of civil rights. That was the right
| thing to do, even though there was plenty of opposition. It cost
| them the south for at least a generation. They knew it would, and
| they did it anyway. Good for them.
|
| Then they saw abortion as the next "civil rights" issue. They
| keep framing it that way: "a woman's right over her own body".
| The problem is, the people who oppose abortion rights don't hear
| anything in that but an attempt to hide the issue. A fetus is not
| the woman's body - it's a genetically distinct individual, and
| anybody who's taken junior high biology knows it. The issue isn't
| about the woman's right over her body, it's about the woman's
| right over the fetus. And all the "a woman's right over her body"
| talk, to opponents, looks like an attempt to sweep that under the
| rug and ignore it. "But they want to control our bodies!" No,
| most of them don't. They want you to not kill the fetuses. It has
| the same result, but a different motivation.
|
| The Democrats have always been in favor of immigrants. They
| became the party in favor of _illegal_ immigrants. But
| immigration hurts the working class, which the Democrats also
| claim to represent.
|
| Lately the Democrats have become focused on gay rights and trans
| rights. Look, trans people shouldn't be beaten up and killed for
| being trans. No question. But here's the problem: There are a
| large number of working-class people who at best don't care about
| trans people, and at worst are actively hostile. There are a
| large number who oppose abortion on moral grounds, holding the
| life of the fetus as a higher priority than the woman's body.
| Now, if you're the Democratic Party, what do you do?
|
| What the Democrats did is decide that such working-class people
| were moral lepers, and demand that they convert or face cultural
| extinction. This has been going on for a couple of decades.
| "Clinging to guns and religion". "Deplorables". "Garbage". The
| Democratic Party really despises such people, and it keeps coming
| out.
|
| Well, it turns out that despising the people who are a big chunk
| of your voting base, and demanding that they convert, doesn't
| make them feel like you're their party. Talking down to them
| doesn't make them vote for you. It just makes them feel that
| you've abandoned them. And you have.
|
| And it makes them angry. And here's Trump, harvesting their
| anger.
|
| The Democratic Party has always had difficulty with holding the
| different elements of their coalition together. What they've done
| lately is assume they could ignore one of their largest ones,
| that it would always support them no matter how much they
| despised it and insulted it.
|
| If your reaction is to deplore how horrible the majority of
| voters are, _you 're still not listening_. If you want to win
| elections, _you 'd better start listening_. There are people out
| there, people that you claim to represent their interests, and
| you're despising them instead of _listening_.
| metabagel wrote:
| > What they've done lately is assume they could ignore one of
| their largest ones, that it would always support them no matter
| how much they despised it and insulted it.
|
| You were doing OK until you got to this part.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| What do you think would be a more correct statement?
| billiam wrote:
| In our current panopitcon, lies work. Turns out if an
| entertaining man lies again and again into a mechanism (the
| Internet) that endlessly amplifies and repeats those lies for
| free (paid for by all of us with our attention), you can win.
| modeless wrote:
| If you can't see by now that there were a lot of lies on both
| sides (as has always been true since the dawn of politics), you
| need to reevaluate your information diet.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Have I missed the news where Kamala Harris was convicted on a
| few dozen federal charges or ordered to pay 80+ million to
| someone she sexually abused? There's lies and then there are
| lies that can get you into prison.
| modeless wrote:
| They were lying to you that a senile man was fit to lead
| for the next four years. That alone would have been far
| more consequential for the country than any lie related to
| sexual deviancy (of which the Democratic party has
| certainly had its fair share over the years).
| keb_ wrote:
| Was the 2020 election stolen?
| nxm wrote:
| The failure of realize how mainstream media lied and covered
| for Kamala and the Democratic party in mind blowing here. Just
| one tiny example, "Joe Biden is in top shape" a month before he
| pushed out.
| Loughla wrote:
| Honestly if the Dems put as much effort into finding a
| candidate people like as they did into making sure the
| establishment candidate had as much positive press as
| possible, they might actually accomplish something.
| keb_ wrote:
| This so much. Meanwhile hiding true stories like the Haitians
| eating dogs, Hillary's child sex ring, and FEMA stealing
| people's houses.
| stonethrowaway wrote:
| They misunderestimated him.
| keeptrying wrote:
| The DNC really needs to address Trump voters.
|
| They have to figure out their needs there and satisfy them.
|
| Its crucial.
| aryan14 wrote:
| Adding comments favored or tailored to one political party or
| another should not be allowed on HN.
|
| Clicked on this thread for insightful discussion/debate, I'm just
| reading people talk about how trump was not a good candidate, and
| how kamala campaigned incorrectly and so on so forth
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| I don't have an opinion on your first sentence but happy to
| _try_ and engage in the second one...
|
| As a Brit looking in from the outside, it's hard for me to
| understand how choices have been made in this election, but if
| I were to attempt a charitable take, did Trump win because he
| tunes in to some sort of low level anger/resentment/frustration
| felt by a chunk of the population?
|
| Whereas the Democrats, more polished perhaps as they are, have
| failed to make that connection sufficiently?
|
| And that connection - or whatever it is that the population
| picks up on from Trump, outweighs the "obvious flaws" that his
| detractors may point towards?
|
| Ie they don't vote for him because of his hyperbole and
| "questionable" behaviour, they vote for him _in spite_ of that
| - for other reasons.
|
| I can see the Democrats didn't help matters by pushing Biden to
| run when he clearly shouldn't have, though perhaps it was the
| lesser of two evils at the time (from their point of view)
| given his proven record of being able to actually beat Trump.
|
| Happy to be corrected if this is a bad or naive analysis!!
| consteval wrote:
| Talking about the faults/triumphs of some campaigns or
| candidates does not favor a party, IMO. I supported one party,
| but even I can notice and address the problems in that
| campaign.
| Exuma wrote:
| Better luck next time Jack!
| EcommerceFlow wrote:
| FYI, the map looks horrendous for democrats after the 2030
| census. Estimates give Texas +4, Florida +3, and various other
| southern states +1 for a total of +12 on solid red states.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Maybe they will stop pursuing anti growth policies? Nah that's
| crazy
| culi wrote:
| Democrats had a trifecta but couldn't get DC and Puerto Rico
| statehood or voter right protections because of Blue Dog
| members of the party. They lost a critical election that led to
| some of the worst gerrymandered maps against them while most of
| their own gerrymandering attempts were overturned. Republicans
| now control the senate, house, judicial, and executive branch
| and can cement their power forever.
|
| If you don't believe me just look at Mississippi. A state where
| demographics alone should've made it between blue and purple.
| Instead, 15% of all Black adults in that state are not allowed
| to vote. Similarly, in Florida, 10% of all adults cannot vote.
| Voters passed an initiative by direct democracy to allow felons
| to vote, but DeSantis just blocked it anyways and the courts,
| which he controls, backed him.
|
| Democrats, despite winning the popular vote in all but 2
| elections since 1988, are pretty much completely out of power
| umvi wrote:
| > Instead, 15% of all Black adults in that state are not
| allowed to vote. Similarly, in Florida, 10% of all adults
| cannot vote.
|
| After some research it seems like this is due to felony
| convictions. I agree voting privileges should be restored
| upon completion of sentence, but dang I'm more concerned that
| 10% of all adults in Florida are convicted felons, what's up
| with that?
| 9dev wrote:
| What's more, those felons still count towards the state
| population count, and thus, the number of electoral college
| votes of the state...
| eschaton wrote:
| Look at the demographics of those convicted felons. I
| suspect you'll see certain trends in who tends to be
| targeted for arrest--given that rates of criminality are
| broadly equivalent across demographic groups--that align
| closely with who the people in power don't want to have any
| power of their own.
|
| Mississippi is a very obvious case. The white power
| structure there simply does not want to allow black people
| to vote so they use all available means to prevent that.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > Democrats, despite winning the popular vote in all but 2
| elections since 1988, are pretty much completely out of power
|
| It's almost as if they need a different platform that can get
| them a win instead of complaining that the majority of their
| voters live in a handful of states.
|
| The election system is what it is.
|
| If you want to win, you need to do something to win - not
| complain about the system.
| beart wrote:
| This is not correct. The election system changes regularly,
| and in different ways all over the country.
| MaxfordAndSons wrote:
| > Democrats, despite winning the popular vote in all but 2
| elections since 1988, are pretty much completely out of power
|
| This shit pisses me off so much. Why can't they play by the
| same rules? The supreme irony is, if Dems were willing to
| occasionally fight dirty/play to win as well, at least when
| they still had some power, it would have likely forced
| Republicans to try to govern well occasionally rather than
| simply always playing to win.
| mrkeen wrote:
| What would be an example dirty tactic the Dems could have
| used?
| umvi wrote:
| Is this just because people are moving out of California to
| other states? If so, maybe California needs to change its brand
| of politics to have a higher retention rate.
| starik36 wrote:
| A bunch of people I know have moved out of the State. Mostly
| because housing here is completely unaffordable for an
| average couple. And it is doable in other states.
| warner25 wrote:
| I like the long-term thinking, but what about other trends?
| Texas was quietly (it seems to me) getting less red up until
| this election. America is getting more diverse and more
| educated, and Boomers are slowly dying off while younger people
| have been overwhelmingly against Trumpism. So shouldn't the
| Trump / Republican base start shrinking? Maybe e.g. Texas +4
| isn't necessarily horrendous for Democrats.
| mise_en_place wrote:
| > Boomers are slowly dying off while younger people have been
| overwhelmingly against Trumpism.
|
| Is this really the case? My understanding, based on voting
| data, is that Gen Z was overwhelming for Trump and Trumpism.
| If anything, Baby Boomers have gone way more left than they
| have been in previous elections.
| warner25 wrote:
| I've seen no data showing Gen Z support for Trump, and I'm
| interested if you have some. I'm seeing[1] an 11 point lead
| for Harris among the age 18-29 group. That's much more
| narrow, of course, than the margins in 2016 and 2020, so I
| guess Gen Z is more supportive of Trump than Millenials
| were at the same age.
|
| [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-
| polls
| shkkmo wrote:
| > younger people have been overwhelmingly against Trumpism.
|
| Young people (18-29) are the age demographic where Trump made
| his biggest gain from 2020 to 2024. The only demographic
| where Harris had gains as the oldest demographic.
|
| So while democrats still won the young vote, the trend is in
| the opposite direction.
| warner25 wrote:
| Fair point about the trend, yes. And thanks for pointing
| out that Harris actually made gains with Boomers; I've
| verified that and updated my mental model.
| heyjamesknight wrote:
| Gen X voted Trump more than any other generation. Millenials
| are shifting that way.
| warner25 wrote:
| You appear to be correct; thanks for pointing it out. I'm
| now seeing[1] a 10 point lead for Trump among ages 45-64,
| and a tie among ages 65+. My mental model was still based
| on the 2016 and 2020 numbers.
|
| [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-
| polls
| sbdhzjd wrote:
| Just a reminder, the census made a mistake and gave extra
| congressional seats that belonged to GOP to Democrats states.
| ruw1090 wrote:
| Citation?
| sbdhzjd wrote:
| https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/census-
| overcount...
| dang wrote:
| (I couldn't resist fixing a typo in your informative comment:
| s/consensus/census/. I hope that's ok!)
| ridgitdigit wrote:
| Hacker News is a liberal echo chamber not a Tech news site
| mrbonner wrote:
| Or vote for a cow:
|
| https://www.discoverdairy.com/vote/
|
| Where everyone can be happy regardless of the result.
| giarc wrote:
| My daughters adopted cow is Milkyway. Milkyway 2028
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Probably in the end fundamentals beat candidate quality.
|
| Rightly or wrongly, economic sentiment indicators are all in the
| dumpster and historically incumbent party loses in that scenario.
| We've had the best covid recovery, lowest inflation and lowest
| unemployment in the developed world but that doesn't matter to
| the average voter.
|
| Biden probably would have done worse (look at approval rating &
| imagine another debate). Open primary might have helped, or not,
| total gamble. Probably less than 25% of this is attributable to
| Harris or her campaign.
|
| If there was a dem mistake it was in picking her as VP in 2020 to
| lock up a demographic they already would win. From there it made
| her the presumed successor to an elderly president who was
| assumed to not really run for a second term.
| goshx wrote:
| Kudos to Elon Musk and his $44B megaphone, I guess. Money, lies,
| and misinformation work, folks.
|
| You can clearly see that Kamala won due to all the illegals
| voting for Democrats. Oh wait.
| marviel wrote:
| Ranked choice voting.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| Approval voting!
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| Please, don't shoot the messenger.
|
| I'm going to share a tweet with you that is not my own tweet but
| one that more than 200k people have upvoted. If you want to see a
| list of topics that motivated Trump re-election:
| https://twitter.com/wildbarestepf/status/1854026810331365823
| metabagel wrote:
| Those are a certainly list of ideas which right wingers have
| about the left. There's probably not much we can do about
| people who believe that stuff. They need to have a punching
| bag.
|
| My main issue with right wingers is the derision, mockery, and
| anger which they direct at their political opponents. People
| talk about division in the country. I think that's by design.
| Right wingers have been doing this since the days when Paul
| Harvey was on the radio, and then later on Rush Limbaugh.
| hintymad wrote:
| I'm a single issue voter: 1A, and I voted for Trump. You left
| label so many things you disagree with as misinformation and hate
| speech and racism, to the point that the Robert Reich wrote on
| The Guardian to call for the arrest of Elon Musk and I quote:
| "Regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest if
| he doesn't stop disseminating lies and hate on X.". Yet, you left
| never define what misinformation is and specify who the arbiter
| is. Tim Walz had the audacity to say that "no guarantee to free
| speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around
| our democracy". You left aren't angry at Elon Musk because he
| censored the left, but because he allowed people who disagreed
| with you to speak. The list can go on. You guys attacked Trump
| supporters so hard that so many people were not willing to
| acknowledge that they supported Trump, especially in a blue city.
| That's just wrong.
|
| On the other hand, the left media created hoax after hoax that
| are thoroughly debunked by the left-leaning fact checkers like
| Snopes. Obama still used the Fine People[1] hoax on national TV
| last week. The DA in NY charged Trump for "In July 2020, the
| Trump Organization received an appraisal with a value of $84.5
| million, but on the 2020 Statement the Trump Organization valued
| Trump Park Avenue at $135.8 million."[2] But isn't that what
| practically every home seller does? We estimate how much our
| properties are worth, and the band sends out an appraiser? To me,
| that's just blatant law fare.
|
| For all I know, only evil states like Soviet Union and China
| (before 1978, at least) used morality, misinformation, and
| identity politics to control their people. Such states deserve a
| big middle finger up their you know what.
|
| [1]https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-very-fine-people/
|
| [2]https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/tto_release_properties..
| .
| metabagel wrote:
| Misinformation is false information, such as when Elon Musk
| reposted a doctored video of Kamala Harris.
|
| You are a one issue voter. Your one issue is the right to post
| deepfakes.
|
| Enjoy the circus over the next 4 years. It's what you wanted.
| zer8k wrote:
| I see Kamala's issues as follows:
|
| 1. She's one of the least liked candidates in history. The
| Democrats haven't run a real "change" candidate that could cross
| the aisles since Obama. Hillary was already widely disliked and
| sank herself with the "deplorables" comment. Kamala did exactly
| the same with "Nazis, Fascists, Dictators, White Supremacists,
| etc". It's all I heard and it came to a point I started feeling
| attacked exclusively for my race. It was difficult at this point
| to listen to what little policy she actually had: most of it
| sounded exactly like the last 4 years. To put the cherry on top
| she also couldn't even poll well among her own constituents until
| Biden bowed out and she was decreed the pick by the DNC.
|
| 2. The top polling issues were immigration and the economy.
| Neither issue Kamala really addressed outside of some feel-good
| statements like free money for homes and somehow passing a price
| cap on groceries. She made no statement no immigration and even
| went so far as to say she wouldn't change anything from the last
| 4 years. Trump on the other hand did very well laser targeting
| these issues and pulled moderates and even democrats as a "lesser
| of two evils".
|
| 3. The constant bleeting on about felonies, "rapist", etc made it
| seem to most average Americans that the court cases were simply
| lawfare designed to punish Americans for not voting for Hillary.
| Trump in this case was just a sacrificial goat.
|
| 4. The weaponization of the FBI against parents protesting school
| board meetings, the seemingly intense focus on so-called "right
| wing violence" even after living through the George Floyd riots,
| etc was distasteful to a lot pro-police Americans.
|
| 5. The media is decidedly left-to-far-left leaning. What this
| means is the majority of major news outlets, Youtube, Twitch,
| TikTok, Music, Movies, etc all preach "the message". This
| oversaturation of the progressive message, paired with many
| moderate Americans thinking progressivism has gone too far,
| likely contributed to it. Further, it likely contributed to lower
| Democrat turnout as they were already claiming victory in August.
|
| 6. You can't salvage a campaign by having movie and music stars
| endorse you when the average consumption of this media is at
| historical lows. You can't salvage a campaign by bringing Obama
| out as The Closer.
|
| 7. And finally for me, the strong "pro-women" policies are
| distasteful for me. Not because I hate women, but because there's
| decades of data showing our school system, government, and
| policies are failing young boys. I cannot in good conscious vote
| for a candidate who will not do anything to help men's issues at
| this point. I can't vote for a candidate who wants to enshrine
| gender-specific constitutional changes. Particularly, evening the
| playing field for boys in school, removing affirmative action,
| and instituting an equal "male abortion" rule that will help tip
| the family courts back to even. If we want equality we should
| strive for true equality. I want true equality.
| metabagel wrote:
| You seem to be regurgitating right wing talking points. I think
| Fox News, right wing talk radio, and right leaning podcasts are
| the core problem. They get people to focus on a few narrow
| issues, give them simple rationales and solutions, and just
| keep harping and getting people to stew about it.
|
| It's weird that you don't realize how many other problems there
| are which your media sources are not talking to you about, and
| which you might otherwise find concerning. It's a big world
| with lots of problems, but you're presented with a few and told
| that these are the only ones you need to care about. It makes
| things simpler, but who knows if you might be worried about the
| wrong things? I guess you may never know.
|
| Just by polling, Kamala Harris seems to be about as popular as
| Donald Trump, and it really comes down to partisanship.
| metabagel wrote:
| > And finally for me, the strong "pro-women" policies are
| distasteful for me.
|
| Women still face rampant discrimination. I get that it doesn't
| affect you personally, but to take it so far as to be offended
| is really distasteful to me.
|
| This is the crux of right wing ideology. It's all about "me,
| me, me". So, when Trump lavishes praise on you and promises you
| your heart's every dream, how can you resist? It's all about
| you, right?
| DevKoala wrote:
| Amazing victory.
|
| I am waiting for the final tally to understand how the Dems lost
| 15M votes from one election to the other.
| dangoor wrote:
| The only thing I've been able to see so far is that Harris has
| 67M votes with 81.2% reporting. Assuming the remaining
| precincts have the same population size and roughly same D/R
| split, Harris would end up somewhere around Biden's total once
| the count is complete.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Might be mistaken, but isn't it usually the bigger, urban and
| slightly more Democratic-leaning precincts that take a longer
| time to report?
| deathanatos wrote:
| Yes, it is. We saw this in 2020 where states came from
| behind and ended up being for Biden. I feel like that late-
| counting of Democratic votes was very partly was spurred
| the ensuing election conspiracies. Election votes are not
| counted uniformly at random.
| zhengiszen wrote:
| Lesson from election: too much wars and enabling genocide can
| cost you the presidency
| j_timberlake wrote:
| I'm gonna be honest, this is much closer to the future that
| humanity deserves than the AI utopia many of you were dreaming
| of. Look at the entirety of human history and all the evil things
| people have done, and look at your own consumption of factory-
| farmed meat/dairy/eggs. Look at how few people donate kidneys
| (less than 0.1% in USA, and even lower in countries like Japan).
| And of course people would rather spend their 1st-world
| disposable income on enshitified creature-comforts than donate
| it; about $3500 is enough to save a kid's life from malaria, or
| go on a family vacation to Disney World.
|
| People will say "I'd be a better person if only I were rich!",
| but predictably, the number of rich people willing to do those
| things is almost a rounding error.
| anon291 wrote:
| Children aren't dying of malaria due to lack of funds. They're
| dying due to terrible governments in those places. Unless
| you're advocating for regime change and colonization, no amount
| of money is going to fix that.
|
| The data are unequivocal that liberal democracy, civil rights,
| and economic freedom lift people out of poverty, but this
| message is toxic in many parts of the world, and thus many
| countries live in unnecessary poverty, dependent upon donations
| from rich countries that follow the straightforwards, simple
| advice to be well off.
| j_timberlake wrote:
| You can donate $3.5k to a relevant charity and save a kid's
| life.
|
| Debating how much better things would be with better
| governments doesn't change that.
| anon291 wrote:
| There's a moral calculus where you have to determine if the
| money is really going there and if any of the money is
| instead supporting a despotic regime. I don't disagree. I
| do donate to missions where I know the individuals
| personally.
| dsign wrote:
| >> I'm gonna be honest, this is much closer to the future that
| humanity deserves than the AI utopia many of you were dreaming
| of.
|
| My diverse opinion: "this is much closer to the future that
| humanity deserves, the AI and surveillance dystopia we have
| been so intent on getting."
| MadSudaca wrote:
| Get off your high horse. Humanity has been like this since the
| beginning and we've made it quite far. Have some humility and
| entertain the possibility that you're wrong.
| j_timberlake wrote:
| "Humanity has been like this since the beginning and we've
| made it quite far." Agreed, we've made it all the way to the
| precipice of nuclear annihilation by Putin, Trump, Netanyahu,
| or Xi. Kim could probably get it started too.
|
| "entertain the possibility that you're wrong" I would
| absolutely love for the world to prove me wrong.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| Just an observation from a limey. The Western (and Christian)
| world has changed massively over 2 generations from a
| predominantly white Western world to a mixed culture one, which
| takes a bit of acclimatising to.
|
| The politics around gender (and however many there's supposed to
| be) makes people lose their frame of reference also IMO. For
| some, the world is changing too quick, or their neighbourhood is
| changing too quick.
|
| Older generations who've witnessed the change perhaps see it
| most, as perhaps younger white men who have had the blowback of
| historical racism, misogyny and generally assumed to be the most
| privileged, though many (the majority) are not. I hear that the
| Trump campaign focused on them who generally do not vote.
|
| I hope the USA moves on and accepts the result. In the end people
| vote with their desires, sometimes illogical but ultimately their
| desires are their motivations. The USA is also a good age now, as
| I was reminded by a Canadian taxi driver while living in Canada,
| regardless of what foreigners nebs think about US politics,
| better a world with the USA in it than without (though I'm
| probably biased as a Westerner).
|
| Perhaps to an extent it's hard to keep an identity, like national
| pride or what a country stands for when things move so quickly.
|
| Personally I thought Harris was a shoo in, but the people have
| spoken.
|
| Insert caveat about big tech algos persuading people.
| penguin_booze wrote:
| I'm not American. I feel sad, not because Ds lost or Rs one. A
| nation, which happens to wield so much power in the world, has
| chosen to elect as its president, a deranged, indecent, man, with
| dictatorial tendencies, who cares for nothing about democratic--
| or any--institutions, who never believed in peaceful transfer of
| power, who called for an insurrection. I'd have thought that
| alone would have been a reason enough to say, "not that guy, no
| way". But here we are.
| andyp-kw wrote:
| I'm not American and not taking sides.
|
| Have you listened to the latest the latest Joe Rogan episode
| with Musk. The Harris camp seems to be guilty of many of the
| things they accused Trump of.
|
| Echo chambers happen on both sides and are a real issue.
| darknavi wrote:
| I haven't. Any good examples that you can remember?
| evdubs wrote:
| Harris and Biden did not incite an insurrection. Harris and
| Biden did not get impeached for withholding funds from
| Ukraine as Trump was impeached for doing. Harris and Biden
| are not convicted felons. "The Harris camp seems to be guilty
| of many of the things they accused Trump of," is nonsense.
| TomK32 wrote:
| "Seems to be guilty" is a very different thing than a
| Fortunate Son who is an adulterer who was found guilty on 34
| charges relating to the hush money, his two defense suits
| against Carroll are under appeal and who knows what sort of
| things happened when he hang out with his buddy Epstein. Jack
| Smith is still fighting to get the insurrection case going.
| America voted a criminal into office.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| > Have you listened to the latest the latest Joe Rogan
| episode with Musk.
|
| Because those two don't have an agenda at all...
| xvector wrote:
| And the mainstream (leftist) media doesn't?
|
| I listened to both and JRE definitely pointed out some
| fucked up and verifiable systemic issues with the Democrats
| that you wouldn't have even noticed if you only listened to
| MSM.
| guappa wrote:
| Anything real or just made up things?
| barkingcat wrote:
| history repeats itself, and there are no perfect people or
| perfect sides.
|
| Yesterday's terrorist will be tomorrow's heroes, and those
| deemed visionaries today will become despicable in the eyes of
| those to come. Such is the way since the beginning of human
| civilization.
| sulam wrote:
| The first time he got elected I had a woe is me, what does this
| mean for our country perspective. These days I'm better
| informed and I know that America is nothing special here.
| Brexit, Orban, Berlusconi, Alternative for Germany, Le Pen,
| Netanyahu, Modi -- feel free to throw stones, but I guarantee
| you have an anti-immigrant group in your country that is doing
| better than they ever have.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| IMO that makes it scarier. Seemingly the whole planet is
| taking a sharp rightward turn.
| dartos wrote:
| It's a populist movement by a population that has felt
| ignored by government.
|
| That, of course, doesn't make it a good movement, or a
| smart one.
|
| But, imo, it's important to understand why populism is
| popping off right now.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| Absolutely. There are solutions to the problem of
| neoliberalism and the right wing doesn't have them, but I
| guess they're gonna get a chance to try anyway.
| matwood wrote:
| Doesn't mean we have to follow them though. Brexit is turning
| out to be one of the worst self-owns in the history of
| democracies.
| xvector wrote:
| To be fair, Brexit is the only thing that might keep the UK
| in the AI race given the EU's draconian anti-AI
| regulations.
| xvector wrote:
| There is absolutely nothing wrong with being anti illegal
| immigration.
|
| My parents had to wait ten years to get their citizenship, do
| a test, etc.
|
| Meanwhile we let people hop the border and download an app
| these days. It's a disgrace. Thousands of children missing or
| trafficked across the border, city culture completely
| upended, businesses getting cheaper and more desperate labor.
| sulam wrote:
| I'm going to go out on a (thick, short) limb and say your
| parents weren't picking crops in a field or washing dishes
| at the back of a restaurant. Immigration is a complicated
| topic and neither party has a plan that will do anything to
| fix it.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| I wouldn't be so fatal about what he's like. He is clearly
| astute, maybe just has some narcissist/sociopathic tendencies
| in front of an audience. Even if some of what he says defies
| reason, the entirety of what he says is maybe more reasonable
| than the other side. And that's who was voted in by millions of
| people.
|
| Said as a UK resident who lived in North America for a bit.
| guappa wrote:
| Turns out voters hate when you tell them "you can't vote for
| THAT guy"
| runarberg wrote:
| In a true democracy, you cannot vote your self a dictator. So
| even if people end up voting for THAT guy, the democratic
| institutions should prevent him from using his powers in a
| dictatorial manner. This includes upholding the rule of law,
| equal rights, and human rights in general, and conceding
| power under popular (or legal) demand, in the territory he
| controls.
|
| So even when voter hate when you tell them you can't vote for
| THAT guy, THAT guy should _not_ become a dictator ones
| elected.
| gwn7 wrote:
| None of those are true.
|
| Those are lies spread by the mainstream media (which is mostly
| controlled by leftists) and you are a victim for believing
| them.
|
| I know that the HN crowd are left-leaning and I'm going to be
| downvoted like hell. Maybe even flagged, because apparently
| leftist platforms like censorship.
|
| But I don't have to prove my point nor there is a need to
| argue.
|
| My point will be proven in the coming months because as time
| goes by you guys will see that nothing bad will happen to
| democracy nor women's rights or anything else important.
| Economy and public health is going to improve among many other
| things.
|
| You will see. Just pay attention.
|
| Then maybe you will remember and regret downvoting me.
|
| Oh, also: Listen to what the man is saying himself. Not what
| the mainstream media says he is saying. Try to see past merely
| Trump & his public image as well. Pay attention to what the
| people on his team are saying. Great people like RFK Jr, Tulsi,
| Vivek, and JD. Maybe you will find yourself to be enlightened.
|
| Peace.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| You now see the exposed heart of our country: folks who have
| very little, being sold lots by people who will give them very
| little. A nation of grifters and grifting.
| Hiko0 wrote:
| This election shows one thing: the average American has got the
| education level of a potato. As Trump would phrase it: sad.
| htk wrote:
| Democracy keeps giving both sides a chance, meanwhile both sides
| always complain about the end of democracy when the other side
| wins.
|
| Another curious thing on both parties, when they lose they always
| ask "why did the other side win?" instead of trying to understand
| why their candidate lost.
|
| And the pendulum keeps swinging.
| stonethrowaway wrote:
| Morning boys, how's the water?
| eqvinox wrote:
| It happens that an IETF meeting is currently going on. Mic
| comment at the plenary just a few minutes ago:
|
| "I believe we will need to reopen discussion on the IETF 127
| venue."
|
| IETF 127 is (probably soon: _was_ ) scheduled to occur November
| 14th-20th, 2026, in San Francisco.
|
| (Previous US-scheduled IETF meetings during the Trump presidency
| were moved to Canada, particularly due to Chinese attendees'
| inability to get Visas.)
| boodleboodle wrote:
| All i can say is.. f** ajit pai
| hidelooktropic wrote:
| Why doesn't this violate HN's rules about politics?
| scotty79 wrote:
| Impact?
| TomK32 wrote:
| a ban on newly created anon and throwaways would slow these
| threads down. Also, too many Elon fanbois.
| dang wrote:
| See these links--they contain lots of explanation about this:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Totally off-topic but I'm noticing that these comments load
| reasonably quickly without any paging. I remember some
| popular topics in the past had problems loading even after
| the number of comments per page was limited. Don't know who
| deserves it but wanted to offer kudos for the optimization
| work!
| dang wrote:
| All: please make sure you're up on the site guidelines before
| commenting: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
| That means editing out snark, swipes, and flamebait. Or you can
| simply follow this metarule, which is also in there: " _Comments
| should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic
| gets more divisive._ "
|
| This thread could be worse (ok, it could be a lot worse) but I'm
| still noticing people breaking the rules. Please follow them
| instead--it will be a better experience for all of us, including
| yourself.
| fires10 wrote:
| I don't think it's the economy or anything else. All this seems
| like rationalizing to me not an understanding of what happened.
| Trump was able to motivate more people to vote than Harris was. I
| have yet to meet anyone who truly rationally made a choice that
| they had not already made to begin with other than after the fact
| rationalization. It is all about perception and what the other
| person believes. Reality and facts do not matter as much as we
| would like them to. There is no interest in anyone want to
| actually change their views. What argument or evidence would
| actually cause you to change your view? It would take
| extraordinary evidence for me to change my vote. I suspect that
| is the same for most voters, it's more of an issue of who can
| motivate better.
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| Things that most people care about:
|
| - Will I still have a job in 6 months? If I lose my job, can I
| get by?
|
| - Can I continue to afford groceries, rent, utilities at the
| current pace of inflation?
|
| - If I have a major health problem, will I be ok?
|
| During an election, you can either harness the fear voters have
| around these issues and turn them into hateful energy against the
| other side (Trump tactic) or you can calm people's nerves by
| acknowledging the problems and providing a path to deal with them
| (Obama tactic). Obama was able to confidently appeal to voters on
| these issues and he brought them to the fore-front throughout his
| campaign. Obama was charismatic as well, so when he talked about
| these issues, you got the sense that he could competently provide
| that protection. He was reassuring.
|
| I voted for Kamala, but I didn't want to. She possessed none of
| those positive qualities. She didn't instill confidence. Her
| voice and demeanor made her sound annoyed. Her fake smile made me
| cringe. I wanted an authentic candidate that could make me feel
| safe. She was not it.
|
| Lastly, those primary issues were shrouded by gender politics. I
| would like transgender people to feel safe and have access to
| resources they need. I would like women to have access to
| abortion when it's necessary. These are not things to run a
| campaign off of though. EVERYONE feels the pain of a bad economy;
| that should've been the primary focus all along and we needed a
| STRONG candidate to really drive a strategy for addressing it. I
| just don't think Kamala was able to make any headway in that
| respect and I think that's why she ultimately lost.
|
| Donald Trump had 74 million votes in 2020. As of right now, he's
| nearly at 72 million. To me that says he hasn't necessarily
| gained new followers. That's a good sign. It seems the Dems have
| lost millions however. That's a very bad sign. It's pretty clear
| then that Kamala did not represent what voters really cared about
| during this election cycle.
| czhu12 wrote:
| incumbents all around the world have performed terribly post
| COVID. UK, Canada, Japan, France, Italy, have all had landslide
| or shocking election results.
|
| Unsure what the general mood is that can lead to Keir Starmer
| dropping 30 points in approval months after winning in a
| landslide, but the mood of general discontent may be relevant in
| the United States as well. It seems whatever the status quo /
| incumbent advantage that used to exist, is now working against
| candidates.
|
| Even if the democrats ran a better candidate in a better
| campaign, it may not have been enough to overcome these
| headwinds. Although, I'm not sure I totally believe that myself
| since she lost by a pretty narrow margin in swing states.
|
| Obviously not to excuse the dems, just something to consider
| nightowl_games wrote:
| > Canada
|
| Trudeau has been PM since 2015 and the last election was in
| 2021. Sure, it looks like he's gonna lose the next one, but
| Canada hasn't had a oppositional landslide election.
| max51 wrote:
| The next election looks so bad for him that there is a chance
| the Bloc Quebecois could be the official opposition. That
| party has no candidate outside of quebec.
| sbdhzjd wrote:
| Wouldn't be the first time though. I'd old timers remember
| Bouchard.
|
| Granted, the last time the Bloc was Her Majesty's loyal
| opposition, the incumbent party collapsed, never recovered,
| and was swallowed by its rival.
| hellgas00 wrote:
| There were a couple byelections within the last few months in
| historically stronghold ridings for the Liberal party that
| have not flipped in decades. One in Toronto which went to the
| Conservatives and one in Montreal which went to the Bloc
| Quebecois. It's almost a certainty that the Liberals will not
| form a government next election, and polling suggests that
| they are trending below the seat count needed to be the
| official opposition.
| sbdhzjd wrote:
| When's the last time Trudeau won a plurality of votes?
|
| Canada's electoral system is extremely non-linear. The US'
| electoral college is far far more linear wrt popular vote
| than parliamentary elections, generally, and Canada's in
| particular.
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| > When's the last time Trudeau won a plurality of votes?
|
| For the curious, 2015, which was 9 years and 3 elections
| ago. And he got less than 40% of the vote.
|
| (https://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/1867-present.html)
| czhu12 wrote:
| The early warning signs are quite stark -- the BC liberal
| party (despite having no affiliation with the national
| liberals) effectively disbanded because of how awful the
| branding is at this point, and the most left leaning province
| in the country almost swung conservative. (I'm from BC)
|
| Its hard to imagine the upcoming election will not be a
| landslide in the next few months, but it is true that there
| has not yet been an official victory yet.
| stego-tech wrote:
| The reason for this isn't a mystery: the world doesn't work for
| the plurality of its populace. The current generations were
| sold a lie of infinite prosperity and comforts by their elders
| and governments, a lie built on the exploitation of former
| colonies and underdeveloped nations. We see the lie now, and
| know it cannot be sustained in the face of our current
| polycrisis (climate, housing, necessities) simply by promoting
| infinite growth. There's an understanding that we need to
| curtail consumption and start properly engineering a global
| economy rather than letting it spawn and mutate naturally, but
| there's still enough people out there who believe that _this_
| demagogue, _this_ partisan, _this_ policy will give them the
| riches and posh comforts their elders enjoyed, thus returning
| their country to a golden era that never really existed.
|
| It's the desperation of the masses for what they feel is
| rightfully theirs, because that's what they were told by those
| who pulled up the ladder behind them. That era is long gone,
| but nostalgia is a powerful force that's easily propagandized
| by those who benefit from said desperation.
| aliasxneo wrote:
| Reading through the post is quite depressing. As a lifelong
| independent, I've never felt more vilified by the Democratic
| Party than at any other time. Constantly being talked down to,
| insulted as a white supremacist, nazi, etc. It's this "elitist"
| and "we know better than you" attitude that really, really puts a
| sour taste in my mouth.
|
| Yet, reading through these comments, it seems alive and well even
| after an astounding rebuke. Why? I despise our two-party system,
| but I'm actually quite happy to see one particular party rebuked
| this time around for this abhorrent behavior that should have no
| place in civil discourse. It's sad that HN can't rise above it.
|
| And for clarity, yes, both sides participate in this charade of
| incivilities, but I am simply expressing my own opinion as an
| independent in 2024 that it overwhelmingly came from one side
| towards _me_ in this election cycle.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| I hear you (actually not from my perpective, just other people
| I know). It may sound really superficial but it sounds like a
| platonist vs aristotelian argument. The former being people who
| believe abstract theories are the greater good (conventional
| theory) vs real world experiences. The problem with the former
| is that if you're afforded to believe it if you're not in
| survival mode.
|
| IMO in all actuality the best course of action is somewhere in
| the middle.
| eilefsen wrote:
| i think this is the insidious thing about polarization:
|
| people in the middle get caught in the crossfire of harsh
| rhetoric. and it is hard to blame people for this, an eye for
| an eye is so easy and tempting.
|
| I've had right wingers criticize me with patronizing "anti-
| commie" rhetoric, but the worst has been shaming (yes actual
| shaming and exclusion) from my peers because i (mostly) agree
| with them in a contrarian way that they dont like or attempt to
| understand.
|
| i don't really interact with many right wingers day to day, so
| this difference might just be a result of that bias.
|
| I'm curious if this kind of thing happens to right wingers as
| well, or if there is less such "friendly-fire" on the right.
|
| P.S I'm European.
| aliasxneo wrote:
| Yes, I have experienced the rhetoric from both sides. I have
| already doxxed myself as a Christian here, so I'll restate it
| again. I have a tremendous amount of disdain for Christian
| nationalists and, specifically, the Republican appropriation
| of Christianity for harvesting votes. This has alienated me
| from a large number of people just in my own faith.
|
| It appears to be the plight of critical thinkers in this
| culture. You are not allowed to have a complex set of beliefs
| that may cross both sides of the culture war.
| superultra wrote:
| I'm genuinely curious - can you elaborate on "constantly being
| talking down to? insulted as a white supremacist, nazi?" Does
| this happen to you in personal conversations with family
| members or with friends who are left? Or are you referring to
| broader culture in general, like the Harris' campaign, because
| if so, can you elaborate on the time Harris or Biden "talked
| down" to you?
|
| As a sidenote I realize Biden made that garbage comment which
| came across to me as a misconstrued sentence that is common
| with Biden's speech impediment. But even if not, Trump has said
| a lot of terrible things about left leaning people like myself.
| Is your standard as equivically disdainful of Trump's comments,
| and if not, why not?
|
| I guess I just find it wild you're appealing to civil discourse
| when the winner of this election does very little civil
| discourse, by his own admission.
| aliasxneo wrote:
| In terms of face-to-face conversations, I've never once had
| these insults thrown at me. This is somewhat expected, as in
| my experience, most people are far less confrontational in
| these situations. I would say a majority of it comes from:
|
| - Group "watercooler" discussions at work where people parrot
| vilifying language that targets groups I identify with (I do
| work at a _very_ left-leaning workplace)
|
| - Community events that I have participated in, where people
| were not necessarily attacking me personally, but were
| hurling insults at our group
|
| - The media. This one is fairly self-documenting.
|
| As I mentioned in another reply, since I fall in the middle,
| I often get negative rhetoric from both sides. But only one
| has stooped to the levels of vitriol that have often left me
| shocked (for example, that I should forcibly have my genitals
| removed so as to prevent procreation).
| istjohn wrote:
| Hope and change. That's the message Obama won consecutive terms
| with. The Republicans have always thrived on fear and insecurity
| --and hate, which is just ripe fear. To quote Yoda, "Fear is the
| path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate."
| The red scare, the Southern Strategy, urban crime, WMDs,
| terrorism, immigrants, China--since the 1950s, Republicans have
| monkey-barred from fear to fear.
|
| It's a natural fit for conservativism. What is conservatism if
| not the fear of change? And when you're afraid, you want a
| strongman to lead you, someone who takes pride in our military
| and law enforcement. Someone who shows no fear, who has swagger.
| It's also a perfect fit for someone like Trump who would as soon
| lie as breathe. When you're conjuring terrors, truth is just dead
| weight.
|
| Kamala didn't run on hope and change. She ran on fear, too. She
| tried to beat Trump at his own game with none of the advantages
| of his shameless distain for the truth or a Republican Party and
| media ecosystem at home with fearmongering. She aped his disdain
| for immigrants and opposition to China, but of course her main
| bugaboo was Trump himself. Despite widespread dissatisfaction
| with our nation's current circumstances, she offered only stasis,
| while Trump offered revolution.
|
| Non-college graduates know they're getting fucked. Trump says
| immigrants and China is to blame. Kamala has nothing to say. She
| could point to the billionaires, the tax dodging corporations,
| the thriving defense contractors, the predatory medical insurance
| and pharmaceutical companies, the monopolies bleeding consumers
| dry in every corner of the economy.
|
| She could paint a vision of affordable healthcare for all, an end
| to medical bankruptcy, an end to college debt, a thriving green
| energy blue collar economy, free early childhood education, a
| guaranteed jobs program, a universal basic income.
|
| She could acknowledge the people who feel left behind and say, "I
| hear you. This is what I'm going to do for you." Instead, her
| cries of fear just assured those folks that Trump really was
| going to fuck shit up fighting for them, that the people who sold
| them down the river are shaking in their boots. Of course, Trump
| isn't actually going to make their lives better, but he promised
| he would, and that's more than Kamala could be bothered to do.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Doom.
|
| Doomscrolling, doomposting ... weren't those words born in the
| social media world?
|
| Negativity attracts attention. Negativity makes money on the
| Internet. Ironically, here on Hacker News, there is probably a
| sizeable cohort of programmers and managers who opened this
| Pandora's Box for the entire mankind.
|
| I don't blame them; they didn't know how the brave new world
| would turn out. But this is just one of the many consequences.
| People perceive the world as worse than it actually is. Because
| all they see on their smartphones are bad news and anxious
| takes.
| deepfriedchokes wrote:
| Anger is a helluva drug.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| It always amazes me that a country that cares so much about being
| the 'best', cares so little about what people think of them.
|
| Voting in this guy, and his policies reduces the legitimacy of
| the US. If Trump withdraws from Nato, then members may not pay so
| much to US for weapons any more. Protection money only works
| while you get Protection. Maybe the Visa and Mastercard tribute
| taxes we all pay back to the US will be less welcome.
|
| Maybe, in the new protectionist world, tax dodging US tech
| companies will be less welcome too.
| metabagel wrote:
| A lot of people have a broken bullshit detector. They think they
| can tell when someone is lying, but they rely on the other person
| having a guilty conscience. Trump doesn't have a guilty
| conscience.
|
| If a person were to read the newspaper, they would figure out
| that Trump is a pathological liar, but most don't read a
| newspaper, and even among those that do, a lot of people read for
| confirmation rather than for understanding.
|
| A lot of people get their information from Fox News, right wing
| radio, or right wing leaning podcasts. These information sources
| direct your focus to things which will make you angry about the
| things they want you to be angry about, and ignorant of things
| which maybe you should care about.
|
| The most important things which we can all do is to take back
| control of our own focus and maintain our sense of curiosity and
| a dash of healthy skepticism. Ask why someone is trying to get
| you to focus on this or that. Ask why they never mention these
| other issues which may be equally or more important. Question
| your own biases and assumptions from time to time.
| foxglacier wrote:
| OK. Why are you trying to get me to focus on Trump being a liar
| and never mentioning his abnormally pacifist record which is
| more important?
| tonymet wrote:
| Just the day before the election a family member asked how anyone
| could possibly vote for Trump. I started going into the history
| of the primaries, and the fraud with Bernie in 2016 & 2020. How
| it's not red vs blue, it's really insiders vs outsiders. Within
| 30 seconds I was shouted down and shamed.
|
| I then asked: "I can name 10 good things about Biden / Harris,
| can you do the same for Trump?" They couldn't say 1 positive
| reason that the ~ 75million voters are supporting Trump.
|
| It's a good self-test of your bubble. Could you make a sound
| argument in favor of the opponent? If not, then you haven't spent
| enough time trying to understand the context.
| CapeTheory wrote:
| With the greatest of compassion and respect: America - get a
| fucking hold of yourselves, would you please?
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| I think that Harris was a very poor choice of a candidate. I have
| no way to know this, but I like to imagine that a better Dem
| candidate would have led to a different president.
| starik36 wrote:
| Who else could they have possibly picked on such a short
| notice? I think, it made sense at the time - now, of course, we
| can all Monday morning quarterback.
| zerreh50 wrote:
| The short notice was a self inflicted problem. Biden's issues
| did not start in July 2024
| starik36 wrote:
| For sure. I am asking who could they have picked after
| Biden's performance at the debates? E.g. after the damage
| was done. Kamala was probably the most prominent of all
| democrats at the time. The alternative would have been some
| no name senator or Hillary.
| cyclecount wrote:
| They could have turned to the second place contestants from
| their sham primary election which was held this Spring and
| largely ignored by the media.
| culi wrote:
| Between covid economic recovery and a war that dramatically and
| suddenly increased gas prices, I don't know what candidate
| would've done anything to turn the ship around. On election
| day, google search trends for "did biden drop out" had a
| massive spike. I think we consistently and considerably
| underestimate how tuned out the average voter is. Especially
| the independents that are the most likely to answer that
| they've made up their minds in the past 24 hours. It really
| does just come down to a vibe check for some of the most
| important swing voters
| FuckButtons wrote:
| If they had had a serious conversation and a primary, maybe
| they could have distanced themselves from Biden? I doubt it
| though, too much party loyalty to admit to the failures of
| the incumbent.
| quirk wrote:
| I think the key word in this is "choice", which is what D
| voters did not get. They got an attempted installation.
| Installation failed. See error log.
| chrishare wrote:
| Even if you support his economic approach, for example, wouldn't
| his criminal behaviour, or his racist and transphobic views
| disqualify him? One does not wash away the other.
| dave333 wrote:
| 1) It's very hard for a woman to be elected president.
|
| 2) The electorate demographic without college degrees is more
| likely to make an emotional decision that is more easily
| manipulated with Trump-style bombast.
|
| Not in a battleground state, I didn't see any advertising, but
| the Dems should have pounded Trump as a criminal sex offending
| lying hypocrit draft dodger loser felon bankrupt self-obsessed
| asshole (note this is not snark it's literally how they should
| have gone at him).
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| They literally did if you just call everyone you don't like a
| Nazi over and over again eventually they stop listening to you
| dave333 wrote:
| Nazi didn't resonate, besides he isn't literally a Nazi. All
| the other faults I mentioned though are literally true. Need
| to find the thing that makes him look weak to the demographic
| you are targeting and hammer on it.
| aksss wrote:
| Aguably, using only bad female candidates makes electing a
| female candidate difficult.
| dave333 wrote:
| Arguably, Hillary 2016 was the best candidate by far. Nobody
| thought Trump was better until he won. If you say she had
| baggage, it was nothing to Trump's baggage, but there's a
| huge double standard based on gender.
| skissane wrote:
| > 1) It's very hard for a woman to be elected president.
|
| The UK voted for Margaret Thatcher three times (1979, 1983,
| 1987). I'm sceptical about claims that the 2020s US is somehow
| more sexist than 1980s Britain.
|
| Maybe, it is easier for centre-right female leaders to win than
| centre-left ones? Maybe the first female President of the US
| will be a Republican?
| pygar wrote:
| Trump is a fuck-you vote from the economic losers of
| globalisation. They know he won't do anything for them, but they
| also know the other side won't either. All the pearl clutching
| about trumps characteristics from inner-city relativists fell on
| deaf ears because it rang hollow.
|
| A women of the luxury belief professional class from an academic
| family and an uninspiring bureaucratic life story was never going
| to be able to talk to these people and she didn't really try too
| either.
|
| The specific policies don't really matter to people when they are
| exhausted and angry. Revenge does.
| mise_en_place wrote:
| It's been an incredible campaign this time around. I'm a bit of a
| black sheep as a voter, I voted for Obama twice, I voted Hillary
| in 2016, Trump in 2020, Trump for the primary, and now again
| Trump in 2024. Having a multi-ethnic coalition behind him really
| sealed the deal for him IMO, as well as a coherent platform of
| deregulation, immigration reform, and putting American workers
| and businesses first.
|
| Wish I'd bet more in the election markets and crypto, but
| hindsight is always 20/20 as they say.
| talldayo wrote:
| > as well as a coherent platform of deregulation, immigration
| reform, and putting American workers and businesses first.
|
| Deregulation and immigration reform is inherently at-odds with
| putting American workers first. Apple didn't send their
| manufacturing jobs to China because of too many regulations and
| immigrants in America - they did it for the _opposite_ reason.
| It happened with automotive manufacturing, it happened with
| silicon fabrication, and it 's going to continue for every
| consumer good America cannot export competitively.
| fracus wrote:
| This is going to be the "snake ate my face" situation real fast.
| Republicans push class divide so to keep their voter base
| uneducated and poor. Seems like they've reached the critical mass
| necessary. I don't understand any other way they vote someone in
| who has demonstrated time and again he'll work against their own
| interests. I understand short sighted single issue greed for the
| mighty dollar but it is a nonsensical vote for anyone else.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| I'd disagree, after all a democracy is one vote per person. And
| it surely looks like they've voted against what you thought was
| the better choice.
|
| In that sense, you have to have some pretence about why you
| disagree. You mentioned it was something along the lines of
| people thinking about a 'mighty dollar', but that seems
| conflationary.
|
| Saying it's a nonsensical vote in a two party race is a bit
| off.
| mcperr3 wrote:
| I suppose a democracy could elect a leader that promises to
| destroy it (hypothetically). The voters have no obligation to
| protect it.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| Yes. In Scotland where we have devolution from the UK
| government, there is a party that wants to dissolve the
| parliament that campaigns to be elected to that parliament.
| Just democracy.
| cyberax wrote:
| Because trans people. And immigrants pouring through the
| border. And abortion.
|
| In other words: culture wars.
| daveguy wrote:
| Yup. He lied for months about forced operations in schools
| (seriously?!). And immigration is the lowest it's been since
| Biden took office after Trump botched the pandemic response
| and no one wanted to come here.
|
| If Trump follows through on his promises, the US will be in
| bad shape.
| cyberax wrote:
| > If Trump follows through on his promises, the US will be
| in bad shape.
|
| Might be a good learning experience for the Red states.
|
| One huge issue in the US politics is that the Red states
| are largely insulated from the consequences of their
| decisions by the Federal budget transfers. Nearly all deep
| Red states are net receivers of the Federal funds,
| especially when Medicare/SS are taken into account.
|
| All that culture war nonsense, CHIPS act, and so on do not
| make any tangible difference for a voter in Alabama. All
| these amount to peanuts compared with the overall Federal
| spending.
|
| Trump is poised to seriously change this.
| systemBuilder wrote:
| Red States are the biggest leaches off the federal
| government. Out of the top-10 states that take in more
| subsidies than they pay out in taxes, only 2 are blue
| states, 8 are red states! The Red States never learn
| because the social welfare programs from the Democrats
| coddle them ...
| badrequest wrote:
| Bold of you to think the red states are capable of
| learning.
| cyberax wrote:
| Oh, they will. Culture wars only go so far when your
| wallet is _truly_ affected.
| immibis wrote:
| Wasn't that the alleged reason for continued escalations
| in Germany in the 40s?
| cyberax wrote:
| Not really.
|
| Hitler got entrenched in power because his economic
| policies _worked_ in 1930-s. They were broadly Keynesian:
| state spending to stimulate infrastructure (for the
| military) and manufacturing (also mostly military). This
| led to economic growth that people really felt in their
| wallets: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Economic
| _development...
|
| And so it resulted in a huge upswing in Nazi support,
| enabling Hitler to stay in power. People really _loved_
| him.
|
| This doesn't work all that well backwards. If peoples'
| lives keep getting materially worse, it's hard to keep
| blaming it on "the others".
| burnte wrote:
| Everyone learns when they're punched in the face. The
| question is what less will be taught? So far he's been
| able to tell them everything is someone else's fault, but
| when he's in the driver's seat, who will he blame? And
| will they believe him?
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > Might be a good learning experience for the Red states.
|
| There's been plenty of opportunities to learn, facts
| don't matter apparently.
| cyberax wrote:
| The most recent opportunity was 20 years ago when the
| housing market crashed. It did work, Democrats got 60
| seats in the Senate.
|
| Nothing since that time has really affected the Red
| states fiscally.
| simple10 wrote:
| It's much more nuanced than people are giving credit. See my
| other comment below for a fuller analysis. I have some military
| Republican-leaning friends. To give credit where credit is due,
| Trump successfully switched the Republican party away from the
| being the party of expansionist war. This plus the economy
| (whether or not you agree with people's interpretation of the
| economy) swayed a lot of votes.
|
| Ultimately, I think Trump won because a lot of key independent
| voters cast votes against the Democrats. It's a referendum on
| the way Democrats have been running campaigns for the past 20
| years. See 2016 Democrat Primaries [1] where Hillary Clinton's
| campaign pulled some shady deals to get Bernie Sanders out of
| the race. Hopefully, we'll get a legitimate 3rd party one of
| these days to properly give a referendum on both leading
| parties. Doubtful, but one still has to dream.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presiden...
| siffin wrote:
| When trump enables a war in the middle east that's bigger
| than the dems would have ever allowed, will you take that
| credit back and say it was a mistake to believe that
| republicans are no longer a war party?
| phtrivier wrote:
| You're not meaning the same thing by "pro war" or "anti
| war".
|
| So long as the war in the middle east or Ukraine does not
| involve US soldiers on the ground, Trump can finance or
| equip one of the side - for the average voter in the US,
| there is no "war".
|
| Maybe the the young men in the US were more concerned about
| the war in Russia escalating to a conflict that would
| involve US soldiers on the ground.
|
| We know how Trump will behave with Putin (he will offer
| half of Ukraine on a plate in exchange for pinky promises.)
|
| We can suspect that Trump will not move a finger when those
| promises are broken and the Baltics are invaded.
|
| What is still a mystery is how Trump will deal with Iran -
| here, there is no clear policy that will please both Israel
| and Russia, so someone will have to give.
| simple10 wrote:
| Both the Israel and Ukraine wars started under Biden.
| It's hotly debated how it would have all played out under
| Trump. An no, I'm not a Trump supporter. But context and
| public perception is important. And understanding how and
| what Trump did to radically shift the Republican party is
| important to future predictions and restoring balance.
| This is my primary claim as to why Harris lost. Democrats
| have drifted too far from the truth on the ground with
| large swaths of Americans. And yes, Republicans have done
| the same, but not to the same extent which is why they
| won. I hope the Democratic party can recalibrate and
| learn from the mistakes for next time.
| immibis wrote:
| The reason is that Trump was giving Russia everything
| they wanted without the need for a war. Why invade
| Ukraine for resources when you can just call up Trump and
| say "make Ukraine give me resources"?
|
| And Israel invades Gaza every year, under every
| president. It's just that in 2023, someone decided they
| had the propaganda power to make it seem like a new thing
| and that it was Biden's fault.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| I'm absolutely certain that if Trump was in the White
| House the full on invasion of Ukraine would not have been
| started. Not because he's some exceptional negotiator or
| because he brought peace, but because he was doing such a
| great job of undermining US influence that Russia would
| have been dumb to distract them from it. As soon as that
| stopped happening, they pulled the trigger on something
| they have been planning for quite a while. It's probable
| that now, Russia will try chomping as much as possible
| from Ukraine in the short term and then just sue for a
| respite of a couple of years until they deem the
| opportunity is ripe to finish what they started.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| They're both war parties, but the Democrats are actively
| courting Dick Cheney and his progeny[1]. We already know
| what Dick Cheney thinks of war in the Middle East - it's
| not something we have to wait to find out about.
|
| [1] https://apnews.com/article/cheney-gonzales-harris-
| endorsemen...
| simple10 wrote:
| Agreed. Republicans used to be the party of war. Trump
| substantially changed that as a perception within his
| voting base. Talk to active American military service men
| and women or veterans. Their attitude towards blindly
| trusting the government in new wars has substantially
| shifted. I don't think Trump actually caused the shift. I
| think he tapped into this growing sentiment and ramped it
| up to the point of significantly influencing the
| Republican voting base.
|
| As for the left and Democrats, the shift is equally
| noticeable in public perception. But instead of the
| sentiment being "oorah let's go to war for American
| glory" it's instead being heavily influenced by emotional
| appeals. This was most evident in Democrats support of
| the Russia / Ukraine war on social media. Once the
| leaders of the Democrat party, including President Biden,
| saw the overwhelming public support, they implemented
| policies that ultimately led to the expansion of the war.
| Refer to Anthony Bilken's visit to Kyiv during early
| peace talks. And again, I'm not making a claim as to
| who's right or wrong. Just trying to provide some context
| on how public perception is being leveraged and
| manipulated on both sides.
| simple10 wrote:
| It's not a matter of my personal belief. It's just the
| public perception. But public perception does play an
| important role when a government is actively trying to
| start a new war like when the US invaded Iraq.
| ljm wrote:
| Elections are basically controlled by the media. They publish
| the news you consume, filtered through their editorial
| stance. They control the narrative. It's all headlines,
| clickbait and eyeballs, only in this century it's done
| algorithmically through social media too. You are never
| getting an unfiltered, unbiased opinion of the state of
| affairs, you are getting a carefully curated snapshot.
|
| While there is still more nuance to it than that, there is
| still truth. In the UK, one of Rupert Murdoch's papers The
| Sun likes to boast about their political influence on voters.
| "It's The Sun what won it." This is a bare faced statement
| that The Sun basically decides on their candidate of choice
| and voters go with that.
|
| So it is when you depend on a so-called free press to give
| you the facts in nice, bite-sized form.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I honestly feel like the media was covering Harris quite a
| lot. Her message needed to be more than "he's a fascist"
| and while some might say, she had a stronger message than
| that, as an educated person who consumes news from all
| sides of the spectrum, I didn't see it.
|
| Edit: In fact, some say she lost the election because of
| her performance directly in front of the news media on TV
| and whatnot.
| simple10 wrote:
| Absolutely agree. Until we restore a proper and trusted
| free press, all political bets are off. Americans are
| living in isolated bubbles of information with little
| agreement on actual ground truth.
| 13415 wrote:
| Do you argue that Trump was elected because the media
| supported him more than Harris? Although Fox News and X are
| fully pro-Trump, of course, my impression is that the
| majority of media did not support Trump. So, I find that
| media control thesis hard to believe.
| mindslight wrote:
| Given how often the media would uncritically repeat
| backwards-assumption carrying nonsense like "Trump
| supporters say they're concerned with inflation" without
| any kind of analysis, yes, the overall media did tacitly
| support Trump.
|
| I've no idea whether this was from the ownership class
| pulling strings to cut any real objective criticism of
| corporate welfare, democrats uninterested in economics
| being blind to the fact that inflation actually has
| concrete causes, or from the writers having their brains
| steeped in things like racism-everywhere orthodoxy and
| thinking that referencing those narratives makes for a
| neutral objective article. But regardless of why, with
| friends like those...
| worldsoup wrote:
| If this was the case then it seems that Harris would have
| won the race...the vast majority of the media I saw here in
| the US was going on and on about how Trump was a grave
| danger to democracy and in general just a terrible person
| and candidate. In regards to the media, I think this
| election shows that a large majority of the population
| simply does not believe them at all.
| jquery wrote:
| You don't watch Fox News or listen to talk radio... it's
| a nonstop drumbeat about how Kamala is a communist who
| will forcibly trans aborted prison babies. And "migrant
| crime" is up 10000000% and they're lazy but also taking
| the jobs.
| worldsoup wrote:
| you're right I don't...but people that listen to that
| stuff were probably never going to vote for anyone other
| than Trump (anymore than listeners to MSNBC were going to
| stray from Harris). My primary sources are relatively
| centrist sources like WSJ and Economist as well as a
| variety of independent podcasts and the NYTimes. With a
| few exceptions on the podcast front all of these outlets
| were unabashedly anti-trump.
| chipdart wrote:
| > To give credit where credit is due, Trump successfully
| switched the Republican party away from the being the party
| of expansionist war.
|
| That's mainly because Trump is a Russian asset and it's in
| Putin's best interests to manipulate the US to yield and
| capitulate to his demands to betray allies. So under the
| bullshit excuse of being isolationist and pro-peace, you'll
| see Trump ultimately ensure Ukraine ceases to exist, NATO is
| dismantled, and war ravages through eastern and western
| Europe.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I don't think we agree.
|
| Trump likes to win. I have a feeling he wants to "win" over
| Putin. The man is shallow, it isn't rocket science.
| casey2 wrote:
| Trump didn't do that, the US becoming the largest oil
| producer did. If you want names then George Mitchell, Harold
| Hamm, Bush and Obama. And those last two did a great deal in
| making war very unpopular across the aisle. Maybe Clinton
| would have put a few more regulations than Obama, but I'm not
| sold.
| alchemist1e9 wrote:
| > I don't understand any other way they vote someone in who has
| demonstrated time and again he'll work against their own
| interests.
|
| Isn't it possible that the educated elite are incorrectly
| perceiving what is in the interests of the "uneducated and
| poor"?
|
| Perhaps it's possible they have a different utility function
| and set of preferences than the elites perceive?
|
| It's aways funny when the left who claim to "save democracy" go
| from 0-60 in a split second toward totalitarianism when they
| have decided the masses simply aren't educated enough and don't
| know what they need.
|
| As a final point, since this is HN, would you mind sharing some
| examples of what Trump has done or policies he has that are
| "against their own interests"?
| daveguy wrote:
| 0-60 in a split second toward totalitarianism? Care to give
| an example of that, or just throwing stuff against the wall?
|
| I'll give a policy example against the average person's
| interests -- his 20% tarrifs across the board will cause
| approximately 20% inflation and a trade war that will ruin
| our export markets just like it did the first time. Trump
| brags about giving billions to farmers because he had to
| after his policies decimated their markets.
| simple10 wrote:
| Agreed on the tariffs. It's a significant concern if all
| the tariffs get implemented. However, I doubt it will
| happen due to political opposition from both Republicans
| and Democrats as well as legal concerns.
|
| The US president has limited authority to unilaterally
| implement tariffs. He would have to claim national security
| concerns or retaliation to unfair trade practices from
| other countries. Trump previously imposed tariffs on China
| due to (well documenented) unfair trade practices. Biden
| then extended the China tariffs. But Trump would be legally
| challenged and most certainly lose if he claimed unfair
| trade practices by every country on earth.
|
| Here's a good video explaining the problems with tariffs.
| They have lots of unpredictable long term outcomes and are
| hard to remove once implemented. Apparently there's still a
| chicken and truck tax on trade between US and Europe that
| dates back to WWII.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-eHOSq3oqI
| alchemist1e9 wrote:
| The comment I replied to has an undertone that the masses
| don't know how to evaluate what is in their interests. I
| can guarantee terms like "failure of democracy" will start
| being used by democrats if they haven't been already today.
| All totalitarianism is horrible and it comes from both
| right and left sides, however the left is very often the
| source of it, and the logic to justify that is often much
| like the comment I was responding too - "for their own
| good".
|
| Regarding tariffs this is a complex issue and he has said
| repeatedly that it's a negotiation tool. The records
| reflects that in he expanded US overseas market access with
| heavy handed negotiations. Most countries are much more
| protectionist than the US.
|
| Industrial farming with massive soybean exports to China,
| who can't even produce 50% of the calories their population
| needs domestically, is again a very complicated topic.
|
| China is not in good shape and Trump's first term was a
| clear inflection point in their trajectory.
| daveguy wrote:
| > China is not in good shape and Trump's first term was a
| clear inflection point in their trajectory.
|
| So you believe it had nothing to do with a global
| pandemic and propping up their real estate markets until
| they popped?
| alchemist1e9 wrote:
| No I never said that but Trump's policies were certainly
| also a factor.
| daveguy wrote:
| I think their own failed fiscal policy and the pandemic
| had so much more to do with it than anything Trump did
| it's not even comparable. I guess we will see how he and
| his policies do over next 4 years.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Which part of the republican plan is in the best interests of
| the uneducated and poor?
| alchemist1e9 wrote:
| Closing border, halting illegal immigration, mass
| deportations - these are massively net positive for US
| citizens who are uneducated and poor. Migrates are
| competing with them for jobs, housing, social services, all
| resources.
|
| Lowering taxes especially payroll and corporate and
| overtime taxes has a massive benefit to them. Lower income
| tax rates are actually very high once it's understood that
| any tax or regulatory cost that is a head tax is a tax on
| them - "employer taxes" is a fairy tale economically, all
| taxes are on the employees if they aren't paid if you are
| fired, if they are still paid then they are on
| investors/shareholders/capital and those are also negative
| for growth and employment.
|
| Ending forever wars will allow shifting of budget
| priorities. A reduction of just 10-15% of defense and
| intelligence budgets and cutting funding to Israel and
| Ukraine can pay for childcare for every child in the US
| easily.
|
| The list goes on ...
|
| Better question is what policies did Harris propose that
| help the uneducated and poor?
| chipdart wrote:
| > Closing border, halting illegal immigration, mass
| deportations - these are massively net positive for US
| citizens who are uneducated and poor. Migrates are
| competing with them for jobs, housing, social services,
| all resources.
|
| If that was really the case how come you just elected the
| very same guy who killed the border deal?
|
| > Ending forever wars will allow shifting of budget
| priorities. A reduction of just 10-15% of defense and
| intelligence budgets and cutting funding to Israel and
| Ukraine can pay for childcare for every child in the US
| easily.
|
| There is no "funding to Israel and Ukraine". For Ukraine
| there's transfer of outdated weapon systems reaching the
| end of life and already obsolete, which in turn is
| creating jobs in the US to restock and replenish the US's
| arsenal. If anything, you're seeing money go into the US
| defense industry which ends up being the US's take on
| welfare and social security program with all the pork
| programs.
|
| Whoever fooled you into believing people are handing over
| cash to Ukraine, fooled you very well.
| alchemist1e9 wrote:
| The border deal provided amnesty that is clearly NOT in
| the interests of uneducated and poor citizens.
| chipdart wrote:
| > The border deal provided amnesty that is clearly NOT in
| the interests of uneducated and poor citizens.
|
| You should inform yourself about the bipartisan border
| bill that Trump killed at the last moment. The "amnesty"
| thing only exists as a propaganda talking point. The bill
| tightened up requirements for asylum and imposed
| automatic deportation rules.
| dgfitz wrote:
| There is a link in this thread that I'll never find that
| refutes your point. It quotes the bill even.
| knowaveragejoe wrote:
| Immigration is a net good. Even if there's now suddenly a
| bunch of unskilled labor vacancies, what makes you think
| American workers even want those jobs in the first place?
| What makes you think those companies can afford American
| workers? People aren't out of a job because some
| immigrant took theirs. We know this through hard data,
| not vibes.
|
| We don't need to cut foreign military aid to fund
| childcare in the US. Reforming entitlements would get us
| there with more leeway and without ripping the rug out
| from under our allies.
|
| Lowering taxes is a good thing, and that's about the only
| area you would find me in agreement upon.
| yks wrote:
| > can pay for childcare for every child in the US easily.
|
| It can also pay for unicorns and rainbows, what makes you
| believe "paying for childcare" has ever been a part of
| Trump/Republican agenda?
| creato wrote:
| Restricting immigration.
|
| https://www.kansascityfed.org/research/economic-
| bulletin/ris...
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Except even that isn't in the best interest of anyone.
| Immigrants increase the health of the economy, even for
| the working class.
|
| https://www.cbpp.org/research/immigrants-contribute-
| greatly-...
|
| https://www.bushcenter.org/catalyst/north-american-
| century/b...
| AlexandrB wrote:
| It's possible for immigrants to both increase the health
| of the economy in the medium to long term and to cause
| localized economic pain in the short term. For those
| living paycheque to paycheque it's the short term that
| matters because they don't have the luxury to wait for
| the longer term effects to play out.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I say this kindly, you must have never worked a labor-
| intensive job and watched your friends(co-workers) get
| laid off for cheaper labor.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| I would say it was the part where Elon Musk was giving out
| a million dollars a day . . .
| siver_john wrote:
| Here I'll bite:
|
| Didn't fill existing positions for monitoring pandemic
| diseases arising in China that were put in place by Bush then
| strengthened by Obama, allowing for a slower response to what
| would become covid[1].
|
| Huge corporate tax cuts that lead to stock buy backs, which
| enriched the wealthy while doing little to nothing below
| (buying stocks back and raising stock value generally does
| not help the average/low income individual beyond maybe their
| 401k).[2]
|
| [1]https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/how-
| whi...
|
| [2] For just the tax information later, there are plenty of
| articles about stock buybacks at that time if you don't trust
| the org. https://itep.org/one-legacy-of-the-trump-tax-law-
| big-tax-bre...
| indigo0086 wrote:
| >Republicans push class divide so to keep their voter base
| uneducated and poor.
|
| Dems almost exclusively Lord over academia as something so
| valuable that the people that do jobs that keep the lights on,
| water running, and the floors steady are tired of hearing how
| much knowledge they lack. They say this in the same breath as
| they accuse republicans of keeping the sacred university
| knowledge from trades workers
| aiisjustanif wrote:
| That is contrarian to democrats giving more support
| historically unions and putting laws in place to raise the
| wealth and social support of lower income citizens. Think of
| Medicare in 1965, Social Security and the National Labor
| Relations Act in 1935, and the Low-Income Housing
| Preservation and Residential Homeownership Act of 1990
| murderfs wrote:
| The most recent example you're citing is from 34 years
| ago...
| viridian wrote:
| Are you interested in talking to people to understand, or do
| you prefer to just pontificate as to why people would engage in
| "nonsensical" behavior?
| kulahan wrote:
| This is the part that blows my mind consistently. The number
| of people screaming "WHY would ANYONE vote for him?!" and
| then not even considering trying to find out is a true
| bummer.
| jquery wrote:
| They're literally trying to find out when they exclaim that
| question.
|
| To me this seems a pretty clear case of inflation="punish
| the incumbent" and also Biden spread out the pain of covid
| recovery instead of making red states bear the burden.
| Kamala promised more of the same, including lots of
| investment into rural and red areas that aren't gonna vote
| for her anyway. Result? 10-15 million blue voters stayed
| home this cycle. Trump turned out his entire base.
|
| Just pontificating...
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| > They're literally trying to find out when they exclaim
| that question.
|
| I've seen these conversations happen thousands of times
| in political communities online, before you know it, the
| person trying to understand starts getting angry at some
| point, and both people are calling each other names. Very
| few people truly want to understand the other side. If
| you want to understand the other side, the first step is
| to listen, and not say anything (don't try to defend your
| viewpoint, this isn't part of your goal, and it will
| derail it), ask questions, and agree to disagree
| politely.
| immibis wrote:
| Because those discussions go like this:
|
| (to a C programmer) "Why are you using C?"
|
| "Because it's memory-safe."
|
| "But it's not memory-safe."
|
| "Yes it is. Your program will just segfault rather than
| getting hacked."
|
| "No it won't... see these examples of C programs getting
| hacked without segfaulting."
|
| "You're using it wrong. See look, if you write with
| spaces instead of tabs, your program is memory-safe."
|
| Do you remember "MongoDB is web scale"? Would you not get
| angry when trying to find good reasons to use MongoDB?
| That's what it's like talking to the average Trump
| supporter, except it's about the removal of human rights
| instead of just which database you should use.
| tdhz77 wrote:
| We know why. They are ignorant, don't care, or duped. There
| is no reason to vote for a person morally bankrupt and
| doesn't have any reasonable solutions to problems. A person
| with felonies can't even be on a Jury in this country, and
| people elected him President after his attempt to overthrow
| the government? I would struggle to hire him to mow my
| grass let alone run the country. This whole "You need to
| talk to us" is ridiculous as the positions.
| sfblah wrote:
| I'll give it a shot, just maybe to help one person
| understand.
|
| They voted for him because 15+ years of government +
| federal reserve policy has led to massive bubbles in all
| US capital assets while impoverishing a wide swath of the
| population. The people who voted for Trump are those
| who've "lost" in the giant crypto+stock Ponzi scheme.
|
| The reason people on the winning side of this have such a
| hard time seeing it is that, en masse, they've turned
| away from any semblance of traditional valuation measures
| for capital assets. I assume they've done this because
| it's too emotionally uncomfortable to consider the notion
| that their entire wealth isn't because they're geniuses
| but because of deranged government policy.
| zaptrem wrote:
| Isn't Trump the pro-"crypto Ponzi scheme" (as you called
| it) candidate? Asset prices of both crypto and stocks
| seem to think so.
| sfblah wrote:
| Yep. It's ironic and shitty, but people just did a
| protest vote. They aren't looking at the specific
| proposals. They don't care anymore. You're absolutely
| right, but honestly both parties are completely in on the
| Ponzi scheme. So it probably doesn't matter.
| tim333 wrote:
| Not only pro but going to put your tax dollars in:
|
| >US Senator Lummis reaffirms Bitcoin will be become a
| national reserve asset following Trump's victory
| sfblah wrote:
| Read my other comments. It's a protest vote. They don't
| care what his actual policies are. No one is willing to
| pop the economic bubble, so voters are just going to burn
| the whole thing down.
| tomrod wrote:
| I'd bet a dollar this is 100% incorrect, and that
| cryptobros voted overwhelming for Trump/Vance/Thiel/Musk.
| sfblah wrote:
| It's probably split. But it doesn't matter. The important
| question is who the people who have lost in the lottery
| voted for, not who the winners voted for.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| And somehow Trump is going to reign this in? Him? How?
| Did you see both crypto markets and stock "ponzi" scheme
| reaction to his election? If this is their reasoning, it
| is flawed, to avoid using terms that are much less
| charitable. It feels that this kind of justification is
| trying to fit a narrative to the deed that makes no
| sense, somehow justify it.
|
| I personally think it's a culture war thing that caused
| this. And it is probably going to get worse.
| sfblah wrote:
| Of course he won't. But, see, no one will. Both parties
| are equally culpable here. People are just doing protest
| votes at this point. What are they even supposed to do?
| No one can even buy a house. The only actual solution is
| to put interest rates up to 8% and trigger a revaluation
| and a recession, but the odds of that are zero, no matter
| who is president.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > They are ignorant, don't care, or duped.
|
| That's what a lot of Trump voters believe about people
| who don't like him. He used to generally have good public
| opinion (prior to his ascendance in 2015). A lot of
| people believe that his bad press is primarily due to
| intentional smear campaigns and lawfare by the powers
| that be.
|
| In that sense, for many people, a vote for Trump is like
| apes in /r/stonks buying and holding GME. It's less about
| what they want in a positive sense, and more about what
| they don't want: namely extreme leftism and the current
| ruling class in Washington, the media, billionaires, and
| everyone else who attended the WEF in Davos -- all the
| folks who care nothing for the average Joe.
|
| He may not fix it, they may not even expect him to be
| able to, but voting for him is a way to have a voice. At
| least he really upsets all those powerful people! And he
| did get some stuff conservatives liked done in his first
| term.
| tdhz77 wrote:
| They didn't want the rich guy, so they voted the rich guy
| in? I think you need to work on your argument.
| immibis wrote:
| Many of us have, and that's how we know their stated
| reasons are just nonsense. There's a video of the creator
| interviewing a Trumper about how tariffs work....
| aydyn wrote:
| You think you're going to get a solid answer interviewing
| some random person on the street? That's what an
| intelligent person would call a strawman. Do you want me
| to point you to the video of well-educated coastal elites
| calling the assassination attempt a Hoax?
|
| There are of course more than one reason why people voted
| for him, but there's literally tons of comments in this
| very thread explaining why with no nonsense and under no
| uncertain terms.
|
| Ironically, a lot of those comments get flagged and are
| no longer visible.
| kulahan wrote:
| No, I think there needs to be a culture of talking to and
| respecting people with different opinions.
|
| And before you jump to the extreme of "but they don't
| want me to EXIST!", that's not the point. The point is
| that we temper each other, partially by negotiating, and
| partially by simply making the "other side" more used to
| our ideas.
|
| That just happens with repeated exposure. If something is
| scary, but generally not bad, people can get used to it,
| but _only if they're exposed to it regularly_. You get
| used to public speaking after the ten thousandth time
| instead, because you've likely already confronted every
| fear you had in real life by now.
|
| Ironically, this is extremely easy to fix. Politicians
| can simply get along in public. We've got studies showing
| that political extremism can die almost overnight when
| the opposing politicians simply explain that they do
| respect their opponent.
|
| As for the people here explaining themselves clearly -
| that's because dang has done a good job of fostering a
| community of high quality commenters. You won't find this
| kind of discourse anywhere else, and it's the main reason
| I treasure this site.
| aydyn wrote:
| > No, I think there needs to be a culture of talking to
| and respecting people with different opinions.
|
| Absolutely.
|
| > As for the people here explaining themselves clearly -
| that's because dang has done a good job of fostering a
| community of high quality commenters.
|
| Hard disagree. The level of political discussion on HN is
| barely a step above r/politics. This is a forum for 110
| IQ codecels who think minor domain expertise means they
| are smarter than everyone else in all aspects.
|
| The contempt for ordinary people in this very thread is
| nauseating.
| kulahan wrote:
| I am eternally grateful that my MIL is an unironic
| trumper from an unbelievably small town in the Midwest,
| specifically so that I don't need to listen to a
| "creator". It's an eye-opening experience to hear what
| their true, heartfelt concerns are.
|
| If nothing else, surely we can empathize with being
| frustrated for ages and finally feeling _seen_.
| anon291 wrote:
| Yup all my comments offering to explain and explaining have
| been flagged. Even ones with no sarcasm. Just because
| waiting for someone to doxx me again and dang to do
| nothing.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| HN just flags all comments that seem to support Trump in
| any way, even with good arguments. So no idea why
| comments are even open anymore when some points of view
| are obviously not allowed here yet 52% of the country
| seem to supported them to a degree. Obviously HN users
| just want their own groupthink eco chamber without
| wanting to hear other opinions. So in that regard I'm
| enjoying watching lib woketards having a mental breakdown
| for the second time since 2016. Stay ignorant, stay
| foolish.
|
| Hell, I'm not even from America and I saw it comming from
| a mile away. Calling half of their country "nazis" and
| "fascist" was the worst campaign move I have ever seen in
| my life.
| brainphreeze wrote:
| The user base here seems to be just as close-minded and
| condescending as it is on Reddit.
|
| Very disappointing to be honest.
| vundercind wrote:
| Not trying? It was all the media did for like 2017 through
| 2018. "Venture safari-style among the rural or flyover-
| state-suburban white" was practically its own genre, and it
| was everywhere. You couldn't turn on NPR without hearing a
| devout rural white Christian relate how they prayed on it
| then held their nose and voted for the unrepentant sinner
| because of abortion. It's why Vance's weird, insulting book
| was embraced by the Left(!) as "real talk" from an actual
| member of the group they were trying to understand.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > voted for the unrepentant sinner
|
| Kind of a silly point you're making, considering that
| Kamala's views and most Christian denominations are
| completely irreconcilable. Not that she has ever repented
| for anything - or even admitted to any mistakes of any
| kind.
| vundercind wrote:
| This is the kind of thing the people they interviewed
| were saying.
|
| [edit] I mean it was my shorthand for "I know he's a
| serial adulterer, and his business dealings are shady,
| and he says some really awful things... but I prayed on
| it and..." which is closer to a direct quote of things I
| heard multiple times. Other demographics had other
| reasons but that was a common one from the pro-life set.
| tomrod wrote:
| To be fair, most Christian denominations establish
| inflexibility at the outset by claiming to be a worldview
| that is "true", "unerring", or similar attribute, despite
| lacking any epistemological introspection -- meaning of
| the 5,000 or so different denominations in the world, at
| least 4,999 are sorely disappointed that not only do they
| not reconcile to each other, they also don't reconcile to
| reality.
|
| Whereas a person can review an idea, try it on like a
| coat, see how it fits, and then keep or discard if it's
| found amenable and improving to their views of the world.
|
| Vice President Harris' opponent also professes and acts
| on a worldview wildly deviant from most, if not all,
| Christian denominations.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Well, objectively, only one religion can be true if any
| religion is true, just as the existence of gravity is
| irreconcilable with the existence of no gravity; but go
| on. We haven't grown up as a nation and collectively
| decided which one it is yet, but I have preferences. Not
| that preferences even matter - if I'm falling off a
| building, my preference for there to be no gravity won't
| make a difference.
| tomrod wrote:
| Oh, a big whopping plurality hits the "Nones" just fine.
| As it is not a religion, it avoids the plaguing morass of
| inchoate morality claims justifying a grift altogether.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > plaguing morass of inchoate morality claims justifying
| a grift altogether
|
| And claims like this are why you lost this election, will
| never win elections, or win anyone over to your side.
| tomrod wrote:
| > And claims like this are why you lost this election,
| will never win elections, or win anyone over to your
| side.
|
| Interesting!
|
| 1. I didn't run for an office
|
| 2. I am political independent
|
| 3. I am not a political party in a first-past-the-post-
| system defined by the reverberations of the 3/5th
| compromise.
|
| I'm genuinely curious why you paint more than half the
| nation (though not half the presidential 2024 voters)
| with a broad brush of negative antithesis regarding a
| relatively different claim ("Nones" exercise morality
| individually, rather than externalizing their moral
| decision making to an inchoate morass of morality-derived
| alleged religious authorities).
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > I'm genuinely curious why you paint more than half the
| nation (though not half the 2024 voters) with a broad
| brush of negative antithesis.
|
| Simple. The only lesson people who despise Trump have
| learned, and are learning, is that they didn't call Trump
| supporters every brand of -ists enough. Huge surprise,
| this generates broad negative anthesis and it's well
| deserved, as well as completely backfiring. The name
| calling is useless now.
|
| https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1854242284952519158
| tomrod wrote:
| Oh, I think I get your point, you want people to simply
| ignore folks that gleefully transgress social norms and
| exercise sexism, racism, and other bigotries against
| people who, by your definition, are mentally ill and thus
| a worthy target of mockery and conduct unbecoming
| christianity's moral standards, or by most normal people,
| are guilty of being women, of being men, of being gay, of
| being lesbian, of being queer, of being trans, of being
| of light pigment, of being educated, of being uneducated,
| of being homeless, of actually being mentally ill, of
| being disabled, of being children, of being elderly, of
| being generally unwanted by a heaving horde of hate.
|
| Do you believe the same for people who violate religious
| taboos?
|
| Regardless of the answer, we're far afield of the
| original discussion, and I'll not pursue this thread
| further.
|
| Though, I do empathize -- it must be highly embarrassing
| to have racism, sexism, and other bigotries noted as
| being offensive to people in public. Triumphalism, often
| a result of religious fervor, masks that in an echo
| chamber, so social media can be jarring for folks in such
| a situation.
|
| ---
|
| PS
|
| >> If that's not sexist, I don't know what is.
|
| This fact is quite apparent that you don't know what
| sexism, and somehow think it applies in a situation where
| a trans fem wants to be in a situation more protective
| than forcing a locker room share with her sexual
| assignment at birth. What your assumed resolution,
| coached carefully by pollsters no doubt before being
| coached through formal and informal propaganda channels,
| actually is is transgressive and probably unnecessary.
| Though to redefine sexism as "not respecting of gender
| norms my religion requires me to prefer" is quite a
| stretch
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I believe my religion, and the religions of other people,
| is more deserving of protection than your self-proclaimed
| ability to transgress social norms; and voted
| accordingly.
|
| > Though, I do empathize -- it must be highly
| embarrassing to have racism, sexism, and other bigotries
| noted as being offensive to people.
|
| Reminder that Kamala Harris believes 15 year old young
| men who suddenly identify as female, have the right to
| compete with similar-aged young women and be in their
| locker rooms to see them naked. If that's not sexist, I
| don't know what is.
|
| > Triumphalism, often a result of religious fervor, masks
| that in an echo chamber, so social media can be jarring
| for folks in such a situation.
|
| So many platitudes, so many assertions, so many nuggets
| of delusion, so little reason to believe them as true.
|
| > Though to redefine sexism as "not respecting of gender
| norms my religion requires me to prefer" is quite a
| stretch
|
| Dude, even Richard Dawkins said this was insanity ("I
| object to the statement that a trans woman is a woman.
| This is a distortion of language and science.")
|
| I look forward to the day it returns to that
| categorization. I am merely agreeing with one of the most
| prominent atheists in the world on this subject.
|
| > transgressive and probably unnecessary
|
| More dishonest name calling, and what a retarded
| perspective to assume I must be an idiot, or I would
| agree with you. We've had that for 8 years, and we don't
| give a darn, because you don't give a darn understanding
| our perspective either. Sticks and stones.
| vundercind wrote:
| At most one. Kinda. Does depend on the beliefs, which are
| by convention basically unrestricted. Also how we're
| defining "true" could easily admit _partial_ truth for a
| whole bunch that might be incompatible if any were
| _entirely_ true.
| kbrisso wrote:
| Why do people vote for him? America is a closet racist
| country and the education system obviously doesn't produce
| critical thinkers. The south is poor and Trump will make
| them money again some how - they believe that. Trump will
| make grocery prices' go down and create many magnificent
| jobs. Trump will make interest rates go down and loans
| cheaper. He will deport all the Mexicans so the black or
| white people can fill the jobs.Trump is a populist con man
| who conned his base. No public company or start up will
| ever hire a CEO like him. I call this political entropy.
| This is the decline in America in my view. It's a sad day
| and I will just stick my head in the sand and hope we make
| it through.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I think it points to a real lack of humility. Why would you
| try to find out how your thinking might be flawed if you
| start with the assumption that everyone who disagrees with
| you is an idiot?
|
| And I say this as someone who did this exact thing in 2016.
| redleggedfrog wrote:
| I did, partly out of curiosity, partly because I'm in a
| progressive town literally surrounded for a hundred miles
| by a sea of red.
|
| They like Trump because he appears anti-establishment and
| they fear/dislike the establishment. They don't feel the
| establishment in place is good for them. They truly, truly
| struggle with finances. Many are in the military and on
| food stamps. Some are farmers who can't make farming work
| anymore. They fear immigrants because they might take jobs
| or bring crime (and drugs). They fear they cannot protect
| themselves so the want access to guns.
|
| One common thread was the stimulus checks. They really
| liked the stimulus checks.
|
| Another thing is pining for the good ol' days. Lot of that,
| too. No issues like pronouns muddying things up.
|
| Generally, not racist, not sexist, but some are, just like
| any rando person.
|
| Seemed to me just like regular folk who are scared and
| can't make ends meet like they used to, well, a long time
| ago. The grocery store prices that are annoying to me are
| truly a decision point for them.
|
| Then when you take three steps back, and look at it
| objectively, it's often of their own doing. A lot, I mean a
| lot, of disparagement of education, even of K-12, so the
| means to get better employment is more of a struggle. A
| whole lot of drug and alcohol abuse on top of it. They are
| the only people I know who smoke. Lot of broken
| relationships and marriages. Family chaos. The image of
| solid salt of the earth isn't what my Trumper acquaintances
| (friends?) are experiencing. They are pretty desperate and
| really wish there was some way to get back on top of
| things.
|
| So, in desperation they vote for a person that promises to
| make it better. And really they don't care about much else.
| If you want to win elections, do the chicken in every pot
| line.
|
| This is all anecdotal of course, but I went to the effort,
| this was seven different people, all of whom I'm on good
| terms with and converse with on a regular basis. And they
| were respectful of my position - that you need both
| conservatives (to keep what's good of the old ways) and
| progressives (to find new ways that are better) in the
| political arena to make it work. That's not a popular
| position, though.
| kulahan wrote:
| This feels close enough to my experience that I believe
| you actually do speak genuinely with these people.
|
| I think a huge part of it is also that they feel seen by
| someone, finally. Trump did a great job of making these
| people feel like the spotlight was finally on them, and
| honestly it's true.
| burnte wrote:
| The reason it doesn't make sense to people like him (and me)
| is that we look at all the times he promised to release the
| health care plan, the January 6 incident, the calls to states
| to "find" votes, the constant complaining about rigged
| elections, the constant complaining about basically
| EVERYTHING he doesn't like, and more, and we don't see how
| anyone can overlook that. He never answers policy questions
| clearly. He doesn't understand tarriffs will raise our
| prices. He thinks RFK should be in charge of HHS. He wants to
| shut down TV networks that criticize him.
|
| When I ask folks why those things don't matter, I either get
| "what about So-and-so," or "I don't believe that," or they
| just blow off the question without an answer. I even went to
| the Ask a Conservative sub on Reddit and asked why people
| think millions of noncitizens are voting in elections, and I
| got yelled at, called naive, and told that some local
| municipalities allow non-citizen votes in local elections so
| therefore they can vote federally too.
|
| That said, I'd LOVE to know why none of the things Trump says
| or does dissuades his voters. Truly, because I really do not
| understand. I don't want to argue, or to try to convince you
| you're wrong, I would love to know why those things don't
| matter and you think Trump is a force for good.
| guywithahat wrote:
| > we look at all the times he promised to release the
| health care plan, the January 6 incident, the calls to
| states to "find" votes, the constant complaining about
| rigged elections, the constant complaining about basically
| EVERYTHING he doesn't like, and more
|
| Have you considered the possibility his supporters know
| something you don't? A lot of what you mentioned is either
| debunked or is fraught with misinformation
| drabbiticus wrote:
| > A lot of what you mentioned is either debunked or is
| fraught with misinformation
|
| Why do you believe this?
| sleepybrett wrote:
| explain how him saying for over two years that he would
| have a healthcare plan in some number of weeks (changed
| several times) is debunked or misinformation. Because we
| all watched it.
| realce wrote:
| What a great skipping-record case-in-point. I almost
| think this is satire.
|
| > Have you considered the possibility his supporters know
| something you don't?
|
| They literally considered that, it's a main point of the
| post you're replying to, they got answers that lacked
| actual details or hinged on hyperbole.
|
| > A lot of what you mentioned is either debunked or is
| fraught with misinformation
|
| See what I mean? "A lot" meaning what number of things?
| Either debunked or is fraught with misinformation? What
| does that even mean? Which things? Jan 6 is "debunked" or
| "fraught with misinformation" or both? Trump didn't
| release his health care plan, Trump called GA to find
| votes, Trump constantly complained about rigged
| elections. Those are sincere and unarguable facts. What
| are you speaking about in rebuttal?
| burnte wrote:
| > They literally considered that, it's a main point of
| the post you're replying to, they got answers that lacked
| actual details or hinged on hyperbole.
|
| I appreciate that someone actually read my post. I'm not
| happy to say that's the usual reply I get from Trumpers,
| just an angry "you're wrong" and no discussion. I'm out
| of ideas on how to get them to engage in a conversation.
| I hate arguing. I really, really just want to understand
| their point of view but I just get yelled at.
|
| And I'm NOT trying to denigrate anyone with that
| statement, it just feels like there's so much anger
| between Americans that it's hard to get someone to
| believe I'm sincere when I don't agree with them. It
| seems to immediately cause them to shut down and go into
| anger mode rather than just explaining to me why they
| feel I'm wrong.
|
| He's got them convinced that people who disagree can't be
| trusted, and it fucking *hurts*.
| burnte wrote:
| Yes, I HAVE considered that, it's why I keep ASKING Trump
| fans. I even stated in my comment that I never get real
| responses. I get responses like yours, which is "you're
| wrong, it's been debunked" but I'm never let in on the
| debunking evidence.
|
| I'm dead serious and 100% sincere: Please show me the
| evidence. I REALLY want to see it. I don't believe
| people, I believe data. I don't even believe MYSELF
| without data.
|
| I live in Georgia, I heard the tape with Trump and
| Raffensperger, but if you have evidence that call is
| somehow not true, please share it.
|
| I heard Trump say he has "a concept of a plan" on
| Healthcare 8 years after he told me he already had a
| plan. If he's got an ACA replacement, I'd love to see it.
| I don't understand why it has to be repealed before it
| can be replaced, usually we just pass new laws that
| supersede the old one, but whatever, I'll look at
| whatever you have.
|
| I don't think you can provide evidence that he doesn't
| complain about everything he doesn't like, every rally
| comes with a list of grievances. But again, if you have
| evidence, I'll look at it with an open mind.
|
| And even if you don't have evidence for those things,
| show me what evidence you DO have, I'll be happy to
| examine it. I even looked at the stuff Mike Lindell
| released. I'll always look at evidence, but I just can't
| do the whole "do your own research" thing any more.
| avereveard wrote:
| Disclaimer: left wing European voter.
|
| It's clear from the message what the grandparent post opinion
| is, there's no need for understanding the right, the
| conclusion is there already and it's that the right wing
| voters are:
|
| > uneducated and poor
|
| This narrative about the right voters has been there since at
| least the nineties, only for the left to wonder why dialogue
| dried up.
|
| Then the left drops the ball on big ticket issues, and people
| move more and more to the right, while fringe right positions
| become normalized.
|
| Oh well, if it weren't for those pesky uneducated voters!
| donmcronald wrote:
| I'll bite on this because I really don't understand it. I can
| understand why people relate to a lot of the messaging. For
| example, if you say that government institutions are broken
| because they're filled with waste and corruption, I think
| there's some truth to that and I can see the appeal of
| agreeing with that sentiment. There are many things that all
| politicians say are broken and they right.
|
| Where it breaks down for me is when you move into the plan
| for fixing those problems. You can't just reduce the funding
| of government institutions and assume there's some motive to
| re-optimize for efficiency. That might work to some degree in
| the business world where there's a profit motive, but on the
| public side of things the people that are abusing the system
| for personal gain aren't going to optimize to provide
| services more efficiently. They're more likely to optimize
| for more personal gain as the expectation of failing
| institutions becomes normalized.
|
| Eventually, I think you end up with government services and
| institutions that are even less efficient per dollar spent
| because the solution for trying to improve them doesn't seem
| to have any plans for accountability. So I think people are
| voting to effectively de-fund government services and
| institutions with the misguided promise of reduced tax burden
| and increased efficiency, but what they're going to get is
| equal spending, less services, and more people benefiting
| personally from the shift in policy, especially if services
| start using more private sector vendors.
|
| For example, some of our education funding in Canada has been
| cut massively due to the perception of waste, which is true
| to a point when you look at administrative bloat, but the
| cuts always impact the front-line people providing services
| and miss the administrative layer where the waste is
| occurring. That makes the ratio of waste even higher and
| people are left wondering why nothing works.
|
| I might be wrong, but I think all you're going to do with a
| broad mandate to "gut everything" is to create an opportunity
| for self-interested parties to usurp government funding for
| personal gain when the goal should be to increase
| accountability and efficiency.
|
| Loosely related, a massive problem we have in Canada is that
| front-line workers have been completely eliminated from the
| decision making process. Everyone I know can look at things
| done in their workplace and identify mistakes and
| inefficiencies that are the result of administration that
| lacks real world experience. For example, they built a prison
| in the city where I live where they put (sewer) drains inside
| the cells. Every single prison guard that you'd ask would
| tell you that's a mistake because the prisoners can plug them
| and flood the cells. That's the result of arrogant
| administration thinking they know everything.
|
| My last point is also part of the reason I think people voted
| for Trump. I wouldn't because I don't think his solutions are
| going to improve anything, but a lot of people believe the
| system _is_ broken because they personally see mismanagement
| on a daily basis and it 's done by the people getting paid
| the most.
|
| So I get why the messaging is appealing, but I don't
| understand why people think some of the proposed solutions
| are going to work. Maybe someone can explain to me how having
| Musk "do what he did at Twitter" to public institutions is
| going to provide better services to the public.
| stetrain wrote:
| When people feel unhappy with the way things are currently
| going, they vote for the other guy.
|
| I think it's really that simple in a lot of cases. There are of
| course many other layers and nuances, but I think trying to dig
| into the specific policies, rhetoric, and character of each
| candidate can miss the forest for the trees.
|
| I could be wrong but I don't think 72 million people went out
| and voted for Trump because they carefully compared both
| candidates and decided that they preferred Trump on all of the
| key issues, or because they like or approve of Trump as a
| person, character, or candidate.
|
| In fact his approval and favorability polling is still below
| 50%.
|
| People held their nose or stuck their head in the sand on the
| parts of him they find unfavorable, and pressed the button for
| "change things" because they don't like how things are
| currently going, real or perceived.
|
| Just like they did in 2020 when they felt like things weren't
| going well and voted to switch things up.
|
| People who follow politics a lot more know that "let's try the
| other guy" comes along with a lot of other baggage and issues
| and policy, but that's a lot to think about and try to parse
| through in a world full of people yelling opinions, and I think
| a lot of people just look past them.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| >Republicans push class divide so to keep their voter base
| uneducated and poor.
|
| And you claim the democrats didn't push class divide by
| basically deriding and ignoring a huge part of the American
| population that supports Trump or might vote for him? Note that
| he made massive gains with latinos and even with the frican
| American community. That says a lot about who felt which party
| was ignoring them and pushing its own sort of class divide with
| rhetoric that didn0t take many of the things these people
| really give a damn about into account.
|
| Pray tell too, what exactly are the specific interests you
| think they voted against? And how were the democrats addressing
| them?
|
| After such a high popular vote in his favor, saying in effect
| that he won only because those who voted for him are a bunch of
| ignorant fools is exactly the sort of foolish tendency that
| made his opponents lose.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| How do you reconcile "short sighted single issue greed for the
| mighty dollar" with "poor" and staying that way?
| anon291 wrote:
| This is what a lot of us here on HN see. The site guidelines
| say no snark and our comments get flagged but this whole snark
| is ignored and elevated.
|
| Maybe it won't be a snakes ate my face moment. Trump is hardly
| an unknown. People voted for 2016-2020. That's what they want.
| No snark needed
| segasaturn wrote:
| Groceries and housing are unaffordable, and any voter who
| complained about the issue to the incumbent party were ignored,
| or were outright told their experience with high prices wasn't
| real (which is called gaslighting). So people went with the
| alternative, who acknowledged their issue and provided very
| bad, very stupid solutions, but solutions nonetheless. This is
| the exact same situation that happened in 2016 on the issue of
| jobs being sent overseas (remember when out of work coal miners
| were told to "learn to code"?). Really, this outcome was very
| easy to predict.
| realce wrote:
| > Groceries and housing are unaffordable, and any voter who
| complained about the issue to the incumbent party were
| ignored, or were outright told their experience with high
| prices wasn't real (which is called gaslighting).
|
| Almost every single Harris ad I saw was about how groceries
| and housing was too expensive. Two of the 3 pillars of her
| campaign were about price-gouging on staple goods and
| increasing access to home purchase. How was the issue not
| acknowledged?
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| I don't get the focus on Republican votes, when a major issue
| is the _lack_ of Democratic votes.
|
| As someone who leans quite left (and voted 3rd party in a deep-
| blue state), I can completely understand why many traditional
| Democratic voters didn't turn out (and why many Republicans
| despise the Democrats enough to presumably vote against their
| interests as you pose).
|
| The largest issue for me is that I _cannot support genocide_.
| The "I'm speaking" (to protesters) was repulsive. The culture
| of "if you don't get on board it's your fault if democracy
| dies" attitude of the Democratic party was just as _fascist_
| sounding to my ears as anything they claimed the Republicans
| have in store for the future. I personally can 't fathom how
| any person that aligns with my view of the world would
| basically take the stance of "genocide doesn't matter, toe the
| line". For me personally, two parties that aggressively support
| continue apartheid conditions and genocide are both against my
| interest so profoundly that where they differ on issues is
| irrelevant.
|
| Furthermore the Democratic party has increasingly come to
| represent a _very_ anti-democratic institution. Biden was
| promised us as a one-term president to get things patched over
| while new leadership was established. Then the fact that he was
| clearly increasingly incompetent was hidden until it was
| embarrassingly too late. But oddly, it was not too late for a
| primary, where Democrats could choose a candidate, but we didn
| 't get that. And yet, when mentioning any issues with the mass
| murder of children you are told to "shut up and get in line".
|
| Finally, Biden didn't deliver on any of the meaningful promises
| he made. Nothing happened to improve abortion issues while he
| was president, his track record on climate was just as
| meaningless and awful as any Republican, children still sat in
| US detention centers separated from their parents, corporate
| interests still take precedence over the rights of workers just
| as much as with any Republican.
|
| While I am nervous about another Trump term, I fail to see how
| the world was so much brighter under Biden. The Democrats have
| become the party of "shut up and do as we say because we know
| better" with no objective improvements in the issues I care
| about when they are in office, which is impossible for me to
| get behind.
| skc wrote:
| More than anything I'm very curious to see what sort of people
| will be emboldened by this victory.
|
| I've just seen pictures of Trump, Elon Musk and Dana White
| celebrating together (and being celebrated)
|
| The signal being sent is that this is what masculinity and
| winning looks like.
| JasonBorne wrote:
| And the rise of anti intelllectualism in the USA continues to
| rise.
| sbdhzjd wrote:
| Meh, I have a PhD in engineering from a top five school and I
| was in between Dr Stein and Trump.
|
| Some people really loath Biden (me), the Democrats and/or
| Harris.
| NickC25 wrote:
| Again the DEM party took another opportunity to snatch defeat
| from the jaws of victory.
|
| They should have nominated Mark Kelly. The GOP ran on "this bitch
| hates America". You can't run on that against a 4 star rear
| admiral who also went into space.
| epolanski wrote:
| Interesting unrelated fact, but at 6745 comments this page lags a
| lot on my phone, even typing this is difficult.
| meowster wrote:
| Not on my phone.
|
| (Pixel 8 Pro, Firefox)
| jdlyga wrote:
| Another perplexing decision. It reminds me of when Bush won his
| second term. In retrospect, nobody today thinks that was a good
| move. But you'd be surprised how many people vote for Trump
| because they want to save money on taxes and think republican
| policies will help the economy.
| AdeptusAquinas wrote:
| Not sure if its clear here to US participants, but the world
| views this outcome much like we did in 2016: it makes the US into
| an absolute laughing stock. I don't fully understand: he was
| voted out in 2020 due to the massive failures of his term and him
| personally, and now four years later when he has become even more
| deranged, they voted him back in? What the hell?
|
| Positive outcomes I see is that much like with the US's
| unequivocal support of Israel, this devastates the US's
| reputation and foreign influence. Trump wants to abandon Europe
| and Ukraine, which might grant Europe the independence and the
| urgency to step up and support Ukraine itself, unfettered by
| dysfunctional politics back in the US. A third pole on the world
| power stage would improve things, the US isolated back home in
| its infighting and staying out of the rest of the worlds
| business. IF the EU steps up.
| AdeptusAquinas wrote:
| Should mention I feel bad for the Gazans. The democrats had
| already abandoned them (Genocide Joe etc) but they're screwed
| now - just like the Kurds which Trump betrayed and left for
| ISIS and Turkey last time.
| Mahn wrote:
| European here, I do not think that electing Trump makes the US
| a laughing stock; there were legitimate reasons to disagree
| with the Biden administration, and, given that Kamala was
| essentially a continuation of Biden's policies, there was no
| other real alternative.
| anon7000 wrote:
| Added to the legitimate reasons to disagree with Trump's
| first term too? It's not like we're jumping to something new
| here; we've done it before
| AdeptusAquinas wrote:
| It was very much a decision between drinking curdled milk and
| drinking bleach.
| typeofhuman wrote:
| The astounding hubris you must have in order to make the
| comment
|
| > the world views this outcome much like we did in 2016.
|
| You represent the world's view, ey? More than likely you're
| just repeating what the media told you to think.
| AdeptusAquinas wrote:
| They elected a giant idiot who lives in his own, broken
| world. No one needs the media to tell them what to think,
| they can just listen to him for half a minute. Hes a joke,
| and he makes the US a joke that they put him in power. Again.
| snihalani wrote:
| Do we need to allow parties to put up multiple candidates and
| implement ranked choice voting? would that help us with outcomes
| like these?
| typeofhuman wrote:
| Your position is "the position of the majority is wrong."
|
| No we don't need to change the system on the basis that it
| leads to outcomes you want.
| IMTDb wrote:
| > No we don't need to change the system on the basis that it
| leads to outcomes you want.
|
| I definitely agree with that view. But maybe we could/should
| change the system on the basis that "the majority does not
| agree that the system is working".
|
| While measuring that is hard since you would always tend to
| find that the system is working if it favours the candidate
| you like; there still is a significant number of people both
| left and right leaning that agree that the bi partisan
| winner-takes all voting system is fundamentally broken.
|
| If only for the fact that a president can ben elected by
| winning _less_ voices than his opponent, thereby showing that
| some votes are worth more than others.
| onecommentman wrote:
| To provide a little perspective on what seems to be an fruitless
| exercise in Democratic Party political apologetics, let's remind
| ourselves that the smart, dumb, rich, poor, wise, foolish, old,
| young, native born, foreign born, male, female American people
| have spoken in a generally free and fair election. As they did
| when they elected Biden in 2020, Trump in 2016, Obama in 2012....
| Whether you agree with the results or not, _that process_ is a
| beautiful thing. Think of the billions on this planet who aren't
| afforded that luxury.
|
| There is a phrase that took root in the American legal subculture
| a while back: "come to Jesus meeting". It refers to a meeting
| where a lawyer explains to their client the realities of their
| situation with the expectation that presentation of the cold
| facts and current climate will "recalibrate their expectations"
| and move them on a new path...normally to settlement and no
| further wasting of the Court's time. The Democratic Party would
| do well to consider having such public meetings with elder
| statesmen types from both sides of the aisle. The US is best
| served when both political parties are strong and healthy.
|
| Paradoxically, it's harder for the Republicans to do that now,
| since they are winning. Normally requires a hard slap in the
| face...as has occurred for Democrats.
| lend000 wrote:
| An open mind is one of the most valuable qualities a person can
| have. For some reason, most people are unable to fake being open
| minded when discussing politics so it's a good litmus test.
|
| So consider the following perspective. We've endured Trump once,
| with mediocre results. The world didn't end, and meanwhile he did
| not accomplish much of what he promised while putting on a clown
| show. But this time, I'm optimistic about the potential for our
| country for the first time. Not because of Trump, but because of
| some of his likely cabinet appointments. Elon Musk in particular.
|
| Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, our government is
| headed for a debt crisis. Things will get slowly worse
| (inequality will increase while the government devalues the
| dollar to service its debt), but eventually, the crisis will come
| to a head and the government will be unable to service its debts
| without a massive devaluation ala Argentina, Weimar Republic,
| etc. We got a small taste of this after the pandemic response.
|
| There is no conceivable way that an ordinary politician from
| either party could dismantle or even slow the growth of the
| immense bureaucratic rot bleeding our country dry. Nor can Donald
| Trump, as evidenced by his failure to "drain the swamp" last
| time.
|
| But one of the few people who could is likely to get a major
| government efficiency appointment.
|
| That's what I'm optimistic about. Not Trump, but the fact that he
| is now surrounded with competent people with good ideas. Prior to
| him being elected, a true national debt reckoning was inevitable
| at some point in my lifetime. Now, there is some non-negligible
| chance of pushing it past my lifetime or reversing it altogether.
| bryanmgreen wrote:
| Step 1: Blame people who don't look like you
|
| Step 2: Become dictator/king
|
| Step 3: ???
|
| Step 4: Profit
|
| ---
|
| History repeats itself.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| Bernie Sanders just put it perfectly:
|
| >It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party
| which has abandoned working class people would find that the
| working class has abandoned them.
|
| >While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the
| American people are angry and want change.
|
| >And they're right.
|
| Anyone here who is still confused about this election result need
| only unplug their fingers from their ears and open their eyes.
| bovermyer wrote:
| Just out of (actual) curiosity: is the culture divide now strong
| enough that dissolution of the Union is a possibility? If so,
| why? If not, why not?
| DoctorOW wrote:
| No, because the resources are owned by the United States
| regardless of how much the people like/dislike the United
| States, to leave the United States you have to _physically_
| leave it. You can 't just announce your land is part of some
| other country. Sure, you could try and fight Civil War 2, but
| remember all the might of the US Military
| soldiers/weapons/intelligence/etc. belong to the United States
| side. You have a 2nd amendment right to form this opposing
| militia but you'd have to outspend the US Military using your
| own resources.
| HaZeust wrote:
| "Property of" is an abstraction quickly lost when the chips
| are down; there is no "Essential" property of something, and
| your honoring of such an idea (or lack thereof) is a direct
| reflection of your beliefs and values; and, more importantly,
| your motivations.
| stego-tech wrote:
| I think we're very nearly there, and this could be the tipping
| point based on how things shake out. If we take Trump et al at
| their word, then the US economy is going to violently shudder
| under the weight of unreasonable tariffs, mass deportations,
| tax cuts on the obscenely wealthy, and a ramming through of
| unpopular policies that he proclaims (absent evidence) will fix
| a given problem. The man is a salesman, and he's good at
| selling lies to the desperate.
|
| So what happens if he goes so far that the United States loses
| or jeopardizes its global dominance? The same states that voted
| heavily for him would be the first impacted, with massive job
| losses and higher costs. Coastal states and cities wouldn't be
| too far behind, with higher costs tempered somewhat by
| proximity to logistics hubs, and unemployment would be more
| limited due to the higher concentration of jobs. That is, until
| our economic dominance falters, at which point our heavily-
| built-up services industry is likely to fracture and collapse
| in on itself under the weight of competition from countries
| like India and China.
|
| All of which is to say that, yes, it's a potential outcome that
| the United States does dissolve in some fashion, as some states
| seek to preserve their power and economic control even as the
| Federal Government loses its mind.
|
| _Now then_ , do I personally think this is the outcome? No,
| not really. We lack debt to spend frivolously on deficit
| financing, so there goes that easy out. The stock market is not
| the economy, and workers will quickly realize that when stocks
| skyrocket and they're all laid off 2008-style, which would be
| bad for those with the most to gain (billionaires and Private
| Equity). I still think there's enough backstops in place to
| prevent runaway collapse and dissolution...
|
| ...although the biggest one of all is a divided Congress. If
| the GOP gets a trifecta (Executive, both Legislative chambers,
| and SCOTUS), then there's nothing stopping the full suite of
| plans from being implemented post-haste, at which point the
| music very suddenly stops and everyone realizes how screwed we
| are. Our prior backstops, our allied countries, cannot be
| depended upon with a President that is vocally supportive of
| Russia and while they're dealing with their own populism
| issues.
|
| All in all, my read is that while things are about to get
| _really bad_ , they're not likely to be _maximum bad_ , if that
| makes sense. The current world order has always been fragile
| post-Cold War, and this might be the time for a grand
| realignment. It'd be a shame to lose our dominance, but no
| empire lasts forever.
| name_nick_sex_m wrote:
| I think it more likely this election was rigged in favor of trump
| veidelis wrote:
| Is the war with Iran more or less likely with Trump in office?
| snow_mac wrote:
| I get really tired of this narrative that people are pushing that
| trump voters are somehow ignorant, stupid or simply don't care.
|
| We're not ignorant, we care a lot and we're not being duped.
| We're really tired of the high gas prices, the moral hypocrisy of
| the left, the domestic law fare going on attacking political
| rivals and most of all, we want to afford our groceries and
| experience a better economy.
|
| Telling us, that the entire base that voted for Trump is either
| heartless, naive or stupid just isn't going to cut it in reality.
| People that voted for Trump believe that the President is the
| diplomatic representative to the world for the American people.
| He literally got shot and stood up pumping his fist in the air.
| Joe Biden can barely walk down the stairs without tripping.
| Kamala had a "phone" call with an undecided voter just yesterday
| and when she showed the screen it was the camera app. Our choice
| this election was either the badass who after being shot wanted
| to show the crowd he was alive or two bumbling idiots. He's not
| my first choice, but he's a lot better then the Democratic Party
| offered as alternatives.
|
| We want an American who will fight for business and fight for
| America to win. We want lower gas prices, which will then make it
| cheaper to transport goods across the nation and help lower
| prices in the grocery store.
|
| Trump is not the best person, but he was the better option out of
| the two party system.
| ChumpGPT wrote:
| >We want an American who will fight for business and fight for
| America to win. We want lower gas prices, which will then make
| it cheaper to transport goods across the nation and help lower
| prices in the grocery store.
|
| Do you think the President has anything to do with all that?
| The USA pumped more oil during the Biden administration than at
| any time in history. How is a President going to fight for
| business? Seriously, your comments come across like you have no
| idea what the President can or can't do. Do you understand
| where the power lies in the USA? It lies with Congress and
| massive corporations, the President is just theater for the
| masses.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| This has to be satire.
|
| But you don't even blink when Trump hammers on about the trade
| war he's going to start with everyone?
|
| Musk even had to re-iterate his point, and make sure that
| you'll embrace for "hardship" in the near future, should they
| get elected.
|
| I mean, good luck with those gas and grocery prices. You're
| gonna need all the luck you can get.
| darkhorn wrote:
| Solution to your problems is not Trump. I lived in totaliterain
| an authocratic regimes. He has similar tendencies. He is going
| to screw not only America's economy but also the whole world's
| economy. He is not going to solve your problems but his own
| problems. Just like Erdogan and Putin he doesn't care about
| ordinary people. When you think that it cannot get any more bad
| it will get more bad. I lived in totaliterian an authocratic
| regimes.
| frob wrote:
| You elected a rapist. This is just a factual statement. You can
| introspect on that as you want.
| sweeter wrote:
| who would of guessed that swinging to the Right and courting
| Republican voters while holding no real tangible policy positions
| that address the pain that people are feeling wouldn't pay off??
| (except for literally everybody who follows politics)
|
| I could write an essay on each massive mistake they made after
| that first week after the swap, but if I had to simmer it down
| into a sentence, it would be: people wanted change, Kamala Harris
| made it extremely clear that she does not represent that change.
| She cozied up to Biden and tried to be a centrist-right
| candidate, and literally nobody wants that... and the worst part
| is that they will never learn a lesson from this.
| SilentM68 wrote:
| The economy, cost of living, no meaningful or high-paying jobs,
| the crackdown on Cryptocurrency, the way mainstream media and
| other mediums treat the right lead to Trump's second Term, in my
| opinion.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| I strongly feel Harris lost because she did not connect with
| white voting women in the swing states. The exit poll numbers
| show this. She had about the same percentage voting women as
| Biden, but lost votes with white men. So to make up for that gap,
| it had to be white women. She did great with non-white overall.
|
| I think it's easy to say "Harri needed more votes" but to go
| about this strategically, there needs to be on-target messaging.
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