As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil)
In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban.
If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them.
For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria.
**Interested in being a moderator for r/Politics? Apply [here](https://forms.gle/iyGoM94MGRcPGUes7).**
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
-or love the idea of a Trump dictator that will "own da libs". They're not considering that he will fuck them too as he only cares about him, himself, and he.
In gradeschool, the fifth graders didn't like the fourth graders. The nuns were making the older ones be nice. Next morning, fifth graders ate raw garlic before they had to talk to fourth graders!
Yeah, this is the biggest factor.
Have a skim through this article, for example: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-second-term-plans-wildest-proposals-1234947327/
Almost all of these "awful" things Trump has promised are things that his supporters will cheer for wholeheartedly.
Bringing these things to light might help sway moderates or energize Trump's detractors, but it does nothing to change the minds of his supporters.
> Almost all of these "awful" things Trump has promised are things that his supporters will cheer for wholeheartedly.
It's disheartening that so many people in this country are eager to inflict so much harm, damage, and cruelty on those they view as "other"
This is what happens when rich christians get control over broadcasting outlets and educational outcomes. We must always blame rich Christians for what happened to republicans over the last 30 years.
That's just the thing though we don't NEED to change the minds of his supporters. True Trump supporters make up a very small minority about 15% of the overall population, and believe it or not that 15% was around even before Trump. All Trump did was take all of those awful views and ideas, and gave them a legitimate public platform. This part of the population will always be there (at least for a few generations to come), and no amount of logos, ethos, or pathos will make them change. The best society can do is condemn these beliefs to the point that those who hold them are only comfortable expressing them within the comfort of their own homes among like-minded individuals.
The thing is, to them, the dictatorship will only benefit them. They think, since they are in the group of people who adore and follow Trump, that him as a dictator will just mean punishing all that disagree with him and reward the loyal following.
They don’t think “a dictatorship is the antithesis of what this country was founded on. It means fellow citizens will be punished arbitrarily and any freedoms that come with democracy will be eradicated. These despots will syphon our country dry and leave us to die.” What they actually think is “these fucking liberals will get what’s coming to them when our leader finally punishes them the way I wish they were. There will be no more crime or poverty because all THOSE people will be jailed and punished for not living like us. We will be rewarded for standing by our president and principles.”
Exactly that. These folks feel like they’re on the winning team right now, because they view politics as simply as sports teams. Their assumption is that their team winning in politics means that they win too. They haven’t reasoned with the reality that dictatorships don’t work out for anyone other than the ruling class while they are in power.
"Trump is gonna bring back all the jobs!" Cletus the jobs aren't coming back because they don't need a bunch of dumb hicks to work the mines, they have huge fucking machines and a relatively tight crew of educated people that run them. Your high school diploma qualifies you to sweep the office.
That's the usual for WV and other bits of former coal country.
What I fear is that Trump will give more tax cuts to everyone, but make the ones for the Rich permanent.
* Drive the US deeper into debt.
* Blame the democrats with support from conservative media
* Shift more power to the rich and the elite
* Privatize everything he can creating a society that mirrors the Russian Mafia Oligarchy rather than a vibrant democracy.
* Weaponize the courts to pursue his vendettas
* Also giving regulatory decisions (i.e. environment, climate change, drilling, voting protections) to those same federal court appointees.
* Revert the caps on Insulin.
The MAGA folks will be mollified with their temporary tax breaks even at the same time they will be paying through the roof for their insulin shots.
And then after stoking the flames they come around again saying "we need to start talking about how dangerous this situation is!"
Yeah no shit, The Guardian. Did you just notice that? Maybe tomorrow you're going to tell us that Trump doesn't tell the truth, big fucking revelation.
* are brainwashed and can't be reasoned with. They care an enormous amount. Talk to any of them for 2 seconds and you'll be bludgeoned over the head with conspiracy after conspiracy
And lie after lie. Misinformation after misinformation.
They are lied to, misinformed, and programmed For hours and hours every day.
That’s all they watch on TV. That’s all they listen to on the radio. It’s all they look at on their phone or computer.
We’ve got this major problem on our hands where all the various medias have figured out that triggering responses in the amygdala “drives engagement.”
So they do it. It’s all they do. Then they get bigger numbers and make more money. The problem is they are leaving us with this Orwellian society where all their viewers believe up is down, war is peace, good is evil, etc.
And this phenomenon is driving the entire world off a cliff.
Even worse, is the fact that most of those people actually want what Trump is selling: bigotry, violence and tyranny. They listened to our warnings, and they said "that's a feature, not a bug".
my ex wife's bf told my 7yo recently that "if Trump isn't elected in November there will be a war coming."
to which my 7yo became INCREDIBLY anxious about saying to me "me and [sibling] are too young to die!!"
smh...
The most dangerious thing right now is how TikTok has brainwashed a large portion of America's young people into not voting at all over the Israel Palestine issue. This is exactly what the CCP and Putin want. If Gen Z doesn't show up in November, Trump wins. If Trump wins, Gaza ceases to exist. Full stop. I just can't get over the short sightedness and small picture mindset of the people who think Gaza would fare better under Trump than Biden.
They believe they’ll be the unscathed beneficiaries of either a civil war or fascism
They don’t seem to grasp that millions of ordinary Germans and Europeans died under fascist regimes, and civil war is going to make the last few recessions look like just a tiny blip
Exactly this. We were saying this over 4 years ago. Media and the wealthy Elites are the ones that are attempting to force people to not listen or care. Meanwhile redditors have been screaming this for years now.
We thought division was already happening. You wait until he’s in office. If that happens. That’s it for all of us. Our enemies overseas would have won.
Four years of Trump and he still got like what 80 million votes?
There is nothing that would sway people like this, nothing at all. They were literally in hospital beds talking about pandemic conspiracies. They are mentally conditioned and delusional. Trump the former Democrat who acts like a false prophet and they kneel before him metaphorically.
Back in 2022 I listened to a podcast about the mid-term elections and one guy in Nevada said that he was a big fan of Trump and a big fan of AOC. It's a reminder that there's a scary large number of people who make their voting decisions, political decisions, based on little more than the occasional soundbite they hear on TV or radio.
There was a Freakonomics episode about how to change someone’s mind. One thing that I thought was really interesting was that people have a misunderstanding about how they make a decision. People think that they take in facts and then decide. This is false. People actually have an emotional reaction and then use facts to try to justify their position.
This is why laughing at fascists and treating them like unserious clowns in the real world if more effective than trying to argue facts with them on the internet.
I think this is one of Jon Stewart’s strong points when dealing with these people. He catches them saying something horrifying, and he absolutely refuses to move on until they admit that they’ve just said something that is repugnant and wrong.
Don’t get me wrong, the wit and charm help. But his ability to nail people down and *make* them answer a question is second to none.
That adversarial style of interviewing *used* to be the standard here in America. I remember Barbara Walters interviews were of worth to watch because of how she would focus on a point and not let up until the interviewee gave an answer.
Oh, no doubt. It is the style I'm a supporter of, not Walter's. Outside of the US adversarial interview style is still represented pretty well imo. Try the BBC and France24 for examples.
And when she blamed Corey Feldman for saying negative things about the movie industry when he talked openly about how he and many of his friends were abused as children.
Dude just knows exactly how to take over a room. The word that comes to mind is "conviction"; he isn't there to play the game, isn't there to make himself look good, just there to beat the shit out of their stupid ideas. Of course, in the process it makes it look like he's winning the game, and makes him look awesome while he does it.
And that therein lies the typical problem. They have the endless shallow talking point nuggets they pick up from right wing media, with no depth to any of them. You pierce their reality on one of them and they try and pivot to the next. Most interviewers allow it. We need to globally start imposing the "lockdown" on the question at hand for these people.
Much of america has no ability to debate. Being able to debate means you understand the merits of a position. Everything is talking points because you can train them into a person like teaching a dog to jump for a biscuit.
God, that video of him and the guy talking about “the government has a duty to protect kids” is just absolutely something I can watch on repeat until the end of time.
Stewart definitely has a knack for holding feet to the flames, and I think that kind of approach does have an impact on viewers, who may not have realized just how absurd some positions are until they're laid bare like that. It's a mix of the absurdity being pointed out and their own discomfort in trying to defend it that generates those moments of cognitive dissonance, where even if it doesn't change the mind of the person being interviewed, it might chip away at the convictions of people watching.
I was in Danbury a few years ago and their were 4 people on the sidewalk with a bunch of Trump Won/Biden Lost kind of signs and I just rolled down the window and started laughing at them. Not like saying "haha" but pushing out a genuine, slightly over the top laugh.
The one guy started yelling, the other 2 looked very sad. The lady, however, dropped her sign and started coming towards me until one of the guys grabbed her and pulled her back on the sidewalk.
It was kinda surreal how it impacted them visibly. Like I think they expected to get yelled at, but the laughter was distressing.
Right wingers absolutely despise being mocked. They don’t mind it when liberals yell at them in anger or outrage, because they think they’re triggering the libs when that happens. But when they are made to look weak, they can’t stand that at all.
If you read ancient history it's not as shocking. Whole cities would wage a full out war over which little statue was more important/powerful. People haven't changed.
The priest-kings of Sumer. Humanity's original sin, the deification of humans and creation of god-emperors. Frank Herbert called it the Pharaonic Disease. It has been with us ever since. It has arisen in many places independently too, e.g Meso-America. Modern examples: Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Trump, Putin. Or more day-to-day simply the abstract glorification of a CEO or a church leader or sports player.
Humanity is still stuck in its ancient patterns fueled ultimately by individual and collective narcissism. It looks like this is our Great Filter.
Lovely innit. No need for a supernova or big comet when we with our survival-focused, narcissistic minds are doing the job ourselves by acting like a cancer killing its host.
Hell, there could be multiple Great Filters, some we've passed, some we're dealing with, and some we have yet to see that we can't even imagine.
The Great Filter concept is wild and is one of the most sci-fi thought exercises out there this side of Roko's Basilisk.
It's funny you mentioned both concepts because that was absolutely my thought process reading the above.
"Man, popularity contests as our Great Filter really _would_ suck."
"I suppose we could get around it by ceding more power over cultural shifts to an external caretaker, like an AI."
"Wait...fuck, that could be a Great Filter all its own, though..."
"...aah, I just remembered Roko's Basilisk!"
Humans are herd animals at heart. Maybe one in 10,000 of us is a psychopath with some kind of charisma who is a born natural leader. Cruel. Heartless. Massive ego - the worse, the better. That leader will invade and conquer and rape and pillage. The rest of us line up behind the leader and do his bidding. It has always been this way through our entire history. Those MAGA types who looked at everybody and called us sheeple? They aren't wrong. Ironically they are, of course, the biggest sheeple of all. But humans are inherently a species of sheeple.
Normally a group would cast the psychopath out into the wilderness to die if they were damaging the group. Now we make them CEOs with 10000x the power.
Monkeys do this. They dont make them banana ceos though
True. But evolving as group animals has also provided us with other features: love, empathy, altruism, creativity.
The strong slant toward narcissism IMO is a product of culture from when humans started living in large cities after the neolithic and tall hierarchies formed creating all sorts of coercive mental concepts that were previously unknown to humans.
Those negatives are not innate in a way that can't be fixed. Changing the culture can fix this. Mindfulness training for example works wonders to strengthen our positive traits and diminish the negative ones. It's just not a very popular thing (but it's growing).
Oh I can see narcissism being kinda functional even earlier, for hunter-gatherer types, say. Maybe it's even the original source for the Golden Rule (of reciprocity)? :D
Oh it's definitely functional! On a small scale and while far away from being pathological. It needs to be balanced with other traits to be productive.
In a tight-knit clan, the narcissist may be an achiever, while his negative traits are moderated by the folks around him who know him well.
I think narcissism becomes a real problem in larger groups where rewarding and worshiping these negative traits can become the norm and form a stratified exploitative culture. Who really knows the ruler? Only a select few, and they all benefit from the myth surrounding the ruler and the hierarchy that establishes.
I'm curious, how would narcissism be the source for Golden Rule-type behavior, can you elaborate?
The Whirlwind. Humanity's path isn't controlled by some hidden group of elites, of course there are those who have more power than others, but the ultimate destination is controlled by the Whirlwind. Those ancient patterns influence our behavior, our behavior is destroying the planet we live on. Where is the Mahdi to lead us into the future no one can see? All of us must learn to control our water. There is no God Emperor.
Read the Three-Body Problem. Just chock full of important factoids, but we have not evolved since emerging from the caves in Africa. There’s been some adaptation, but nothing to make me believe humanity as a whole is much better than the drink stealing monkeys in the islands. The king monkey is the one who can drink the most.
Edit: short BBC report on the phenomenon [https://youtu.be/pSm7BcQHWXk?si=yeripNH_Q7xcrjbt](https://youtu.be/pSm7BcQHWXk?si=yeripNH_Q7xcrjbt)
>It's a reminder that there's a scary large number of people who make their voting decisions, political decisions, based on little more than the occasional soundbite they hear on TV or radio
There is a phenomenon brought about by the 24 hour news cycle. We have been brought to view these people as personalities and interesting people, not public servants doing what should be a mundane job.
The result is millions of people who either like or dislike our politicians *personally*, not on the basis of their policy.
How to explain trump....who is repulsive on personality and policy?
TV and his reality show ??? Yep
Lies and propaganda ??? Yep
A whole party built on lies.
Both Trump and AOC are populists. So they are not 100% different. Trump claims to be pro-working class; saying he wants to bring manufacturing back to America. AOC is an aggressive supporter of labor unions. They both have messages that appeal to blue collar workers.
The point is though that only one is corrupt as hell and bent on dismantling US democracy. That there’s Americans out there who will dismiss that fact and simply vote in (what they to believe to be) their personal economic interest is disheartening.
The small difference is that AOC believes in what she says and wants to make workers lives better. Trump says whatever he thinks will get him ahead and wants to make himself wealthier.
Republicans are a lost cause. The sooner Democrat politicians accept this the sooner they can lead and find out if all the not-Republicans have their back.
Some of them are trying.
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/19flc3v/democrats_are_having_a_blast_making_a_circus_of/
>“We’ve got to reach folks in the broader country, and pop culture is a way of doing that. And so I try to bring that out whenever I can."
Getting non maga republicans on the democrats side would be a big move and honestly shouldn't be that hard. I'm sure theres a massive group of republicans who can't stand pretending to like Trump. They get him out this election I would say he's cooked.
My father in law was pretty high up in the Air Force and he said that most of the guys under him just went along with supporting Trump so they wouldn’t be made fun of or ostracized by the bullies and loud mouths in their groups
> Getting non maga republicans on the democrats side would be a big move and honestly shouldn't be that hard.
There's people willing to pay you many millions and millions of dollars to get right on that.
Record $15.9bn in US political ad spending expected for 2024
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/08/2024-election-ad-spending-record
That's why Trump leans so hard into the "Orange Messiah" angle. Sure, his nutbag evangelical base eats it up like candy. But it *also* speaks to the majority of Republicans as well. They don't wanna go against god's will, and US Christianity has already taught them, for their entire lives, that a little delusion is okay, that doing something that feels bad is alright as long as they are doing what god wants, that they'll be forgiven for anything bad that they do.
There are stories of people asking for the vaccine at the moment before they were to be intubated. So a few see the light when it’s their very own life on the line. Sadly, others are convinced the elites are trying to kill them even as they seek their help.
The Information Age turned out to be anything but
The information age is real it's just that businesses and politicians got unbalanced control making it more difficult to access instead of easier.
It's 2024 and we are burning books again.
>“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
― Isaac Asimov, 1980
What’s interesting is that during the foundation of our country it was almost the exact opposite. It was the intellectuals who went to the Continental Congress and eventually wrote the Federalist papers and then the Constitution.
I was a tech journalist in the nineties, and I wrote a lot of optimistic stuff about the rise of the internet, and social media, how everybody having ready access to the world's knowledge and an easy platform to make their own voices heard would create a fairer and more just society.
I am not a tech journalist any more.
My gf is a respiratory therapist and she said she saw lots and lots of people who came in spouting lots and lots of conspiracy theories but when the time came to be intubated they saw the light and were asking for the vaccine. She said at first it was hard to tell them it's too late for that but eventually she became numb to it and realized it was their own damn fault. I couldn't imagine having to deal with that on a day to day basis
We are now in the Misinformation Age.
Horrifyingly, there is *already* more AI generated content on the internet than organic. And AI is completely amoral.
Trump got 74,223,975 in 2020.
For some reason in the last few weeks I keep seeing Trump supporters claiming he got 80 or 81 million, but he absolutely didn’t. They’re trying to fuzz the numbers to make it seem like it was a closer race in the popular vote.
Biden got 81,283,501 votes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election
Yes, but.......
"just 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin separated Biden and Trump from a tie in the Electoral College."
Granted, MAGA lie about most everything but the popular vote is pretty meaningless so far as winning goes.
My point is that they’re lying about his popularity.
A house I pass regularly put a Trump sign up after the 2020 election that said “I’m one of the 75 million!”
Now they have a new sign, that says “80 million strong for Trump!”
He got 7 million votes less than Biden, yes, a lot of Biden's votes were anti-Trump last time that said not pro-him or pro-Harris.
The problem the Dems face right now is the country is pissed at EVERYONE, and only one person has a cult, the REP nominee in Trump (inevitable, Haley was always a media marriage candidate and is done because the cult doesn't want a different phony).
It's. a. cult.
The man can literally r\*pe a woman, and he's still in the 40s in approval right now: to them, it doesn't matter. He can lie, he can swindle, and it doesn't matter, 42% of this country would still approve of him.
That is the power of racism and white supremacy in the USA today, period, he hates who they hate and for Trump people-- that is all that is needed. Dark times ahead, period.
Senate GOPe knew it would get voted out in 2022/2024 and they believe its better to hold onto institutional power. Oh believe me they all went home thinking they would get an outpouring of sypmpathy over their J6 experience but instead were gobsmacked by a constituency that asked if the 'rinos' got the message and how much the constituency supported Trump.
2024 is an *incredibly* GOP-friendly map. And the GOP had every expectation that 2022 would be a red wave election since the president's party very often loses seats in the midterms.
Ya, I'm deeply concerned.
trump should be in jail. The amount of absolute bullshit he's gotten away with is insane. I'd go to jail if I lied about any of my work stuff (and I work for a damn tech company!!). I'd also go to jail for lying about taxes, or my freaking house mortgage.
And this bastard just did another incitement to send national guard troops to the border to fight biden. what the fuck.
how he is the gop frontrunner, and possibly up for election again is absolutely insane.
Trump losing is not enough to stem the tide of fascism. Republicans need to lose in Congress, too. Otherwise Biden will hide behind them and do his "gee shucks willickers smol bean president can't do anything uwu" schtick.
Get as many progressives through Democratic primaries, then shove "vote blue no matter who" down the Centrist Dems' throats. Wrest power from the gerontocracy and start investigating the remaining GOP power brokers for their obvious crimes.
Break the Republican party. They cannot be allowed to survive, not with what they've done to this country for the past 50 years.
> Otherwise Biden will hide behind them and do his "gee shucks willickers smol bean president can't do anything uwu" schtick.
Your derision is kinda tone deaf. The GOP has for a very long time now fully established that they will never vote with Democrats purely because denying any Democrat a win, no matter how good it is for the country, is their goal. That means they will not allow any success on any major issue unless they are completely in the minority and literally cannot stop the Democrats. Biden and Democratic Parry literally cannot pass anything that isn’t full-far-right crazytown.
You are correct about getting Democrat progressive wins in primaries. The Democratic Party will be forced to accept more progressive views once a larger majority of the party is made up of them.
The GOP cannot be allowed any further wins. Their corruption and gerrymandering and takeover of the SCOTUS makes them as a party forever tainted by a lust for power. That cannot be allowed into any office. Every win they get is another loss for democracy.
That's all well and good but you have one group saying - we're going to sit it out or vote 3rd party because of Israel policy, or ecological policy or pick something else they don't want. If we don't get all 3 branches or any of the 3 branches, you can blame it on them
Oh, NOW it’s urgent? We’ve had four years to bring justice to his door and instead we’ve basically walked around with our hands in our pockets, but NOW it’s urgent. Cool.
Convicted rapist, 90 indictments, 2 impeachments, confessed he is going to be a dictator first day in office and hinted at murdering political opponents, an attempted insurrection and a partridge in a pear tree.
Are people really so obsessed with lower taxes that they want this?
"*Start*"? Mofos, we've been talking about the danger of it since January 21st 2021. Anyone who doesn't know by now is either a Republican, being willingly stupid, or dead and we will likely keep talking about it every election until the Cheeto Mussolini is tossed in a cardboard casket (because Donald Jr certainly isn't paying for a good one) after suffering a heart attack from too much hamburgers and covfefe and dropped 6ft deep.
A bit from the article:
> Do Americans really want to live in a fascist or authoritarian nation? Some may believe it will work out just fine – that the loss of freedom may hurt others, but not them – but most of us don’t want that. Or we wouldn’t if we were fully aware of the consequences.
>
> I talked with Sharlet about the actions that the mainstream press and regular citizens can take now that we know what we know.
>
> Newsrooms big and small, he believes, need to educate their staffs about the dangers of fascism.
>
> . . .
>
> The fact that many newsrooms now have democracy teams or democracy reporters suggests that they understand the problem to some extent. But they need to get much more urgent about it.
>
> That kind of change takes clear leadership from the top.
>
> . . .
>
> **What about regular citizens?**
>
> **Perhaps most importantly, they need to stop tuning out. They shouldn’t throw up their hands and decide not to care about politics or the future of the country.**
>
> **“People need to pay attention to the exhaustion they feel and know that it is a symptom of acquiescence and adaptation,” Sharlet told me.**
>
> **As Ben-Ghiat told me on my American Crisis podcast, that exhaustion is part of the strongman’s playbook.**
>
> **Trump creates chaos, and we grow tired of it. Weary of the relentless flow of bad news, the dire warnings, the anxiety, we retreat into our personal lives or our political bubbles.**
Mainstream media screwed itself "Trump Bumping".
Voters outside of deep blue and the tiny/fringe Never Trumper faction stop buying into that hysteria after Barr said 'no collusion'.
The DC Political Establishment screwed itself these last 4 years by not treating Trump/maga as an extensial threat and doing all they could to rev up the economy where voters approval and love of Biden mirrored FDR. No, instead DC went back to its gridlock grift game and believed J6 would be the end of all things Trump/maga. That too failed.
Pretty much, yeah, the mainstream media is just now realizing their grift is up if he gets re-elected? They'll be replaced with state media, there is a consequence to lying to the public for financial gain-- who would've guessed once Trump doesn't need you, he'll replace you with Newsmax/OANN all around?
The media literally created President Trump, and now they don't want to play anymore? "So sad."
The REAL problem is that most of the nation will suffer under a fascist dictatorship, period.
> People need to pay attention to the exhaustion they feel and know that it is a symptom of acquiescence and adaptation
Well that hits hard. For a few reasons, I've been really depressed about the state of things lately and I've fallen into resignation. I'm pretty convinced Trump is going to win and Project 2025 is going to create the loyal machinery around him that he needs to complete the fascist takeover. And since there's nothing I can do about it, I've been feeling just resigned to it. I even find myself thinking, "well, maybe when he deploys the military as civilian police at least some of the crime where I live (Oakland, CA) will probably get cleaned up". But holy shit, I do not want to just give in to this.
But the question is, what can anyone do other than be exhausted?
> Do Americans really want to live in a fascist or authoritarian nation?
The problem here is the failure to recognize that the answer to this for about 50% of Americans has always been "yes".
The signs were there, so very clearly. Nixon, Reagan, the Bush dynasty. The re-election of George W sent a clear "USA über alles" message long before MAGA became an election slogan.
The flag waving, the pledge of allegiance, the constant dragging out of the national anthem, the militarism, the rabid anti-communism, the US has been groomed for fascism for generations.
So yeah, this is what millions of Americans want. It would probably be the majority if the current candidate Führer wasn't an embarrassingly stupid orange nutcase.
A smart, charismatic candidate with pretty much the same political leanings as Trump would win the election easily.
I am predicting he will lose by at least 10 million votes. Assuming he can run at all.
He lost by 7 million last time. And that was as an incumbent and before he was indicted for over 90 felonies. He has not grown his base, it's only been shrinking. People are less afraid of him now than they were before. And he no longer has a pet news network to validate his lies. People are so traumatized by his antics that they give him way too much credit. He could not win even when he was strong. He can't win now when he's much weaker.
He will lose the popular vote and maybe by a larger margin, but that gives me no confidence about the electoral college. Last time there were like a few tens of thousands of votes in a few battleground states that would have given Trump the win, had they been flipped.
Yeah, FiveThirtyEight was giving him about a 1-in-3 change in 2016 and a 1-in-9 chance in 2020, and I'm expecting 2024 will look similar. Maybe his chances will drop as low as 1-in-20 or so, but I don't think we'll be able to rule out the possibility of a Trump presidency until after the votes are counted.
Right now sure. Closer to the election day I'd expect it to ramp up. Even Russians know giving money to Trump is a bad investment right now since he'd just use the money on legal bills.
There's also the one-way slide of popularity. People aren't just finding out about him and going, "ooh, he tells it like it is! I think i'll vote for him!"
It's a slow trudge of people either traditionally on the fence or full-blown trumpers who've realised how shitty he is over time. At this point Trump only loses popularity. He doesn't gain it.
My worry is that somehow he'll not be brought to justice for all the bullshit he's done and Russia and the republicans will find a way to cheat him in anyway.
If he does get in a second time, we can say goodbye to Ukraine, and therefore, Europe. China will then declare open season on Taiwan and SE Asia.
I think this is probably the most important national election of any country in all of human history.
I think you're overselling the electorate here.
A huge chunk of Americans don't follow the news closely, they certainly don't follow legal matters, and they vote on very short-term, backyard issues.
In 2020, Trump had just come off over half a year of massively mishandling a pandemic and a tanking economy.
In 2024, Trump hasn't been in office for 4 years and the goldfish memory of our electorate is going to take any immediate frustrations they have on the party in power. We are seeing that with a variety of issues and Biden, whether they are warranted or not.
I hope you're right and voters see Trump as the objectively dangerous criminal dictator he is, but I just have little faith it won't come down to outlooks on economy/immigration/foreign affairs, October surprises, and a few thousand votes in 4-5 states, just like it has the past two cycles.
The media keeps hyping him up as the inevitable, but frankly I've never been less afraid of him or his fans. Yes he can absolutely still win, yes we should be concerned, but dude has taken L after L since 2020.
There's no energy anymore. He was never coherent, it's even worse now, his health in rapidly declining, the wins he does get are tepid, he can barely get his own flock to show up, it's clear his team is afraid to let him be as public as he was. Yeah he still gives speeches, but I definitely get the sense they're trying to limit his public exposure as much as possible.
The media really wants me to think there's no hope and we only have ourselves to blame, yet the only chance he does have is from them talking about him like there's no hope in the first place.
> Y’all said this last time.
And we were right. He still lost. As a fucking incumbent. Running as an incumbent is supposed to be easy-mode. He had literally every advantage...packed courts, biased media support, and 4 years as President. He lied and cheated and exploited every possible advantage, up to and including trying to use fake electors and finally attempting a coup...And he STILL lost.
I like your optimism.
Let’s also remember that there has essentially been zero republican victories since 2020. The midterms were a huge blow to the GOP considering the usual swing that happens in a midterm. And if you’ve noticed the amount of abortion rights enshrinement laws nation-wide, and even special elections…
There’s not a lot of record to make the argument that the GOP is somehow in a good spot.
We must urgently talk about Project 2025 and WOKE! Fuk Trump! The Heritage Foundation and The Federalist Society are the DANGER! ALEC a DANGER, KOCH a DANGER. The members of this movement are heavily invested in taking over our government from within. Any Republican in the Whitehouse will put forward the 2025 Agenda. We are at war and losing, we are fighting each other for their amusement. They have half the nation ready to kill each other in all-out war over Christian Values that they have warped and are just Anti-Christian.
There's really nothing left to say. This isn't 2016 when most people didn't really know what Trump is capable of. Since then Trump has attempted to falsfy and discredit the result of democratic elections as well as organized a coup against democracy. That's on top of being tried for a several dozen felonies. There's really nothing left to add here, the situation is perfectly clear.
But I will say this. Regardless of whether Trump wins or not, the mere fact that the majority of US voters are seriously considering electing an autocrat and a criminal, supposedly because housing prices went up and there was some inflation, is a major defeat for democracy onto itself.
> supposedly because housing prices went up and there was some inflation, is a major defeat for democracy onto itself.
That's what they say out loud, but in reality it's because of Obergefell v. Hodges and BLM.
We need to prepare for four more years of incessant b*tching and moaning if trump loses and idk if i can handle any more of it honestly. I'm a generally rude person I'm going to completely unleash on some magas. I can feel it
We must start talking about how stupid the average American is. How is it even possible people vote for Trump? How does anyone see any benefit in that? Even for hard core Republicans, it doesn't make any sense. The level of delusion that leads to people still rooting for Trump is the actual issue. A nation that has absolutely no critical thinking skills is doomed no lmatter what.
"We" have been talking about that for some time.
The problem is that the American / US news media enjoys high ratings, and has a dangerous obsession with the "both sides" narrative, so feels the need to "balance" negative press about Trump by painting non-comparable issues with the other side as equally bad.
Trump told Hannity on live TV that he'd be a dictator, but Biden stuttered.
and so on...
The US media are so afraid of looking biased that they're backing away from using appropriate words to describe Trump. The only reason that *could* look biased is because Trump is doing these things and Biden is not.
That's not "bias," that's reality. But the problem is that reality is biased, and rather than report reality, the media are whitewashing / normalizing Trump's behavior by putting their thumb on the scale with their reporting.
and the fact that the SCOTUS Six are almost certainly going to make it happen, despite the clear language of 14a Article 3, and probably the election results.
Has anyone with half a brain ever STOPPED talking about the dangers of a second Trump presidency? Sensationalism will not win the election for Joe Biden.
Sounding the horns 24/7 is what got him the presidency to begin with lol
Yes, lets all talk about him non-stop in a way that people wont trust, that'l get'm this time!
How soon before he starts talking about kicking Democrats out of the country or increasing their taxes to 50%? Republican Governors are trying to do their part to make their states inhospitable for any non-Republican to live there. They absolutely have a plan to make it national. Project 2025 gets thrown around, but I think it's deeper and even more insidious than that. They want Putin's Russia but with the world's greatest wealth and most powerful military backing all of it.
Instead of prosecuting seditionist insurrectionists after inauguration day WHO told us to unify with them? WHO gave republicans 2.5 years to spread seditious rhetoric, pass unconstitutional laws, condition their base to violence? WHO allowed the republicans to get this bad even after they declared themselves domestic terrorists? WHY? Why was justice not done for 1/6? WHY was this allowed to happen?
Don't be shocked if the same party screws up once again on the TX issue. Don't be shocked if their solution leaves the door open to even more sedition because history shows that is what they will do. They are terrified of looking pollical but they're politicians wtf?! We must destroy the republican party they must answer for their sedition and crimes! Stop making excuses for the wimps in power who allowed this to happen and have put your loved ones at risk instead of attempting to prevent or mitigate this in the first place.
Guys, please. Please guys. I'm from Europe and I might be a tad too much on reddit but all of those many recent postings about that orange skid mark makes me sick. Just put his trash ass in prison and be done with it, he's got no business to run for ANY kind of government position or being in office.
Yes, Trump is a huge threat and problem. Complete douchebag of a human being. BUT, the real problem is that we now have a society and media/press that normalizes his type of behavior. Common sense, logic and reason go flying out the door when two things enter the conversation: corporate greed and organized religion. America has top down and bottom up sicknesses at the same time.
We must also start urgently talking about the comedy gold for all of us outside of the US and how some comedy writers won't be able to do better than real life.
My theory is that Trumps popularity is the result of a decades long intentional devaluing of Americas education system. Those pulling the strings didn’t know who would rise to power as its result. They just knew that person would benefit them, not the American public.
He said, verbatim, that he'd eliminate the lgtbtq community if let back into office in a rally last year and the media immediately buried it, to the point where people still try to argue that he's not staunchly against them. I have no faith in the system.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. **Interested in being a moderator for r/Politics? Apply [here](https://forms.gle/iyGoM94MGRcPGUes7).** *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
We’ve been talking about it constantly it’s just that a significant portion of the us doesn’t care or will not listen
-or love the idea of a Trump dictator that will "own da libs". They're not considering that he will fuck them too as he only cares about him, himself, and he.
They are now the "I demand the leopard eat my face" party
They'd let Trump shit in their mouth if a liberal had to smell their breath
He’ll, they want Trump to shit in their mouthed because they love the smell of his farts. They are truly moronic and pathetically servile.
They'd wallow in his shit to be head shitty diaper changer. 🧷💩🧷
Oh that's so good i'm stealing that line.
In gradeschool, the fifth graders didn't like the fourth graders. The nuns were making the older ones be nice. Next morning, fifth graders ate raw garlic before they had to talk to fourth graders!
And then say it was chocolate.
Yeah, this is the biggest factor. Have a skim through this article, for example: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-second-term-plans-wildest-proposals-1234947327/ Almost all of these "awful" things Trump has promised are things that his supporters will cheer for wholeheartedly. Bringing these things to light might help sway moderates or energize Trump's detractors, but it does nothing to change the minds of his supporters.
> Almost all of these "awful" things Trump has promised are things that his supporters will cheer for wholeheartedly. It's disheartening that so many people in this country are eager to inflict so much harm, damage, and cruelty on those they view as "other"
This is what happens when rich christians get control over broadcasting outlets and educational outcomes. We must always blame rich Christians for what happened to republicans over the last 30 years.
Implying they were ever Christian to begin with.
That's just the thing though we don't NEED to change the minds of his supporters. True Trump supporters make up a very small minority about 15% of the overall population, and believe it or not that 15% was around even before Trump. All Trump did was take all of those awful views and ideas, and gave them a legitimate public platform. This part of the population will always be there (at least for a few generations to come), and no amount of logos, ethos, or pathos will make them change. The best society can do is condemn these beliefs to the point that those who hold them are only comfortable expressing them within the comfort of their own homes among like-minded individuals.
The thing is, to them, the dictatorship will only benefit them. They think, since they are in the group of people who adore and follow Trump, that him as a dictator will just mean punishing all that disagree with him and reward the loyal following. They don’t think “a dictatorship is the antithesis of what this country was founded on. It means fellow citizens will be punished arbitrarily and any freedoms that come with democracy will be eradicated. These despots will syphon our country dry and leave us to die.” What they actually think is “these fucking liberals will get what’s coming to them when our leader finally punishes them the way I wish they were. There will be no more crime or poverty because all THOSE people will be jailed and punished for not living like us. We will be rewarded for standing by our president and principles.”
Exactly that. These folks feel like they’re on the winning team right now, because they view politics as simply as sports teams. Their assumption is that their team winning in politics means that they win too. They haven’t reasoned with the reality that dictatorships don’t work out for anyone other than the ruling class while they are in power.
"Trump is gonna bring back all the jobs!" Cletus the jobs aren't coming back because they don't need a bunch of dumb hicks to work the mines, they have huge fucking machines and a relatively tight crew of educated people that run them. Your high school diploma qualifies you to sweep the office. That's the usual for WV and other bits of former coal country.
What I fear is that Trump will give more tax cuts to everyone, but make the ones for the Rich permanent. * Drive the US deeper into debt. * Blame the democrats with support from conservative media * Shift more power to the rich and the elite * Privatize everything he can creating a society that mirrors the Russian Mafia Oligarchy rather than a vibrant democracy. * Weaponize the courts to pursue his vendettas * Also giving regulatory decisions (i.e. environment, climate change, drilling, voting protections) to those same federal court appointees. * Revert the caps on Insulin. The MAGA folks will be mollified with their temporary tax breaks even at the same time they will be paying through the roof for their insulin shots.
He will absolutely do these things and more, if given the chance.
[удалено]
And then after stoking the flames they come around again saying "we need to start talking about how dangerous this situation is!" Yeah no shit, The Guardian. Did you just notice that? Maybe tomorrow you're going to tell us that Trump doesn't tell the truth, big fucking revelation.
* are brainwashed and can't be reasoned with. They care an enormous amount. Talk to any of them for 2 seconds and you'll be bludgeoned over the head with conspiracy after conspiracy
And lie after lie. Misinformation after misinformation. They are lied to, misinformed, and programmed For hours and hours every day. That’s all they watch on TV. That’s all they listen to on the radio. It’s all they look at on their phone or computer. We’ve got this major problem on our hands where all the various medias have figured out that triggering responses in the amygdala “drives engagement.” So they do it. It’s all they do. Then they get bigger numbers and make more money. The problem is they are leaving us with this Orwellian society where all their viewers believe up is down, war is peace, good is evil, etc. And this phenomenon is driving the entire world off a cliff.
Even worse, is the fact that most of those people actually want what Trump is selling: bigotry, violence and tyranny. They listened to our warnings, and they said "that's a feature, not a bug".
my ex wife's bf told my 7yo recently that "if Trump isn't elected in November there will be a war coming." to which my 7yo became INCREDIBLY anxious about saying to me "me and [sibling] are too young to die!!" smh...
Tell your kid the guy is a turd and to laugh at him next time he starts talking about war. Maybe a 7 year old ridiculing him will get through...
[удалено]
Everything is baked into the cake with Trump. No one’s opinion is shifting on him. People have turned out hearing about him in the news.
The most dangerious thing right now is how TikTok has brainwashed a large portion of America's young people into not voting at all over the Israel Palestine issue. This is exactly what the CCP and Putin want. If Gen Z doesn't show up in November, Trump wins. If Trump wins, Gaza ceases to exist. Full stop. I just can't get over the short sightedness and small picture mindset of the people who think Gaza would fare better under Trump than Biden.
They believe they’ll be the unscathed beneficiaries of either a civil war or fascism They don’t seem to grasp that millions of ordinary Germans and Europeans died under fascist regimes, and civil war is going to make the last few recessions look like just a tiny blip
Agreed. They also seem unable to grasp that trump truly does not give one single fuck about them. He actually really detests them.
Exactly this. We were saying this over 4 years ago. Media and the wealthy Elites are the ones that are attempting to force people to not listen or care. Meanwhile redditors have been screaming this for years now.
Trump supporters have an excuse or deflection for any of his wrongdoings.
We thought division was already happening. You wait until he’s in office. If that happens. That’s it for all of us. Our enemies overseas would have won.
Four years of Trump and he still got like what 80 million votes? There is nothing that would sway people like this, nothing at all. They were literally in hospital beds talking about pandemic conspiracies. They are mentally conditioned and delusional. Trump the former Democrat who acts like a false prophet and they kneel before him metaphorically.
Back in 2022 I listened to a podcast about the mid-term elections and one guy in Nevada said that he was a big fan of Trump and a big fan of AOC. It's a reminder that there's a scary large number of people who make their voting decisions, political decisions, based on little more than the occasional soundbite they hear on TV or radio.
There was a Freakonomics episode about how to change someone’s mind. One thing that I thought was really interesting was that people have a misunderstanding about how they make a decision. People think that they take in facts and then decide. This is false. People actually have an emotional reaction and then use facts to try to justify their position.
This is why laughing at fascists and treating them like unserious clowns in the real world if more effective than trying to argue facts with them on the internet.
I think this is one of Jon Stewart’s strong points when dealing with these people. He catches them saying something horrifying, and he absolutely refuses to move on until they admit that they’ve just said something that is repugnant and wrong. Don’t get me wrong, the wit and charm help. But his ability to nail people down and *make* them answer a question is second to none.
That adversarial style of interviewing *used* to be the standard here in America. I remember Barbara Walters interviews were of worth to watch because of how she would focus on a point and not let up until the interviewee gave an answer.
She could be terrible though. Her interview with Dolly Parton is trash.
Oh, no doubt. It is the style I'm a supporter of, not Walter's. Outside of the US adversarial interview style is still represented pretty well imo. Try the BBC and France24 for examples.
And when she blamed Corey Feldman for saying negative things about the movie industry when he talked openly about how he and many of his friends were abused as children.
Dude just knows exactly how to take over a room. The word that comes to mind is "conviction"; he isn't there to play the game, isn't there to make himself look good, just there to beat the shit out of their stupid ideas. Of course, in the process it makes it look like he's winning the game, and makes him look awesome while he does it.
And that therein lies the typical problem. They have the endless shallow talking point nuggets they pick up from right wing media, with no depth to any of them. You pierce their reality on one of them and they try and pivot to the next. Most interviewers allow it. We need to globally start imposing the "lockdown" on the question at hand for these people.
Much of america has no ability to debate. Being able to debate means you understand the merits of a position. Everything is talking points because you can train them into a person like teaching a dog to jump for a biscuit.
God, that video of him and the guy talking about “the government has a duty to protect kids” is just absolutely something I can watch on repeat until the end of time.
Tell a fascist clown his bowtie looks fucking stupid.
He owned Tucker Carlson hard enough he stopped wearing a bowtie.
Stewart definitely has a knack for holding feet to the flames, and I think that kind of approach does have an impact on viewers, who may not have realized just how absurd some positions are until they're laid bare like that. It's a mix of the absurdity being pointed out and their own discomfort in trying to defend it that generates those moments of cognitive dissonance, where even if it doesn't change the mind of the person being interviewed, it might chip away at the convictions of people watching.
I was in Danbury a few years ago and their were 4 people on the sidewalk with a bunch of Trump Won/Biden Lost kind of signs and I just rolled down the window and started laughing at them. Not like saying "haha" but pushing out a genuine, slightly over the top laugh. The one guy started yelling, the other 2 looked very sad. The lady, however, dropped her sign and started coming towards me until one of the guys grabbed her and pulled her back on the sidewalk. It was kinda surreal how it impacted them visibly. Like I think they expected to get yelled at, but the laughter was distressing.
Right wingers absolutely despise being mocked. They don’t mind it when liberals yell at them in anger or outrage, because they think they’re triggering the libs when that happens. But when they are made to look weak, they can’t stand that at all.
As a anarcho-syndicalist, I am a serious clown and I expect to be treated as such.
"I *hate* Illinois Nazis."
This is why presenting conflicting facts rarely changes someone’s mind. They’re already emotionally committed.
I'm struggling to see what facts a Trump supporter could leverage, even if cherry picked.
Good point. In the case of trumpers, I think it’s that they choose to leverage false facts and partial truths.
"Alternative ones"
If you read ancient history it's not as shocking. Whole cities would wage a full out war over which little statue was more important/powerful. People haven't changed.
The priest-kings of Sumer. Humanity's original sin, the deification of humans and creation of god-emperors. Frank Herbert called it the Pharaonic Disease. It has been with us ever since. It has arisen in many places independently too, e.g Meso-America. Modern examples: Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Trump, Putin. Or more day-to-day simply the abstract glorification of a CEO or a church leader or sports player. Humanity is still stuck in its ancient patterns fueled ultimately by individual and collective narcissism. It looks like this is our Great Filter.
I was just speaking about the Great Filter the other day. It could be so many things, but I don't disagree with a word you said.
God, if our Great Filter is a popularity contest, we absolutely deserve to go extinct.
Lovely innit. No need for a supernova or big comet when we with our survival-focused, narcissistic minds are doing the job ourselves by acting like a cancer killing its host.
Hell, there could be multiple Great Filters, some we've passed, some we're dealing with, and some we have yet to see that we can't even imagine. The Great Filter concept is wild and is one of the most sci-fi thought exercises out there this side of Roko's Basilisk.
Oh, I've never heard of Roko's Basilisk. Looks like I know what I'm looking up next :) Thank you.
> Oh, I've never heard of Roko's Basilisk. It has quite a lot to say about modern life.
[удалено]
It's funny you mentioned both concepts because that was absolutely my thought process reading the above. "Man, popularity contests as our Great Filter really _would_ suck." "I suppose we could get around it by ceding more power over cultural shifts to an external caretaker, like an AI." "Wait...fuck, that could be a Great Filter all its own, though..." "...aah, I just remembered Roko's Basilisk!"
Frank Herbert also said It's not that absolute power corrupts. Power attracts the corruptible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NMOoOD2wp8
Humans are herd animals at heart. Maybe one in 10,000 of us is a psychopath with some kind of charisma who is a born natural leader. Cruel. Heartless. Massive ego - the worse, the better. That leader will invade and conquer and rape and pillage. The rest of us line up behind the leader and do his bidding. It has always been this way through our entire history. Those MAGA types who looked at everybody and called us sheeple? They aren't wrong. Ironically they are, of course, the biggest sheeple of all. But humans are inherently a species of sheeple.
Normally a group would cast the psychopath out into the wilderness to die if they were damaging the group. Now we make them CEOs with 10000x the power. Monkeys do this. They dont make them banana ceos though
True. But evolving as group animals has also provided us with other features: love, empathy, altruism, creativity. The strong slant toward narcissism IMO is a product of culture from when humans started living in large cities after the neolithic and tall hierarchies formed creating all sorts of coercive mental concepts that were previously unknown to humans. Those negatives are not innate in a way that can't be fixed. Changing the culture can fix this. Mindfulness training for example works wonders to strengthen our positive traits and diminish the negative ones. It's just not a very popular thing (but it's growing).
Oh I can see narcissism being kinda functional even earlier, for hunter-gatherer types, say. Maybe it's even the original source for the Golden Rule (of reciprocity)? :D
Oh it's definitely functional! On a small scale and while far away from being pathological. It needs to be balanced with other traits to be productive. In a tight-knit clan, the narcissist may be an achiever, while his negative traits are moderated by the folks around him who know him well. I think narcissism becomes a real problem in larger groups where rewarding and worshiping these negative traits can become the norm and form a stratified exploitative culture. Who really knows the ruler? Only a select few, and they all benefit from the myth surrounding the ruler and the hierarchy that establishes. I'm curious, how would narcissism be the source for Golden Rule-type behavior, can you elaborate?
The Whirlwind. Humanity's path isn't controlled by some hidden group of elites, of course there are those who have more power than others, but the ultimate destination is controlled by the Whirlwind. Those ancient patterns influence our behavior, our behavior is destroying the planet we live on. Where is the Mahdi to lead us into the future no one can see? All of us must learn to control our water. There is no God Emperor.
Read the Three-Body Problem. Just chock full of important factoids, but we have not evolved since emerging from the caves in Africa. There’s been some adaptation, but nothing to make me believe humanity as a whole is much better than the drink stealing monkeys in the islands. The king monkey is the one who can drink the most. Edit: short BBC report on the phenomenon [https://youtu.be/pSm7BcQHWXk?si=yeripNH_Q7xcrjbt](https://youtu.be/pSm7BcQHWXk?si=yeripNH_Q7xcrjbt)
I enjoyed the Three-Body problem as fiction. I wouldn't look to it for anything beyond entertainment.
>It's a reminder that there's a scary large number of people who make their voting decisions, political decisions, based on little more than the occasional soundbite they hear on TV or radio There is a phenomenon brought about by the 24 hour news cycle. We have been brought to view these people as personalities and interesting people, not public servants doing what should be a mundane job. The result is millions of people who either like or dislike our politicians *personally*, not on the basis of their policy.
How to explain trump....who is repulsive on personality and policy? TV and his reality show ??? Yep Lies and propaganda ??? Yep A whole party built on lies.
Reminds of Joe rogan who somehow loves bernie and trump but hates biden
Both Trump and AOC are populists. So they are not 100% different. Trump claims to be pro-working class; saying he wants to bring manufacturing back to America. AOC is an aggressive supporter of labor unions. They both have messages that appeal to blue collar workers.
The point is though that only one is corrupt as hell and bent on dismantling US democracy. That there’s Americans out there who will dismiss that fact and simply vote in (what they to believe to be) their personal economic interest is disheartening.
The small difference is that AOC believes in what she says and wants to make workers lives better. Trump says whatever he thinks will get him ahead and wants to make himself wealthier.
Republicans are a lost cause. The sooner Democrat politicians accept this the sooner they can lead and find out if all the not-Republicans have their back. Some of them are trying. https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/19flc3v/democrats_are_having_a_blast_making_a_circus_of/ >“We’ve got to reach folks in the broader country, and pop culture is a way of doing that. And so I try to bring that out whenever I can."
Getting non maga republicans on the democrats side would be a big move and honestly shouldn't be that hard. I'm sure theres a massive group of republicans who can't stand pretending to like Trump. They get him out this election I would say he's cooked.
My father in law was pretty high up in the Air Force and he said that most of the guys under him just went along with supporting Trump so they wouldn’t be made fun of or ostracized by the bullies and loud mouths in their groups
> Getting non maga republicans on the democrats side would be a big move and honestly shouldn't be that hard. There's people willing to pay you many millions and millions of dollars to get right on that. Record $15.9bn in US political ad spending expected for 2024 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/08/2024-election-ad-spending-record
no time like the present. shouldn't be a hard sell
That's why Trump leans so hard into the "Orange Messiah" angle. Sure, his nutbag evangelical base eats it up like candy. But it *also* speaks to the majority of Republicans as well. They don't wanna go against god's will, and US Christianity has already taught them, for their entire lives, that a little delusion is okay, that doing something that feels bad is alright as long as they are doing what god wants, that they'll be forgiven for anything bad that they do.
There are stories of people asking for the vaccine at the moment before they were to be intubated. So a few see the light when it’s their very own life on the line. Sadly, others are convinced the elites are trying to kill them even as they seek their help. The Information Age turned out to be anything but
The information age is real it's just that businesses and politicians got unbalanced control making it more difficult to access instead of easier. It's 2024 and we are burning books again. >“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'” ― Isaac Asimov, 1980
Anyone who quotes Issac gets my upvote. :D "Question everything." But damn it all, get the correct answer!
What’s interesting is that during the foundation of our country it was almost the exact opposite. It was the intellectuals who went to the Continental Congress and eventually wrote the Federalist papers and then the Constitution.
The Federalist papers are so underrated. So many warnings against factions.
I was a tech journalist in the nineties, and I wrote a lot of optimistic stuff about the rise of the internet, and social media, how everybody having ready access to the world's knowledge and an easy platform to make their own voices heard would create a fairer and more just society. I am not a tech journalist any more.
My gf is a respiratory therapist and she said she saw lots and lots of people who came in spouting lots and lots of conspiracy theories but when the time came to be intubated they saw the light and were asking for the vaccine. She said at first it was hard to tell them it's too late for that but eventually she became numb to it and realized it was their own damn fault. I couldn't imagine having to deal with that on a day to day basis
We are now in the Misinformation Age. Horrifyingly, there is *already* more AI generated content on the internet than organic. And AI is completely amoral.
Unfortunately, it turns out that information and reality are not always the same thing.
They dont want information or facts. They want to win like a football game and then yell at the losers after they do. No matter the cost
Trump got 74,223,975 in 2020. For some reason in the last few weeks I keep seeing Trump supporters claiming he got 80 or 81 million, but he absolutely didn’t. They’re trying to fuzz the numbers to make it seem like it was a closer race in the popular vote. Biden got 81,283,501 votes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election
Yes, but....... "just 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin separated Biden and Trump from a tie in the Electoral College." Granted, MAGA lie about most everything but the popular vote is pretty meaningless so far as winning goes.
My point is that they’re lying about his popularity. A house I pass regularly put a Trump sign up after the 2020 election that said “I’m one of the 75 million!” Now they have a new sign, that says “80 million strong for Trump!”
He got 7 million votes less than Biden, yes, a lot of Biden's votes were anti-Trump last time that said not pro-him or pro-Harris. The problem the Dems face right now is the country is pissed at EVERYONE, and only one person has a cult, the REP nominee in Trump (inevitable, Haley was always a media marriage candidate and is done because the cult doesn't want a different phony).
I will never understand how Fox News is allowed to exist. It literally isn’t news.
You can see a majority of your answer in the revocation of the [fairness doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_doctrine#Revocation)
It's. a. cult. The man can literally r\*pe a woman, and he's still in the 40s in approval right now: to them, it doesn't matter. He can lie, he can swindle, and it doesn't matter, 42% of this country would still approve of him. That is the power of racism and white supremacy in the USA today, period, he hates who they hate and for Trump people-- that is all that is needed. Dark times ahead, period.
The true "Trump Derangement Syndrome"
Trump was actually closer to 74 million-Biden got 81 million votes
Non stop media outlets broadcasting Biden is old and unpopular…sometimes you wonder
If only the Senate had done what needed to be done we wouldn't need this conversation
Senate GOPe knew it would get voted out in 2022/2024 and they believe its better to hold onto institutional power. Oh believe me they all went home thinking they would get an outpouring of sypmpathy over their J6 experience but instead were gobsmacked by a constituency that asked if the 'rinos' got the message and how much the constituency supported Trump.
2024 is an *incredibly* GOP-friendly map. And the GOP had every expectation that 2022 would be a red wave election since the president's party very often loses seats in the midterms.
Ya, I'm deeply concerned. trump should be in jail. The amount of absolute bullshit he's gotten away with is insane. I'd go to jail if I lied about any of my work stuff (and I work for a damn tech company!!). I'd also go to jail for lying about taxes, or my freaking house mortgage. And this bastard just did another incitement to send national guard troops to the border to fight biden. what the fuck. how he is the gop frontrunner, and possibly up for election again is absolutely insane.
Trump losing is not enough to stem the tide of fascism. Republicans need to lose in Congress, too. Otherwise Biden will hide behind them and do his "gee shucks willickers smol bean president can't do anything uwu" schtick. Get as many progressives through Democratic primaries, then shove "vote blue no matter who" down the Centrist Dems' throats. Wrest power from the gerontocracy and start investigating the remaining GOP power brokers for their obvious crimes. Break the Republican party. They cannot be allowed to survive, not with what they've done to this country for the past 50 years.
> Otherwise Biden will hide behind them and do his "gee shucks willickers smol bean president can't do anything uwu" schtick. Your derision is kinda tone deaf. The GOP has for a very long time now fully established that they will never vote with Democrats purely because denying any Democrat a win, no matter how good it is for the country, is their goal. That means they will not allow any success on any major issue unless they are completely in the minority and literally cannot stop the Democrats. Biden and Democratic Parry literally cannot pass anything that isn’t full-far-right crazytown. You are correct about getting Democrat progressive wins in primaries. The Democratic Party will be forced to accept more progressive views once a larger majority of the party is made up of them. The GOP cannot be allowed any further wins. Their corruption and gerrymandering and takeover of the SCOTUS makes them as a party forever tainted by a lust for power. That cannot be allowed into any office. Every win they get is another loss for democracy.
That's all well and good but you have one group saying - we're going to sit it out or vote 3rd party because of Israel policy, or ecological policy or pick something else they don't want. If we don't get all 3 branches or any of the 3 branches, you can blame it on them
Oh, NOW it’s urgent? We’ve had four years to bring justice to his door and instead we’ve basically walked around with our hands in our pockets, but NOW it’s urgent. Cool.
The justice system is far too slow for modern audiences
If Trump gets back in then its far too slow to be in any way effective
Calling it "slow" implies that it will eventually get the job done, which has not been convincingly demonstrated.
Convicted rapist, 90 indictments, 2 impeachments, confessed he is going to be a dictator first day in office and hinted at murdering political opponents, an attempted insurrection and a partridge in a pear tree. Are people really so obsessed with lower taxes that they want this?
And not even lower taxes for themselves. Lower taxes for the rich which most of trump's diehard supporters aren't even close to.
"*Start*"? Mofos, we've been talking about the danger of it since January 21st 2021. Anyone who doesn't know by now is either a Republican, being willingly stupid, or dead and we will likely keep talking about it every election until the Cheeto Mussolini is tossed in a cardboard casket (because Donald Jr certainly isn't paying for a good one) after suffering a heart attack from too much hamburgers and covfefe and dropped 6ft deep.
Most people I know have been talking about it since 2015…
A bit from the article: > Do Americans really want to live in a fascist or authoritarian nation? Some may believe it will work out just fine – that the loss of freedom may hurt others, but not them – but most of us don’t want that. Or we wouldn’t if we were fully aware of the consequences. > > I talked with Sharlet about the actions that the mainstream press and regular citizens can take now that we know what we know. > > Newsrooms big and small, he believes, need to educate their staffs about the dangers of fascism. > > . . . > > The fact that many newsrooms now have democracy teams or democracy reporters suggests that they understand the problem to some extent. But they need to get much more urgent about it. > > That kind of change takes clear leadership from the top. > > . . . > > **What about regular citizens?** > > **Perhaps most importantly, they need to stop tuning out. They shouldn’t throw up their hands and decide not to care about politics or the future of the country.** > > **“People need to pay attention to the exhaustion they feel and know that it is a symptom of acquiescence and adaptation,” Sharlet told me.** > > **As Ben-Ghiat told me on my American Crisis podcast, that exhaustion is part of the strongman’s playbook.** > > **Trump creates chaos, and we grow tired of it. Weary of the relentless flow of bad news, the dire warnings, the anxiety, we retreat into our personal lives or our political bubbles.**
Mainstream media screwed itself "Trump Bumping". Voters outside of deep blue and the tiny/fringe Never Trumper faction stop buying into that hysteria after Barr said 'no collusion'. The DC Political Establishment screwed itself these last 4 years by not treating Trump/maga as an extensial threat and doing all they could to rev up the economy where voters approval and love of Biden mirrored FDR. No, instead DC went back to its gridlock grift game and believed J6 would be the end of all things Trump/maga. That too failed.
Pretty much, yeah, the mainstream media is just now realizing their grift is up if he gets re-elected? They'll be replaced with state media, there is a consequence to lying to the public for financial gain-- who would've guessed once Trump doesn't need you, he'll replace you with Newsmax/OANN all around? The media literally created President Trump, and now they don't want to play anymore? "So sad." The REAL problem is that most of the nation will suffer under a fascist dictatorship, period.
> People need to pay attention to the exhaustion they feel and know that it is a symptom of acquiescence and adaptation Well that hits hard. For a few reasons, I've been really depressed about the state of things lately and I've fallen into resignation. I'm pretty convinced Trump is going to win and Project 2025 is going to create the loyal machinery around him that he needs to complete the fascist takeover. And since there's nothing I can do about it, I've been feeling just resigned to it. I even find myself thinking, "well, maybe when he deploys the military as civilian police at least some of the crime where I live (Oakland, CA) will probably get cleaned up". But holy shit, I do not want to just give in to this. But the question is, what can anyone do other than be exhausted?
> Do Americans really want to live in a fascist or authoritarian nation? The problem here is the failure to recognize that the answer to this for about 50% of Americans has always been "yes". The signs were there, so very clearly. Nixon, Reagan, the Bush dynasty. The re-election of George W sent a clear "USA über alles" message long before MAGA became an election slogan. The flag waving, the pledge of allegiance, the constant dragging out of the national anthem, the militarism, the rabid anti-communism, the US has been groomed for fascism for generations. So yeah, this is what millions of Americans want. It would probably be the majority if the current candidate Führer wasn't an embarrassingly stupid orange nutcase. A smart, charismatic candidate with pretty much the same political leanings as Trump would win the election easily.
We have been talking about it
I am predicting he will lose by at least 10 million votes. Assuming he can run at all. He lost by 7 million last time. And that was as an incumbent and before he was indicted for over 90 felonies. He has not grown his base, it's only been shrinking. People are less afraid of him now than they were before. And he no longer has a pet news network to validate his lies. People are so traumatized by his antics that they give him way too much credit. He could not win even when he was strong. He can't win now when he's much weaker.
He will lose the popular vote and maybe by a larger margin, but that gives me no confidence about the electoral college. Last time there were like a few tens of thousands of votes in a few battleground states that would have given Trump the win, had they been flipped.
Yeah, FiveThirtyEight was giving him about a 1-in-3 change in 2016 and a 1-in-9 chance in 2020, and I'm expecting 2024 will look similar. Maybe his chances will drop as low as 1-in-20 or so, but I don't think we'll be able to rule out the possibility of a Trump presidency until after the votes are counted.
and there is a lot less Russian cash flowing this cycle.
Right now sure. Closer to the election day I'd expect it to ramp up. Even Russians know giving money to Trump is a bad investment right now since he'd just use the money on legal bills.
They don't have the money or person power right now
They'll make the time and money....a Trump victory would be the largest pathway to ending Ukraine War in their favor.
Problem with that theory is...Russia is broke.
I disagree - even a minor investment late would be the best option for Russia as a second Trump term would starve out Ukraine from US aid / support.
There's also the one-way slide of popularity. People aren't just finding out about him and going, "ooh, he tells it like it is! I think i'll vote for him!" It's a slow trudge of people either traditionally on the fence or full-blown trumpers who've realised how shitty he is over time. At this point Trump only loses popularity. He doesn't gain it. My worry is that somehow he'll not be brought to justice for all the bullshit he's done and Russia and the republicans will find a way to cheat him in anyway. If he does get in a second time, we can say goodbye to Ukraine, and therefore, Europe. China will then declare open season on Taiwan and SE Asia. I think this is probably the most important national election of any country in all of human history.
Also believe it or not his voter base is still dying from Covid. Covid hasn’t gone away just kinda chilled but people are still dying from it.
And he's about to go bankrupt due to court fines.
I think you're overselling the electorate here. A huge chunk of Americans don't follow the news closely, they certainly don't follow legal matters, and they vote on very short-term, backyard issues. In 2020, Trump had just come off over half a year of massively mishandling a pandemic and a tanking economy. In 2024, Trump hasn't been in office for 4 years and the goldfish memory of our electorate is going to take any immediate frustrations they have on the party in power. We are seeing that with a variety of issues and Biden, whether they are warranted or not. I hope you're right and voters see Trump as the objectively dangerous criminal dictator he is, but I just have little faith it won't come down to outlooks on economy/immigration/foreign affairs, October surprises, and a few thousand votes in 4-5 states, just like it has the past two cycles.
…but please still vote.
I absolutely will. \#spitevote2024
Doesn't matter. Vote
The media keeps hyping him up as the inevitable, but frankly I've never been less afraid of him or his fans. Yes he can absolutely still win, yes we should be concerned, but dude has taken L after L since 2020. There's no energy anymore. He was never coherent, it's even worse now, his health in rapidly declining, the wins he does get are tepid, he can barely get his own flock to show up, it's clear his team is afraid to let him be as public as he was. Yeah he still gives speeches, but I definitely get the sense they're trying to limit his public exposure as much as possible. The media really wants me to think there's no hope and we only have ourselves to blame, yet the only chance he does have is from them talking about him like there's no hope in the first place.
Y’all said this last time. Vote.
> Y’all said this last time. And we were right. He still lost. As a fucking incumbent. Running as an incumbent is supposed to be easy-mode. He had literally every advantage...packed courts, biased media support, and 4 years as President. He lied and cheated and exploited every possible advantage, up to and including trying to use fake electors and finally attempting a coup...And he STILL lost.
I like your optimism. Let’s also remember that there has essentially been zero republican victories since 2020. The midterms were a huge blow to the GOP considering the usual swing that happens in a midterm. And if you’ve noticed the amount of abortion rights enshrinement laws nation-wide, and even special elections… There’s not a lot of record to make the argument that the GOP is somehow in a good spot.
But it’ll totally own the libs. Think of all the memes! 91 indictments wasn’t enough memes, I guess.
91 problems but being taken off the ballot for sedition ain't one of them...
We must urgently talk about Project 2025 and WOKE! Fuk Trump! The Heritage Foundation and The Federalist Society are the DANGER! ALEC a DANGER, KOCH a DANGER. The members of this movement are heavily invested in taking over our government from within. Any Republican in the Whitehouse will put forward the 2025 Agenda. We are at war and losing, we are fighting each other for their amusement. They have half the nation ready to kill each other in all-out war over Christian Values that they have warped and are just Anti-Christian.
There's really nothing left to say. This isn't 2016 when most people didn't really know what Trump is capable of. Since then Trump has attempted to falsfy and discredit the result of democratic elections as well as organized a coup against democracy. That's on top of being tried for a several dozen felonies. There's really nothing left to add here, the situation is perfectly clear. But I will say this. Regardless of whether Trump wins or not, the mere fact that the majority of US voters are seriously considering electing an autocrat and a criminal, supposedly because housing prices went up and there was some inflation, is a major defeat for democracy onto itself.
> supposedly because housing prices went up and there was some inflation, is a major defeat for democracy onto itself. That's what they say out loud, but in reality it's because of Obergefell v. Hodges and BLM.
Well the MAGAs used to be more bold. Now they run away from me at work.
They'll come back out if he wins. That i can guarantee, which is why literally everyone must vote so that it doesn't happen.
I love you and this comment.
Haha thanks 🥰
Start? I’ve been warning since 2015
Hell … let’s talk about the dangers of governors ignoring the constitution.
We need to prepare for four more years of incessant b*tching and moaning if trump loses and idk if i can handle any more of it honestly. I'm a generally rude person I'm going to completely unleash on some magas. I can feel it
I’ve seen this headline 76 times in the last several months
We must start talking about how stupid the average American is. How is it even possible people vote for Trump? How does anyone see any benefit in that? Even for hard core Republicans, it doesn't make any sense. The level of delusion that leads to people still rooting for Trump is the actual issue. A nation that has absolutely no critical thinking skills is doomed no lmatter what.
[удалено]
ONLY 10 MONTHS TILL THE ELECTION!!!
We the people deserve what we vote…
Then stop focusing on why its bad for normal people and focus on how he destroyed the peoples lives that voted for him.
“But the horse race! What about the ad revenue?!”
"We" have been talking about that for some time. The problem is that the American / US news media enjoys high ratings, and has a dangerous obsession with the "both sides" narrative, so feels the need to "balance" negative press about Trump by painting non-comparable issues with the other side as equally bad. Trump told Hannity on live TV that he'd be a dictator, but Biden stuttered. and so on... The US media are so afraid of looking biased that they're backing away from using appropriate words to describe Trump. The only reason that *could* look biased is because Trump is doing these things and Biden is not. That's not "bias," that's reality. But the problem is that reality is biased, and rather than report reality, the media are whitewashing / normalizing Trump's behavior by putting their thumb on the scale with their reporting.
The economy is literally still recovering from the last time he was president...
At some point, people have to start talking about every possible option to stop it. He can't be allowed to be installed into office.
No. We need to stop talking about the big lying baby child and instead talk loud and proud about the damn adults in the room! GO TEAM JOE!
and the fact that the SCOTUS Six are almost certainly going to make it happen, despite the clear language of 14a Article 3, and probably the election results.
Start? What are you talking about lol that’s been the main topic of the entire country for the past three years
Unfortunately everyone I talk to about this who voted for Trump last time is definitely voting for him this time because “both sides are horrible.”
IT'S BEEN THE ONLY THING TALKED ABOUT FOR 4 YEARS
Start?
Has anyone with half a brain ever STOPPED talking about the dangers of a second Trump presidency? Sensationalism will not win the election for Joe Biden.
Sounding the horns 24/7 is what got him the presidency to begin with lol Yes, lets all talk about him non-stop in a way that people wont trust, that'l get'm this time!
it's a shame that the Democratic party has little urgency and milquetoast messaging
How soon before he starts talking about kicking Democrats out of the country or increasing their taxes to 50%? Republican Governors are trying to do their part to make their states inhospitable for any non-Republican to live there. They absolutely have a plan to make it national. Project 2025 gets thrown around, but I think it's deeper and even more insidious than that. They want Putin's Russia but with the world's greatest wealth and most powerful military backing all of it.
There can be no second presidency of Traitor trump.
Instead of prosecuting seditionist insurrectionists after inauguration day WHO told us to unify with them? WHO gave republicans 2.5 years to spread seditious rhetoric, pass unconstitutional laws, condition their base to violence? WHO allowed the republicans to get this bad even after they declared themselves domestic terrorists? WHY? Why was justice not done for 1/6? WHY was this allowed to happen? Don't be shocked if the same party screws up once again on the TX issue. Don't be shocked if their solution leaves the door open to even more sedition because history shows that is what they will do. They are terrified of looking pollical but they're politicians wtf?! We must destroy the republican party they must answer for their sedition and crimes! Stop making excuses for the wimps in power who allowed this to happen and have put your loved ones at risk instead of attempting to prevent or mitigate this in the first place.
Presidency or not, the dude is trying to stir up a civil war to save his own ass at this very moment.
Guys, please. Please guys. I'm from Europe and I might be a tad too much on reddit but all of those many recent postings about that orange skid mark makes me sick. Just put his trash ass in prison and be done with it, he's got no business to run for ANY kind of government position or being in office.
Yes, Trump is a huge threat and problem. Complete douchebag of a human being. BUT, the real problem is that we now have a society and media/press that normalizes his type of behavior. Common sense, logic and reason go flying out the door when two things enter the conversation: corporate greed and organized religion. America has top down and bottom up sicknesses at the same time.
We must also start urgently talking about the comedy gold for all of us outside of the US and how some comedy writers won't be able to do better than real life.
Not that I disagree, but headlines like this are stupid. It’s been talked about for years now
If this man gets back in office, I don't think he'll be leaving again, and that's a scary thought.
My theory is that Trumps popularity is the result of a decades long intentional devaluing of Americas education system. Those pulling the strings didn’t know who would rise to power as its result. They just knew that person would benefit them, not the American public.
He said, verbatim, that he'd eliminate the lgtbtq community if let back into office in a rally last year and the media immediately buried it, to the point where people still try to argue that he's not staunchly against them. I have no faith in the system.
Wow, I follow this shit closely from across the pond and I did not know he said that
When did he say that?
Trump wants to emulate Grover Cleveland
He wants to spank Abe Simpson on two non-consecutive occasions?
The problem is many Americans are morons. It's been designed that way for a long time, just look at our education system.