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?

> 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...

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.

+ the fact that they had no brand power and marketing. Trump in a garbage truck is great marketing.

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.

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.

Biden (and Harris) have been no more "inclusive" of other political positions than Trump was.

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.

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.

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?

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.

I guess there isn't a problem.

Such a uniter, that South African emerald mine owner.

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.

Remember the children in cages?

Remember that a crook will cultivate your trust and lower your defenses before pulling a fast one on you?

> 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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

Another was student loan modifications. This transferred wealth from non-college taxpayers to college graduates.

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.

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.

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.

So you voted Green, or Libertarian?

Because if it was Trump, I have bad news on all that stuff, including healthcare…

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

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.

In any case we're entering the find out phase.

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.

https://www.instagram.com/billpascrell/p/C8DljJURzmv/

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."

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?

https://www.npr.org/2022/12/22/1139951463/electoral-count-ac...

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.

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."

Is there a reason why this has been glossed over? I thought that would surely be a red line for many of his supporters.

There. All is said. No need for further debate.

To me this all feels like a far fetched tv drama became reality. It goes beyond any human understanding.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_media_endorsements_in_t...

Articles like these are predictable and a meme

https://www.axios.com/2024/11/05/presidential-election-newsp...

The bias is calling him an agent of russia, a fascist, a dictator, a nazi, and a threat to democracy for 8 years

It's calling him crazy about Hydroxychloroquine and then 6 months later saying the same thing

The bias is blatantly miss quoting him with what he said about Liz Cheney

The bias is only fact checking one candidate in a debate

The bias is associating a trump rally where Israeli flags were flying in MSG with a nazi rally in the 30s

The bias is suggesting that we are suppose to think he wants to put his daughter in a gas chamber who converted to judaism

Then there's the work of Robert Epstein: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Epstein%20Tes...

So who is saying you're supposed to think that, actually?

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?

Does he really intend to do the things he says he will or it just fun rhetoric for the base?

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...

> "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.

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...

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?

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?

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.

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_2020_...

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.

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/

Which is it?

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

> 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...

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?

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.

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.

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.

https://apnews.com/general-news-domestic-news-domestic-news-...

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.

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.

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?

That's the key observation.

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.

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.

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.

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?

If you are starting from the position of "Trump knows he does not have the votes and wants to cheat" then you can read this as extortion. I don't think you have to even go so far as to call Trump a saint -- he wasn't saying "you have to hunt down and prosecute all of these people for all of these things" so much as "just hunt down the people enough to get the 11,780 votes".

Or to put it another way -- in a call with Raffensperger with his attorney on the line, probably being recorded, what is it exactly that you think could have happened here? Even if Raffensperger wanted to cheat? In a state that was already being carefully watched? What possible course of action would have made sense here?

The only course of action that would have made sense was if Raffensperger could uncover widespread fraud of one of the forms that Trump described. Then exposing that fraud and showing that more than 11,780 votes were compromised would have been a huge deal. But people would have looked at those ballots. They would have listened to this phone call.

Even if he hadn't been president with access to actually legal paths to investigate and address these things (and a responsibility to act ethically with the power he had where even the appearance of corruption is harmful), even if he had any evidence of actual fraud, even if he hadn't already organised a set of fake electors before the claimed "fraud" happened, even if you didn't have four people who have plead guilty to conspiring on this, even if he hadn't then refused to act when a violent mob stormed the capital on his behalf after he worked them up, even if half of his closest allies from his first term (including his vice president) weren't actively telling you this was his intent and plan, no reasonable person hears him leaning on the guy to just find the exact number of votes he needs to win and threatening him and thinks this was all above board.

You have to intentionally take his statements in ways no person actually would, and intentionally ignore all the damning context and evidence. It's not credible in the slightest.

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.

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

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.

Brown shirts are just civil disobedience in your book?

That time. Neither of us can read the future, here.

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.

You will have your banana elections for your banana Republic all right.

I agree, however, most people separate one from the other sparingly.

take the politics back to reddit!

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?

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.

People complain about people not hating Trump on this board. Ostensibly forgetting that some people here are very rich.

[1] https://www.fool.com/retirement/2024/05/27/heres-how-many-mi...

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.

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?

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.

Plus he is spineless, lying, rapist.. well, sure it is a kind of a charisma. One fitting for some video game villain.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

My refutation about the “donor class” stems from the fact that Trump raised relatively little money compared to his rivals in 2016 yet still won. If the donor class wielded all the power, that couldn’t happen. “Big money” actively supported his opponents in the primaries. I don’t know the stats for this year, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if a similar dynamic happened.

I already told you to google it.

> My refutation about the “donor class” stems from the fact that Trump raised relatively little money compared to his rivals in 2016 yet still won. If the donor class wielded all the power, that couldn’t happen.

?

We’ve been over this. They don’t wield all the power.

You didn't, but you did take the weak position of saying your definition is "whatever" is defined elsewhere. I tried to be generous and expand it to a larger group than you suggested because I don't think the size of the "petite bourgeoisie" is large enough to define an election. You seemed to balk at that definition, so we're left back with an unsubstantiated argument that sole proprietors and artisans select the candidates but you didn't explain why such a small group would be able to wield that amount of power.

>They don’t wield all the power.

Nobody is claiming they wield all the power. I do think they have more influence than the "petite bourgeoisie", but also that it's more complicated than whomever gets the most money wins. You also seem to think influence only means votes.

My refutation statement was related to the OP that said the donor class determines the candidates, which is the original point. You seemed determined to shoehorn Marxism into the discussion. Unfortunately, your claim doesn't seem to hold water, unless you redefine the terminology you’re using.

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.

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).

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.

There are plenty of theories of what happened. For example, Harris did target the center and the not-convinced-by-Trump republicans a lot, which is probably what alienated her voter base more than saying something that was already said during Biden election and did not alienate them.

I really doubt you can seriously pretend that the Democrats would have done better without their share of lying. Maybe yes, but maybe no, and concluding one of the two is just as valid as the any other conclusion. One may can even argue that they did not lie enough, as the lies on the Republican side did helped them a lot (unless we consider that republican voters are intrinsically more morally bankrupted than the democrat ones, and that republican voters like lies while democrat voters don't).

As for the fear/hatred, it's a funny thing. If you put one liar and one honest person in the same room, one will say "the other one is the liar" and the other one will say ... "the other one is the liar". It's funny that if you put someone who want to use fear and hatred for their own profit and someone who don't, the first one will say "if you vote for my opponent, it will be very dangerous because their are pushing for fear and hatred" and the second one will say the same.

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.

You are making it even clearer to demonstrate that all is reduced to framing "you are either democrat or republican".

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.

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?

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.

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...

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...

It does not explain however why almost all the swing states aligned with Trump this time.

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.

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.

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.

Blue voters in states that are absolutely going Blue may also stay home.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

Well, yes. The differentiation is both dumb and well-reasoned, depending on your ethics.

However at least germany and austria have meaningfully distinct languages or dialects and many centuries more to marinade in their differences. Texan and californian aren't distinct enough to produce nationalities that are clearly distinct (aside from arbitrary pride!) and they regularly swap populations sufficient enough to provide cultural osmosis that keeps the two cultures tied together.

Having lived in both places I can confidently say "not as much as either party would like to think". There are far, far, far more similarities than differences, especially because the population of either place doesn't tend to interact with their natural environment. Both simply have strong sense of nationalistic pride (however dumb this is).

The U.N. doesn't directly elect the general secretary.

Not saying it's great, but maybe it's not too dissimilar from some other systems?

It’s not how most of the actually well-run parliamentary systems work, because those have elements of proportional representation.

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.

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

Yet...

If I lived in a swing state, I would probably vote.

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.

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.

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

For the first impeachment it was only recommended and then acquitted.

For the second the articles of impeachment were drawn but also acquitted.

"If the House adopts the articles by a simple majority vote, the official has been impeached."

https://www.usa.gov/impeachment

But there was an impeachment trial to determine if he should be removed or be allowed to run again, and he was acquitted twice, he was impeached and not convicted

It's more embarrassing for them that they brought up charges that were effectively dropped

But that is where trump apologists lose me, first impeachment was over "Abuse of power by "pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rivals ahead of the 2020 election while withholding a White House meeting and $400 million in U.S. security aid from Kyiv." You dont think this happened?

And the second impeachment was over jan 6 election interference? You dont think he interfered? The senate voted 57-43 to convict (57% voted guilty) and Mitch Mconnell said "There's no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day." You think 7 republicans and 50 others voting to convict is embarassing for whom? I also agree it is embarassing but I cannot wrap my head around how we could be embarassed in different ways.

You're just moving the goal posts

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.

Someone failed that women long before she voted if she didn't know a convicted felon can't vote, at least in my state they ask when you register

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.

Btw I would argue the assassination attempt did far more for him than the felony conviction.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As long as this is the attitude of the Democratic establishment, Republican populism will reign supreme. This kind of condescension cost the election.

It's one of the many grievances of those paying attention in the prosecution of the political class and administrative state

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.

You've tried twice. America has rejected your ideology, your violence, and your warmongering.

Republicans calling Democrats warmongers is probably one of those hypocritical things I'm seeing in recent years.

The republican party is now maga, they are not the same

the maga base has been pretty consistent on being antiwar

LOL. Red states have the highest firearm death rates:

https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/firearms-death-rat...

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.

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.

I don't know what to say that won't sound dismissive or hurtful, but that's Truth sometimes, it comes without judgement, just trying help with a perspective as outsider looking in

What you feel and have experienced sucks and absolutely awful, but your community is not the only ones who experience abuse. I get a sense from the LGBT community that empathy is demanded and not reciprocated, and friends and allies are pushed away. In the case of abortion, there's no mention to what the moral dilemma you're asking people to make, there's no consideration that you're asking someone to choose between you and an unborn baby, no one is really qualified to make that judgement. Some pro-lifers would argue that the defense of a defenseless creature is a higher calling. It goes for everyone, if you want people to care about you, you have to care about them.

From someone that's gone through a lot of work to deal with my own mental health, these reactions seem completely irrational and the misery is partially self imposed. I see a very emotionally immature community in denial. I see a community looking for external validation when it will never come. I see a community that puts their PTSD and mommy and daddy issues out in to the world and it's a bit much to deal with for normal people. I see a community that has had a lot of hardship and doesn't see that it warps their world view, I'm a believer that most people are good people, your community deserves protection as much as any other but it should also do it's part in helping itself

I absolutely hate it but there's not enough nurturing in world to deal with how brutal nature can be sometimes

Everyone has to deal with the fact people are never going to completely understand you, 100% of people aren't going to like you, there's crazy people out there on the wrong drugs that would kill you just for looking at them weird

There's a good chunk of people that support the 2nd amendment because there is no other higher natural right than your right to defend your existence

I don’t give a shit if people understand me. I don’t understand all kinds of people, not the least are Trump voters. I don’t, by virtue of that fact, want them harmed, want their freedoms limited, or want them subjected to undue misery. And all I really want is that same treatment in return.

It's absolutely a product of nature, bullying is nature especially for boys and young men, this is how men compete and organize themselves socially so it will never go away, you can't program this nature out of boys, woman can be just as brutal (slut shaming, etc.) and it's all to put ours selves in a hierarchy, there's always going to be a hierarchy for resources and sex, some people are assholes and will put people down to elevate themselves, and unfortunately the different and mentally weak are the first easy targets for the group, so since it's just nature, it's not personal even though it feels that way and so then you're the one that makes it personal

Go study chimp societies, some of the more brutal things they do, humans still do

This was part of the point I was trying to make, you have to treat people how you want to be treated, if your perception is that all this is just bigotry then your going to get the same response reflected back, people don't like being accused of bigotry without people knowing them, that's bigotry all by itself and people are going to get defensive

Part of the point I was trying to make is that your idea of half way and centrist is actually not for most people you would call a bigot, all the things I mentioned in my previous post are all the barriers of entry for normal/good people to have a dialogue. It's the LGBT community that's made itself unapproachable via their actions and words and it has less to do with sexual preferences

I think the response to Dave Chappelle was a big one for most people, the negative response to him was totally unjustified

The question to the LGBT community is how willing are you to meet in the middle, I think most normal people would agree with: * Make it illegal for any person under 18 to have any permanent medical procedure or treatment for gender care * Limit abortions to the 1st or 2nd trimester unless medically necessary * Agreement grooming or indoctrinating children isn't ok * Agreement pedophilia isn't ok * No men in women sports * Recognition that there's groups in LGBT community that need extra support from society * Recognition that teenagers need to feel safe to explore their sexual identity * Focus on family values and children having two parents regardless of gender

These are reasonable compromises for most people, if your community won't self police bad behavior or meet people in the middle, then you'll never have accountability or be trusted in society

Yes, when we're young and stupid. You're supposed to grow out of that and learn to handle yourself as a reasonable person, and we need to stop making excuses for grown adults acting like children.

> Go study chimp societies, some of the more brutal things they do, humans still do

We're not fucking chimps and we have not been "in nature" in a meaningful way since... 3,000 BC? Ish? Hierarchy is no more natural or immutable than any other part of our society. We made it. We can make it differently.

> This was part of the point I was trying to make, you have to treat people how you want to be treated

See my earlier point about me being hauled in front of a teacher for her to be like "talk out your differences" with my bully. I don't have differences with this dude. He's decided to step on me to elevate his position in society. The fuck would you have me do about this?

> It's the LGBT community that's made itself unapproachable via their actions and words and it has less to do with sexual preferences

Genuinely, with respect, what the hell are you talking about? I wasn't always what I am today, and the LGBT community was nothing but accepting and open when I, still at the time straight and male, went to them being like "hey I'm questioning some shit" and got to know them, even though at the time I was still a young conservative shit-bag.

The only time I see the LGBT folks getting pissy with people is when the aforementioned people start shit because gay folks make them feel icky.

> I think the response to Dave Chappelle was a big one for most people, the negative response to him was totally unjustified

He used the suicide of a supposed trans friend of his to excuse him spouting anti-trans rhetoric in the guise of humor. And what actually happened from all of that, because as far as I know, he's still wildly successful, rich, and getting gigs. Oh the poor baby, had to have some people on twitter be mad at him for a few weeks and literally nothing else! The horror!

> The question to the LGBT community is how willing are you to meet in the middle

Depends what your middle is. If your position is you don't wanna hear about me being gay, cool, wasn't gonna tell you anyway. If your position is I can't be gay in public, can't be gay around children, can't marry my partner, can't make use of social institutions while gay? Then fuck off.

> Make it illegal for any person under 18 to have any permanent medical procedure or treatment for gender care

I would actually say 21 personally.

> Limit abortions to the 1st or 2nd trimester unless medically necessary

The government has no place telling women what they can do with their bodies, and until such time as a fetus can support itself, it is part of the woman's body and therefore her choice.

> Agreement grooming or indoctrinating children isn't ok * Agreement pedophilia isn't ok

Literally nobody disagrees with this, the only reason it's even related is the completely made up bullshit about trans-people reading to kids in the library and that being somehow dangerous, even though we get like, weekly, 2 new abusers outed from one church or another touching kids.

Are there pedos who are trans? Sure. There's a shitload more cis-people though. If clowns abused kids as often as priests did it would be illegal to take kids to a circus.

> No men in women sports

This is a complicated issue that neither you or I is educated well enough to even discuss.

> Recognition that there's groups in LGBT community that need extra support from society * Recognition that teenagers need to feel safe to explore their sexual identity * Focus on family values and children having two parents regardless of gender

No shit? To all of that? The only thing I'd push back lightly on is single parents when they aren't chronically deprived of resources are perfectly capable of raising kids, but that situation is far from the norm.

> These are reasonable compromises for most people

I cannot emphasize to you enough that as an activist in this space, this is not even remotely what "most people" want. Most people want what Trump ran on, which is ratfucking us out of society entirely because we're the boogeymen. And as of this election, with all branches of the fed now under Republican control, they might be able to pull it off! So if we all end up some combination of imprisoned/institutionalized/dead, it would be real cool if y'all could write in this history books when the ills of society are just as present then as they are now, that I guess we got that wrong and it wasn't actually the gays making everything terrible. However, I am skeptical because history shows us when that happens, that's not what follows. Y'all just move on to the next group of people you decide is the REAL problem and do the same shit to them.

Like, I genuinely think you're trying to engage in good faith, but is is clear here that you are not part of my community, because you are coming to this, with respect, like a straight person does. That we're the oddballs, and we need to meet you in the middle in order to be credible or taken seriously or whatever and like, no? No we don't. The gay community has been around for a long, long time. We have lost a lot of people to the ignorance and bigotry expressed by straight society, both intentionally, when we got lynched, and indirectly, with the inaction during the AIDS epidemic of the healthcare system. I'm not interested in playing respectability politics with an opposition that fundamentally demands I cede ground to them in order to earn the right merely to argue my point, let alone have it be genuinely considered.

As far as I'm concerned, especially after this election, we owe you nothing.

Or to put all of that shorter; we're here, we're queer, get used to it.

When implemented as policy and law, it's awfully harmful, to women and children especially. The "anti-trans rhetoric" will continue until this cult-like set of beliefs is pushed to the fringes of society and is no longer used to inform policy.

> We're not fucking chimps and we have not been "in nature" in a meaningful way since... 3,000 BC? Ish? Hierarchy is no more natural or immutable than any other part of our society. We made it. We can make it differently.

This is not grounded in reality. Tell farmers who birth livestock that they aren't in nature, tell people who are dealing with hurricanes that they aren't contending with nature. Almost everyone's motivations come down survival and sex which doesn't get anymore primal. People will always act like animals to some degree, people will always organize themselves in a hierarchy because it's efficient and it's intrinsic to how people procreate, you're not going to win against millions of years of biology. People will always be afraid or unsure of what they don't understand

There's hierarchy's in values, everyone has to choose which of their values are more important than others, there's a reason murder is considered more heinous of a crime than petty theft, it's all down to value of life over things, but abortion is so much more complicated because it's a life vs life problem but that means both sides are right and compromise is the only option

> See my earlier point about me being hauled in front of a teacher for her to be like "talk out your differences" with my bully. I don't have differences with this dude. He's decided to step on me to elevate his position in society. The fuck would you have me do about this?

In my experience at home, in the moment, stay quiet and take it, get out as soon as possible. After that though when you're out of the environment, to not let it define you, to not let it fill you up with hate and anger, to not become a victim, to not judge entire groups of people, to not let it damage the trust you have in yourself, to be grateful for the opportunity to better understand the world and grow as a person, recognize that experiencing hell allows you to appreciate heaven, to remember there's good in the world

I absolutely recognize that I'm not part of your community but I'm also not in the pro-life community, I'm also not an activist. I recognize I won't understand your life experiences, I'm just tired of everyone shouting and dehumanizing each other, from my perspective the activists on both sides are only defending and attacking the extremes of each other to an irrational level, instead of trying to win over the extreme, you should be trying to win over the moderates with arguments rooted in love, empathy, and wisdom

Your view about abortion is just as rigid as the other side, giving both sides the benefit of the doubt, neither side has moral high ground. Abortion is such a human issue, both sides have equally valid concerns and values, so do you want to win or would you rather get something rather than nothing? The reality is for this issue, neither side is going to be happy with compromise, and dismissing that is disrespectful to the good values of the other side

>> Agreement grooming or indoctrinating children isn't ok * Agreement pedophilia isn't ok > Literally nobody disagrees with this

100% I do understand this, this is more for the other side to hear, the perception of the bad apples have to be addressed, and being explicit on this shared value would go a long way

And I absolutely agree the other side has to address their bad apples as well, I'm just not in a position to speak for the LGBT community on the specifics but the sentiment would be "The future is now old man" and be more empathetic

The conservatives could learn how to be better at nurture/empathy from your community and your community could learn how to be tougher individuals to contend with nature from them

>> Recognition that there's groups in LGBT community that need extra support from society * Recognition that teenagers need to feel safe to explore their sexual identity * Focus on family values and children having two parents regardless of gender > No shit? To all of that?

I called this out because I recognize that the other side lacks empathy and it's what I would tell them, it's what I would tell other side who think marriage should only between a man and a women and where they need to compromise, it's more important to have 2 parents

> The only thing I'd push back lightly on is single parents when they aren't chronically deprived of resources are perfectly capable of raising kids, but that situation is far from the norm.

This is not my experience, I was not in a chronically deprived situation and not having a father figure around fucked me up. Children need to see how two people manage conflict and see that there are two views of the world, it helps build their identity

I would agree sometimes a single parent would be better than two toxic people attempting to raise a kid

> That we're the oddballs

I'm 100% ignorant so don't judge, but aren't you? Aren't the majority of people just straight? I'm open to changing my world view on this

The LGBT community is seen as oddballs because based on actions, words, and everything else, it all screams extreme immaturity and mental health issues, your partner chose sterilization because of a law change, I'm sorry but that's literally insane!

> We have lost a lot of people to the ignorance and bigotry expressed by straight society, both intentionally, when we got lynched, and indirectly, with the inaction during the AIDS epidemic of the healthcare system

This is awful and not ok. At least in the mid west, all I can say overtime your community and the racial equality community has gotten the message out, things don't change over night, but I see progress, your message still gets through all the noise of everything, it's not as frequent as I would want but I see good straight men call out people's bigotry, my generation even in the middle of no where was raised on judging people by their character and we take it as disrespectful and personal to be called a bigot

I guess I would caution to think that you're fighting the same enemy, that maybe you've defeated some of your foes and the nature of your opposition has changed

> He used the suicide of a supposed trans friend of his to excuse him spouting anti-trans rhetoric in the guise of humor. And what actually happened from all of that, because as far as I know, he's still wildly successful, rich, and getting gigs. Oh the poor baby, had to have some people on twitter be mad at him for a few weeks and literally nothing else! The horror!

Between the nature/hierarchy thing and this, I'm not your opposition and don't have a ton of skin in the game, don't pay attention that closely, but this is where you lose my political support and I check out of caring because if there's not agreement on this, there never will be on anything

I did not see the same thing as you, I watched his special. I saw a comedian who was using his art to express his sadness over what happened to a friend. He was vilified for it, he did not deserve that. If ever there was going to be a moment for an olive branch, that was it, and your community blew it. Any argument against this just ends up feeling like gas lighting and high lights we aren't living in the same objective reality, and it doesn't help your cause

I am certainly not asking you to cede on the core of your values, meeting in the middle has to at least start with an attempt to not vilify your opposition, to show a base line level of respect as human beings, to not "other" people, account for not only the words of the message but also how its delivered, it doesn't matter how you've been treated in the past, bad behavior doesn't justify bad behavior, don't put the sins of others on me

I mean, sure? Show me a SINGLE prominent conservative who lives those values. The modern right is about REVELING in their immaturity and ignorance. They are PROUD of how little they know, and the people who follow them are emboldened to embrace their id, in every way possible. It's how you have these chuckefucks in Pennsylvania who aren't getting their bonuses this year because their company has to use that money to pre-buy goods from China before Trump's stupid tariffs kick in and skull fuck the economy. They didn't know, that part's fair, but I would bet EVERY DOLLAR I'VE GOT that people tried to fucking explain it to them and they wouldn't hear it.

Like you can only shoot yourself in the foot so many times before I just figure you got something against your toes, and I'm gonna leave the area to avoid the shrapnel.

> People will always act like animals to some degree

Oh sure, no question and I have empathy for that. But there comes a time when, as outlined above, someone is clearly just reveling in their ignorance and reflexive reactions to where it's no longer palatable to continue being around them. I have no issues at all with someone who has never met a gay person in their life who would ask me something like "so how do men fuck each other" cuz like, yeah they probably don't know and that might be weird and offputting? That's fine, everybody has to start from somewhere. But if you take that reflexive disgust and double/triple/quadruple down on it, and decide that because I sometimes fuck men, I'm a target for your misdirected rage? Yeah I'm gonna [ censored for HN ], and I will sleep well that night.

Fear, disgust, or confusion are completely understandable emotional responses. Bigotry is a choice that comes after those.

> Your view about abortion is just as rigid as the other side, giving both sides the benefit of the doubt, neither side has moral high ground.

Mine has a moral high ground because it's consistent with my other values of personal freedom. The agency that conservatives would deprive women of goes directly against their stated beliefs about personal autonomy, except for the fact that far too many don't view women as equal people of course.

> And I absolutely agree the other side has to address their bad apples as well

I mean, it goes further than that. The people they're actually afraid of, the pedophiles, actively seek positions in clergy because it gives them authority over and access to kids! And then these same motherfuckers are out here screaming at transpeople who've DONE NOTHING WRONG.

It just boils my goddamn blood.

> I'm 100% ignorant so don't judge, but aren't you? Aren't the majority of people just straight?

I mean, from a strictly majority/minority perspective, yes, but also gay, intersex, and trans people have been around for fucking ever. We are not the new and exciting threat to society that people say we are, we're just making progress on not being universally hated, so a lot more of us are around. And like, the latest numbers of us are in the mid 7%'s so like, if you have 13 people in a room, statistically, at least one of em is gay? That's a LOT.

> but this is where you lose my political support and I check out of caring because if there's not agreement on this, there never will be on anything

Then I would mostly suggest you watch some of the trans community on YouTube especially talk about what's wrong with it, and then perhaps you'd understand? Because so much of the shit he was saying was profoundly harmful, especially to people who are just getting started on their particular journey, but also for the larger community too.

And like, I'm not pleased about it. I loved Dave Chappelle back in the Comedy Central days, and I think the difference is back then he was joking about things he knew, black culture specifically, and I also get why he stepped away from doing that and have empathy for it. But then, he came back, and joked about things he didn't know, i.e. transpeople, and it doesn't work.

And it's not like you can't joke about being trans, tons of things about being trans are funny as hell, but you really need that experience to tell the good jokes. Like, the same jokes Dave Chappelle delivered about black culture back in the 90's would've felt way, way different coming out of... say, Jeff Foxworthy?

Generally untrue. Most of them have wilfully invaded spaces intended for the sole use of the opposite sex. This disregard of others' boundaries is in itself wrong, especially when it's a male doing so.

Try to stop us.

I suggest looking at your own post:

> The government has no place telling women what they can do with their bodies

> can't be gay around children, can't marry my partner, can't make use of social institutions while gay? Then fuck off.

That being said, this is a classic example of crab bucketing. I am by no means saying that queer folks have it the worst everywhere: I’m saying that we have it bad, and we are frequently a bogeyman for the reactionary political project that’s the topic of this thread. And like, blindness certainly is a thing to contend with, but at least you don’t have a large segment of reactionary media saying that by virtue of being blind, you’re a child molester?

Sir, you came into my comment thread, where I'm talking about how I'm fearful of the future, to make the point that you had it worse. And like, maybe you do, maybe you don't, I don't know. That's not my argument and what I was talking about had nothing to do with you. So, respectfully, you first.

He is half of this country. That is a very important distinction.

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.

This world would be a lot better off with less generalizing and stereotyping all 'round.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Primaries where party members vote seems very much more democratic, than having the party elite decide in some meeting.

It only seems that way to you because it's practically impossible for there to be more than two parties with significant representation. If anyone could start a party and gain support, you would have enough parties to choose from that it's much more likely you'd find one who matches your beliefs, regardless of how they choose their candidates.

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.

The fact is America would be happy with no one. But we got who America wanted -- even if its not who I wanted.

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.

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.

* 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.

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_Party_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?

If true, this is not really a democratic country and should stop lecturing the world about democracy.

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?

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)

There are wait time problems in US too but maybe not as common.

If you have health insurance it's not going to bankrupt you.

I know plenty of people without a job and are poor in the US... guess what? They get free healthcare. They don't pay a penny. You can even give birth and not pay a penny out of pocket if you are on Medical.

The US has a large population on free healthcare. California actually has quite a large "socialist" state. Lots of things are free or near free for people people. Similar to Canada or Europe. No one talks about it though.

Make below 40k or whatever the threshold is and you get Medical in California. It's basically free healthcare.

And if you have a job.. well then you have health insurance, and you won't go bankrupt because of it. And you get much better quality healthcare than in Canada.

I'm making well over six figures a year (and not in the Bay Area, for reference) in my 30s and have top quality healthcare supplied by my job. The last time I talked to a doctor, I had to schedule an appointment six months out just for a routine examination and blood work. The labs I reached out to for getting sleep studies done (which, for reference, I would've needed to pay out of pocket entirely) said they'd need similarly as long.

Can you convince me that our healthcare system is not broken? Ostensibly the person in your argument that is supposed to benefit the most from it?

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.

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.

As someone who is part of the non-USA world, I'm fine with it.

> 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.

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.

5/12

Promoting hatred & violence, justifying fraud as being normal, neglecting environmental damage for our children to solve, has won.

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?

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

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.

- 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.

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.

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.

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.

... But in the conventional sense of increasing state autonomy, no. :p

Until then, it's a state's rights issue.

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.

Am I missing something?

[1] https://time.com/6972022/donald-trump-transcript-2024-electi...

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.

it's a very fucking slippery slope and everyone is too concerned with "but muh gas prices!" to think critically about the macro situation.

I think every little life saved is an absolute victory, and many people (as demonstrated) share my sentiment.

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".

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Illegal migration is what moved most people on the fence.

Dems were playing too much identity politics.

Example: A local "progressive" Democrat Supervisor (in SF) was quoted as saying that she would support the most progressive candidate, UNLESS it was a straight white male; in which case she would support the Black female candidate, Black male candidate, Gay candidate, etc. (this is going from memory, but you get the idea).

I feel like the Dems totally ignored the "white straight male" demographic. Democracy is a numbers game; you self-select a smaller pool, and your chances of winning go down.

It is a peculiar lack of votes, isn't it?

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.

That's still historically high

Did the USA also deserve to be invaded by 10+ million illegal immigrants? Did they also deserve the 450,000+ criminal aliens they let in? Did they also deserve to have 13,099 illegal alien murderers to be roaming freely in the USA right now? The American people cleatly spoke up yesterday about what they want and what they don't want.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_U.S._troop_w...

And in fact to your last point about trusting America, Biden was trying to stick to the agreed upon deal.

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/timeline-of-u-s-withdrawal...

The fustercluck withdraw from then on was all Biden's fuck up. All Biden had to do was honor the previous terms and use the previous plans, then the pull out would have gone off without much drama.

- 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.