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.
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."
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.
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.