Don't live in the US, but I got the impression that a lot of people actually saw positive change in their lives in the first round, which is a pretty good reason to want more.

Do you honestly believe your news is being spun any less?

Yes I read high quality news sources- the WSJ, NYTimes, foreign affairs and a few others like the national review and mother Jones from time to time. I hear this argument a lot and my issues with Trump were from the primary source- his own words and tweets.

The economy was already humming when Trump first entered office and despite his best efforts it continued to do so through his term.

I feel like his first term benefitted from his administration being wholly unprepared to govern, as witnessed by the numerous stories of there effectively being no transition plan for a vast majority of departments.

The only real policy victory his first term was the TCJA. Otherwise, it was a lot of bark, no bite.

But now with four years to prepare, they came in barking and biting like hell.

Ironically, losing in 2020 gave MAGA time to create a game plan which we’re seeing in action now. A second Trump term right after the first would have been more effectual than the first, but not to the degree we’re seeing now.

And you honestly believe these "special" news sources are not spun to at least the same degree.

I think you have a few nasty surprises coming up.

They aren't. You are showing your true colors. Fox news literally says in it's tos that it's a source of entertainment and not real news.

There is no false equivalence here. Fox news is absolute trash. Don't even attempt to put it in the same conversation as othe news sources.

Good luck with that!

You are free to believe what you want to believe and to seek out media that will tell you what you want hear.

Those of use living in the real world don't have the luxury of believing what ever makes us feel good; we seek out and even pay for journalism that describes the world as it is and not just how we want it to be.

Where on Earth did you hear that? His approval rating was dismal.

If you want to try to understand the right-wing voter's perspective, all you need to do is realize is that Democrats are every bit as guilty of duping the public into believing they stand for something.

When they tried to force Hillary Clinton down everyone's throats in the most rigged primary I've ever seen, when Kamala Harris skipped the primary entirely and was just plain anointed instead? Voters care about that shit too, so you can't claim "overthrowing democracy" is the exclusive of the GOP. In both cases, the election was theirs to lose, and they lost it quite actively.

When the new crowd (AOC etc.) get introduced to Congress and are immediately told "these are the corporations whose interests you are supposed to stand for"? Voters remember that, so you can't just claim Trump is more corrupt than anyone else.

Or to take a step back: In 2008, Obama got elected on a promise of change, but by-and-large just did more of the same. Trump withdrew us from Afghanistan disastrously, but he only had to because the actually-competent people had refused to for over a decade, even though America was already sick of Vietnam 2.0.

Now, I do think Trump is a very bad thing for the US. But he's only a symptom of a problem that has gone unaddressed for a long time.

The ACA is just more of the same? Are you kidding me? Do you know how many lives that changed? No more pre-existing conditions? Literally before that if you lost your insurance you just died.

And it was just a compromise with the republicans

It was a Republican policy! From the 80s.

You mean 'a Republican's (I.E. Mitt Romney) policy'. What a manipulative response.

Republics hated it and fought against it.

It goes back a lot further; see e.g. https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2012/02/07/the-to...

And Republicans fought against it because the wrong party/person proposed it.

For the majority of people, the ACA just meant "insurance has an excuse to raise premiums without end (far more than the number of new people covered)". There was some corporate trickery involved, but that doesn't matter to the individual who's paying more.

The majority of people are very grateful of the coverage. The ACA is very popular if you call it something different (to move away from the propaganda) and explain the details.

The ACA is popular, it is ObamaCare that is unpopular.

I don’t know any serious person who could make these arguments without also acknowledging that premiums were increasing before the ACA. They typically won’t acknowledge that the rate of increase slowed down post ACA because then their entire argument falls apart.

Okay, but even with that (though I really don't think there were >20% increases in any year prior to the ACA ...), all we get is my original point of "Obama promised change, but just provided more of the same."

maintaining the status-quo was at least predictable. change was needed, and was inevitable, but will the result be akin to the replacement of the articles of confederation with the constitution, or the replacement of the french republic with the first french empire?

> In 2008, Obama got elected on a promise of change, but by-and-large just did more of the same

After 2010 midterms he couldn't really do anything, because the GOP did everything they could to obstruct everything, seemingly mostly just as a nihilistic power game. If you will recall, even very simple and uncontroversial appointments were being blocked. It was absolutely ridiculous. I don't especially like the democratic party, but there is no real comparison. Both a forceful push and several punched to the face are assault, but clearly they are not the same or "every bit as guilty".

In the first two years, when he was actually empowered, he mainly focused on the financial crisis and the ACA. Those two were already massive undertakings.

Also Afghanistan was not "Vietnam 2.0". About 280,000 US troops died in Vietnam. About 3,500 coalition troops died in Afghanistan, most of them in the early years. 2020 saw 11 casualties. Comparisons to Vietnam are profoundly unserious. There's a reason Obama stayed in Afghanistan: it was relatively cheap and kept an enemy (Taliban) in check. Now, you can agree or disagree with that, but it's really not as straight-forward as you're presenting it.

>Americans saw the first four years and astonishingly decided they wanted more of it, by a decent margin.

Also keeping in mind that Biden ran 2020 campaigning to return to the previous (Obama-era) status quo and Biden/Harris ran 2024 campaigning to further maintain that status quo. The status quo after given another 4 years of chance was flatly rejected in favor of a return to change.

>I question each day whether that needs to be respected or we should resist.

Well, considering you guys villified Republicans and Trump voters post-2020 (and justifiably so to some degree), I would assume the answer was always the former. Indeed, certain Democrats crying that 2024 was stolen or the like are hypocritical echoes of the same from Republicans and Trump voters in 2020. The pendulum swung back, as it always does.

>I also wonder if his supporters have any idea of what is going on.

I do, at least.

With regards specifically to Phyllis Fong, I have no confidence that an Inspector-General that occupied the office for twenty two years straight[1] can ethically perform their prescribed role. I am in complete agreement with her termination, we need someone (anyone) new and different in there.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Department_of_Agriculture...

> With regards specifically to Phyllis Fong, I have no confidence that an Inspector-General that occupied the office for twenty two years straight[1] can ethically perform their prescribed role. I am in complete agreement with her termination, we need someone (anyone) new and different in there.

Are you "in complete agreement" because of actual things Fong did, or because you think that 22 years experience in a position is disqualifying?

>because you think that 22 years experience in a position is disqualifying?

Yes.

An Inspector-General is in charge of inspecting and auditing, as the name would suggest. That requires being impartial in absolute terms, because you must be able to call out problems no matter how inconvenient they are.

Being in a position of power means an inevitable accrual of reputation and influence, and 22 straight years of accrual is ridiculous. Her excessively long tenure is also unusual; the longest-serving Inspector-General besides her served for 8 years, shortest being 2 years not counting acting IGs, average is about 4 years each IG not counting her 22 year tenure.

So yes, I support her termination because her long tenure lends me no confidence she can perform her duties ethically anymore. There must be a regular changing of the incumbent to head off the office being bought or otherwise corrupted. There are millions of other D.C. bureaucrats to replace her with, and even more Americans overall. There is no reason to keep her specifically for this long and I daresay that the lack of a term limit for this office has to be an oversight.

> An Inspector-General is in charge of inspecting and auditing, as the name would suggest. That requires being impartial in absolute terms

Yes, she's sure going to be replaced by someone impartial...

Thank for you for a thoughtful answer.

In a nutshell, you're advocating for a term-limit on roles like this, which is an entirely valid argument.

You got it. I would also support this termination if Biden or Harris had done the same. 22 years is way too long of a tenure by any reasonable measure for an office like this.

What is wrong with being reappointed to the same job for 22 years? What if she's just...competent? Your argument seems to be that anyone having the same job for that long must be corrupt in some way, but you don't provide anything to support that premise. Ironically, you're implicitly endorsing the resort to illegal means for her removal, rather than following the process defined in law.

"she" suggests DEI, not competence

-someone who reads blue check drivel on X

Are you arguing Phyllis deserved to be fired because she had a lot of experience and was a dedicated employee? That's a pretty hot take. I hope for your sake you are independently wealthy, lest someone who can impact your life comes along and determines you shouldn't be employed anymore because you've been doing it too long. You think twenty two years is too long to be in a profession, perhaps the next person will think 10 years or 5 years are too long, gotta get someone (anyone) new and different in there, and you out.

What has she done in those 22 years that benefited regular people and not her pocket? Do you guys realize Trump was the only president that left office worth less after presidency? Sources here are the same NYT that blamed Trump for colluding with Russia? Same sources that said Biden laptop was a conspiracy? Same sources that called Trump racist for saying Covid came from a lab? Lol do your own research

You're trying to spin him losing money because he's an idiot into a positive narrative you have lost the plot

> I also wonder if his supporters have any idea of what is going on.

They do not. Most of his supporters are either rich or uneducated normal people who lack the mental capacity to realize what's going on. They just repeat the talking points. Respond to anyone of them with a non-talking point, compassion, and honesty and they just shut down. They haven't a clue about what's really going on. I bet none of his supporters even know who Robert Mercer is, the person that got him elected in the first place.

I feel like you're interacting with the same people I'm interacting with because your assessment of them is spot on. They love the talking points. Whenever you shut down one talking point with facts they pole vault over that into the next talking point. They want to be 20 ft up in the air away from the truth and never question why they've been lied to. They believe and even make up wild conspiracy theories on the spot when confronted with information that conflicts with what Trump and his supporters have said and done. Their brains leap over every possible barrier I put up, never letting it stop them. Maybe I'm not a good debater but facts are facts and they don't seem to appreciate or respect or even value them. I need to find a new, less depressing group of people to be around which will unfortunately mean quitting my job but I just can't do it anymore.

+1 I spend a lot of time engaging with these folks in good faith as well, and exact same pattern.

Repeat statement from Trump -> demonstrate that it's untrue -> repeat statement from Trump on new topic -> demonstrate that it's untrue -> repeat statement from Trump on new topic -> demonstrate that it's untrue

They're in a cult.

No, you don't need to respect it for the same reason we needn't respect the decision-making of suicide cults.

Or election were hacked, but not the way you think.

Social media was weaponized and turned into a tool that manipulates people's view of the reality. Each person gets a personalized feed that presses their buttons to think certain way.

For example with war in gaza. If for example you were pro Israeli, you will see content that Harris was siding with Hamas, and trump actually was the most Israel friendly candidate.

If you were supporting Palestine you would get that there's no difference between Harris and trump, and it is best to do protest vote.

Same with leaning too much to the left, or not enough to the left etc.

Pretty much every issue was handled this way. People who got their news from social media had no idea what her stance were on any topic, because that was filtered.

Few years ago we had huge scandal about Cambridge Analytica, there was a bit loud about it and then died out, meanwhile it all continued and was perfected.

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook manipulated older generation. While TikTok managed to capture younger, left leaning generation and make it more apathetic.

I don't think it is a coincidence that pretty much all social media (except the Chinese TikTok) was present on his inauguration.

I also don't think it is a coincidence that all social media companies have involvement with AI. With it, they no longer need humans to generate content, so the whole manipulation is much easier to do.

This isn't just isolated to US and it is being used in Europe too. Look at elections in Moldova, Romania, what's happening in Germany etc.

Timothy Snyder's "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century" book is a must read so we can prevent this.

Here's summary of the lessons: https://substack.com/@snyder/p-155209838

The book is quite short and he also reads and discussed them on his YouTube channel.

> Social media was weaponized and turned into a tool that manipulates people's view of the reality

I really dislike this argument. It shifts responsibility from the voters to evil nebulous puppet-masters. I reject that. At some point, you have to accept that people can think and make decisions for themselves.

> At some point, you have to accept that people can think and make decisions for themselves.

And then we have to accept that this world is what we want and deserve, and this dicussion goes in cycles.

Yeah. Everyone is convinced ads don't work on them, yet somehow it is a trillion dollar industry.

Perhaps you are lucky and don't have anyone in your family affected by disinformation.

I have family members that no longer watch TV, listen radio, read news papers. All "news" they are getting is from sources that also tell them that all other sources lie.

They live in complete different reality that it is a distorted mirror of actual reality.

Is it reasonable that social media influencers may be assigned some degree of credit? After all they are generally effective at selling products.

I also agree that people have responsibility for their actions. For example, it has been personally sobering to observe some friends and colleagues agree that defunding PEPFAR and putting 20 million lives at risk was morally the right thing to do.

He’s an elected president, not an elected dictator. It’s totally reasonable in our democracy to say that you don’t get to do anything everything you want just because you got 51% of the vote.

We have a constitution and separation of powers which many seem to have forgotten about this week

*49.8%

What is "the people" at this point, even? Is there really such a thing as "American people" that can be meaningfully defined? What would be its ideals?