Without oil it's hard to keep the monstertrucks rolling down the highways, people have to drop their kids off at school!

Gotta think about economy and those sweet sweet deals bringing tons of money and power to orange clan err economy and jobs! Its all fault of mexicans after all! Anyway I am sure there can be a new resort/casino or two somewhere there

We are a net exporter of oil and have been for nearly two decades. We can keep our monster trucks rolling just fine.

Trump didn't even get a majority of votes cast.

Over 77 million people voted against Trump.

About 73 million were not old enough to vote.

And 88 million people signaled they were fine with either candidate, by not voting. 165 million people out of 264 millions eligible voters supported this.

They did not signal that they were fine with either candidate by not voting.

> don't think one can blame them, not voting can be a legit option for many reasons,

With the exception of people who have religious beliefs prohibiting voting, it’s saying that you don’t feel strongly enough about the differences between the two candidates to pick one. There are some people who can plead various hardships, but most people don’t have that excuse: it really did come down to thinking their life would be fine either way.

Or thinking they were sunk either way.

No, in the US electoral formula, not every vote for President will make a difference. Seven out of 50 states are close, so in 43 states it’s only a protest vote.

Then maybe its time to ask yourself: do you live in a democracy when you cannot make your vote count?

It still matters for the popular vote and all of the downstream candidates. People who stay home inevitably complain about local changes which also were on the ballot.

I strongly support national electoral vote reform but it’s important to remember that every election really does matter.

Their intend may have been another, but the outcome is that they supported whoever was winning.

Ridiculous. Do you blame all Venezuelans for their current government? You shouldn't.

In a democracy every citizen is responsible for the actions of their state.

Not the people who voted for the losing candidates!

In a healthy democracy there are more ways than just voting to influence the countrys political affairs. Democracy has a price, voting every four years is not enough.

Yes. Chavez was democratically elected. Maduro is not an alien he was born in Venezuela.

Why did Venezuela become what it is today? Every citizen is responsible for what their country turned into.

Ofcourse I do not expect anyone in the Venezuelan diaspora do any kind of introspection or soul-searching.

Venezuela was a beautiful South American Switzerland and it is all the fault of the evil Cubans.

as someone who has never voted, i am absolutely okay with this characterization. i often hold my tongue when it comes to complaining about political stuff because i dont really feel like i have the right to. i mean, of course i HAVE the right, but the hypocrisy isn’t. to be clear: this is not the same thing as being animated about general gov. malfeasance, which is something that everyone is in the right to complain about, as the operation of the government isn’t a politics-specific issue in a lot of cases.

Nope. Sorry. From outside the US, there is just the US. We dont understand your "us vs them" tribalism nor the political divide. Every US citizen at this point is responsible for what's going on. Regardless of who you voted for. All of this is due to decades of complacency by the citizenry, it's not some sudden surprising coup.

I'm not saying the rest of the world is in the clear though. I think many countries are headed in a similar direction. Hopefully this is the wakeup call we all need to step up and arrest this slide into authoritarianism that's happening everywhere.

The recent elections in the U.S. went mostly anti-Trump. Is that the type of action you are calling for? Or did you want something more than running for office and voting?

And still Trump reigns without a care. But I am sure the next flipped seat in some mayor-election will bring him to his knees. Just one more lawsuit and we have him, just one more impeachment, pretty please.

Sorry, I don't know what elections you are talking about. The only one that I'm aware of was last year's election, which was very much the opposite of anti-trump.

We don’t elect Presidents based on getting a majority of votes of all US citizens, even if they can’t vote.

Do you know why?

> We don’t elect Presidents based on getting a majority of votes of all US citizens, even if they can’t vote.

We don't even elect Presidents based on getting a majority (or even plurality) of all voters who actually vote, though the method actually used usually (but not always) also happens to elect the person who does that.

How do you know what he voted for?

He seems to imply that he is an US citizen and last time I checked the americans voted for Trump.

Not even 50% of voters voted for Trump

That Trump is even near the reigns of power is obviously an indictment of many facets of American culture and politics, but it doesn't really wash out to every individual American bearing responsibility the way you're suggesting here.

Every citizen in a democracy has a responsibility for the actions of their government. Voting does not magically absolve you from that.

And its hard to see the nuance from the outside when all you hear are threats of economic turmoil, death, destruction and war. Every action of the american government regarding my country has been hostile so far, so forgive me for loosing my patience with the american public. All that talk about "land of the free, home of the brave", but as soon as their government threatens the "free world" americans fold over like lawnchairs. Its incredibly dissapointing.

I think you're being too literal. The "you" in "you voted" was the country, not the person.

We're all stuck with some shared ownership for what our country does even if we detest it.

What did you vote for?

Most of us didn’t vote for Trump. A slim majority of voters did, many of them because he is generally anti-war. (I’ve never liked or voted for him, but his desire to end wars is sincere.)

Many of his ardent supporters are confused as to what we’re doing in Venezuela right now and feel it’s the opposite of what they voted for.

You certainly don’t expect this level of surprises from someone’s second term, but the unprecedented path of his political career has certainly made it much different.

Interestingly in the Netherlands there is a custom that the majority of parliament has to agree to any military missions.

In America one guy can start wars.

Technically he can’t start a war though anymore I’m not even sure where the line is. Is drone bombing a terrorist camp a war? Or an act thereof?

48.34% shouldn’t be confused with majority.

OK, plurality.

> I’ve never liked or voted for him, but his desire to end wars is sincere

I mean, evidently not.