When I was posting, `document.title ` said "US goverment seeks to rehire recently fired nuclear workers". I didn't want to introduce my editorialization.
Semi-related, but is there any repository(ies?) that comprise of these technical white papers? I'm fascinated by these papers whenever they show up in my feed and I gorge on them, and I'd love more. I can't be the only one thinking this way.
If this is what America wants, then it is what America deserves.
Political parties and candidates may sway the public one way or another, perhaps even deceive them. But in the end, it is the populace that ultimately decides.
The first time may have been a mistake, but the second time is a definite intentional.
The man was given the choice of what to eat: manchineel bark or feces. The man made a choice. “Ah”, said the offerer of two choices: then that is what you deserve.
The man must be reminded that he did not demand more than two options. He did not demand a system that guaranteed more than two options. He allowed the Excrement Party to bring forward feces as it's candidate, and he allowed the Bark Party to bring forward manchineel as it's candidate.
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?
The offerer of two choices then makes the man choose between his daughter getting shot and his wife getting shot. “Remember now”, he says, “whoever I shoot will not be killed by me but by you.” The Offerer cackles. “You could have prevented this from happening if you had only worked harder to thwart my first supervillain move fifteen years prior. You are entirely responsible for this situation.”
I'm a little bewildered by this sort of prediction. How will you update your priors in 2028 when this doesn't happen? What will be the excuse for why this didn't happen?
This is just taken wildly out of context. And that’s coming from me, who can’t stand DJT. You’re literally fishing for a retort that doesn’t even make sense.
I am having a heard time reading his exact words and understanding them to mean something else. When he says to 'my beautiful Christians' that in four years you won't have to vote again, what is he trying to say? What is the missing context?
> "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.
Not only is that the most reasonable interpretation of the words, it's the one he explicitly gave when asked [0]. The only way to arrive at the alternate interpretation is to be coming from a place where you already assume Trump is a threat to democracy.
I think there are reasons to have arrived at that place (Jan 6th), but this quote is not evidence for it unless wildly misinterpreted.
> where you already assume Trump is a threat to democracy
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?
The only people arguing it was misinterpreted are people who support him. Not by providing any context that actually supports it meaning something different.
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?
> The only people arguing it was misinterpreted are people who support him.
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.
What you are doing has a name these days, they call it sanewashing. Had Harris or Biden said anything even close to trumps comments the maga crowd would have yelled bloody murder, but somehow for trump everything is excusable and can be explained away.
So the most favorable interpretation of his words is that his supporters are delusional? What is their interpretation of "fix the country"? Because if it does not involve changing the constitution (a very tall order) then every single thing he does can be undone with the same effort by the next democratic president. Surely these people know that, right? How could they possibly believe that he will magically "fix the country" so they don't have to vote any more, unless they anticipate that he means something permanent?
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.
Come on. We all know Trump effing talks weird, that's just part of his weird personality that no one likes. I don't like it, think it's confusing and winding around requiring much mental parsing to understand even for normal stories/sentences. But to take this tiny little sentence as definitive proof of some giant plan that's coming to end democracy is just... mental gymnastics in search of meaning for a narrative that they've already decided it means.
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."
I'm just listening to his words and assuming he means what he says. He is either insulting his followers, or he is telling them he will "fix" the country in such a way that they won't have to vote any more. You can interpret this to mean he will try to subvert the electoral result again, or you can interpret it to mean that he plans to make some kind of permanent change so that christian voters will no longer be required to vote to achieve their goals.
> I'm just listening to his words and assuming he means what he says.
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.
> 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.
So a couple untruths, and something ambiguous. Evangelicals have been a key voting bloc for years (I don't want to say Christians, because there are a huge number of Christian democrats too). If anything they're key to GOP success in the recent past.
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?
I'm a "supporter" and I know exactly what he means. Means he'll fix all the voting shenanigans so that illegals can't vote and so that democrats can't "rig" and stack the election like last time. See? Not so much a hateful whistle as it is understanding your supporters, what's important to them, and appealing to that with your own words.
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.
the missing context is that the Christian groups he was speaking to typically have low turn out/don't often come out to vote. He's asking them to please come out to vote, it's important this time. It's exactly the same rhetoric democrats use "this is the most important election, you really need to vote this time, this time it really matters"
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.
That was the line the news media took for the first year or two - "we can't read his mind, so we can't call it a lie!" It's a mistake not to at least credit his own words and the logical conclusions they result in.
As many times as people deliberately twist his words to mean something different than he meant?
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.
How is it twisting words when the context is Trump refusing to say he will accept the results of the election every time he's asked, "joking" about staying more than two terms, and actually trying to overthrow the Republic on Jan 6th?
That will never happen because there are too many other power-hungry people in the GOP who are not going to just let Trump sit in the White House indefinitely, if for no other reason.
He's 78. I think there would be plenty of people willing to enable him to sit on his throne indefinitely because they know that's really only ten years or so at best. And then, once he's gotten it warmed up and did the hard job of making it the norm, they get to take his place.
That is the same kind of thing people have been saying since the day he rode the escalator down. Ten years later, why does this argument still get made? Trump has power for one reason, and one reason only -- because enough voters love him. Many people on the conservative side loathe him and want nothing more than to see him gone, but they kiss his ass and fawn over him anyway, because why? The voters love him, and hate anyone who does not kiss the ring. Over and over and over this plays out.
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.
I'm a citizen of a country where the authoritarian leader captured the state and mostly destroyed democracy.
So we managed to find out whether he was a danger to democracy or not (he was). What sucks, is that when it is proved, then there is already too late to do anything about it (because by definition you can not send them away in an election).
So my 2 cents: if there are any signs that someone is a risk to democracy, it is better be safe than sorry, and just choose a different candidate. Everything else can be corrected in the next election, but not this.
> if there are any signs that someone is a risk to democracy
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.
The most important sign is that he already tried to keep the power when he lost last time. And he still does not accept that he lost.
This alone is more than enough reason to never vote for him.
He literally attempted a coup, it's pretty amazing people are still trying to act like this is exaggeration or unreasonable.
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?
The USA uses a gerrymandered, two-party, first-past-the-post system with electoral college to boot. I for one would stop short from calling that a system that accurately reflects the will of the populace.
> I sincerely doubt we are going to see Trump literally cancel elections
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.
It's a fact he attempted a coup, the evidence is in the public record, the Trump–Raffensperger phone call was literally recorded and we have it. He was calling around everyone certifying the results pressuring them not to do so, and asking people to "find votes" for him. The mob storming the capital was a part of the whole, not the coup in its entirety, focusing on it as though it was the whole thing is absurdly misleading.
> 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.
I guess there's just a disconnect here. Threatening someone with legal action for breaking the law is basically okay in my mind. Trump thought that there were unsigned ballots that were counted that were being destroyed, and that Raffensperger was either aware of it or was ignoring it or was just not doing the due diligence necessary to prevent it. He wanted to provoke Raffenperger to action by reminding him that he faces criminal liability for looking the other way.
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.
No reasonable person would believe this, it's the equivalent of believing that when someone asked their associate to make another person "sleep with the fishes" they were talking about an aquarium trip. It's just obviously not true.
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.
Attempting it and failing doesn't mean he didn't attempt it. He actively tried to stop the results being certified, he tried to get people to fraudulently invent votes for him. We have the Trump–Raffensperger call on tape, the evidence is right there, it's an indisputable fact by anyone who cares about reality.
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 problem is will you admit you were dead wrong and potentially spewing propaganda if democracy survives Trump’s second term?
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
... And then you have Trump refusing to say he would accept the results of the election every time he's asked, "joking" about staying more than two terms, calling bog standard politicians "internal enemies", wishing total obedience from generals and dreaming of using the military to crack down on civilians...
Brown shirts are just civil disobedience in your book?
Will you update your priors after searching a bit more how Republicans have already done huge efforts to eliminate parts of the voting population, between gerrymandering, voter rolls purges, putting polling stations in inaccessible places, counting prison population in the electoral weighting of districts...
It's insane, exactly the same slippery slope fallacy as "the left want to make your kids gay", people completely lost their mind on both side of the spectrum
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.
> 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.
So even when the Christians don't vote in 4 years, they still get the things they want?
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.
TLDR: In different context, but same feeling: "I need to vaccinate yourself when you are around me, but when you are no longer, I don't care". I dunno. That doesn't sound very presidential tbh...
That's not what they said. "Measured and rational speaking" is usually terrible marketing. It barely works on college-educated adults and certainly doesn't work on the mass market.
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.
Worse, they don't see that a near-majority of the country is actively put off by someone speaking like a rich, educated liberal.
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.
Presumably the person you’re replying to knows these things? Try and respond to the best interpretation of a comment instead of assuming they’re an idiot.
What's the "best interpretation" of a non-sequitur look like, to you?
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.
Obama is a Democrat. Neither Biden, nor Harris, nor AOC pushed for Medicare for all when it was probably the easiest and most helpful time to do so; during a pandemic.
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.
Sure they were. Biden actively sought to pass bipartisan immigration legislation. Trump blocked it because it would hurt his chances at reelection. Neither Trump nor Vance denied this during the debates(they had multiple opportunities to do so).
We are not divided though. He overwhelmingly won the popular vote. Sure there is an opposition, but the truth is that the majority of American voters agree with Trump (currently winning by margins of 5 million according to NYT).
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.
Hey dude, you may be overdosing on those pills you’re taking when you start saying things like Musk is a uniter. The red ones are fine, just limit it to one or two, okay?
I remember when he pushed the lie that Pelosi's husband was attacked by his gay lover. Or when he pushed the lie that Democrats are stuffing voting boxes with illegal immigrants'votes, or that brown people are replacing white people.
Such a uniter, that South African emerald mine owner.
We have never been more divided. Neither side can even agree on definitions or facts.
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.
> 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?
Don't be coy, please enlighten us as to what this conspiracy is involving Russia that you think the MSM peddled, and what evidence you have that disproves the narrative.
The Steele dossier, which purported to contain evidence of the Trump camapign's links with Russia, turned out to actually be a Russian plant. That's what I'm talking about. People still peddle its contents as if they're anything other than fake news. That's a major problem. Same with Trump's 'very fine people' comment. You can accuse Rogan of spreading misinformation until the cows come home, but the mainstream media has also peddled its own share.
How many have you been doxxed for or impeached for or censored from spreading. as far as I'm aware, all your conspiracy theories have been promulgated by everyone and allowed to spread everywhere. I think that's the major difference. You should create your list. Twitter/X is a great way to spread such information to the public at large! No one will censor you. You are free :)
I haven't heard any mention of the dossier in years, other than as an artifact of the past. A quick search, and I can't find sources trying to claim its truth (or evidence of smoke, for which there might be a fire) in years.
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.
See, we can't even agree on a starting point. Instead of admitting Rogan and Elon pedaling in absolutely insane conspiracy theories, you pull out your whataboutisms and think we are back on a level playing field. We aren't.
I remember when trump tried very hard to weaponize the justice department against his "enemies" (https://www.justsecurity.org/98703/chronology-trump-justice-...) but people stood up to him and refused, or just delayed acting as long as possible. Trump was very much "handled" by people all levels of government who tried their best to clean up after him, distract him away from his crazy plans, or obstruct him. Even in the the military. In the beginning it was the so-called "axis of adults" that kept things sane.
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.
Did you even listen to the video clip in the article?
> 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.
I think that given the context that he illegally tried to retain power after losing in 2020 that many people infer something into his words about reducing the need to vote
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'm not sure in what respects you are disagreeing with me on, since I didn't mention anyone's level of education or intelligence -- I didn't mention anything about the people who interpret the statement in a benign way at all.
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.
No, what cost them the election was the fact that Kamala ran a campaign of "I'm actually just a republican so you can vote for me". She dumped any sort of policy or position that'd scare away the mythical disaffected trump voter. She paraded around Liz Cheney FFS. WTF likes the Cheneys?
> She dumped any sort of policy or position that'd scare away the mythical disaffected trump voter
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.
One was conciliation on Gaza, an issue inflamed by the protests and that was material in Pennsylvania, the tipping-point state she lost in. She also wasn’t “tough on the border” in any specific way—Trump channeled that anger effectively.
Another was student loan modifications. This transferred wealth from non-college taxpayers to college graduates.
How would that work in our system. The election are distrusted and open by law. Trump is an authoritarian who will test the system but the system will hold.
Ah, the self-proclaimed mass media critics! Everyone else is somehow badly influenced by the nasty mass media but they see right through it with their superior intellect. They don't need correspondents and professionals to actually go where something is happening, they know the truth intuitively, perhaps even a priori.
It's not about superior intellect, it's about incentive structures
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
Fox News is by a huge margin the most popular news outlet. Throw in the New York Post (huge presence on the internet) and the WSJ, and conservative media is the mainstream media at this point.
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.
Most right winners are listening to podcasts at this point, I don't think Joe Rogan's incentives are as equally bad when comparing to an industry that manufactured the opium epidemic or ones that constantly lie
You can defend the ministry of truth as much as you want. There has been too much deception in recent years, people simply stop believing it. The meda were always there to steer "democracies", they even outright admit it by saying they are an integral part of the democratic process. People start to see through this deception.
You're right. The media has been corrupted. It's only logical, over time the media is corrupted as an outgrowth of the Pareto principle applied to politics. Eventually all political systems are corrupted because those with power use their advantage to accrue more power in a self-reinforcing cycle. The media, as an obvious lever of power, is subject to this, just as are regulatory agencies, congresspeople, social media sites, etc. I don't understand how such an intelligent userbase can be so willfully blind and naive. What began to open my eyes was the pandemic and the Ukraine war. Not that the establishment positions were necessarily wrong, but I felt the manipulation was easy to sense.
Meh, you can watch MSNBC or Fox for quite different messages. Of course, the fascists are not complaining about the media because there is actually something wrong but to justify the eventual censorship.
Given that this is a repeat of 2016, it wont wear off and they wont be ashamed. Yeah the crowd that touts itself as highly intelligent and techno-savvy apparently cant learn simple lessons.
The way I see it is that Trump’s policies, if acted upon, will have a delayed effect. I see it as a major event contributing to the rebirth of authoritarianism in the 21st century. I think selfishly doing Trump’s America for four years by pumping money into oil production, cutting back on contributions to global stability, and creating distrust in alliances could have disastrous consequences over the next couple of decades. I believe the current structure of techno-feudalism will only become more concrete with the erosion of science and education. Whether there are immediate consequences to this leadership or not, I’m very pessimistic for the future.
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?
Part of the reason why Harris lost is because this line about democracy ending if Trump wins is about all she could offer as a reason to vote for her, and the average voter doesn't believe it. I guess now we'll all get to see if the dire warnings were at all founded in reality, but it was a critical mistake to turn up the rhetoric so hot and not realize that it made the moderate voters take her less seriously.
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.
So many reasons to vote for her and you remember only the democracy ending part?
Also, the moderate voter would not take her seriously because of her saying that? Did you wipe out your memory about what happened when he lost not so very long ago?
To me this all feels like a far fetched tv drama became reality. It goes beyond any human understanding.
I want my taxes go down and want illigal migration to end as well! I want illegal drugs and illegal weapons and all wars to disappear as well. I want everything to be great and florishing for all Americans and the world. Still I would never vote for Trump because he just shouts he will 'fix' it, as if he would be some kind of Messias with some magic powers, without explaining realistically how that it can even work. A lot of people seem to believe it just because they 'want to believe' or maybe because he says it in such monotonic (hypnotising maybe?) way.
Ironically, the Democrats had a much more comprehensive policy position of course. But what matters to voters is what they _perceive_ and "what will you do for me". It's a propaganda war, and not yet clear to me whether we should blame the party or "the media" for losing it.
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.
That's a fair point. I guess Democrats should have focused more on the "real policy" aspects of Project 2025 (besides abortion?) rather than the "completely reorganize the Executive" (implement fascism) parts.
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.
An underappreciated reason why Harris lost is that Democrats tried to switch candidates just a few months before the election. I'm not on one side or the other, but when I heard that Lorraine Jobs was pushing for a different candidate last July, I thought to myself, this is the dumbest idea I've ever seen. Indeed, it was.
The whole artifical limitations on discourse and topics is a poisoned chalice the democrats seem not to be able to let go of, no matter how much depends on it. Ad to that a aristocratic inability to even perceive problems and a getting high on their own supply of virtue signaling and you get a recipe for disaster.
According to the exit polling, voters most concerned about democracy voted Trump.
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.
Compared to Trump the Democrats are amateurs at messaging who seem to have no clue how to talk to the average Joe or Jane. Instead of using the Jan 6 riot to attack Trump's "law and order" image, they choose to frame it in terms of "democracy".
"Law and order" was clearly a dog-whistle for 'treating suspects and minorities badly will make you feel safer' from the start . As evidenced by the blazing hypocrisy in a fucking felon running on "law and order" from a straightforward interpretation.
Given the generally high regard that the US has for service people - military, police, emergency services etc - it always puzzled me that Trump was never held to account (in a political, rather than legal sense) for the harm caused.
Is there a reason why this has been glossed over? I thought that would surely be a red line for many of his supporters.
Given the complete discrepancy in voter turnout for dems in 2020 v 2024, I think the core claim of the J6ers, namely that there was fraud that affected the 2020 election, is becoming more and more likely. Especially since the only person to be killed on that day was a regular American (no cops were killed), I think, based on the voting, that most people see it as justified. I mean they just elected the guy who lost with huge margins in the popular vote
If you want to know what Trump really believed about the 2020 election rather than what he wanted his supporters to think, look at the allegations that he and his election lawyers were actually willing to present in court. Since there would have been legal consequences for making stuff up, the court filings were far less sensational than his public PR.
I don't know and don't really care. When I vote I don't rely only on evidence admissible in court. Most of the country does not follow politics as closely as some of the people here. We see what we see and vote on how that seems it will affect us.
I also like to keep my anti-tiger rock on me at all times. I don't really care that there's no evidence that it works. All I know is what I see, and I haven't seen any tigers.
Roseanne Boyland was arguably killed by the police that day as well. Her death was ruled an amphetamines overdose to cover this up, she had a prescription for ADHD.
I don't think it would hurt their credibility if they're wrong. It's not like they created that idea, they were just pointing out Trump's words and actions.
It wasnt just Harris but the entire media and entire democratic establishment fabricating claims of Trump doom.
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.
Nah, she was an utterly normal Obama era democrat, which is basically it same as an Obama era republican. She offered normal and reasonable level-headed leadership. Welcome to the FAFO era.
This is fiction, and we should not persist in describing politics in this term, since it doesnt help us see whats going on.
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 reason Harris lost is because the Democrats are soft on everything. Soft on immigration, soft on crime. Even though I dislike Trump, I wouldn't vote for Democrats ever.
Their “Trump is a dictator, literally Hitler, who will take away womens right to vote” didn’t work the first time in 2015/2016 and it didn’t work this time either. The U.S.A knows what a Trump presidency is like and they voted to have it again: it was that good.
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.
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.
It's literally a conspiracy theory, the question at hand is whether there really is a conspiracy.
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.
Have you listened to Trump's recent speeches? In 2016 he was very articulate and persuasive in his own way, but in 2024 his brain is clearly on the way out.
It's not, but, you have to ask a question - if democrats believe this, and this is the correct messaging, why did they do practically nothing to prevent things like this from becoming a reality? Or even propose a plan going forward as to how to prevent this again? Nothing came of Jan 6, nothing came of any of this, no matter who won, and it was very obvious that the plan was just "well as long as we're in power we won't slide into authoritarianism," but even if it wasn't Trump, eventually someone else is going to come along and beat them and begin wherever Trump left off.
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."
They impeached him. Counter to Republican's rhetoric, the Democrats can't force the DOJ to press charges in a timely manner, but the DOJ eventually also pursued charges. So they attempted to fix this with:
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?
This is like using a squirt gun in a forest fire. A meaningless change to a meaningless procedural "loophole" that had no chance of working whatsoever.
> why did they do practically nothing to prevent things like this from becoming a reality?
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 line about democracy ending if Trump wins is about all she could offer as a reason to vote for her,
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."
The fact that someone like Trump was given as choice is a result of a failure of "the man" from the start.
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?
> lying and using fear and hatred is working very well
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).
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.
> R's perceive (sometimes not incorrectly) that lying is a "both sides" thing
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.
I would not say they lie to the same degree. Trump can not own up to the truth. The man took a Sharpie to a hurricane map to "prove" that he was not wrong. He has never and will never admit that he is wrong.
To some extent Trump is a singular figure. No-one else has quite the same charisma he has and his experience of getting shot makes him into even more of a legend.
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.
The charisma of an old, demented moron? He failed as a public speaker even before he got this old, I have heard non-native 5 years old speak better than him.
Plus he is spineless, lying, rapist.. well, sure it is a kind of a charisma. One fitting for some video game villain.
What he says comes across as emotionally true to many people.
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.
Except the Haitians really are eating dogs and cats. I have seen the video and photographic evidence. They see it as free food. You think cats and dogs wander Haiti in massive numbers? No, they eat them. They’re starving.
> This election just demonstrated that lying and using fear and hatred is working very well.
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.
> 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.
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 seems to be a refutation that the candidate is only chosen by "The Donor Class". He was nominated twice despite efforts of monied interests, not because of them (it's my understanding the money didn't go to him until it was inevitable that he'd be the candidate).
It’s a refutation of the literal phrase “chosen by the donor class” because there are more players that have an effect.
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
How are you defining the "petite bourgeoisie"? I'm not sure your thought fits with my (perhaps incorrect) understanding of the term as sole proprietors and artisan workers. Is that term being used liberally to refer to the property-owning middle/lower classes?
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.
It’s hard to get clarity when you aren’t even willing to define the words you’re throwing around.
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.
> It’s hard to get clarity when you aren’t even willing to define the words you’re throwing around.
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.
It demonstrated nothing of the sort. The better candidate won and that’s about it. Even in the republican primaries, the best candidate won. What makes you think your opinion is above the system?
At least he was the choice by people. Someone else could have been choice, if they had more pull. Unlike the other side where no one voted for her to be the canditate.
What makes you think the system always chooses the best candidate? Most voters operate on very little or false information, they just vote on vibes or for whatever party they've always voted for
Why do you think you don't. It could be you who is deceived. Everyone thinks they are the person that sees things for what they are but it can't be true for all of us.
Better doesn’t mean good. A lot of people say that the choice was between bad and worse. Both the Economist’s and the NYT election advice wasn’t vote for Harris because she is great but because Trump is bad.
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.
I mean if Biden called everyone garbage as humor, I would actually think it's funny. But he actually meant it lol.
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.
Biden is sunsetting a bit, but is he "put on a MAGA hat, bust out a big smile, and give a thumbs up for the camera" sunsetting?
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?
One candidate was a normal functioning human being with policy positions other normal functioning humans can agree or disagree with. A better analogy would be a choice between blue cheese and poison.
As a moderate who voted for KH, the biggest problem with the DNC candidates in recent decades is that they do not, in fact, appear to be real human beings, but instead curated facades composed of politically desirable traits.
I can see your point in the presidential race. For down ballot candidates though, I'd say exactly the opposite. So many GOP politicians who sing praise of Trump publicly have been caught calling him a moron privately. Or in the case of his VP, calling him Hitler publicly. The scent of insincerity is just rampant through the GOP.
Tell me then, what are Trump's policy positions aside from keeping himself out of jail? Do you think he is actually going to impose across-the-board 20% tariffs? His big donors and the market don't because that would result in other countries imposing 20% tariffs on all US exports and trading with each other instead. That was just a story to tell his poor uneducated voters so they wouldn't think he would raise their taxes, reduce their benefits, or explode the deficit. There's no more build a wall rhetoric after he failed to do so in his first term and then blocked a border control bill. What he will support is cryptocurrency speculation, which he has personally profited from and his Silicon Valley donors hope to continue to profit from.
If we want to be optimistic, he will cut regulations and probably also funding to our military-industrial complex. For the wealthy, he will transfer an immense amount of resources to us.
For one’s 24h capital gains to exceed the median American wage only requires a few million at play in almost any asset. That is a fifth of households [1] and I’d guess around double that fraction of likely voters. (If you’re in crypto, you could have done it with less than a million.) That will influence how folks think about Trump, at least in the short term.
The policies were laid out in Project 2025. Of course, Trump didn't endorse it. But they have the power now and that's the blueprint they're going to follow. They have said they will destroy democracy in the US and they will do it.
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.
Have you ever heard him speak?! Quite literally asking, are people just voting/liking him based on static images and deliberately cut to look somewhat acceptable videos? I swear his speech is worse than Biden's has ever been.
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.
As best I can tell, he speaks at the level of someone with about a fifth-grade education. I believe that to be intentional, as it means he's easily understood and not perceived as demeaning.
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?
> If this is what America wants, then it is what America deserves.
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.
How is ~8% (eyeballing) of the popular vote a narrow majority in politics? It's a pretty substantial majority. Apathetic non-voters don't really count because they don't care.
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...
Because there was never a real choice. Put it this way: someone could give a choice between drinking arsenic and fertilizer. One of those options will win, probably by a wide margin. It doesn't mean it reflects the will of the people because, hey, people would rather drink neither.
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.
What you forget, or may not appreciate, is that (for example) Blue voters in states that are absolutely going Red may stay home, because their vote won't really count.
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.
For some reason I’ve not heard this argument 8 years back when Clinton lost. At that time the fact that she won popular vote was used to critique the electoral college. Maybe at that time republicans stayed at home in the blue states?
As a foreigner it seems like the electoral college is obviously stupid. No matter who wins why. It is pure conservatism to keep it like doing something because the Bible says so. Given that it mostly helps one party it will never be changed but it cannot be argued from first principles in the 21st century.
It can totally be argued from first principles. If you acknowledge that USA is a union and not a single state then it makes sense that the votes do not necessarily reflect the population distribution and there is some form of rebalancing. Then its a wuestion how much and whether the current balance is the right one.
The US is a federal system. It serves the interests of the states, not the People.
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.
This is circular reasoning -- "the system is the way it is because that's how it was set up".
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.)
> This is circular reasoning -- "the system is the way it is because that's how it was set up".
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.
> The next time you meet a Texan, ask them if they think they are "meaningfully" culturally distinct from Californians.
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 same could be said for Germany and Austria. States - as in "nations", not necessarily US states - can have shared culture and history.
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.
Honest question, Is it not somewhat similar in effect to a parliamentary system? My understanding, is generally a parliament is divided into districts, then after parliament is elected, the government is formed and the prime minister is selected by a majority of the members of parliament?
Not saying it's great, but maybe it's not too dissimilar from some other systems?
That’s how, for example, the British system works (but even it has some features that make it quite different in practice from the American one, for example the head of government needing to maintain the confidence of parliament).
It’s not how most of the actually well-run parliamentary systems work, because those have elements of proportional representation.
I mean, I'll take a stab at it... the electoral college can be argued from first principles if you consider that the U.S. was supposed to be a federal union of sovereign states. There are certainly reasonable arguments for federalism and devolution of power.
The U.N. doesn't directly elect the general secretary.
Is that an argument against the electoral college, or an argument for re-devolution of power? Because the latter is probably easier to do than getting rid of the electoral college, given the requirements to pass a constitutional amendment.
It's not a partisan argument. It's a fact of the mechanics of US Presidential elections.
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.
Why doesn't this apply both ways? Red voters in Blue states are just as likely to stay home because they think their votes won't count. And ditto the other point, Red voters in Red states may not feel like it's worth the bother to vote when they already know their state is going their way.
> 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.
OK, you're doing Trump has 7% more votes than Harris. Which is valid -- I think that's not the way most people report it though. I think most people say that Trump won by 3.5%.
This number doesn't count non-voters, though, which pollutes the whole metric. Ideally we would look at the holistic figures of margin as a percentage of total potential voters.
That seems like an insane assumption to me. Maybe there’s nobody worth voting for. If you don’t interpret a non-vote that way what’s the point of democracy?
I wish people would probe this question a little more. It certainly seems to me, what with the party-based system (and all their rules, requirements, and other methods of disincentivizing non Republican/Democrat participation), the point is not democracy at all, but political power brokering. That's not a system I'm comfortable interacting with.
Nobody picked Harris. She hasn't won a primary even once. Trump won it three times. The primary is the only step in the whole election process where the actual "democracy" can even remotely happen.
That's not entirely true. In 2020, a lot of states just cancelled their Republican primaries and pledged their delegates to Trump. Mainly because it's assumed that the incumbent will be the candidate.
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.
Fine and true, but setting aside the principle of the matter, did anyone actually prefer Biden over Harris?
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.
> Fine and true, but setting aside the principle of the matter, did anyone actually prefer Biden over Harris?
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.
I don't know why you'd expect any other reaction from a site where 80% of the readership loves to get high on their own supply from WaPo and CNN and reject the reality. The reality is we're 37T in debt, we're on the brink of a nuclear war due to our harebrained regime change efforts halfway around the globe, and your average American is barely surviving at this point. The latter, by the way is abundantly clear from the polls, too, including exit polls. I'm not sure the electorate particularly cares about the right to third trimester abortion or DEI as the mainstream media would like us to believe, especially when the DNC lost the airtight control over the narrative, and its ability to manufacture consent is getting more limited by the day. In 2020 they had enough control to elect a person who can't string two words together without a teleprompter. In 2024 they already could not. And the grip on the narrative is going to weaken from here on out. If they can still learn, they'll have to actually run capable candidates, who might even dare to have their own opinions about things. That's healthy and good. What doesn't seem feasible anymore are unilaterally anointed candidates who go from "nobody" to "our only hope" at the stroke of a pen of some unelected, non-replaceable bureaucrat.
The majority of the population who were eligible to vote, and actually decided to vote, voted for Trump, yes.
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.
Why do people keep stating that the choices are somehow not Democratic. Who else beats Trump? Seriously. It's not like there were some great candidates out there that just didn't have the party machinery behind them. These were honestly, IMO, two of the best that the country had to offer. Sure, I personally would've loved to have Pete Buttigieg as President, but I also realize that he loses to Trump 10 out of 10 times.
The fact is America would be happy with no one. But we got who America wanted -- even if its not who I wanted.
> Why do people keep stating that the choices are somehow not Democratic.
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
> 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.
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.
People don't really do deep policy research in any country, but, to continue the example of Germany, I think most people have at least a vague idea of what each party stands for, something like:
* 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"
* 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.
I'm not trying to persuade you either way. Those are just the facts as assessed by the courts. If you don't like the facts, again, I don't care.
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.
Then why isn't he in jail? Why wasn't he been impeached? Why can't they find something that sticks for the most smeared political figure in modern history? If we are bringing up his questionable legal past, then it's fair to bring up the legal past of the opposing side. The truth is the political class has done so much damage and far worse things than Trump.
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
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.
Sorry you dont get to make up your own definition. He was impeached twice. These decisions cannot be undone or removed or acquitted, he is officially formally and forever impeached. Being impeached means being tried for crimes. He was completely tried, and therefore completely impeached. Only president to get impeached twice. And only three presidents have ever been impeached at all. Super embarassing that he is president again.
"If the House adopts the articles by a simple majority vote, the official has been impeached."
Ok, I stand corrected with the technical definition
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
Well lets not move the goalposts, no us president has ever been convicted in an impeachment trial.
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.
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.
I don’t think the conviction’s effect on his support was lost on anyone who was paying attention. He was convicted for breaking the law by a jury of his peers. Should the case have been brought to trial? That’s debatable, but he clearly is a felon. Not the first felon to run a country, as it happens.
Btw I would argue the assassination attempt did far more for him than the felony conviction.
The assassination attempt certainly helped, but it just solidified his ability to cast himself as a victim. That started with the politically-motivated prosecutions.
> 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.
He’s far from the first person to have been tried for something that is unevenly enforced at best. Talk to any black men in your community, it happens all the time. More relevantly, prosecutors have to decide which cases to pursue and that calculation seems to often involves factors like the notoriety of the individual and the likelihood of obtaining a conviction. Famous people are routinely prosecuted for things that regular schmoes don’t even get arrested for. The latest example is probably Jason Kelce, being in the public eye means you get more legal scrutiny.
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.
> 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.
> It's pretty clear to me that he did think about the election. That's the problem.
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.
> it's hard to overstate how much his conviction riled up his base and persuaded moderates to flip.
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.
Using lawfare to convict a political opponent is a very police state and unamerican thing to do, on top of the police state activities under covid, on top of a government wire tapping a political opponent
It's one of the many grievances of those paying attention in the prosecution of the political class and administrative state
There's a lot of people in the midwest with germanic heritage, I like to think about how it rhymes with the relationship between the "uncivilized" barbarians and rome
Several black friends and relatives cited the legal cases as just another thing that got them voting. Mostly it was immigration and the economy, but that specifically resonated.
Crazy enough I've heard from some younger males that him being a felon was good because in order for him to make his life better (being a felon) he would have to make their life better (whether they were felons or felon associated) -- or so their thinking went.
Trump is America incarnate and that's something that's only just starting to be properly discussed. We can't reckon with him or avoid him because he is this country, in spirit and in soul. A morally bankrupt opportunist that uses and discards everything it can, and cloaks it all in slick business attire and insipid, empty words. Loud, stupid, ignorant, bigoted, and proud of all four because it has the money enough to make sure it never needs to explain itself to anyone. Believes in absolutely nothing beyond what can benefit him in that moment, and if it changes, he'll turn on a dime. If the phrase "fuck you got mine" was turned into a real boy by some sick wizard, it would be Trump.
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.
It's half of the people, it's the whole country. Our systems, the way we organize society, the behavior we reward, the people we idolize all fall under this. Every major (and minor!) industry is led by Trumps, tech included. Every business has a man at the top of it with not an insignificant amount in common with Trump. That's not a coincidence, it's an ongoing process.
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.
Exactly. Nobody waved a magic wand and conjured up Trump, causing people to become cruel and selfish. They are already cruel and selfish, and they simply found their man. It's not like people are just going to just stop being this way once he's gone.
Again, that is your claim and your opinion. That doesn't mean you are eligible to decide what other people in your democracy are supposed to vote. NO, simply no. In fact, this attitude is a reason why liberals are struggling with support of the common man. You're basically implying that these women, that didn't vote like you wanted, are too stupid to realize what they did. This is plain and outright patronisation mixed with a heavy dose of old-school sexism. Stop it, you are making a fool of yourself and your political friends.
Full ACK. Frustration is as human as an emotion can be. But that shouldn't lead to patronising sexism. To me, democracy is a life-long lesson. I see it as a pendulum, necessarily swinging from side to side to avoid a particular political party to establish a dictatorship. The USA, as the stereotypical two party system, demonstrates this pretty nicely. Democrats and republicans seem to pretty much take over in an alternating pattern. However, the life-lesson mentioned is, that if you're not completely centered, there will always be times when you have to cope with your political opponent having the reigns. I consider that a worthwhile challenge, to accept that you can't win all the time. In fact, its not acceptance, its the knowledge that you shouldn't win all the time, which goes much deeper actually...
I have LGBTQ+ friends who's lives are demonstrably, objectively worse as a result of Trump's first term. My wife got surgery to have herself sterilized out of fear that were something horrific to happen to her, she wouldn't be able to get the healthcare she needs thanks to the Roe v. Wade decision, which is directly traceable to the "other side." We're about to get a wave of suicides in this country as hopeless minority folks all over the country realize we are entering 4 years of yet more persecution, yet more official policy that will deny them the right to exist as the people they are and they simply can't take it anymore.
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'm just another nerdy, white midwestern man in a very purple area with a very common name. I lived with abuse and neglect for the first 16 years of my life at home. I have gone through my own spiral down to hell from trauma, I've had to deal with BPD, despair, and a tumor in my head. I've been suicidal every day for the majority of the past 4 years. I've had to deal with feelings of whether not society cares if I exist. I've dealt with wanting to be a victim
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
None of what I’m complaining about is a product of nature, full stop. It is a product of bigots.
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.
You do want people to understand you more because then it's expected that you understand them, that's how we humanize each other and figure out the true issues and solve problems, when we humanize we'll find out we are all just people trying to survive this crazy world and want the best for the people we care about
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
> 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
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.
Nothing wrong with "anti-trans rhetoric" really. The whole concept of "trans" is based on absolutely ludicrous, sexist and homophobic ideas. It needs significant pushback.
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.
Well good luck with that, considering trans and intersex folks have been around... well, as long as everyone else has! But surely this time when you're taking an eliminationist position against a minority of people, history will prove you correct I'm sure, unlike... literally every other time that's happened in human history.
People don't grow up at the same pace, no one is really fully mature, most of us in some area in our lives lack maturity and sometimes severely, it's a process, always, it's immature to not recognize this and have compassion for people, it's immature at some point to put on to the world what it "should" be instead of accepting what it is
> 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
> People don't grow up at the same pace, no one is really fully mature, most of us in some area in our lives lack maturity and sometimes severely, it's a process, always, it's immature to not recognize this and have compassion for people, it's immature at some point to put on to the world what it "should" be instead of accepting what it is
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.
I am a member of a very small minority group, mch smaller then the LGBTQ+ community. I've been subjected to hardship all my life. I am being talked down to, patronised, and sometimes even manhandled, on a more or less daily basis. And I have never considered suicide because of that. If what you are saying is true, I take it as proof that mental illness seems to be high amongst the group you are mentioning. I lack empathy for such a victim mentality. In other, more concrete words: If there were a way to switch places, I'd take being a LGTBQ+ member over being 100% blind every day. Maybe something to reflect for you. The LGBTQ+ community has been to fucking loud in recent years that they seem to have totally forgotten that there are groups below them in the privilege pyramid. Those of us below them are listening in bewilderment.
Your lack of identifying with a “victim mentality” might also have something to do with the fact that blindness and its associated challenges have a lot more to do with the fact that you cannot see, due to whatever part of your vision failed to develop, and is not an active, maintained bigotry on the part of larger society. That’s not to say society can’t be an asshole to you too: I’m familiar with the challenges around visual accessibility and of course, as any differently-abled individual will corroborate, the only way you will get any assistance is with the forceful application of the state because otherwise no one will bother.
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?
See, you pretty much confirmed my point. You reduce my disability to accessibility issues. Thats only a small part of the story. The much bigger part is that random people do not treat me like a independent human being. Your rather dismissive approach couldn't confirm my pont more. Again, if it were possible, I'd switch places every day. I am sure you wouldn't want to. So please, lets stop comparing who has it worse, its soo sad having to argue about that.
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.
Sorry, I didn't mean to be patronizing. I simply said that because, roe v wade didn't bother the women (who are more affected by it) who voted for him.
Trump appeals to "a lot of Americans", sure. That doesn't mean he appeals to all or even most of us.
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.
We don't need to have a system where there are only 2 terrible choices.
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)
I live in Prague but travel often to the DC area for business. I’d choose to live in Prague in about 70000 out of 80000 simulations.
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.
Universal healthcare, strong working class, strong k-12 education, govt mandated work/life balance & child support, abortion, free from a large population of Christian (protestant) nationalism that influences politics at every level... why yes, yes I do.
You know it's the law in the US to have health insurance? Literally everyone must have health insurance otherwise you get penalized.
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.
If you want "universal healthcare" aka "free" healthcare, just quit your job.
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?
Meh, I personally like it. It's a bit of liberating feeling to never, ever think about health insurance here in Vancouver. Obviously has ups and downs (especially for non elective surgeries), but it's my personal preference.
Beauty, walkable cities, history, better workers rights? I have never found a reason to go to the USA besides jobs and your national parks, nothing else.
It's an interesting idea, but it's more or less been tried.
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.
I won't comment on the validity of this view, but I think the people who hold it miss one very important lesson from his unlikely comeback: the power of perseverance.
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?
He says on a US made phone and computer, visiting a US website, using a currency tightly correlated to the US dollar, in a country which imports most of its services from the US, and he works in the services sector, or he works making goods which US consumers buy, speaking English out of necessity not just courtesy, in a country with a small defense budget, in a US military alliance, whose defense is ensured by US government institutions.
I’m using a Samsung phone. A lot of the software on my phone (especially the software I paid for with the phone) is made in South Korea. I don’t pay for a lot of apps, but the apps I paid for were made by developers from France, Spain, Japan, Austria/Germany, and the US, one each.
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.
> He says on a US made phone [no] and computer [no], visiting a US website [yes], using a currency tightly correlated to the US dollar [yes], in a country which imports most of its services from the US [no], and he works in the services sector [yes], or he works making goods [no] which US consumers buy [no], speaking English out of necessity not just courtesy [no], in a country with a small defense budget [yes], in a US military alliance [yes], whose defense is ensured by US government institutions [yes].
You choose your phone and computer for its software, which is all made in the US. Even if you use an Android phone, Android is made in the US. Samsung software is developed by Samsung US in San Francisco Bay Area. I can’t believe how many people don’t get this.
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.
You mean the world does not deserve 4 years of no wars? Or you mean the world does not deserve free press to the point that the president didn't do anything other calling the news organization "fake news" for their non-stop hoaxes? BTW, is it even normal that dozens of organizations used exactly the same peculiar language like "sharp as a tack"?
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.
What horrible things happened because of the policies of the first trump presidency?
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.
The pandemic response, the Muslim ban, family separation at the southern boarder, repealing roe v wade, ending DACA.
This doesn’t even take into account the policies he wants to enact like mass deportations.
What is the problem with deporting people who are there illegally? As someone who doesn’t live on the border of the United States do you know how incredibly hard it is to legally immigrate there? I don’t see why other people should be allowed to jump the line. There’s a legal way to get in, follow it like everyone else.
- 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.
Did you reply to the wrong comment? Nothing what you said addresses illegal immigration. Are you saying illegal immigration is something good and if you’re against it you’re for child rape?
Everything they listed was the result of the Trump administration's immigration policies. Do you think human beings should be subjected to these things just because they're living somewhere illegally?
> 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.
I think that people really like violence, but no-one will publicly admit it. People want others to suffer. Nobody really cares about making the world a better place, or saving the climate or whatever. People just want a better life. But they have no perspective of getting a better life, so they will settle for everyone else to get worse.
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.
Having gone through the legal immigration gauntlet, which took decades of sacrifice, I have no sympathy for illegal immigration either. But the other problem is that the economy is not so much about money as who does the work, and I suspect that cohort does a disproportionate amount of it and would crash the economy if actually deported. I predict the same thing will happen with Trump's deportation threat as has happened with the wall and Mexico paying for it.
“Family separation at the border” started with Obama and the Democrats weaponized it to attack Trump. What did Trump do poorly during the pandemic? Operation Lightspeed was a success that the Democrats were happy to capitalize on. He correctly pointed to WIV as the like source of the outbreak, and despite the Democrats attempt to censor this in the media and online, it’s now the widely accepted view among the academics who don’t put politics above science.
Repealing Roe v Wade is a great thing, not a terrible thing. Highly contentious issues absolutely should be left to the states to decide, not forced upon them at a federal level.
Only in the sense that slave-owners tried to take away the rights of other states to not participate and assist in slavery, and then wrote their own constitution which forced every state to have slavery forever no matter what.
... But in the conventional sense of increasing state autonomy, no. :p
> Highly contentious issues absolutely should be left to the states to decide
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.
Arguably this stacking of the Supreme Court could have been prevented if Justices had retired when the Democrats still had control of appointing their replacements
No, nothing would have changed if that happened. Republicans have no qualms about overtly breaking the law and abandoning their duty and decorum. If they did then Garland would be a sitting SCJ and Gorsuch wouldn't.
yes. Scalia died in Feb 2016 (while Obama was president) and the senate refused to hold confirmation hearings on a successor until Trump took office in 2021.
I'm sure that situation be over with trump. And by over I mean that netanyahu will kill any and all remaining Palestinians and annex the strip and West Bank. Then the Zionists will set their eyes on Lebanon.
He indirectly ended abortion rights and presidential criminal liability. And while it wasn't a single bad event, he spent 4 years making climate policy worse. More directly he attempted to extort a foreign leader for political gain and sponsored an insurrection to stay in power that resulted in loss of life.
Well, others probably wouldn't have fired the pandemic planning committee. Another one was created in 2022, but, as of 2024, Trump has said he'd get rid of that one too[1].
This line of defense falls apart a bit when you add further context. It's my understanding that during his first term he was surrounded by many smart and experienced people who tampered down on Trump's worst urges. But for this election he made it an explicit goal to get rid of those people and put in place people who are more likely to be sycophantic and loyal to him.
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.
"...anyone else would have handled it differently", yes, and very likely we would not have gotten the COVID vaccine as quickly as we did and hence Biden would not have been able to set us out on the road to the pandemics end (and been able to come out of his bunker). Who knows how much longer the pandemic would have lasted and how many more might have died had Trump not cut out the red tape and fast-tracked the pharm industry on the road to a cure.
you realize that Trump cut the CDC branch that worked in China (and other countries) to look for and contain novel diseases before they become pandemics right? if Trump hadn't been president, COVID probably would have been like Ebola or Sars1 where it kills a couple thousand people without becoming a pandemic
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.
stacking our court with conservative justices, stacking other courts with his appointees who are already working to throw out his criminal cases. the rollback of roe.
it's a very fucking slippery slope and everyone is too concerned with "but muh gas prices!" to think critically about the macro situation.
That is an issue. You posses religious conditioning that makes you believe this. 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.
> That is an issue. You posses religious conditioning that makes you believe this.
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".
> Abortion is not a religious issue, it is an ethical issue.
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:
Another way to phrase it would be as self defense rather than murder. The baby is an unwanted intruder. And the only way to defend the mother is through the death of another person. And like self defense there are different interpretations of what rights each party has. And it is rare for anyone to be absolute in their support of the rights of one or the other party.
I disagree that most people who are anti-abortion believe it is literal murder. More like "murder lite". Just ask them what the punishment for abortion should be for the doctor and woman, and then what the punishment should be for murdering a 1 year old. you'll get drastically different answers from I think 97% of people.
> Abortion is not a religious issue, it is an ethical issue.
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.
Also a large number of animals cannibalize the weak (chickens, for example). Now, I presume that you hold humans to a different standard for that behavior - why?
> You posses religious conditioning that makes you believe this.
> but your opinion/stance should not be projected on everyone else in the country.
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.
Maybe for America, but then you can reasonably ask why the world is subject to American rules, yet only Americans are allowed to vote over those rules.
Looking at the numbers, it seems like apathy decided. Trump's numbers are equivalent to last election, but the Dems didn't show up by over ten million people.
Not really. The lack of votes seems to be in the younger “social media” generations. The lead up to polling day was very pro-Kamala and on polling day itself, sites like Reddit were a stream of “I voted Kamala” posts. Whether that was propaganda influenced or not is beside the point.
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.
Why blame the Republicans? After all, the Democrats did pass a referendum on Trump 4 years ago and Trump lost. Since he wins now, I can only point to disarray on the Democrat side. Just look at NY State. 60% to Joe Biden in 2020 and 55% to Harris in 2024. Thats a big move.
“Now there’s one thing you mighta noticed I don’t complain about: politicians.
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!”
Russia has 30 percentage points more tertiary educated people than the US does. 60 versus 30. Huge, huge difference in education levels. Better PISA scores. Better in many OECD measures that relate to measurements of "ignorance." How would George Carlin rate Russia's politicians?
I watched the Joe Rogan podcast (well 90% of it) with Trump - he talks about this in an intelligent way, which is, 3rd party candidates don't really have a chance in national politics. There are 2 choices and the system as currently set up, only allows there to be 2 choices.
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.
Your judgment won’t endear Americans to vote for someone they believe is a worse candidate.
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.
The Democratic party indeed got entrapped by its fringe but the same thing happened to the Republican party. It's the result of the system incentives that favour such polarization.
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.
Trump was fairly inept in his first term, making lots of mistakes and pissing off his advisors and allies. He wasn't Hitler because he just wasn't very smart, which was a saving grace to all of us.
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.
The Hitler comparison is just so lazy and I don’t think you can honestly believe it, unless you solely listen to the out-of-context sound bites used by his political opponents to attack him (ex. the Cheney thing recently).
Hitler was a competent autocrat, really evil, but he had the brains to back it up.
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.
> We saw firsthand what a Trump presidency was like. He wasn’t 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?
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.
Unsure what planet you live on but I would love to visit. Here on earth in the US it has been absolute hell incarnate the past 4 years with non-stop tech layoffs since 2022, soaring prices on everything(housing, food, insurance etc), crime/lawlessness on orders I have never seen and huge wars that have spawned in the middle east and Russia/Europe. Lets list all of the things that have happened since Biden/Harris and then tell me why people are flocking to Trump:
- 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.
Could Biden have actually changed the Afghanistan thing? That was actually Trump's decision--and my favorite one he ever made--but he put the timetable into the next presidency just in case of bad press.
I don't believe that's true. He wanted to start orderly withdrawal sooner so that it'd be well underway before the election, but his generals postponed it (and then hightailed out of there in a highly disorderly fashion leaving the Taliban in charge and giving them billions of dollars in materiel).
Biden is the commander-in-chief, yes he could have changed anything about it that he wanted to. He could have gone back to the Taliban with modifications to the terms. They were not in a strong position to resist, frankly. If the US had said they needed three more months to do it effectively, the Taliban would have agreed. Also Biden was making choices along the way related to the time table (Wikipedia covers this fairly well).
You realize Trump was the one who set up the deal and the timeframe for the Afghanistan pull out right? He even bragged about sticking Biden with it. The Taliban were upset when it went over the date and upped their already regular attacks.
And in fact to your last point about trusting America, Biden was trying to stick to the agreed upon deal.
Wrong. Biden welched on the deal Trump made. The same day he did that, Taliban began attacking.
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.
You're being downvoted because people don't want the truth. As a lifelong Democrat, I agree with you.
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.
The US told the world in the 19th century that South America was not to meddled with, except by the US. I fully blame America for structural failures in South America that trigger illegal immigration. The US refused to enshrine stable countries that prevented their best and brightest from leaving.
This is perfectly fine. S3 is simple and stable, and that's their selling point. There's no competition to the history and the proven stability rather than chasing shiny features.
I forget exactly what I did, but it was an FCC complaint. Here's what one of Comcast's executive customer relations officers sent me after the FCC complaint was processed (with parts removed):
I am writing in response to the FCC file received in our office on December 2, 2014 regarding your request for the disconnection of your Comcast Business Service. I apologize for the inconvenience and frustration this has caused.
I have forwarded your concerns to the Business Services Group and you should be contacted by a representative concerning this issue. If you have any further questions, please contact me at ----------, ext. ------- and I will be happy to forward any questions or concerns you have to the correct group. Thank you for your time.
Hm -- for some reason it 404s when accessed via HTTPS. The link in the original post is a straight HTTP link, but I guess you have something that's turning it into HTTPS instead. Anyway it works just fine when accessed via straight HTTP. Obviously the site regex.info should fix that though, 404ing on HTTPs is obviously not what it should be doing!
Edit: Oh right, you asked what the famous saying actually says. Since you're apparently not familiar with it, it's a joke of the following form:
> Some people, when confronted with a problem, think
"I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems.
Here, obviously, it's being applied to something other than regular expressions, but this sort of thing is what "now you have two problems" refers to.
The actual linked article is looking into the origins of this joke.
I wonder how many of these stories it would take before it starts affecting Google's bottom line. I've tinkered with GCP on small side projects, sure - but after exposure of these stories for over a decade in HN, I can never recommend GCP as a serious cloud alternative. I can't imagine I'm the only one in this boat.
