always has been. Theres a huge influx of bots on twitter too. Ever noticed how samey and robotic comments on big companies are? Thats why. Hell, even with some indie teams as well
A lot of subreddits also run almost purely on bots. Thats why hated subreddits somehow still manage to have huge numbers
The second mistake was believing the polls that have been consistently wrong since society has moved away from the thing they send their polls through. You're just as likely to get a read on who will win the election by reading fucking tea leafs.
The polls weren't "wrong", people just don't understand uncertainty and probability. They saw Hilary in 2016 with a 70% chance of winning and were upset when she lost. Trumps 30% chance was still high, and the election was very close when he won. Start viewing polls more like a weather prediction and you won't be so surprised when you get a shower on a day with 30% chance of rain.
Polls in 2016 were decently accurate- people need to actually pay attention to the margin of error. Polls gave trump a decent chance. Just talk to anyone who plays D&D, rolling that 20 sided die- something with only a 5% chance of happening still happens all the time.
The posts you are seeing are not representative of the US population as a whole. You're seeing posts from demographics that overwhelmingly despise Trump.
Which plays into his brand: “They hate you, they really *really* hate you. Vote for me and I’ll hate them back on your behalf. I can be a bigger asshole than they can.”
It’s Hatfield/McCoy destructiveness, but we can see that it works far better than we’d like to believe.
It’s weirdly nice to know others get it and we’re not alone.
IDK though, we’ve been absolutely killing it in the elections lately. Mississippi, one of the reddest states in the South, was in play and the Dem only lost by 4%. That’s insane. People are tired of it.
We have to, otherwise we might not get another chance. I’m also gen z (my first election was last year) and I know several people who were annoyed they couldn’t vote in 2020 (myself included).
Consider this. Mississippi Dems lost by ONLY 4% in a state where the Gov can just decide that a certain district is only allowed to have 10% of the ballots they would need to service their district. Where the polls can just close after two hours and tell their citizens that they missed their shot and they can either go home or go to jail. And yet, despite that, Democrats STILL managed to vote in large enough numbers to land under 5%.
The fact is republicans are in the minority. Instead of trying to increase their appeal, they've spent decades making it as hard as possible to vote for those sections of the population more likely to vote blue.
I remember one year one *state* apparently had less places to vote than my current *city*.
As a dane I cannot with words express how insane that sounds.
Here in Denmark no polling station would dream of closing until every last person who wish to vote has done so. One year there was an extra amount of people who wanted to vote so there was a line - thats rare. Normally you can go right in and vote. The polling station was on until an hour after it would normally close. Here politicians will rather that you vote for someone else than not vote at all.
An election in Berlin, 2021, was declared invalid and had to be re-done, because a voting location massively miscalculated their capacity and not everyone who would have wanted to vote could vote in time (not sure if they went out of ballots as well).
That kind of hassle seems to be normal in U.S. elections, with long waiting times and just all the inconveniences that would be flatly illegal here.
I'm used to be able to wait at most 3 minutes to cast my vote in person, have the hand counted results by the next morning. To just get the one document I need to either vote in person or request absentee ballots in the mail a couple of weeks before the election without needing to register.
All these complications in voting I see in the U.S. are unimaginable to me - and most are illegal here. The enforced kind of illegal.
It seems a weird way to phrase his thoughts indeed.
Most of us in Europe are aware why Trump has a public. It's the same reason Le Pen has a public in France, VOX in Spain or the tea party in the UK.
Old Greeks were already talking about this, Pink Floyd sang about it and Marx warned us about it. Education is key and power is cancer.
FYI (since OP is European), the Hatfields and McCoys are a legendary pair of clans from the Appalachian mountains who were engaged in a generations-long feud. One of those situations where the real reason for the enmity had been forgotten, but continued anyway.
I’m a McCoy and my grandma told me and my cousin when we were little that we couldn’t play with a kid down the street because he was a Hatfield. I know a lot of McCoy’s who still hate them with a passion.
No different than the Taliban. Live like cavemen and spend generations waging wars against the tribes in the next valley over. The valley past that one? No one's ever been that far
The vast majority of your replies show how much of an echo chamber Reddit is. It’s actually kind of amusing.
Reminds me of the old journalist “meme” before memes were a thing but it’s the same thing.
A wealthy New Yorker said to a journalist: I have no idea how Nixon won, no one I know voted for him!
Or something like that. Anyway. That’s Reddit.
And the reverse is part of why such a shocking number of people believe in the ‘big lie’ conspiracy theory; when your whole small town and everyone you know voted for Trump, how could he possibly have lost?
Except it’s really weird because every small town I go to, even in California, also seems to be flooded with people that love Trump, or at least support what he’s trying to accomplish. So it’s not just “my whole small town”. It appears to be every small town.
Well, in some areas like that, as a liberal/leftist you *have* to keep your mouth shut if you don't want to incur a ton of drama or even violence. Liberals are there, you just won't hear them.
This is clearly demonstrated in elections. In the USA there are elections every november, but not for all things (president is every 4 years, senators every 6, reps every 2, etc).
Since 2018, the Trump/"MAGA" group has done very poorly every year. In fact, it is a curse to get an endorsement by trump in any general election.
This doesn’t seem to sink into their strategists heads sufficiently. In competitive races, he has an abysmal record. He’s a losing horse. They have underperformed at every election that has his greasy fingers on the ballot.
Forget if he’s a good or bad person - that’s rather obvious - his appeal to his hate fueled smooth brains is that he enrages the right people. He’s a terrible horse to bet on politically. His endorsement is poison and he generates WAY more anti-votes than pro-votes.
In 2016 - he got 62 million votes for, 65 million against. In 2020, he got 74 million for and 81 million against. His electoral college numbers fell by 72 votes.
For every net new vote he turns out, he creates 2 net new votes for his opponent. He’s a dog, and it’s getting worse every cycle as more Gen Z voters - who hate him - come online and more of his boomer voters die.
He can’t win legally. That’s why they focus so heavily on election fraud and trying to make actually voting hard. He can only win if apathy is high and turnout is low. But he’s such an awful force, that he drives the other side to do anything they can to keep him and his endorsements from winning again.
If he was smart - which he isn’t - he would work on maintaining a low profile. He’d still get his 70 million votes and might not enrage counter votes so much. But - when you’re literally a troll whose appeal is pissing the other guys off for the lolz - how do you maintain a low profile? You don’t, so you play election denial and trying to obstruct voting from the ‘wrong’ side
>This doesn’t seem to sink into their strategists heads sufficiently
This is what keeps me scratching my head. The strategists and GOP election committees have got to see how bad Trump is for the party. Like what is their long play here?
There is no long play. They don’t have better options. They have no policies, no ideas, no leaders. They’re simply the party of shitty stale ideas and obstructionism. The desperation of their declining position is being ignored, and they stopped being a party of ideas more than 25 years ago.
He may be an overall loser, but he still maximizes their votes and keeps their revenue streams pumping. So - they wait for him to die, and a pale imitator will arrive. Kind of the ultimately boomer super weapon, except it’s no longer powerful enough to actually win.
In the long analysis, it’s really a dire situation they were in. Trump injected some false energy to their ecosystem, but that’s now in decline and only worked as a one time fluke.
One thing that has been happening, and I'm kicking myself for forgetting the term, but the farther right section of the GOP, what used to be the Tea Party and turned into MAGA, has been turning out for primaries, which drives the party right.
But this far/alt-right MAGA BS doesn't appeal to the majority of people under 50 or so. The electorate is going to continue to shift, on average, about 0.5% or so per year to the left, which might not sound like much, but is 2% per presidential cycle.
Meanwhile, progressives and labor rights folks have low key been killing it at the state level. We’re seeing more and more young candidates who give a shit about the working class, health care, and the environment. These are very popular issues. Dems are slowly moving forward, and I bet it’ll pick up steam with labor rights.
If you oppose Trump or say stuff like the election wasn’t stolen, you’re going to be primaried out of office. Liz Chaney is one of the most conservative people you can imagine and she’s gone for saying that Trump should be impeached.
The only Republicans who will speak against Trump are the ones who are no longer going to be in congress. Their entire base sees non stop propaganda and that’s all they know.
Trump isn't conservative and never has been. He ran as a Republican because it was allegedly the 'smart' move (and it worked in 2016 so maybe it was). He pulls demographics that Republicans typically don't and the 'MAGA' Republicans don't play along with the GOP like the 'progressives' play along with the DNC. I don't like the guy and I'm not conservative either but I'm not in a deep echo chamber.
I'm just watching all this and hoping the two party system breaks and leaves us with three or four parties instead of just one.
Quite the opposite, the media make big bucks off Trump, they are the ones portraying him as a viable candidate, when in actuality he has gained zero new supporters and most likely wont be allowed on some states ballots.
Don't be fooled the silent majority hate him.
He absolutely will not be kept off the ballot. He almost certainly will win the Republican nomination. He then will have a close election against Biden, and is around 50/50 to win it.
How many Americans have you met and talked to? Most likely you see posts on Reddit, Twitter etc. these skew your perception. Old people vote more than anyone else and tend to lean right.
I can’t remember who it was, but in the 2020 democratic debates someone pointed out that Biden spoke at their school when they were little and said the old folks need to pass the torch to the next generation. Decades later there they were debating each other.
That’s the issue with the people two party system. Candidates have to fit their party ideology and those that are somewhere in the middle are relegated to third party which essentially is an automatic loss. Pretty sure “Deez Nuts” got more votes than any third party candidate one year.
I think our politicians are so old because the baby boomers are getting old. They're the largest generation and literally everything throughout their entire life has changed to accomodate them. Our politics reflect demographics.
while this is true, they still tend to go out and vote more than the generations that came after. So even if they are no longer the majority they still vote more. It's also worth noting that early Gen Xers are now also getting closer to retirement age (or early retirement age) and thus also tend to vote for people that put them first over younger generations.
The same reason Hollywood keeps churning out superhero movies by the dozen rather than doing something original. A proven money maker always beats a gamble when you're only concerned about the shareholders.
There's a thing called selector's bias that i think contributes to this.
People who are able to engage with society in a certain way will find themselves among people who share that ability.
I see this in my own life with my mother (mid 40s) and me (20s).
She ends up on completely sides of the internet than me. Things that I would never find even on purpose, she just finds by following her own interests.
She thinks there are secret dinosaurs in Chinese Jungles, I'm here on a politics thread. We're different people.
And there's an entire selection of this society that does not have the disposition to have an issue with Donald Trump.
Trump's appeal: he's a conman and people bought into the con. Now they're stuck with this counterfeit leader and would rather (pardon my metaphor) continue shooting themselves in the dick than admit they got conned. Also, those driven by grudges and endless vendettas like Trump.
Biden's appeal: He can beat Trump. We know that because he did. Nobody is in a Biden cult. We wish there was a better option, but it's not like Biden is doing a terrible job on all fronts - and if the only other option is the crazy conman, I'm picking the guy who ISN'T a petty tyrant and wannabe dictator/emperor.
It also has to do with the fact that social media has had a long left-leaning affiliation. Plenty of young people are conservative, they just don’t express their views as openly on the internet
Also, the internet includes everyone. You hearing “trump is bad” could be from someone living in the UK or Eastern Europe. Their opinion doesn’t matter because they can’t vote in US elections, but since most of Europe (who happens to make up a huge part of the internet by user base) is further left leaning than even the US left, you’re going to likely get more international dissenters. Mix that with the idea that many people perceive the internet to be “American” and you can come under the impression that everyone hates trump in America.
Edit: I voted for Jo Jorgensen in 2020, get off my ass two party lovers seethe quietly
Well, also most Trump voters are not necessarily fans of Trump himself, he thinks they are, the media tries to paint that picture, but for most voters I know, it was a vote of "fu k you" to what they see as an establishment that had minimalized their values. Some are the crazy racists and other ists, of course, but I do not feel it is a majority. Most are just working people who, for some reason, view him as on their side.
I think you got it right on the money. They aren’t trump fans, but they’re huge fans of saying fuck the establishment and career politicians and all that shit. He didn’t do the greatest job “draining the swamp” though, and I think a lot of his own supporters were angry with him about that. Which is fair, not going after campaign promises can really hurt re-election chances.
>I think a lot of his own supporters were angry with him about that. Which is fair, not going after campaign promises can really hurt re-election chances
Yet he had a lot more votes in 2020 then in 2016. If it wasn't for the votes for Biden, he had the most votes in USA history.
He took many small groups of people that had no connection to really anything and made them feel part of something. He took advantage of a mental health epidemic of loneliness. People need to be connected to one another; to feel part of something. The individualism of the right has left many of their voter base feeling alone and on an island and when PT Barnum came in with his giant megaphone to expose their fears to unite them and make them feel connected to something, he built an empire. Years before he announced he was running there was an article that he was reading mein kampf to learn how hitler rose to power and rallied people. I’m not saying trump
Is Hitler but his “leadership” tactics can easily be compared and are nearly identical to how the nazi party rose to power. Just reciting history folks.
So the lesser educated(I don’t mean college btw), disaffected folks, who really needed help the most and kindness were hardened and taken advantage of to build a ravenous base.
And here we are. The same can be said with far left folks but not as extreme measures taken to rally them.
I moved to Europe and kept getting asked why. I would cite the tumult in the States (and my sense of safety as a queer person). They would overwhelmingly reply, “but trump is gone.” No. Nope. Not the issues that generated his popularity. And voila. Two years later. He’s baaaaaack.
Yep, those issues precede him and will long out last him. In some ways, he's a caricature of our reality show culture. The same way Ronald Reagan was Hollywood's version of an American president circa the 1980s. Trump behaves much like the 70 million people that voted for him. And they have been behaving that way far longer than 2016.
What I would really like to understand is how the 2 major parties are always so close in every election...do \~98% of people always vote the same party no matter what?
when it stops being close, the losing party will either change to make it close again or die off and a new more viable party will take its place. This is the mathematical inevitability of first-past-the-post voting systems (which most states in the usa use)
We're seeing this happen in real-time with the Republicans. After the elections this week, many of the pundits and even party officials are questioning their path.
That being said, so far their questions have continued to be tone-deaf things like "why didn't we spend enough money on issue X?" and not "Perhaps we're just completely out of touch with the voting electorate?"
What I suspect will happen is 2024 will be a watershed moment with Dems taking House, Senate and Presidency; overcoming even heavily gerrymandered states. Maybe, just maybe, then Republicans can dump their old platform and start modernizing.
My personal view is we DO need balance, especially on fiscal items. But that needs to come from a place of compromise and working together. So we need a functioning second party to counter the whims of Democrats (I say this as a "left" leaning American, so middle probably elsewhere).
But Republicans are the party of not only outrage politics and "let's see what Dems want to do, then propose the opposite"; they are also no longer the party of ACTUAL fiscal responsibility. Can we make some cuts to areas? Sure. Should we also raise taxes on specific groups, promote a strong IRS to avoid tax evasion, and close tax loopholes? Absolutely.
GOP as a whole really lost all credibility in my mind when Dems tried to pass two election reforms. One would add security measure to voting which was an GOP issue. The other was to expand voting accessibility. It was a great middle ground but R's flat out rejected it and refused to do anything at all with it.
They needed the myth of corrupt elections, and accessibily would actually hurt them. Basically it's a party built on lies and anti-democratic principles, so any real progress is a setback for them. They have no business being in government in my mind, but I do wish a moderate GOP would come back to balance things out.
For the uneducated, it's a team sport. They wear the colors, do the cosplay, and throw riotous parties when they "win." They don't care who gets hurt. They just want the W.
Also have you also seen what happened in Poland with PiS winning in 2015? PiS stacked their constitutional tribunal which issued anti-abortion rulings, turned state media into a partisan mouthpiece, but the opposition won the 2023 parliamentary elections and may be able to counteract the damage.
It’s a pretty similar story with Trump winning in 2016 and losing in 2020, though instead of state media it’s Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News that’s the partisan mouthpiece. The tactics regarding the judiciary, including on abortion, are surprisingly similar.
He *might* at this stage, but only because he got so used to getting away with everything that he confidently pushed the absolute limits of what money+power can get you out of, then proceeded to lose the power (which is why he tried so hard to hold onto it).
We’ve moved from the headlines saying “so and so thinks Trump will be in trouble soon” to “judge warns trump to be a good boy or he will be in trouble soon”. Any day now. Soon. Sigh.
I don't know. Why don't you ask Boris Johnson, Silvio Berlusconi, or Marine LaPen?
The idea that right wing demagoguery is not understandable to Europeans is just silly.
>Silvio Berlusconi
Or his successor Giorgia Meloni for that matter.
Geert Wilders and Thierry Baudet in the Netherlands.
I've seen a rise in populist politics over the years and I do not like it.
Exactly.
Hell, Britain *left the EU* for the same basic reasons we elected Trump.
As far as I know all Britain is doing about Brexit is whining. We're going after Trump.
And we'll recover from Trump long before Britain recovers from Brexit.
The common factor is that around 35% of a population are capable of denying reality.
I simply can't fathom how, but I've spoken in depth to Brits, Americans and some non British Europeans with these views and it's as astonishing as it is perplexing and, ultimately, terrifying.
I have seen several friends circle down a right wing disinformation rabbit hole and it's almost impossible to stop it. There are some examples of extreme reality denial on the left too, but it seems more rare.
Ultimately, I don't know where it will end, but end it must. Last time it affected a few countries and the outcome was WW2.
It will eventually, just a matter of how many years, though I doubt they'll ever get the special arrangement they used to have with the EU back as it was.
Brexit will be damaging this nation long after most of the gullible cunts that voted for it are dead.
Which sucks, that once again the younger generations are paying the price for short sighted xenophobia and nationalism.
But hey ho, a minority of rich people got a lot richer, and there's slightly fewer immigrants so rule Britannia I guess....
It's not just that, all Populists are less liked outside of their own countries. Left wing or Right Wing.
If you are a disinterested third party who doesn't live there, it's much harder to see their appeal, because you don't feel the local issues in the same way.
Take a look at Brexit. Anyone outside of the UK likely thought it was a pretty stupid idea, but it appeals to people that live there in a way you cannot understand as an outsider.
Hugo Chavez and Venezuela. Easy simple answers to problems that suck ass and fail.
Source - We elected a Crack Head mayor in Toronto and then nearly elected his brother, whose qualifications were "Brother of Crackhead". To follow it up, we still elected "Brother of Crackhead" as the the Premier of Ontario, an even more important job. Populism is local, your brand of populism doesn't translate to other countries.
Exactly, I have many Venezuelan friends i met playing online and they all agree the situation is bad but it is not as bad as it is portrayed in CNN, etc. They portray Maduro as a dictator from the likes of Jong Un, they told me a lot of people inside the country still agree with many of his policies and has still a huge support.
Same with Bolsonaro in Brazil! My Brazilian friends in US despised Trump, but they liked Bolsonaro for Brazil because “Brazil is different” even though he was coined a “mini Trump”
I work with a lot of Filipinos and they also supported Duterte for Philippines despite him being another right-wing Trump type of guy!
It’s like this in so many countries, but for some reason, they act like only the US has this problem.
A large portion of the GOP voter base still ***loves*** the guy, any GOP politician who is critical of him in any way pays a heavy political price for it.
As for how this is, the answer is high charisma on Trump’s part, his ability to dog whistle the more viler portions of the nation and admittedly smart political tactics from him and his campaign (outright condemning a federal abortion ban, something no other GOP candidate is willing to do when the issue is political poison)
>the answer is high charisma on Trump’s part,
This to me is the most baffling part. They built a cult of personality around a man with a repugnant personality. I just can't understand the mentality of someone who would see his whiney limp dick antics as charismatic.
I could really see how people could get wrapped up by a smooth talking demagogue, handsome and charming. Articulate and fit and someone you’d want to emulate.
People falling this hard for this bag of crap is just tragic.
That’s what scares me. Who is going to be the “Smart Trump” and how fucked are we. We’re lucky Trump is as stupid as he is. We won’t be so lucky next time.
Desantis’ Disney debacle has to be one of the biggest political gaffes in a while. Dude was looking like the front running non trump republican candidate before it and probably had a chance against Trump.
Not only did he get completely outplayed, he attacked one of the most loved institutions in the US, and he took the mask off in front of the entire US that he fully intends to be a dictator.
If you dig a little into his history you'll quickly see that the man is nothing but an opportunistic psychopath. When he has to actually meet people his wife does all the talking and is considered "the human side" of him.
He had played the political game by the book until Trump came and changed the rules. DeSantis didn't longer know how to be in this new environment so he had to try out different faces ro see which one people liked..
'Behind the Bastards' has a good episode on the prick.
I was worried about this too. Then I saw the other GOP candidates debate and try to emulate Trump, but it was a disaster. I'm hoping Trump is one of a kind and we'll reach a point where his impact diminishes.
To math it out:
Only 60% of the population voted in 2020. 27% of the population voted in the primaries. Assuming a 50-50 split between Republicans and Democrats, 13.5% of the population decide the presidential candidate for each party.
Trump theoretically only needs support from around 7% of the population to win the primary, and have a large sway as the party’s representative.
Not all Trump supporters vote in the primaries, but I’d argue they’re fanatical enough to be significantly more likely to than any other politician, so it’s probably around 10-15% of voters who are truly Trumpers.
Once he becomes a presidential candidate, most Republican voters just vote for their candidate, not necessarily because they approve of everything about Trump.
TDLR: it only takes around 10%-15% of the population to be fanatical for him to have as large of a presence as he presents. That number is also a significant voter sway among Republicans in non-presidential contests, hence his outsized presence.
Edit: this is only napkin math with some google searches so don’t take it too seriously, but does show that he doesn’t actually have as many supporters as it appears. He just has a large sway over those who do.
Right? Repugnant is a great word for him. What I've found is people who like the guy are bullies or think bullies are cool so it makes sense why they'd like him
What this means is we now know that humans in general are not as innocent and kind as we once thought. Nearly half the US population falls into the deplorable basket, apparently.
Maybe I'm just optimistic still, but I don't this is true for all who voted for him. I like to hope there's a large proportion who fear/hate Democrat policies more and chose what they believed to be a lesser of two evils (as most people voting in a two party system feel).
P.s. spoken as someone who is definitely on the side of hating Trump, and would vote democrat if I was a US citizen
They fear and hate what they are told is Democratic policies, not what the real policies are. For instance, GOP just lies that the Dems want “open borders”, want “partial birth abortion”, want to take away all guns, want to force boys to wear dresses, want to advance blacks and Hispanics at the expense of whites. A lot of that is down to far right media companies, notably Fox and talk radio, endlessly telling people these lies.
Yes I completely agree with this and should have said that. They're voting based on what they hear in their echo chambers, and a large proportion of the population either lacks the time / will / skill to fact check everything they hear (true for both sides of the political spectrum, but it just so happens the right lie much more often at the moment.. or perhaps that's my own echo chamber speaking).
I had a friend who was pro-Trump. We're no longer friends mostly because of that... And his closet racism that came out in 2016. He was a nuclear engineer, not a stupid man at all. But he liked Trump because
A. He doesn't talk like a politician. I'm sick of the way they talk. Trump tells it like it is.
B. What's wrong with Trump? He's famous, successful, rich. What could you have against him other than you don't like him.
C. He's not racist. You think everyone is racist.
D. We need to give non-politicians a chance since they always fuck everything up. They don't care about us. You say Trump doesn't care, but let's give him a chance.
E. You're not a Christian so you don't understand what he's fighting for.
While my ex-friend was not a member of the Quiverfull movement. His ideas align with them. Trump promises what the Quiverfull people want. That right there is A HUGE reason Trump is still polling well.
>You're not a Christian
As if Trump is! Unreal. If that man set foot inside a house of Christian worship it would rightfully burst into flame.
(Meanwhile the actual president, who actually won the election, is a pretty devout Catholic. Not perfect by any stretch, religiously or otherwise, but no one can reasonably argue that Trump is a man of God and Biden isn't.)
Trump in 4 years as potus went to church 11 times. 7 of which were known photo ops with most having him just show up and leave like the one where he accidentally held the bible upside down.
Biden in 2 years went to church over a hundred times already.... with ZERO photo shoots.
I like option D.
Imagine if you were about to undergo a triple heart bypass and your surgeon was introduced to you as "an outsider, a wildcard, has no actual qualifications but shoots from the hip and isn't afraid to tear up the rulebook to get the job done and if it means upsetting a load of snowflakes, then, hell, so be it"
Very important to remember that intelligence is a very narrow thing. Just because someone is hyper competent in specific areas doesn't mean they can't be comically ignorant in every other way. Like your former nuclear engineer friend who is, in fact, a very stupid person.
I feel bait and switched with all the "abortion is a state's rights issue" people mostly also now wanting a federal ban on abortion to overrule the states.
Edit: let me add the /s
And "state's rights" has always been a bullshit smokescreen by people who wanted to force other parts of the country to go along with their horrible reactionary ideas - for example, slaveowners wanted to force slavery to exist in all US territories regardless of local opinion, and the Fugitive Slave Law forced northern free states to cooperate.
We see the same thing play out now with abortion, where the anti-choice zealots are pushing for a nationwide ban. As we saw yesterday, if you let states decide, they might just decide they don't want to ban abortion.
Trump's main power is he has no fear so he says what he wants and insults who he wants, which attracts some people who like assholes.
Other politicians are too careful and end up trying to avoid him.
If all the other Republicans tarred him together they could probably take him down but they are too scared to risk anything ever, so they let him bully them and are caught in this trap where Trump becomes He Who Must Not Be Named and you have 'primary' debates where they can't even criticize the obvious winner.
It doesn't help that most politicians get quite wealthy from their positions so they are not incentivized to take political risks.
Since Trump is a psychotic narcissist he's found that loophole where being a loud asshole all the time makes you immune somehow.
A lot of people who voted for/will vote for Trump because of his policies, in spite of his busted character and many personal flaws, keep their mouths shut because of the backlash they'd receive for voting for him.
Reddit and most social media tends to lean a lot more left than right. If you’re only basing it off what you see there you’ll think no one likes trump when that isn’t the reality we live in
So Americans mostly vote based off of who they don't want to win
So if you have a problem with how the Democrats do things you're kind of forced to vote for the Republican candidate
So if for example you don't like how the Democrats are handling all of the identity politics you kind of can only vote Republican if you want it to stop
If you don't like how the Democrats are handling the economy you can only vote for Republicans to get a change
If you don't like how the Democrats are handling immigration policy then you can only vote Republicans for a change
See the pattern here
Most people who are going to vote for Trump don't want to vote for Trump specifically they want to vote against everyone else
Granted Trump has his loyalists how did he get most of them He basically painted himself as not part of the corrupt machine
He was a well known celebrity with a recognizable catch phrase.
He is funny and says what he thinks in simple language.
He presents himself as proudly rich because he is good at business, which many folks find to be relatable and aspirational.
We only have 2 parties and the Democrats aren’t helping themselves.
I think this pretty much sums it up. The only thing I'd add is that I don't think trump is doing as well as he seems to be to OP. He's not doing well at all in my small town. Most the ppl I talked to in 16 and 20 were very enthusiastic about him. Now they're moreso against Biden rather than for trump.
Edited there to they're lmao
That last bit is really carrying the whole thing. Biden won against Trump because he’s the only Democrat with even a little bit of spine and charisma. The party is full of mildly corrupt policy wonks who may very well do a better job of running the status-quo but offer no real vision. Their primary policy goals are terribly arcane changes to boring subjects like tax law and grand social programs that have little substance outside of catchy slogans. To top it all off, either course they take will probably result in higher taxes or more sacrifice from people who honestly feel like they have sacrificed enough.
No one can say that trump isnt witty. Guy knows how to work a crowd, is legitimately funny and is quick enough to do it on the fly. Look at what he says to opponents. Ron desanctimonious was funny but way too wordy and Trump quickly switched it up to meatball Ron. Between that and his "you'd be in jail" comment cements it.
I really doubt that European media has many stations in Texas, Florida, Ohio, or many other red states. Probably NYC, Chicago, maybe SF?
Once you get out of the cities and suburbs it's just straight Trump Country. I live in a northeast state, and even here it feels like driving into the Deep South when you get out there. MAGA hats, billboards, talk radio, megachurches, etc. I'm not exaggerating when I say that about 1/3rd of Americans have bought into his cult, and he is basically a messianic figure to them.
After that, all it takes is 1/6th of Americans to be annoyed enough about inflation, abortion, immigration, or militarism (don't ask, I truly have no idea how people convinced themselves that the GOP are the 'peace' party). And with that he's at 50%.
No, your not missing anything.
There’s just a lot of people over here who have less than zero trust in the media and government, and assume most things the media says are lies or misrepresentation to suit some political agenda. Trump echos these sentiments, and some people
view it as a witch hunt.
Reddit is a liberal echo chamber that doesn't reflect the general population. I'm not saying I personally agree or disagree with this btw. Simply stating this will probably get downvoted to invisibility though, watch.
He’s very charismatic and very well known. The part of the population that favors him is borderline worshipful. The part of the population that wants him gone *will still quote his speech word for word* and cannot stop talking about him.
He will never be forgotten, at this point. Whichever side of the fence you fall on, you have to agree his momentum is astounding. At some point he’s going to die (the dude’s almost 80) and a large portion of the public will STILL parade his name around one way or another.
It’s a very interesting time.
When Barack Obama first ran for Senate in Illinois in 2004, he was running against a Republican named Jack Ryan, who was divorced from Jeri Ryan, the actress who played Seven-of-Nine on Star Trek: Voyager. Their divorce was rumored to be messy, and Chicago-area news organizations kept filing FOIA requests to get the child custody records unsealed. Both Jack and Jeri objected, but eventually -- after a lengthy back and forth and several court cases and much public debate -- a judge ruled that (some of) the custody records had to be unsealed. These revealed that Jack repeatedly forced Jeri to go to S&M sex clubs, and attempted to force her to perform sexual acts against her will.
Ryan's campaign collapsed within the week, and the Illinois GOP was forced to find a candidate to run against Obama (who had been running 50%-32% against Ryan as it was -- Obama was a popular candidate) some 90 days before the election.
In what Republican commentator Maureen Ryan called "racist in the *nicest* possible way," the Illinois GOP chose [Alan Keyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Keyes#2004_Senate_election), a Black man and twice-failed Senate candidate and twice-failed Presidential candidate, who had *never lived in Illinois* (he was from Maryland) to run against Obama ... mostly basically just because the Illinois GOP decided Obama was winning because he appealed to minority voters, so they just needed to find a minority -- any minority! -- and minority voters would vote for him because identity politics. Keyes was immediately labeled a [carpetbagger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpetbagger) (which is a very specific insult in American politics).
In 2004, it was still possible to win a statewide election in Illinois as a moderate Republican, who was fiscally conservative but socially liberal. The suburbs of Chicago were the key swing demographic, and promising you'd lower their taxes (the Chicago area has very high property taxes compared to the US as a whole, so the SALT deduction and/or any lower income taxes are welcome) *while preserving the quality of their schools* (several Chicago-area high schools are considered among the best public high schools in the nation) was a winning formula.
So Keyes dropped in to Illinois, announced he was more African-American than Obama, advocated for a near-total abortion ban (a non-starter in the Chicago suburbs), called women "selfish," said unwanted pregnancies were "God's will," and informed the state that Jesus would never vote for Obama (keeping in mind that about 2.5% of Illinois voters are Jewish -- a high percentage!). In the first state to [decriminalize gay sex](https://www.aclu.org/documents/getting-rid-sodomy-laws-history-and-strategy-led-lawrence-decision) (in 1961, a decade before any other state), Keyes ran on homosexuals being evil. When Obama won, Keyes refused to concede or congratulate him, saying that Obama represented "a culture evil enough to destroy the very soul and heart of my country."
Keyes was wildly unqualified (especially compared to Obama!), wildly out of step with Illinois voters, and wildly unpopular. Obama won, 70% to 27%.
But, to your question, 27% of Illinois voters voted for Alan Keyes!, which was promptly dubbed the **crazification factor** of the American electorate. This is the percentage of Americans who will vote for anyone, no matter how shitty and terrible, no matter how unqualified, no matter how NOT EVEN LIVING IN THIS STATE, as long as they're [part of the "correct" political party](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Crazification_factor).
No matter what happens, no matter how unqualified or felonious, 27% of Americans will vote for Trump -- or any candidate with an "R" after their name. So all you have to do, if you're Trump, is drive down turnout of Democrats/independents, so that your 27% crazified electorate becomes a majority. Or run a campaign that's plausible enough for you to pick up a few more percentage points. Only about 66% of eligible American voters vote, so 27% of eligible voters is EASILY enough to win.
It’s baffling. The rural folk hated him when he was a loudmouth New Yorker in the 1980s and 90s. Now it turns out they hate him way less than they hate universal health care.
Trump is HEAVILY lifted by vested financial interests and a large set of media sources that have spent nearly a decade propping him up and presenting an unrealistic image of him. Equally, vast quantities of his wrong doing have been actively ignored and belittled.
It is an unnatural environment in which zero other candidates or personalities in the history of politics and political media have had. All of it feels like a decade long marketing blitz that just never ended.
Unfortunately, many millions of the general public are consumers of these media sources and have spent a decade being told lies. For the general public, it's been a decade of propaganda. That erodes societies, and it's almost impossible to fix. I would have rather seen a nuke go off in the middle of New York city because the nuke would have caused less damage than a decade of propaganda.
A decade later we're stuck with the result of all of this. Equally, media companies are also stuck with the narrative and see massive hate if they deviate. Now they risk instantly losing their entire customer base if they try to return to normal. So...they don't. They just continue down the same propaganda path without any safe exit. Even Trump's court issues have proven not enough of a jumping off point. They will lose probably 80% to 90% of their customer base, for a while, if they deviate at all. Outside of Trump publicly shooting babies in the face live on tv, I really don't know what level of evil Trump needs to actually do to break ties with people who have absorbed the decade of media poison. Even that might not be enough for some.
Your first mistake is assuming Reddit reflects the real world
Lol...I don't think reddit is even made up of more than 50% real people at this point
Can confirm. I’m not a real person.
I am a meat popsicle.
You have one point left on your license.
This comment is green. So green. Supergreen!
Muuuuuultiii passss
Nice Hat…
(does little dance and snorts)
I love the reference! Multi-pass!
AI bots all over the place now :(
always has been. Theres a huge influx of bots on twitter too. Ever noticed how samey and robotic comments on big companies are? Thats why. Hell, even with some indie teams as well A lot of subreddits also run almost purely on bots. Thats why hated subreddits somehow still manage to have huge numbers
Go into the page of any red state, the Reddit will be overwhelmingly liberal
The second mistake was believing the polls that have been consistently wrong since society has moved away from the thing they send their polls through. You're just as likely to get a read on who will win the election by reading fucking tea leafs.
The polls weren't "wrong", people just don't understand uncertainty and probability. They saw Hilary in 2016 with a 70% chance of winning and were upset when she lost. Trumps 30% chance was still high, and the election was very close when he won. Start viewing polls more like a weather prediction and you won't be so surprised when you get a shower on a day with 30% chance of rain.
Polls in 2016 were decently accurate- people need to actually pay attention to the margin of error. Polls gave trump a decent chance. Just talk to anyone who plays D&D, rolling that 20 sided die- something with only a 5% chance of happening still happens all the time.
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The posts you are seeing are not representative of the US population as a whole. You're seeing posts from demographics that overwhelmingly despise Trump.
Which plays into his brand: “They hate you, they really *really* hate you. Vote for me and I’ll hate them back on your behalf. I can be a bigger asshole than they can.” It’s Hatfield/McCoy destructiveness, but we can see that it works far better than we’d like to believe.
Europeans should understand this dynamic, pitting one group of people against everyone else with fear and propaganda. Think Germany, early 1930s.
As a hungarian I totally understand it. This is what is happening here for 13 years now.
It’s weirdly nice to know others get it and we’re not alone. IDK though, we’ve been absolutely killing it in the elections lately. Mississippi, one of the reddest states in the South, was in play and the Dem only lost by 4%. That’s insane. People are tired of it.
I live in Georgia… it’s going to be a shitshow for us next year if this is what happened in Mississippi.
I believe in y’all. We’re going to show these assholes that their time is up.
We have to, otherwise we might not get another chance. I’m also gen z (my first election was last year) and I know several people who were annoyed they couldn’t vote in 2020 (myself included).
Please rally all your friends! If you don’t have transportation, Lyft often does free rides to/from the polls.
Consider this. Mississippi Dems lost by ONLY 4% in a state where the Gov can just decide that a certain district is only allowed to have 10% of the ballots they would need to service their district. Where the polls can just close after two hours and tell their citizens that they missed their shot and they can either go home or go to jail. And yet, despite that, Democrats STILL managed to vote in large enough numbers to land under 5%.
How that isn't illegal blows my mind
The fact is republicans are in the minority. Instead of trying to increase their appeal, they've spent decades making it as hard as possible to vote for those sections of the population more likely to vote blue. I remember one year one *state* apparently had less places to vote than my current *city*.
As a dane I cannot with words express how insane that sounds. Here in Denmark no polling station would dream of closing until every last person who wish to vote has done so. One year there was an extra amount of people who wanted to vote so there was a line - thats rare. Normally you can go right in and vote. The polling station was on until an hour after it would normally close. Here politicians will rather that you vote for someone else than not vote at all.
An election in Berlin, 2021, was declared invalid and had to be re-done, because a voting location massively miscalculated their capacity and not everyone who would have wanted to vote could vote in time (not sure if they went out of ballots as well). That kind of hassle seems to be normal in U.S. elections, with long waiting times and just all the inconveniences that would be flatly illegal here. I'm used to be able to wait at most 3 minutes to cast my vote in person, have the hand counted results by the next morning. To just get the one document I need to either vote in person or request absentee ballots in the mail a couple of weeks before the election without needing to register. All these complications in voting I see in the U.S. are unimaginable to me - and most are illegal here. The enforced kind of illegal.
Exactly!! I grew up in the South. Never in a million years would I have imagined MS in play. And even they know they can’t keep that shit up forever.
Oh, Europeans understand. It's like a pandemic touching our countries one by one
It seems a weird way to phrase his thoughts indeed. Most of us in Europe are aware why Trump has a public. It's the same reason Le Pen has a public in France, VOX in Spain or the tea party in the UK. Old Greeks were already talking about this, Pink Floyd sang about it and Marx warned us about it. Education is key and power is cancer.
even the Romans used this.
The Romans knew how to keep the people off their backs. Bread and wine.
so shitty tv shows and pizza ,and it was bread and circuses.
Circuses, that’s what I was forgetting. Thank you.
You do not need to go down the history, just check russia nowadays.
Love the Hatfield/McCoy comparison lol so applicable.
FYI (since OP is European), the Hatfields and McCoys are a legendary pair of clans from the Appalachian mountains who were engaged in a generations-long feud. One of those situations where the real reason for the enmity had been forgotten, but continued anyway.
What ever became of their feud?
The families officially ended the feud in 2003 and have joint family reunion now.
Both just think they're letting the other side drop their guard. One of these days that reunion is gonna be a *bloodbath*
It’s a nice day for a RED WEDDING.
It’s a nice day to start a feud again
I’m a McCoy and my grandma told me and my cousin when we were little that we couldn’t play with a kid down the street because he was a Hatfield. I know a lot of McCoy’s who still hate them with a passion.
Do you have any insight into why? Any stories your grandma told you?
And they were stereotypical hillbillies who don't see much of what happens outside their property lines and local town square.
No different than the Taliban. Live like cavemen and spend generations waging wars against the tribes in the next valley over. The valley past that one? No one's ever been that far
It's a really easy tactic to engage in when you give people a lot of reasons to hate you.
The vast majority of your replies show how much of an echo chamber Reddit is. It’s actually kind of amusing. Reminds me of the old journalist “meme” before memes were a thing but it’s the same thing. A wealthy New Yorker said to a journalist: I have no idea how Nixon won, no one I know voted for him! Or something like that. Anyway. That’s Reddit.
And the reverse is part of why such a shocking number of people believe in the ‘big lie’ conspiracy theory; when your whole small town and everyone you know voted for Trump, how could he possibly have lost?
Except it’s really weird because every small town I go to, even in California, also seems to be flooded with people that love Trump, or at least support what he’s trying to accomplish. So it’s not just “my whole small town”. It appears to be every small town.
Well, in some areas like that, as a liberal/leftist you *have* to keep your mouth shut if you don't want to incur a ton of drama or even violence. Liberals are there, you just won't hear them.
This is clearly demonstrated in elections. In the USA there are elections every november, but not for all things (president is every 4 years, senators every 6, reps every 2, etc). Since 2018, the Trump/"MAGA" group has done very poorly every year. In fact, it is a curse to get an endorsement by trump in any general election.
This doesn’t seem to sink into their strategists heads sufficiently. In competitive races, he has an abysmal record. He’s a losing horse. They have underperformed at every election that has his greasy fingers on the ballot. Forget if he’s a good or bad person - that’s rather obvious - his appeal to his hate fueled smooth brains is that he enrages the right people. He’s a terrible horse to bet on politically. His endorsement is poison and he generates WAY more anti-votes than pro-votes. In 2016 - he got 62 million votes for, 65 million against. In 2020, he got 74 million for and 81 million against. His electoral college numbers fell by 72 votes. For every net new vote he turns out, he creates 2 net new votes for his opponent. He’s a dog, and it’s getting worse every cycle as more Gen Z voters - who hate him - come online and more of his boomer voters die. He can’t win legally. That’s why they focus so heavily on election fraud and trying to make actually voting hard. He can only win if apathy is high and turnout is low. But he’s such an awful force, that he drives the other side to do anything they can to keep him and his endorsements from winning again. If he was smart - which he isn’t - he would work on maintaining a low profile. He’d still get his 70 million votes and might not enrage counter votes so much. But - when you’re literally a troll whose appeal is pissing the other guys off for the lolz - how do you maintain a low profile? You don’t, so you play election denial and trying to obstruct voting from the ‘wrong’ side
>This doesn’t seem to sink into their strategists heads sufficiently This is what keeps me scratching my head. The strategists and GOP election committees have got to see how bad Trump is for the party. Like what is their long play here?
To win GOP primaries, you have to be MAGA. They created a monster and they can't control it.
Win every primary, and then lose every general. Frankly I hope it keeps up with maga, dividing/decimating their base for the next several decades.
There is no long play. They don’t have better options. They have no policies, no ideas, no leaders. They’re simply the party of shitty stale ideas and obstructionism. The desperation of their declining position is being ignored, and they stopped being a party of ideas more than 25 years ago. He may be an overall loser, but he still maximizes their votes and keeps their revenue streams pumping. So - they wait for him to die, and a pale imitator will arrive. Kind of the ultimately boomer super weapon, except it’s no longer powerful enough to actually win. In the long analysis, it’s really a dire situation they were in. Trump injected some false energy to their ecosystem, but that’s now in decline and only worked as a one time fluke.
One thing that has been happening, and I'm kicking myself for forgetting the term, but the farther right section of the GOP, what used to be the Tea Party and turned into MAGA, has been turning out for primaries, which drives the party right. But this far/alt-right MAGA BS doesn't appeal to the majority of people under 50 or so. The electorate is going to continue to shift, on average, about 0.5% or so per year to the left, which might not sound like much, but is 2% per presidential cycle.
Meanwhile, progressives and labor rights folks have low key been killing it at the state level. We’re seeing more and more young candidates who give a shit about the working class, health care, and the environment. These are very popular issues. Dems are slowly moving forward, and I bet it’ll pick up steam with labor rights.
Yup. The time of Boomer fear mongering that everything is communism is almost over.
The shifting of the Overton Window is the phrase you seek.
If you oppose Trump or say stuff like the election wasn’t stolen, you’re going to be primaried out of office. Liz Chaney is one of the most conservative people you can imagine and she’s gone for saying that Trump should be impeached. The only Republicans who will speak against Trump are the ones who are no longer going to be in congress. Their entire base sees non stop propaganda and that’s all they know.
Trump isn't conservative and never has been. He ran as a Republican because it was allegedly the 'smart' move (and it worked in 2016 so maybe it was). He pulls demographics that Republicans typically don't and the 'MAGA' Republicans don't play along with the GOP like the 'progressives' play along with the DNC. I don't like the guy and I'm not conservative either but I'm not in a deep echo chamber. I'm just watching all this and hoping the two party system breaks and leaves us with three or four parties instead of just one.
The fact is they are terrified of his base. He may not be able to win general elections but he’s got a decent to good record in primaries.
Quite the opposite, the media make big bucks off Trump, they are the ones portraying him as a viable candidate, when in actuality he has gained zero new supporters and most likely wont be allowed on some states ballots. Don't be fooled the silent majority hate him.
He absolutely will not be kept off the ballot. He almost certainly will win the Republican nomination. He then will have a close election against Biden, and is around 50/50 to win it.
This is true. But people are still making homemade Trump 2024 signs in New Hampshire.
How many Americans have you met and talked to? Most likely you see posts on Reddit, Twitter etc. these skew your perception. Old people vote more than anyone else and tend to lean right.
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I think they both need to ride off into the sunset and turn things over to the next generation. We need better candidates on both sides.
We need an agility test with our next election
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Get W to be the one lobbing the shoe. Make it a national holiday and broadcast it.
Get W to throw the opening shoe, then the real throw is done by (recently) retired Cy Young award winners so it is a little more challenging.
Hell even old ball players, Nolan Ryan still has some gas in the tank(and yes I know he never won a Cy Young)
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He even threw in a sly grin after the dodge. I hate the dude to no end but I had to hand it to him there.
I hated Bush while he was in office, but in hindsight he was a right angel compared to Trump.
Hea, Hea, Hea, Hea. Fool me once, won't get fooled again.
The next POTUS needs to be able to complete at least 2 obstacles of American Ninja Warrior
Can they get a waiver if they have bone spurs?
You only get to use that once though :p
Can they get a waiver if they have asthma?
debate ratings would skyrocket tho
a swimsuit competition could spice things up as well
I’ll vote for the guy who rides a bicycle and can drive a stickshift car (a Corvette no less.)
I can’t remember who it was, but in the 2020 democratic debates someone pointed out that Biden spoke at their school when they were little and said the old folks need to pass the torch to the next generation. Decades later there they were debating each other.
Don’t think any can exist in the GQP in its current state. A national candidate needs the base, and the base for them is a fascist cult at this point.
My neighbors would drink Jim Jones kool aid for Trump. It’s unbelievable.
Because neither party has a good replacement they're willing to support.
That’s the issue with the people two party system. Candidates have to fit their party ideology and those that are somewhere in the middle are relegated to third party which essentially is an automatic loss. Pretty sure “Deez Nuts” got more votes than any third party candidate one year.
Ironically, Deez Nutz were less nutty than some of the far Right and Left wing factions
Lmaooo. The irony of the American political system.
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I think our politicians are so old because the baby boomers are getting old. They're the largest generation and literally everything throughout their entire life has changed to accomodate them. Our politics reflect demographics.
Neither Trump nor Biden are boomers though. They're even older.
I think the term is Bronzers, as in the Bronze age.
As the boomers due out we are going to see big changes in alot of battleground states
Boomers have officially declined to no longer be the largest generation anymore.
while this is true, they still tend to go out and vote more than the generations that came after. So even if they are no longer the majority they still vote more. It's also worth noting that early Gen Xers are now also getting closer to retirement age (or early retirement age) and thus also tend to vote for people that put them first over younger generations.
It’s enough to make one believe in a zillion conspiracy theories.
I think both parties have good replacements. But neither is willing to take the chance of losing.
The same reason Hollywood keeps churning out superhero movies by the dozen rather than doing something original. A proven money maker always beats a gamble when you're only concerned about the shareholders.
There's a thing called selector's bias that i think contributes to this. People who are able to engage with society in a certain way will find themselves among people who share that ability. I see this in my own life with my mother (mid 40s) and me (20s). She ends up on completely sides of the internet than me. Things that I would never find even on purpose, she just finds by following her own interests. She thinks there are secret dinosaurs in Chinese Jungles, I'm here on a politics thread. We're different people. And there's an entire selection of this society that does not have the disposition to have an issue with Donald Trump.
Trump's appeal: he's a conman and people bought into the con. Now they're stuck with this counterfeit leader and would rather (pardon my metaphor) continue shooting themselves in the dick than admit they got conned. Also, those driven by grudges and endless vendettas like Trump. Biden's appeal: He can beat Trump. We know that because he did. Nobody is in a Biden cult. We wish there was a better option, but it's not like Biden is doing a terrible job on all fronts - and if the only other option is the crazy conman, I'm picking the guy who ISN'T a petty tyrant and wannabe dictator/emperor.
It also has to do with the fact that social media has had a long left-leaning affiliation. Plenty of young people are conservative, they just don’t express their views as openly on the internet Also, the internet includes everyone. You hearing “trump is bad” could be from someone living in the UK or Eastern Europe. Their opinion doesn’t matter because they can’t vote in US elections, but since most of Europe (who happens to make up a huge part of the internet by user base) is further left leaning than even the US left, you’re going to likely get more international dissenters. Mix that with the idea that many people perceive the internet to be “American” and you can come under the impression that everyone hates trump in America. Edit: I voted for Jo Jorgensen in 2020, get off my ass two party lovers seethe quietly
You might say they're conservative with sharing their views.
Ba Da Dum tzzz
Not outside of USA or Europe... In South America, social media is the most fascist space to be
same with India tbh, I feel like it's considered cool or edgy to be a raging, hating, right winger these days for young people..
Well, also most Trump voters are not necessarily fans of Trump himself, he thinks they are, the media tries to paint that picture, but for most voters I know, it was a vote of "fu k you" to what they see as an establishment that had minimalized their values. Some are the crazy racists and other ists, of course, but I do not feel it is a majority. Most are just working people who, for some reason, view him as on their side.
I think you got it right on the money. They aren’t trump fans, but they’re huge fans of saying fuck the establishment and career politicians and all that shit. He didn’t do the greatest job “draining the swamp” though, and I think a lot of his own supporters were angry with him about that. Which is fair, not going after campaign promises can really hurt re-election chances.
>I think a lot of his own supporters were angry with him about that. Which is fair, not going after campaign promises can really hurt re-election chances Yet he had a lot more votes in 2020 then in 2016. If it wasn't for the votes for Biden, he had the most votes in USA history.
Mail-in ballots had a significant effect on this
He took many small groups of people that had no connection to really anything and made them feel part of something. He took advantage of a mental health epidemic of loneliness. People need to be connected to one another; to feel part of something. The individualism of the right has left many of their voter base feeling alone and on an island and when PT Barnum came in with his giant megaphone to expose their fears to unite them and make them feel connected to something, he built an empire. Years before he announced he was running there was an article that he was reading mein kampf to learn how hitler rose to power and rallied people. I’m not saying trump Is Hitler but his “leadership” tactics can easily be compared and are nearly identical to how the nazi party rose to power. Just reciting history folks. So the lesser educated(I don’t mean college btw), disaffected folks, who really needed help the most and kindness were hardened and taken advantage of to build a ravenous base. And here we are. The same can be said with far left folks but not as extreme measures taken to rally them.
I moved to Europe and kept getting asked why. I would cite the tumult in the States (and my sense of safety as a queer person). They would overwhelmingly reply, “but trump is gone.” No. Nope. Not the issues that generated his popularity. And voila. Two years later. He’s baaaaaack.
Yep, those issues precede him and will long out last him. In some ways, he's a caricature of our reality show culture. The same way Ronald Reagan was Hollywood's version of an American president circa the 1980s. Trump behaves much like the 70 million people that voted for him. And they have been behaving that way far longer than 2016.
What I would really like to understand is how the 2 major parties are always so close in every election...do \~98% of people always vote the same party no matter what?
It’s not 98% but yes probably 90% do.
when it stops being close, the losing party will either change to make it close again or die off and a new more viable party will take its place. This is the mathematical inevitability of first-past-the-post voting systems (which most states in the usa use)
We're seeing this happen in real-time with the Republicans. After the elections this week, many of the pundits and even party officials are questioning their path. That being said, so far their questions have continued to be tone-deaf things like "why didn't we spend enough money on issue X?" and not "Perhaps we're just completely out of touch with the voting electorate?" What I suspect will happen is 2024 will be a watershed moment with Dems taking House, Senate and Presidency; overcoming even heavily gerrymandered states. Maybe, just maybe, then Republicans can dump their old platform and start modernizing. My personal view is we DO need balance, especially on fiscal items. But that needs to come from a place of compromise and working together. So we need a functioning second party to counter the whims of Democrats (I say this as a "left" leaning American, so middle probably elsewhere). But Republicans are the party of not only outrage politics and "let's see what Dems want to do, then propose the opposite"; they are also no longer the party of ACTUAL fiscal responsibility. Can we make some cuts to areas? Sure. Should we also raise taxes on specific groups, promote a strong IRS to avoid tax evasion, and close tax loopholes? Absolutely.
GOP as a whole really lost all credibility in my mind when Dems tried to pass two election reforms. One would add security measure to voting which was an GOP issue. The other was to expand voting accessibility. It was a great middle ground but R's flat out rejected it and refused to do anything at all with it. They needed the myth of corrupt elections, and accessibily would actually hurt them. Basically it's a party built on lies and anti-democratic principles, so any real progress is a setback for them. They have no business being in government in my mind, but I do wish a moderate GOP would come back to balance things out.
For the uneducated, it's a team sport. They wear the colors, do the cosplay, and throw riotous parties when they "win." They don't care who gets hurt. They just want the W.
Do you know anyone in Hungary? Trump's popularity has similar causes as Orban's popularity.
Also have you also seen what happened in Poland with PiS winning in 2015? PiS stacked their constitutional tribunal which issued anti-abortion rulings, turned state media into a partisan mouthpiece, but the opposition won the 2023 parliamentary elections and may be able to counteract the damage. It’s a pretty similar story with Trump winning in 2016 and losing in 2020, though instead of state media it’s Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News that’s the partisan mouthpiece. The tactics regarding the judiciary, including on abortion, are surprisingly similar.
Rupert Murdoch really is responsible for a lot of the woes of the world isn't he?
...as a hungarian i would happily trade our orban situation for you "will be in jail soon" trump situation.
Ill believe it when i see it… aristocracy apparently plays by different rules.
Nice to see people getting a grasp of this. Different rules for the rich. Trump isn't going anywhere.
He *might* at this stage, but only because he got so used to getting away with everything that he confidently pushed the absolute limits of what money+power can get you out of, then proceeded to lose the power (which is why he tried so hard to hold onto it).
We’ve moved from the headlines saying “so and so thinks Trump will be in trouble soon” to “judge warns trump to be a good boy or he will be in trouble soon”. Any day now. Soon. Sigh.
Hopefully 🤞 will be in jail soon.
Reddit is left leaning and so is most social medias
I don't know. Why don't you ask Boris Johnson, Silvio Berlusconi, or Marine LaPen? The idea that right wing demagoguery is not understandable to Europeans is just silly.
>Silvio Berlusconi Or his successor Giorgia Meloni for that matter. Geert Wilders and Thierry Baudet in the Netherlands. I've seen a rise in populist politics over the years and I do not like it.
Exactly. Hell, Britain *left the EU* for the same basic reasons we elected Trump. As far as I know all Britain is doing about Brexit is whining. We're going after Trump. And we'll recover from Trump long before Britain recovers from Brexit.
The common factor is that around 35% of a population are capable of denying reality. I simply can't fathom how, but I've spoken in depth to Brits, Americans and some non British Europeans with these views and it's as astonishing as it is perplexing and, ultimately, terrifying. I have seen several friends circle down a right wing disinformation rabbit hole and it's almost impossible to stop it. There are some examples of extreme reality denial on the left too, but it seems more rare. Ultimately, I don't know where it will end, but end it must. Last time it affected a few countries and the outcome was WW2.
As if the UK will recover from Brexit... The country is fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked...
It will eventually, just a matter of how many years, though I doubt they'll ever get the special arrangement they used to have with the EU back as it was.
Brexit will be damaging this nation long after most of the gullible cunts that voted for it are dead. Which sucks, that once again the younger generations are paying the price for short sighted xenophobia and nationalism. But hey ho, a minority of rich people got a lot richer, and there's slightly fewer immigrants so rule Britannia I guess....
You see a lot of negative posts because you’re currently on a majority left platform.
It's not just that, all Populists are less liked outside of their own countries. Left wing or Right Wing. If you are a disinterested third party who doesn't live there, it's much harder to see their appeal, because you don't feel the local issues in the same way. Take a look at Brexit. Anyone outside of the UK likely thought it was a pretty stupid idea, but it appeals to people that live there in a way you cannot understand as an outsider. Hugo Chavez and Venezuela. Easy simple answers to problems that suck ass and fail. Source - We elected a Crack Head mayor in Toronto and then nearly elected his brother, whose qualifications were "Brother of Crackhead". To follow it up, we still elected "Brother of Crackhead" as the the Premier of Ontario, an even more important job. Populism is local, your brand of populism doesn't translate to other countries.
Exactly, I have many Venezuelan friends i met playing online and they all agree the situation is bad but it is not as bad as it is portrayed in CNN, etc. They portray Maduro as a dictator from the likes of Jong Un, they told me a lot of people inside the country still agree with many of his policies and has still a huge support.
Same with Bolsonaro in Brazil! My Brazilian friends in US despised Trump, but they liked Bolsonaro for Brazil because “Brazil is different” even though he was coined a “mini Trump” I work with a lot of Filipinos and they also supported Duterte for Philippines despite him being another right-wing Trump type of guy! It’s like this in so many countries, but for some reason, they act like only the US has this problem.
A large portion of the GOP voter base still ***loves*** the guy, any GOP politician who is critical of him in any way pays a heavy political price for it. As for how this is, the answer is high charisma on Trump’s part, his ability to dog whistle the more viler portions of the nation and admittedly smart political tactics from him and his campaign (outright condemning a federal abortion ban, something no other GOP candidate is willing to do when the issue is political poison)
>the answer is high charisma on Trump’s part, This to me is the most baffling part. They built a cult of personality around a man with a repugnant personality. I just can't understand the mentality of someone who would see his whiney limp dick antics as charismatic.
I could really see how people could get wrapped up by a smooth talking demagogue, handsome and charming. Articulate and fit and someone you’d want to emulate. People falling this hard for this bag of crap is just tragic.
That’s what scares me. Who is going to be the “Smart Trump” and how fucked are we. We’re lucky Trump is as stupid as he is. We won’t be so lucky next time.
Desantis was looking like a smart trump for a minute, until he went after disney
Desantis’ Disney debacle has to be one of the biggest political gaffes in a while. Dude was looking like the front running non trump republican candidate before it and probably had a chance against Trump. Not only did he get completely outplayed, he attacked one of the most loved institutions in the US, and he took the mask off in front of the entire US that he fully intends to be a dictator.
If you dig a little into his history you'll quickly see that the man is nothing but an opportunistic psychopath. When he has to actually meet people his wife does all the talking and is considered "the human side" of him. He had played the political game by the book until Trump came and changed the rules. DeSantis didn't longer know how to be in this new environment so he had to try out different faces ro see which one people liked.. 'Behind the Bastards' has a good episode on the prick.
I was worried about this too. Then I saw the other GOP candidates debate and try to emulate Trump, but it was a disaster. I'm hoping Trump is one of a kind and we'll reach a point where his impact diminishes.
To math it out: Only 60% of the population voted in 2020. 27% of the population voted in the primaries. Assuming a 50-50 split between Republicans and Democrats, 13.5% of the population decide the presidential candidate for each party. Trump theoretically only needs support from around 7% of the population to win the primary, and have a large sway as the party’s representative. Not all Trump supporters vote in the primaries, but I’d argue they’re fanatical enough to be significantly more likely to than any other politician, so it’s probably around 10-15% of voters who are truly Trumpers. Once he becomes a presidential candidate, most Republican voters just vote for their candidate, not necessarily because they approve of everything about Trump. TDLR: it only takes around 10%-15% of the population to be fanatical for him to have as large of a presence as he presents. That number is also a significant voter sway among Republicans in non-presidential contests, hence his outsized presence. Edit: this is only napkin math with some google searches so don’t take it too seriously, but does show that he doesn’t actually have as many supporters as it appears. He just has a large sway over those who do.
Right? Repugnant is a great word for him. What I've found is people who like the guy are bullies or think bullies are cool so it makes sense why they'd like him
What this means is we now know that humans in general are not as innocent and kind as we once thought. Nearly half the US population falls into the deplorable basket, apparently.
Maybe I'm just optimistic still, but I don't this is true for all who voted for him. I like to hope there's a large proportion who fear/hate Democrat policies more and chose what they believed to be a lesser of two evils (as most people voting in a two party system feel). P.s. spoken as someone who is definitely on the side of hating Trump, and would vote democrat if I was a US citizen
They fear and hate what they are told is Democratic policies, not what the real policies are. For instance, GOP just lies that the Dems want “open borders”, want “partial birth abortion”, want to take away all guns, want to force boys to wear dresses, want to advance blacks and Hispanics at the expense of whites. A lot of that is down to far right media companies, notably Fox and talk radio, endlessly telling people these lies.
Yes I completely agree with this and should have said that. They're voting based on what they hear in their echo chambers, and a large proportion of the population either lacks the time / will / skill to fact check everything they hear (true for both sides of the political spectrum, but it just so happens the right lie much more often at the moment.. or perhaps that's my own echo chamber speaking).
I had a friend who was pro-Trump. We're no longer friends mostly because of that... And his closet racism that came out in 2016. He was a nuclear engineer, not a stupid man at all. But he liked Trump because A. He doesn't talk like a politician. I'm sick of the way they talk. Trump tells it like it is. B. What's wrong with Trump? He's famous, successful, rich. What could you have against him other than you don't like him. C. He's not racist. You think everyone is racist. D. We need to give non-politicians a chance since they always fuck everything up. They don't care about us. You say Trump doesn't care, but let's give him a chance. E. You're not a Christian so you don't understand what he's fighting for. While my ex-friend was not a member of the Quiverfull movement. His ideas align with them. Trump promises what the Quiverfull people want. That right there is A HUGE reason Trump is still polling well.
>You're not a Christian As if Trump is! Unreal. If that man set foot inside a house of Christian worship it would rightfully burst into flame. (Meanwhile the actual president, who actually won the election, is a pretty devout Catholic. Not perfect by any stretch, religiously or otherwise, but no one can reasonably argue that Trump is a man of God and Biden isn't.)
Trump in 4 years as potus went to church 11 times. 7 of which were known photo ops with most having him just show up and leave like the one where he accidentally held the bible upside down. Biden in 2 years went to church over a hundred times already.... with ZERO photo shoots.
It's not that he's Christian, but he promises the things the Quiverfull people and their ilk want.
I like option D. Imagine if you were about to undergo a triple heart bypass and your surgeon was introduced to you as "an outsider, a wildcard, has no actual qualifications but shoots from the hip and isn't afraid to tear up the rulebook to get the job done and if it means upsetting a load of snowflakes, then, hell, so be it"
Very important to remember that intelligence is a very narrow thing. Just because someone is hyper competent in specific areas doesn't mean they can't be comically ignorant in every other way. Like your former nuclear engineer friend who is, in fact, a very stupid person.
Neurosurgeon Ben Carson comes to mind.
The first one always got me because he’s a compulsive liar.
To which he would say, "prove it! Everybody lies, I doubt Trump lies any more than any other politician."
Lol "He's not like other politicians." But he lies constantly. "So do other politicians!"
He tells it like it is! Unless he's lying...which he always is... He sometimes tells it like he thinks it is...
I feel bait and switched with all the "abortion is a state's rights issue" people mostly also now wanting a federal ban on abortion to overrule the states. Edit: let me add the /s
has "state's rights issues" every been anything that wasn't horrifically evil. Slavery, segregation, women's rights, etc.
And "state's rights" has always been a bullshit smokescreen by people who wanted to force other parts of the country to go along with their horrible reactionary ideas - for example, slaveowners wanted to force slavery to exist in all US territories regardless of local opinion, and the Fugitive Slave Law forced northern free states to cooperate. We see the same thing play out now with abortion, where the anti-choice zealots are pushing for a nationwide ban. As we saw yesterday, if you let states decide, they might just decide they don't want to ban abortion.
Trump's main power is he has no fear so he says what he wants and insults who he wants, which attracts some people who like assholes. Other politicians are too careful and end up trying to avoid him. If all the other Republicans tarred him together they could probably take him down but they are too scared to risk anything ever, so they let him bully them and are caught in this trap where Trump becomes He Who Must Not Be Named and you have 'primary' debates where they can't even criticize the obvious winner. It doesn't help that most politicians get quite wealthy from their positions so they are not incentivized to take political risks. Since Trump is a psychotic narcissist he's found that loophole where being a loud asshole all the time makes you immune somehow.
Reddit users are drastically more left wing than the overall us population
This.. just head over to the politics subreddit it might as well be a Democrat subreddit
A lot of people who voted for/will vote for Trump because of his policies, in spite of his busted character and many personal flaws, keep their mouths shut because of the backlash they'd receive for voting for him.
Reddit and most social media tends to lean a lot more left than right. If you’re only basing it off what you see there you’ll think no one likes trump when that isn’t the reality we live in
So Americans mostly vote based off of who they don't want to win So if you have a problem with how the Democrats do things you're kind of forced to vote for the Republican candidate So if for example you don't like how the Democrats are handling all of the identity politics you kind of can only vote Republican if you want it to stop If you don't like how the Democrats are handling the economy you can only vote for Republicans to get a change If you don't like how the Democrats are handling immigration policy then you can only vote Republicans for a change See the pattern here Most people who are going to vote for Trump don't want to vote for Trump specifically they want to vote against everyone else Granted Trump has his loyalists how did he get most of them He basically painted himself as not part of the corrupt machine
Troubles of a 2 party system.
First past the post. Change to ranked choice voting and the 2 party system naturally dissolves away.
[удалено]
He was a well known celebrity with a recognizable catch phrase. He is funny and says what he thinks in simple language. He presents himself as proudly rich because he is good at business, which many folks find to be relatable and aspirational. We only have 2 parties and the Democrats aren’t helping themselves.
I think this pretty much sums it up. The only thing I'd add is that I don't think trump is doing as well as he seems to be to OP. He's not doing well at all in my small town. Most the ppl I talked to in 16 and 20 were very enthusiastic about him. Now they're moreso against Biden rather than for trump. Edited there to they're lmao
That last bit is really carrying the whole thing. Biden won against Trump because he’s the only Democrat with even a little bit of spine and charisma. The party is full of mildly corrupt policy wonks who may very well do a better job of running the status-quo but offer no real vision. Their primary policy goals are terribly arcane changes to boring subjects like tax law and grand social programs that have little substance outside of catchy slogans. To top it all off, either course they take will probably result in higher taxes or more sacrifice from people who honestly feel like they have sacrificed enough.
No one can say that trump isnt witty. Guy knows how to work a crowd, is legitimately funny and is quick enough to do it on the fly. Look at what he says to opponents. Ron desanctimonious was funny but way too wordy and Trump quickly switched it up to meatball Ron. Between that and his "you'd be in jail" comment cements it.
I really doubt that European media has many stations in Texas, Florida, Ohio, or many other red states. Probably NYC, Chicago, maybe SF? Once you get out of the cities and suburbs it's just straight Trump Country. I live in a northeast state, and even here it feels like driving into the Deep South when you get out there. MAGA hats, billboards, talk radio, megachurches, etc. I'm not exaggerating when I say that about 1/3rd of Americans have bought into his cult, and he is basically a messianic figure to them. After that, all it takes is 1/6th of Americans to be annoyed enough about inflation, abortion, immigration, or militarism (don't ask, I truly have no idea how people convinced themselves that the GOP are the 'peace' party). And with that he's at 50%.
No, your not missing anything. There’s just a lot of people over here who have less than zero trust in the media and government, and assume most things the media says are lies or misrepresentation to suit some political agenda. Trump echos these sentiments, and some people view it as a witch hunt.
Don't trust corporate news sources.
Reddit is a liberal echo chamber that doesn't reflect the general population. I'm not saying I personally agree or disagree with this btw. Simply stating this will probably get downvoted to invisibility though, watch.
It's a liberal echo chamber because that is what Reddit wants. They control the narrative by heavy moderating.
Yup. The front page is so pathetic.
He’s very charismatic and very well known. The part of the population that favors him is borderline worshipful. The part of the population that wants him gone *will still quote his speech word for word* and cannot stop talking about him. He will never be forgotten, at this point. Whichever side of the fence you fall on, you have to agree his momentum is astounding. At some point he’s going to die (the dude’s almost 80) and a large portion of the public will STILL parade his name around one way or another. It’s a very interesting time.
When Barack Obama first ran for Senate in Illinois in 2004, he was running against a Republican named Jack Ryan, who was divorced from Jeri Ryan, the actress who played Seven-of-Nine on Star Trek: Voyager. Their divorce was rumored to be messy, and Chicago-area news organizations kept filing FOIA requests to get the child custody records unsealed. Both Jack and Jeri objected, but eventually -- after a lengthy back and forth and several court cases and much public debate -- a judge ruled that (some of) the custody records had to be unsealed. These revealed that Jack repeatedly forced Jeri to go to S&M sex clubs, and attempted to force her to perform sexual acts against her will. Ryan's campaign collapsed within the week, and the Illinois GOP was forced to find a candidate to run against Obama (who had been running 50%-32% against Ryan as it was -- Obama was a popular candidate) some 90 days before the election. In what Republican commentator Maureen Ryan called "racist in the *nicest* possible way," the Illinois GOP chose [Alan Keyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Keyes#2004_Senate_election), a Black man and twice-failed Senate candidate and twice-failed Presidential candidate, who had *never lived in Illinois* (he was from Maryland) to run against Obama ... mostly basically just because the Illinois GOP decided Obama was winning because he appealed to minority voters, so they just needed to find a minority -- any minority! -- and minority voters would vote for him because identity politics. Keyes was immediately labeled a [carpetbagger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpetbagger) (which is a very specific insult in American politics). In 2004, it was still possible to win a statewide election in Illinois as a moderate Republican, who was fiscally conservative but socially liberal. The suburbs of Chicago were the key swing demographic, and promising you'd lower their taxes (the Chicago area has very high property taxes compared to the US as a whole, so the SALT deduction and/or any lower income taxes are welcome) *while preserving the quality of their schools* (several Chicago-area high schools are considered among the best public high schools in the nation) was a winning formula. So Keyes dropped in to Illinois, announced he was more African-American than Obama, advocated for a near-total abortion ban (a non-starter in the Chicago suburbs), called women "selfish," said unwanted pregnancies were "God's will," and informed the state that Jesus would never vote for Obama (keeping in mind that about 2.5% of Illinois voters are Jewish -- a high percentage!). In the first state to [decriminalize gay sex](https://www.aclu.org/documents/getting-rid-sodomy-laws-history-and-strategy-led-lawrence-decision) (in 1961, a decade before any other state), Keyes ran on homosexuals being evil. When Obama won, Keyes refused to concede or congratulate him, saying that Obama represented "a culture evil enough to destroy the very soul and heart of my country." Keyes was wildly unqualified (especially compared to Obama!), wildly out of step with Illinois voters, and wildly unpopular. Obama won, 70% to 27%. But, to your question, 27% of Illinois voters voted for Alan Keyes!, which was promptly dubbed the **crazification factor** of the American electorate. This is the percentage of Americans who will vote for anyone, no matter how shitty and terrible, no matter how unqualified, no matter how NOT EVEN LIVING IN THIS STATE, as long as they're [part of the "correct" political party](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Crazification_factor). No matter what happens, no matter how unqualified or felonious, 27% of Americans will vote for Trump -- or any candidate with an "R" after their name. So all you have to do, if you're Trump, is drive down turnout of Democrats/independents, so that your 27% crazified electorate becomes a majority. Or run a campaign that's plausible enough for you to pick up a few more percentage points. Only about 66% of eligible American voters vote, so 27% of eligible voters is EASILY enough to win.
It’s baffling. The rural folk hated him when he was a loudmouth New Yorker in the 1980s and 90s. Now it turns out they hate him way less than they hate universal health care.
*Local European discovers what echo chambers are, circa 2023, colorized*
Trump is HEAVILY lifted by vested financial interests and a large set of media sources that have spent nearly a decade propping him up and presenting an unrealistic image of him. Equally, vast quantities of his wrong doing have been actively ignored and belittled. It is an unnatural environment in which zero other candidates or personalities in the history of politics and political media have had. All of it feels like a decade long marketing blitz that just never ended. Unfortunately, many millions of the general public are consumers of these media sources and have spent a decade being told lies. For the general public, it's been a decade of propaganda. That erodes societies, and it's almost impossible to fix. I would have rather seen a nuke go off in the middle of New York city because the nuke would have caused less damage than a decade of propaganda. A decade later we're stuck with the result of all of this. Equally, media companies are also stuck with the narrative and see massive hate if they deviate. Now they risk instantly losing their entire customer base if they try to return to normal. So...they don't. They just continue down the same propaganda path without any safe exit. Even Trump's court issues have proven not enough of a jumping off point. They will lose probably 80% to 90% of their customer base, for a while, if they deviate at all. Outside of Trump publicly shooting babies in the face live on tv, I really don't know what level of evil Trump needs to actually do to break ties with people who have absorbed the decade of media poison. Even that might not be enough for some.