USA Election 2024

[leman]

But how is voting based on their wallet different than voting solely on abortion or because of a candidate’s skin color?

Voting based on economic is important and correct. Giving up freedoms and rights for vague economic promises is stupid and shortsighted. I fully empathize with voters who want economical reforms and immigration restrictions. However, by pursuing this you have elected a group of immoral people who will take your freedom, your money, and your dignity. This is not unprecedented in the history, and so far, it never worked out.

I know that you are downplaying all this, saying that nothing bad will happen. Well, I think you will be up for a rude awakening. Trump already created a lot of chaos during his last term. This time he comes with a fully developed fascist organization behind him. These people are aggressive, ambitious, and they have a plan. And they have more institutional support than anyone in the history of the US government, including a fully corrupt Supreme Court. These are going to be some interesting couple of years.

Well, you say, at least the economic outlook will be better, right? Don't count too much on that. If Trump implements even a fraction of the promised policies, what expects you is inflation, poverty, low wages, housing, and health crises. In addition to US position and influence eroding on the international scene. True, the rest of the world won't do any better. But it's your personal well-being that interests you, right?

P.S. From my perspective, what has really messed you up as a country is the piss-poor education and the two-party system. Your new governing party is that of power-hungry populist egomaniacs set out to hurt people, and the other one is that of elitists who care more about virtue-signaling than about actual governing. Political parties are an important instrument of letting off social pressure. You have no way to do that, so the pressure accumulates and now you have a bigoted minority take absolute control. If you had a political infrastructure to support a moderate, economically savvy candidate with an independent platform, you'd be looking at a different outcome. But none of this will change as long as people stick to political tradition instead of thinking about political sense.

 

[dada_dave]

"The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood he was one of them."

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

There is a 1935 novel called It Can't Happen Here, which I still haven't read yet.
The premise described on Wikipedia sounds eerily familiar:
The novel describes the rise of Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a demagogue who is elected President of the United States, after fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and "traditional" values. After his election, Windrip takes complete control of the government via self-coup and imposes totalitarian rule with the help of a ruthless paramilitary force, in the manner of European fascists such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

It Can't Happen Here - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

We continue down the path of Germany in the 20’s and 30’s. How did Hitler finally get political power? It’s the economy, stupid. We even have the propaganda minister of Musk and his court of bros who believe it’s the hieght of comedy to attack marginalized groups and blame them for all our problems. Truth Social is Trump’s mein kampf. He didn’t have to write it from prison like Hitler, but it did happen as the result of his only political punishment of getting kicked off Twitter. The Onion nailed it again with the article title America Defeats America.

 

[rdrr]

We continue down the path of Germany in the 20’s and 30’s. How did Hitler finally get political power? It’s the economy, stupid. We even have the propaganda minister of Musk and his court of bros who believe it’s the hieght of comedy to attack marginalized groups and blame them for all our problems. Truth Social is Trump’s mein kampf. He didn’t have to write it from prison like Hitler, but it did happen as the result of his only political punishment of getting kicked off Twitter. The Onion nailed it again with the article title America Defeats America.

We live in a time where The Onion, gives us more truth than any MSM.

Q: where the actual F did 21 million votes go? I would have believed maybe up to 7 to 9 million sat this one out, but 21???

 

[Edd]

I’d mentioned on here that I turned down an opportunity to go to Switzerland for a year for my employer. Didn’t want to do a year apart from the wife but I’ve done a 180 on that and she’s 100% supportive now. Hopefully will interview with the Swiss team this month.

 

[rdrr]

I’d mentioned on here that I turned down an opportunity to go to Switzerland for a year for my employer. Didn’t want to do a year apart from the wife but I’ve done a 180 on that and she’s 100% supportive now. Hopefully will interview with the Swiss team this month.

My granddaughter got into UVM last year and got a 68k presidential scholarship. She took a gap year on both. She is now considering applying to the University of Stockholm which has 4 years free tuition even for foreign students, and a very liberal society that is very accepting of LGTBQ+.

 

[Yoused]

D

We continue down the path of Germany in the 20’s and 30’s.

We have two advantages over Germany, though. On the one hand, we do not have an dominant ethnic identity as they did at the time. The American Nazis of today are less likely to gain the same kind of traction as the German Nazis of the 1930s.

Add to that eugenics. It was a very popular, respected mode of thinking in the early to mid twentieth century, but is all but repudiated today. We have a lot of mutts in the US, and they are mostly recognized as not inferior to the "pure blood" types, whatever that means.

It is not unthinkable that some form of totalitarianism could be forced upon America. But there will be a lot of pushback. Whether it will be enough remains to be seen.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

D

We have two advantages over Germany, though. On the one hand, we do not have an dominant ethnic identity as they did at the time. The American Nazis of today are less likely to gain the same kind of traction as the German Nazis of the 1930s.

Add to that eugenics. It was a very popular, respected mode of thinking in the early to mid twentieth century, but is all but repudiated today. We have a lot of mutts in the US, and they are mostly recognized as not inferior to the "pure blood" types, whatever that means.

It is not unthinkable that some form of totalitarianism could be forced upon America. But there will be a lot of pushback. Whether it will be enough remains to be seen.

We also have a 3rd advantage. Trump and Musk are grossly incompetent.

 

[Renzatic]

We also have a 3rd advantage. Trump and Musk are grossly incompetent.

I'd argue that makes them more of a threat, not less.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

My parents are low information voters who AFAIK continue to vote Democrat. They only watch the local news for what is going on locally and probably get a surface level covering of what is going on politically in the state and nationally. From what I can ascertain they get some of their political views from their vocal conservative friends. They just pick it up casually. They don’t like Trump but also don’t like Harris either for the usual right-wing talking points reasons. Not a lot of depth in their comments. I guarantee they didn't pick up the term word salad from the CA local evening news.

Yesterday they causally asked what I thought of the election. They were shocked when I responded “We’re fucked.” They weren’t shocked by my opinion. It was more like my bluntness was a well placed jump scare. They responded with a hopeful “we’ll see.”

This may or may not matter to them or anybody reading this, but my parents are a lesbian couple together for over 50 years. They’ve never been gay pride people and like to keep it off the radar. They didn’t come out to everybody until 2014 after their parents passed away. They lived under the guise of best friends to most people. They are also lifetime practicing Catholics. Clearly they know how to compartmentalize and because of this they have probably distilled MAGA down to “saying mean things”. They probably also feel safe living in CA. I predict the hopeful tone of “we’ll see” will quickly dissipate.

 

[cbum]

I can't put more than one like to Leman's post, so I'm adding a few here.
Lucky for me, I will be retiring where Leman is coming from - what I don't get is that he is going the other way...

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

I'd argue that makes them more of a threat, not less.

I’d argue they give zero fucks about the negative impact of their actions which will lead to less and less support from the American people, especially when it starts hitting the “my wallet” people. Gutting the federal government means the loss of potentially millions of jobs and the downstream impacts on businesses that service those people. Trump thinks he can solve the housing crisis entirely through deporting people.

I can understand on some level people living in generationally impoverished communities wanting to burn it all down, but their scant benefits will be among the first to go or get greatly reduced. Regardless of age or health, you are now considered lazy useless feeders holding back the middle class. Nobody believes that more than Musk.

 

[Herdfan]

We live in a time where The Onion, gives us more truth than any MSM.

Q: where the actual F did 21 million votes go? I would have believed maybe up to 7 to 9 million sat this one out, but 21???

What's funny is conservatives are asking the same damn question.........

 

[Eric]

What's funny is conservatives are asking the same damn question.........

IMO it's a wakeup call for the Democratic establishment, the country has been leaning right for a while and this just confirmed it, not just sort of but decisively with an exclamation point. While I hate the messenger, I get the message.

 

[leman]

Lucky for me, I will be retiring where Leman is coming from - what I don't get is that he is going the other way...

We plan to retire somewhere on the beach on eastern Sardinia As to the other thing, you know, it's all relative. It's always interesting to have an adventure. If things are not going well, we can always come back.

 

[Renzatic]

I’d argue they give zero fucks about the negative impact of their actions which will lead to less and less support from the American people, especially when it starts hitting the “my wallet” people. Gutting the federal government means the loss of potentially millions of jobs and the downstream impacts on businesses that service those people. Trump thinks he can solve the housing crisis entirely through deporting people.

I can understand on some level people living in generationally impoverished communities wanting to burn it all down, but their scant benefits will be among the first to go or get greatly reduced. Regardless of age or health, you are now considered lazy useless feeders holding back the middle class. Nobody believes that more than Musk.

And let's not forget the damage that deportations will likely cause on our farming industry.

I remember the last time we had a little spastic fit about illegal immigrants here in Georgia, around the time that E-Verify became a thing. All they gained for their efforts was a lot of food rotting on the vines.

 

[leman]

We have two advantages over Germany, though. On the one hand, we do not have an dominant ethnic identity as they did at the time. The American Nazis of today are less likely to gain the same kind of traction as the German Nazis of the 1930s.

Add to that eugenics. It was a very popular, respected mode of thinking in the early to mid twentieth century, but is all but repudiated today. We have a lot of mutts in the US, and they are mostly recognized as not inferior to the "pure blood" types, whatever that means.

It is not unthinkable that some form of totalitarianism could be forced upon America. But there will be a lot of pushback. Whether it will be enough remains to be seen.

Great observation. I think this is the reason why I remain cautiously optimistic. MAGA does not have a strong ideological basis, it's just anti-immigration rhetoric and fuzzy complaints about economy. Once Trumps politics inevitably make things worse, most of his support base will dissipate. And I hope that the system is robust enough to at absorb at least some of the damage.

However, there is another historical analogy, which is probably more apt here — Italian fascism. Italy didn't have a strong national ideology. It was a fragmented, depressed nation without a democratic tradition, a nation that desired a strong leader. I think there are some parallels to the current day USA, although of course there the situation is more nuanced.

 

[Herdfan]

IMO it's a wakeup call for the Democratic establishment, the country has been leaning right for a while and this just confirmed it, not just sort of but decisively with an exclamation point. While I hate the messenger, I get the message.

But are you asking the right question. Has the country moved right or has the leadership of Dem party moved left and drug everyone with it without them realizing it. I know I get pushback on this, but I am not sure what policies the GOP has moved right on from say 1990 or even 2000. I can think of many the Dems have moved left on. And in some cases, far left.

 

[dada_dave]

D

We have two advantages over Germany, though. On the one hand, we do not have an dominant ethnic identity as they did at the time. The American Nazis of today are less likely to gain the same kind of traction as the German Nazis of the 1930s.

Add to that eugenics. It was a very popular, respected mode of thinking in the early to mid twentieth century, but is all but repudiated today. We have a lot of mutts in the US, and they are mostly recognized as not inferior to the "pure blood" types, whatever that means.

It is not unthinkable that some form of totalitarianism could be forced upon America. But there will be a lot of pushback. Whether it will be enough remains to be seen.

Great observation. I think this is the reason why I remain cautiously optimistic. MAGA does not have a strong ideological basis, it's just anti-immigration rhetoric and fuzzy complaints about economy. Once Trumps politics inevitably make things worse, most of his support base will dissipate. And I hope that the system is robust enough to at absorb at least some of the damage.

However, there is another historical analogy, which is probably more apt here — Italian fascism. Italy didn't have a strong national ideology. It was a fragmented, depressed nation without a democratic tradition that desired a strong leader. I think there are some parallels to the current day USA, although of course there the situation is more nuanced.

We also have a 3rd advantage. Trump and Musk are grossly incompetent.

The Nazis' competence has been grossly exaggerated, but yes these assholes are possibly even stupider.

We also have several other advantages, like economy is not in fact in bad shape compared to Weimar Germany and if they crash it, that could yes inspire a backlash. Plus our institutions, while weakened, are stronger than the fledging democracy that was Weimar Germany or Italy. That doesn't mean they can't or won't fail, but it makes it harder.

We also have a major disadvantage that I alluded to earlier prior to the election. Hitler only ever got 39% of the vote and never actually won an election. Mussolini never even got close at all to winning an election and contrary to @leman's hypothesis Italy, despite its issues that he does correctly point out, may never have fallen to fascism if the monarchy hadn't supported the coup (which should have been weak and pathetic attempt and was until the king suddenly supported it, seriously look it up). A much larger percentage of Americans actively support Trump and the Republican party knowing that he already attempted to overthrow democracy and plans for retribution as well as the mass deportations of "undesirables". I think you are also underestimating how long these ideas has been gestating amongst the far right - this is not as nebulous as it first appears. Trump's ideology may be nebulous and simply centered on his own personal power, but that of the people around him is not.

IMO it's a wakeup call for the Democratic establishment, the country has been leaning right for a while and this just confirmed it, not just sort of but decisively with an exclamation point. While I hate the messenger, I get the message.

That may be the message but the wakeup call is not to give in and move right. When faced with a fascist movement that's called "obeying in advance" and simply cedes more power to them. That's the mistake every democracy that falls to fascism makes: "if we just give them X, they'll calm down and maybe even support us!" We've even seen that attitude in this thread. They won't, they'll simply take more.

The actual wakeup call should be to start acting like the Republicans themselves over the last two decades: block everything, fight everything, simply do not let the government function as much as possible. And make it clear at every opportunity that if the Republicans remove the filibuster or use presidential authority to override the debt ceiling that we're on the "road to tyranny" and "nuclear option" and all that shit. If you are actually worried about this, that is what they have to do. The double standard we often complain is is partially of the Democrats' own making. They are the rule followers so they are judged on being so. The idea that if we follow the rules, they'll have to as well is just wrong and has been proved wrong. I'm not suggesting going past what the Republicans have done, but they have to be matched now. Basically fight harder. I don't know if Schumer and the Senate Democrats are up for that. "Go along to get along" cannot be how they act going forwards.

 

[GermanSuplex]

But are you asking the right question. Has the country moved right or has the leadership of Dem party moved left and drug everyone with it without them realizing it. I know I get pushback on this, but I am not sure what policies the GOP has moved right on from say 1990 or even 2000. I can think of many the Dems have moved left on. And in some cases, far left.

People in other countries laugh at what you consider to be “far left”, because it isn’t. It’s only seen as far-left because the mainstream right has gone far-right. You’re free to think you’ve maintained a center-right position, but your candidates - by the right’s own admission - is far right. Why do you think they call people like McCain and Romney “RINOS”? It’s not because of how far-right their last two nominees were.

I mean, Liz Cheney is twice the conservative Trump ever pretended to be.

*Also, compare Obama and Biden’s treatment of Trump’s victories to Biden’s victory. Two of them were never left or right in the transfer of power, but rational and mature. The other was definitely far-right.