Kamala Harris running a damn near flawless campaign, with just a month 1/2 of campaigning. She’s been holding rallies nonstop with Tim Walz & not making her talking points about her race or gender like Hillary. She’s offering expanded healthcare, reinvestments back into public housing, wants to take on corporate greed, protect reproductive rights and chose a pro labor, pro education running mate.
Yet, she’s either barely leading or ties in most polls with a guy that:
Is a convicted felon.
Liable Sexual Predator.
Gets sentenced in November.
Has several more pending cases.
Increased Drone Strikes by 300%. (Joe Biden dosent use drones anymore).
Illegally killed an Iranian General unprovoked with a missle strike.
Increased tensions in Israel/Palestine with the Abraham Accords.
Wants war with Mexico (his words).
Tried to coup Venezuela.
Will bend the knee for Netanyahu’s potential war with Iran.
Lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% (lowest in history).
Obvious tax cuts for the rich.
Told people to drink bleach during the pandemic.
Is the main driving force for America’s current division.
Constantly attacks marginalized groups.
Tried to steal the 2020 election (Find Me 11,000 votes in GA).
Did Fake Elector Slates to pressure Mike Pence to not certify the 2020 election.
Caused a riot on the capitol that lead to his OWN supporters dying.
Just got washed by Harris in the last debate, was completely unprepared on anything but immigration (“I have concepts of a plan”).
And so much more. So seriously what is it? Is it just the attraction to bigotry/racism? Is it to end “wokeness”. Is it because Kamala is a woman of color? You can’t use the both sides argument like Hilary or Biden, Kamala is the obvious better choice. Could you imagine if Kamala had as much baggage as Trump? The media would lose their minds.
Seriously, how the f*** is this guy still in the race?
It’s simple. Bigotry and greed. Trump plays to people’s fears that “others” will soon have the same rights they do while also assuring his rich handlers that he will make them richer. He’s convinced the poor to cut off their nose to spite their face.
Conservatism is a mental illness, it can’t be defeated with logic and reasoning
it can’t be defeated with logic and reasoning
YouTube channel Knowing Better made a video about the Seventh Day Adventist. Basically the same conclusion.
Found it! It’s almost 3 hrs long, so you know what that means: a glass of wine, your favorite easy chair, and of course, this YouTube video streaming on your home system. So, go on, and indulge yourself. That’s right, kick off your shoes, put your feet up, lean back and just enjoy the rational documentary. After all, knowledge soothes even the savage lemming.
Offspring?
Yeppers, peppers! 🫑
Have an updoot, Offspring-fan.
Have an updoot, recognizer of Offspring-fans.
FOX “News” has effectively divided, conditioned and massaged Republicans for decades to regurgitate the message disseminated by Rupert Murdoch through their favorite flavor talking heads (Bill O’Reilly, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and more recently Greg Gutfeld and Jesse Watters).
They went from ‘Russia bad’ in the 1980’s to ‘Russia good’ and ‘America had it wrong’. The viewers lack critical thought under scrutiny and regurgitate the talking points of their favorite broadcasters.
Yep, I lay the majority of our political insanity on Fox’s door. Look, we all know they’re the GOP’s propaganda arm, but how many of you have actually watched a good bit?
I was stuck with a week of it during the Snowden revelations. In the space of an entire week, I didn’t hear a single word on what was worldwide news. Stunning, and I still can’t explain it, but it happened. Point being, a lot of the lies are in what they don’t say. Early afternoon of 01/06, not a blip on the website. (Which BTW, is far more sane than the TV version.) I checked the wayback machine and FOx reported nothing until hours after kick off. I presume they prayed it would blow over or at least die down. Imagine the spin control behind the scenes! Hell, even Tucker Carlson pleased with Trump to make a sane statement and cut it off.
After hearing “Obama” thousands of times, over and over and over, I was sick of him! The whole time my friend’s step-mom was screaming at the screen, “The KKK ought to do their got damned JOB!” These people sat in their armchairs 24/7 (never saw them go to their bedroom), smoking weed and watching nothing but Fox. We tried to put on a movie or another show exactly twice and it promptly got switched back.
One time I was stuck with Fox at the doctor’s office, some kind of round-table show going on. A metric showing black people doing better under the Obama administration came up, something about pay I think. One of the hosts slams his fist of the table and shouted, “Obama’s a RACIST!” Constantly listen to crap like that and you are, eventually, getting brainwashed.
We tried to put on a movie or another show exactly twice and it promptly got switched back.
That’s the irritating part for me. Every time I visit a certain segment of the family, it’s as if I was stepping into 1984 with the big brother screens, except that they must be on all the time. I was forced into it during the missing MH370 news. They blatantly, incessantly push fear, and it hooks the idiots into believing if they aren’t watching 24/7 that they’re going to miss the apocalypse.
You made me remember! Yes, this was on a HUGE TV, probably 70", and that in a time when those were insanely expensive, had never seen one in a home. It was like the house walls in Fahrenheit 451.
“Come look! The White Clown is talking!”
An LSD party back in college taught me a thing I’ll never forget. There were 3 TVs in the living room and my best friend and I were tripping balls. He pulls me over to where I can see all 3 screens.
He said, “Notice who the number of people watching is directly proportional to the size of the screen?”
Mind. Blown.
don’t forget rush limbaugh
Yes thank you, and for some time Glenn Beck as well. Also a dishonorable mention to Jeanine Pirro.
“Conservatism […] can’t be defeated with logic and reasoning”
This is the key point that a lot of people miss.
If you wholeheartedly, or at least performatively, believe that there is a “natural” hierarchy where some people are better than others, then what one might see as equality is seen as oppression by hardline conservatives.
This is why emotion is the key component of Trumpian messaging, regardless of veracity.
The key is to never play the game. Always proactivity act with questions, never “defend” and react with truth; they’re not interested in the truth.
It’s not conservativism, conservativism has been captured by think tanks funded by oil and banking billionaires. They’re framed conservativism, gutted it, and replaced its insides with Libertarianism (and sometimes technocratic fascism), as that’s what gives them the lowest taxes, the most corporate welfare, union busting capabilities, and defends their wealth accumulation most efficiently.
They’re not good members of society, this is demonstrated in Trump’s fascism (which is based on Roy Cohn’s fascism). It seeks to destroy society, the nation, and government.
His debate performance was stunning because he spent 75% of his time talking about how we are being invaded by an enormous wave of criminals and insane asylum escapees who are violently claiming buildings and territory. I was like excuse me? Do I need to go check my yard for invaders? I didn’t realize we were being overrun. And yes I live in a state that borders Mexico.
If the race were between The Literal Devil ® and Jesus Christ (D), the vote total would be 45%-55% just based on the letter they choose to run after their name.
Policy doesn’t matter when people base their entire personality on their political party identification.
Jesus was a socialist Jew. We had one of those run for President, too, but couldn’t make it past the Democratic primary.
But see how evil he looks…
/s
Wanting us to become fiscally responsible, like not get into new wars into we’ve paid off previous ones? i.e. pay less money to the rich via the Military Industrial complex?
Wanting to tax the wealthy?
Wanting to redistribute money to take care of the poor?
Yeah, obviously evil indeed 😂 (from the POV of “I got mine, now I’m pulling up the ladder🪜”).
If you completely forget everything about Bernie; who he is, what he’s done, how he speaks, everything; he does look like a CEO who would lay off half his staff for a discount on a sandwich. But thats more because he’s an old white guy in a suit and they all look like that
He has joyful eyes
He got my first D primary vote… but NOT MY LAST.
Amen, preach it!
needs more puppies and rainbows
Jesus is a Mexican name. Check mate.
Closer to 50/50 with the electoral college.
Like the real Jesus would run as a Democrat. At least with the Devil you know where you stand! /s
And it pisses me off that people will vote for the dipshit because he’s an R, but i would vote for a half-dead horny toad on the other side.
Nothing I’ve read has ever explained Trump’s appeal like this article.
https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about
Nothing in there makes a cute soundbite. “They’re racist!”, is far easier than having to digest what the author lays down.
Seriously, read it. It’s important.
It’s a good article. It explains rural America. It doesn’t explain the well off assholes living in Huntington Beach CA. It doesn’t explain the well off assholes living in suburban Inland SoCal. It doesn’t explain rich privileged shitheads like Musk and Thiel.
Exactly. I get the frustrations of the son and grandson of factory workers that finds it hard to imagine anything more than working at Walmart wanting to tear it all down. What I don’t understand is my neighbor in Dana Point.
People like Musk are cynical, attention-seeking manipulators and narcissists. They aren’t afraid that their way of life is being threatened, they’re using the fears of others to further their own ends, and consider themselves above it all.
That article was the most cogent take I have seen on this subject. I have a similar cultural background (rednecks and urban, religious Polish-Americans), but see myself as a science-literate atheist. I have seen this first-hand, but wasn’t able to articulate it as well.
Those guys just don’t want to see the US go the way of Europe where scorched-earth capitalism has been tamed and extreme wealth is taxed extremely. They are wealthy beyond avarice and STILL don’t feel they are free because they come up against regulations and institutions.
They capitalize on the rural Trumpism because it is the path most likely to lead to unchecked capitalism. Remember, the US isn’t like Europe - yet. And It will take a lot of work to get it there. All those rich guys need is a government that will do nothing. So not only is tax-cut Trump their friend objectively, he creates chaos. And chaos prevents action. Rancorous divisiveness means a logjammed national agenda. Which is all they want: no action. Look the other way while they rape the world.
It doesn’t explain them because that’s who the author assumes he’s speaking to.
Is it a good article? I don’t know. There’s some truth in there, but I’m pretty sure there are a hell of a lot more suburban Trump voters than there are rural Trump voters. And in my experience of it the people who live in small towns, medium-sized cities, suburbs, edge city, and even actual rural areas are in general not nearly as monolithic and politically unified as they’re portrayed there. Even if it’s always clear which party is going to get the majority of votes, they most often don’t get all the votes. Perhaps like the writer of that article many of them like to romanticize the idea of being “rural” because they mow their own lawn and could drive to a farm in half an hour if they wanted to, but although there’s some truth in there I think it’s mostly foolish rationalizations. Big cities are alien to me too, that’s not a real reason to buy into all that cheap right-wing mythology that gets used to explain why we should vote against our own interests.
Of course there are more of them in the suburbs, the plurality of the population lives in suburban census tracts and the race is a tossup.
Honestly, hadn’t read this one and it’s got some seriously solid points in it.
I remember reading this and thinking it had some points. Then I remembered that despite having some of the same issues, we have vastly different responses. When I’m lied to and beaten, I don’t look to the person that did it for help.
For instance, the church being the only social space. They could have a community center or a library. Sure funds are hard to come by but what kind of political party would even consider that? The answer is probably further left than democrats but fifty years of red scare won’t let anyone accept that.
The “writing them off” part comes from their willingness to not ostracize evil people when they get something they want. We can all be bullheaded or blinded by bias from time to time but accountability and decency shouldn’t be political.
They could have a community center or a library. Sure funds are hard to come by but what kind of political party would even consider that?
Funny enough here in the rural parts of CA I’ve seen Raleys and Holiday Markets putting in large community areas with amenities like cheap (sometimes free) printers, office space, children’s areas, etc.
They’re not perfect or anything but its wild to see capitalist behemoths pull off something actually close to what the ideal would be, even if it’s likely to manipulate people somehow
Make it law that communities with a dollar general or fuck it any grocery store we all have to eat have a community center of halfway decent quality in it like those places have done willingly and you’ll have an improvement, guaranteed
Great read. There’s 70+ million people out there choosing to vote for Trump, why? Even if the answer is complicated you can’t dismiss them all outright.
I see a decent amount of comments painting all republics with one brush. I think it’s low effort and unproductive.
Good read thanks
I feel like this is just gift wrapping being a dumb racist hick in prettier paper. They are scared of cities because their full of black people, gays, and Mexicans. They like assholes who show the same level of hate as they do - who will keep the black people, gays, and Mexicans away. And they like someone who justifies hiding behind religion so they can tell themselves that God made them this dumb and rascist. So they can delude themselves into thinking they are really the good guy.
The article describes how the rural population has been overlooked and abandoned in favor of the inner cities, leading to higher levels of racism.
“This is just dumb hicks mad at black people!”
Good job buddy
Yea, I read it. I’m not buying it.
Funny how you made exactly the comment the article predicted within itself xD
Good read. Thanks!
Good. Read, Thanks!
That was an amazing read.
I mean it’s definitely an interesting read. I’m just not sure what to actually do with this information. The fundamental problem feels like a generally small bubble, and at times a specific disinterest in venturing outside of it. If anyone’s whole worldview is shaped entirely by their tiny rural hometown, it’s easy to understand why others with radically different backgrounds feel scary.
But at the end of the day, it doesn’t feel like a good enough reason to drag the rest of the country through rigid christofacist moral dogmas and support the industries that prop up those small towns at the expense of the planet as a whole. But as long as those people aren’t interested in venturing outside their communities and meeting other different people, im not sure how to convince them of this.
Maybe if the cost of living becomes too untenable in major cities and work from home continues in certain industries rural areas will see more growth and this will improve somewhat? Idk
What to do with it is to act understanding and empathetic with people like that instead of standoffish and hostile. You still insist on the better way of doing things, but there’s no actual need to attack anyone that doesn’t support the better way of doing things, even if their reasons aren’t rational or even morally questionable/bad. It only serves to further entrench them in their positions, while the opposite might have a chance to happen in a more cooperative approach.
The problem with that argument is that 80% of people live in cities. There are not enough rural people for them to be a majority of the Republican party.
In america, land votes more than people. We have the electoral college, the senate, and gerrymandering. Rural areas by design have wildly outsized power. This was done intentionally to preserve slavery
We have the electoral college, the senate, and gerrymandering.
The outsized effect of the EC and Gerrymandering have a very simple fix. I wonder why Democrats never talk about it?
Jason Pargin is a goddamn hero.
Low density places are always going to kind of suck on a lot of metrics. You just don’t have the people to support a lot of stuff. I’m sorry that small towns are dying but like there’s not really a reason they’d thrive.
Cities have been important since like the dawn of history. At least farms grow food. Suburban sprawl is the worst.
Cost of living needs to go down and wages up, but no one should be vying for low density.
Fun piece. I don’t know about best explanation ever.
It starts out talking about how movies idealize simple honest people from the heartlands (Star Wars, The Hunger Games, Braveheart) but then says:
the whole goddamn world revolves around them. Every TV show is about LA or New York, maybe with some Chicago or Baltimore thrown in. When they did make a show about us, we were jokes
So which is it? Does pop culture feed rural America’s sense that it is “Real America” or does it make them hillbillies?
As if explaining politics through TV and movies isn’t reductive enough, it can’t seem to keep its own story straight for ten paragraphs in row.
I’ve read this article when it was posted before and my impression is it does EXACTLY the thing to non-rural voters as it warns the reader about doing to rural voters. I can quote the bits if you are going to force me to read it again, but I don’t see how anyone can fail to see that.
It also doesn’t change the fact that the party who might actually make their lives better is NOT the one they are voting for.
That was from before we knew better. We’ve seen since then that it is indeed racism and hatred that powers the Republican base. That’s why the GOP doesn’t need to have any real policy laid out anymore. They just have to promise to hurt the “right” people this time around. Any sane Republicans that existed then are voting Democrat now.
That was an amazing read. My hometown was really similar, though maybe not as desolate. Lucky there was a college town close by so we could shop at some place that wasn’t Walmart. This really does sum it up, though, the appeal of Trump out of these smaller rural communities. I like the message at the end, too. Thanks for sharing. 🙏
I would love to but the amount of ads on that article make it absolute cancer on my phone.
An add every other paragraph. It’s fucking gross. And yes. I am using addblockers.
That’s an interesting point of view.
This explains a demographic analysis without explaining anything meaningful or unique. The article could be about any post-Regan Republican campaign (such demographic analysis is used by all modern campaigns, on bith sides), so it wasn’t a satisfying article. Combined with all the pop culture references, it comes off as quite immature and an unextraordinary explanation. Mediocre.
I remember the summer of 2016, when I was playing Pokemon Go in the parks and people I had never talked to and that lived nearby were playing it next to me. We were all celebrating when we caught a pokemon when we were after, and comparing which ones we’d caught with each other.
At the time I thought…who would buy Trump’s conman routine? Who actually thinks that the country is in a terrible enough place that we need to elect this person who seems to actively hate the country and seemed to want to set the entire thing on fire?
I left my Californian home and went back to my original state to visit my family. We went to several different areas of the state in fall of 2016 because my wife was from a rural area and I originally grew up in a slightly more suburban area. I saw the signs in the yards, I saw the discontent, and I saw how people did not seem to be reacting the same way to his craziness. I saw how casually they would put on his rants in the background while talking about other issues. I saw how some of them were amused by his antics. It had been a couple of years since I had last been back and it once again struck me how much worse the area appeared to be from the last time I was there. I was in a rural area when the “Access Hollywood” tape dropped. People seemed to visibly shrink at even the mention of the news. I thought he was done for, and that this was a bridge too far for his supporters to cross. That people would vote third party, or not vote at all. I did not get the sense that my thoughts were shared by those around me.
When I came back to California, people were talking about the debates. It was sunny and nice out, and people would talk about the projects they had going on in their houses, or they’d talk about work related affairs. People were sometimes amused by Trump’s antics, but everyone uniformly thought it was impossible for him to win the election. Having seen what I had seen in the weeks prior, I was no longer one of these people. “They’ll never let him win”, one of my co-workers said. I was stunned…who are “they”? Does the rest of the country actually believe this?
It turns out quite a few of them did. Many people thought there was just simply no way that Trump would win, because either the system was already rigged against him and would not allow him to win, or because the country was just not in dire enough straits to elect such a madman (as I once thought).
Hindsight is 20/20 but when I thought it was bizarre that he was even a viable candidate at one point in 2016, and I saw the decaying state where I grew up, I thought “if he wins the election, then we are in a much worse state as a country than I thought”. And we undoubtedly are.
Of course he won, but the reason that I have this somewhat rambling response to this question is that the answer to “why is he still in the race?” ultimately comes down to the overall state of this country.
He is in this race because this is where we are as a country: barely able to imagine a possible future that is brighter than the present, because we are still caught up in degenerative non-sense that keeps us thinking that our broken down towns, and our poor social bonds are caused by some horde of “others” instead of their true causes: our ever-widening wealth inequality, our ever-decaying moral responsibilities to each other, and our national instinct to absolve ourselves of our responsibilities by claiming that not only is it correct to be forever self-serving, but that even the idea of altruism is a lie.
even the idea of altruism is a lie.
Wow. You’re right. Helping others is as politicized as abortion. One of the tribes can’t even fathom uplifting their neighbors because that could be equated to socialism and it would get them kicked out of their in-group.
That explains the “virtue signaling” accusations.
I rmember stephen colbert’s face lol
You’re in a media bubble. It feels like there’s no way anyone could see it differently. The people who disagree with you are also in a media bubble and don’t understand how you could believe what you do.
For everything you said they
- don’t believe happened
- think it was a deep state plot
- believe it’s good actually and believing anything else means you want to kill babies or destroy the economy
- have never heard of it
Reality may have a leftist bias but most people don’t live in reality. Most people live in a reality constructed by corporate media. Social media is largely derivative of it.
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I’m actually curious.
Are there countries (ones that have a voting system) where it isn’t all one big popularity contest?
In Norway it is common to find quizzes in newspaper websites that question you on different topics and score how well you align with the various parties. They’re great at both introducing you to current political hot topics while also orienting you about the various parties that exist, of which there are far more that two that are viable to choose from.
Germany has one that they call a wahlomat.
I’d say here in Germany it is mostly a unpopularity contest.
I think there’s a saying about this, “Elections are always lost, never won” or some such.
Parliamentary systems at least choose parties, not people. This means that the most popular party, not person, will have a greater share of power. It’s harder, but not impossible (looking at you, Geert Wilders), to get a Trump.
Ireland uses a variant of ranked choice voting. In essence, voters get a list of candidates for their voting district, and rank as many of them as they want in order of preference. When votes are counted, the candidate with the lowest votes is eliminated, and votes of those who ranked the candidate first are distributed to their second choice. Rinse and repeat until only as many candidates remain as there are open seats in the constituency.
There is still some inertia, especially in rural areas (“my dad always voted for this candidate, so I’ll vote for his son”), but the system still lends itself to more informed voting. From what I’ve seen in other countries, on average Ireland does a better job at electing more reasonable candidates than the US or EU countries.
Australia’s electoral system is far from perfect, but it seems to be less focus on the prime minister then there is on the US president.
Of course the PM still needs to be popular and electable, and we’re sliding to the right like most democracies, but I can’t imagine we could have an election like the current US cycle where no one is really talking about policy.
As I understand it only the US, UK and countries like Russia use first past the post these days.
No
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I live in Taiwan and met a guy yesterday who is moving to Taiwan because Austin is a “liberal hell hole”.
When pressed on any issues about Trump, his answer was that Biden is worse than Trump. When I asked about Harris, he just mentioned she will just copy Biden.
The funny thing is that Taiwan is by far more liberal and more progressive than Austin Texas. He seemed to like the universal healthcare and the many social services. He didn’t mind the high corporate taxes companies have to pay.
My assessment is that he is only basing his vote on vibes and feels alone. Judging from the conversation, he is more of a Bernie supporter.
I know they say don’t judge a book by its cover but your friend sounds like he ate glue sticks in elementary.
This guy has a master in mechanical engineering and is self teaching himself Rust l. Dude isn’t dumb. Just misguided and brainwashed.
True, I’ve met my fair share of smart people who end up falling off the deep end. I think it has something to do with generational trauma. Some people seem to have a much easier time recognizing the faults in how they were raised than others.
Very true.
Have you considered that you actually found a tankie in the wild?
I’m going to give this guy the benefits of a doubt. He sounds more misguided and brainwashed wrapped into a heavy dose of tribalism.
I watched a bunch of YouTube videos of a psychiatrist talking about Trumpism and how to undue the brainwashing. I’m going to continue to hang out with him to see if I can wake him up.
i feel like a tankie would just refer to joe as genocide joe, but maybe i’m too internet pilled?
Tankies praise China and the Soviet. He’s from Texas. I think he’s just brainwashed.
Austin really does suck, he’s bound to be a little fucked up.
i know that part, that ones a classic, i think there are a lot more tankies or “pipelined” tankies than we think on the left, but i also don’t know shit so that’s just conjecture lol.
People from texas are really goofy though. Something about that state. It’s the florida of the inland states. Even though it’s technically not inland.
My brother in law who was ultra pro China moved to Houston and turned into an American fundie. The entire state should just leave.
damn, what a fucking weird place down there hey?
At least that’s where they all go to violate OSHA rules, and make us more money. I’ll take what i can.
Seriously. I feel the same way about Florida
他會說中文嗎？
他一句都不會講
Many Conservatives have been conditioned to stop looking for facts and believe what the TV tells them. Trump admitted as much during the debate. When challenged on the cat thing, he dismissed the reporter’s research and said that he believes it because he saw it on TV. His voters will, too.
Roger Ailes was Nixon’s media consultant during Watergate, and the lesson he learned was that if the media was on Nixon’s side, he could have gotten away with it. Ailes went on to run Fox News. That is no accident.
It’s honestly madness.
The former President, running a multi-million dollar campaign, with access to the best information in the world, has nothing to say but rambling “but the TV said, but the TV said!”
Just an absolute fool.
But he’s always been like this. He had the world’s largest intelligence apparatus at its service, but didn’t believe what they said when it contradicted what his buddies Vlad and MBS told him.
Oh I agree, you just want to believe that even the world’s stupidest person could eventually learn something. It’s not like this is a case of him being deliberately obtuse, which we often see, he truly believes his own nonsense.
My mother in law who’s a staunch Republican told my husband that she shouldn’t have to learn anything new at her age. This is the type of people we’re dealing with. They are willfully and spitefully ignorant.
My older neighbor is like that. He was pouting off some BS he heard on Fox News and I called him on it, that it was lies. When I asked him what he didn’t like about Harris he couldn’t give me an answer. He’s not even going outside his sphere to see if what Fox is saying isn’t true. It’s pathetic and shameful.
People eat that shit up because it’s they same way they’re fed all their propaganda too. They think Trump is just like them and not some NY socialite.
Conservatives who are capable of good quality research, and honest self-reflection barely exist because those two qualities often destroy their affiliations to modern conservativism as it stands today.
So some become neocon-neoliberal hybrids, others become economic Libertarians or Fascists in sheeps clothing, but most, are just as they seem - people who feel betrayed and shut out by the prevailing liberalisms of the day (often personified in the form of an ex-wife, ex-boss, or minority on the street), and it’s something they don’t want to investigate or research honestly.
In fact, most conservatives of this “follower” ilk, are deeply and psychologically invested in their sickness, in maintaining their “honest dogma” as it explains past traumas and the state of their lives in easy and convenient ways.
Get them together in groups and it becomes a self-reenforcing system. Self-propagating. It’s a self-sustaining set of problems and problem mindsets.
Some for conspiracy theorists, gets to be a real problem when they get a platform too.
Did everyone just collectively agree to forget 2016? The polls were all favoring Clinton by a dramatic margin. CNN famously had a headline where they predicted Clinton had a 99% chance to win off of the polls.
And what ended up happening? 538 (before bought and neutered by ABC) gave the odds 65-35 or so, in Clinton’s favor. Trump ended up winning that 35%. This year, according to polls, Trump’s odds are better than in 2016. Kamala has the upper hand, but
A) lots of things can change suddenly before the election (like the Hilary emails thing)
B) polls are not the ultimate arbiter of who will win an election- actual real votes are
C) Trump more than likely has some “extracurricular plans” in store, much like Jan 6th, that has a chance of working.
Tldr: don’t get drunk on positive news. Keep a level head and you’ll see this election is still very close to a coin flip
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We have the baby boomers on the edge of dying. They are afraid of it, but there is nothing that can be done - so those fears shift to other things that “could” be dealt with.
-Immigrants destroying the culture they grew up in (that culture went away for other reasons),
-Gays and trans people being happy (The closeted Senator Graham saying there is no happiness in real life - why did gays of old have to suffer and hide if it was all for not?),
-The worst economy in the history of the US! (They are in their 80s, don’t have a job, and running out of money, so it is bad for them)
-Small town on the edge of dying (because there is no jobs or amenities because they didn’t want them in their town)
Trump speaks their insecurities and offers a path to fix things that no other politician dares to go down: “Burn the system to the grown and the people you hate will be hurt”. Because modern Republicans care more about hurting the ones they hate than helping themselves, either because of self hate or a illusion that they won’t get hurt in the process.
Not= naught
FYI
The whole “small town on the edge of dying” bit. Holy shit have I experienced that firsthand.
See, what happened with a lot of these towns is that their industry became a part of their pride and culture. Where I’m from it’s coal. Trucks everywhere have a decal of a coal miner with one of two phrases. “Coal keeps the lights on.” and “6 inches from hell.”
My grandfather was a coal miner, so was his father, and his father, on both sides of my family. My father realized that the industry was dying so he left (and left us here haha). My brother did it for awhile but left it behind because of the drug problems in the mines. There was a whole underground urine market that kept things moving.
Even the poor fools who never worked in the mines go on and on about coal like it’s some kind of idol.
I would imagine the same thing happens in other places. The people fear big changes until their fear backs them into irrelevance. I’m getting older, so I can relate to that, only I vote for my kids, not to make me feel less afraid. Whatever world they grow up in won’t be one that I’d be perfectly comfortable in. It has always been that way as far back as we have been recording history. No sense in fighting where the world is going just because I don’t understand it or relate to it.
Seriously, how the f*** is this guy still in the race?
Some very deep pockets.
People want to say it’s just racism, but we have to stop ignoring how much of this is happening because of obscenely wealthy media moguls who don’t give a damn about the future of the country and are only worried about ratings, and holy shit, Trump brings in ratings. The crazy fucks who vote for him are deeply influenced by this media, like Trump, they believe everything they see on TV.
-Leslie Moonves, CBS CEO in 2016, on Trump
I worked in local television news from 2000-2010ish. I watched it spin out of control during the Bush years. I remember the President of Dinsey-ABC (waaaaaaaay prior to Disney+) claiming she would nail a TV to her child’s dorm room wall since her child had expressed she didn’t need a TV because she had a laptop.
“You’re going to have a television if I have to nail it to your wall,” she told her daughter, according to comments she made at a Reuters event this week. “You have to have one.”
-Anne Sweeney, President of Disney-ABC in 2009
These fucking dinosaurs did fuck nothing for twenty fucking years while the internet ate their lunch. The only idea they ever had was doubling down on insane shit to grab views. They never once considered becoming a better source of news or providing any kind of real local value to communities.
It’s the money, especially the money in traditional radio and television media, that is propping him up. He’s truly the last gasp of a dying generation, desperate to keep control over people who are way more informed than ever before and the only tool they have in their toolchest to fight that is misinformation and disinformation.
The same deep pockets that were able to kick Joe Biden off the ticket. They didn’t give a fuck when people like you and I said Biden was too old, but once the folks with the money started talking about it being an issue, Biden got curbed.
Unlike Biden, conservatives are in a cult and losing Trump would lose their voters. They’re attached at the hip and they can’t dump him in the same way without essentially just admitting they will lose hard this year.
This is the right answer. Money. There’s plenty of the rest of the stuff mentioned, but cults of any sort are useful tools for the powerful. And actually, it’s not even money, it’s POWER.
It’s about power and pursuit of power, yes. That’s why there’s so much racism and xenophobia, because those who desire power need people to lord their power over, or they don’t feel powerful.
The money is just a path to that power.
There’s a reason plenty of them are legitimate rapists, because rape is also about power. Power is literally the only thing that means anything to them. That’s why you get freaks like Weinstein who can’t even use their fucking dick raping people. Because at the end of the day it all boils down to these freaks getting off on using power over others.
It’s also why they lean so hard on misogyny, racism, anti-lgbtq and general xenophobia, because all of them are rooted in having power over other groups.
Many good points on here. I’d also suggest watching “Get Me Roger Stone”. In it, Stone basically details his secrets to getting the ‘silent majority’ to pay attention. He says that fear is a bigger motivator than love. He says that the uneducated can’t tell the difference between entertainment and politics. There’s so many lines in that documentary that will make your ears perk up and be like, damnt, this was exactly how they did it.
My take:
Americans are either republican or democrat.
If you’re a republican then you’re going to vote for your guy. They see everything he does as just bullshit and bluster. “He says things to rile up the lefties but that’s just his brand.” They see the legal issues as politically motivated, or “maybe he’s a bit dirty, but all politicians are”.
I think it really is that simple. The vast majority of the population is not making a decision of whom to vote for based on their research regarding each party’s policies. They will just always vote the way they’ve always voted.
Democrats are a varied group. If Republicans weren’t so bat shit crazy, it would be nearly impossible to get all the Democrats to support the same person or set of policy preferences.
I think built into the question is - how can there still be so many Republicans? The 30% - 40% of voters who support him know what he’s about. That’s a fuck ton of spiteful adults in America. Seems like Canada, UK, and others in Europe aren’t so different either. Fuck.
I’m one of the most spiteful and petty people I know and even I think trump is a total piece of shit that I would never vote for. I dont like either party but holy shit is there a clear choice here when i realistically only have two options. The people who look at Trump and think he’s good have to be truly deranged or broken on a fundamental level.
Who knew the world was so full of terrible people?
I’m a socialist and I’ll vote D for as long as the GOP is the other option.
It’s 100% this. Politics is treated like a sport in the USA; the only thing that matters is your side winning, and which side you root for is largely dictated by location and family history. This is encouraged by the private news media, who intentionally report on election campaigns in this manner in order to increase ratings and ad revenue. Social media only made it worse because it made a lot of abstract identity dimensions, such as political affiliation, feel stronger to people than their everyday lives.
I’d say most Americans aren’t Republicans/Democrats, just like most Americans aren’t Christians.
Registering as an independent is a stupid idea in most states, it just means you get less say in the government that rules you. So many people register just because they would rather have the ability to say, “nah not that person” in the primaries.
As for the religion part, if Americans got taxed annually like they do in other countries and had to pay the church out of their incomes or check a box that says they aren’t religious, the number of religious people listed would drop by a fuck ton. Not a single person I know would pay 4% or something to their church, many would lie and say they do, but they would take the money every time. Especially when they realized everyone else was doing it, so poof they no longer would feel bad about doing it.
I would bet we would drop to 25% after 2 years, 10% after 5, and 3% after 10, which is where it would stay. Especially if donations to church’s didn’t grant tax deductions, which they shouldnt be.
How did I get here? Oh, Fuck the party system.
Republicans have been taught to ignore reality and give in to their hatred.
Despair is also a key party platform. The more hopeless someone is, the more likely they are to invite catastrophic change like Trump promises.
I would say that all Americans were. Republicans/conservatives overachieved however.
I think you’re correct. We were taught about manifest destiny but not the genocide of Native Americans, and that’s just one instance of the institutionalized racism we were taught was good. SO MANY PEOPLE never grew out of that or tried to be better.
Well we were taught about the trail of tears as a thing that happened a long time ago. But it’s all good now. But my family having strong tribal connections. Tribal leader on my father’s side a couple of generations back. We’re all on the official tribal rolls. And I was old enough to have gotten the reparations doled out in the 1980s for what happened to my great great great ancestors. A whole $10,000. Which is better than a kick in the teeth. But definitely not any sort of compensation for what was stolen.
So I knew about the Indian schools and some of the other heinous shit that Canada and the United States had pulled unlike so many others. But even I was surprised to learn that they were still current and operating well within my lifetime. People treated as if it’s a long ago solved problem. There are people still alive and well today that have families destroyed or lost family because of it. And there’s plenty of other shenanigans. Probably the most depressing part is that United States and Canada weren’t all that alone. Heck China is more or less doing it today. To cultural groups whose identity differs from the Vanguard parties chosen monoculture.
Fuck dude, it’s all so goddamned depressing. The only sliver of hope I have is that I can pass my knowledge to my kids and teach them better much younger. Hopefully enough people do this sort of thing that we might finally pull ourselves out of our bullshit ignorance. I know it’s worth nothing, but I’m sorry all the same.
People really underestimate how violently angry “liberals” can be, too.
Just the other day in my city I had some violently unhinged liberals comparing a drug addict who tried to run from cops, failed, and killed someone in the process to mass shooters. Right, because someone with serious mental health and addiction issues who wasn’t trying to kill anyone but rather escape the cops is totally the same as a mass shooter. They were all but calling for her death and doing the good old FOX News of digging up her entire criminal history to show how terrible she is and how much she deserves death.
I’m in an extremely “progressive” city deep in the Northwest.
The US is absolutely filled to the brim with unhinged violent freaks.
We are told to be angry, and that spills out in every possible way.
