US politics

[FLips]

He just won Pennsylvania, and is predicted to win every single swing state. Kamala is toast.

It's going to be an interesting 4 years and I dread to think of the state of America when it's done. The Republicans have the house, the senate, the supreme courts, the popular vote and have ran away with the election in a landslide.

It's as good as over for Ukraine now, for women, for people of colour, for immigrants, for the LGBT community, old people are going to wither away when he pulls medical support. Our only hope now I guess is that he fumbles it so badly that the country come to their senses before he does too much permanent damage. It will likely take generations to repair the country after this.

[Just Some Guy]

The sad thing for me is that when Obama, as the first black man to be a candidate won, it set a precedent that race is not a bar to the highest office.

With female candidates now going 0-2 I worry that a narrative will form that women cannot win.

[SuperBacon]

This is as much as the Democrats losing this then it is Trump winning it. They've had an absolute nightmare.

This is what would happen if Boris Johnson was ever Conservative leader in an election again by the way.

 

[Chest Rockwell]

1 hour ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

, I think inflation has killed the Democrats and Trump - despite it not being true - has told people who don't follow international politics closely, and don't understand necessarily why inflation has been high, that he'll bring prices down.

So choosing to believe a known liar and being ignorant of the reason for things happening is not stupid?

[Gus Mears]

This is indescribably bad. When aliens or whatever the fuck comes next rake the coals of humanity they'll find this. 

[2Xtreme_lives]

1 hour ago, FLips said:

He just won Pennsylvania, and is predicted to win every single swing state. Kamala is toast.

It's going to be an interesting 4 years and I dread to think of the state of America when it's done. The Republicans have the house, the senate, the supreme courts, the popular vote and have ran away with the election in a landslide.

It's as good as over for Ukraine now, for women, for people of colour, for immigrants, for the LGBT community, old people are going to wither away when he pulls medical support. Our only hope now I guess is that he fumbles it so badly that the country come to their senses before he does too much permanent damage. It will likely take generations to repair the country after this.

The worst fear has happened. 

My Dad and step-Mum are over from Rural Illinois where they live, and are purposely over this week as they couldn't face being in the country one way or another if Trump won or lost (the drama afterwards). The fact that Trump was looking at winning last night was enough for them to consider to leave the States and come back here based on the above despite the quality of life in the UK actually being worse than they are in the US for them currently

Even Dad being a British Green Card holder he worries about how far Trump would go for immigration rights 

Edited November 6, 2024 by 2Xtreme_lives
typo

[Sergio Mendacious]

FUCK’S SAKE

[d-d-d-dAz]

19 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said:

So choosing to believe a known liar and being ignorant of the reason for things happening is not stupid?

I'm saying people vote by their personal situation, and tend to filter out the rest. If they believe both sides are bad, and one is offering a better economic reality, they'd argue that it's the only rational decision they could make.

There's never a good argument for dismissing vast swathes of people as stupid. There's a shit load of people who voted for or endorsed Trump who are a lot smarter than all of us.

Calling lots of people 'stupid' is the sort of arrogance that has repeatedly cost Democrats - and the left generally - support over the last decade or so. People aren't stupid, but broadly speaking they'll vote based on basic, retail, predominantly economic politics and they'll pick the person they think is on their side. The Harris campaign hasn't been able to convince people that that was her, and even the female vote didn't get out in great numbers for her.

It's obviously a horrible result, especially as a European, but just putting it down to mass stupidity is the sort of dismissive reaction that perpetuates populism and will allow this nonsense to continue.

The mad thing is, I remember when the thing that would horrify the left and socialists most is dismissing vast swathes of people, the working classes, as stupid rather than trying to understand their situation and work with them. And that's exactly where America is now and where Britain could follow, with the Left turning its back on the working and lower middle classes because they're 'stupid', and relying on big city, educated elites. It's very sad. 

Edited November 6, 2024 by d-d-d-dAz

[SuperBacon]

All we can hope for is Trump gets rid of the term law, and its Obama - Trump in 28. Book it.

? You think you're special ?

[d-d-d-dAz]

3 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

All we can hope for is Trump gets rid of the term law, and its Obama - Trump in 28. Book it.

? You think you're special ?

It does sort of feel like that's been the battle at the heart of every election since 2012. They're still the beating heart of their respective half of the country. I'd probably even pay PPV to watch that one...

...well, I'd get the network. Or maybe just use someone else's login.

 

[Ronnie]

12 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

All we can hope for is Trump gets rid of the term law, and its Obama - Trump in 28. Book it.

No doubt Trump would love to but doing so is a tall order. It would require repealing the 22nd Amendment, which established the two-term limit. (It was previously merely convention, with George Washington limiting himself to two terms. Franklin D. Roosevelt stood for and won two additional terms after the start of WW2, although the USA wasn't yet involved.)

To get the 22A repealed, Trump would need to get two thirds of the House and Senate to propose it, and then three quarters of the states to ratify it. It doesn't look plausible at all. (I was going to end that with "fortunately" but I don't suppose it would've been so much of a problem given Trump's age. Imagine if he were a few decades younger, though!) 

[LaGoosh]

36 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

There's never a good argument for dismissing vast swathes of people as stupid. There's a shit load of people who voted for or endorsed Trump who are a lot smarter than all of us.

Stupidity takes many forms. Racism, misogyny, xenophobia, religious fundamentalism, worshipping of politicians like a cult for example are all types of stupidity that "smart" people can have. 

I'm sure there's loads of smart people in Texas for example but they keep voting Ted Cruz so I'm pretty comfortable that these same people are stupid.

Edited November 6, 2024 by LaGoosh

[organizedkaos]

And desperation and fear also makes people do stupid things if they believe it'll save then

I mean it's shit and certainly shows  up a lot of the self interest and delusion in the Americans dream but "they're not stupid enough to do this/gosh arent they stupid" is basically the same story being said by the left over and over again until they lose. I mean i dont know the solution, times are tough and snake oil is an attractive prospect. Repeatedly pointing out "bad man bad and you're dumb for liking him" isn't much working though and further disconnects groups (which is arguably the space where more extreme politics thrive)

Just wait until "at least we're not stupid enough to do this" starts. I'm not fully sure that'll have the desired outcome either. 

[BomberPat]

What about all the landlords, business owners, and millionaires who vote Trump?

It's far more insulting to working people to pretend that they're all an easily swayed mass who are only ever a grievance away from fascism, and can't be expected to understand or learn about their situation. Particularly when we don't assume the same thing about the wealthy or middle class people who vote (often in far greater numbers) for the same right-wing parties.

I don't know the stats from last night yet, but in 2020 and in 2016, the four or five lowest income brackets voted majority Democrat, not Republican.

The idea that Donald Trump - or any conservative movement's - core base comes from poor and disadvantaged working people is a lie, and a narrative designed to pretend that their support is just thick old racists, not moneyed interests who are largely content to see oppressive policies enacted against everyone else so long as their tax bill gets lower. But we never wring our hands about whether the Democrats have "left behind" the rich and the powerful, or about how we need to listen to their "legitimate concerns".

 

That said, among poorer working people, the bit that goes unsaid when you complain about how "the working class are being ignored" is what you mean by the working class. Nobody's out there asking Somalian cab drivers, Venezuelan Deliveroo riders, or Mexican cleaners who they're voting for. Nobody's writing thinkpieces about how they feel "left behind" or how we need to listen to their concerns. Because they don't mean the working class, they mean white people in baseball hats with the right kind of accent. In America it's people with Southern accents that can be painted as hicks and hillbillies even while they can afford to fly around the country to attend every Trump rally, in England it's landlords and business owners who are bloke-coded because they were Fred Perry and drink shit Lager.

It's far more insulting to working people to do that than it is to call people who keep making stupid decisions against their own best interests stupid. 

And I have no time for fretting over what "The Left" should be doing in the context of an American election and the Democrat Party. There is no American "Left".

[JLM]

I think it’s a big stretch to keep calling liberals and the US Democratic Party “the left”. The options are the cartoon character who tells big lies and makes big promises or the centrist nothing “at least I’m not the other guy” party who won’t do anything at all. Much like Starmer vs the Tories. There is no Left.

The sensibles and centrists have been adamant for the longest time that left wing parties should continue this shift to the centre where they advocate for nothing and purge all the radical crazies. This will make them more electable so they can slowly make things better little by little once they’re in power. It’s working out smashingly.