Also! They literally let someone hand out 250 million dollars, openly, and our “courts” gave it the go-ahead - even if it goes against some of the longest standing legal precedent regarding buying votes (done with booze back in the day).
This election wasn’t a thumb on the scale, it was the oligarchs mushroom-stamping humanity.
“69.16% of Americans are okay with fascism” isn’t really a resounding defense of the health of American democracy in the face of fascism, though.
More people didn’t vote at all than let this demented rapist burn everything down.
Fucking idiots.
This is democracy manifest!
You can’t just blame a group of people for anything though, it’s not like geographic boundaries determine morality.
Instead you gotta look at what happened this last election. Yeah there was inflation, and the polls point to that as a thing that swayed a lot of people. But the bigger factor was media capture by far-right oligarchs. The top cable news station, the top podcast, and the top social media network for news were all turned into maga propaganda this election. In that environment, the only question is why was it so close?
And unfortunately, until that changes the next elections are going to be the same. Trump’s approval is down, but it’s still higher than it was at this point his last term.
You can’t just blame a group of people for anything though, it’s not like geographic boundaries determine morality.
Culture, in large part, determines morality, and culture is heavily influenced by geopolitical boundaries.
As an American myself, I have no interest in #notallAmericans defenses. We made our fucking bed, we can lie in it.
Instead you gotta look at what happened this last election. Yeah there was inflation, and the polls point to that as a thing that swayed a lot of people. But the bigger factor was media capture by far-right oligarchs. The top cable news station, the top podcast, and the top social media network for news were all turned into maga propaganda this election. In that environment, the only question is why was it so close?
The same reason why it was close in 2020, and in 2016. The same reason why the Tea Party in 2010 took off, why Americans gave Bush Jr. a second term in '04, why the GOP in the 90s saw significant success in running towards fascism. The same reason why Reagan got two terms with overwhelming popularity, why Nixon was elected on a platform of disdain for minorities, why Goldwater was a hit in the GOP and took the South from the Dems in 1964 for the first time since the Civil War.
We are a broken nation which has never managed to fully reckon with the deeply rooted authoritarian character within our culture. Trump is just the first time when a major party has given full voice to that inner fascist cretin, and it found that the base liked nothing better.
No excuses, no crisis staring us in the face, no illusions of a Truly Democratic Leader waved about. A creature whose prior term displayed the full range of incompetence and malice towards everything from leftists to Christianity, and whose campaign rhetoric promised nothing more than to get worse in its conduct if elected again. Trump was the final presentation of the question, unambiguous, “Do you, Americans, want fascism?” A mirror looking us flat in the fucking face, and daring us to speak.
And our response was an overwhelming “Sure, why not.”
I think 100%. Both these parties don’t work for middle class. Exceptions are Bernie and AOC. Without a third party pressure, we cannot win this oligarch war.
Those who didn’t vote, who thought their vote didn’t matter, that no matter which politician gets elected to whatever office… they’re complicit.
If you live in a blue state and didn’t vote, how are you complicit?
You lot never blame the dem leadership for making their biggest funder AIPAC/Israel, and allowing AIPAC funding to completely steer the party platform, the candidate choice, and the course of the race. Somehow Dem leaders are simply immune from blame in your eyes, even when AIPAC steers this outcome straight to a loss and Israelis said they never wanted the dems to win anyway.
The dems losing was much more desirable to AIPAC than a non genocide dem entering the race. The polls told dem leadership they were going to lose for the entire race and they decided to take the loss rather than give in to the no-to-genocide voters. AIPAC/Israel was more important to dem leadership than winning the race. Why do you still imagine that AIPAC supports dem voters or cares about America? You’ve learned nothing and you’re on the way to lose some more. Did you hear Dem leaders talk about the needs of the voters very much? No. You didnt-- but you sure saw them get animated and passionate about supporting zionist war crimes.For my vote, I wasnt going to lift a finger for any war criminal of any party, even if it meant this country burned itself to the ground. If the choice is murder lots of innocents or burn this place to the ground, I chose not to participate and let this place burn itself to the ground, and I’ll do it again if needed-- so will lots of other people – and theres nothing you can do about it. Dems cant win an election without them either.
So “blame” me on the internet all day, your boos mean nothing, I’ve seen what makes you cheer. I hope every dem leader gets to experience unemployment, and if it leads to revolution or “regime change” as we like to casually say it when its other countries suffering, then so be it. Its past time for this farce to “fundamentally change”.
Or suppressed. I’ll give some anecdotal examples. I have a friend that lives in a major metropolitan area with over 2.6 million people. When he applied to get a photo ID (he lost his previous one and needed a new one), the soonest appointment available for the entire metropolitan area was 3 months out. That’s just for the appointment to apply for the ID, not actually receiving the ID. You are required to have a photo ID to vote. Then, voter registration in itself must also be completed at least a month before an election. Now, let’s talk about the process of actually voting. I’ve personally stood in line for over 6 hours to vote. A lot of the people waiting in line had to leave to pick up their kids and other things. If you don’t pick up your kids from school or daycare at very specific times, there are serious penalties. While I was waiting, there must have been at least 40 people in front of me that had to leave before voting. Many of them had waited in line for over 4 hours. For most people, waiting in line is the only way to vote. Only the elderly and disabled qualify to vote by mail. Make no mistake, voter suppression is very effective, and it is implemented specifically in areas that vote against what the ruling party wants. In Trump leaning areas, the lines were no longer than a two minute wait if they existed at all. Trump never would have won either election if it wasn’t for voter suppression.
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Both times Trump won was when a woman was running against him. The only time he lost was to a white old man.
USA is just sexist and Americans better come to terms with it rather than making up random reasons.
If only things were that simple. Humans love to focus on just one reason, but when dealing with a population of voters you have to use statistics to understand anything about whats going on. I’m sure sexism was a factor but theres so much more than that.
People forget that black men, many of whom were born slaves, got the right to vote before women.
Tbf, we haven’t had a good candidate from either party since Obama.
Hitler got about 33% back when he started. He achieved his position by simply ignoring the law after that. Sounds familiar?
As usual, apathy is the greatest ally of authoritarianism.
It’s something to keep in mind.
Don’t alienate those 36.32%. I’m sure some of us have strong feelings about their choices, but at the end of the day they outnumber Democrats and Republicans each by quite a bit. If you want to see change you are going to have to convince some of them to join you. This goes for elections and this goes for revolutions.
As a brit I have found it fascinating how American and British politics seem to mirror each other. This is exactly the same argument that was levelled against Brexit. The stats the TV showed was 51% vs 49% in favour of Brexit but only 60% of the country voted and with this teeny tiny majority of voters the Conservatives enacted a massive constitutional change and causes absolute havoc which we are still paying for today.
We’ve since voted out the party that caused it but it landed us with an ineffective centrist Labour party who are continuing the mistakes of the past and not appealing to the left in the slightest (sound familiar?). This government still has 4 more years left in power but unless they change tack then I am very worried that we will have a extreme right version of the Conservatives in power next election.
The problem is the First Past The Post voting system. It’s not true democracy. It’s weighted to the right. Two parties, both in the pocket of big business. One who says “Oh, we’d love to help all you poors but it’s really not possible to increase taxes on the rich and invest in our country”, and the other who says “you’ll be poor but at least you’re not gonna get deported or persecuted like those gay and brown people”.
TLDR: Both the US and the UK need urgent electoral reform. Write to your representative. Make it an issue. Do not stop until it is a number one priority for these ghouls or they will keep fucking us.
Thank you for attending my Ted talk. Goodnight.
This is exactly the same argument that was levelled against Brexit.
In many, many concrete and specific ways Brexit was a test-run for trump. Same people, same money, same goals.
American democracy and freedom are fucked. But I don’t blame those 36% of non-voters. These people were INSPIRED to give up on politics.
It’s the media environment. Political coverage fucking sucks by design. Left populism is too interesting to be given air time, too much of a threat to the people who fund the parties and own the media. Politics used to be interesting. Politicians used to say things, now they just run out the clock with white noise.
I mean no
In an election between Bush and Kerry (the guy who lost 2004 election) or something like that then yes. People can be annoyed or just too busy to vote.
This election was perfectly clear that the future of US democracy was at stake and more than 1/3 of the voters decided to not show up. They decided that they were fine not choosing and as such fine with either option. I mean even if the choice was between Trump and a dog, the dog should have won by a landslide. 4 years of nothing would have been miles better than the decades that US is going back.
This presidency is already catastrophic and it barely even started.
I don’t even know how the US and the world can handle 4 years of this shit at this pace.
PERFECTLY CLEAR? They walked back calling them WEIRD, let alone FASCISTS! And the moment they win Biden is shaking hands and saying lets all get along! Where’s the panic? Where’s the urgency?
People do not know what’s going on. They still don’t. You have no appreciation for how much noise is drowning out the signal. If the Dems gave a shit about democracy they should have called Don a pedophile 1000 times every day of the campaign.
If you didn’t vote then you voted for the bad guy.
If you didn’t vote you are just as bad as the MAGAniacs.
If you didn’t vote you voted for Trump.
If you didn’t vote you are responsible for the current situation.
You ran a shit candidate and lost, take the L and be better
But what if you didn’t vote because of the genocide in Palestine?
Fucking wrong. Every asshole who abstained from voting, voted for Trump. He received 60%. At the very least, that 30% didnt vote for someone else.
If you abstained from voting in a blue state you voted for trump? Logic does not compute.
So many tears…
*liberal tears
How many of those who didn’t vote were from the states where Democrats won?
How many were from swing states?
How many were from Red states?
In an electoral college based election these nuances matter.
Stop this bs. Rules are set before the game begins.
The really shocking stat is the growing number of eligible voters who have just stopped voting or participating in the system at all. When you look at the #1 reason why it is “no matter who wins my life doesn’t get better and no candidate represents me”. We have a quasi functional democracy at this point.
I mean, ~30 non-voting is, historically, really good
Things have been smooth enough in the last 80 years that people just don’t think they need to.
They’re wrong, of course. But this is a high-turnout election.
GOTV (Get Out The Vote) is always the actual part of elections. It’s also why the republiQans have focused so much on destroying that part.
If you look at the data as to why they do not vote the answer is not " things are so smooth that I dont need to vote anymore".
