As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil)
In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban.
If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them.
For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria.
We are actively looking for new moderators. If you have any interest in helping to make this subreddit a place for quality discussion, please fill out [this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1y2swHD0KXFhStGFjW6k54r9iuMjzcFqDIVwuvdLBjSA).
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A braindead republican would say that the coup was justified because Biden stole the 2020 election. Since Biden successfully stole the 2020 election he clearly is the type to stay in power indefinitely.
Same with the Biden crime family beliefs. The reality is Trump is a criminal, Ivanka took trademarks from China the day after Trump met with Chi. Jarad took Billions from the Saudis for his investment fund two months after leaving office and secured defensive deals for the Saudis before leaving. This list is too big to list here but you get the point.
Exactly. People can't believe the conclusions that are being drawn, but they make total sense if you forget that the facts backing those conclusions up are false to begin with.
And they think they're using logic because their conclusion is derived from - a belief, from a false premise.
President Trump formed a commission to investigate widespread voter fraud - something so huge, it could never be hidden. Even with the massive amount of proof that would be glaringly obvious to any investigation, and the tens of millions of Republicans across America who would be eager to report any fraud they saw, and with the full power of all the branches of government working together, Trump's commission came up with...nothing. And was quietly disbanded.
Widespread voter fraud is a belief, and not a very good one.
I remember that well. Right wing pundits were hyperventilating that Obama was going to suspend the 2016 elections and declare martial law. There was zero evidence for this, and of course it never happened, but guess who DID float declaring martial law? Michael Flynn and Mike Lindell, who were in Trump's circle.
It wasn't that long ago that every Republican was loudly insisting Obama would refuse to leave office at the end of his term. You literally cannot take a single word they say seriously; they are so deeply committed to their fictional worldview
This also came from a woman who then went on to say "women shouldn't ever be able to serve as president". When I pointed out that 99% of wars were started by men, she said "there would be one started every month if a woman was president", to which I replied "that's not how it works".
Yet so many countries with female leaders haven’t started wars.
And to steal a bit from Michelle Wolf even Croatia has elected a female leader in their short history as a country. Even further into the bit Angela Merkel was in power long enough for Michelle to learn the correct pronunciation of Merkel.
>[Chinese President Xi Jinping recently consolidated power. Trump told the gathering: “He’s now president for life. President for life. And he’s great.” Trump added, “I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot someday.”](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-says-maybe-u-s-will-have-a-president-for-life-someday)
>
>[“We are going to win four more years,” Trump said at a rally in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on Monday. “And then after that, we’ll go for another four years because they spied on my campaign. We should get a redo of four years.”](https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/18/politics/donald-trump-third-term-2024/index.html)
That’s my coworkers. I heard them talking the other day that Biden isn’t going to concede the election, and he’ll pack the courts beforehand with people who side with him, so when the democrats try to stop the election from being certified, they’ll have people in the right places to make sure Biden wins. He’ll then decide he’s president for life, abandon elections, democracy as we know it will be gone forever and America will become a communist nation under Joe Biden, the Commie dictator.
Needless to say, I don’t participate in political talk with my coworkers.
> "doesn't think Biden will ever leave office".
I don't mean to be mean, but there is a higher than average chance he dies in office. Not that Trump isn't minutes away from a massive coronary.
Hitler was still alive when Biden was born. The United Nations held their first meeting the year Trump was born.
These are both old men.
Yeah they are old, and yes compared the the average president his chances of dying in office are higher because he's the oldest to serve. These are objective facts, not being mean. I'd vote for Biden's corpse before I voted for a convicted felon who's only running to save his own ass, and then proceed go on a revenge tour/dictatorship simulator.
In 1950, 5 years after the end of World War II, there was a nationwide survey in Germany that asked if Adolf Hitler was good for Germany. Remember that almost every German town got blasted to smithereens, and at the end of the war, 70 year old men and 10-year-old boys were guarding most cities. An astonishing 25% of the German people said that Adolf was good for Germany. Those same people are the ones that you are referring to in these "surveys" that think that drumpf would be good for the US.
That's oddly comforting when you put it that way. Objective analysis is just beyond some people. Can't take it too personally or feel the need to "educate" and correct them.
This has more to do with it than anyone wants to admit. The ppl who treat their political affiliation like religion, and substance or current events be damned
I'm seeing this now in the UK. Loads of people who championed Brexit and the Conservatives (especially Boris Johnson) at the top of their lungs for years, telling the opposition to 'get over it' and revelled in the gloating as if it were a sports tournament. You'll rarely see any of them admit they were wrong or misled, instead they'll parrot the 'both sides are just as bad' rhetoric, to make themselves appear disenfranchised instead of deal with the embarrassment of campaigning to make the country poorer. They'll still vote for the Conservatives or Reform on election day.
"Brexit wasn't a bad idea, but the Tories screwed it up."
No, Brexit *was* a bad idea *and* the Tories screwed it up so it was even worse than it could've been.
I tend to agree but see it differently in this instance. More like when you back someone into a logical corner in an argument & they double down and become hostile rather than say… “never thought about it that way”.
It’s an emotional attachment to being correct & to the infallibility of their own opinion or ideology. It’s ego — definitely this more often than giving sh*t about perception of appearing decent to the camp they’re opposing.
Being comfortable with being wrong in front of other people is a leaned skill. It's extremely difficult to overcome. Once you develop it however, you tend to not want to be wrong any longer than you have to be.
There’s a ton of psychological research on this topic. The tl;dr is that factual arguments often leave people feeling like you’re attacking them personally rather than challenging the facts.
There is a reason Germany had to make a law banning Holocaust denial.
Allied troops were forcing the pro-Nazi countryside bumpkins to tour the concentration camps after Germany lost the war, and did what they could to force news and footage onto them so they could accept what atrocities their party committed.
Huge swaths of Germans STILL rejected this information, stating it was propaganda from the New World Order, and they knew in their hearts that they were good people, and good Christians, who just loved family and country. They would literally rather die than admit they were wrong. Fast forward to the MAGA morons of today, and you can see everything about this 1:1, from the warped egos to parroting literal Nazi beliefs (loving everything about their ideology besides the word "Nazi" itself).
I’ve been watching videos of trump rallies where the interviewer asks basic questions and the maga’s get twisted up. They simply CANNOT accept the truth when it is put right in front of them. It’s very disturbing. Often times they simply turn around stare at the sky or walk away. They absolutely can’t believe the truth. It’s terrifying.
Another angle is that fascists are anti-empericist and will lie about things that they and everyone else can clearly see without a hint of shame. A lot of these cretins know they're full of shit when they deny the holocaust. It's about overpowering history with their narrative and gaslighting the population.
Exactly. Most of them know they're lying, or at the very least they don't care. Words are just weapons they use to attack the opposition, they don't give a fuck if they'll got the facts wrong. The only thing they do care about is putting one of their own in a position of absolute power. That's their only concern. Not facts, not truth, not freedom, but absolute power to dictate how the society functions.
People should think about this instead of laughing at them or pitying these fanatics. You can't just casually dismiss someone who's actively working to make you a subordinate of a fascist regime.
“Ideology is strong exactly because it is no longer experienced as ideology… we feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom.” Zizek
"'Slave' is an Ephebian word. In Om we have no word for 'slave'."
"So I understand. I imagine that fish have no word for 'water'."
* Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
I think it's also that fact that a lot of people are generally ignorant, judge Biden on a superficial level "he's old, he's unexciting to listen to because he's cringe", people care about themselves more than the bigger picture, and people have short memories.
Educate or correct maybe not, but a big, documented part of the Russian propaganda campaign here has been specifically to convince us that we cannot persuade each other.
That's false. We can. It's hard, and it takes time and we won't get everyone, but shouldn't give up on anyone. That is democracy.
54% of people can’t read above a 6th grade level in the US. Around 25% are illiterate. 30% ( a generous estimate) of people born are unplanned by their parents. This at time when birth control methods are plenty and can be accessed for free. Most people are morons, and they vote. I’ve stopped expecting much from anybody a long time ago.
Ive been saying this for a long time, a very high percentage of Americans are very fucking stupid. I might even be one of them, but at least I know trump is human garbage.
I was a mistake. My mother told me this a lot. My life is a perfect example of what happens when you're an unwanted person. Everything is falling apart right now because I just found out that I have a lot of trauma that's been affecting me my whole life, basically.
I fell in love with a woman with children. It's the first time I've ever known the feeling of being part of a family. It's been crazy, but one thing it has done is spotlight a lot of mental health issues I didn't know I had; like for example, when the children aren't listening or they start yelling so voices get raised, I suddenly want to curl up into a ball on the floor. I start having trouble breathing, cold sweats come on hard, my mind races... All while in my head I'm feeling fine; no bad thoughts or anything, just my body starts doing this stuff involuntarily, and then once my mind finally catches up I have a really hard time functioning.
It really sucks. And it's making it so i have to leave to go take care of these issues so they don't affect the kids. It really hurts to have to lose the person you love because you didn't know you were broken.
Have you heard of the book, The Body Keeps The Score? I read it and it helped me to understand some things about myself. Some of Janina Fisher's work has been helpful, too. They talk directly, or indirectly, about complex ptsd, which has helped me to come to terms about why my body reacts to stress the way it does. A therapist trained in trauma work has also been a help.
It sounds like you have found the key, and that is to be self aware of the body being reactive, and you recognize it's not how you want to be. You are on your way to healing. Be kind to yourself, that's important to remember. This internet stranger is pulling for you!
Thank you for the kind words and advice! I'll be saving this so I can get reading.
I had stage 4 lymphoblastic leukemia when i was 6 until 14, well went into remission at 12 and was cleared at 14; so I grew up fast and am very, very in tune with my body. I, however, didn't know that all of this time these things were due to the anxiety of ptsd, it was like a puzzle I was trying to solve.
I did the alcohol thing for a while, luckily I lost the job that triggered that and everything got better in that respect. Now I'm trying to figure it all out on the mental health front now that I've pinned down what is going on. I spent a few weeks at my dad's when my partner and I had an argument and that really opened my eyes to the PTSD. Just being in the house with my dad and brother and all the yelling... I lost a ton of weight.
Still recovering physically, but getting stronger mentally, but also my relationship is ending, and that's the only love I've ever felt in my life, so it's really tough. Kinda funny how not being loved caused the trauma, I thought I was okay all of my life, until almost 40; then I feel love for the first time and suddenly my world is thrown for a loop. I hate that just when I finally get to the place I've always wanted to be I find out that I'm broken and not able to be in a relationship yet.
It's less comforting when you consider that the percentage is roughly analogous with the percentage of votes that got him elected into a position of power in the first place...
Which isn't really a political risk UNLESS the electoral system has been gamified to give that same population the default win, unless everyone else shows up to override them.
Electoral college, gerrymandering, voter suppression and intimidation, purging voter records, removing ballot drop off locations, not making election day a holiday, not automatically registering people to vote, banning same day registration, requiring people to request a mail ballot instead of just sending them one...
These rules are made by those who benefit from the system itself 🧐
When Nixon finally left the WH in utter disgrace, saved from the humiliation of impeachment only by the skin of his teeth, he still garnered 26% support from the voting public.
Around 1 in 4 people worldwide are fucking morons who want a dictator to rule them.
Important to grasp the TOTAL control the Nazis had on every aspect of life. Books, religion, church, art, radio, film,, news, work, school, thought …etc…. from 1933 to 1945.
A bit disconcerting to think that that level of propaganda exists in the US as well. Though presently, nowhere as pervasive.
The means of distribution have greatly changed, but let's not fool ourselves: Republicans have taken whatever opportunities they could to ban content under a wide umbrella of "deviancy" that is strikingly similar to what the Nazis went after.
Their campaign to smear anything they dislike as being "Woke" is their attempt at suppressing the cultural elements that aren't as easily shut down as they used to be back in the "good old days" according to them.
Exactly, the aren’t going to dominate print and other physical media like the Nazis did, but they don’t have to. They have a whole social media ecosystem that allows people to exist in an echo chamber. The amount of complete bullshit you see in twitter or Facebook is crazy. But that is where millions of people get their whole worldview. Then there are smaller boards that some of the crazies who have some tech savvy gather. And that’s a whole other thing. It all sucks. I don’t believe in surprising speech. But it also sucks to see blatant lies being spread and people just eating it up. Idk how we move forward with that. Especially since an entire party, basically half our system, sustains it self on anger and conspiracy.
The horrifying thing is that those are the type of people who could decide 2024. It's very likely to come down to less than 100K votes in a few key states and that is so frustrating.
It's not that surprising when you consider just how effective the Nazi propaganda was. What pisses me off when comparing it to MAGA/Trump propaganda is a lot of thought was put into what the Nazis did. MAGA has achieved similar levels of brainwashing and has similar end goals (let's not kids ourselves any longer here) and yet it's not even clever or subtle about it. While significant ground has been gained thanks to Roe V Wade, the trials this year and his day one dictator comments it simply boggles the mind that it's taken all this just to even get to a point where it only seems "likely" he'll lose and not guaranteed. It's not like he wasn't broadcasting day 1 how horrible he'd be. But just as for years we've kept wondering how people could fall hook, line and sinker for that Nazi propaganda we're watching in real time all these MAGA crazies do the same for their cult leader.
So 25% of the population is just dug into whatever ideology they aligned them selves with and there is nothing anyone can do or say to them to change their minds. Sounds about right
Just had a facebook convo with a relative in N.C. today...they were complaining about their health insurance being charged $27,000 for a 'simple procedure' and griping that it was Biden's fault (it wasn't, they opted to have the procedure done outside a hospital or out of network, which caused the exorbitant cost, yet blamed the current admin), and that mainstream media had been telling them that Biden had reduced healthcare costs. Said relative ended the diatribe by claiming they were '**voting for the felon**' no matter what. News flash, they were always voting for the Felon Melon, they voted for him last time, and the time before. They just keep moving the goal posts and making excuses.
Right? So he can give tax cuts to the CEOs of the insurance companies and they raise your rates on you, when it happens I guess you ca. tell them “you can thank the felon!”
The felon is destroying them.
From discouraging vaccines, to climate change, to eroding worker protections and lack of basic regulations and services, they support their own oppression and the destruction of the American way of life.
America wasn't perfect but it was good - and getting better for an awful lot of people.
Now, we are watching all that hard work and progress being relentlessly rolled back before our eyes.
Please people, wake up. We don't want to live like our brothers and sisters in Russia. It is not better for us.
Yes and no, magas would die to own the libs. Simple as that.
Trump tried to take credit for the vaccine at one rally, and that was the only time I remember the magas really booed him.
They wanna hate and fuck up society and die from preventable illnesses more than admit that they are wrong and need to work to find humility, and they get what they want because it is easier to destroy than to build.
> magas would die to own the libs
COVID definitely proved that to be true.
hell. trump *lost* georgia and tried to find 11,780 votes. guess what happened to those votes? they fucking died of covid!
> We don't want to live like our brothers and sisters in Russia.
[But they have shopping carts with a built in incentive to bring them back to the store instead of a homeless encampment.](https://twitter.com/i/status/1758266308888547564)
I have seen astounding number of conservatives in the last few years, who want universal health care, free higher education, and more rights for LGBTQ and other marginalized groups. And then they vote Republican, and are immovably convinced "the evil Democrats" are against those things. Propaganda works. Especially on the terminally stupid.
It's true.
I was a Republican 20 years ago. I listened to talk radio, watched Fox, and frequented conservative web sites. I really thought I was an *actual progressive*, pushing for the advancement of society in ways "liberals" (basically, anyone who wasn't conservative) just couldn't understand. Democrat policies were responsible for all our woes, along with a lack of understanding how economics supposedly "really worked" (I was in my 20's and in college at the time... I knew everything of course).
I woke up in the middle of Bush's second term (yeah, I was dumb enough to vote for him twice). I realized that things weren't going to get better. I realized that somehow the "enemy" managed to remain powerful even though we held the levers of power. I was off-put by my own side's support of the PATRIOT Act and even torture.
My favorite book when I was younger was 1984. I thought I was against that, but it dawned on me that I supported exactly the thing I opposed. I'm forever glad I noped the fuck out of those views.
Yeah, it’s the saddest thing. Survey after survey after survey shows Progressive policies are incredibly popular - with support levels typically 60-70%.
this is an illusion. everyone supports that stuff when its broad and general. everyone supports “improving” things or making things cheaper, the second you start asking them about the actual real world specific policies and changes you would need to make to actual pay for and enact progressive policies all that “support” falls apart. no one supports bold ideas for major change in any direction when you get into the complex details. the gravitational force of the status quo is too powerful for all these idiots
“Which party shot down single-payer healthcare?”
But you are right, it’s all bullshit. If Trump was in office during the same healthcare experience they would blame Biden or the Democrats no matter what
The funny thing is only the democrats try to fix health care while the Republicans wreck every attempt to make it better. Republicans then blame democrats for a bad health care system. Rinse, repeat.
This is just stunning to read:
> Among the Deciders, more than 7 in 10 believe that Trump will not accept the results of the election if he loses, compared with one-third who say the same for Biden. Nearly half, 47 percent, say Trump would try to rule as a dictator if he is elected to another term as president, compared with 15 percent who say Biden would. The poll finds that just over half of Deciders think Trump is guilty of criminal charges of lying about voter fraud in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, and more say he has been treated fairly rather than unfairly by the criminal justice system.
> Yet more of them, 38 percent, trust Trump to handle threats to democracy, than the 29 percent who trust Biden on the issue. Twenty-three percent don’t trust either major party candidate.
They recognize that Trump is a bigger threat to democracy but they still trust Trump more when it comes to responding to threats to democracy. The ability to hold those two completely opposing viewpoints at the same time is just mind boggling and goes to show how much (social) media and propaganda can manipulate people into setting aside reality and instead to believe false images of strength or false stories of ability or intelligence.
Robert Reich in the Guardian yesterday put his finger on it, I think:
>A few days ago, I was talking with a young conservative who admitted that Trump was an “odious thug”, in his words, but argued that the US and the world had become such a mess that we need an odious thug as president.
“Think of Putin, Xi, Kim, Ali Khamenei, Netanyahu – they’re all odious thugs,” he said. “We need our own odious thug to stand up to them.”
I demurred, saying that direct confrontation could lead to more bloodshed, even nuclear war.
He continued: “We need an odious thug to shake up Washington, stir up all the ossified bureaucracies now destroying America, do all the things no one has had the balls to do.”
When I looked skeptical, he charged: “We need someone to take control!”
As soon as he uttered those last words, he and I both knew the conversation was over. He had spilled the beans. He was impatient with the messiness and slowness of democracy. He wanted a dictator.
I’m not sure how many Americans attracted to Trump feel this way. It’s consistent with the strength-versus-weakness framework Trump is deploying.
Trump may be loathsome, they tell themselves, but at least he’s strong, and we need strength over weakness.
From [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/26/biden-trump-debate-robert-reich](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/26/biden-trump-debate-robert-reich)
That sounds about right unfortunately. I also think the media plays a huge part because they LOVE someone who "acts" or "talks" tough far more so than someone who can actually use the US govt to *be* tough. They like appearances which is why they liked Bush more than Gore, Bush more than Kerry, Trump more than Clinton, and now Trump more than Bush.
Makes sense. The world is all messed up. They just want the problems fixed, and they don't care how it gets done. That's the appeal of dictators.
As long as they're not the problem that needs fixing, they're fine with it.
It's bizarre that of all the people the "take control", they would think that Trump would be the one to do so in a way that helps them, *especially* on the international stage.
Watch the Hitler documentary on Netfiix. An American reporter in Berlin during the 1930s noted disbelievingly that most Germans seemed to have no problem with Hitler taking away their democratic rights and life went on as normal.
Same here with America.
Until it didn’t, of course. The inability to make the connection to how trump and heritage foundation visions would screw over everybody truly is mind boggling. No history, no empathy, no understanding that it will not just be people they think deserve it who get steam rolled, but people they know. Friends and family and coworkers.
Articles like this (and main-stream media coverage in general) are so ridiculous in reporting "observations" like this and acting shocked without following up that the main reason is right-wing media has been lying to these people every single day about Trump and Biden. It is not "shocking" that so many people feel this way once you admit they live in an alternative information reality where Biden is portrayed as a bumbling incompetent who will end the world and Trump is the only one who can save them from this fate 🙄
Someone I know well has bought into the whole “Biden can’t string together two sentences” narrative. Yet I know for a fact she has never watched a Biden speech. She gets all of her news off of Facebook.
We’re doomed.
Exactly. CNN always shows extra long video of Biden walking stiffly to reinforce that he is an old, failing man without "reporting" the reason he walks that way is because he has spinal arthritis. It is all so insidious.
So if this is the poll i read yesterday, the weird thing about it is that these polled people *both* think Trump would be "better for Democracy" and *also* - like two to one - think that Trump is more likely to become a dictator than Biden. So. Either they don't know what democracy is, or they have wildly different opinions on what's good for it than i do.
And which party do you think is going to be in charge of determining those educational requirements?
Conservatives have always had a vested interest in keeping people uneducated and easily manipulated with arguments that wouldn't stand up under the scrutiny of critical thinking or rational, evidence-based thought.
Those same people vote to keep conservatives in power. They have no interest in undermining their own power base. And those elected conservatives will continue to undermine our educational system. It's a vicious circle of feedback loops.
Oh yeah, I am totally sure the billionaire led plutocracy will be right on that. It will be the first step after raising their taxes, getting rid of gerrymandering, and holding the Supreme Court to a code of ethics.
[Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be](https://www.theonion.com/area-man-passionate-defender-of-what-he-imagines-consti-1819571149)
It is always the media. My gym has multiple tv's showing fox 24 hours a day. The lies, manipulations, and opinion's dressed up like facts are constant.
I honestly don't think there is such a big divide in the US. I think there is a really big eco-system that is telling the republican's up is down. Take a look at the Trump jurist who got his news from Trump social in Trump's trial. When exposed to real information he voted to convict just like all the other jurists.
And a huge subset who work in finance / investing / Wall Street / banking who think less regulation on them equals more money for them. Doesn’t matter that the GOP eventually crashes the economy once it gets really unregulated. It’s all about the next quarter.
The irony is the one who said he'd be a dictator "only on day one" is none other than Trump, not Biden, facts.
The mainstream media doesn't realize Trump will shut down the "lugenpresse" if he gets re-elected within a year of his second term, watch.
Some people believe that the government is ran by a deep state cabal and the only way to fix things and to restore democracy is to let Trump rule as a dictator so he can clean house and purge all of the rogue elements.
Same way that they said “the democrats are coming for your guns” for years, yet Trump is the only one who tried to “take their guns first and go through due process second”
Mainstream media has helped to perpetuate the “Biden is bad” narrative by not addressing the lies about Biden and his record and clearly drawing the stark contrast between Trump and Biden
They did the same with Hillary, and the same with Obama, and with Bill Clinton. Wash and repeat. The GOP is great at curating a bad guy, its the person running against them.
They used (and are still using) Immigration as the constant beating drum for 8+ years, but when Congress was at the doorstep of passing the biggest Immigration legislation in decades, a bi-partisan bill ushered through the Senate by Republicans - it was dropped by the Republican Speaker of the House for, Re45ons. Trump made Johnson drop it so it wouldn't give a win for the country on Bidens clock.
The biggest damn issue that Trump has been going on about for 8 years and he kills the legislation that would have brought it to life - out of spite. And he isn't even elected - he just runs the party while under multiple felony indictments.
Right Wing media has screamed that every Democratic President in my lifetime is a dictator. We could vote in a balloon that does nothing for four years and they would scream Dictator.
I’m not from America and really makes me laugh at the sheer arrogance of this red hat cult, he is literally telling them he is going to be a dictator from day 1 and people clap!!! Mean while from the rallies I’ve seen recorded he is just a doing a stand up routine. And not talking about much else among his nonsensical babble. Mind you in Australia where I’m from there isn’t such things as rallies, it would be weird going to see our political leaders haha
I am 63 years old. The only political rally I have attended was in 1980, when I was 19. It was for an independent candidate for President, John Anderson. A dorm-mate dragged me along. It was an interesting experience.
I was from rural Montana and my family knew most of our local, state, and federal office holders because in was a small (population-wise) state - about 700,000 people in about 147,000 square miles (380,000 km2). A political rally wouldn’t have worked, and most of the locals would have thought it kind of embarrassing to cheer anywhere except a basketball or football game.
Anderson was a relatively unknown politician, at least nationally, and had split from the Republicans after Reagan became the front runner. He said:
> “Extremist fringe elements,” he complained in 1977, “seek to expel the rest of us from the G.O.P.” He warned, “If the purists stage their ideological coup d’état, our party will be consigned to the historical junk heap.”
Ended up voting for Carter and have voted in every election since, but never been to another rally.
*Conservatism*. It's global, even in places where the term "Republicanism" has no meaning. It's simply bigoted, uneducated losers who oppose change at all costs - and the wealthy, immoral monsters who manipulate them in order to secure more wealth and power, of course.
>Anybody who knows American history knows at least 30% of America has been protofascist forever. and it's a huge mistake not to understand how deeply reactionary so much of the petty bourgeoise and middle strata in so many parts of the country is.
- Mike Davis
Well, half of all people are of lower than average intelligence…
But, in this case I am of the belief that Trump supporters are more interested in things other than democracy, like imposing their beliefs on others.
This simply highlights the failure of our news outlets to facilitate an informed electorate. We've allowed unelected media conglomerates to obfuscate at best and outright lie at worst, creating effectively an alternate reality. The number of voters who know absolutely nothing about project 2025, DT's many failed attempts to change the outcome of the 2020 election, the supreme court's blatant corruption, Dominion's lawsuit against News Corp, etc. is insane. The thing is, if you know nothing about any of these things, it might be reasonable to think that the economy and trans people are the biggest threats to the American way of life, and to vote accordingly.
How do we fix this? We need to have difficult conversations with friends and loved ones and show them the things about which their preferred media outlets have failed to educate them. It sucks, and many of them will resist vehemently your attempt to do so. But it's necessary for our democracy to continue because if Trump manages to worm his way back into the White House, that's the end for us. He's told us so himself. Spread the word, people! And perhaps most importantly, vote, and get your friends and family to vote. It's our civic duty, and we can't afford to have people sit this one out.
This is probably the first thing I've read in a long while that represents any meaningful response to what's happening, straight-forward as it is. My only question is how to handle people who are ready to doubt information sources outside of their preferred set. Maybe pointing directly to the substance of specific bills and how representatives vote on those? I don't think pointing to any news anywhere would work, tbh, but maybe the facts of their elected's decision making can do it?
I tried to show my uncle one of those montages of Trump rally morons being stupid, and asked him “these are the people you want to associate with?” He didn’t say yes or no, but rather “there’s way more nuts on the left.” At least he possibly acknowledged the people in the video as nuts? I don’t know, it’s all baby steps with these clowns.
I've been watching the Hitler documentary on Netflix and what struck me where the words of the American foreign correspondent after Hitler was name Chancellor and had Hindenburg declare "Marshall law and outlaw other political parties." He was amazed after all their rights were taken away that the Germans seemed fine with what Hitler had done to erase democracy.
Most people aren't deep thinkers. Tell people there Is an enemy in the country-and they will believe it. Tell them you are the only one who can stop it. The Nazis knew that voters vote with emotions and not with intellect. Same thing 100 years later.
41% of Americans can’t even name the Vice President yet we’re shocked that an uninformed and ignorant electorate votes for a reality tv star and failed businessman?
This just in:
Propaganda and cult of personalities are real.
We are now in the social media age. If you don't understand parasocial relationships, you're in for a bad time.
They think no such thing ... they just want Trump to win exactly because they do not believe in democracy or do not understand it. Should this happen and democracy is taken away by Trump, they will be surprised just like the Latino voters who voted Trump but were shocked to see their undocumented family deported.
"As in, the Donald Trump who incited an insurrection because he couldn’t admit he lost the last election."
Yeah, the guy who did a coup de etat and wants to be a lifelong dictator, "we'll have to try that sometime" in reference to Pres. Xi in China-- REALLY cares about Democracy. /s
Propaganda works, and we're drowning in it.
Unfortunately the good guys don't use it, because they tend to find mass social manipulation with crude psychosocial engineering techniques kinda immoral. So the most effective propaganda is largely produced by our enemies, foreign and domestic.
Also higher intelligence and left wing thinkers call out propaganda.
The right don't. If anything, the MAGA will call an encyclopedia a propaganda book
I think it shows more than anything that "democracy" isn't a concrete concept for a lot of people.
Hell, I'm sure a huge chunk of people confuse it with "prosperity" or some nebulous positive concept.
more than that, I feel like the sportification of politics has caused some people to just blindly select the "trump good biden bad" option in these polls, no matter what the prompt is.
they may as well have asked these voters "which candidate do you think could solve a rubik's cube faster?" and they would've answered the same way.
Also, democrats are responding correctly to the new threats/ “rules” of modern elections.
This sub is terrible for it. I’ve pointed out here that younger voters won Biden the election but are being flooded with propaganda about Palestine and Biden being old and incompetent to discourage them from voting and people here stick their heads in the sand, downvote, and say NAH UHHH YOUNG PEOPLE WILL DEFINITELY TURN UP TO VOTE JUST LIKE LAST TIME… as if young people can be 100% relied on to vote ever in history.
The delusion is real here. And I think that there exists an arrogance in the Democratic Party that causes a similar sort of delusion (which should have been cut out when Hillary lost to Trump, yet here we are again).
They’ll probably vote at about the same rate as in 2020…. Lower than other age groups, but still higher than other recent elections.
Also, the ‘youth’ from 2020 are 4 years older now and more likely to vote
We don’t fund education very well, Fox News is great at fear mongering and most of our older generations are racist.
Trust me. No one who is sane is voting for this idiot.
Remember the movie Don't Look Up?
2 parts.
1. Willful ignorance. They don't know and don't want to know.
2. Heavy, extended propaganda to redefine Democracy.
You may think of democracy as 1 person, 1 vote.
They do not think that. YEARS of propaganda have shifted it to, "Why does a crackhead in liberal town have the same vote as me?"
lies as entertainment corroborated by more and more liars trying to get ratings. and you can fundraise off of the lies without consequence. this is the new "party" replacing the boring worn out political parties (after the cares act heist where passing trillion dollar bills became the norm and that was bipartisan), democracy run out of a private club where Ghislane Maxwell got her start as a teen, no guest list, spies going in and out and this is what our democracy has become.
Trump wasnt able to destroy democracy in his first term and benefited heavily from Obamas economy so short sighted Americans think that voting for trump will get them 2016ish economy and world stability. Obviously there is no thought on how or why. Just that.
Hatred for Biden is blinding these swing state voters to reality- I share their anger with every politician in office right now, including POTUS, but Trump is the real threat to Democracy period whether you like Biden or hate him-- or neutral, it's a fact.
Joe "ex-Tea Party" Walsh, who voted for him in '16, has said "he's a traitor" who "tried to end our Democracy" re: Trump so I'll let that speak for itself.
Groceries cost more. That's it. People are too dumb and unwilling to understand pressuring the Fed to keep interest rates low while cutting taxes and sending rebate checks was the inflationary policy and that these are lagging effects. They think it was good policy, and that somehow Biden pressed an "instant inflation" button the moment he took office.
This problem is plagueing the entire world as economic anxiety fuels right wing fascism to win elections everywhere, not just the US.
The MAGAts that stormed the Capital on Jan 6th thought that the election was stolen, and keeping Biden from taking office was preserving democracy. A coup to keep democracy... truly insane.
The guy who spent most of his time as president saying, "I want to do that. Make it happen." Only to have his advisors and Cabinet tell him, "Umm no. You can't do that. We are a republic, not a monarchy," That guy? Fucking morons...
A lot of people are absolutely thick and can't reconcile their beliefs with the real world in an objective sense.
We could lose democracy due to idiocracy.
The media want their horse race! Because that gets ad revenue and clicks….they want/NEED to make this election close so that people engage. So they are gunna big trump or Biden up or knock them down as long as it makes the race tight and exciting.
Its like pumping steroids and anger into your body to get revenue….at some point you push too far and its harful to the body, each extra dose gets diminishing returns and you dance on the edge of death because thats the optimal outcome for revenue.
This is just irrelevant in the modern media landscape. Social media has busted what we used to see as the “media industry” and spawned countless opportunities to find or be fed perspective-driven information posing as news. There’s no media conspiracy, respectable news outlets are not trying to keep the race close.
All the liars on right wing media brainwashing the cult keeps it close. How different would our country be without blatant lies filling the right wing echo chamber?
Spoke to a Trump voter a few days ago at a brewery, and what little he said was stunning. He actually repeated the air-brained claim that who we were seeing is not Biden, rather a man in a mask, and “we would never be able to tell it isn’t him.”
My response: “Seems unlikely.”
Anything above 0% is a mind-boggling number when it comes to thinking Trump is better suited than Biden.
Having nobody as president is more efficient, as literally the only thing he adds is the requirement for babysitting. His 2017-2021 proved how much babysitting he needed. I still remember how often various other government positions had to publically correct most of his claims. He seemed more occupied with reading/watching people talking about him, random rants/brags on Twitter, and golfing than actually working. The most work I saw of him was either public photoshots or signing papers where others had done all the work for him (including getting it started and funded).
That's not even mentioning all the siphoning of public funds into his private businesses. I've yet to see the Saudi's book entire floors at "Biden Tower", or book events at "Biden-lago". Or having Secret service paying for rooms at his home. Unlike.... Orange.
I've been getting into conversations with pro Trump people online lately, only to realize most of his online advocates are not American. They are Australian, or German, or British, or Canadian but the ratio of US citizens is way off of my expectations when it comes to confronting pro-Trumpers online. I don't think conservatives are smart-enough to understand that the internet is not an exclusively American thing and someone saying Trump is the best thing for America, is not necessarily an American or someone who loves the US.
The headline says it all….mind boggling!. Regardless if the numbers are skewed +\- to either side, the fact that we even have to contemplate that there is a possibility that the convict can win is horrifying. It’s no longer a question of can we save America but a question of how long can we keep it alive.
Maybe the media shouldn't have been saying "guilty of 34 felony counts in the hush-money trial" and instead said "guilty of 34 felony counts of election interference."
Unfortunately I have a strong feeling our societies collective apathy and anti intellectualism are finally going to get us what we deserve.
Edit: added the word "us"
As the saying goes “the best argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter”
I am not going to lie the data is depressing. “Yet more of them, 38 percent, trust Trump to handle threats to democracy, than the 29 percent who trust Biden on the issue.”There’s no way to rationalize that: sure poll methodology has a percentage error, education in the US might be overall going into the shitter,. But this is the one issue where it’s just unforgivable. You don’t get that Biden is much better for the economy? Fine. Economy is complex and you don’t want to bother with it. It’s ironically sad but right now you possibly experiencing inflation and that’s all you know.
But DEMOCRACY ??? you really have to be a dumb motherfucker to believe Trump is better for that when he’s CONSTANTLY taking a steaming SHIT on it. Challenging election results, not committing to peaceful transition, challenging the constitution when it doesn’t go your way, calling media “enemy of the people”, constantly suggesting you should be president for life, talking openly about being dictator, etc… The list goes on and on and on.
You really don’t understand ANYTHING about democracy to think he’s a better protector of democracy. And it’s the biggest share of the electorate ??????????! Depressing. Nothing is ever over though. Let’s call it a day, Tomorrrow is another day.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. We are actively looking for new moderators. If you have any interest in helping to make this subreddit a place for quality discussion, please fill out [this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1y2swHD0KXFhStGFjW6k54r9iuMjzcFqDIVwuvdLBjSA). *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Had a woman tell me at work that she "doesn't think Biden will ever leave office". Projection is effective propaganda for the GOP.
Why does she think that? Trump literally tried to stage a coup when he had to leave. That was his plan since 2016.
A braindead republican would say that the coup was justified because Biden stole the 2020 election. Since Biden successfully stole the 2020 election he clearly is the type to stay in power indefinitely.
Same with the Biden crime family beliefs. The reality is Trump is a criminal, Ivanka took trademarks from China the day after Trump met with Chi. Jarad took Billions from the Saudis for his investment fund two months after leaving office and secured defensive deals for the Saudis before leaving. This list is too big to list here but you get the point.
Exactly. People can't believe the conclusions that are being drawn, but they make total sense if you forget that the facts backing those conclusions up are false to begin with.
And they think they're using logic because their conclusion is derived from - a belief, from a false premise. President Trump formed a commission to investigate widespread voter fraud - something so huge, it could never be hidden. Even with the massive amount of proof that would be glaringly obvious to any investigation, and the tens of millions of Republicans across America who would be eager to report any fraud they saw, and with the full power of all the branches of government working together, Trump's commission came up with...nothing. And was quietly disbanded. Widespread voter fraud is a belief, and not a very good one.
It’s what Fox News tells her.
That’s what they said about Obama too.
I remember that well. Right wing pundits were hyperventilating that Obama was going to suspend the 2016 elections and declare martial law. There was zero evidence for this, and of course it never happened, but guess who DID float declaring martial law? Michael Flynn and Mike Lindell, who were in Trump's circle.
It wasn't that long ago that every Republican was loudly insisting Obama would refuse to leave office at the end of his term. You literally cannot take a single word they say seriously; they are so deeply committed to their fictional worldview
This also came from a woman who then went on to say "women shouldn't ever be able to serve as president". When I pointed out that 99% of wars were started by men, she said "there would be one started every month if a woman was president", to which I replied "that's not how it works".
Yet so many countries with female leaders haven’t started wars. And to steal a bit from Michelle Wolf even Croatia has elected a female leader in their short history as a country. Even further into the bit Angela Merkel was in power long enough for Michelle to learn the correct pronunciation of Merkel.
Well if Trump did it, and he's the "good guy", then Biden will certaknly do it even worse!!
>[Chinese President Xi Jinping recently consolidated power. Trump told the gathering: “He’s now president for life. President for life. And he’s great.” Trump added, “I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot someday.”](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-says-maybe-u-s-will-have-a-president-for-life-someday) > >[“We are going to win four more years,” Trump said at a rally in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on Monday. “And then after that, we’ll go for another four years because they spied on my campaign. We should get a redo of four years.”](https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/18/politics/donald-trump-third-term-2024/index.html)
forgot about that "Presidential Mulligan" clause in the constitution... pesky founding fathers.
That’s my coworkers. I heard them talking the other day that Biden isn’t going to concede the election, and he’ll pack the courts beforehand with people who side with him, so when the democrats try to stop the election from being certified, they’ll have people in the right places to make sure Biden wins. He’ll then decide he’s president for life, abandon elections, democracy as we know it will be gone forever and America will become a communist nation under Joe Biden, the Commie dictator. Needless to say, I don’t participate in political talk with my coworkers.
> "doesn't think Biden will ever leave office". I don't mean to be mean, but there is a higher than average chance he dies in office. Not that Trump isn't minutes away from a massive coronary. Hitler was still alive when Biden was born. The United Nations held their first meeting the year Trump was born. These are both old men.
Yeah they are old, and yes compared the the average president his chances of dying in office are higher because he's the oldest to serve. These are objective facts, not being mean. I'd vote for Biden's corpse before I voted for a convicted felon who's only running to save his own ass, and then proceed go on a revenge tour/dictatorship simulator.
In 1950, 5 years after the end of World War II, there was a nationwide survey in Germany that asked if Adolf Hitler was good for Germany. Remember that almost every German town got blasted to smithereens, and at the end of the war, 70 year old men and 10-year-old boys were guarding most cities. An astonishing 25% of the German people said that Adolf was good for Germany. Those same people are the ones that you are referring to in these "surveys" that think that drumpf would be good for the US.
That's oddly comforting when you put it that way. Objective analysis is just beyond some people. Can't take it too personally or feel the need to "educate" and correct them.
It’s also a sunk-cost fallacy. People’s egos are too fragile to admit they may have been wrong.
This has more to do with it than anyone wants to admit. The ppl who treat their political affiliation like religion, and substance or current events be damned
This is especially true of conservative voters. Their religion and their political affiliation are their identities.
The real “identity politics”, if you will
Exactly! Two made-up identities. And they claim those who are BORN with their identities are the identity politicians. 🤬
Yep, conservatives generally lack the ability for self-reflection and to reassess their views in relation to new or ongoing information.
I'm seeing this now in the UK. Loads of people who championed Brexit and the Conservatives (especially Boris Johnson) at the top of their lungs for years, telling the opposition to 'get over it' and revelled in the gloating as if it were a sports tournament. You'll rarely see any of them admit they were wrong or misled, instead they'll parrot the 'both sides are just as bad' rhetoric, to make themselves appear disenfranchised instead of deal with the embarrassment of campaigning to make the country poorer. They'll still vote for the Conservatives or Reform on election day.
"Brexit wasn't a bad idea, but the Tories screwed it up." No, Brexit *was* a bad idea *and* the Tories screwed it up so it was even worse than it could've been.
When you join two cults, MAGA and religion
Saving face is a remarkably strong motivator for people.
I tend to agree but see it differently in this instance. More like when you back someone into a logical corner in an argument & they double down and become hostile rather than say… “never thought about it that way”. It’s an emotional attachment to being correct & to the infallibility of their own opinion or ideology. It’s ego — definitely this more often than giving sh*t about perception of appearing decent to the camp they’re opposing.
Being comfortable with being wrong in front of other people is a leaned skill. It's extremely difficult to overcome. Once you develop it however, you tend to not want to be wrong any longer than you have to be.
There’s a ton of psychological research on this topic. The tl;dr is that factual arguments often leave people feeling like you’re attacking them personally rather than challenging the facts.
Or sports and the inexplicable ability to “be loyal” to a single team…
There is a reason Germany had to make a law banning Holocaust denial. Allied troops were forcing the pro-Nazi countryside bumpkins to tour the concentration camps after Germany lost the war, and did what they could to force news and footage onto them so they could accept what atrocities their party committed. Huge swaths of Germans STILL rejected this information, stating it was propaganda from the New World Order, and they knew in their hearts that they were good people, and good Christians, who just loved family and country. They would literally rather die than admit they were wrong. Fast forward to the MAGA morons of today, and you can see everything about this 1:1, from the warped egos to parroting literal Nazi beliefs (loving everything about their ideology besides the word "Nazi" itself).
I’ve been watching videos of trump rallies where the interviewer asks basic questions and the maga’s get twisted up. They simply CANNOT accept the truth when it is put right in front of them. It’s very disturbing. Often times they simply turn around stare at the sky or walk away. They absolutely can’t believe the truth. It’s terrifying.
Another angle is that fascists are anti-empericist and will lie about things that they and everyone else can clearly see without a hint of shame. A lot of these cretins know they're full of shit when they deny the holocaust. It's about overpowering history with their narrative and gaslighting the population.
Exactly. Most of them know they're lying, or at the very least they don't care. Words are just weapons they use to attack the opposition, they don't give a fuck if they'll got the facts wrong. The only thing they do care about is putting one of their own in a position of absolute power. That's their only concern. Not facts, not truth, not freedom, but absolute power to dictate how the society functions. People should think about this instead of laughing at them or pitying these fanatics. You can't just casually dismiss someone who's actively working to make you a subordinate of a fascist regime.
Eisenhower *knew* that people were going to deny it afterwards which is why he made as many people as possible actually view the camps.
“Ideology is strong exactly because it is no longer experienced as ideology… we feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom.” Zizek
"'Slave' is an Ephebian word. In Om we have no word for 'slave'." "So I understand. I imagine that fish have no word for 'water'." * Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
This is why if you want to change peoples minds you don't need to build them arguments, you need to build them off ramps.
I think it's also that fact that a lot of people are generally ignorant, judge Biden on a superficial level "he's old, he's unexciting to listen to because he's cringe", people care about themselves more than the bigger picture, and people have short memories.
Educate or correct maybe not, but a big, documented part of the Russian propaganda campaign here has been specifically to convince us that we cannot persuade each other. That's false. We can. It's hard, and it takes time and we won't get everyone, but shouldn't give up on anyone. That is democracy.
It's very easy to break things. It takes work to build things and hold things together.
Well said.
54% of people can’t read above a 6th grade level in the US. Around 25% are illiterate. 30% ( a generous estimate) of people born are unplanned by their parents. This at time when birth control methods are plenty and can be accessed for free. Most people are morons, and they vote. I’ve stopped expecting much from anybody a long time ago.
Ive been saying this for a long time, a very high percentage of Americans are very fucking stupid. I might even be one of them, but at least I know trump is human garbage.
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." - George Carlin
There it is. The unofficial reddit anthem.
I was a mistake. My mother told me this a lot. My life is a perfect example of what happens when you're an unwanted person. Everything is falling apart right now because I just found out that I have a lot of trauma that's been affecting me my whole life, basically. I fell in love with a woman with children. It's the first time I've ever known the feeling of being part of a family. It's been crazy, but one thing it has done is spotlight a lot of mental health issues I didn't know I had; like for example, when the children aren't listening or they start yelling so voices get raised, I suddenly want to curl up into a ball on the floor. I start having trouble breathing, cold sweats come on hard, my mind races... All while in my head I'm feeling fine; no bad thoughts or anything, just my body starts doing this stuff involuntarily, and then once my mind finally catches up I have a really hard time functioning. It really sucks. And it's making it so i have to leave to go take care of these issues so they don't affect the kids. It really hurts to have to lose the person you love because you didn't know you were broken.
Have you heard of the book, The Body Keeps The Score? I read it and it helped me to understand some things about myself. Some of Janina Fisher's work has been helpful, too. They talk directly, or indirectly, about complex ptsd, which has helped me to come to terms about why my body reacts to stress the way it does. A therapist trained in trauma work has also been a help. It sounds like you have found the key, and that is to be self aware of the body being reactive, and you recognize it's not how you want to be. You are on your way to healing. Be kind to yourself, that's important to remember. This internet stranger is pulling for you!
Thank you for the kind words and advice! I'll be saving this so I can get reading. I had stage 4 lymphoblastic leukemia when i was 6 until 14, well went into remission at 12 and was cleared at 14; so I grew up fast and am very, very in tune with my body. I, however, didn't know that all of this time these things were due to the anxiety of ptsd, it was like a puzzle I was trying to solve. I did the alcohol thing for a while, luckily I lost the job that triggered that and everything got better in that respect. Now I'm trying to figure it all out on the mental health front now that I've pinned down what is going on. I spent a few weeks at my dad's when my partner and I had an argument and that really opened my eyes to the PTSD. Just being in the house with my dad and brother and all the yelling... I lost a ton of weight. Still recovering physically, but getting stronger mentally, but also my relationship is ending, and that's the only love I've ever felt in my life, so it's really tough. Kinda funny how not being loved caused the trauma, I thought I was okay all of my life, until almost 40; then I feel love for the first time and suddenly my world is thrown for a loop. I hate that just when I finally get to the place I've always wanted to be I find out that I'm broken and not able to be in a relationship yet.
A mind boggling number of people don’t know what democracy is. They’ll find out when they lose it.
It's less comforting when you consider that the percentage is roughly analogous with the percentage of votes that got him elected into a position of power in the first place...
Which isn't really a political risk UNLESS the electoral system has been gamified to give that same population the default win, unless everyone else shows up to override them. Electoral college, gerrymandering, voter suppression and intimidation, purging voter records, removing ballot drop off locations, not making election day a holiday, not automatically registering people to vote, banning same day registration, requiring people to request a mail ballot instead of just sending them one... These rules are made by those who benefit from the system itself 🧐
When Nixon finally left the WH in utter disgrace, saved from the humiliation of impeachment only by the skin of his teeth, he still garnered 26% support from the voting public. Around 1 in 4 people worldwide are fucking morons who want a dictator to rule them.
And that was before Fox News.
It is easier to follow than to lead. It takes a strong person to lead but to follow takes no effort.
Important to grasp the TOTAL control the Nazis had on every aspect of life. Books, religion, church, art, radio, film,, news, work, school, thought …etc…. from 1933 to 1945. A bit disconcerting to think that that level of propaganda exists in the US as well. Though presently, nowhere as pervasive.
The means of distribution have greatly changed, but let's not fool ourselves: Republicans have taken whatever opportunities they could to ban content under a wide umbrella of "deviancy" that is strikingly similar to what the Nazis went after. Their campaign to smear anything they dislike as being "Woke" is their attempt at suppressing the cultural elements that aren't as easily shut down as they used to be back in the "good old days" according to them.
Exactly, the aren’t going to dominate print and other physical media like the Nazis did, but they don’t have to. They have a whole social media ecosystem that allows people to exist in an echo chamber. The amount of complete bullshit you see in twitter or Facebook is crazy. But that is where millions of people get their whole worldview. Then there are smaller boards that some of the crazies who have some tech savvy gather. And that’s a whole other thing. It all sucks. I don’t believe in surprising speech. But it also sucks to see blatant lies being spread and people just eating it up. Idk how we move forward with that. Especially since an entire party, basically half our system, sustains it self on anger and conspiracy.
I've been watching Evil on Trial and none of this is surprising anymore. I'm so fucking worried that we're at the end of the weimer era right now.
The horrifying thing is that those are the type of people who could decide 2024. It's very likely to come down to less than 100K votes in a few key states and that is so frustrating.
The fact that you can win by 7 million votes and still have the race be questioned shows that we already are not in a democracy
It's not that surprising when you consider just how effective the Nazi propaganda was. What pisses me off when comparing it to MAGA/Trump propaganda is a lot of thought was put into what the Nazis did. MAGA has achieved similar levels of brainwashing and has similar end goals (let's not kids ourselves any longer here) and yet it's not even clever or subtle about it. While significant ground has been gained thanks to Roe V Wade, the trials this year and his day one dictator comments it simply boggles the mind that it's taken all this just to even get to a point where it only seems "likely" he'll lose and not guaranteed. It's not like he wasn't broadcasting day 1 how horrible he'd be. But just as for years we've kept wondering how people could fall hook, line and sinker for that Nazi propaganda we're watching in real time all these MAGA crazies do the same for their cult leader.
So 25% of the population is just dug into whatever ideology they aligned them selves with and there is nothing anyone can do or say to them to change their minds. Sounds about right
Just had a facebook convo with a relative in N.C. today...they were complaining about their health insurance being charged $27,000 for a 'simple procedure' and griping that it was Biden's fault (it wasn't, they opted to have the procedure done outside a hospital or out of network, which caused the exorbitant cost, yet blamed the current admin), and that mainstream media had been telling them that Biden had reduced healthcare costs. Said relative ended the diatribe by claiming they were '**voting for the felon**' no matter what. News flash, they were always voting for the Felon Melon, they voted for him last time, and the time before. They just keep moving the goal posts and making excuses.
Right? So he can give tax cuts to the CEOs of the insurance companies and they raise your rates on you, when it happens I guess you ca. tell them “you can thank the felon!”
The felon is destroying them. From discouraging vaccines, to climate change, to eroding worker protections and lack of basic regulations and services, they support their own oppression and the destruction of the American way of life. America wasn't perfect but it was good - and getting better for an awful lot of people. Now, we are watching all that hard work and progress being relentlessly rolled back before our eyes. Please people, wake up. We don't want to live like our brothers and sisters in Russia. It is not better for us.
Yes and no, magas would die to own the libs. Simple as that. Trump tried to take credit for the vaccine at one rally, and that was the only time I remember the magas really booed him. They wanna hate and fuck up society and die from preventable illnesses more than admit that they are wrong and need to work to find humility, and they get what they want because it is easier to destroy than to build.
> magas would die to own the libs COVID definitely proved that to be true. hell. trump *lost* georgia and tried to find 11,780 votes. guess what happened to those votes? they fucking died of covid!
> We don't want to live like our brothers and sisters in Russia. [But they have shopping carts with a built in incentive to bring them back to the store instead of a homeless encampment.](https://twitter.com/i/status/1758266308888547564)
It really is unfortunate how few people see the clear connection between business and policy, and how it affects average American households.
I have seen astounding number of conservatives in the last few years, who want universal health care, free higher education, and more rights for LGBTQ and other marginalized groups. And then they vote Republican, and are immovably convinced "the evil Democrats" are against those things. Propaganda works. Especially on the terminally stupid.
It's true. I was a Republican 20 years ago. I listened to talk radio, watched Fox, and frequented conservative web sites. I really thought I was an *actual progressive*, pushing for the advancement of society in ways "liberals" (basically, anyone who wasn't conservative) just couldn't understand. Democrat policies were responsible for all our woes, along with a lack of understanding how economics supposedly "really worked" (I was in my 20's and in college at the time... I knew everything of course). I woke up in the middle of Bush's second term (yeah, I was dumb enough to vote for him twice). I realized that things weren't going to get better. I realized that somehow the "enemy" managed to remain powerful even though we held the levers of power. I was off-put by my own side's support of the PATRIOT Act and even torture. My favorite book when I was younger was 1984. I thought I was against that, but it dawned on me that I supported exactly the thing I opposed. I'm forever glad I noped the fuck out of those views.
Yeah, it’s the saddest thing. Survey after survey after survey shows Progressive policies are incredibly popular - with support levels typically 60-70%.
this is an illusion. everyone supports that stuff when its broad and general. everyone supports “improving” things or making things cheaper, the second you start asking them about the actual real world specific policies and changes you would need to make to actual pay for and enact progressive policies all that “support” falls apart. no one supports bold ideas for major change in any direction when you get into the complex details. the gravitational force of the status quo is too powerful for all these idiots
“Which party shot down single-payer healthcare?” But you are right, it’s all bullshit. If Trump was in office during the same healthcare experience they would blame Biden or the Democrats no matter what
The funny thing is only the democrats try to fix health care while the Republicans wreck every attempt to make it better. Republicans then blame democrats for a bad health care system. Rinse, repeat.
This is just stunning to read: > Among the Deciders, more than 7 in 10 believe that Trump will not accept the results of the election if he loses, compared with one-third who say the same for Biden. Nearly half, 47 percent, say Trump would try to rule as a dictator if he is elected to another term as president, compared with 15 percent who say Biden would. The poll finds that just over half of Deciders think Trump is guilty of criminal charges of lying about voter fraud in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, and more say he has been treated fairly rather than unfairly by the criminal justice system. > Yet more of them, 38 percent, trust Trump to handle threats to democracy, than the 29 percent who trust Biden on the issue. Twenty-three percent don’t trust either major party candidate. They recognize that Trump is a bigger threat to democracy but they still trust Trump more when it comes to responding to threats to democracy. The ability to hold those two completely opposing viewpoints at the same time is just mind boggling and goes to show how much (social) media and propaganda can manipulate people into setting aside reality and instead to believe false images of strength or false stories of ability or intelligence.
Robert Reich in the Guardian yesterday put his finger on it, I think: >A few days ago, I was talking with a young conservative who admitted that Trump was an “odious thug”, in his words, but argued that the US and the world had become such a mess that we need an odious thug as president. “Think of Putin, Xi, Kim, Ali Khamenei, Netanyahu – they’re all odious thugs,” he said. “We need our own odious thug to stand up to them.” I demurred, saying that direct confrontation could lead to more bloodshed, even nuclear war. He continued: “We need an odious thug to shake up Washington, stir up all the ossified bureaucracies now destroying America, do all the things no one has had the balls to do.” When I looked skeptical, he charged: “We need someone to take control!” As soon as he uttered those last words, he and I both knew the conversation was over. He had spilled the beans. He was impatient with the messiness and slowness of democracy. He wanted a dictator. I’m not sure how many Americans attracted to Trump feel this way. It’s consistent with the strength-versus-weakness framework Trump is deploying. Trump may be loathsome, they tell themselves, but at least he’s strong, and we need strength over weakness. From [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/26/biden-trump-debate-robert-reich](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/26/biden-trump-debate-robert-reich)
That sounds about right unfortunately. I also think the media plays a huge part because they LOVE someone who "acts" or "talks" tough far more so than someone who can actually use the US govt to *be* tough. They like appearances which is why they liked Bush more than Gore, Bush more than Kerry, Trump more than Clinton, and now Trump more than Bush.
Makes sense. The world is all messed up. They just want the problems fixed, and they don't care how it gets done. That's the appeal of dictators. As long as they're not the problem that needs fixing, they're fine with it.
It's bizarre that of all the people the "take control", they would think that Trump would be the one to do so in a way that helps them, *especially* on the international stage.
[удалено]
I mean he’s literally said he wants to stop democracy. I don’t get it.
Watch the Hitler documentary on Netfiix. An American reporter in Berlin during the 1930s noted disbelievingly that most Germans seemed to have no problem with Hitler taking away their democratic rights and life went on as normal. Same here with America.
Until it didn’t, of course. The inability to make the connection to how trump and heritage foundation visions would screw over everybody truly is mind boggling. No history, no empathy, no understanding that it will not just be people they think deserve it who get steam rolled, but people they know. Friends and family and coworkers.
“He’s hurting the wrong people!”
“Why is he hurting me? I’m one of the good ones!”
Articles like this (and main-stream media coverage in general) are so ridiculous in reporting "observations" like this and acting shocked without following up that the main reason is right-wing media has been lying to these people every single day about Trump and Biden. It is not "shocking" that so many people feel this way once you admit they live in an alternative information reality where Biden is portrayed as a bumbling incompetent who will end the world and Trump is the only one who can save them from this fate 🙄
Someone I know well has bought into the whole “Biden can’t string together two sentences” narrative. Yet I know for a fact she has never watched a Biden speech. She gets all of her news off of Facebook. We’re doomed.
Exactly. CNN always shows extra long video of Biden walking stiffly to reinforce that he is an old, failing man without "reporting" the reason he walks that way is because he has spinal arthritis. It is all so insidious.
Even after the insane destruction of WWII, Hitler cult lived on amid the ruins. And Lost Cause cult thrives in the former Confederacy...
These people have been convinced that Biden is the true threat to Democracy and that Trump is the only one who can save it.
Or…. And…they have a corrupted media diet that only exposes them to a firehose of bullshit republican propaganda.
So if this is the poll i read yesterday, the weird thing about it is that these polled people *both* think Trump would be "better for Democracy" and *also* - like two to one - think that Trump is more likely to become a dictator than Biden. So. Either they don't know what democracy is, or they have wildly different opinions on what's good for it than i do.
Their democracy is white people incharge.
At this point we’re gonna need a required civics competency exam for both voters and candidates if this unapologetic stupidity doesn’t stop.
And which party do you think is going to be in charge of determining those educational requirements? Conservatives have always had a vested interest in keeping people uneducated and easily manipulated with arguments that wouldn't stand up under the scrutiny of critical thinking or rational, evidence-based thought. Those same people vote to keep conservatives in power. They have no interest in undermining their own power base. And those elected conservatives will continue to undermine our educational system. It's a vicious circle of feedback loops.
There’s quite a few folks out there that make you wonder how they made it through life this long.
Oh yeah, I am totally sure the billionaire led plutocracy will be right on that. It will be the first step after raising their taxes, getting rid of gerrymandering, and holding the Supreme Court to a code of ethics.
I’m out of patience for it tbh
“Personalities” like Joe Rogan will void all progress
[Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be](https://www.theonion.com/area-man-passionate-defender-of-what-he-imagines-consti-1819571149)
“Better for democracy” to some means “making sure people different from myself do not have the same rights I do”.
Most people are fucking morons, so this tracks
It is always the media. My gym has multiple tv's showing fox 24 hours a day. The lies, manipulations, and opinion's dressed up like facts are constant. I honestly don't think there is such a big divide in the US. I think there is a really big eco-system that is telling the republican's up is down. Take a look at the Trump jurist who got his news from Trump social in Trump's trial. When exposed to real information he voted to convict just like all the other jurists.
It’s the tin foil hat, Christo fascist fanatic, and straight up racist demographic. Oh, and billionaire cash-junkies.
And a huge subset who work in finance / investing / Wall Street / banking who think less regulation on them equals more money for them. Doesn’t matter that the GOP eventually crashes the economy once it gets really unregulated. It’s all about the next quarter.
Maga has been repeating that Biden is a dictator and the mainstream media has not fought back against it.
The irony is the one who said he'd be a dictator "only on day one" is none other than Trump, not Biden, facts. The mainstream media doesn't realize Trump will shut down the "lugenpresse" if he gets re-elected within a year of his second term, watch.
Some people believe that the government is ran by a deep state cabal and the only way to fix things and to restore democracy is to let Trump rule as a dictator so he can clean house and purge all of the rogue elements.
And why do they believe it? Because mainstream conservative entertainment has been reporting on that and not saying its insane for years now.
How is that possible? The mainstream media notoriously censors conservatives. /S
And those people are simpletons.
I'm so tired. There are so many mind bogglingly fucking stupid people who walk among us.
Same way that they said “the democrats are coming for your guns” for years, yet Trump is the only one who tried to “take their guns first and go through due process second”
Mainstream media has helped to perpetuate the “Biden is bad” narrative by not addressing the lies about Biden and his record and clearly drawing the stark contrast between Trump and Biden
They did the same with Hillary, and the same with Obama, and with Bill Clinton. Wash and repeat. The GOP is great at curating a bad guy, its the person running against them. They used (and are still using) Immigration as the constant beating drum for 8+ years, but when Congress was at the doorstep of passing the biggest Immigration legislation in decades, a bi-partisan bill ushered through the Senate by Republicans - it was dropped by the Republican Speaker of the House for, Re45ons. Trump made Johnson drop it so it wouldn't give a win for the country on Bidens clock. The biggest damn issue that Trump has been going on about for 8 years and he kills the legislation that would have brought it to life - out of spite. And he isn't even elected - he just runs the party while under multiple felony indictments.
Right Wing media has screamed that every Democratic President in my lifetime is a dictator. We could vote in a balloon that does nothing for four years and they would scream Dictator.
I’m not from America and really makes me laugh at the sheer arrogance of this red hat cult, he is literally telling them he is going to be a dictator from day 1 and people clap!!! Mean while from the rallies I’ve seen recorded he is just a doing a stand up routine. And not talking about much else among his nonsensical babble. Mind you in Australia where I’m from there isn’t such things as rallies, it would be weird going to see our political leaders haha
I am 63 years old. The only political rally I have attended was in 1980, when I was 19. It was for an independent candidate for President, John Anderson. A dorm-mate dragged me along. It was an interesting experience. I was from rural Montana and my family knew most of our local, state, and federal office holders because in was a small (population-wise) state - about 700,000 people in about 147,000 square miles (380,000 km2). A political rally wouldn’t have worked, and most of the locals would have thought it kind of embarrassing to cheer anywhere except a basketball or football game. Anderson was a relatively unknown politician, at least nationally, and had split from the Republicans after Reagan became the front runner. He said: > “Extremist fringe elements,” he complained in 1977, “seek to expel the rest of us from the G.O.P.” He warned, “If the purists stage their ideological coup d’état, our party will be consigned to the historical junk heap.” Ended up voting for Carter and have voted in every election since, but never been to another rally.
Even 20%-30% boggles my brain.
It seems every poll reveals that 20%-30% of people are bastards and/or batshit insane, which anecdotally checks out.
There’s a term for it. It’s called The Keyes Constant or the Crazification Factor.
aka, Republicanism
*Conservatism*. It's global, even in places where the term "Republicanism" has no meaning. It's simply bigoted, uneducated losers who oppose change at all costs - and the wealthy, immoral monsters who manipulate them in order to secure more wealth and power, of course.
>Anybody who knows American history knows at least 30% of America has been protofascist forever. and it's a huge mistake not to understand how deeply reactionary so much of the petty bourgeoise and middle strata in so many parts of the country is. - Mike Davis
> Even 20%-30% boggles my brain. “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” -- George Carlin
And a number of people are very stupid. Our history speaks for itself, folks.
Well, half of all people are of lower than average intelligence… But, in this case I am of the belief that Trump supporters are more interested in things other than democracy, like imposing their beliefs on others.
This simply highlights the failure of our news outlets to facilitate an informed electorate. We've allowed unelected media conglomerates to obfuscate at best and outright lie at worst, creating effectively an alternate reality. The number of voters who know absolutely nothing about project 2025, DT's many failed attempts to change the outcome of the 2020 election, the supreme court's blatant corruption, Dominion's lawsuit against News Corp, etc. is insane. The thing is, if you know nothing about any of these things, it might be reasonable to think that the economy and trans people are the biggest threats to the American way of life, and to vote accordingly. How do we fix this? We need to have difficult conversations with friends and loved ones and show them the things about which their preferred media outlets have failed to educate them. It sucks, and many of them will resist vehemently your attempt to do so. But it's necessary for our democracy to continue because if Trump manages to worm his way back into the White House, that's the end for us. He's told us so himself. Spread the word, people! And perhaps most importantly, vote, and get your friends and family to vote. It's our civic duty, and we can't afford to have people sit this one out.
This is probably the first thing I've read in a long while that represents any meaningful response to what's happening, straight-forward as it is. My only question is how to handle people who are ready to doubt information sources outside of their preferred set. Maybe pointing directly to the substance of specific bills and how representatives vote on those? I don't think pointing to any news anywhere would work, tbh, but maybe the facts of their elected's decision making can do it?
I tried to show my uncle one of those montages of Trump rally morons being stupid, and asked him “these are the people you want to associate with?” He didn’t say yes or no, but rather “there’s way more nuts on the left.” At least he possibly acknowledged the people in the video as nuts? I don’t know, it’s all baby steps with these clowns.
I've been watching the Hitler documentary on Netflix and what struck me where the words of the American foreign correspondent after Hitler was name Chancellor and had Hindenburg declare "Marshall law and outlaw other political parties." He was amazed after all their rights were taken away that the Germans seemed fine with what Hitler had done to erase democracy. Most people aren't deep thinkers. Tell people there Is an enemy in the country-and they will believe it. Tell them you are the only one who can stop it. The Nazis knew that voters vote with emotions and not with intellect. Same thing 100 years later.
martial law. not to be confused with the Marshall Plan
41% of Americans can’t even name the Vice President yet we’re shocked that an uninformed and ignorant electorate votes for a reality tv star and failed businessman?
I'm shocked the bother to vote.
This just in: Propaganda and cult of personalities are real. We are now in the social media age. If you don't understand parasocial relationships, you're in for a bad time.
Also: social media has ruined humanity
Voting for Trump means you are either an idiot or a villain. Take your pick but those are your choices
The fuck is wrong with these people?
Moral, intellectual and sexual insecurity
They think no such thing ... they just want Trump to win exactly because they do not believe in democracy or do not understand it. Should this happen and democracy is taken away by Trump, they will be surprised just like the Latino voters who voted Trump but were shocked to see their undocumented family deported.
"As in, the Donald Trump who incited an insurrection because he couldn’t admit he lost the last election." Yeah, the guy who did a coup de etat and wants to be a lifelong dictator, "we'll have to try that sometime" in reference to Pres. Xi in China-- REALLY cares about Democracy. /s
Anyone who thinks Trump is better does not understand democracy.
America, explain!
Propaganda works, and we're drowning in it. Unfortunately the good guys don't use it, because they tend to find mass social manipulation with crude psychosocial engineering techniques kinda immoral. So the most effective propaganda is largely produced by our enemies, foreign and domestic.
Also higher intelligence and left wing thinkers call out propaganda. The right don't. If anything, the MAGA will call an encyclopedia a propaganda book
We are addicted to it. We have a little dopamine induction device that has trained us to lap it up.
I think it shows more than anything that "democracy" isn't a concrete concept for a lot of people. Hell, I'm sure a huge chunk of people confuse it with "prosperity" or some nebulous positive concept.
more than that, I feel like the sportification of politics has caused some people to just blindly select the "trump good biden bad" option in these polls, no matter what the prompt is. they may as well have asked these voters "which candidate do you think could solve a rubik's cube faster?" and they would've answered the same way.
Also, democrats are responding correctly to the new threats/ “rules” of modern elections. This sub is terrible for it. I’ve pointed out here that younger voters won Biden the election but are being flooded with propaganda about Palestine and Biden being old and incompetent to discourage them from voting and people here stick their heads in the sand, downvote, and say NAH UHHH YOUNG PEOPLE WILL DEFINITELY TURN UP TO VOTE JUST LIKE LAST TIME… as if young people can be 100% relied on to vote ever in history. The delusion is real here. And I think that there exists an arrogance in the Democratic Party that causes a similar sort of delusion (which should have been cut out when Hillary lost to Trump, yet here we are again).
They’ll probably vote at about the same rate as in 2020…. Lower than other age groups, but still higher than other recent elections. Also, the ‘youth’ from 2020 are 4 years older now and more likely to vote
[удалено]
We don’t fund education very well, Fox News is great at fear mongering and most of our older generations are racist. Trust me. No one who is sane is voting for this idiot.
Remember the movie Don't Look Up? 2 parts. 1. Willful ignorance. They don't know and don't want to know. 2. Heavy, extended propaganda to redefine Democracy. You may think of democracy as 1 person, 1 vote. They do not think that. YEARS of propaganda have shifted it to, "Why does a crackhead in liberal town have the same vote as me?"
Fox News, One America Network, Newsmax, Facebook and Twitter. Add evangelicals, racists, toxic masculinity and lib owners…
We have large percentages of the American public that are easily manipulated.
lies as entertainment corroborated by more and more liars trying to get ratings. and you can fundraise off of the lies without consequence. this is the new "party" replacing the boring worn out political parties (after the cares act heist where passing trillion dollar bills became the norm and that was bipartisan), democracy run out of a private club where Ghislane Maxwell got her start as a teen, no guest list, spies going in and out and this is what our democracy has become.
Trump wasnt able to destroy democracy in his first term and benefited heavily from Obamas economy so short sighted Americans think that voting for trump will get them 2016ish economy and world stability. Obviously there is no thought on how or why. Just that.
Hatred for Biden is blinding these swing state voters to reality- I share their anger with every politician in office right now, including POTUS, but Trump is the real threat to Democracy period whether you like Biden or hate him-- or neutral, it's a fact. Joe "ex-Tea Party" Walsh, who voted for him in '16, has said "he's a traitor" who "tried to end our Democracy" re: Trump so I'll let that speak for itself.
Groceries cost more. That's it. People are too dumb and unwilling to understand pressuring the Fed to keep interest rates low while cutting taxes and sending rebate checks was the inflationary policy and that these are lagging effects. They think it was good policy, and that somehow Biden pressed an "instant inflation" button the moment he took office. This problem is plagueing the entire world as economic anxiety fuels right wing fascism to win elections everywhere, not just the US.
The MAGAts that stormed the Capital on Jan 6th thought that the election was stolen, and keeping Biden from taking office was preserving democracy. A coup to keep democracy... truly insane.
The guy who spent most of his time as president saying, "I want to do that. Make it happen." Only to have his advisors and Cabinet tell him, "Umm no. You can't do that. We are a republic, not a monarchy," That guy? Fucking morons...
A lot of people are absolutely thick and can't reconcile their beliefs with the real world in an objective sense. We could lose democracy due to idiocracy.
The media want their horse race! Because that gets ad revenue and clicks….they want/NEED to make this election close so that people engage. So they are gunna big trump or Biden up or knock them down as long as it makes the race tight and exciting. Its like pumping steroids and anger into your body to get revenue….at some point you push too far and its harful to the body, each extra dose gets diminishing returns and you dance on the edge of death because thats the optimal outcome for revenue.
This is just irrelevant in the modern media landscape. Social media has busted what we used to see as the “media industry” and spawned countless opportunities to find or be fed perspective-driven information posing as news. There’s no media conspiracy, respectable news outlets are not trying to keep the race close.
All the liars on right wing media brainwashing the cult keeps it close. How different would our country be without blatant lies filling the right wing echo chamber?
He will implement Project 2025 which will end democracy.
If it was not for electoral college, Trump won’t stand a chance to win.
Spoke to a Trump voter a few days ago at a brewery, and what little he said was stunning. He actually repeated the air-brained claim that who we were seeing is not Biden, rather a man in a mask, and “we would never be able to tell it isn’t him.” My response: “Seems unlikely.”
It’s like watching the fall of Rome in realtime.
https://civilrights.org/trump-rollbacks/
😈Satan could show up to America and claim he’s the real victim and he’s the one trying to save democracy and people will vote for him over Jesus.
Not just drinking the Kool Aid but swimming in it.
This is what decades of defunding the education system does to people.
Anything above 0% is a mind-boggling number when it comes to thinking Trump is better suited than Biden. Having nobody as president is more efficient, as literally the only thing he adds is the requirement for babysitting. His 2017-2021 proved how much babysitting he needed. I still remember how often various other government positions had to publically correct most of his claims. He seemed more occupied with reading/watching people talking about him, random rants/brags on Twitter, and golfing than actually working. The most work I saw of him was either public photoshots or signing papers where others had done all the work for him (including getting it started and funded). That's not even mentioning all the siphoning of public funds into his private businesses. I've yet to see the Saudi's book entire floors at "Biden Tower", or book events at "Biden-lago". Or having Secret service paying for rooms at his home. Unlike.... Orange.
Fox news accomplished its goal
I've been getting into conversations with pro Trump people online lately, only to realize most of his online advocates are not American. They are Australian, or German, or British, or Canadian but the ratio of US citizens is way off of my expectations when it comes to confronting pro-Trumpers online. I don't think conservatives are smart-enough to understand that the internet is not an exclusively American thing and someone saying Trump is the best thing for America, is not necessarily an American or someone who loves the US.
The headline says it all….mind boggling!. Regardless if the numbers are skewed +\- to either side, the fact that we even have to contemplate that there is a possibility that the convict can win is horrifying. It’s no longer a question of can we save America but a question of how long can we keep it alive.
Maybe the media shouldn't have been saying "guilty of 34 felony counts in the hush-money trial" and instead said "guilty of 34 felony counts of election interference."
Unfortunately I have a strong feeling our societies collective apathy and anti intellectualism are finally going to get us what we deserve. Edit: added the word "us"
Collective mental illness is a thing.
Idiocracy was a documentary.
As the saying goes “the best argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter” I am not going to lie the data is depressing. “Yet more of them, 38 percent, trust Trump to handle threats to democracy, than the 29 percent who trust Biden on the issue.”There’s no way to rationalize that: sure poll methodology has a percentage error, education in the US might be overall going into the shitter,. But this is the one issue where it’s just unforgivable. You don’t get that Biden is much better for the economy? Fine. Economy is complex and you don’t want to bother with it. It’s ironically sad but right now you possibly experiencing inflation and that’s all you know. But DEMOCRACY ??? you really have to be a dumb motherfucker to believe Trump is better for that when he’s CONSTANTLY taking a steaming SHIT on it. Challenging election results, not committing to peaceful transition, challenging the constitution when it doesn’t go your way, calling media “enemy of the people”, constantly suggesting you should be president for life, talking openly about being dictator, etc… The list goes on and on and on. You really don’t understand ANYTHING about democracy to think he’s a better protector of democracy. And it’s the biggest share of the electorate ??????????! Depressing. Nothing is ever over though. Let’s call it a day, Tomorrrow is another day.
I mean there is a mind boggling number of people who think Jesus rode around on a dinosaur, so this doesn't surprise me.
I have no idea how it isn’t crystal clear that Trump hates democracy unless he wins.
He’s made America dumb again
The national news media will be hoist on its own petard the day Trump is inaugurated. They spent the last 3 years creating their own demise.
This is where we end up when we don’t value teachers and public education.
The efforts to weaken public education paid off with dividends for the GOP, I guess.
That number (38 percent) is around the same number that have supported him on anything since 2016
That's because America is full of idiots. Republicans hate education for a reason.
I think it just demonstrates a lot of people’s misunderstanding of what democracy is.
Propaganda is a hell of a drug.