28 ms·

For some of us this is not unexpected at all. But the margin and the likely win of the popular vote should send a clear message.

by koolba 2y ago

rdtsc 2y ago
Indeed, how the heck did the Democrats lose the popular vote? With Biden getting 80M+ votes in 2020, where did those millions of voters go? Harris was supposed to be Biden++
- brodouevencode 2y ago
  Because Harris was such a bad candidate.
  - rdtsc 2y ago
    I gotta admit, I didn't see it until the last minute. I had family members canvassing for her Michigan and everything. But hindsight is 20/20.
    - brodouevencode 2y ago
      She seemed so fake.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
panja 2y ago
[flagged]
- ainiriand 2y ago
  I would like to skip that rethoric here on HN whenever possible. You cannot possibly reduce 70M voters to that. I would like to explore the whys and hows of this apparent step backwards in so many things and why Trump was voted like he was and this reductionist view helps no one.
  - baxuz 2y ago
    Ok, let's take the nuanced route. Not all are stupid. They're just more uneducated than ever, more conservative than ever, and idolizing dehumanization and evil totalitarians more than ever. The root of everything is social insecurity and bad education, caused by the USA actually not being a country for its people but for corporations and billionaires. I'm sorry but if you want a pathological liar, criminal and an overall horrible human being as a president of the (probably) most powerful and influential country in the world, you're just scum. Keep the downvotes coming.
    - bogle 2y ago
      The inequality in a nation must have a huge effect on the nature of the people in that nation. That a treatise on inequality has won a Nobel prizes for economics would tend to support your thesis [1]. That another Nobel prize winner has also written on inequality should clinch it [2]. Fix inequality. [1] https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2015/deaton/facts/ https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2015/dea... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz
    - squigz 2y ago
      > I'm sorry but if you want a pathological liar, criminal and an overall horrible human being as a president of the (probably) most powerful and influential country in the world, you're just scum. Keep the downvotes coming. This is precisely what I'm talking about. You really think this comment is going to do anything but push even more people to vote for the right? Because why would they side with your camp when you just called them scum, because you don't understand their intentions for voting for him/the party? Which is extra unfortunate, because your comment up until that part was pretty good.
      - baxuz 2y ago
        I understand their intentions. I understand that these votes come out of a place of fear. They are unhappy and a lying demagogue is pointing them to a solution and fuels them with hate. [1] I also understand that they willfully choose to ignore massive red flags and are a bunch of hypocrites. These people have no shame and need to be shamed. It is the key emotion that leads to change and motivates to action. Sadly, due to electoral interference by totalitarian regimes, media outlets, Musk, and the internet in general, these people who would otherwise be ostracized by the community due to their antisocial behaviours have been normalized. Once you're set up like that, it's extremely difficult to get out of. I am afraid that the US has check-mated itself for at least an entire generation. The only thing that can drive a change is hope and basic human decency, ethics and morality. Which brings us back to people wilfully being the exact opposites of those values. We've had lying oppressive demagogues probably since the dawn of humanity. Most certainly in the last century. However, despite being afraid and frustrated, many people sided against such leaders. And this is why I consider not doing so a personal moral failing. [1] https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/11/trump-voters-like-lying-deception-feature/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/11/trump-voters-li...
- kazinator 2y ago
  In their defense, they faced a tough choice: convicted sex offender or empty suit.
  - abhinavk 2y ago
    It's sad if that's tough.
    - kazinator 2y ago
      Indeed; I don't mean in their complete defense.
  - pferde 2y ago
    All other things aside, don't you think choosing a convicted sex offender over an empty suit is quite damning on its own? Are his values the values USA wants to promote both internally and externally? Apparently so. :(
    - kazinator 2y ago
      And, also, both are empty suits (and that's rather par for the course in politics). Additionally, one of the empty suits shows cognitive decline. Trump's victory, including popular vote and all, is quite astonishing and in many ways incomprehensible. What kind of four years (and beyond) is this going to be, yikes.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  [flagged]
- squigz 2y ago
  Just so you know, this is exactly the sort of divisive rhetoric - from all sides of the political spectrum - that has led America down this path, and will continue to do so. You can chalk it up to "stupidity", which is rather silly on its face, or you can acknowledge that this result is the symptom of something far deeper, and try to explore what those issues are, and try to find solutions. One's easier though, I imagine.
  - watwut 2y ago
    The problem is that one side engaging in divisive rhetorics while the other trying to take the high ground is why Trump is winning. Trump is engaging in hate and divisive politics, he rules GOP. Democrats are constantly trying to play the high ground, they are loosing.
    - squigz 2y ago
      You've missed the point, which is that painting one side as angelic and the other as evil is exactly what has led to this point.
      - watwut 2y ago
        I am painting one side as kinda evil and other one perfectly within norms of non-evil. Not angelic, but clearly and significantly less anti-democratic and destruction seeking. I think that the politics got to this point because the "sides" are graded on the curve. No matter how bad one side gets, you are supposed to project best possible intentions on them, worst possible intentions on their liberal opposition just so someone can say "they are the same". Like common. The long term plan to destroy Roe vs Wade for real and worked. The rights of gays and trans are going down the drain. There is literal plan to make anticonception harder to get. Trump was literally talking about this being last election and literally tried the coup after last election. Can we please, stop with the nonsense? I remember center mocking feminists when they said abortion rights are at dangers. Guess what, they were right. This is not about needing to listen in a more approving way. It is about needing to listen and oppose more strongly, because what they say about themselves is that they find "evil" to be something to aspire to.
underwater 2y ago
Can you please explain to a non-America what is that message is? I hear this refrain all the time and all I get is a vague insinuation that people are not being listened to.
- CodinM 2y ago
  The message is the same even for non-America - we need to engage with these folks and stop disparaging them. We need to talk to them, we need to understand where they're coming from, we need to help clear the air between "us and them" so that there won't be an "us and them" and so we can _together_ avoid people that tell us what we want to hear.
  - stavros 2y ago
    That's not what the GP means, the popular vote is likely to be for the Democrats, as has happened basically every election. It's only because of the electoral college system that Republicans win the presidency.
    - Tainnor 2y ago
      The current results are unfortunately such a blowout that Trump may very well be winning the popular vote. I guess this is what OP was referring to.
      - stavros 2y ago
        Ah interesting, I don't know enough about which states do what. Is it not at the point where the states we knew the results of have been tallied, and the swing states are still unknown?
        jeffhuys 2y ago
        I suggest you look for yourself at reuters or something. Whatever I type here, it's out-dated every 10 minutes or something.
dheera 2y ago
The popular vote is not a good indicator. I live in a deep blue state, the fact that my vote doesn't actually influence the electoral college reduces the incentive to go vote, drastically.
- lpa22 2y ago
  That goes both ways. In fact, there might be more Red voters who think their vote is futile and don’t do out to vote.
  - relaxing 2y ago
    There isn’t. The polling and results are all out there.
- sweezyjeezy 2y ago
  Exactly, unless you rerun with a "popular vote wins" election - it's not concrete at all. The campaigns would not have been run in the same way, and the people would not vote in the same way. I say this every election when democrats play the "but we won the popular vote" card as well - that wasn't the game being played, so it doesn't really mean that much.
- tightbookkeeper 2y ago
  If he didn’t win it, the democrats narrative right now would be the electoral college is a fraudulent system and he is illegitimate. #notmypresident Now you can question 2nd order effects, but that’s not a message that’s easy to communicate through media.
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
Yeah, that the US democratic system is broken; each state having an equal say is not fair given the populations are far from equal.
- defrost 2y ago
  I'm an outsider; is the US a democratic union of 50 states (plus districts and territories) or is it a democratic union of ~ 335 million individuals? Is the EU vote in Brussels passed by countries or by individual citizens? As I recall the current electoral system was set up to weight the votes of states that were members of the union .. if the US has moved to a single unified country of individuals then it might be time to reset the rules (the US founders would be in favour if I read their comments on evolving systems correctly). Perhaps 'dated' is a better description than 'broken'.
  - messe 2y ago
    That's a silly comparison when even the EU is a mix of by-country/by-population (council/parliament—and even the parliament is weighted toward giving smaller countries more representation)
  - kelnos 2y ago
    > is the US a democratic union of 50 states If you mean "state" in the sense of "nation-state", then no, the US is not a democratic union of 50 states. It's a federal republic. While each state does have its own identity, government, and laws, the US federal government has much more power over US states than the EU has over member countries. > the current electoral system was set up to weight the votes of states that were members of the union The current electoral system was set up to appease the southern slave-owning states who would have had little representation if the straight popular vote was used. > Perhaps 'dated' is a better description than 'broken'. Potato, potahto. Distinction without a difference, in this case.
- mirthflat83 2y ago
  You do know that USA stands for United States of America, right?
throwaway345724 2y ago
[flagged]
- throwaway345725 2y ago
  [dead]
throwaway345725 2y ago
Yeah. It's been scary to see how Big Tech and the media presented Trump as a threat to democracy and someone you cannot possibly vote for. It becomes dangerous when one party has that much power and support. It's not a democracy anymore when people are not presented with facts and are not allowed to express their opinions without getting cancelled or labeled a certain way. You can see it even in the comments here: "Far Right", "bigot", "redneck". We should acknowledge that blunt words like this are at a very low level of political discussion. "Far Right" is a particularly nasty label because even a liberal from 2010 would meet the definition as it's used today by liberals. Look at this [1] - Oprah warning women that if they don't vote they may lose their ability to vote. This is ridiculous. Trump is not a saint and January 6th was a dark moment but they (the Big Tech, the media, the celebrities) blown the negative image of Trump out of proportion and are making stuff up. Whether you like him or not he is the candidate of the other party. There is no democracy without the other party. The reality is that the megaphones have been cornered by a single side and are used in the most unfair way with additions of fake news and negative coloring about Trump and the "Far Right". Elon Musk saved the day by buying Twitter. It's the last social media platform where Republicans and their supporters could have any presence. There were plenty of reasons to not vote for Kamala. Perhaps the biggest ones are her views that align with communism. [2] And by the way, Merry Christmas! [3] [1] https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1853659788678156648 https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1853659788678156648 [2] https://x.com/theconread/status/1853834480944881871 https://x.com/theconread/status/1853834480944881871 [3] https://x.com/MattWallace888/status/1853234344187355332 https://x.com/MattWallace888/status/1853234344187355332
- sumo89 2y ago
  You're complaining about how Trump was presented as a threat to democracy after he made a speech saying how if he wins you'll never have to vote again? After he lead an insurrection and tried to illegally overthrow the previous election both on paper and in person? Seen a good few Trumpers complaining about the label "far right". If you don't like the label that's on you, it's like an orange complaining about being called an orange, it's a fact.
  - throwaway345725 2y ago
SpaceL10n 2y ago
It doesn't send me a clear message. Trump got fewer votes this time around than he did in 2020. And overall I read that 20 million fewer voters participated this year. The message I'm getting is apathy.
happytoexplain 2y ago
Every time somebody wins, their supporters say it sends a clear message. You should consider that the message you believe is so clear that you've left it unsaid is demonstrably not clear. I absolutely sympathize with individual reasons to vote Trump and don't automatically look down on Trump voters (immigration, for example). But, Trump himself and explicit "Trump supporters" (i.e. people who make it clear they support his general identity - negativity and all) 95% of the time don't leave any room for sympathy when I encounter them, online or in person, and they are extremely common. What the average liberal is shown (and I assume you care about the average person in each camp, since lauding the common man is a prominent value) is an unheard-of-in-their-lifetimes amount of verbal encouragement (with varying degrees of explicitness) for hatred of others, violence against others, imprisonment of others, and disrespecting of the law/constitution in the name of those things. It's not comparable with any past Democratic candidate (or Republican, for that matter). On the personal scale, my wife and I don't express anything close to extremist positions, or any cheerleader-type love for Democrats, or any name-calling of conservatives, and yet we are called every slur that's popular with Trump supporters. And we're white, cis Americans. My wife, because she's so friendly when strangers talk to her, has been stalked by one Trump supporter and had another call her a slut (to another Trump supporter, not to her face). She's terrified of these people now. It's insane that they even state out loud their support for Trump in the short time we encounter them. You can't expect humans presented with that to think, when that candidate wins, "Wow, I guess political issues X, Y, and Z are really important to those guys. Maybe I was too harsh on them." They're going to think, "Wow, those guys really are leaning in a fascist-y direction and have a big problem with evil people in their ranks. I'm scared for my country, community, and family." I don't think that's an extreme or unnecessarily provocative thing to admit.
mintplant 2y ago
I'm trans. Yeah, the message is clear, alright. This country either hates us that much, or is just that willing to throw us to the wolves.
- ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
  You're not as important as you think you are
  - mintplant 2y ago
    Then why won't they leave us alone?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - Veen 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - loup-vaillant 2y ago
        > Stop doing that and almost everyone will happily leave you alone to dress and behave however you please. I'm pretty sure they won't. And for that reason alone… https://www.youtube.com/@TacticoolGirlfriend https://www.youtube.com/@TacticoolGirlfriend
      - mintplant 2y ago
        I can't wait for four more years and beyond of hearing these same talking points over and over and over again. I could put up an argument here, but it's been done before and better, and frankly, I'm just so tired today.
        ssinkj 2y ago
        Males need to respect female spaces and boundaries. All males, including those who want to be women. It's as simple as that.

For some of us this is not unexpected at all. But the margin and the likely win of the popular vote should send a clear message.

by koolba 2y ago

For some of us this is not unexpected at all. But the margin and the likely win of the popular vote should send a clear message.

rdtsc 2y ago

Indeed, how the heck did the Democrats lose the popular vote? With Biden getting 80M+ votes in 2020, where did those millions of voters go? Harris was supposed to be Biden++

brodouevencode 2y ago
Because Harris was such a bad candidate.
- rdtsc 2y ago
  I gotta admit, I didn't see it until the last minute. I had family members canvassing for her Michigan and everything. But hindsight is 20/20.
  - brodouevencode 2y ago
    She seemed so fake.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

panja 2y ago

[flagged]

ainiriand 2y ago
I would like to skip that rethoric here on HN whenever possible. You cannot possibly reduce 70M voters to that. I would like to explore the whys and hows of this apparent step backwards in so many things and why Trump was voted like he was and this reductionist view helps no one.
- baxuz 2y ago
  Ok, let's take the nuanced route. Not all are stupid. They're just more uneducated than ever, more conservative than ever, and idolizing dehumanization and evil totalitarians more than ever. The root of everything is social insecurity and bad education, caused by the USA actually not being a country for its people but for corporations and billionaires. I'm sorry but if you want a pathological liar, criminal and an overall horrible human being as a president of the (probably) most powerful and influential country in the world, you're just scum. Keep the downvotes coming.
  - bogle 2y ago
    The inequality in a nation must have a huge effect on the nature of the people in that nation. That a treatise on inequality has won a Nobel prizes for economics would tend to support your thesis [1]. That another Nobel prize winner has also written on inequality should clinch it [2]. Fix inequality. [1] https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2015/deaton/facts/ https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2015/dea... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz
  - squigz 2y ago
    > I'm sorry but if you want a pathological liar, criminal and an overall horrible human being as a president of the (probably) most powerful and influential country in the world, you're just scum. Keep the downvotes coming. This is precisely what I'm talking about. You really think this comment is going to do anything but push even more people to vote for the right? Because why would they side with your camp when you just called them scum, because you don't understand their intentions for voting for him/the party? Which is extra unfortunate, because your comment up until that part was pretty good.
    - baxuz 2y ago
      I understand their intentions. I understand that these votes come out of a place of fear. They are unhappy and a lying demagogue is pointing them to a solution and fuels them with hate. [1] I also understand that they willfully choose to ignore massive red flags and are a bunch of hypocrites. These people have no shame and need to be shamed. It is the key emotion that leads to change and motivates to action. Sadly, due to electoral interference by totalitarian regimes, media outlets, Musk, and the internet in general, these people who would otherwise be ostracized by the community due to their antisocial behaviours have been normalized. Once you're set up like that, it's extremely difficult to get out of. I am afraid that the US has check-mated itself for at least an entire generation. The only thing that can drive a change is hope and basic human decency, ethics and morality. Which brings us back to people wilfully being the exact opposites of those values. We've had lying oppressive demagogues probably since the dawn of humanity. Most certainly in the last century. However, despite being afraid and frustrated, many people sided against such leaders. And this is why I consider not doing so a personal moral failing. [1] https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/11/trump-voters-like-lying-deception-feature/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/11/trump-voters-li...
kazinator 2y ago
In their defense, they faced a tough choice: convicted sex offender or empty suit.
- abhinavk 2y ago
  It's sad if that's tough.
  - kazinator 2y ago
    Indeed; I don't mean in their complete defense.
- pferde 2y ago
  All other things aside, don't you think choosing a convicted sex offender over an empty suit is quite damning on its own? Are his values the values USA wants to promote both internally and externally? Apparently so. :(
  - kazinator 2y ago
    And, also, both are empty suits (and that's rather par for the course in politics). Additionally, one of the empty suits shows cognitive decline. Trump's victory, including popular vote and all, is quite astonishing and in many ways incomprehensible. What kind of four years (and beyond) is this going to be, yikes.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
readthenotes1 2y ago
[flagged]
squigz 2y ago
Just so you know, this is exactly the sort of divisive rhetoric - from all sides of the political spectrum - that has led America down this path, and will continue to do so. You can chalk it up to "stupidity", which is rather silly on its face, or you can acknowledge that this result is the symptom of something far deeper, and try to explore what those issues are, and try to find solutions. One's easier though, I imagine.
- watwut 2y ago
  The problem is that one side engaging in divisive rhetorics while the other trying to take the high ground is why Trump is winning. Trump is engaging in hate and divisive politics, he rules GOP. Democrats are constantly trying to play the high ground, they are loosing.
  - squigz 2y ago
    You've missed the point, which is that painting one side as angelic and the other as evil is exactly what has led to this point.
    - watwut 2y ago
      I am painting one side as kinda evil and other one perfectly within norms of non-evil. Not angelic, but clearly and significantly less anti-democratic and destruction seeking. I think that the politics got to this point because the "sides" are graded on the curve. No matter how bad one side gets, you are supposed to project best possible intentions on them, worst possible intentions on their liberal opposition just so someone can say "they are the same". Like common. The long term plan to destroy Roe vs Wade for real and worked. The rights of gays and trans are going down the drain. There is literal plan to make anticonception harder to get. Trump was literally talking about this being last election and literally tried the coup after last election. Can we please, stop with the nonsense? I remember center mocking feminists when they said abortion rights are at dangers. Guess what, they were right. This is not about needing to listen in a more approving way. It is about needing to listen and oppose more strongly, because what they say about themselves is that they find "evil" to be something to aspire to.

underwater 2y ago

Can you please explain to a non-America what is that message is? I hear this refrain all the time and all I get is a vague insinuation that people are not being listened to.

CodinM 2y ago
The message is the same even for non-America - we need to engage with these folks and stop disparaging them. We need to talk to them, we need to understand where they're coming from, we need to help clear the air between "us and them" so that there won't be an "us and them" and so we can _together_ avoid people that tell us what we want to hear.
- stavros 2y ago
  That's not what the GP means, the popular vote is likely to be for the Democrats, as has happened basically every election. It's only because of the electoral college system that Republicans win the presidency.
  - Tainnor 2y ago
    The current results are unfortunately such a blowout that Trump may very well be winning the popular vote. I guess this is what OP was referring to.
    - stavros 2y ago
      Ah interesting, I don't know enough about which states do what. Is it not at the point where the states we knew the results of have been tallied, and the swing states are still unknown?
      - jeffhuys 2y ago
        I suggest you look for yourself at reuters or something. Whatever I type here, it's out-dated every 10 minutes or something.

dheera 2y ago

The popular vote is not a good indicator. I live in a deep blue state, the fact that my vote doesn't actually influence the electoral college reduces the incentive to go vote, drastically.

lpa22 2y ago
That goes both ways. In fact, there might be more Red voters who think their vote is futile and don’t do out to vote.
- relaxing 2y ago
  There isn’t. The polling and results are all out there.
sweezyjeezy 2y ago
Exactly, unless you rerun with a "popular vote wins" election - it's not concrete at all. The campaigns would not have been run in the same way, and the people would not vote in the same way. I say this every election when democrats play the "but we won the popular vote" card as well - that wasn't the game being played, so it doesn't really mean that much.
tightbookkeeper 2y ago
If he didn’t win it, the democrats narrative right now would be the electoral college is a fraudulent system and he is illegitimate. #notmypresident Now you can question 2nd order effects, but that’s not a message that’s easy to communicate through media.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago

Yeah, that the US democratic system is broken; each state having an equal say is not fair given the populations are far from equal.

defrost 2y ago
I'm an outsider; is the US a democratic union of 50 states (plus districts and territories) or is it a democratic union of ~ 335 million individuals? Is the EU vote in Brussels passed by countries or by individual citizens? As I recall the current electoral system was set up to weight the votes of states that were members of the union .. if the US has moved to a single unified country of individuals then it might be time to reset the rules (the US founders would be in favour if I read their comments on evolving systems correctly). Perhaps 'dated' is a better description than 'broken'.
- messe 2y ago
  That's a silly comparison when even the EU is a mix of by-country/by-population (council/parliament—and even the parliament is weighted toward giving smaller countries more representation)
- kelnos 2y ago
  > is the US a democratic union of 50 states If you mean "state" in the sense of "nation-state", then no, the US is not a democratic union of 50 states. It's a federal republic. While each state does have its own identity, government, and laws, the US federal government has much more power over US states than the EU has over member countries. > the current electoral system was set up to weight the votes of states that were members of the union The current electoral system was set up to appease the southern slave-owning states who would have had little representation if the straight popular vote was used. > Perhaps 'dated' is a better description than 'broken'. Potato, potahto. Distinction without a difference, in this case.
mirthflat83 2y ago
You do know that USA stands for United States of America, right?

throwaway345724 2y ago

[flagged]

throwaway345725 2y ago
[dead]

throwaway345725 2y ago

Yeah. It's been scary to see how Big Tech and the media presented Trump as a threat to democracy and someone you cannot possibly vote for. It becomes dangerous when one party has that much power and support. It's not a democracy anymore when people are not presented with facts and are not allowed to express their opinions without getting cancelled or labeled a certain way. You can see it even in the comments here: "Far Right", "bigot", "redneck". We should acknowledge that blunt words like this are at a very low level of political discussion. "Far Right" is a particularly nasty label because even a liberal from 2010 would meet the definition as it's used today by liberals. Look at this [1] - Oprah warning women that if they don't vote they may lose their ability to vote. This is ridiculous. Trump is not a saint and January 6th was a dark moment but they (the Big Tech, the media, the celebrities) blown the negative image of Trump out of proportion and are making stuff up. Whether you like him or not he is the candidate of the other party. There is no democracy without the other party. The reality is that the megaphones have been cornered by a single side and are used in the most unfair way with additions of fake news and negative coloring about Trump and the "Far Right". Elon Musk saved the day by buying Twitter. It's the last social media platform where Republicans and their supporters could have any presence. There were plenty of reasons to not vote for Kamala. Perhaps the biggest ones are her views that align with communism. [2] And by the way, Merry Christmas! [3] [1] https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1853659788678156648 https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1853659788678156648 [2] https://x.com/theconread/status/1853834480944881871 https://x.com/theconread/status/1853834480944881871 [3] https://x.com/MattWallace888/status/1853234344187355332 https://x.com/MattWallace888/status/1853234344187355332

sumo89 2y ago
You're complaining about how Trump was presented as a threat to democracy after he made a speech saying how if he wins you'll never have to vote again? After he lead an insurrection and tried to illegally overthrow the previous election both on paper and in person? Seen a good few Trumpers complaining about the label "far right". If you don't like the label that's on you, it's like an orange complaining about being called an orange, it's a fact.
- throwaway345725 2y ago

SpaceL10n 2y ago

It doesn't send me a clear message. Trump got fewer votes this time around than he did in 2020. And overall I read that 20 million fewer voters participated this year. The message I'm getting is apathy.

happytoexplain 2y ago

Every time somebody wins, their supporters say it sends a clear message. You should consider that the message you believe is so clear that you've left it unsaid is demonstrably not clear. I absolutely sympathize with individual reasons to vote Trump and don't automatically look down on Trump voters (immigration, for example). But, Trump himself and explicit "Trump supporters" (i.e. people who make it clear they support his general identity - negativity and all) 95% of the time don't leave any room for sympathy when I encounter them, online or in person, and they are extremely common. What the average liberal is shown (and I assume you care about the average person in each camp, since lauding the common man is a prominent value) is an unheard-of-in-their-lifetimes amount of verbal encouragement (with varying degrees of explicitness) for hatred of others, violence against others, imprisonment of others, and disrespecting of the law/constitution in the name of those things. It's not comparable with any past Democratic candidate (or Republican, for that matter). On the personal scale, my wife and I don't express anything close to extremist positions, or any cheerleader-type love for Democrats, or any name-calling of conservatives, and yet we are called every slur that's popular with Trump supporters. And we're white, cis Americans. My wife, because she's so friendly when strangers talk to her, has been stalked by one Trump supporter and had another call her a slut (to another Trump supporter, not to her face). She's terrified of these people now. It's insane that they even state out loud their support for Trump in the short time we encounter them. You can't expect humans presented with that to think, when that candidate wins, "Wow, I guess political issues X, Y, and Z are really important to those guys. Maybe I was too harsh on them." They're going to think, "Wow, those guys really are leaning in a fascist-y direction and have a big problem with evil people in their ranks. I'm scared for my country, community, and family." I don't think that's an extreme or unnecessarily provocative thing to admit.

mintplant 2y ago

I'm trans. Yeah, the message is clear, alright. This country either hates us that much, or is just that willing to throw us to the wolves.

ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
You're not as important as you think you are
- mintplant 2y ago
  Then why won't they leave us alone?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Veen 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - loup-vaillant 2y ago
      > Stop doing that and almost everyone will happily leave you alone to dress and behave however you please. I'm pretty sure they won't. And for that reason alone… https://www.youtube.com/@TacticoolGirlfriend https://www.youtube.com/@TacticoolGirlfriend
    - mintplant 2y ago
      I can't wait for four more years and beyond of hearing these same talking points over and over and over again. I could put up an argument here, but it's been done before and better, and frankly, I'm just so tired today.
      - ssinkj 2y ago
        Males need to respect female spaces and boundaries. All males, including those who want to be women. It's as simple as that.