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> Democrats: you won't win by claiming to be 0.1% less bad It's been confusing since the first trump term how many dems held this position. How can you call tr

> Democrats: you won't win by claiming to be 0.1% less bad It's been confusing since the first trump term how many dems held this position. How can you call trump obviously reprehensible and irredemable... and then lose? I made the mistake of debating politics with a then-friend who called all 75 million trump voters "drooling fucktards". Word? We don't talk anymore

frereubu 2y ago
How is this different from what Trump supporters were saying about Democratic voters? Genuine question - I'm not in the US and from my perspective the vitriol was pretty universal.
- Jensson 2y ago
  If both sides spouts vitriol then you pick the side that doesn't pour it on you, that is the problem described by "one side is 1% less bad than the other". If you want voters then try to welcome them instead of blame them for all the problems, goes for both sides.
  - frereubu 2y ago
    Sure, but then shouldn't the universal vitriol cancel itself out somehow? Democracts have been on the receiving end of a lot of name-calling too. This doesn't feel like a good enough explanation. It feels much more like the Democrats ignored (or were perceived to have ignored) a lot of substantive issues for a large section of the population.
    - Jensson 2y ago
      > Sure, but then shouldn't the universal vitriol cancel itself out somehow? It does, both sides got about the same amount of votes as you can see. > It feels much more like the Democrats ignored (or were perceived to have ignored) a lot of substantive issues for a large section of the population. I don't think so, it doesn't matter how much you try to do for people if you also namecall them at the same time, they will assume you aren't on their side even if your policies are better for them. Vitriol ensures the vote becomes tribal instead of rationally inspecting both sides and picking the better option.
    - Wololooo 2y ago
      I realised through hearing through channel 5 and average Americans that they don't really get it. They don't want to think, they want an easy solution to complex problems and anyone coming with a pre made thing is seen as the Messiah. The other part don't care because they saw a lot of screaming and failed to grasp what was so bad about Trump. If he was so bad why was he still nominee? If he was so bad why wasn't he arrested? If he was so bad... You get the picture... This can be seen as the democrats also not understanding the average person and this is where Bernie was actually hitting good points, his message was consistent and he was never demonising Trump on his name but explaining what they could do better by explaining policies in a way that people understood what they would get from them or lose if they didn't get implemented... Of course the issue is a bit more complex, but they exacerbated the people that were unseen instead of helping the healing and some actors of course were way too happy to fan the flames. This is a very bad day that is marking the beginning of a very bad period for everyone...
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    I think Trump and the Republicans did actually succeed in welcoming in a truly diverse base of new and former voters: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/06/us/politics/presidential-election-2024-red-shift.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/06/us/politics/p... This is the Red Wave that was promised in 2020 and 2022 but failed to materialize. Why didn't Harris and the Democrats pull it off? Well, they could start by not playing identity politics or calling Americans deplorables, Nazis, and garbage. Godwin's Law was in full swing for them. I'm Japanese-American, demographically I should be a bleeding heart Democrat, but truthfully I can't stand their constant victimizing and divisive rhetoric and is why I voted for Trump and the Republicans in 2016, 2020, and 2024.
    - cglace 2y ago
      As someone who pays attention to politics exceptionally closely, I wonder what you would call Trump's rhetoric if not divisive.
      - Dalewyn 2y ago
        I call it practical, on point, gruff, and charismatic. Practical and on point because Trump talks about things that the common American actually gives a shit about in a way that the common American can understand and relate to. This also has a side effect of uniting people under a common cause despite outward appearances. Gruff because that style of speech appeals to most Americans who don't like being sophisticated, or worse: Being politically correct. Remember that being politically incorrect was one of the reasons Trump won in 2016, and it's still one of the reasons he won again today. Charismatic because, well, I think everyone has to at least admit that the man draws people in despite any and all odds.
        cglace 2y ago
        So when he calls the other side names and makes threats, he is practical and gruff. His practical message was incoherent; it was more of an erring of grievances, conspiracy theories, and wild policy ideas that he seemed to have come up with while speaking. I can't argue with the fact that it appealed to people, but you can't say it wasn't divisive because it was practical and gruff. Those two things don't rule out divisiveness. BTW, I voted Republican in every election until Trump, and the reason why I didn't vote for him was due to how divisive he was. I think you just happen to agree with his side of the divide.
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    That is assuming half the country are Democrats and the other half Republicans. But the most important voting block considers themselves to be neither one nor the other, and then it becomes strategy to spit fire at your opponent. And I don't know about other people, but I consider any rhetoric against a political party to be directed against their politicians, not against their voters - unless explicitly stated.
  - fastball 2y ago
    Well the Trump camp was mostly blaming illegal immigrants in this cycle, and illegal immigrants can't vote, so seems like that strategy works ok.
- noobermin 2y ago
  The right gets to hate, the liberals don't. Basically the media let Rs play on handicap and the electorate basically buys it. You're right it's unfair but if you're not American and thus stuck in the political media stew then you can see it clearly.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    I'm not so sure about that, I've seen plenty of hate from both sides. Covid was a great example, anyone who disagreed with the main narrative or even just wanted bodily choice was blasted by many liberals, including the president, with all kinds of hateful speech. Since 2016 many liberals also have used hateful speech to describe anyone willing to vote for Trump. I personally didn't like either candidate the political machine offered us, but in many of my discussions with anyone liberal Trump voters were often held as something like a second class citizen, that's pretty damn hateful in my book to consider anyone "lesser than."
    - hncensorship69 2y ago
      Of course your comment is being downvoted. Hackernews is an echo-chamber of Trump haters. I'm only here for the cope today.
  - mondrian 2y ago
    This is a deep insight. It's a reactionary vs. establishment dynamic where the reactionaries get a free boost because they're fundamentally more provocative from a content perspective. I think it's more like "the reactionaries get to hate, the establishment doesn't" and R and D may swap those positions.
nervousvarun 2y ago
That's basically it in a nutshell for my experience as well. Elections are won by swaying Independents...the Dem strategy for Independents appeared to be "Trump is a fascist" "Trump supporters are garbage". Ok well..that's not really an argument? And yes we can bring up all the terrible Trump examples but if the point is separating yourself from that, how is what they've done any different? It just feels each side just despises the other and it all ends up like children arguing on the playground. Where are the adults? There's going to be all kinds of hyperbole thrown around today on both sides but personally see this as a failure by the Democrats to sway Independents.
- contracertainty 2y ago
  As a European I have to ask - do you really need another argument? If I stand on a platform for government in Europe with an arguably fascist agenda I will get called out as a fascist and will lose. Never mind if I am a convicted felon, rapist, and probable russian intelligence asset. Seriously, what are you guys thinking here? Americans would actually vote for an extreme right wing candiate just to prove a point to the dems? Just to get one over on the libs? Please explain.
  - card_zero 2y ago
    (Except in Austria, which now has Volkskanzler Herbert Kickl.) Edit: maybe not, I think they're still in procedural limbo because no other party wants to be in the coalition.
  - amarcheschi 2y ago
    I wouldn't be so sure about the fascist agenda in eu given some recent results of some parties throughout the union
  - 2muchcoffeeman 2y ago
    I think there are also a lot of single issue voters who don’t think about the ethics of the candidate or their world view. How many evangelical Christians just voted for an adulterer and convicted criminal because he’s not pro choice?
indy 2y ago
It's always amazing what a biased media/social network can do to the perception of otherwise rational and intelligent people.
- lobsterthief 2y ago
  Just remember how rational and intelligent the average person is. Then realize that half the US population is less rational and less intelligent than that.
  - smnrg 2y ago
    Original quote by George Carlin, not US-centric: “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
    - codethief 2y ago
      I take it confusing the arithmetic average for the median is part of the joke?
      - Jensson 2y ago
        "The average person" typically means the median person.
      - badmintonbaseba 2y ago
        Intelligence is not inherently quantifiable. IQ is an arbitrary way to quantify it, but there average and median is pretty much equal by definition.
      - a-french-anon 2y ago
        IQ roughly follows a Gaussian distribution, so median and average are the same here.
      - wavemode 2y ago
        IQ is normally distributed, so the two are the same.
smackeyacky 2y ago
He wasn’t wrong
JustFinishedBSG 2y ago
> It's been confusing since the first trump term how many dems held this position. How can you call trump obviously reprehensible and irredemable... and then lose? How is that in any way contradictory ?
- archon1410 2y ago
  It implies that either they themselves are even more reprehensible and irredeemable, or the majority of US voters are so morally bankrupt that they prefer reprehensible and irredeemable candidates. The latter is probably true, but why would they say that and then continue to run for elections? Why do they want the approval of morally bankrupt people who prefer reprehensible candidates? Another option is that voters are just very stupid and fail to see that which is "obvious", repeatedly, despite billions spent on trying to make them "see". Or perhaps their claims are not actually "obvious", and they ought to be... kinder to the other side.
  - bjourne 2y ago
    You are asking why they would say true things.
    - archon1410 2y ago
      No, I am asking why they would knowingly desire the approval of those who prefer "irredeemable" candidates. They would either have to lie a lot to get it, or pull themselves down to be more reprehensible. So, what's their strategy? Lieing a lot after telling the "one truth", or becoming more reprehensible themselves? Probably both.
      - bjourne 2y ago
        You did: "The latter is probably true, but why would they say that" The implication of your comment is that politicians shouldn't tell the truth because that offends voters.
      - Zak 2y ago
matwood 2y ago
To your point, the Democrats should win every election, especially against Trump. But, they can't get out of their own way. Go all the way back to when the party hosed Bernie, and now this time when they were Hiden Biden. While the economic numbers are good, they are mainly good for people with already high economic status like existing home owners and professionals. For example, student loan forgiveness sounds great but then leaves every blue collar worker who didn't go to college wondering WTF are they doing for me? They are giving more money to people who are already ahead. When Musk says pain is coming, many of Trumps supporters are happy because they are already in pain and want to see those benefitting feel some of that pain. Then they go and overplay their hands with social issues. I didn't see it at the time, but all of the DEI rollbacks we've been seeing over the past year or so should have been a signal. One of the middle of the road people on TV last night mentioned he had friends who tried to avoid interacting with people at work because they were afraid of saying something offensive. And these were likely center left people. I have had similar discussions with even my most progressive friends. The almost refusal to message young men is also a problem. Most Americans want legal immigration, but the Democrats took too long to do something and then Trump was able to kill the bill last minute. It looked like the Democrats wanted to simply ignore it until they no longer could. There are more, but I think these are some of the big Democrat self owns.
- creato 2y ago
  > Most Americans want legal immigration, but the Democrats took too long to do something and then Trump was able to kill the bill last minute. It looked like the Democrats wanted to simply ignore it until they no longer could. You forgot the part where they claimed their hands were tied, then finally did something about it 8 months before the election.
  - matwood 2y ago
    Yes, completely dropped the ball on an issue they could have addressed head on.
    - llamaimperative 2y ago
whoitwas 2y ago
I mean ... if you support that guy. It's accurate.
arp242 2y ago
Half the stuff Trump says is some insult to someone. "Owning the libs" and "libtards" has been a thing for a long time. Remember when the tea party said Obama was literally Hitler for trying to come up with a better health care system? etc. etc. etc. But somehow everyone else needs to be on their best behaviour and as soon as they say "fuck you back" in response to a torrent of "fuck you"s it 's a big deal. If you want to talk tone and insults then you're definitely starting at the wrong end.
dathinab 2y ago
> How can you call trump obviously reprehensible and irredemable... and then lose? because not being any of notorious lair, repeatedly make comments you normally only would expect from fascist, having systematically undermined various check and balances in their last term, having lost sexual assault cases, shamelessly abusing the reach of a president for deformation etc. seem to no longer matter even through any of this points where believed to be reliable carrier killers now "reprehensible" that is a much more personal non objective judgement so arguing around that is pointless Irredeemable seems obvious, but if the things you need redemption from don't matter anymore it really doesn't matter either. I think the main problem here is that politics in the US are fundamental broken due to way to much polarization in a 2 party system and no good way to fix it. If Tump wins I personalty think it's hardly avoidable that in the next 20 year there will be a point where you won't be able to call the US democratic anymore at all (based on a objective standard) and the question is if the US will then realize they fuck up and fix it or not (if not autocracy will mass spread even more and likely also take over the EU and given past history of how autocrats tend to cooperate while fighting democracy but then turn onto each other quite reliable the moment their power stabilized we probably should expect WW4). Naturally I would love to be proven wrong, I really would. And I think it's best to always stay polite. But I can understand why someone gets angry with a lot of people voting for someone who comes with such a risk. Especially if a deep dive analyses into their positions show that 1) he lacks concrete (public) plans for most of his positions and 2) they likely will end up making live worse for many potentially the majority of the people voting for him. But then people voting more based on "feeling" and "popular"/"populist" believe always has been very common. It's also kinda funny how close the words "popular" and "populist" is, sometimes just a change of perspective apart.
- fwip 2y ago
  > because not being any of notorious lair, repeatedly make comments you normally only would expect from fascist Kamala's rhetoric, especially around the military and border security, seemed almost specifically designed to be "1% less fascist." Some of the lines wouldn't have been out of place in Starship Troopers. If you triangulate yourself into 98% fascism, it's hardly surprising that people who don't like fascism aren't excited to go out and vote for you.
QuadmasterXLII 2y ago
From your choice of candidates, it’s obvious that you don’t mind coarse language or a tell-it-like-I-see-it attitude. I wonder what about your friend’s comment bothered you so much.
Molitor5901 2y ago
You have put the point on the entire issue. People use party/candidate affiliation as the barometer for all future interactions, and when they don't like something about the other party, they use that as judgement of the whole person. That is a person's right, but it is also failing to recognize that they are two sides of the same coin. So long as people hate one another for who they are voting for there will never be societal cohesion.

frereubu 2y ago

How is this different from what Trump supporters were saying about Democratic voters? Genuine question - I'm not in the US and from my perspective the vitriol was pretty universal.

Jensson 2y ago
If both sides spouts vitriol then you pick the side that doesn't pour it on you, that is the problem described by "one side is 1% less bad than the other". If you want voters then try to welcome them instead of blame them for all the problems, goes for both sides.
- frereubu 2y ago
  Sure, but then shouldn't the universal vitriol cancel itself out somehow? Democracts have been on the receiving end of a lot of name-calling too. This doesn't feel like a good enough explanation. It feels much more like the Democrats ignored (or were perceived to have ignored) a lot of substantive issues for a large section of the population.
  - Jensson 2y ago
    > Sure, but then shouldn't the universal vitriol cancel itself out somehow? It does, both sides got about the same amount of votes as you can see. > It feels much more like the Democrats ignored (or were perceived to have ignored) a lot of substantive issues for a large section of the population. I don't think so, it doesn't matter how much you try to do for people if you also namecall them at the same time, they will assume you aren't on their side even if your policies are better for them. Vitriol ensures the vote becomes tribal instead of rationally inspecting both sides and picking the better option.
  - Wololooo 2y ago
    I realised through hearing through channel 5 and average Americans that they don't really get it. They don't want to think, they want an easy solution to complex problems and anyone coming with a pre made thing is seen as the Messiah. The other part don't care because they saw a lot of screaming and failed to grasp what was so bad about Trump. If he was so bad why was he still nominee? If he was so bad why wasn't he arrested? If he was so bad... You get the picture... This can be seen as the democrats also not understanding the average person and this is where Bernie was actually hitting good points, his message was consistent and he was never demonising Trump on his name but explaining what they could do better by explaining policies in a way that people understood what they would get from them or lose if they didn't get implemented... Of course the issue is a bit more complex, but they exacerbated the people that were unseen instead of helping the healing and some actors of course were way too happy to fan the flames. This is a very bad day that is marking the beginning of a very bad period for everyone...
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  I think Trump and the Republicans did actually succeed in welcoming in a truly diverse base of new and former voters: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/06/us/politics/presidential-election-2024-red-shift.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/06/us/politics/p... This is the Red Wave that was promised in 2020 and 2022 but failed to materialize. Why didn't Harris and the Democrats pull it off? Well, they could start by not playing identity politics or calling Americans deplorables, Nazis, and garbage. Godwin's Law was in full swing for them. I'm Japanese-American, demographically I should be a bleeding heart Democrat, but truthfully I can't stand their constant victimizing and divisive rhetoric and is why I voted for Trump and the Republicans in 2016, 2020, and 2024.
  - cglace 2y ago
    As someone who pays attention to politics exceptionally closely, I wonder what you would call Trump's rhetoric if not divisive.
    - Dalewyn 2y ago
      I call it practical, on point, gruff, and charismatic. Practical and on point because Trump talks about things that the common American actually gives a shit about in a way that the common American can understand and relate to. This also has a side effect of uniting people under a common cause despite outward appearances. Gruff because that style of speech appeals to most Americans who don't like being sophisticated, or worse: Being politically correct. Remember that being politically incorrect was one of the reasons Trump won in 2016, and it's still one of the reasons he won again today. Charismatic because, well, I think everyone has to at least admit that the man draws people in despite any and all odds.
      - cglace 2y ago
        So when he calls the other side names and makes threats, he is practical and gruff. His practical message was incoherent; it was more of an erring of grievances, conspiracy theories, and wild policy ideas that he seemed to have come up with while speaking. I can't argue with the fact that it appealed to people, but you can't say it wasn't divisive because it was practical and gruff. Those two things don't rule out divisiveness. BTW, I voted Republican in every election until Trump, and the reason why I didn't vote for him was due to how divisive he was. I think you just happen to agree with his side of the divide.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  That is assuming half the country are Democrats and the other half Republicans. But the most important voting block considers themselves to be neither one nor the other, and then it becomes strategy to spit fire at your opponent. And I don't know about other people, but I consider any rhetoric against a political party to be directed against their politicians, not against their voters - unless explicitly stated.
- fastball 2y ago
  Well the Trump camp was mostly blaming illegal immigrants in this cycle, and illegal immigrants can't vote, so seems like that strategy works ok.
noobermin 2y ago
The right gets to hate, the liberals don't. Basically the media let Rs play on handicap and the electorate basically buys it. You're right it's unfair but if you're not American and thus stuck in the political media stew then you can see it clearly.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  I'm not so sure about that, I've seen plenty of hate from both sides. Covid was a great example, anyone who disagreed with the main narrative or even just wanted bodily choice was blasted by many liberals, including the president, with all kinds of hateful speech. Since 2016 many liberals also have used hateful speech to describe anyone willing to vote for Trump. I personally didn't like either candidate the political machine offered us, but in many of my discussions with anyone liberal Trump voters were often held as something like a second class citizen, that's pretty damn hateful in my book to consider anyone "lesser than."
  - hncensorship69 2y ago
    Of course your comment is being downvoted. Hackernews is an echo-chamber of Trump haters. I'm only here for the cope today.
- mondrian 2y ago
  This is a deep insight. It's a reactionary vs. establishment dynamic where the reactionaries get a free boost because they're fundamentally more provocative from a content perspective. I think it's more like "the reactionaries get to hate, the establishment doesn't" and R and D may swap those positions.

nervousvarun 2y ago

That's basically it in a nutshell for my experience as well. Elections are won by swaying Independents...the Dem strategy for Independents appeared to be "Trump is a fascist" "Trump supporters are garbage". Ok well..that's not really an argument? And yes we can bring up all the terrible Trump examples but if the point is separating yourself from that, how is what they've done any different? It just feels each side just despises the other and it all ends up like children arguing on the playground. Where are the adults? There's going to be all kinds of hyperbole thrown around today on both sides but personally see this as a failure by the Democrats to sway Independents.

contracertainty 2y ago
As a European I have to ask - do you really need another argument? If I stand on a platform for government in Europe with an arguably fascist agenda I will get called out as a fascist and will lose. Never mind if I am a convicted felon, rapist, and probable russian intelligence asset. Seriously, what are you guys thinking here? Americans would actually vote for an extreme right wing candiate just to prove a point to the dems? Just to get one over on the libs? Please explain.
- card_zero 2y ago
  (Except in Austria, which now has Volkskanzler Herbert Kickl.) Edit: maybe not, I think they're still in procedural limbo because no other party wants to be in the coalition.
- amarcheschi 2y ago
  I wouldn't be so sure about the fascist agenda in eu given some recent results of some parties throughout the union
- 2muchcoffeeman 2y ago
  I think there are also a lot of single issue voters who don’t think about the ethics of the candidate or their world view. How many evangelical Christians just voted for an adulterer and convicted criminal because he’s not pro choice?

indy 2y ago

It's always amazing what a biased media/social network can do to the perception of otherwise rational and intelligent people.

lobsterthief 2y ago
Just remember how rational and intelligent the average person is. Then realize that half the US population is less rational and less intelligent than that.
- smnrg 2y ago
  Original quote by George Carlin, not US-centric: “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
  - codethief 2y ago
    I take it confusing the arithmetic average for the median is part of the joke?
    - Jensson 2y ago
      "The average person" typically means the median person.
    - badmintonbaseba 2y ago
      Intelligence is not inherently quantifiable. IQ is an arbitrary way to quantify it, but there average and median is pretty much equal by definition.
    - a-french-anon 2y ago
      IQ roughly follows a Gaussian distribution, so median and average are the same here.
    - wavemode 2y ago
      IQ is normally distributed, so the two are the same.

smackeyacky 2y ago

He wasn’t wrong

JustFinishedBSG 2y ago

> It's been confusing since the first trump term how many dems held this position. How can you call trump obviously reprehensible and irredemable... and then lose? How is that in any way contradictory ?

archon1410 2y ago
It implies that either they themselves are even more reprehensible and irredeemable, or the majority of US voters are so morally bankrupt that they prefer reprehensible and irredeemable candidates. The latter is probably true, but why would they say that and then continue to run for elections? Why do they want the approval of morally bankrupt people who prefer reprehensible candidates? Another option is that voters are just very stupid and fail to see that which is "obvious", repeatedly, despite billions spent on trying to make them "see". Or perhaps their claims are not actually "obvious", and they ought to be... kinder to the other side.
- bjourne 2y ago
  You are asking why they would say true things.
  - archon1410 2y ago
    No, I am asking why they would knowingly desire the approval of those who prefer "irredeemable" candidates. They would either have to lie a lot to get it, or pull themselves down to be more reprehensible. So, what's their strategy? Lieing a lot after telling the "one truth", or becoming more reprehensible themselves? Probably both.
    - bjourne 2y ago
      You did: "The latter is probably true, but why would they say that" The implication of your comment is that politicians shouldn't tell the truth because that offends voters.
    - Zak 2y ago

matwood 2y ago

To your point, the Democrats should win every election, especially against Trump. But, they can't get out of their own way. Go all the way back to when the party hosed Bernie, and now this time when they were Hiden Biden. While the economic numbers are good, they are mainly good for people with already high economic status like existing home owners and professionals. For example, student loan forgiveness sounds great but then leaves every blue collar worker who didn't go to college wondering WTF are they doing for me? They are giving more money to people who are already ahead. When Musk says pain is coming, many of Trumps supporters are happy because they are already in pain and want to see those benefitting feel some of that pain. Then they go and overplay their hands with social issues. I didn't see it at the time, but all of the DEI rollbacks we've been seeing over the past year or so should have been a signal. One of the middle of the road people on TV last night mentioned he had friends who tried to avoid interacting with people at work because they were afraid of saying something offensive. And these were likely center left people. I have had similar discussions with even my most progressive friends. The almost refusal to message young men is also a problem. Most Americans want legal immigration, but the Democrats took too long to do something and then Trump was able to kill the bill last minute. It looked like the Democrats wanted to simply ignore it until they no longer could. There are more, but I think these are some of the big Democrat self owns.

creato 2y ago
> Most Americans want legal immigration, but the Democrats took too long to do something and then Trump was able to kill the bill last minute. It looked like the Democrats wanted to simply ignore it until they no longer could. You forgot the part where they claimed their hands were tied, then finally did something about it 8 months before the election.
- matwood 2y ago
  Yes, completely dropped the ball on an issue they could have addressed head on.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago

whoitwas 2y ago

I mean ... if you support that guy. It's accurate.

arp242 2y ago

Half the stuff Trump says is some insult to someone. "Owning the libs" and "libtards" has been a thing for a long time. Remember when the tea party said Obama was literally Hitler for trying to come up with a better health care system? etc. etc. etc. But somehow everyone else needs to be on their best behaviour and as soon as they say "fuck you back" in response to a torrent of "fuck you"s it 's a big deal. If you want to talk tone and insults then you're definitely starting at the wrong end.

dathinab 2y ago

> How can you call trump obviously reprehensible and irredemable... and then lose? because not being any of notorious lair, repeatedly make comments you normally only would expect from fascist, having systematically undermined various check and balances in their last term, having lost sexual assault cases, shamelessly abusing the reach of a president for deformation etc. seem to no longer matter even through any of this points where believed to be reliable carrier killers now "reprehensible" that is a much more personal non objective judgement so arguing around that is pointless Irredeemable seems obvious, but if the things you need redemption from don't matter anymore it really doesn't matter either. I think the main problem here is that politics in the US are fundamental broken due to way to much polarization in a 2 party system and no good way to fix it. If Tump wins I personalty think it's hardly avoidable that in the next 20 year there will be a point where you won't be able to call the US democratic anymore at all (based on a objective standard) and the question is if the US will then realize they fuck up and fix it or not (if not autocracy will mass spread even more and likely also take over the EU and given past history of how autocrats tend to cooperate while fighting democracy but then turn onto each other quite reliable the moment their power stabilized we probably should expect WW4). Naturally I would love to be proven wrong, I really would. And I think it's best to always stay polite. But I can understand why someone gets angry with a lot of people voting for someone who comes with such a risk. Especially if a deep dive analyses into their positions show that 1) he lacks concrete (public) plans for most of his positions and 2) they likely will end up making live worse for many potentially the majority of the people voting for him. But then people voting more based on "feeling" and "popular"/"populist" believe always has been very common. It's also kinda funny how close the words "popular" and "populist" is, sometimes just a change of perspective apart.

fwip 2y ago
> because not being any of notorious lair, repeatedly make comments you normally only would expect from fascist Kamala's rhetoric, especially around the military and border security, seemed almost specifically designed to be "1% less fascist." Some of the lines wouldn't have been out of place in Starship Troopers. If you triangulate yourself into 98% fascism, it's hardly surprising that people who don't like fascism aren't excited to go out and vote for you.

QuadmasterXLII 2y ago

From your choice of candidates, it’s obvious that you don’t mind coarse language or a tell-it-like-I-see-it attitude. I wonder what about your friend’s comment bothered you so much.

Molitor5901 2y ago

You have put the point on the entire issue. People use party/candidate affiliation as the barometer for all future interactions, and when they don't like something about the other party, they use that as judgement of the whole person. That is a person's right, but it is also failing to recognize that they are two sides of the same coin. So long as people hate one another for who they are voting for there will never be societal cohesion.