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by niuzeta 2y ago
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- dehrmann 2y agoDon't blame me. I voted for Kodos.
- keybored 2y agoThe man was given the choice of what to eat: manchineel bark or feces. The man made a choice. “Ah”, said the offerer of two choices: then that is what you deserve.
- aredox 2y ago[flagged]
- medo-bear 2y agoAs opposed to what the mass media has been doing and will continue to do ?
- jonathanstrange 2y agoAh, the self-proclaimed mass media critics! Everyone else is somehow badly influenced by the nasty mass media but they see right through it with their superior intellect. They don't need correspondents and professionals to actually go where something is happening, they know the truth intuitively, perhaps even a priori.
- keybored 2y agoOne role of the media is to set the Overton Window. And to more generally set the confines for reasonable opinion. Have you been living under a rock?
- RpmReviver 2y agoIt's not about superior intellect, it's about incentive structures Looking at how the incentive structures are laid out, it's clear there's no incentive to be honest to normal people. They need the advertising dollars to exist, and we are suppose to trust big pharma's enormous advertising budget doesn't impact the business decisions at media companies? That's just big pharma, who else is playing the game? There's no medical test to diagnose depression, all you can do is observe behavior and talk about it Seeing bad behavior and lies over and over, decade after decade erodes trust and reveals the kind of people they are, if it was some radical group with no real power there would be less concern, but they have a tremendous amount of money and influence
- EricDeb 2y agoEqually bad incentives apply to smaller ("alternative") media outlets right wingers consume.
- wahern 2y agoFox News is by a huge margin the most popular news outlet. Throw in the New York Post (huge presence on the internet) and the WSJ, and conservative media is the mainstream media at this point. They also shilled for Trump relentlessly, without pretense. But that's beside the point. The left should accept that they no longer represent the aspirations and priorities of the mainstream or even of ethnic minorities, and the right should stop with the underdog charade. They've swapped sides. Of course, neither side will make that admission anytime soon.
- RpmReviver 2y agoMainstream media is Joe Rogan and whoever else your favorite comedian, business leader, scientist, or political analyst is
- medo-bear 2y agoThat is not mass media. Mass media is what your parents listen to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_media_endorsements_in_the_2024_United_States_presidential_election https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_media_endorsements_in_t...
- lynx23 2y agoYou can defend the ministry of truth as much as you want. There has been too much deception in recent years, people simply stop believing it. The meda were always there to steer "democracies", they even outright admit it by saying they are an integral part of the democratic process. People start to see through this deception.
- aredox 2y agoGiven that Trump is a well know career crook and got a lanslide, I would argue that people are just even more gullible than ever.
- repeekad 2y agoYou won’t get much traction on here but you’re right, I think democrats often project issues actually happening on their own side
- cjfd 2y agoMeh, you can watch MSNBC or Fox for quite different messages. Of course, the fascists are not complaining about the media because there is actually something wrong but to justify the eventual censorship.
- stormfather 2y agoYou're right. The media has been corrupted. It's only logical, over time the media is corrupted as an outgrowth of the Pareto principle applied to politics. Eventually all political systems are corrupted because those with power use their advantage to accrue more power in a self-reinforcing cycle. The media, as an obvious lever of power, is subject to this, just as are regulatory agencies, congresspeople, social media sites, etc. I don't understand how such an intelligent userbase can be so willfully blind and naive. What began to open my eyes was the pandemic and the Ukraine war. Not that the establishment positions were necessarily wrong, but I felt the manipulation was easy to sense.
- lolinder 2y agoPart of the reason why Harris lost is because this line about democracy ending if Trump wins is about all she could offer as a reason to vote for her, and the average voter doesn't believe it. I guess now we'll all get to see if the dire warnings were at all founded in reality, but it was a critical mistake to turn up the rhetoric so hot and not realize that it made the moderate voters take her less seriously. It was just a bad strategy in every way: it reduced their odds of winning the election, and if they were right it won't matter because there will be no election. If they were wrong, then they burned a whole bunch of credibility pushing what turned out to be a conspiracy theory. And if both parties are conspiracy theory parties, the moderate voter can't use that as a razor.
- BWStearns 2y agoIt's not a conspiracy theory. Trump literally tried overturning the last election via fraud and violence. It's incredibly well documented. In any case we're entering the find out phase.
- lolinder 2y agoIt's literally a conspiracy theory, the question at hand is whether there really is a conspiracy. My point is not that they're wrong and Trump won't successfully end democracy (I think the odds are low but non-zero), my point is that the strategy blew up in the DNC's faces and should have been identified as a terrible plan from the start. Being a Cassandra is not a winning playbook. Being able to say "I told you so" is small comfort, and that's the package they chose when they decided to make themselves look crazy to the electorate. If they believed democracy to be in danger the correct move was to nominate an electable candidate last year, not wait until Biden turned out to be unelectable and then start screaming about the end of democracy.
- klipt 2y agoNow Trump in 2024 is even older than Biden when he assumed office in 2020. I doubt Trump will be calling the shots for all four years.
- encoderer 2y agoThis is hyperbole.
- objektif 2y agoIt is a deliberate attempt to scaremonger people into voting for Kamala.
- hobs 2y agohttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/30/donald-trump-wont-have-to-vote-anymore-fox-interview https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/30/dona... from the man's lips to your ears.
- lolinder 2y agoDid you even listen to the video clip in the article? > It’s true, because we have to get the vote out. Christians are not known as a big voting group, they don’t vote. And I’m explaining that to them. You never vote. This time, vote. I’ll straighten out the country, you won’t have to vote any more, I won’t need your vote any more, you can go back to not voting. I hate Trump as much as anyone, but deliberately misconstruing every word he says is part of what cost Democrats the election. People saw through it.
- rkeene2 2y agoI think that given the context that he illegally tried to retain power after losing in 2020 that many people infer something into his words about reducing the need to vote
- dgfitz 2y agoNo, I think lolinder is correct. People don't like being told "here is what was said, here is what was MEANT because you're not educated enough and can't possibly understand" did Harris zero favors.
- lupusreal 2y agoGive it some time; this hyperbolic election rhetoric will wear off and eventually you'll be ashamed to admit you ever fell for it.
- aydyn 2y agoGiven that this is a repeat of 2016, it wont wear off and they wont be ashamed. Yeah the crowd that touts itself as highly intelligent and techno-savvy apparently cant learn simple lessons.
- FredPret 2y agoGiven the voting trends, many who initially fell for it eventually recovered over the next 8 years.
- lymbo 2y agoThe way I see it is that Trump’s policies, if acted upon, will have a delayed effect. I see it as a major event contributing to the rebirth of authoritarianism in the 21st century. I think selfishly doing Trump’s America for four years by pumping money into oil production, cutting back on contributions to global stability, and creating distrust in alliances could have disastrous consequences over the next couple of decades. I believe the current structure of techno-feudalism will only become more concrete with the erosion of science and education. Whether there are immediate consequences to this leadership or not, I’m very pessimistic for the future. What are some other perspectives or predictions regarding how things will go under this current Trump admin; namely foreign policy, global stability, and school system reform?
- fire_lake 2y agoI suppose it depends how much you take Trump at his word. Does he really intend to do the things he says he will or it just fun rhetoric for the base?
- andrewla 2y agoI'm a little bewildered by this sort of prediction. How will you update your priors in 2028 when this doesn't happen? What will be the excuse for why this didn't happen?
- lm28469 2y agoIt's insane, exactly the same slippery slope fallacy as "the left want to make your kids gay", people completely lost their mind on both side of the spectrum
- aredox 2y agoWhat was insane was Jan 6th. Both sides are not the same.
- arcticbull 2y agoI dunno, to quote the new top dog "in four years, you won't have to vote again" I'd say if it doesn't happen he failed to deliver on an election promise. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-tells-christians-they-wont-have-vote-after-this-election-2024-07-27/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-tells-christians-they...
- marknutter 2y agoAre you sure you know exactly what he meant by that?
- ceejayoz 2y agoThat was the line the news media took for the first year or two - "we can't read his mind, so we can't call it a lie!" It's a mistake not to at least credit his own words and the logical conclusions they result in. https://apnews.com/general-news-domestic-news-domestic-news-united-states-government-88675d3fdd674c7c9ec70f170f6e4a1a https://apnews.com/general-news-domestic-news-domestic-news-...
- dimator 2y ago
- sabarn01 2y agoI am 100% sure there will be an election in 2028.
- aredox 2y agoYes,just like there are elections in Hungary, or Venezuela, or there were elections in the Soviet bloc. You will have your banana elections for your banana Republic all right.
- sabarn01 2y agoHow would that work in our system. The election are distrusted and open by law. Trump is an authoritarian who will test the system but the system will hold.
- lern_too_spel 2y agoOne candidate was a normal functioning human being with policy positions other normal functioning humans can agree or disagree with. A better analogy would be a choice between blue cheese and poison.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kernal 2y ago[flagged]
- compootr 2y agoare you saying the orange (70 something years old iirc?) was better? take the politics back to reddit!
- kernal 2y ago[flagged]
- kaba0 2y agoHave you ever heard him speak?! Quite literally asking, are people just voting/liking him based on static images and deliberately cut to look somewhat acceptable videos? I swear his speech is worse than Biden's has ever been.
- Ancapistani 2y agoAs best I can tell, he speaks at the level of someone with about a fifth-grade education. I believe that to be intentional, as it means he's easily understood and not perceived as demeaning. More importantly, his speech is consistent and has been his entire political career. Biden's problem isn't that he's not able to speak at a collegiate level; it's that he's very obviously getting worse over time. The man is currently President of the USA - when's the last time you heard him speak publicly and take questions?
- cauch 2y agoThe fact that someone like Trump was given as choice is a result of a failure of "the man" from the start. It's just too easy to pretend it is not your fault if your society, the one that you are building with your neighbours, ended up giving you bad choices. Now that the man made a choice, what do you think will happen next time? This election just demonstrated that lying and using fear and hatred is working very well. Do you think that someone "normal" will invest in this knowing they will lose for sure?
- PaulHoule 2y agoTo some extent Trump is a singular figure. No-one else has quite the same charisma he has and his experience of getting shot makes him into even more of a legend. Daniel Boorstin observed the Kennedy administration and predicted in 1963 that it was just a matter of time before TV stars would dominate conventional politics.
- kaba0 2y agoThe charisma of an old, demented moron? He failed as a public speaker even before he got this old, I have heard non-native 5 years old speak better than him. Plus he is spineless, lying, rapist.. well, sure it is a kind of a charisma. One fitting for some video game villain.
- PaulHoule 2y agoWhat he says comes across as emotionally true to many people. I do remember that debate with Kamala were Trump came across as unhinged with that "eating cats and dogs" thing but I think one reason why he might have won was revealed in Harris's waffling around the issue of climate change where her answer was "drill baby drill", pandering to the Pennsylvania market. People who want to see climate action are discouraged by this but people who want "drill baby drill" don't believe she in sincere and think that she is pandering. So talking that way she just loses people she doesn't win them.
- danielktdoranie 2y ago
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- pineaux 2y agoExactly
- beAbU 2y agoThe man must be reminded that he did not demand more than two options. He did not demand a system that guaranteed more than two options. He allowed the Excrement Party to bring forward feces as it's candidate, and he allowed the Bark Party to bring forward manchineel as it's candidate. The man is entirely responsible for this situation he finds himself in unfortunately. Also, if the man selected feces the first time round, and suffered for it, then maybe the deadly poisonous bark is the only other logical choice, if only to stop the torture?
- keybored 2y agoThe offerer of two choices then makes the man choose between his daughter getting shot and his wife getting shot. “Remember now”, he says, “whoever I shoot will not be killed by me but by you.” The Offerer cackles. “You could have prevented this from happening if you had only worked harder to thwart my first supervillain move fifteen years prior. You are entirely responsible for this situation.”
- anon291 2y agoOh no... Insult the voters yet again. That'll work this time!
- belter 2y agoIt seems to have worked for Puerto Rico....
- anon291 2y agoI mean if Biden called everyone garbage as humor, I would actually think it's funny. But he actually meant it lol. EDIT: MY guess is Biden is smarter than he lets on, and secretly supports Trump / hates the dems for what they did to him. I wouldn't be surprised if that comment was purposeful. It seemed a bit contrived.
- samatman 2y agoBiden is sunsetting a bit, but is he "put on a MAGA hat, bust out a big smile, and give a thumbs up for the camera" sunsetting? Did Jill Biden wear a red dress to the polls on accident? Do we credit the idea that she, the First Lady, didn't look in the mirror and think about the political implications of primary colors in the USA?
- anon291 2y ago[flagged]
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago[flagged]
- slaw 2y agoWhy didn't Dems schedule Peanut execution after the election?
- FirmwareBurner 2y agoBecause they're stupid
- SketchySeaBeast 2y agoLooking at the numbers, it seems like apathy decided. Trump's numbers are equivalent to last election, but the Dems didn't show up by over ten million people.
- seanw444 2y ago> Dems didn't show up by over ten million people. It is a peculiar lack of votes, isn't it?
- junto 2y agoNot really. The lack of votes seems to be in the younger “social media” generations. The lead up to polling day was very pro-Kamala and on polling day itself, sites like Reddit were a stream of “I voted Kamala” posts. Whether that was propaganda influenced or not is beside the point. What it seems to have done is convinced a subset of Kamala voters that they didn’t need to go and stand in a 2 hour queue to vote because it was already won, which of course now we know to be very untrue. People assume that the bot armies are only pumping out pro-Trump propaganda. However, they only need to convince the Dems not to vote.
- fuzzfactor 2y agoYes, it was the non-voters who actually decided the election, and in only a few states too.
- usaar333 2y agoThey are still counting votes. Prediction markets have turnout at about 64%, which is more like 5 million less. That's still historically high
- DiggyJohnson 2y agoSure, but Harris won’t come close to the 81M Biden got four years ago.
- School-Cotton 2y ago> If this is what America wants, then it is what America deserves. It's not really "what America wants". You are drastically overestimating how democratic the US system is if you think the fact that a very narrow majority picked one of the preselected candidates means that candidate has any kind of broad popular mandate. It's probably what a double-digit percentage of Americans want, but certainly not the majority, and only barely the majority preferred it over the other extremely unpopular candidate.
- ein0p 2y agoNobody picked Harris. She hasn't won a primary even once. Trump won it three times. The primary is the only step in the whole election process where the actual "democracy" can even remotely happen.
- monero-xmr 2y agoThe truth is so painful that I’m not sure people will mentally accept this for a while
- lpa22 2y agoNot sure who is downvoting this, it’s the truth and the exact reason dems lost
- ein0p 2y agoI don't know why you'd expect any other reaction from a site where 80% of the readership loves to get high on their own supply from WaPo and CNN and reject the reality. The reality is we're 37T in debt, we're on the brink of a nuclear war due to our harebrained regime change efforts halfway around the globe, and your average American is barely surviving at this point. The latter, by the way is abundantly clear from the polls, too, including exit polls. I'm not sure the electorate particularly cares about the right to third trimester abortion or DEI as the mainstream media would like us to believe, especially when the DNC lost the airtight control over the narrative, and its ability to manufacture consent is getting more limited by the day. In 2020 they had enough control to elect a person who can't string two words together without a teleprompter. In 2024 they already could not. And the grip on the narrative is going to weaken from here on out. If they can still learn, they'll have to actually run capable candidates, who might even dare to have their own opinions about things. That's healthy and good. What doesn't seem feasible anymore are unilaterally anointed candidates who go from "nobody" to "our only hope" at the stroke of a pen of some unelected, non-replaceable bureaucrat.
- umvi 2y ago[flagged]
- zzbzq 2y agoCould Biden have actually changed the Afghanistan thing? That was actually Trump's decision--and my favorite one he ever made--but he put the timetable into the next presidency just in case of bad press.
- adventured 2y agoBiden is the commander-in-chief, yes he could have changed anything about it that he wanted to. He could have gone back to the Taliban with modifications to the terms. They were not in a strong position to resist, frankly. If the US had said they needed three more months to do it effectively, the Taliban would have agreed. Also Biden was making choices along the way related to the time table (Wikipedia covers this fairly well). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_U.S._troop_withdrawal_from_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_U.S._troop_w...
- ein0p 2y agoI don't believe that's true. He wanted to start orderly withdrawal sooner so that it'd be well underway before the election, but his generals postponed it (and then hightailed out of there in a highly disorderly fashion leaving the Taliban in charge and giving them billions of dollars in materiel).
- Dr_Birdbrain 2y agoHonest question, couldn’t Biden have just changed it, as president?
- matwood 2y agoYou realize Trump was the one who set up the deal and the timeframe for the Afghanistan pull out right? He even bragged about sticking Biden with it. The Taliban were upset when it went over the date and upped their already regular attacks. And in fact to your last point about trusting America, Biden was trying to stick to the agreed upon deal. https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/timeline-of-u-s-withdrawal-from-afghanistan/ https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/timeline-of-u-s-withdrawal...
- wellbehaved 2y ago[flagged]
- bufferoverflow 2y agoThey downvote you, but you're absolutely right. Illegal migration is what moved most people on the fence.
- 1024core 2y agoYou're being downvoted because people don't want the truth. As a lifelong Democrat, I agree with you. Dems were playing too much identity politics. Example: A local "progressive" Democrat Supervisor (in SF) was quoted as saying that she would support the most progressive candidate, UNLESS it was a straight white male; in which case she would support the Black female candidate, Black male candidate, Gay candidate, etc. (this is going from memory, but you get the idea). I feel like the Dems totally ignored the "white straight male" demographic. Democracy is a numbers game; you self-select a smaller pool, and your chances of winning go down.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wellbehaved 2y agoNot merely downvoted but also flagged.
- IncreasePosts 2y agoWhat horrible things happened because of the policies of the first trump presidency? COVID response seems like the biggest mistake, but that was a never before seen global pandemic, and it isn't clear to me that anyone else in office could have handled it differently.
- SpaceNoodled 2y agoSpanish flu never happened in your timeline?
- whalesalad 2y agostacking our court with conservative justices, stacking other courts with his appointees who are already working to throw out his criminal cases. the rollback of roe. it's a very fucking slippery slope and everyone is too concerned with "but muh gas prices!" to think critically about the macro situation.
- valval 2y agoWhat makes you think people haven’t thought about those things the same as you or more, and still disagree? I think every little life saved is an absolute victory, and many people (as demonstrated) share my sentiment.
- whalesalad 2y agoThat is an issue. You posses religious conditioning that makes you believe this. If you disagree with abortion that is fine, but your opinion/stance should not be projected on everyone else in the country. The problem with this situation is religious folks are so brainwashed they can't even comprehend a situation where "live and let live" is possible, because you all think that your way is right and everyone else is wrong.
- bigstrat2003 2y ago> That is an issue. You posses religious conditioning that makes you believe this. Abortion is not a religious issue, it is an ethical issue. Some religious people are fine with abortion, some atheists oppose it. > If you disagree with abortion that is fine, but your opinion/stance should not be projected on everyone else in the country. The problem with this situation is religious folks are so brainwashed they can't even comprehend a situation where "live and let live" is possible, because you all think that your way is right and everyone else is wrong. This argument is a completely unworkable argument and I have no idea why people think it will hold water. Abortion opponents believe that abortion is literal murder. You can't simply go "it's fine if you don't want to murder, but you shouldn't stop other people from murdering". I understand you disagree with the idea that abortion is murder, but you need to take that idea on directly rather than trying to paper it over and say "you need to live and let live".
- BJones12 2y ago> I'm just not sure if the world deserves this. As someone who is part of the non-USA world, I'm fine with it.
- doctorpangloss 2y agoHe says on a US made phone and computer, visiting a US website, using a currency tightly correlated to the US dollar, in a country which imports most of its services from the US, and he works in the services sector, or he works making goods which US consumers buy, speaking English out of necessity not just courtesy, in a country with a small defense budget, in a US military alliance, whose defense is ensured by US government institutions.
- Kwpolska 2y agoI don’t know which country the OP is from, but: > He says on a US made phone and computer All phones and ~all computers are made in China. > using a currency tightly correlated to the US dollar Many currencies in the world are strong and independent of the US dollar. > in a country which imports most of its services from the US [citation needed]. What sort of services? I’ve never heard of offshoring to the US, but I have heard of offshoring to places like India. > speaking English out of necessity not just courtesy Well, those guys from England surely have done a lot of conquering.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- doctorpangloss 2y agoAll the software on your phone and computer is made in the US, and that’s what you are paying for.
- Kwpolska 2y agoI’m using a Samsung phone. A lot of the software on my phone (especially the software I paid for with the phone) is made in South Korea. I don’t pay for a lot of apps, but the apps I paid for were made by developers from France, Spain, Japan, Austria/Germany, and the US, one each. My computers are running Windows, sure, but my most used software would be Firefox, built by people from all over the world. Second place would probably belong to JetBrains Rider, made by a company headquartered in Czechia.
- kernal 2y ago[flagged]
- Muromec 2y agoYes, yes you do. Having 10 mil illegal immigrants is as much a result of American policy choices as having rapist in president's office
- philistine 2y agoThe US told the world in the 19th century that South America was not to meddled with, except by the US. I fully blame America for structural failures in South America that trigger illegal immigration. The US refused to enshrine stable countries that prevented their best and brightest from leaving.
- pelorat 2y agoFor the majority of the existence of the USA there were no such thing as a border. You could immigrate simply by traveling to the USA.
- tomcar288 2y agoWe don't need to have a system where there are only 2 terrible choices. if the federal government wasn't so large but rather a looser organization such as the EU, then each state would be a sovereign entity and the presidency wouldn't matter so much. then you would have 50 or more choices (50x2=100)
- encoderer 2y agoYou look at Europe and seriously want that?
- Scea91 2y agoI live in Prague but travel often to the DC area for business. I’d choose to live in Prague in about 70000 out of 80000 simulations. It just feels better to live here for many reasons (safety, culture, nature, walkability, quality of restaurants and clubs and overall you don’t see many poor people around). Europe has economic issues but the quality of life is very high most of the time.
- encoderer 2y agoI would also choose Prague over DC. Honestly DC is not a great place to live.
- imafish 2y agoOver the American system? Anyday
- pelorat 2y agoMultiparty representative democracy with a prime minister is a far superior system than a presidential republic.
- encoderer 2y agoIt has advantages but I don’t see UK, Germany and France thriving.
- huijzer 2y ago> I'm just not sure if the world deserves this. So, I'm right and the other party is wrong? No questions asked. A more useful thing would be: WHY did people vote for Trump? They are surely intentional as you observe. What gave them this intention? Was it DEI? Did they like Trump's hair?
- disqard 2y ago> They are surely intentional as you observe. I share exhibit A: a BBC interview with an "undecided voter". Excerpt: "I have no freaking clue man. It's so hard. When I voted for Trump, it came down to who would I trust with my kid alone and it wasn't [President Joe] Biden. I'm still undecided. All of my family is voting for Kamala and my friends are voting for Trump. I'm going to vote for one of them. I've got no idea which one. I'm still super-duper undecided. I think I'm leaning toward Kamala over Trump, if I think about who I would trust alone in a room with my daughter. I'm going to make up my mind when I go into the ballot booth." I share this, not to lampoon this human being, but to correct any misconceptions that human voters always have a rational model of who to vote for, and why. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7484kwl55qo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7484kwl55qo
- anonu 2y agoWhy blame the Republicans? After all, the Democrats did pass a referendum on Trump 4 years ago and Trump lost. Since he wins now, I can only point to disarray on the Democrat side. Just look at NY State. 60% to Joe Biden in 2020 and 55% to Harris in 2024. Thats a big move.
- jeff_carr 2y agoThank god Biden legalized weed. Oh, wait, nope, they didn't even bother to do that.
- belter 2y ago“Now there’s one thing you mighta noticed I don’t complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from some other reality. They come from American parents, American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses, American universities, and they’re elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do, folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces. Garbage in…garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens…if you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re gunna get selfish, ignorant leaders. And term limits ain’t gunna do ya any good. You’re just gunna wind up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans [leaders]. So, maybe…maybe…maybe it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here. Like…the public. Yeah, the public sucks! That’s a nice campaign slogan for somebody: “The public sucks! Fuck hope! Fuck hope!” - George Carlin
- doctorpangloss 2y agoRussia has 30 percentage points more tertiary educated people than the US does. 60 versus 30. Huge, huge difference in education levels. Better PISA scores. Better in many OECD measures that relate to measurements of "ignorance." How would George Carlin rate Russia's politicians?
- indigoabstract 2y agoI won't comment on the validity of this view, but I think the people who hold it miss one very important lesson from his unlikely comeback: the power of perseverance. The man was basically finished politically when he left office and not very far from actually ending up in jail. Most were pretty sure of that. So what happened? Not only did that not come to pass, he's the next U.S. president now. Out of all the detractors, who is still laughing now?
- shrubble 2y agoI watched the Joe Rogan podcast (well 90% of it) with Trump - he talks about this in an intelligent way, which is, 3rd party candidates don't really have a chance in national politics. There are 2 choices and the system as currently set up, only allows there to be 2 choices.
- belter 2y agoDid you watch this too?: https://twitter.com/i/status/1493519145144655873 https://twitter.com/i/status/1493519145144655873
- shrubble 2y agoNot sure if I was clear that I was referring to Trump speaking about the issue, not Joe Rogan; sorry if there was any confusion.
- kaba0 2y agoDid you also listen to, or just watched and imagined something else?
- mandeepj 2y ago[flagged]
- danielktdoranie 2y agoOh the salt and hyperbole.
- subsubzero 2y agoUnsure what planet you live on but I would love to visit. Here on earth in the US it has been absolute hell incarnate the past 4 years with non-stop tech layoffs since 2022, soaring prices on everything(housing, food, insurance etc), crime/lawlessness on orders I have never seen and huge wars that have spawned in the middle east and Russia/Europe. Lets list all of the things that have happened since Biden/Harris and then tell me why people are flocking to Trump: - Forced vaccine mandates that have workers fired from their jobs if they do not comply even though it was obvious at the time that getting a covid vaccine does not prevent the spread of the virus(9/2021). - Huge payouts to illegal immigrants on the order of $450k per family(11/2021) - Homelessness at record high (12% increase from 2022 to 2023). - Botched rollout from Afghanistan that humiliated the US and led to 13 US service members deaths and lasting shame for the country on the world stage. (8/2021) - Housing affordability hits record low in 2023 - 98.2 (only 15% of homes for sale are affordable to the average household. (2023) - Biden shocks the nation and viewers and says behind a blood red facade that republicans are a threat to democracy (9/2022) - Colorado and a few other Dem states try to get Trump taken off the ballot in what is deemed a affront to any reasonable democracy and is swatted down 9-0 by a united supreme court (12/2023) - Legal warfare with anyone who disagrees with the sitting administration see Eric Adams Dem NYC mayor who complains about immigrants "will destroy NYC"(9/2023) and then the FBI then launches a full scale investigation into his administration(9/2024). Also see a myriad of accusations against Trump by Alvin Bragg who when running for office is running on the platform of "getting Trump"(12/2021). This is stuff that is typically seen in a totalitarian regime and it has shocked Americans from both political spectrums.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- xg15 2y agoMaybe for America, but then you can reasonably ask why the world is subject to American rules, yet only Americans are allowed to vote over those rules.
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y agoBecause that's how power works.
- Calavar 2y agoAny American who doesn't live in the states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, or Georgia can also ask that question.
- bionicthrowaway 2y agoYour judgment won’t endear Americans to vote for someone they believe is a worse candidate. We saw firsthand what a Trump presidency was like. He wasn’t Hitler, despite what many in the political establishment would like you to believe. We saw firsthand what a Harris vice presidency was like, and for most Americans, it did not inspire confidence in a Harris presidency. More broadly, the Democratic Party has become weirdly fixated on policies that are more in tune with Reddit than with the average American, and that’s a losing strategy.
- seanmcdirmid 2y agoTrump was fairly inept in his first term, making lots of mistakes and pissing off his advisors and allies. He wasn't Hitler because he just wasn't very smart, which was a saving grace to all of us. I've had a great 4 years, economically speaking, and I'm worried about the future a lot right now just in case Trump actually gets the competence to go along with his rhetoric. Hopefully he will be just as ineffectual as he was in his last term.
- bionicthrowaway 2y agoThe Hitler comparison is just so lazy and I don’t think you can honestly believe it, unless you solely listen to the out-of-context sound bites used by his political opponents to attack him (ex. the Cheney thing recently).
- seanmcdirmid 2y agoHitler was a competent autocrat, really evil, but he had the brains to back it up. Trump is just...he says a lot of bad stuff, but he doesn't seem to be in Hitler's realm of competence. My beef with Trump is his simple non-understanding of economics, wanting to tariff everyone and expecting that they won't tariff us back, and wanting to juice interest rates by politicizing the fed, and then claiming that this will somehow reduce inflation, rather than cause it to explode. Trump, in that regard, is more Gustav Stresemann than Hitler.
- Calavar 2y ago
- ord0abcha0 2y ago[dead]
- UncleOxidant 2y ago> I'm just not sure if the world deserves this. That's the problem. Lots of people who don't have any say in this are going to get hurt. Ukraine first. Possibly the Baltics next? And then there are things like climate change: Trump's going to "drill baby, drill" and basically defund anything to do with climate change.
- caupcamp 2y ago[dead]
- mmooss 2y ago> what America wants It doesn't represent what 'America' wants. Elections are dispute resolution mechanisms so people can move forward and get something done, but the dispute remains the same today as it did on Monday.
- hintymad 2y agoYou mean the world does not deserve 4 years of no wars? Or you mean the world does not deserve free press to the point that the president didn't do anything other calling the news organization "fake news" for their non-stop hoaxes? BTW, is it even normal that dozens of organizations used exactly the same peculiar language like "sharp as a tack"? On the other hand, do you think the world deserves that doctors like Jay Bhattacharya was blacklisted for simply raising questions about how school lockdowns might affect the nation's children. I'm not so sure.