4 ms·

The 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 i

• PaulHoule 2y ago
  To 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 ago
    The 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 ago
      What 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
        Except the Haitians really are eating dogs and cats. I have seen the video and photographic evidence. They see it as free food. You think cats and dogs wander Haiti in massive numbers? No, they eat them. They’re starving.
• valval 2y ago
  It demonstrated nothing of the sort. The better candidate won and that’s about it. Even in the republican primaries, the best candidate won. What makes you think your opinion is above the system?
  • earthnail 2y ago
    Better doesn’t mean good. A lot of people say that the choice was between bad and worse. Both the Economist’s and the NYT election advice wasn’t vote for Harris because she is great but because Trump is bad. When you observe a system like that it’s reasonable to ask if you can improve the system. Imagine this was a football game and not politics. It would be reasonable to talk about how we can make the football league more interesting.
  • Ekaros 2y ago
    At least he was the choice by people. Someone else could have been choice, if they had more pull. Unlike the other side where no one voted for her to be the canditate.
  • PsylentKnight 2y ago
    What makes you think the system always chooses the best candidate? Most voters operate on very little or false information, they just vote on vibes or for whatever party they've always voted for
    • sabarn01 2y ago
      Why do you think you don't. It could be you who is deceived. Everyone thinks they are the person that sees things for what they are but it can't be true for all of us.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
• keybored 2y ago
  > 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. It’s the man’s fault because We Live in a Society? Maybe you ought to evoke the Butterfly Effect as well, it’s all connected. The butterfly in Africa is probably also complicit in this Trump win. The Donor Class decided that this was the two options you had. I hope that I don’t have to explain that the Democrats and Republicans are not grassroots, democratic institutions.
  • lupusreal 2y ago
    Trump crushed his primaries, he is absolutely the democratic choice of Republican voters.
  • bumby 2y ago
    Trump seems to be a refutation that the candidate is only chosen by "The Donor Class". He was nominated twice despite efforts of monied interests, not because of them (it's my understanding the money didn't go to him until it was inevitable that he'd be the candidate).
    • keybored 2y ago
      It’s a refutation of the literal phrase “chosen by the donor class” because there are more players that have an effect. Trump is the candidate of the reactionary petite bourgeoisie.[1] These are not part of the Donor Class but they have enough power to, when times are “bad” for the lamestream candidates, elbow in their candidate. [1] The mainstream media likes to say that he is the “working class candidate” without any seeming basis in reality
      • bumby 2y ago
        How are you defining the "petite bourgeoisie"? I'm not sure your thought fits with my (perhaps incorrect) understanding of the term as sole proprietors and artisan workers. Is that term being used liberally to refer to the property-owning middle/lower classes? After a quick lookup, it seems like roughly 10% of Americans own a small business. (I'm assuming a relatively large portion is a side-hustle.) I don't know that I would say they have enough power (by themselves) to select a candidate.
• o11c 2y ago
  > lying and using fear and hatred is working very well Counterpoint: R's perceive (sometimes not incorrectly) that lying is a "both sides" thing, and it's indisputable that the D's ran largely on fear/hatred this time (which clearly did not get the D voterbase out where it counted).
  • bigstrat2003 2y ago
    > R's perceive (sometimes not incorrectly) that lying is a "both sides" thing Lying is a politician thing. Anyone who thinks that any one politician or political party has a monopoly on lying is deluding themselves. Trump lies through his teeth, Biden lies through his teeth, Obama did, Bush did, Clinton did, etc. Honest politicians simply do not exist. And to be clear I think we should absolutely criticize our politicians for it. What I object to is this framing like only one particular politician is a liar. Bullshit, they all are liars to the same degree.
    • cglace 2y ago
      I would not say they lie to the same degree. Trump can not own up to the truth. The man took a Sharpie to a hurricane map to "prove" that he was not wrong. He has never and will never admit that he is wrong.
  • cauch 2y ago
    > which clearly There are plenty of theories of what happened. For example, Harris did target the center and the not-convinced-by-Trump republicans a lot, which is probably what alienated her voter base more than saying something that was already said during Biden election and did not alienate them. I really doubt you can seriously pretend that the Democrats would have done better without their share of lying. Maybe yes, but maybe no, and concluding one of the two is just as valid as the any other conclusion. One may can even argue that they did not lie enough, as the lies on the Republican side did helped them a lot (unless we consider that republican voters are intrinsically more morally bankrupted than the democrat ones, and that republican voters like lies while democrat voters don't). As for the fear/hatred, it's a funny thing. If you put one liar and one honest person in the same room, one will say "the other one is the liar" and the other one will say ... "the other one is the liar". It's funny that if you put someone who want to use fear and hatred for their own profit and someone who don't, the first one will say "if you vote for my opponent, it will be very dangerous because their are pushing for fear and hatred" and the second one will say the same.
• bigstrat2003 2y ago
  > This election just demonstrated that lying and using fear and hatred is working very well. All I heard from anyone left leaning (on this site or otherwise) in the last year is that we have to stop Trump because he's going to literally destroy democracy. That, too, is using fear and hatred. Don't act like only one political faction does it. We are trapped in a vortex of shit where both sides are using fear and hatred, and we need to criticize everyone for it.
  • cauch 2y ago
    yeah, that's my point. You are making it even clearer to demonstrate that all is reduced to framing "you are either democrat or republican".