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> If you trust the election results, and I generally do because I have no proof otherwise, then the American people voted for this. No, if you trust the electi

> If you trust the election results, and I generally do because I have no proof otherwise, then the American people voted for this. No, if you trust the election results, it's a legitimate election by defined process and there are no grounds to contest it. But "The American people voted for this" is a distinct, strong, affirmative statement that doesn't hold. The people that voted for this are the people that voted for it, and even among the people who voted for the incoming administration (who only represent a third or so of eligible American voters and an even smaller share of American people), this isn't what many of them were voting for.

vkou 2y ago
If this isn't what they were voting for, what did they think they were voting for? Did none of them believe that he would actually do the crazy shit he said he would? Did none of them pay attention to the insanity of his first term? I have a simpler explanation: they all know what they were voting for, and none of them give a shit. It's the same as the mob cheering and applauding the sieg heil on Monday. They know it's deplorable and unamerican and they don't care. Because the only thing that matters is that their boy will stick it to the enemy.
- sudosysgen 2y ago
  Given the binary choice, much if the American people simply didn't vote. You can't present a false dichitomoty, and then act as if any downstream choice is full approval.
  - vkou 2y ago
    They always had the choice of not voting. The people who voted for this actively engaged and endorsed it. It strains credulity for them to claim ignorance.
    - sudosysgen 2y ago
      Plenty of Americans chose not to vote, many others did mainly out of massive social pressure.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Not voting is a choice. It's a choice for "I don't care how this train moves, I'm moving with it". So yes, those non-voters tacitly approved of the idea of Trump being elected. They didn't hate it enough to get to the polls. Those who thought "nothing would change no matter what"... well nothing has changed I guess. I suppose Harris would have done mass deportation raids and cutting funding from science and healthcare at all, right?
    - School-Cotton 2y ago
      I lived in New York during the election, nothing would have changed regardless of who I voted for, because New York went to Harris anyway. So in my case, “nothing would change no matter what” was objectively true.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  Do you really believe that the majority of Americans — or even the majority of Trump voters — are applauding the use of Nazi symbols? That is completely divorced from reality. The only people openly supporting Nazism are the extreme fringe right which is fortunately still nowhere near the majority in the real world.
  - theGnuMe 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - School-Cotton 2y ago
      How does that contradict what I wrote?
  - refurb 2y ago
    Social media and HN included is a magnet for people with extreme political views to voice them (presumably because it’s the only audience they have). Trump won with an overwhelming mandate. He is popular with a majority of the country. The fact that nobody on HN seems to support Trump should tell you about who is on HN.
    - stevenwoo 2y ago
      I think you are wrong about the overwhelming mandate unless you are solely using the electoral college total as the yardstick. The popular vote is much closer.
      - refurb 2y ago
        You need to look at things in totality. - won the popular vote by over 2M votes - won by electoral college by 84 votes That alone would be “a solid showing”. But he also: - carried the Republicans to maintain a majority in the House - helped increased the margin of seats in the Senate to a majority Many members of the Republican party had been against Trump. This election, most were pro-Trump. His popularity helped pull both houses. And did this after the opposition tried every tactics possible to ruin him - a fake Russian dossier that was peddled unquestioningly by the media, a misdemeanor crime gets prosecuted as a felony in the hopes to bankrupt or disqualify him from running again. Against those odds? That showing is remarkable. Oh and he was almost assassinated, twice. Then add on top he increased Republican share in solid Blue states like NY and CA by double digits. He increased Republican votes with black and hispanic voters. He basically increased every single voting group across the board. In light of the challenges, the outcome is a clear showing that a significant percentage of the US voters support him and the people in his party that are aligned to him. I'm not sure what else you'd need to show a clear mandate.
WesternWind 2y ago
More eligible voters didn't vote for any candidate then for Trump or Harris. Trump won a slim majority of the people who did choose to vote, but it's hardly an endorsement by a majority of Americans, much less the American people as a whole.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Choosing not to vote is a vote for the status quo. That still is a choice. There are BS loopholes we need to correct, but people who can't do the bare basics to reserve a morning to fill out a ballot fundamentally have themselves to blame.
  - School-Cotton 2y ago
    Nonsense. If you live in one of the ~40 states where the outcome is a foregone conclusion, who you vote for makes no more difference than it does in Russia. It’s reasonable to protest by refusing to participate in that unfair system, and doing so doesn’t mean you support one candidate or the other.
    - speff 2y ago
      36% of eligible voters - 90 million people - likely had a similar attitude. The margin of victory was 2.3m votes. What's that phrase? Something about how no single raindrop thinking they're responsible for the flood.
      - School-Cotton 2y ago
        Raindrops in New York, California and Mississippi are indeed not responsible for floods in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
        speff 2y ago
        43% of eligible voters in Mississippi didn't vote. 42% in NY and 38% in CA. That's a significant amount of people who could have swung the election either way despite them being "safe" states. Any state can be in play if turnout ever increased significantly. And even if your state voted your way federally, did every local/state race go to what would've been your preferred candidate? I doubt it.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
> this isn't what many of them were voting for. So, Trump loses popularity over his original administration over lies and underdelivered promises, "we" vote him out. Then 4 years later we vote him back in? At what point do we come and accept responsibility for falling for lies? And yes, there are in fact some people that voted against their best intertests because they fell into partisan politics; they still got their results, they just didn't read the fine print of the Devil's contract.
- theGnuMe 2y ago
  Fool me once… fool me twice.
rainsford 2y ago
> ... even among the people who voted for the incoming administration (who only represent a third or so of eligible American voters and an even smaller share of American people), this isn't what many of them were voting for. Yes it is. I understand the argument that this type of outcome wasn't their motivation for the ballot they cast. But it's also an entirely predictable outcome of their vote, which to me means this is exactly what they were voting in favor of happening. I think one of the biggest issues with democracy in the US and probably democratic countries in general is infantilizing voters into being able to take credit for their intent rather than judging them based on the totality of the outcome of their choices. If you buy an Italian sports car because it's cool and your spouse is mad because it's also unreliable and can't fit your childrens' car seats, it's generally not considered a wise defense to say you only picked it based on the 0-60 time so it's not your fault it was less great by other metrics. Democracy would be a lot better off if we thought about voting the same way.
- chii 2y ago
  > Democracy would be a lot better off if we thought about voting the same way. civic duty should be emphasized in school more. It's not a 10 second exercise every 4 years. It's something to be vigilant about indefinitely, and forever. Any change to laws, or any votes, require scrutiny, rational thought on the choices, and personal maximization. Unfortunately, people are too lazy, or too dumb, to do this, and choose to listen to someone else's recommendation on votes. So democracy represents somewhat of an averaged choice of the population. As the population becomes dumber due to lack of good education or cadence, their choices become increasingly worse. Authoritarian regimes don't have this problem. The average person in one don't get to make many, if any, choices. The elites make them all - and if the elites are more altruistic, the country generally do better than average.
grahamj 2y ago
Everyone's to blame - those who voted for this idiot and everyone else for not doing enough to stop it.
liontwist 2y ago
voter turnout was slightly low, but well within ballpark of every other Us election. If this is your position, you must conclude no American election is a strong signal of anything. Furthermore, this is just bad stats. We received a massive sample of the population, that sample is not without bias, but at least is geographically distributed. Do you think if had a 100% sampling rate the result would be dramatically different? I suspect that missing portion is going bias towards low information population and immigrants who have no interest in US election. Democracy is not about finding every adult with a pulse. You must build a coalition of citizens with a vested interest in their community to get on your program, and take physical action to indicate that support you.

vkou 2y ago

If this isn't what they were voting for, what did they think they were voting for? Did none of them believe that he would actually do the crazy shit he said he would? Did none of them pay attention to the insanity of his first term? I have a simpler explanation: they all know what they were voting for, and none of them give a shit. It's the same as the mob cheering and applauding the sieg heil on Monday. They know it's deplorable and unamerican and they don't care. Because the only thing that matters is that their boy will stick it to the enemy.

sudosysgen 2y ago
Given the binary choice, much if the American people simply didn't vote. You can't present a false dichitomoty, and then act as if any downstream choice is full approval.
- vkou 2y ago
  They always had the choice of not voting. The people who voted for this actively engaged and endorsed it. It strains credulity for them to claim ignorance.
  - sudosysgen 2y ago
    Plenty of Americans chose not to vote, many others did mainly out of massive social pressure.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Not voting is a choice. It's a choice for "I don't care how this train moves, I'm moving with it". So yes, those non-voters tacitly approved of the idea of Trump being elected. They didn't hate it enough to get to the polls. Those who thought "nothing would change no matter what"... well nothing has changed I guess. I suppose Harris would have done mass deportation raids and cutting funding from science and healthcare at all, right?
  - School-Cotton 2y ago
    I lived in New York during the election, nothing would have changed regardless of who I voted for, because New York went to Harris anyway. So in my case, “nothing would change no matter what” was objectively true.
School-Cotton 2y ago
Do you really believe that the majority of Americans — or even the majority of Trump voters — are applauding the use of Nazi symbols? That is completely divorced from reality. The only people openly supporting Nazism are the extreme fringe right which is fortunately still nowhere near the majority in the real world.
- theGnuMe 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - School-Cotton 2y ago
    How does that contradict what I wrote?
- refurb 2y ago
  Social media and HN included is a magnet for people with extreme political views to voice them (presumably because it’s the only audience they have). Trump won with an overwhelming mandate. He is popular with a majority of the country. The fact that nobody on HN seems to support Trump should tell you about who is on HN.
  - stevenwoo 2y ago
    I think you are wrong about the overwhelming mandate unless you are solely using the electoral college total as the yardstick. The popular vote is much closer.
    - refurb 2y ago
      You need to look at things in totality. - won the popular vote by over 2M votes - won by electoral college by 84 votes That alone would be “a solid showing”. But he also: - carried the Republicans to maintain a majority in the House - helped increased the margin of seats in the Senate to a majority Many members of the Republican party had been against Trump. This election, most were pro-Trump. His popularity helped pull both houses. And did this after the opposition tried every tactics possible to ruin him - a fake Russian dossier that was peddled unquestioningly by the media, a misdemeanor crime gets prosecuted as a felony in the hopes to bankrupt or disqualify him from running again. Against those odds? That showing is remarkable. Oh and he was almost assassinated, twice. Then add on top he increased Republican share in solid Blue states like NY and CA by double digits. He increased Republican votes with black and hispanic voters. He basically increased every single voting group across the board. In light of the challenges, the outcome is a clear showing that a significant percentage of the US voters support him and the people in his party that are aligned to him. I'm not sure what else you'd need to show a clear mandate.

WesternWind 2y ago

More eligible voters didn't vote for any candidate then for Trump or Harris. Trump won a slim majority of the people who did choose to vote, but it's hardly an endorsement by a majority of Americans, much less the American people as a whole.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
Choosing not to vote is a vote for the status quo. That still is a choice. There are BS loopholes we need to correct, but people who can't do the bare basics to reserve a morning to fill out a ballot fundamentally have themselves to blame.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  Nonsense. If you live in one of the ~40 states where the outcome is a foregone conclusion, who you vote for makes no more difference than it does in Russia. It’s reasonable to protest by refusing to participate in that unfair system, and doing so doesn’t mean you support one candidate or the other.
  - speff 2y ago
    36% of eligible voters - 90 million people - likely had a similar attitude. The margin of victory was 2.3m votes. What's that phrase? Something about how no single raindrop thinking they're responsible for the flood.
    - School-Cotton 2y ago
      Raindrops in New York, California and Mississippi are indeed not responsible for floods in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
      - speff 2y ago
        43% of eligible voters in Mississippi didn't vote. 42% in NY and 38% in CA. That's a significant amount of people who could have swung the election either way despite them being "safe" states. Any state can be in play if turnout ever increased significantly. And even if your state voted your way federally, did every local/state race go to what would've been your preferred candidate? I doubt it.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

> this isn't what many of them were voting for. So, Trump loses popularity over his original administration over lies and underdelivered promises, "we" vote him out. Then 4 years later we vote him back in? At what point do we come and accept responsibility for falling for lies? And yes, there are in fact some people that voted against their best intertests because they fell into partisan politics; they still got their results, they just didn't read the fine print of the Devil's contract.

theGnuMe 2y ago
Fool me once… fool me twice.

rainsford 2y ago

> ... even among the people who voted for the incoming administration (who only represent a third or so of eligible American voters and an even smaller share of American people), this isn't what many of them were voting for. Yes it is. I understand the argument that this type of outcome wasn't their motivation for the ballot they cast. But it's also an entirely predictable outcome of their vote, which to me means this is exactly what they were voting in favor of happening. I think one of the biggest issues with democracy in the US and probably democratic countries in general is infantilizing voters into being able to take credit for their intent rather than judging them based on the totality of the outcome of their choices. If you buy an Italian sports car because it's cool and your spouse is mad because it's also unreliable and can't fit your childrens' car seats, it's generally not considered a wise defense to say you only picked it based on the 0-60 time so it's not your fault it was less great by other metrics. Democracy would be a lot better off if we thought about voting the same way.

chii 2y ago
> Democracy would be a lot better off if we thought about voting the same way. civic duty should be emphasized in school more. It's not a 10 second exercise every 4 years. It's something to be vigilant about indefinitely, and forever. Any change to laws, or any votes, require scrutiny, rational thought on the choices, and personal maximization. Unfortunately, people are too lazy, or too dumb, to do this, and choose to listen to someone else's recommendation on votes. So democracy represents somewhat of an averaged choice of the population. As the population becomes dumber due to lack of good education or cadence, their choices become increasingly worse. Authoritarian regimes don't have this problem. The average person in one don't get to make many, if any, choices. The elites make them all - and if the elites are more altruistic, the country generally do better than average.

grahamj 2y ago

Everyone's to blame - those who voted for this idiot and everyone else for not doing enough to stop it.

liontwist 2y ago

voter turnout was slightly low, but well within ballpark of every other Us election. If this is your position, you must conclude no American election is a strong signal of anything. Furthermore, this is just bad stats. We received a massive sample of the population, that sample is not without bias, but at least is geographically distributed. Do you think if had a 100% sampling rate the result would be dramatically different? I suspect that missing portion is going bias towards low information population and immigrants who have no interest in US election. Democracy is not about finding every adult with a pulse. You must build a coalition of citizens with a vested interest in their community to get on your program, and take physical action to indicate that support you.