6 ms·

>How did they get in, how did it happen? Over half of US was apathetic and didn't vote. You can blame the MAGA for everything that is happening, but they lite

>How did they get in, how did it happen? Over half of US was apathetic and didn't vote. You can blame the MAGA for everything that is happening, but they literally said this is what they were gonna do. Over half of the US, implicitly said, "Given all of that, and Kamala, it really doesn't matter who is the president". Which is worse than MAGA IMO

PartiallyTyped 2y ago
let us not forget all the attempts at disenfranchisement, destruction of ballots by MAGA, voter intimidation, and all that.
xboxnolifes 2y ago
Voter turnout hasn't significantly changed in 100 years, how is that the cause to point to?
eps 2y ago
> Over half of US was apathetic and didn't vote. Not true. Voter turnout was between 59% and 64%.
- UltraSane 2y ago
  That is still terrible.
  - plandis 2y ago
    This is part of the strategy. The GOP has continually been disenfranchising voters. Both parties engage in gerrymandering.
    - fastball 2y ago
      > The GOP has been.... > Both parties engage... Seems weird to blame the GOP and then immediately point out that this is done by everyone.
      - tzs 2y ago
        They are talking about two different things. One is gerrymandering, which is drawing district boundaries to build in an advantage for your party. Both parties do that. The other is trying to disenfranchise people. The GOP have been the ones doing most of that.
        fastball 2y ago
        How has the GOP been disenfranchising voters beyond gerrymandering? And please don't say voter ID, nobody is disenfranchised by voter ID.
        affinepplan 2y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_efforts_to_restrict_voting_following_the_2020_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_efforts_to_restrict...
        tzs 2y ago
        Reducing the number of polling places in districts that tend to not vote Republican causing very long lines for voting. When it takes hours standing in line, often outdoors in bad weather, it discourages voting. Add to that laws in many states that criminalize providing food or water to people in such lines and it is even more discouraging. Prosecuting people for innocent mistakes while voting. E.g., Crystal Mason [1]. Or Hervis Rogers [2]. In the Rogers case he was convicted of burglary in 1995 and was in prison until being paroled in 2004. His parole ended in June 2020. He didn't know that he was ineligible to vote, and voted in the Democratic primary in March 2020. The Texas legislature did pass a bill in 2007 that required the Department of Criminal Justice to notify people who had been in custody of their voting rights situation, but Governor Perry vetoed it. Texas attorney general Paxton had him arrested and prosecuted. Bail was set at $100000. Eventually the case was thrown out because the attorney general does not have the authority to unilaterally prosecute voter cases. He has to get approval from local country prosecutors. In nearly all these cases the prosecutors are very disproportionately prosecuting minorities and women. Same with processes to restore voting rights for felons. See Rick Scott's handling of petitions to restore voting rights in Florida [3]. > And please don't say voter ID, nobody is disenfranchised by voter ID. There are in fact a lot of US adults without an ID that works for their state's voter ID laws and would have a hard time getting such an ID because of cost (monetary and/or time). Here's a relatively recent report on the number who lack ID [4]. Yes, I know that most state voter ID laws require there to be no cost or fee to obtain the ID from the state but there are often significant costs to obtain the documents required to apply for the ID. Furthermore the offices that can process the application are often far away from where the people without ID live, and only accept applications during limited weekday hours. That can mean having to take unpaid time off from work and finding a way to get to that office. In reality that all can add up to over a $100. If it was actually about election security and not intended to disenfranchise legal voters the voter ID laws would include provisions to make it easy to obtain ID without those burdens described above. Here's a link to a comment that contains a dozen links with a lot more detail [5]. EDIT: I missed a disenfranchisement tactic. Election officials should go through the voter rolls occasionally and purge people who they have good reason to doubt are still eligible. But that can be turned into a disenfranchisement tactic by doing that just before an election possibly without trying to notify the purged voters that they have been purged so that the purged voters who are still eligible don't find out until it is too late to get back on the rolls in time to vote. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Mason https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Mason [2] https://www.texastribune.org/2022/10/21/texas-voter-fraud-case-ken-paxton-hervis-rogers/ https://www.texastribune.org/2022/10/21/texas-voter-fraud-ca... [3] https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/politics/elections/state/2018/10/27/florida-felon-voting-rights-who-got-theirs-back-under-scott/9431295007/ https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/politics/elections/... [4] https://cdce.umd.edu/sites/cdce.umd.edu/files/pubs/Voter%20ID%202023%20survey%20Key%20Results%20Jan%202024%20%281%29.pdf https://cdce.umd.edu/sites/cdce.umd.edu/files/pubs/Voter%20I... [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42116609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42116609
bbqfog 2y ago
[flagged]
- remich 2y ago
  Cool. Hope you enjoy everything you helped bring about.
  - bbqfog 2y ago
    I'm not in the Democratic party and had no role in defining their platform. What we are experiencing is 1/100th the pain the Democrats inflicted on Palestinians.
    - remich 2y ago
      Uh huh. Sure. Did you see that Trump wants to expel all the Palestinians from Gaza? News just broke today. But I'm sure he's better than Harris.
      - bbqfog 2y ago
        The lesser evil is still evil! I do know I've seen a lot less dead children since the Biden admin ended.
hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
This is the part I'm curious about. Trump may be many things, but lacking transparency around his motives and actions is not one of them. As you say, he is doing basically exactly what he said he would. So what I'm curious about is whether anyone who voted for Trump, and especially not the hard core MAGA folks but more the "The Dems suck, prices are too high" folks that shifted toward Trump in 2024 vs previous elections, are surprised/angered/scared by his actions. If so, what was their thought process? I'm especially curious how they feel about Musk's role in all this. I just can't wrap my head around people that were "drain the swamp" nativists are cool with an unelected foreign-born billionaire having free reign, essentially unaccountably, to do whatever he wants to any federal department. If somebody told me in 2010 that this would happen in 2025 I would tell tell them that they are nuts. If the Dems had done anything 1/10th as egregious, Republicans would be apoplectic, and rightfully so.
- skulk 2y ago
  > I just can't wrap my head around people that were "drain the swamp" nativists are cool with an unelected foreign-born billionaire having free reign, essentially unaccountably, to do whatever he wants to any federal department. Go on Twitter or any other site that doesn't ban a certain flavor of discourse. Observe how much glee is being expressed towards negative emotions of others (such as "libs" or marginalized people). That's the point.
  - hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
    Again, I don't think that's really the whole story. For the 35-40% of the electorate that is hard core MAGA, sure, and for the smaller percentage of "terminally online" Twitter people, moreso. But for the folks who really were just unsatisfied with the direction of the country, didn't like the Dems, wanted to send a protest vote over Gaza, etc. - what are those people thinking/feeling?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - 2y ago
behnamoh 2y ago
[flagged]
- affinepplan 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - behnamoh 2y ago
    I did, and tbh, I found her bland and void of any new ideas that weren't already tried in the past 4 years.
- jzb 2y ago
  [flagged]

PartiallyTyped 2y ago

let us not forget all the attempts at disenfranchisement, destruction of ballots by MAGA, voter intimidation, and all that.

xboxnolifes 2y ago

Voter turnout hasn't significantly changed in 100 years, how is that the cause to point to?

eps 2y ago

> Over half of US was apathetic and didn't vote. Not true. Voter turnout was between 59% and 64%.

UltraSane 2y ago
That is still terrible.
- plandis 2y ago
  This is part of the strategy. The GOP has continually been disenfranchising voters. Both parties engage in gerrymandering.
  - fastball 2y ago
    > The GOP has been.... > Both parties engage... Seems weird to blame the GOP and then immediately point out that this is done by everyone.
    - tzs 2y ago
      They are talking about two different things. One is gerrymandering, which is drawing district boundaries to build in an advantage for your party. Both parties do that. The other is trying to disenfranchise people. The GOP have been the ones doing most of that.
      - fastball 2y ago
        How has the GOP been disenfranchising voters beyond gerrymandering? And please don't say voter ID, nobody is disenfranchised by voter ID.
        affinepplan 2y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_efforts_to_restrict_voting_following_the_2020_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_efforts_to_restrict...
        tzs 2y ago
        Reducing the number of polling places in districts that tend to not vote Republican causing very long lines for voting. When it takes hours standing in line, often outdoors in bad weather, it discourages voting. Add to that laws in many states that criminalize providing food or water to people in such lines and it is even more discouraging. Prosecuting people for innocent mistakes while voting. E.g., Crystal Mason [1]. Or Hervis Rogers [2]. In the Rogers case he was convicted of burglary in 1995 and was in prison until being paroled in 2004. His parole ended in June 2020. He didn't know that he was ineligible to vote, and voted in the Democratic primary in March 2020. The Texas legislature did pass a bill in 2007 that required the Department of Criminal Justice to notify people who had been in custody of their voting rights situation, but Governor Perry vetoed it. Texas attorney general Paxton had him arrested and prosecuted. Bail was set at $100000. Eventually the case was thrown out because the attorney general does not have the authority to unilaterally prosecute voter cases. He has to get approval from local country prosecutors. In nearly all these cases the prosecutors are very disproportionately prosecuting minorities and women. Same with processes to restore voting rights for felons. See Rick Scott's handling of petitions to restore voting rights in Florida [3]. > And please don't say voter ID, nobody is disenfranchised by voter ID. There are in fact a lot of US adults without an ID that works for their state's voter ID laws and would have a hard time getting such an ID because of cost (monetary and/or time). Here's a relatively recent report on the number who lack ID [4]. Yes, I know that most state voter ID laws require there to be no cost or fee to obtain the ID from the state but there are often significant costs to obtain the documents required to apply for the ID. Furthermore the offices that can process the application are often far away from where the people without ID live, and only accept applications during limited weekday hours. That can mean having to take unpaid time off from work and finding a way to get to that office. In reality that all can add up to over a $100. If it was actually about election security and not intended to disenfranchise legal voters the voter ID laws would include provisions to make it easy to obtain ID without those burdens described above. Here's a link to a comment that contains a dozen links with a lot more detail [5]. EDIT: I missed a disenfranchisement tactic. Election officials should go through the voter rolls occasionally and purge people who they have good reason to doubt are still eligible. But that can be turned into a disenfranchisement tactic by doing that just before an election possibly without trying to notify the purged voters that they have been purged so that the purged voters who are still eligible don't find out until it is too late to get back on the rolls in time to vote. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Mason https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Mason [2] https://www.texastribune.org/2022/10/21/texas-voter-fraud-case-ken-paxton-hervis-rogers/ https://www.texastribune.org/2022/10/21/texas-voter-fraud-ca... [3] https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/politics/elections/state/2018/10/27/florida-felon-voting-rights-who-got-theirs-back-under-scott/9431295007/ https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/politics/elections/... [4] https://cdce.umd.edu/sites/cdce.umd.edu/files/pubs/Voter%20ID%202023%20survey%20Key%20Results%20Jan%202024%20%281%29.pdf https://cdce.umd.edu/sites/cdce.umd.edu/files/pubs/Voter%20I... [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42116609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42116609

bbqfog 2y ago

[flagged]

remich 2y ago
Cool. Hope you enjoy everything you helped bring about.
- bbqfog 2y ago
  I'm not in the Democratic party and had no role in defining their platform. What we are experiencing is 1/100th the pain the Democrats inflicted on Palestinians.
  - remich 2y ago
    Uh huh. Sure. Did you see that Trump wants to expel all the Palestinians from Gaza? News just broke today. But I'm sure he's better than Harris.
    - bbqfog 2y ago
      The lesser evil is still evil! I do know I've seen a lot less dead children since the Biden admin ended.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago

This is the part I'm curious about. Trump may be many things, but lacking transparency around his motives and actions is not one of them. As you say, he is doing basically exactly what he said he would. So what I'm curious about is whether anyone who voted for Trump, and especially not the hard core MAGA folks but more the "The Dems suck, prices are too high" folks that shifted toward Trump in 2024 vs previous elections, are surprised/angered/scared by his actions. If so, what was their thought process? I'm especially curious how they feel about Musk's role in all this. I just can't wrap my head around people that were "drain the swamp" nativists are cool with an unelected foreign-born billionaire having free reign, essentially unaccountably, to do whatever he wants to any federal department. If somebody told me in 2010 that this would happen in 2025 I would tell tell them that they are nuts. If the Dems had done anything 1/10th as egregious, Republicans would be apoplectic, and rightfully so.

skulk 2y ago
> I just can't wrap my head around people that were "drain the swamp" nativists are cool with an unelected foreign-born billionaire having free reign, essentially unaccountably, to do whatever he wants to any federal department. Go on Twitter or any other site that doesn't ban a certain flavor of discourse. Observe how much glee is being expressed towards negative emotions of others (such as "libs" or marginalized people). That's the point.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  Again, I don't think that's really the whole story. For the 35-40% of the electorate that is hard core MAGA, sure, and for the smaller percentage of "terminally online" Twitter people, moreso. But for the folks who really were just unsatisfied with the direction of the country, didn't like the Dems, wanted to send a protest vote over Gaza, etc. - what are those people thinking/feeling?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - 2y ago

behnamoh 2y ago

[flagged]

affinepplan 2y ago
[flagged]
- behnamoh 2y ago
  I did, and tbh, I found her bland and void of any new ideas that weren't already tried in the past 4 years.
jzb 2y ago
[flagged]