4 ms·

A lot of people seem to think this is an anomaly, but they thought that about the first Trump term. Fundamentally Trump is a symptom. When he goes, all the vot

by simonh 2y ago

A lot of people seem to think this is an anomaly, but they thought that about the first Trump term. Fundamentally Trump is a symptom. When he goes, all the voters that voted for him will still be there, and they’ll still have all the reasons they voted for him.

throwawaygmbno 2y ago
It is more dire than that. The south was basically completely forgiven for starting the civil war and fighting for slavery. Then as soon as they were given a little bit of leeway they enacted Jim Crow laws, began erecting statues of the losers of the Civil War, and started the KKK to drive out black people they could no longer use as slaves. Many of the people you see in films and photos furiously protesting the civil rights act, picketing with signs against MLK Jr, lynching people during that time, putting glass in the seats of children because the schools were forced to end segregation, etc are still alive. Trump was grown and had started college when the Civil Rights act passed. Its time to start just forgiving them because they never seem to forget.
david422 2y ago
> When he goes, all the voters that voted for him will still be there, and they’ll still have all the reasons they voted for him. IMO this is a problem with the Democratic party not connecting with voters. Voters voting for Trump don't feel represented by Democrats, and that is something Democrats should be solving for.
- dralley 2y ago
  It's many things, and that is certainly one of them. But a crazy percentage of voters thought the economy was literally in a recession. Not even that it was doing poorly, but that there was a recession. Some people just live in an alternate reality.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  I agree partially. But there is a large part of the MAGA movement who hate anyone that is not a Christian White Straight male getting ahead. The Democrats will never get those people. The Democratic Party is not blameless. They are seen as being soft on immigration now. Obama deported more people than Trump. They forgot the lesson that allowed Bill Clinton to win - “It’s the Economy Stupid”. And no matter how you feel about it. There is a large part of the United States, even among the LGB crowd who don’t want biological men in women’s sports. DEI the way it is framed is toxic to millions and I as a Black guy rolled my eyes at much of the indoctrination and “ally” nonsense I had to endure during my stint at BigTech. No matter how you feel about this either, it takes a remarkable amount of lack of self awareness by the DNC not to know how toxic this attitude is to a large swath of American voters. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/dnc-meeting/681548/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/dnc-mee... > The rules specify that when we have a gender-nonbinary candidate or officer, the nonbinary individual is counted as neither male nor female, and the remaining six officers must be gender balanced
  - monkeyfun 2y ago
    Out of curiosity: how come only LGB? I'm trans, and I'd be quick to complain about how bad the narratives are there. Especially in terms of people over-focusing on such a small issue when hardly any trans people are in competitive sports and there's issues 1000x more important to our daily lives and safety that need to be handled sooner than "competitive sports teams". I'm not the only trans person like this, so it seems odd to exclude a whole group from even the possibility of agreement.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      I honestly don’t personally know anyone on personal level who is trans who would talk about the issue. I do have close LGB friends who I talk to about these issues and they are opposed to it for the most part. I have heard my gay friends say that the issue is causing support for issues that do affect them lose support because of narratives around trans issues. If you even look what Trump is doing, he isn’t erasing LGB teens from government websites, just everything else related to it. No, I’m not in favor of that anymore than I’m in favor of him removing everyone from government websites that is Black. I’m all about RealPoliticks. Obama distanced himself from radical Blacks (repeat I a black) and Bill Clinton through Sister Soulja under the bus to appeal to moderates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Souljah_moment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Souljah_moment
gopher_space 2y ago
Yes, but we’ve seen how easily they can be controlled by playing to their hatred.
wat10000 2y ago
That’s what really depresses me. What’s the point in fighting this stuff when half the voters think it’s ok? It’s one thing to take down an unpopular leader causing trouble, quite another to take down tens of millions of people.
- zombiwoof 2y ago
  I’m convinced they don’t think it’s okay, they just think whatever Fox News tells them endlessly is what’s okay If Fox News tomorrow changed their tone and message all those sheep would change It’s that simple
  - wat10000 2y ago
    For sure. It took about two seconds after USAID got wrecked for people to come out of the woodwork saying “oh yeah, USAID was notoriously corrupt, everybody knew that forever.” When I’m pretty sure they didn’t know the place existed the previous day.
    - budududuroiu 2y ago
      Hearing your average Joe suddenly start talking about USAID using the same talking points and tone as a Twitter Marxist Leninist tankie was indeed wild
      - ethbr1 2y ago
        The most ironic part about the entire USAID debacle was the complete failure of the new right to understand why American soft power was engineered that way, and what it was doing. It was like an even more hamfisted change management process than the neocons upsetting their apple carts, before they understood how things were balanced on them. Not to say anything shouldn't be changed, but jesus... folks need to have a little humility and curiosity -- try to understand what the folks before them were attempting to do and how.
        2y ago
throw__away7391 2y ago
True, but I think this misses the deeper dynamic nature of such things. Trump is the symptom, but these voters were also reacting in their turn. It is highly unlikely that this exact sequence of triggers will immediately repeat themselves.
isleyaardvark 2y ago
Earlier than the first term. "The fever will break": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBvoG7pBc1A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBvoG7pBc1A

by simonh 2y ago

throwawaygmbno 2y ago

It is more dire than that. The south was basically completely forgiven for starting the civil war and fighting for slavery. Then as soon as they were given a little bit of leeway they enacted Jim Crow laws, began erecting statues of the losers of the Civil War, and started the KKK to drive out black people they could no longer use as slaves. Many of the people you see in films and photos furiously protesting the civil rights act, picketing with signs against MLK Jr, lynching people during that time, putting glass in the seats of children because the schools were forced to end segregation, etc are still alive. Trump was grown and had started college when the Civil Rights act passed. Its time to start just forgiving them because they never seem to forget.

david422 2y ago

> When he goes, all the voters that voted for him will still be there, and they’ll still have all the reasons they voted for him. IMO this is a problem with the Democratic party not connecting with voters. Voters voting for Trump don't feel represented by Democrats, and that is something Democrats should be solving for.

dralley 2y ago
It's many things, and that is certainly one of them. But a crazy percentage of voters thought the economy was literally in a recession. Not even that it was doing poorly, but that there was a recession. Some people just live in an alternate reality.
scarface_74 2y ago
I agree partially. But there is a large part of the MAGA movement who hate anyone that is not a Christian White Straight male getting ahead. The Democrats will never get those people. The Democratic Party is not blameless. They are seen as being soft on immigration now. Obama deported more people than Trump. They forgot the lesson that allowed Bill Clinton to win - “It’s the Economy Stupid”. And no matter how you feel about it. There is a large part of the United States, even among the LGB crowd who don’t want biological men in women’s sports. DEI the way it is framed is toxic to millions and I as a Black guy rolled my eyes at much of the indoctrination and “ally” nonsense I had to endure during my stint at BigTech. No matter how you feel about this either, it takes a remarkable amount of lack of self awareness by the DNC not to know how toxic this attitude is to a large swath of American voters. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/dnc-meeting/681548/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/dnc-mee... > The rules specify that when we have a gender-nonbinary candidate or officer, the nonbinary individual is counted as neither male nor female, and the remaining six officers must be gender balanced
- monkeyfun 2y ago
  Out of curiosity: how come only LGB? I'm trans, and I'd be quick to complain about how bad the narratives are there. Especially in terms of people over-focusing on such a small issue when hardly any trans people are in competitive sports and there's issues 1000x more important to our daily lives and safety that need to be handled sooner than "competitive sports teams". I'm not the only trans person like this, so it seems odd to exclude a whole group from even the possibility of agreement.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    I honestly don’t personally know anyone on personal level who is trans who would talk about the issue. I do have close LGB friends who I talk to about these issues and they are opposed to it for the most part. I have heard my gay friends say that the issue is causing support for issues that do affect them lose support because of narratives around trans issues. If you even look what Trump is doing, he isn’t erasing LGB teens from government websites, just everything else related to it. No, I’m not in favor of that anymore than I’m in favor of him removing everyone from government websites that is Black. I’m all about RealPoliticks. Obama distanced himself from radical Blacks (repeat I a black) and Bill Clinton through Sister Soulja under the bus to appeal to moderates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Souljah_moment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Souljah_moment

gopher_space 2y ago

Yes, but we’ve seen how easily they can be controlled by playing to their hatred.

wat10000 2y ago

That’s what really depresses me. What’s the point in fighting this stuff when half the voters think it’s ok? It’s one thing to take down an unpopular leader causing trouble, quite another to take down tens of millions of people.

zombiwoof 2y ago
I’m convinced they don’t think it’s okay, they just think whatever Fox News tells them endlessly is what’s okay If Fox News tomorrow changed their tone and message all those sheep would change It’s that simple
- wat10000 2y ago
  For sure. It took about two seconds after USAID got wrecked for people to come out of the woodwork saying “oh yeah, USAID was notoriously corrupt, everybody knew that forever.” When I’m pretty sure they didn’t know the place existed the previous day.
  - budududuroiu 2y ago
    Hearing your average Joe suddenly start talking about USAID using the same talking points and tone as a Twitter Marxist Leninist tankie was indeed wild
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      The most ironic part about the entire USAID debacle was the complete failure of the new right to understand why American soft power was engineered that way, and what it was doing. It was like an even more hamfisted change management process than the neocons upsetting their apple carts, before they understood how things were balanced on them. Not to say anything shouldn't be changed, but jesus... folks need to have a little humility and curiosity -- try to understand what the folks before them were attempting to do and how.
      - 2y ago

throw__away7391 2y ago

True, but I think this misses the deeper dynamic nature of such things. Trump is the symptom, but these voters were also reacting in their turn. It is highly unlikely that this exact sequence of triggers will immediately repeat themselves.

isleyaardvark 2y ago

Earlier than the first term. "The fever will break": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBvoG7pBc1A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBvoG7pBc1A