6 ms·

This is it. It's not uncommon to see people on this very forum defending many of his policies, so the hope that the population has simply been duped and everyth

This is it. It's not uncommon to see people on this very forum defending many of his policies, so the hope that the population has simply been duped and everything will right itself in a few years is a hard one to hold. One begins to question so much of America and see how much we had actually been turning a blind eye to since the end of the war.

gnz11 1y ago
I kid you not but some of the Silicon Valley elites believe themselves to be philosopher kings and wish to lord over the rest of us in some bizarre techno-monarchy system.
- fakedang 1y ago
  Weren't they planning to make their own techno-monarchic sovereign state? I remember reading up about one venture that actually received funding from your usual VC suspects. Even the folks in Wall Street weren't this dystopian, come on.
- TedHerman 1y ago
  You might enjoy the book "Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism" (interview: In Conversation With Yanis Varoufakis - on YouTube).
thrance 1y ago
Yes, it has to get much much worse before it can get better. Another half-competent democratic presidency now would only result in an even worse republican one next.
- maeil 1y ago
  That this gets downvoted shows that people have still not learned a single thing. You're spot on, it's tragic that so very few people understand this, based on how incredibly little I see it voiced online. In fact, you're the first I've seen voice it in ages. E.g. if Harris (another, at best, incredibly mediocre candidate) would've won, the post-Harris Rep presidency would've been even worse than the current one. Until there's a competent non-Rep president, every single subsequent Rep government will be worse, until there will be no more fairish elections - and likely we're already there. Someone like AOC - not policywise, people don't vote on policy, it doesn't matter. Attitude-wise. It's abundantly clear the DNC hasn't learned (or more likely, doesn't want to learn), so the next president will be another Hillary/Biden/Harris candidate who will either lose or make the next Rep win even more decisive.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    I think maybe it gets downvoted because it comes across as victim blaming and has echoes of abusive reasoning. The left must change what they want because otherwise the right will throw a hissy fit and start opening concentration camps? Maybe I'm misunderstanding. It could be helpful to point to actual policy failings of Harris rather than handwaving about mediocrity.
    - tim333 1y ago
      When Harris actually completed to be presidential candidate she came in fifth. She was on stage a couple of times saying 200 million Americans died of covid - you have to be fairly thick to not realize that isn't so - she'd misread 200,000. They had to keep her away from interviews to stop similar stupid leaking out.
      - AlecSchueler 1y ago
        Misreading a number seems incredibly insignificant to the number of outright idiotic things Mr Trump says on a daily basis. Why the disparity in expectation/response?
        tbrownaw 1y ago
        > Misreading a number Simple misreading is not the issue. The misread number was almost two thirds of the entire population. That's the sort of thing I'd expect someone to catch as they're saying it because of how absurd it is.
        AlecSchueler 1y ago
        So misreading it and not immediately catching it is the issue? It seems incredibly human. And you really feel this is worse than the dumb things Mr Trump is on record as saying?
        1y ago
- tim333 1y ago
  I'm not sure that's true. It would just take the democrats to run an intelligent, middle of the road, non senile candidate.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    So was Harris unintelligent, extreme or senile? Why can the Republicans run a candidate who is evidently dumb, extremist and senile all at the same time, but the Democratic alternative has to be perfect?
    - ethbr1 1y ago
      There's a lot of distance between Harris and Biden as candidates and "perfect" They were both shitty candidates, and the Democratic party needs to be honest about that and what allowed them to be run.
    - tim333 1y ago
      Harris to me seemed not very impressive to be president. Not dumb compared to the average person but not great for the top job. Also her voting record I think was the most far left in the senate.
    - shadowgovt 1y ago
      It's a reasonable question. It seems like those who don't support Trump don't quite get yet that if they don't actually want him to be President, they have to show up to vote. The turnout just didn't happen. Too many people are fine with it.
  - thrance 1y ago
    There's no "middle of the road" between neoliberals and outright fascists. The democrats need to shed their (literal) old skin and become a real left-wing party, with aggressive anti-corporate messaging.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    You're delusional if you think the reason Trump has support is somehow because of Biden. He has support because he's a populist leader that's going to tell you the country is failing and we need to burn it all down and, of course, it's brown people's fault. And that type of populist messaging really resonates with stupid, poor white people. Which is a growing fraction of the US as people get poorer overall.
crote 1y ago
> It's not uncommon to see people on this very forum defending many of his policies From what I've seen on the wider internet, the support for Trump is mostly a personality cult. The policies are getting support because they are his policies. They are on the Good Side, and the woke leftists are on the Bad Side. If Trump changes his views, most of his voter base will change with him. The big question is: what's going to happen when Trump isn't in power anymore? Will he be able to motivate his voter base into a JD Vance presidency? Don Jr.? He's not getting any younger either - what if he dies? With Trump off the stage the Republican party will almost certainly fall into a state of crisis. The traditional conservatives have been decimated, and the fringe extremists won't be able to rally the moderates. The entire Republican electorate will be up for grabs, and it won't be pretty.
- watwut 1y ago
  It is not just that. He works on support of the whole ecosystem - from heritage foundation through tech leaders to fox news. The ecosystem will keep existing and will find a new preacher. The same people who use their talking points now will keep voting for the same set of policies. Just about only exception are tariffs in their current implementation - those are genuinely the Trump thing. But everything else is Trump executing long known conservative goals that are accepted by conservative voters. > With Trump off the stage the Republican party will almost certainly fall into a state of crisis. The traditional conservatives have been decimated, and the fringe extremists won't be able to rally the moderates. The entire Republican electorate will be up for grabs, and it won't be pretty. Trump represents traditional conservatives. With exception of tariffs, he is doing exactly what they wanted for years. Likewise, republican moderates never disagreed or opposed Trump policies, they just wanted someone more presentable for it.
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  > From what I've seen on the wider internet, the support for Trump is mostly a personality cult. I agree with you but the point I'm trying to get across is that a disturbing amount of seemingly right minded people actually support him now on a policy level. Maybe they always did and feel comfortable to say it out loud now? I don't know. But the deportations, skipping due process, defunding science, excluding foreign students, dismantling aid programs, cutting ties with Europe and Canada, stripping trans people of their rights, pulling support from Ukraine, not following the Paris Climate Accords, etc. etc. It's all stuff I've seen people here genuinely argue for.
const_cast 1y ago
The people largely have been duped by populist messaging. If you notice the people who defend Trump or his policies don't even really believe them. Half the time the defense is, "well he's not really going to do that" (Trump is a liar). Or, "that's not actually happening" (deporting citizens or permanent residents). While these defenses are completely delusional, it at least highlights that most Trump supporters consider him untrustworthy. They support Trump because they're living in an alternate reality where everything is great and nothing bad has happened yet. Everything is always just around the corner, but they kick the can down the road in their head.

gnz11 1y ago

I kid you not but some of the Silicon Valley elites believe themselves to be philosopher kings and wish to lord over the rest of us in some bizarre techno-monarchy system.

fakedang 1y ago
Weren't they planning to make their own techno-monarchic sovereign state? I remember reading up about one venture that actually received funding from your usual VC suspects. Even the folks in Wall Street weren't this dystopian, come on.
TedHerman 1y ago
You might enjoy the book "Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism" (interview: In Conversation With Yanis Varoufakis - on YouTube).

thrance 1y ago

Yes, it has to get much much worse before it can get better. Another half-competent democratic presidency now would only result in an even worse republican one next.

maeil 1y ago
That this gets downvoted shows that people have still not learned a single thing. You're spot on, it's tragic that so very few people understand this, based on how incredibly little I see it voiced online. In fact, you're the first I've seen voice it in ages. E.g. if Harris (another, at best, incredibly mediocre candidate) would've won, the post-Harris Rep presidency would've been even worse than the current one. Until there's a competent non-Rep president, every single subsequent Rep government will be worse, until there will be no more fairish elections - and likely we're already there. Someone like AOC - not policywise, people don't vote on policy, it doesn't matter. Attitude-wise. It's abundantly clear the DNC hasn't learned (or more likely, doesn't want to learn), so the next president will be another Hillary/Biden/Harris candidate who will either lose or make the next Rep win even more decisive.
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  I think maybe it gets downvoted because it comes across as victim blaming and has echoes of abusive reasoning. The left must change what they want because otherwise the right will throw a hissy fit and start opening concentration camps? Maybe I'm misunderstanding. It could be helpful to point to actual policy failings of Harris rather than handwaving about mediocrity.
  - tim333 1y ago
    When Harris actually completed to be presidential candidate she came in fifth. She was on stage a couple of times saying 200 million Americans died of covid - you have to be fairly thick to not realize that isn't so - she'd misread 200,000. They had to keep her away from interviews to stop similar stupid leaking out.
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      Misreading a number seems incredibly insignificant to the number of outright idiotic things Mr Trump says on a daily basis. Why the disparity in expectation/response?
      - tbrownaw 1y ago
        > Misreading a number Simple misreading is not the issue. The misread number was almost two thirds of the entire population. That's the sort of thing I'd expect someone to catch as they're saying it because of how absurd it is.
        AlecSchueler 1y ago
        So misreading it and not immediately catching it is the issue? It seems incredibly human. And you really feel this is worse than the dumb things Mr Trump is on record as saying?
        1y ago
tim333 1y ago
I'm not sure that's true. It would just take the democrats to run an intelligent, middle of the road, non senile candidate.
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  So was Harris unintelligent, extreme or senile? Why can the Republicans run a candidate who is evidently dumb, extremist and senile all at the same time, but the Democratic alternative has to be perfect?
  - ethbr1 1y ago
    There's a lot of distance between Harris and Biden as candidates and "perfect" They were both shitty candidates, and the Democratic party needs to be honest about that and what allowed them to be run.
  - tim333 1y ago
    Harris to me seemed not very impressive to be president. Not dumb compared to the average person but not great for the top job. Also her voting record I think was the most far left in the senate.
  - shadowgovt 1y ago
    It's a reasonable question. It seems like those who don't support Trump don't quite get yet that if they don't actually want him to be President, they have to show up to vote. The turnout just didn't happen. Too many people are fine with it.
- thrance 1y ago
  There's no "middle of the road" between neoliberals and outright fascists. The democrats need to shed their (literal) old skin and become a real left-wing party, with aggressive anti-corporate messaging.
- const_cast 1y ago
  You're delusional if you think the reason Trump has support is somehow because of Biden. He has support because he's a populist leader that's going to tell you the country is failing and we need to burn it all down and, of course, it's brown people's fault. And that type of populist messaging really resonates with stupid, poor white people. Which is a growing fraction of the US as people get poorer overall.

crote 1y ago

> It's not uncommon to see people on this very forum defending many of his policies From what I've seen on the wider internet, the support for Trump is mostly a personality cult. The policies are getting support because they are his policies. They are on the Good Side, and the woke leftists are on the Bad Side. If Trump changes his views, most of his voter base will change with him. The big question is: what's going to happen when Trump isn't in power anymore? Will he be able to motivate his voter base into a JD Vance presidency? Don Jr.? He's not getting any younger either - what if he dies? With Trump off the stage the Republican party will almost certainly fall into a state of crisis. The traditional conservatives have been decimated, and the fringe extremists won't be able to rally the moderates. The entire Republican electorate will be up for grabs, and it won't be pretty.

watwut 1y ago
It is not just that. He works on support of the whole ecosystem - from heritage foundation through tech leaders to fox news. The ecosystem will keep existing and will find a new preacher. The same people who use their talking points now will keep voting for the same set of policies. Just about only exception are tariffs in their current implementation - those are genuinely the Trump thing. But everything else is Trump executing long known conservative goals that are accepted by conservative voters. > With Trump off the stage the Republican party will almost certainly fall into a state of crisis. The traditional conservatives have been decimated, and the fringe extremists won't be able to rally the moderates. The entire Republican electorate will be up for grabs, and it won't be pretty. Trump represents traditional conservatives. With exception of tariffs, he is doing exactly what they wanted for years. Likewise, republican moderates never disagreed or opposed Trump policies, they just wanted someone more presentable for it.
AlecSchueler 1y ago
> From what I've seen on the wider internet, the support for Trump is mostly a personality cult. I agree with you but the point I'm trying to get across is that a disturbing amount of seemingly right minded people actually support him now on a policy level. Maybe they always did and feel comfortable to say it out loud now? I don't know. But the deportations, skipping due process, defunding science, excluding foreign students, dismantling aid programs, cutting ties with Europe and Canada, stripping trans people of their rights, pulling support from Ukraine, not following the Paris Climate Accords, etc. etc. It's all stuff I've seen people here genuinely argue for.

const_cast 1y ago

The people largely have been duped by populist messaging. If you notice the people who defend Trump or his policies don't even really believe them. Half the time the defense is, "well he's not really going to do that" (Trump is a liar). Or, "that's not actually happening" (deporting citizens or permanent residents). While these defenses are completely delusional, it at least highlights that most Trump supporters consider him untrustworthy. They support Trump because they're living in an alternate reality where everything is great and nothing bad has happened yet. Everything is always just around the corner, but they kick the can down the road in their head.