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I continue to find it fascinating that essentially none of the public American elite actually have any values at all. for all the whinging about "free speech"

I continue to find it fascinating that essentially none of the public American elite actually have any values at all. for all the whinging about "free speech" and "free markets" and "freedom from government", approximately everyone has rolled over and is publicly fine with the president ruling like a king - using laws and regulations to enrich and ennoble favoured courtiers, to punish his imaginary enemies and to destroy institutions and relationships with the world that annoy him. this is literally centuries of hard work by hundreds of millions of past Americans being blown up because one rich cunt doesn't like foreigners or loud students or science but does like getting massive bribes and praise.

lotsofpulp 1y ago
The problem is even if they had values, American voters chose to elect someone without values. I do not understand this griping about rolling over when over half the nation votes for a treasonous leader. At that point, the only option left is war.
- bananapub 1y ago
  that's an insane pov. is it really your sincere proposition that after an American presedential election, there should be no expectation of anyone to criticise the winner, no matter what they do? really?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - lotsofpulp 1y ago
    The context of this discussion is a university doing what it needs to gain access to money from the federal government. >approximately everyone has rolled over I did not say anything about not criticizing the winner. An "elite" can criticize all they want, but for day to day actions, when the opposing side has all 3 branches of government, willingly given to them by the majority of the population, I can't blame someone for not sacrificing themselves. My point is this isn't some small group of radicals that weaseled their way in, this is more than half the "country" (if you can call it that), seeing the first term and really his whole life, and saying we want more of this chaos. Edit: Yes, I know the nominal votes do not add up to half the voters, but practically, if you are to bet on the level of support you would get from opposing the winner, surely you are going to assume the non voters will be fine with however you are treated by the winner, especially this winner with his well known track record. Effectively, I would expect support of far less than half of my fellow citizens. If you can't be bothered to vote, you're definitely not going to be bothered to do anything more.
    - sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago
      > more than half the "country" 2024 voting-eligible population: 244.6M Voted for Trump: 77.3M Voted for Harris: 75M Voted for other candidates: 2.6M Eligible to vote, but didn't vote: 90M Unfortunately, the largest constituency continues to be the "can't be fucked to vote" party.
      - arp242 1y ago
        > the largest constituency continues to be the "can't be fucked to vote" party. It's not that straight-forward as it's not a popular election. Why bother to vote if you live in a deep red or blue state? You can make some sort of abstract argument about civic duty or whatnot, but ... the end result is your vote doesn't matter except for "candidate X got more votes!" type internet arguments.
        sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago
        > You can make some sort of abstract argument about civic duty or whatnot I wouldn't say it's terribly abstract. If we don't do anything, we probably shouldn't expect results.
- tolmasky 1y ago
  Over half the nation did not vote for Trump. 77M people of a total population of 340M did, which is around 23%. Trump didn’t even get over half of the total votes cast (49.8% vs. 48.3%). You are free to be dismayed by these numbers, but please stop supporting the notion that “more than one out of every two people you meet in the US voted for Trump”, it is wildly untrue and really misrepresents the strength of the movement.
  - lotsofpulp 1y ago
    When the stakes are this high, not voting is voting for the winner. By not voting, they are signaling they are fine with the situation, and will not stand with any opposition to the winner. Edit to respond to below comment due to hitting posting limit: >98M of the 185M total population of non-voters had the pretty rock solid excuse of not being eligible to vote, right? Almost a third of the country can’t vote (permanent residents, children, ex-cons in certain states, etc.) Children seem irrelevant to consider, especially with voting trends of the youngest generations. Same with permanent residents and ex-cons, I don't see any reason these would have cast votes in different proportions. The most damning thing is this is after already seeing the evidence of 2017 to 2020 and the response to Jan 6, 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patterns-in-the-2024-election/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patte... >55% of White naturalized citizens voted for Trump in 2024, compared with 41% in 2020. >51% of Hispanic naturalized citizens voted for Trump, up from 39% in 2020. >46% of Asian naturalized citizens voted for Trump, an increase from 35% in 2020. >This is without needing to get into the very real voter suppression effort that took place (we’ll assume every one of those “stands” with the winner). I am assuming the number of people whose votes were prevented were negligible in comparison to the number of people who were apathetic (or boycotting). >They also probably skew more to your position given their demographics. A valuable lesson I have learned from 2016 and 2024 elections is that this is not true. What is most important is that people's feelings about their status relative to others not be disturbed (i.e. man over woman and white over non white), and the candidate willing to preserve that, no matter how horrible, is likelier to win more votes. >I am not sure why you insist on going out of your way to dramatically overrepresent the size of your opposition Obviously, the measure of the size of the opposition is subjective, and people are free to make bets as they see fit. However, based on the aforementioned "rolling over", it seems others are making the same bet I am.
booleandilemma 1y ago
I think for the past 20 years or so, possibly longer, American politics has been hijacked by people who are just interested in making money for themselves, full stop. Any benefit they provide to the public is incidental, anything they say is lip service. Maybe there are a couple exceptions, such as Bernie, but even he is a millionaire, not an ordinary person. But yeah, it's just people who are trying to maximize how much money they can get into their pockets. They don't care about the public. They don't care about anything. Democrat, Republican, it's all the same.

lotsofpulp 1y ago

The problem is even if they had values, American voters chose to elect someone without values. I do not understand this griping about rolling over when over half the nation votes for a treasonous leader. At that point, the only option left is war.

bananapub 1y ago
that's an insane pov. is it really your sincere proposition that after an American presedential election, there should be no expectation of anyone to criticise the winner, no matter what they do? really?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- lotsofpulp 1y ago
  The context of this discussion is a university doing what it needs to gain access to money from the federal government. >approximately everyone has rolled over I did not say anything about not criticizing the winner. An "elite" can criticize all they want, but for day to day actions, when the opposing side has all 3 branches of government, willingly given to them by the majority of the population, I can't blame someone for not sacrificing themselves. My point is this isn't some small group of radicals that weaseled their way in, this is more than half the "country" (if you can call it that), seeing the first term and really his whole life, and saying we want more of this chaos. Edit: Yes, I know the nominal votes do not add up to half the voters, but practically, if you are to bet on the level of support you would get from opposing the winner, surely you are going to assume the non voters will be fine with however you are treated by the winner, especially this winner with his well known track record. Effectively, I would expect support of far less than half of my fellow citizens. If you can't be bothered to vote, you're definitely not going to be bothered to do anything more.
  - sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago
    > more than half the "country" 2024 voting-eligible population: 244.6M Voted for Trump: 77.3M Voted for Harris: 75M Voted for other candidates: 2.6M Eligible to vote, but didn't vote: 90M Unfortunately, the largest constituency continues to be the "can't be fucked to vote" party.
    - arp242 1y ago
      > the largest constituency continues to be the "can't be fucked to vote" party. It's not that straight-forward as it's not a popular election. Why bother to vote if you live in a deep red or blue state? You can make some sort of abstract argument about civic duty or whatnot, but ... the end result is your vote doesn't matter except for "candidate X got more votes!" type internet arguments.
      - sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago
        > You can make some sort of abstract argument about civic duty or whatnot I wouldn't say it's terribly abstract. If we don't do anything, we probably shouldn't expect results.
tolmasky 1y ago
Over half the nation did not vote for Trump. 77M people of a total population of 340M did, which is around 23%. Trump didn’t even get over half of the total votes cast (49.8% vs. 48.3%). You are free to be dismayed by these numbers, but please stop supporting the notion that “more than one out of every two people you meet in the US voted for Trump”, it is wildly untrue and really misrepresents the strength of the movement.
- lotsofpulp 1y ago
  When the stakes are this high, not voting is voting for the winner. By not voting, they are signaling they are fine with the situation, and will not stand with any opposition to the winner. Edit to respond to below comment due to hitting posting limit: >98M of the 185M total population of non-voters had the pretty rock solid excuse of not being eligible to vote, right? Almost a third of the country can’t vote (permanent residents, children, ex-cons in certain states, etc.) Children seem irrelevant to consider, especially with voting trends of the youngest generations. Same with permanent residents and ex-cons, I don't see any reason these would have cast votes in different proportions. The most damning thing is this is after already seeing the evidence of 2017 to 2020 and the response to Jan 6, 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patterns-in-the-2024-election/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patte... >55% of White naturalized citizens voted for Trump in 2024, compared with 41% in 2020. >51% of Hispanic naturalized citizens voted for Trump, up from 39% in 2020. >46% of Asian naturalized citizens voted for Trump, an increase from 35% in 2020. >This is without needing to get into the very real voter suppression effort that took place (we’ll assume every one of those “stands” with the winner). I am assuming the number of people whose votes were prevented were negligible in comparison to the number of people who were apathetic (or boycotting). >They also probably skew more to your position given their demographics. A valuable lesson I have learned from 2016 and 2024 elections is that this is not true. What is most important is that people's feelings about their status relative to others not be disturbed (i.e. man over woman and white over non white), and the candidate willing to preserve that, no matter how horrible, is likelier to win more votes. >I am not sure why you insist on going out of your way to dramatically overrepresent the size of your opposition Obviously, the measure of the size of the opposition is subjective, and people are free to make bets as they see fit. However, based on the aforementioned "rolling over", it seems others are making the same bet I am.

booleandilemma 1y ago

I think for the past 20 years or so, possibly longer, American politics has been hijacked by people who are just interested in making money for themselves, full stop. Any benefit they provide to the public is incidental, anything they say is lip service. Maybe there are a couple exceptions, such as Bernie, but even he is a millionaire, not an ordinary person. But yeah, it's just people who are trying to maximize how much money they can get into their pockets. They don't care about the public. They don't care about anything. Democrat, Republican, it's all the same.