2 ms·

> It's slightly weird to me how foreigners seem to look on the Trump era as personifying the US to a greater degree than e.g. the Biden or Obama eras. That's e

by sofixa 1y ago

> It's slightly weird to me how foreigners seem to look on the Trump era as personifying the US to a greater degree than e.g. the Biden or Obama eras. That's easy to explain. Trump is so much out there in being aggressively obnoxious, criminal, racist and senile. His platform was a list of nonsense combined blatant diminishing of rights and social progress. The fact that a majority of voting Americans chose him is irredeemable. Biden, Bush, Obama were normal candidates with pros and cons, where depending on your views, you could pick one or the other, and you could understand others who voted otherwise. Trump? I cannot understand anyone who voted for him. They were either extremely narrowly self-centred and thought they could make a buck at everyone else's expense, extremely misinformed and/or dumb, or just hate specific groups of people they know will get hurt. There's nothing redeemable in any of those. He and his voters are the personification of the "fuck you, I've got mine mindset".

0xDEAFBEAD 1y ago
You say you cannot understand anyone who voted for Trump. Can you understand anyone who plans to vote for RN, the most popular political party in France by far, lead by a woman who said she shares Putin's global vision? Do I get to blame you if RN wins the presidency? Same country, after all.
- sofixa 1y ago
  > Can you understand anyone who plans to vote for RN, the most popular political party in France by far, lead by a woman who said she shares Putin's global vision? "by far" only if you get stuck on political party; considering there has been a united left coalition for multiple years and rounds of elections, that seems purposefully omissive. United left and RN are pretty close, polls and election results wise, with the centre-right and traditional right trailing closely behind. Neither of them have anything resembling a majority though, as is reflected in the current parliament, where each block has a bit less than 30% each. And yes, I can understand them. RN's program contains points which cater to large amounts of French people, especially in rural disadvantaged areas. They're unrealistic or just fluff, mind you, but still sound good. RN is led by moderately charismatic people who have a good media presence - the party's head is Bardella, a young guy with a TikTok following who talks a decent talk. He's a nepo baby (son in law of Marine Le Pen), and mostly a grifter, but he can link a couple of phrases together and sound semi-convincing. Also, while Le Pen is a convicted criminal, it's "just" for stealing government and EU money, which a lot of people don't actually mind, and Bardella isn't. Comparing to a delusional and senile old man who is literally convicted of rape, and there is plenty of credible evidence, out in the open, is also a pedophile. With a shit program with little concrete other than fucking up groups of people. After seeing his "work" his first term. Yeah, I can understand, and probably have a discussion with an RN voter. (Those of the "black/brown people bad" variety mostly vote even further to the right, like Zemmour, those are the people I don't understand and wouldn't be able to talk with). A Trump voter? Something is seriously wrong with you to either like that, or pick your potential personal benefit over everything else.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 1y ago
    >it's "just" for stealing government and EU money, which a lot of people don't actually mind I think your double standard is pretty clear at this point. I won't be offering further replies to you in this subthread after this one. >Comparing to a delusional and senile old man who is literally convicted of rape, and there is plenty of credible evidence, out in the open, is also a pedophile. With a shit program with little concrete other than fucking up groups of people. After seeing his "work" his first term. IMO, the fundamental reason people in the US vote for Trump is because they don't trust the establishment/media. So yeah, if you uncritically believe everything that's reported about Trump in left-leaning ("mainstream") US media, of course you won't understand why people vote for him. I'm no Trump voter, but I think conservatives have good reasons to distrust the establishment/media: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservative-the-eternal-struggle/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservativ...
    - sofixa 1y ago
      > think your double standard is pretty clear at this point What double standard?? I'm merely pointing out that people distrustful of the government/EU are fine with Le Pen stealing from them. It's not an opinion I share, but I can understand it. I can't understand those people being fine with Putin bankrolling Le Pen though. And still a million times better than Trump who not only stole from a cancer charity, but whose corruption is directly in the open and undeniable. > IMO, the fundamental reason people in the US vote for Trump is because they don't trust the establishment/media Regardless of that, they can see and hear with their own eyes and ears that he cannot string two coherent sentences together, and is obscenely disturbing as a human being.
0xDEAFBEAD 1y ago
>extremely narrowly self-centred It's normal for countries to prioritize their own self-interest. The unusual thing is the degree to which the US attempted to take responsibility for world affairs for as long as it did, to the point where other countries took the US for granted. Now other countries interpret America's failure to take responsibility for their problems as aggression. See here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45035076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45035076
- sofixa 1y ago
  > It's normal for countries to prioritize their own self-interest I'm not talking about countries, I'm talking about Trump voters. An "America first" approach is totally fine, nobody outside of the US cares about. An "America first" approach by a convicted criminal that is obviously senile, that results in arbitrary tariffs, threats of invasion of various allies, and a million other absurd consequences, is a problem for everyone. It's a problem for US partners, allies, and also the US for it's short and medium term future. Nobody will trust the US as a future trade and military partner. In any case, as I said, I'm talking about Trump voters. The "extremely narrowly self-centred" ones are of the Andreessen types, the ones who think they can make a little bit more money if Trump is in power, even if objectively he's a terrible candidate on literally every level (criminal, rapist, pedophile, senile, can't string more than half a sentence, mocks disabled people, lies, doesn't comprehend realtively basic things, promises to deport millions of people while that being physically impossible, makes up stuff on the fly, wants to curb rights for women, LGBTQ folks, etc)

by sofixa 1y ago

0xDEAFBEAD 1y ago

You say you cannot understand anyone who voted for Trump. Can you understand anyone who plans to vote for RN, the most popular political party in France by far, lead by a woman who said she shares Putin's global vision? Do I get to blame you if RN wins the presidency? Same country, after all.

sofixa 1y ago
> Can you understand anyone who plans to vote for RN, the most popular political party in France by far, lead by a woman who said she shares Putin's global vision? "by far" only if you get stuck on political party; considering there has been a united left coalition for multiple years and rounds of elections, that seems purposefully omissive. United left and RN are pretty close, polls and election results wise, with the centre-right and traditional right trailing closely behind. Neither of them have anything resembling a majority though, as is reflected in the current parliament, where each block has a bit less than 30% each. And yes, I can understand them. RN's program contains points which cater to large amounts of French people, especially in rural disadvantaged areas. They're unrealistic or just fluff, mind you, but still sound good. RN is led by moderately charismatic people who have a good media presence - the party's head is Bardella, a young guy with a TikTok following who talks a decent talk. He's a nepo baby (son in law of Marine Le Pen), and mostly a grifter, but he can link a couple of phrases together and sound semi-convincing. Also, while Le Pen is a convicted criminal, it's "just" for stealing government and EU money, which a lot of people don't actually mind, and Bardella isn't. Comparing to a delusional and senile old man who is literally convicted of rape, and there is plenty of credible evidence, out in the open, is also a pedophile. With a shit program with little concrete other than fucking up groups of people. After seeing his "work" his first term. Yeah, I can understand, and probably have a discussion with an RN voter. (Those of the "black/brown people bad" variety mostly vote even further to the right, like Zemmour, those are the people I don't understand and wouldn't be able to talk with). A Trump voter? Something is seriously wrong with you to either like that, or pick your potential personal benefit over everything else.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 1y ago
  >it's "just" for stealing government and EU money, which a lot of people don't actually mind I think your double standard is pretty clear at this point. I won't be offering further replies to you in this subthread after this one. >Comparing to a delusional and senile old man who is literally convicted of rape, and there is plenty of credible evidence, out in the open, is also a pedophile. With a shit program with little concrete other than fucking up groups of people. After seeing his "work" his first term. IMO, the fundamental reason people in the US vote for Trump is because they don't trust the establishment/media. So yeah, if you uncritically believe everything that's reported about Trump in left-leaning ("mainstream") US media, of course you won't understand why people vote for him. I'm no Trump voter, but I think conservatives have good reasons to distrust the establishment/media: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservative-the-eternal-struggle/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservativ...
  - sofixa 1y ago
    > think your double standard is pretty clear at this point What double standard?? I'm merely pointing out that people distrustful of the government/EU are fine with Le Pen stealing from them. It's not an opinion I share, but I can understand it. I can't understand those people being fine with Putin bankrolling Le Pen though. And still a million times better than Trump who not only stole from a cancer charity, but whose corruption is directly in the open and undeniable. > IMO, the fundamental reason people in the US vote for Trump is because they don't trust the establishment/media Regardless of that, they can see and hear with their own eyes and ears that he cannot string two coherent sentences together, and is obscenely disturbing as a human being.

0xDEAFBEAD 1y ago

>extremely narrowly self-centred It's normal for countries to prioritize their own self-interest. The unusual thing is the degree to which the US attempted to take responsibility for world affairs for as long as it did, to the point where other countries took the US for granted. Now other countries interpret America's failure to take responsibility for their problems as aggression. See here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45035076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45035076

sofixa 1y ago
> It's normal for countries to prioritize their own self-interest I'm not talking about countries, I'm talking about Trump voters. An "America first" approach is totally fine, nobody outside of the US cares about. An "America first" approach by a convicted criminal that is obviously senile, that results in arbitrary tariffs, threats of invasion of various allies, and a million other absurd consequences, is a problem for everyone. It's a problem for US partners, allies, and also the US for it's short and medium term future. Nobody will trust the US as a future trade and military partner. In any case, as I said, I'm talking about Trump voters. The "extremely narrowly self-centred" ones are of the Andreessen types, the ones who think they can make a little bit more money if Trump is in power, even if objectively he's a terrible candidate on literally every level (criminal, rapist, pedophile, senile, can't string more than half a sentence, mocks disabled people, lies, doesn't comprehend realtively basic things, promises to deport millions of people while that being physically impossible, makes up stuff on the fly, wants to curb rights for women, LGBTQ folks, etc)