11 ms·

> This is the political will of a plurality of American voters. This fallacy gets repeated over and over, but it's obviously false. Have you really never vote

by Aurornis 10mo ago

> This is the political will of a plurality of American voters. This fallacy gets repeated over and over, but it's obviously false. Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with? It's a quintessential fact of politics that voting for a candidate is not equivalent to an endorsement of everything that candidate does in the future. It's a premise that is obviously false when we consider our own votes, but it feels cathartic to force the claim on to the other side. This administration's net approval rating flipped net negative very quickly after his election and has been trending downward. It's just navel-gazing to pretend like what he's doing has high approval.

palmotea 10mo ago
>> This is the political will of a plurality of American voters. > This fallacy gets repeated over and over, but it's obviously false. And it's used to condemn and justify. Most politicians, including Democrats, like to pretend that winning means the unpopular policies they happen to like are the will of the people. They will constantly gaslight you on it. In reality, American politics gives people coarse choices that few are entirely happy with and many are very unhappy with. It's really hard to justify radical partisan action without denying that fact.
- bloppe 10mo ago
  It's true that partisan politics provides only coarse choices. That's true of America's bipartisan system as well as multiparty parliamentary systems. But the parties are still dynamic coalitions that can change dramatically over time. Just look at the difference between the 1950s Democrats vs the 2000s Democrats, or the 2015 Republicans vs the 2020 Republicans. The coarse options that are available at election time can be massively influenced in the years leading up to the election.
  - palmotea 10mo ago
    > It's true that partisan politics provides only coarse choices. That's true of America's bipartisan system as well as multiparty parliamentary systems. But the parties are still dynamic coalitions that can change dramatically over time. Just look at the difference between the 1950s Democrats vs the 2000s Democrats, or the 2015 Republicans vs the 2020 Republicans. You're missing my only point, which is how (say) a coarse 51% victory for a coalition gets frequently and deliberately misrepresented as "the American people" wanting that coalition's unpopular policies. American politics isn't really about representing the American people, it's about minority ideological factions jockeying for power to subject the American people to their vision. Hence the rise of campaigning that's mostly attacking the opponent. A recent example is the Democrats vis-a-vis Trump: despite all their rhetoric, their behavior over the last decade belies an attitude that they think they use the repulsion he generates to avoid moderating themselves and still win.
    - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
      >which is how (say) a coarse 51% victory for a coalition gets frequently and deliberately misrepresented as "the American people" wanting that coalition's unpopular policies. I think the larger point is "we have 2 bad choices, but we chose the worse one". Because "both sides are the same". > it's about minority ideological factions jockeying for power to subject the American people to their vision. Yeah, the current vision unfortunately sucks much worse than status quo neoliberalism, though. But we overall chose that. People ignoring the issues with Trump only reinforces how bad things have gotten.
- tharmas 10mo ago
  No matter who u vote for u always get a Neocon. - George Carlin ...and a neoliberal.
fyredge 10mo ago
This is not a fallacy, simply an opinion you disagree with. But one which I strongly agree with. I'm not American, and though I may not agree completely with the politicians I voted for, I have not been blindsided yet. The second election of Trump is a symptom of Americans either unable or unwilling to look beyond single issues or sports team politics. To then turn around and act surprised is just a way to conveniently absolve themselves of the responsibility of electing him to begin with. If this wasn't the case, Trump voters themselves would be calling for his impeachment, not Democrat voters. Approval rating means nothing if it enforces nothing.
- danaris 10mo ago
  If you're not American, then you may not understand the way the American voting system works. We only have two parties. (Technically, there are some third parties, but they're effectively worse than negligible—voting for them is guaranteed to either do nothing or harm the cause you're interested in, unless the candidate is already a member of a major party and merely cross-endorsed.) This means that if you care about one thing that one of the two major parties ostensibly supports (or is ostensibly better at than the other), more than any of the things on the other side, you have no choice: you have to vote for that party's candidate. We also have a mainstream media landscape that is fully captured by the wealthy on the right. It is hard to overstate the extent to which our media carries water for the Republican Party. And finally, we have absolutely abysmal civics education. It has been steadily gutted over the course of decades. To some extent, this is a deliberate move to make it easier to use the aforementioned media capture to control the average voter. So if you're a low-information voter, you think the economy is bad, and you want to fix that, you're going to vote for the candidate of the major party that media has been telling you for 50 years is the party that's good at the economy, despite the fact that every time they're in office the debt goes up, regular people's lives get worse, and more protections go out the window.
  - padjo 10mo ago
    That is exactly the problem. The first past the post single representative systems all have this feature. It seems almost inevitable that they will just because of that. Some sort of representative system will reduce this disconnect between what voters want and what they get because it allows more parties to flourish. The downside is that you end up with coalition governments. These are seen as “weak” although I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.
rjrjrjrj 10mo ago
In this case the candidate they voted for was a convicted criminal and pathological liar. Dishonesty is the through line of Trump’s entire life. There was no reasonable expectation his second term would bring anything else. Anyone expressing buyer’s remorse at this point is impossibly naive.
- thunderfork 10mo ago
  If there was ever a quintessential American quality, "impossibly naive" would be it.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
watwut 10mo ago
Yes, Trump is now unpopular. But. > Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with? If we are talking about past culpability, this one does not works at all. Trump is being exactly who he was and what he campaigned on. This is not the case of someone switching up after being elected. This is case of who openly or tacitly supported Trump, because they thought they will personally benefit on top of having fun of watching liberals suffer. By tacitly I mean all those bad faith "both sides" and "Trump is dove, Harris is aggressive". As an example, Latino Trump voting men were attracted by the misogynistic and male dominance content. They thought they wont be personally affected. Rural people still cheer to occupation and terrorization of cities ... and still think they are the only true Americans. They though they will be able to keep their farms like the last time. And so on and so forth. People knew full well what is going on when they were hiding behind euphemisms about conservatives and blamed liberals when those said the truth. They just liked the project and thought they will be affected only a little.
- ryandrake 10mo ago
  The most compelling and resounding message of his campaign was that he promised to grief MAGA's perceived enemies. Whatever stuff he said in his stump speeches about foreign policy, domestic policy, economic policy, whatever, was largely ignored by his base. The real reason they voted for him (and the reason they still support him) was his promise of cruelty and to hurt people they didn't like, and that's the one promise he is delivering on and boasting about every day. When brown immigrants' doors are kicked in, people are black-bagged and dragged away in an unmarked van, when families are torn apart, when "city people" get shot and are crying on TV, that's what really gets MAGA motivated and that's what keeps them excited about politics.
fzeroracer 10mo ago
> Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with? It's a quintessential fact of politics that voting for a candidate is not equivalent to an endorsement of everything that candidate does in the future. You can look back on everything Trump said and campaigned on. He's a liar, a cheat, and a fraud but he openly campaigned on making people suffer, hurting specific groups and demolishing the government. The people either voted for him assuming he was blustering about his claims or liked what he was going to do. There's countless examples of people who when asked why they regret voting for Trump, they say because he's 'hurting the wrong people', while also saying that they would gladly vote for him again.
maest 10mo ago
Trump still has plenty of support from large swathes of Americans despite his increasingly more overt actions. For many, he _is_ doing what he was elected to do. This _is_ what the American voter wants. The American voter wants illegal immigrants out, does not care how it happens. They also want cheap oil and are willing to overlook the implications of international military action if it means they get it. They also don't care about the environment enough to curb their consumption or invest in alternative energy sources. These preferences are all aligned with Trump's actions.
- tharmas 10mo ago
  All true but what about his proposal to increase defense spending by a Whopping $500 Billion? Are his supporters 'down' with that?
  - AnimalMuppet 10mo ago
    Is Congress down with that? Down enough to actually pass a budget that contains it?
    - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
      Immigration, no. Oil, maybe. I don't think any of congress wants to risk escalation to a war on top of all the situations stacked up today.
  - CamperBob2 10mo ago
    As long as it hurts "those people" more than it hurts them... hell, yeah! MAGA is not about policy, it's about stigginit. To borrow a line from Anthony Burgess, it's old age having a go at youth.
  - ryandrake 10mo ago
    His supporters are down with whatever he says needs to be done. It's about him--there's no ideological consistency at all. As long as he's for it today, his supporters are for it today. If he's against it tomorrow, they will immediately fall in line and be against it tomorrow.
doom2 10mo ago
> It's just navel-gazing to pretend like what he's doing has high approval Then how is it being reflected in Congress? Where are the Republicans speaking loudly on behalf of their dissatisfied constituents and voting on bills accordingly? We shouldn't have to wait every two years for a midterms or general election for the negative approval rating to make itself known, politicians can choose any time to act in a way that shows they're listening to their constituents.
- ambicapter 10mo ago
  He just explained how it works for the presidency, why is it so hard to extend that logic to other elected officials?
- zzzeek 10mo ago
  they're basically fucked. they can't turn against Leader, because their base would abandon them immediately. But they desperately wish they could hold him back, because they are well aware they are going to get creamed in November. as far as "bills", there's no bills because that's up to Mike Johnson who is a super loyalist. His district is very safe (Cook R+26).
  - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
    > their base would abandon them immediately...they are going to get creamed in November. These seem contradictory. So they risk losing their voters if they oppose Trump, but also know voters will vote them out? >that's up to Mike Johnson who is a super loyalist. His district is very safe (Cook R+26). That's part of why we've had so many forced votes around Johnson. And I guess we'll see in Novemeber which branch is true. Either the R's are safe and the voter base is strong/popular enough to keep them in, or they are actually unpopular and at best scared of Trump (and at worst, super loyalist) and they will go down with the ship.
    - zzzeek 10mo ago
      their base alone is not big enough to give them electoral victory. they always need more. but they need the base too. Because of Trump's lawlessness, they can't have both, hence you see a lot of retirements etc. this year.
LastTrain 10mo ago
He is the most popular Republican president, among other Republicans, we have had in our lifetime. Anecdotal: I live in a red state with red friends and red family. They might not like this or that but they are unwavering in their support for Trump the man. It is still very uncomfortable to say even the most superficially negative thing about him or his policies. So, maybe there is some internal dialog going on there that I'm not privy to, but outwardly the support is 100% there, and that is all that really matters.
- CamperBob2 10mo ago
  How does downvoting this person's statement of fact help? Trump owns the Republican Party now. He's gone well beyond mere approval.
- throwawayqqq11 10mo ago
  What you observe is cognitive dissonance resolved by ignorance. I dont have any advice for you, since i dont know your close ones, but a warning. When these conflicts dont get resolved in a constructive way, this behavioral conditioning might lead to repulsion targeting you. I have lost a long time childhood friend, even though my approach to him was always calm but persistent for over a decade.
  - LastTrain 10mo ago
    Yes. The hardest thing about all of this is watching people I've known for years defend the indefensible. It is really difficult to stomach hearing your grandma call for the insurrection act.
    - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
      What do you feel makes their support so unwavering? Are they fine with anything as long as they feel the "bad people" are hurt? Do they genuinely see themselves getting richer? Do they simply only watch Fox News and other conservative media and never consider what's happening in their neighborhood?
troyvit 10mo ago
If it's obviously false, can you show research that proves it? Because from what I see most of this was part and parcel of a published plan. [1] People on both sides either bragged about executing Project 2025 or tried to warn their base about it. People still voted for this, and those who didn't vote at all, by staying home, also voted for it. This move slots in well with the overall exploration of eliminating the fed completely. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 [2] https://blog.uwsp.edu/cps/2024/09/12/the-project-2025-monetary-policy-gold-standard-and-federal-reserve/ https://blog.uwsp.edu/cps/2024/09/12/the-project-2025-moneta...
noncoml 10mo ago
Isn’t their approval rating 40% or something? As much as I hate what’s happening, that’s how democracy works. Sometimes the majority chooses to burn the house down and all you can do is sit and watch
- aebtebeten 10mo ago
  That's not how parliamentary democracies work; they have a thing called a "vote of no confidence".
dfxm12 10mo ago
Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with? I'm having a hard time thinking of things this admin and their party has done but hasn't directly campaigned on, directly praised someone else doing, etc. On the flip side of that, which empty promise, if fulfilled, would be worth the situation we're otherwise in?
- johnnyanmac 10mo ago
  well they had quite a few contradictions. They campaigned on "No new wars" and meanwhile the US hit Venezuela and might be trying to do the same on Greenland and Mexico. Campaigned on jobs but manufacturing has been plummeting all year. Campaigned on cheaper groceries but things are more expensive. It's a big maybe, but maybe if Trump actually managed to end the Ukraine War and push out Russia the chaos would have been a net benefit (from a utilitarian POV). Instead, he berated Zelensky on camera.
  - dfxm12 10mo ago
    Trump campaigned on "No new wars", but given Trump's history in his first term, his party's history in general, you'd have to have be a rube to believe this. Also why does this earn Trump a vote when his opposition was also running on the status quo in this regard, especially the considering the historical US uniparty approach to foreign affairs? But, go ahead, set that aside. You think that is a worthwhile tradeoff for Trump sending federal agents to gun down his political enemies (US citizens who hurt their feelings)?
    - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
      I think we can both admit there's a lot of rubes in this country. >why does this earn Trump a vote when his opposition was also running on the status quo in this regard, especially the considering the historical US uniparty approach to foreign affairs? To be frank, because we're applying logic to irrational actors. It shouldn't change anything, but Trump yelled it louder, looked more like the people who voted for him, and it's just one of the many ways they rationalize what they already wanted deep down (but need the not say out loud). >You think that is a worthwhile tradeoff for Trump sending federal agents to gun down his political enemies (US citizens who hurt their feelings)? Hard to say, I'm not a utilitarian. But I can see it from that lens. You'd save hundreds of thousands of lives, further constrain Russia on the global level if Ukraine can get into NATO, and even curb off other tensions like China vs Taiwan and Israel v. Palestine. That's a lot of good. These aren't good directly reflected in the US economy nor jobs, though. That's the issue with utilitarianism in that it ignores the micro socio-economic situations, and those can build up into even worse timelines.
jghn 10mo ago
> It's just navel-gazing to pretend like what he's doing has high approval. Will these people vote for the opposition party? Or will they just say they don't like it and continue to vote GOP?
latexr 10mo ago
> Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with? I personally haven’t, no. And I definitely have never voted for a candidate who claimed they’d do horrible things if elected. There is no one who voted for Trump the second time around who has the excuse of him “doing things I don’t agree with”. He told everyone what he was going to do, and people still voted for him. Either they agree with his actions or they’re stupid. If the former, they’re irredeemable; if the latter, they need to take responsibility and act. This was not an “oopsie” you can simply regret and vote better next time, irreparable damage is being caused to the world. Negative approval ratings mean nothing to a despot.

palmotea 10mo ago

>> This is the political will of a plurality of American voters. > This fallacy gets repeated over and over, but it's obviously false. And it's used to condemn and justify. Most politicians, including Democrats, like to pretend that winning means the unpopular policies they happen to like are the will of the people. They will constantly gaslight you on it. In reality, American politics gives people coarse choices that few are entirely happy with and many are very unhappy with. It's really hard to justify radical partisan action without denying that fact.

bloppe 10mo ago
It's true that partisan politics provides only coarse choices. That's true of America's bipartisan system as well as multiparty parliamentary systems. But the parties are still dynamic coalitions that can change dramatically over time. Just look at the difference between the 1950s Democrats vs the 2000s Democrats, or the 2015 Republicans vs the 2020 Republicans. The coarse options that are available at election time can be massively influenced in the years leading up to the election.
- palmotea 10mo ago
  > It's true that partisan politics provides only coarse choices. That's true of America's bipartisan system as well as multiparty parliamentary systems. But the parties are still dynamic coalitions that can change dramatically over time. Just look at the difference between the 1950s Democrats vs the 2000s Democrats, or the 2015 Republicans vs the 2020 Republicans. You're missing my only point, which is how (say) a coarse 51% victory for a coalition gets frequently and deliberately misrepresented as "the American people" wanting that coalition's unpopular policies. American politics isn't really about representing the American people, it's about minority ideological factions jockeying for power to subject the American people to their vision. Hence the rise of campaigning that's mostly attacking the opponent. A recent example is the Democrats vis-a-vis Trump: despite all their rhetoric, their behavior over the last decade belies an attitude that they think they use the repulsion he generates to avoid moderating themselves and still win.
  - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
    >which is how (say) a coarse 51% victory for a coalition gets frequently and deliberately misrepresented as "the American people" wanting that coalition's unpopular policies. I think the larger point is "we have 2 bad choices, but we chose the worse one". Because "both sides are the same". > it's about minority ideological factions jockeying for power to subject the American people to their vision. Yeah, the current vision unfortunately sucks much worse than status quo neoliberalism, though. But we overall chose that. People ignoring the issues with Trump only reinforces how bad things have gotten.
tharmas 10mo ago
No matter who u vote for u always get a Neocon. - George Carlin ...and a neoliberal.

fyredge 10mo ago

This is not a fallacy, simply an opinion you disagree with. But one which I strongly agree with. I'm not American, and though I may not agree completely with the politicians I voted for, I have not been blindsided yet. The second election of Trump is a symptom of Americans either unable or unwilling to look beyond single issues or sports team politics. To then turn around and act surprised is just a way to conveniently absolve themselves of the responsibility of electing him to begin with. If this wasn't the case, Trump voters themselves would be calling for his impeachment, not Democrat voters. Approval rating means nothing if it enforces nothing.

danaris 10mo ago
If you're not American, then you may not understand the way the American voting system works. We only have two parties. (Technically, there are some third parties, but they're effectively worse than negligible—voting for them is guaranteed to either do nothing or harm the cause you're interested in, unless the candidate is already a member of a major party and merely cross-endorsed.) This means that if you care about one thing that one of the two major parties ostensibly supports (or is ostensibly better at than the other), more than any of the things on the other side, you have no choice: you have to vote for that party's candidate. We also have a mainstream media landscape that is fully captured by the wealthy on the right. It is hard to overstate the extent to which our media carries water for the Republican Party. And finally, we have absolutely abysmal civics education. It has been steadily gutted over the course of decades. To some extent, this is a deliberate move to make it easier to use the aforementioned media capture to control the average voter. So if you're a low-information voter, you think the economy is bad, and you want to fix that, you're going to vote for the candidate of the major party that media has been telling you for 50 years is the party that's good at the economy, despite the fact that every time they're in office the debt goes up, regular people's lives get worse, and more protections go out the window.
- padjo 10mo ago
  That is exactly the problem. The first past the post single representative systems all have this feature. It seems almost inevitable that they will just because of that. Some sort of representative system will reduce this disconnect between what voters want and what they get because it allows more parties to flourish. The downside is that you end up with coalition governments. These are seen as “weak” although I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.

rjrjrjrj 10mo ago

In this case the candidate they voted for was a convicted criminal and pathological liar. Dishonesty is the through line of Trump’s entire life. There was no reasonable expectation his second term would bring anything else. Anyone expressing buyer’s remorse at this point is impossibly naive.

thunderfork 10mo ago
If there was ever a quintessential American quality, "impossibly naive" would be it.

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

watwut 10mo ago

Yes, Trump is now unpopular. But. > Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with? If we are talking about past culpability, this one does not works at all. Trump is being exactly who he was and what he campaigned on. This is not the case of someone switching up after being elected. This is case of who openly or tacitly supported Trump, because they thought they will personally benefit on top of having fun of watching liberals suffer. By tacitly I mean all those bad faith "both sides" and "Trump is dove, Harris is aggressive". As an example, Latino Trump voting men were attracted by the misogynistic and male dominance content. They thought they wont be personally affected. Rural people still cheer to occupation and terrorization of cities ... and still think they are the only true Americans. They though they will be able to keep their farms like the last time. And so on and so forth. People knew full well what is going on when they were hiding behind euphemisms about conservatives and blamed liberals when those said the truth. They just liked the project and thought they will be affected only a little.

ryandrake 10mo ago
The most compelling and resounding message of his campaign was that he promised to grief MAGA's perceived enemies. Whatever stuff he said in his stump speeches about foreign policy, domestic policy, economic policy, whatever, was largely ignored by his base. The real reason they voted for him (and the reason they still support him) was his promise of cruelty and to hurt people they didn't like, and that's the one promise he is delivering on and boasting about every day. When brown immigrants' doors are kicked in, people are black-bagged and dragged away in an unmarked van, when families are torn apart, when "city people" get shot and are crying on TV, that's what really gets MAGA motivated and that's what keeps them excited about politics.

fzeroracer 10mo ago

> Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with? It's a quintessential fact of politics that voting for a candidate is not equivalent to an endorsement of everything that candidate does in the future. You can look back on everything Trump said and campaigned on. He's a liar, a cheat, and a fraud but he openly campaigned on making people suffer, hurting specific groups and demolishing the government. The people either voted for him assuming he was blustering about his claims or liked what he was going to do. There's countless examples of people who when asked why they regret voting for Trump, they say because he's 'hurting the wrong people', while also saying that they would gladly vote for him again.

maest 10mo ago

Trump still has plenty of support from large swathes of Americans despite his increasingly more overt actions. For many, he _is_ doing what he was elected to do. This _is_ what the American voter wants. The American voter wants illegal immigrants out, does not care how it happens. They also want cheap oil and are willing to overlook the implications of international military action if it means they get it. They also don't care about the environment enough to curb their consumption or invest in alternative energy sources. These preferences are all aligned with Trump's actions.

tharmas 10mo ago
All true but what about his proposal to increase defense spending by a Whopping $500 Billion? Are his supporters 'down' with that?
- AnimalMuppet 10mo ago
  Is Congress down with that? Down enough to actually pass a budget that contains it?
  - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
    Immigration, no. Oil, maybe. I don't think any of congress wants to risk escalation to a war on top of all the situations stacked up today.
- CamperBob2 10mo ago
  As long as it hurts "those people" more than it hurts them... hell, yeah! MAGA is not about policy, it's about stigginit. To borrow a line from Anthony Burgess, it's old age having a go at youth.
- ryandrake 10mo ago
  His supporters are down with whatever he says needs to be done. It's about him--there's no ideological consistency at all. As long as he's for it today, his supporters are for it today. If he's against it tomorrow, they will immediately fall in line and be against it tomorrow.

doom2 10mo ago

> It's just navel-gazing to pretend like what he's doing has high approval Then how is it being reflected in Congress? Where are the Republicans speaking loudly on behalf of their dissatisfied constituents and voting on bills accordingly? We shouldn't have to wait every two years for a midterms or general election for the negative approval rating to make itself known, politicians can choose any time to act in a way that shows they're listening to their constituents.

ambicapter 10mo ago
He just explained how it works for the presidency, why is it so hard to extend that logic to other elected officials?
zzzeek 10mo ago
they're basically fucked. they can't turn against Leader, because their base would abandon them immediately. But they desperately wish they could hold him back, because they are well aware they are going to get creamed in November. as far as "bills", there's no bills because that's up to Mike Johnson who is a super loyalist. His district is very safe (Cook R+26).
- johnnyanmac 10mo ago
  > their base would abandon them immediately...they are going to get creamed in November. These seem contradictory. So they risk losing their voters if they oppose Trump, but also know voters will vote them out? >that's up to Mike Johnson who is a super loyalist. His district is very safe (Cook R+26). That's part of why we've had so many forced votes around Johnson. And I guess we'll see in Novemeber which branch is true. Either the R's are safe and the voter base is strong/popular enough to keep them in, or they are actually unpopular and at best scared of Trump (and at worst, super loyalist) and they will go down with the ship.
  - zzzeek 10mo ago
    their base alone is not big enough to give them electoral victory. they always need more. but they need the base too. Because of Trump's lawlessness, they can't have both, hence you see a lot of retirements etc. this year.

LastTrain 10mo ago

He is the most popular Republican president, among other Republicans, we have had in our lifetime. Anecdotal: I live in a red state with red friends and red family. They might not like this or that but they are unwavering in their support for Trump the man. It is still very uncomfortable to say even the most superficially negative thing about him or his policies. So, maybe there is some internal dialog going on there that I'm not privy to, but outwardly the support is 100% there, and that is all that really matters.

CamperBob2 10mo ago
How does downvoting this person's statement of fact help? Trump owns the Republican Party now. He's gone well beyond mere approval.
throwawayqqq11 10mo ago
What you observe is cognitive dissonance resolved by ignorance. I dont have any advice for you, since i dont know your close ones, but a warning. When these conflicts dont get resolved in a constructive way, this behavioral conditioning might lead to repulsion targeting you. I have lost a long time childhood friend, even though my approach to him was always calm but persistent for over a decade.
- LastTrain 10mo ago
  Yes. The hardest thing about all of this is watching people I've known for years defend the indefensible. It is really difficult to stomach hearing your grandma call for the insurrection act.
  - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
    What do you feel makes their support so unwavering? Are they fine with anything as long as they feel the "bad people" are hurt? Do they genuinely see themselves getting richer? Do they simply only watch Fox News and other conservative media and never consider what's happening in their neighborhood?

troyvit 10mo ago

If it's obviously false, can you show research that proves it? Because from what I see most of this was part and parcel of a published plan. [1] People on both sides either bragged about executing Project 2025 or tried to warn their base about it. People still voted for this, and those who didn't vote at all, by staying home, also voted for it. This move slots in well with the overall exploration of eliminating the fed completely. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 [2] https://blog.uwsp.edu/cps/2024/09/12/the-project-2025-monetary-policy-gold-standard-and-federal-reserve/ https://blog.uwsp.edu/cps/2024/09/12/the-project-2025-moneta...

noncoml 10mo ago

Isn’t their approval rating 40% or something? As much as I hate what’s happening, that’s how democracy works. Sometimes the majority chooses to burn the house down and all you can do is sit and watch

aebtebeten 10mo ago
That's not how parliamentary democracies work; they have a thing called a "vote of no confidence".

dfxm12 10mo ago

Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with? I'm having a hard time thinking of things this admin and their party has done but hasn't directly campaigned on, directly praised someone else doing, etc. On the flip side of that, which empty promise, if fulfilled, would be worth the situation we're otherwise in?

johnnyanmac 10mo ago
well they had quite a few contradictions. They campaigned on "No new wars" and meanwhile the US hit Venezuela and might be trying to do the same on Greenland and Mexico. Campaigned on jobs but manufacturing has been plummeting all year. Campaigned on cheaper groceries but things are more expensive. It's a big maybe, but maybe if Trump actually managed to end the Ukraine War and push out Russia the chaos would have been a net benefit (from a utilitarian POV). Instead, he berated Zelensky on camera.
- dfxm12 10mo ago
  Trump campaigned on "No new wars", but given Trump's history in his first term, his party's history in general, you'd have to have be a rube to believe this. Also why does this earn Trump a vote when his opposition was also running on the status quo in this regard, especially the considering the historical US uniparty approach to foreign affairs? But, go ahead, set that aside. You think that is a worthwhile tradeoff for Trump sending federal agents to gun down his political enemies (US citizens who hurt their feelings)?
  - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
    I think we can both admit there's a lot of rubes in this country. >why does this earn Trump a vote when his opposition was also running on the status quo in this regard, especially the considering the historical US uniparty approach to foreign affairs? To be frank, because we're applying logic to irrational actors. It shouldn't change anything, but Trump yelled it louder, looked more like the people who voted for him, and it's just one of the many ways they rationalize what they already wanted deep down (but need the not say out loud). >You think that is a worthwhile tradeoff for Trump sending federal agents to gun down his political enemies (US citizens who hurt their feelings)? Hard to say, I'm not a utilitarian. But I can see it from that lens. You'd save hundreds of thousands of lives, further constrain Russia on the global level if Ukraine can get into NATO, and even curb off other tensions like China vs Taiwan and Israel v. Palestine. That's a lot of good. These aren't good directly reflected in the US economy nor jobs, though. That's the issue with utilitarianism in that it ignores the micro socio-economic situations, and those can build up into even worse timelines.

jghn 10mo ago

> It's just navel-gazing to pretend like what he's doing has high approval. Will these people vote for the opposition party? Or will they just say they don't like it and continue to vote GOP?

latexr 10mo ago

> Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with? I personally haven’t, no. And I definitely have never voted for a candidate who claimed they’d do horrible things if elected. There is no one who voted for Trump the second time around who has the excuse of him “doing things I don’t agree with”. He told everyone what he was going to do, and people still voted for him. Either they agree with his actions or they’re stupid. If the former, they’re irredeemable; if the latter, they need to take responsibility and act. This was not an “oopsie” you can simply regret and vote better next time, irreparable damage is being caused to the world. Negative approval ratings mean nothing to a despot.