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This is a weird quote. It reeks of pretentious pseudo-intellectualism. People vote for a government that does something very tangible about all of those things.
by applfanboysbgon 4mo ago
This is a weird quote. It reeks of pretentious pseudo-intellectualism. People vote for a government that does something very tangible about all of those things. The media influenced how Americans voted in the US election, and they voted for a guy that predictably started a major new war in the Middle East. That is a real thing that happened and has impacted billions of people globally with second-order economic effects. Is anything short of each individual American taking up arms and marching to Iran "doing nothing"?
- Paracompact 4mo agoMy take on it is that he's not blaming people for the "doing nothing" part, but rather the fretting part. Of course most Americans can't reasonably do anything beyond vote or throw some dollars or social media sentiment at the thing. One should just take into mind that that is the limit of most people's ability to effect change.
- threatofrain 4mo agoWhich is enough to make the rest of the world hold their breath, waiting to see what the sum of little choices will be.
- SpicyLemonZest 4mo agoPeople vote for such a government very rarely - in the US, about once every two years. I don't think anyone would object to you spending a week or even a month before the election learning a large amount about what's wrong in the world. But when you go into the voting booth on November 3 this year, do you expect your choices will be at all influenced by the details of the bad news you read on June 21?
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- applfanboysbgon 4mo agoCandidates don't pop up out of nowhere on election day, and building support for either candidates or policies takes time, public debate, raising awareness. All of that is a reason for more political engagement, not less. Given how much power we actually wield to significantly influence how issues are approached in a democracy, we should strive to make more constructive use of the news. There are real, deep-seated problems with both the current media and how people consume it, but we have a civic responsibility to do better rather than disengage, because quite literally the fate of millions of people are influenced by the sum of our actions.
- inigyou 4mo agoCandidates don't find it difficult to express the most popular opinions in the short time before an election. You really do have to know what they did previously if you want to correctly evaluate them.
- foxglacier 4mo agoYou'd have trouble finding a candidate who wouldn't predictably start a major war in the middle East. Biden and Trump 1 were kind of exceptions. Kamala certainly seemed pro-war-in-the-middle-East with her support for Israel, so she's out. Who did you vote for instead?
- watwut 4mo agoFrankly, bullshit. Harris did not seemed more pro war or aggressive, unless you live in deep conservative bubble.
- pjc50 4mo agoThe slight problem here is that the war was started by Netenyahu, whom US voters are unable to remove. But yes, I doubt Harris would have gone for the decapitation strike that destabilized everything.
- watwut 4mo agoWar was started by Trump, Hegseth and Netenyahu. Hegseth specifically wants wars for emotional reasons - it makes him feel good. America has a lot of Iran hawks, especially in goverment/military circles. They got their way.
- foxglacier 4mo agoSee what I mean? America keeps starting wars in the middle east. Go back further in time and it was Obama, then Bush, then a little bit of Clinton, then the other Bush. It doesn't matter who or what party they're in, they mostly end up doing it anyway. No reason to think Harris would be anything different, especially considering her statements of promising military support to Israel.
- saulapremium 4mo agoIt sounds like you are trying to both-sides away the fact that Trump (or "Trump 2", if you insist) is an outlier here. US support for Israel has been pretty invariant over the years but nobody went along with Bibi's wet dream until now.
- devsda 4mo ago> People vote for a government that does something very tangible about all of those things People don't do that. Politics in US(and democracies in general) have what I call the cable tv bundling problem. Imagine you have only two bundle packages with your most preferred channels split evenly across two packages along with some unwanted channels. Regardless of which package you choose, you'll miss out on some of your favorite channel and still subscribe to unwanted ones. You may enjoy watching a channel occassionally at your neighbors who subscribed to the other package but when it is time for renewal, you personally pick the package that gives you maximum bang for your money & preferences. People will vote mainly based on one or two issues they strongly feel about.
- azzzxcc123 4mo ago[dead]
- anon7725 4mo agoIn this case, one of the packages is uninspiring and the other is fascism, so the choice is fairly clear.
- simonask 4mo agoThe US is a statistical outlier in almost every single metric. Almost nothing about the US generalizes, not to the world as a whole, and not to other Western countries. Certainly not to functioning liberal democracies.
- marcosdumay 4mo ago
- joshrw 4mo agoIt wasn’t predictable that he would start a war. He presented himself as the anti-war candidate and then betrayed his electorate.
- N_Lens 4mo agoIt was evident to anyone aware and paying attention.
- cryo32 4mo agoThe real question is should you have trusted his manifesto after the last time?
- simonask 4mo agoFrom outside the US, nothing about him has really been predictable, except that he consistently lies about everything. The only predictable thing about this American presidency is the total chaos that has been inflicted on the world by millions of intellectually degenerate Americans. This is what the world sees. Almost nobody is making excuses for him, everybody is trying to move on without the US. So yeah, in that sense another war is simultaneously an unpredictable outcome and an unsurprising outcome.
- torben-friis 4mo agoDuring his first term, his continuous threats to north Korea were enough to force congress to restrict presidential powers (the whole fire and fury stuff), and that's not counting Venezuela, Syria and others.
- krior 4mo agoSince January 6th it was clear that he would be willing to secure his power in any way. The most obvious way in america is to start a war. And even if noone could predict that - the worst part is all the Americans sitting by, twiddling thumbs after seeing Trump making the whole world worse. You are the loudest "democracy" on the planet, but noone demands the necessary accountability from the dear leader. Democracy does not only happen on election day.
- danaris 4mo ago
- cryo32 4mo agoIt’s not really. The peekaboo world, elegantly described, gives you enough information or misinformation to make an uninformed decision. You vote for who you were told to vote for.
- ReptileMan 4mo agoOn the other hand - you may not choose a whether a president will start a war in the middle east, but Trump's cost was abnormally low compared to his predecessors in one very important area - soldier's coffins coming home. His adventurism may have had substantial financial costs, but is better than Bush or Obama on deaths while in combat. Trump is unhinged enough to not care about sunk cost fallacy. The deal is still terrible though.