this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2024
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 hours ago

If only journalism was this blunt at an earlier point than after he won, again.

[–] WrenFeathers 10 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

I used to naively believe that sometimes things need to get bad before they can get good. Like, sometimes someone needs to lie in the gutter first before they are able to look up at the stars…

It seems there’s no floor to how bad things can get.

It’s mostly just all gutter now.

[–] LovableSidekick 9 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

And the gutter is just a rest stop before the sewer.

[–] WrenFeathers 2 points 11 hours ago
[–] banshee 9 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

We were so close to electing a president that can speak in complete sentences!

[–] IzzyJ 1 points 10 hours ago

Two inches. We avoided Gilead by two inches

[–] LovableSidekick 8 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I'm fully ready to admit that America is an Idiocracy. It prefer to stay optimistic about the future, but when the majority of voters choose the Orange Sack of Shit in spite of everything we know about him, they must be fucking idiots. I'm ashamed to be associated with this country anymore. I've actually been anticipating that it will break up and balkanize. The goalposts keep moving but I really think it's inevitable, and I just hope the process isn't an apocalyptic mess.

[–] IzzyJ 3 points 10 hours ago

Idiots and evil. Dont forget the evil voters.

Ill take balkanization over a dictatorship tbh, maybe we can try this union thing again when ruralites get sick of being trampled

[–] inclementimmigrant 69 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

We absolutely are not. We are a nation of bigots, racists, and simpletons.

This is us, this is America.

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[–] IndustryStandard 26 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Either that or America wanted a progressive Democrat candidate. We will never know because the second never happens.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

Funny, because it has happened a couple times.

1860, 1936, and 1960. You know, some of the only moments in history America had a right to be proud of.

[–] Entropywins 5 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I don't know we had a lot of anarchists bombing shit 1900-1920s pretty proud of that

[–] IzzyJ 2 points 10 hours ago

Also the labor movement, revolting against a king I wouldve said is pretty based until the other day- but maybe we fucking need them if the people are...this

[–] Nightwingdragon 304 points 1 day ago (6 children)

We can no longer hide behind the excuse of "the electoral college". We can no longer say that Trump did not win the popular vote. Trump won the Presidency, retook the Senate, and are poised to retain the house. Progressive candidates and initiatives either underperformed or failed nationwide. A majority of voters nationwide saw everything that came with a Trump presidency and a MAGA agenda and said "Yes. We want more of that."

We are not better than this.

[–] cheese_greater 84 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (6 children)

I dont get how someone can vote for Obama twice and then just say fuck it at some point. Isn't that what more or less keeps happening, how does one make sense of all this?

How is there so much turnover and churn every election, how can someone who says he's going to make everything harder for you have any appeal?

My only guess is he's promising to go even harder on people they don't like which magically makes it all palatable

[–] athairmor 64 points 1 day ago (7 children)

That was my brother-in-law. In West Virginia. Votes for Obama twice then Trump.

Near as I can tell, they want “change” and doesn’t matter much what that means. They feel powerless in the face of the “other”. The government itself is “other”. It’s who they blame for problems whether it’s taxes or complicated rules for their small business or the way “elites” get away with doing the stuff they can’t do. They have some legitimate gripes with the government and “elites”.

Obama sold “change” really well. So did Trump. It’s not the same kind of change. And, he employed many more “others”. Trump’s change is a lie but Obama’s change never materialized even though he was probably more sincere about it.

These people are dealing with feelings of frustration, inadequacy, envy and shame. They’re lashing out and their only power is their vote. Trump fed those feelings and gave them a target and convinced them that only he could help them.

[–] sirboozebum 1 points 8 hours ago

This was the UK electorate with Boris Johnson.

It takes an absolute economic shitshow for people to stop wanting "change" and wanting simple good governance.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 23 hours ago

Trump got about the same amount of votes as he did in 2020. Harris got about 16 million less than Biden did.

It’s less that voters changed their mind and more that millions of voters will show up and vote Democrat when they care and stay home when they don’t.

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[–] CitizenKong 36 points 1 day ago (5 children)

I'm German, and non-Germans always find it weird that most of us don't have a very strong sense of national pride and are even very critical of our country, sometimes maybe even excessively so.

We have learned what uncritical, unreflected national pride leads to. What the price is to not confront the dark side that every society has.

And now, sadly, the US has to learn the same lesson the hard way too. I only hope the US and the rest of the world can come out of it with as little bloodshed as possible. But I fear for the worst.

"Remember, remember the 5th of november." has a altogether new meaning now.

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[–] xenomor 112 points 1 day ago (6 children)

This is basically the big thing that has been weighing on me. It’s very clear that the culture I thought I was brought up in, the thing that gave me pride, was not really US culture. It’s very clear to me that US culture values justice, democracy, truth, and the general wellbeing of people in no meaningful ways beyond the PR value of pretending to value these things. It’s very clear to me that this culture is way more racist, sexist, and classist than I was led to believe. It’s also very clear that this culture has an active disdain for education. In aggregate we are a gullible, irrationally emotional, entitled and greedy population with a nearly insatiable bloodlust for violence. We are, on the whole, a profoundly evil country made up of willfully ignorant masses that are ruled by duplicitous oligarchs. Now, I know that there are a lot of good people here. But there is nothing intrinsically American about their goodness. If anything they are an aberration from the seething awfulness that is America.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago

Voting booths are secret places where people can admit how they really feel without feeling judged. Trump won the popular vote because he appealed to a lot of people who didn't wear MAGA hats, or walk around in garbage bags.

The sad thing is that this isn't really a shock to the rest of the world. There's a reason why, for decades, Americans going on backpacking trips have put Canadian flags on their gear.

The only saving grace here is that it might not be that most Americans are cruel, racist, sexist, classist, etc. It might just be that they're incredibly dumb. I've listened to a lot of interviews of Trump supporters and the vast majority are idiots. They believe in crazy conspiracies. They say they love Trump's policies then can't name any of them. They can't accept that he actually legitimately lost all his legal cases. They regurgitate things they've heard, but clearly haven't even spent a second thinking about, because they go blank as soon as they're asked to elaborate on anything.

And, if the problem is really that they're morons, it may not be their fault. For some reason, the US obsession with free speech and free markets means that Internet companies can keep feeding people bullshit that makes them angry, which keeps them engaged, which keeps the ad dollars flowing. US TV networks can tell absurd lies under the guise of news, and they're apparently immune from being sued for doing it. "Concerned parents" funded by lobbying groups can fuck up the education system so that kids never learn anything that might make them feel bad. The US is allowed to have a government funded state media network that delivers factual video, audio and written news and information around the world. But, most Americans have never heard of it because it's not allowed to compete with the for-profit media in the country itself.

I dunno, maybe the world can save the US. The fact is, Europe does occasionally have strong influence in the US. Americans have to deal with cookie banners because of a GDPR law that doesn't apply in the US. Maybe if the EU took on the US tech monopolies it would actually affect the way Americans are brainwashed. But, unfortunately, I have serious doubts about whether the US can dig itself out of the hole it's in. Right now it looks like the hole is just getting deeper and deeper.

[–] nmhforlife 42 points 23 hours ago

This hurt me to read because I believe it. I wouldn’t have yesterday. I feel shame to live among these people anymore. I can’t reasonably leave but I’m not sure what else to do. This feels like defeat in a way I thought could never happen. Probably because I believed in those things that made America great. Not the government, but the people. You’re right, they are not the norm but the exception to what it means to be American. Fuck me.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 22 hours ago (4 children)

This post does a good job of articulating how I've been feeling. I think last night made it very clear what the character of our country really is. Unsalvageable garbage, unworthy of our efforts to improve it.

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[–] assembly 29 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

This is the thought that I’ve been trying to articulate. Those that are decent people aren’t good because they are Americans but in spite of being American.

[–] TrickDacy 19 points 22 hours ago

Yep. Our culture teaches our children that being uneducated (or at least acting the part) is cool. That money and physical attractiveness are the only truly important things. We embody everything that all moral philosophies warn against. Even the good ones among us in this country are tainted by the toxic culture.

A lot of people are going to flip out mentally over this, maybe Ted Kazinsky level. I'm hoping to not lose my sanity, but I will never believe in America again. It cannot be trusted with not killing itself in a haze of selfish rage. Fuck this country.

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[–] ThatOneKrazyKaptain 39 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Just with a bit of estimation of the remaining 12% of votes uncounted, Trump is going to beat his 2020 vote record by a couple million, 81 million on the high end and maybe closer to 77 million on the low end. Unlikely, but possible he beats the 2020 all time record set by Biden. Definitely beats his 2020 numbers.

Kamala recently pulled ahead of Hillary’s 65 million and Obama’s 66 million, she’s gonna end up around 71-74 million.

Kamala lost the Popular Vote. In fact she won some blue states by smaller margins then she lost some ‘swing’ states. Nevada might not even be tight enough to qualify as a swing state this election(needs to be 5% or less, Trump’s currently winning by 5.2% meaning it wasn’t a swing state), meanwhile Minnesota was won by 3, New Jersey by 4, New Hampshire by 4 and a half, and Maine might be lost we’ll see, but those 4 were all swing states as the margin was less than 5%. New Mexico and Virginia came very close(and New Mexico would have been under 5 without RFK Jr dragging Trump down a point).

This also suggests the Electoral College no longer favors Republicans, and is somewhere between neutral and actually favoring Democrats again. 2028 a tight election with a Democrat win could see them lose the PV and win the EC.

I had a ton of 2004 vibes from the start and it looks like that was correct. He is coming back to serve a second term, and YES, this time he won the national electiiion

(Also you can’t blame third parties this time, they did horribly nationwide. At worst maybe they tightened up Virginia a bit just through how uniquely bad for Democrats it was there, but on the other hand RFK Jr is the only reason New Mexico didn’t crack a sub 5 margin and go into Swing State territory again(Harris won by 5.2 there and RFK got 1 point. No third party means that crosses the 5 point threshold)

[–] Pacattack57 12 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

I saw some numbers that showed Kamala underperformed in EVERY SINGLE COUNTY compared to Biden. I hope the Dems will learn from this but they literally never do.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

We will not have another election. There is no future to learn for.

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[–] Sterile_Technique 56 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

I used to give the collective 'us' the benefit of the doubt and assume we're just stupid, not evil.

After 4 years of Trump + all the Nazi shit he's said since, he did even better than he did the first time. People aren't ignorant to all that, they fucking love it.

We need to hurry up and go extinct and hope some critter rises from the ashes and evolves to be less of a collective sack of shit.

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[–] Nuke_the_whales 69 points 23 hours ago (30 children)

Even the far left is stupid in America. They're supposed to be the educated ones. But instead of doing their civic duty, they stayed home. And you can blame it on Democrats all you like, but it's your duty to go vote, no matter who you vote for. The turnout this election was pathetic.

I don't understand how these people are going to complain now for the next 4 years, when they didn't even want to take part.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 18 hours ago

She got 14 millions less votes than Biden.I doubt there are even 10 million far leftists in the USA.

[–] TrickDacy 27 points 22 hours ago

It is absolutely fucking infuriating how many people disagree with your assessment here but you are absolutely 100% right as fuck.

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[–] MapleEngineer 8 points 16 hours ago

This is the US of A. Fear, anger, hate. Everyone else knows it. They just need to admit it to themselves.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 21 hours ago

Nope, America is and wants to be, a big, racist wagie prison. I hope the jumpsuits are red white and blue.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

Running as Republican-lite and courting the neocons will just serve to validate right-wing ideologies and strengthen the vote for the real Republican candidate. Harris needed to lean into the Walz platform, but her consultants clearly failed (sabotaged?) her. Add to this the fact that Americans grown to hate standard politicians—at least for president—and it's clear this was Trump's election to lose.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Wrong sentence to put "Opinion:" in front of

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 1 day ago

Back in 2016 they did a panel of all the creators of the TV political dramas. West Wing, Veep, Scandal, House of Cards, and all the rest.

All the creators said the same thing; if they'd had a character who said he 'liked soldiers who didn't get captured' the networks and advertisers would have demanded that character be shown to be hated by all Americans.

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