Fear triumphs over hope as Trump wins the presidency – how did it happen?
Fear triumphs over hope as Trump wins the presidency – how did it happen?
To elect Donald Trump once may be regarded as a misfortune; to elect him twice looks like craziness
Summary
Despite Trump’s criminal record, serial lying, and racist demagoguery, he won the 2024 US presidential election, reflecting America’s deep-seated anxieties and cultural divisions.
Trump’s celebrity persona, economic populism, and culture warrior appeals resonated with his base, while Kamala Harris faced challenges in defining herself and overcoming gender and racial biases.
The election underscores the decay of American democracy, raising concerns about the future of the nation.
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It happened because Americans are easily fooled. This country has had all the evidence of what a total piece of shit this guy is, and they chose not to believe it because he played a business man on a fucking game show. It sucks for anyone who wanted to see America do well.
Yup. With the high likelihood that Republicans get the trifecta, this country is about to become a lot more dangerous for my kids, both LGBTQ+, because dipshits believed that a "businessman" whose businesses all fail is good for the economy.
Not just the LGTBQ kids. I worry about most kids. Child labor laws were getting more shakey already. Schools and education have been suffering. Healthcare also stands to take a hit. I'm worried.
Robert Kennedy is about to be put in charge of American health care and Elon Musk om our federal budget. When Musk said next 4 years was going be tough for the majority of Americans they meant it. Yet still majority voted for Trump.
There will be face eating leopards like no one has ever seen before
Honestly at least with musk theres a non zero chance he bankrupts the federal government.
You mean default on its debt? I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump could be convinced to stiff the creditors, ignoring the implications.
Pretty much, either that or something as stupid as dissolving the IRS and trying to get sheriffs to collect taxes. The one good thing about Trump and company is that the smartest one still only has room temperature IQ.
That's actually the plan.
Bankrupt the government and sell it off for parts.
If they actually move as fast as Trump has promised to, the next four years are going to be absolute chaos. Anything that relies on federal funding will be mired in uncertainty - 23 million people work for federal, state and local governments.
Edit - not to mention the tens of millions more who work for contractors and consultants who have contracts with federal, state, and local agencies
Every kid's future just got worse because of the impending abolition of the EPA (among other things) and shift back to a "drill, baby, drill" approach to climate change.
Plus you can kiss education goodbye you can't get an educated man to go down into a mine. Or blindly obey your authoritarian leader
Honestly, I’m going to laugh long and hard at the economic collapse when it comes. These fucking idiot “captains of industry” wanted this. Enjoy the results, I guess. You’ll get a few good quarters, and then absolute, complete chaos.
The true captains of industry do want this. chaos is how they transfer wealth from the poor to themselves.
In a depression, the money doesn't vanish, it goes into the pockets of the super rich.
I'm tired of the "fooled innocent Americans" trope. Fuck that. They knew exactly what they did. Face the reality: half of Americans are now trumpists. FACE IT.
Yup. It's the Good German trope from the Nazi era. People knew damn well there was something awful going on.
I've seen vastly more ignorance than evil in my life, but it seems like some people prefer to feel surrounded by malevolence.
Fucking seriously. People need to grow up and face reality.
Just because a human might not be inherently bad doesn't mean people can't be beyond redemption. Not everyone has infinite compassion, not every scenario allows for a perfect person to lead by perfect example to save the day.
Us mere mortals have to be practical if we want to protect anything.
Why do you think they are being fooled? If anything I think one of the appeal of Trump is the fact that he owns his corruption and shadiness.
this election was lost by single issue voters not showing up.
Some of it is...understandable, albeit self-sabotaging (Gaza, for example,) others are on about abortion or the economy or immigration, taxes.
What they don't see is that there's so many issues a proper government needs to balance; and being a single-issue-voter is exactly what lets this happen. The sad truth is gaza is gonna get royally fucked now. Abortion is gonna get banned and women are gonna die; the economy is going to get wrecked so the oligarchs get to buy up all the cheap shit they want, immigrants are gonna get blamed for all of it; including the taxes because the oligarchs are too busy fucking us to pay their own damn taxes.
this election was lost by single issue voters not showing up.
Absolutely. Look at the vote totals; not all votes are in, but Trump is actually running a few million behind his 2020 total, while Harris is 15M+ behind what Biden pulled in. Trump doesn't seem to have much more support than last time, but about 1 out of 7 voters that Biden earned did not vote this time.
The ones who did it over Gaza should prepare to be heartbroken when they see what Bibi and Trump do there next year.
I mean I am also interested to see how many votes the fucking Cheneys brought in...that was supposed to be bargain they were making by tacking very hard to the right. If the dems lost on enthusiasm its because they were decidedly not running an enthusiasm campaign.
None, I'm afraid. 5% of Republicans voted for Biden in 2020. 5% voted for Harris in 2024. A centrist waste
I don't know about that. I and most all the others I know were pretty goddamn enthusiastic about Kamala.
Absolutely.
And as for Gaza, they just announced dumping the MoDefense(?) because he wasn’t genocidal enough.
Announced it on election day as hopefully one last fuck-you to Biden.
The people that refused to vote entirely on the basis of the Gaza have effectively shot themselves, and everyone else, in the foot.
There was never a real choice to stop Israel on the ballet, but now with Trump in office, even deescalation is off the cards.
It must be great for these folks to be able to wash their hands of it like Ponchus Pilot, whilst Trump gives Israel the go-ahead to annhilate the people of Gaza.
There are multiple causes.
The main one? Nazis. By about a trillion percent.
this election was lost by single issue voters not showing up
You mean, the candidate didn't do her fucking job pandering to the electorate? You mean the democratic machine didn't take their own rhetoric about democracy being threatened seriously enough to make sure to pander to every corner of the electorate to build the broadest possible coalition? You mean that the shitty electioneering consultants fucked up so much that they created a void for Donald Fucking Trump to show up to Michigan and get imams to endorse him as the "peace candidate"?
If you want to blame voters for electing Trump, blame the fucking white trumpist majority. Not the minorities that the Democrats didn't deign to try to woo and win their vote.
this election was lost by single issue voters not showing up.
I doubt it, unless their single issue was "can we have a real candidate". It's not about one or a few unpopular policies; Harris was just an incompetent, uninspiring corporate slop candidate who made enemies of her voters. I mean look at her campaign, or the lack thereof, and you'll notice she had a much more fundamental problem than pissing off single issue voters. I mean she lost (or is on the way to losing) all swing states. I am very doubtful that this can be attributed to single issue voters.
They weren't fooled. They knew exactly what he is.
They didn't care.
That's the fallacy that us lefties kinda fall into, that if someone was just educated enough or knew enough or could see the facts, the person would change their mind.
The thing is, this was all about trying to get back at the left and minorities. "Fuck you I don't like the changing world I want my pretend 50s universe with no blacks and gays"
And also because his base is a cult. Which would require deprogramming.
You say this like they would care if he's a criminal. I actually think they like that about him. At least a few million of these dickheads do.
No, Americans didn't vote. The same thing happened when he beat Clinton. She went too far right and her base didn't vote for her.
All blame falls on the Democrats for failing to learn.
I think this is an oversimplification and lets Democrats off the hook.
A large part of how he won is to do with how polarised US politics are. The Democrats and Republicans are polar opposites, to the point that no matter who the candidates are the core voters could never conscience voting for the other side. Some Republicans may hate Trump but they will still vote republican as they see the Democrats standing for things they just don't agree with (whether that's Immigration or abortion or conservative values or fiscal conservatism etc). It just takes one; things are so polarised that it's inbuilt that it's a binary decision. The Democrats are just as guilty as the Republicans for carving up US democracy between the two of them. If you look at polls, they say 50:50 split but actually thats just "likely voters"; the underlying split is more like 1/3:1/3 with a whole 1/3 of the electorate disenfranchised and not bothering to vote. When they talk about undecideds, they're talking about 2% of people likely to vote; not the whole 1/3 of the election who don't vote at all. 3rd parties don't get a look in, and even get blamed for taking votes from the anointed of the two big parties.
On top of that, the Democrats really fucked up. The party leadership supported Biden running, and no serious candidates stood in the primary race even though he was already clearly a weakened candidate due to age. Then when he was finally persuaded to go at near the last minute, it was too late. They again didn't have a primary, they had a coronation, and then a short run to establish her. I like Harris but she inherited his team, his set up and was unable and unwilling to paint herself as a change candidate as she wouldn't criticise the perceived mistakes of her own incumbent white house. She focused on abortion, and could seemingly not address the economy in a meaningful way to appeal to voters.
I don't think it's because Americans are easily fooled. I think it's because both parties have created an extremely polarised political landscape which they have both used to their advantage to suppress 3rd parties and other views across the 50 states. In addition, the Democrat party tried to claim it was an election about "preserving democracy" and yet chose to do that by not enabling democracy in their own party.
Hopefully the Democrats will take a long hard look at themselves. And the good news, a slither of good news, is that in 2028 there will not be any Clintons or Bidens hanging around whose "turn" it is to run. The party can actually have an open primary and the best candidates can stand instead of feeling they shouldn't run. Would we be in this position if there had been a full primary and the candidate had been someone like Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsome, Josh Shapiro or even just a truly independent run by Harris?
These liberal tears will provide energy for my nuclear generator for a long time. Thank you.