You can laugh at these people but they would also have been the ones to carry Bernie to victory if he hadn’t been screwed by the DNC (and the electoral system at large).
These people are infinitely more likely to open up to a leftist candidate than your affluent lib who call themselves progressives and shit on the left for not toeing the Democratic party line.
Exactly. These peoples' opinions are incoherent because they're the product of a system designed to pump out incoherent, idealist workers. Do something to improve these peoples' material conditions, show them there's an alternative to what they've been stewing in for their entire lives, and a not-insignificant chunk of them will be in your Das Kapital reading group by the end of the year.
Also speaks to how Democrats can't even perform anti-war rhetoric. Kamala and Trump were both about equal in how they talked about the Gaza genocide (different styles, but still just gesturing that something is bad here without pointing fingers). But on Ukraine, you have Democrats absolutely cheering on the war.
Initial stage of the war? Sure, NATO support could've put Ukraine in a stronger position to negotiate peace and prevent as large an illegal land grab. But, no. All political/diplomatic possibilities were taken off the table, while Zelensky and Biden were possessed by WWI generals with a love of trench warfare and stalemates.
These people are the least politically educated people in the world.
is literally them
It continually baffles me that americans can be this politically uneducated. There are people in the UK who know nothing about politics at all and have never ever had anyone sit down and teach them any theory but they will be able to tell you that there's a working class and a ruling class and who is in each of them with mostly accuracy until you get into petty-bourgeoise elements.
It continually baffles me that americans can be this politically uneducated.
It is 100% by design. The entirety of the education system (what's left of it), media, and culture are grared toward engendering political illiteracy and false consciouness. Everyone is middle class. Baristas are cultural elites. Business owners with rural aesthetic signifiers are working class - even if they live in a large city. Also the working class are all round 40ish bald white men in hard hats. Businesses need profits so they can pay workers .
Its not an excuse, but this is the product of about a 100 years of propaganda and even longer than that of settler-colonial mindset
A 2020 Gallup poll found that 46% of American adults read below a 6th grade (11 or 12 year old) level. Many surveys have found slightly better but still worrisome reading levels in the adult population. This is not a matter of Americans being able to read what is on a page, but rather that they do not know how to take in and process information.
Any political analysis that does not start with this fact is fundamentally flawed.
I’ve heard before that socioeconomic class is part of colloquial existence in the UK. Is this true? In the US our civil religion insists that the class fluidity found amongst white settlers throughout most parts of the country’s existence continues to exist, and now for everyone. So we just don’t talk about class as if it’s real. It’s seen as condescending and rude to act like someone doesn’t have the potential to become extremely wealthy just because they were born a certain way.
Which is entirely reasonable when consensus reality has collapsed and the skills necessary to fact check dubious claims are completely absent from any American curriculum.
and the time necessary to dig into a bunch of dubious claims by a politician who is likely lying to you is beyond what's reasonable for a person working a full-time job with a family or anything vaguely resembling a social life
The 2028 race is going to be between a creepy weirdo and an elitist ghoul, both of them extremely off-putting. At that time things will be worse than they are now so I think the elitist ghoul has the best chances, simply by representing the other team.
In April, the NYT did a poll (or archive) asking people what they remember most from the Trump presidency.
Voters who shared negative memories of the Trump years overwhelmingly mentioned aspects of his behavior and personality, while the bulk of positive memories were about the economy.
So the Democratic voters couldn't even articulate the material things that were bad about those years. Only 9% picked "immigration," and the quotes from people who gave that answer were 6-1 in favor of his immigration policies.
Exaclty. The worst thing he did was be uncouth. He wasn't civil. He said the quiet parts out loud. I've yet to have a lib tell me why he was so bad that wasn't a variation on, "he wasn't civil".
I mean I guess. I think people just head trump talking about how things are bad. that part is true, things ARE bad. And Dems like to explain how things aren't actually bad
Yeah he does and Dems are lying to people by not admitting it, I agree.
I just think Trump says a whole bunch of other shit, too, and that makes up for the moments of lucidity. At least as far as being "real" goes.
tbh my intention was to crack a joke drawing attention to how hypocritical AOC looks broadcasting those words given her brand and rhetoric on Trump. Trump might have caught a stray but I don't feel too bad about it.
American voters are like units in RTS games: if you don't given them specific orders, they'll either do nothing or go off and do the dumbest shit without any logical explanation.
tom sexton said this thing once--which i think he attributed to someone else--that when it comes to politicking it doesn't matter what you say. it doesn't even matter how you say it. what matters is what people felt when they heard you say it.
i think about that shit a lot and i'll be goddamned if it doesn't ring more and more true every year.
I went a few rounds on Reddit before the election asking what I should do given that I didn't feel like Biden delivered on the issues I care about the most (Gaza and the climate), and he eventually threw up his hands and said "fine, vote for Trump, stay home, I don't care."
People don't really feel like their party listens to them, get repeatedly told that there's only two options, and then get surprised when this sort of incoherence manifests. Sure, some people are dumb and don't actively seek to educate themselves, but folks are also beaten down by a system that constantly condescends, discourages participation other than voting, and mounts militarized responses to protests. I can understand why you'd give up and just do what punishes the incumbent even if it leads to a worse outcome overall. I didn't make that choice myself, but I can understand it.
That type of voter is one of the main reasons why Trump won in 2016. They all recognized his name from his TV-show and vaguely remembered having positive feelings at that time, so he must be the right choice.
uh sweaty they don’t have to be LITERAL bots, but they sure act like ones 🙄🙄🙄 anyone can be brainwashed by putler. if it walks like a bot and quacks like a bot, it might just be a bot 🙄🙄🙄🙄
I've seen sweety (as in someone who is loved) so many times mispelled as sweaty (as in someone covered in sweat). At this point I'm wondering if it's a very common spelling mistake or if it is intentional and something I'm missing.
loved ones say you're both straightforward and challenging corruption and broken gov
"uhhh yeah like, my aunt told me you were legit so like, I'm with you sis, ride or die"
I hear shit like this from people IRL all the time. The fact that an enormous sum of people make decisions that (they believe) are critically important because they heard one thing from a person they know or from the TV is what confirms for me that humanity deserves its impending demise.