Ah the memories

Them in 2016: "He's not LITERALLY a fascist"
Them in 2024: "Okay he's openly announcing his intent to be a dictator and get rid of the 'others' who are 'poisoning our blood', but unless it's from the Bavarian area of Germany, it's just sparkling authoritarianism. Besides, Biden is just as bad!"
- The Bavarian area of Germany?
  Hitler was Austrian and at least in Germany people use this saying with Italian Mussolini style fascism or even just German
  I know it started in Munich but calling it Bavarian in origin is a bit unusual
  
  It’s just a skooch of humor, not an academic treatise.
  Oh, I see you’re in Germany. Well, that probably didn't come across the same as it did here. Sorry - carry on.
  
  Most people know the geography of your home like you know the geography of theirs: not really.
  
  Maybe a reference to the München putsch?
- I don't live in a swing state, my hands were tied.
  
  How’d your downballot do?
  
  I don't live in a swing state, my hands were tied.
  Damn election process in USA is kinky.

I remember once of my coworkers saying, "I hear what you're saying about Trump having issues, but I feel like we need to try something different, and the president doesn't really have that much power anyway, so there's not much he can do."
Now he passionately hates Trump and tries to avoid any conversation about Trump voters because he was one.
- Honestly, I thought trump running for president was the funniest thing ever. There was no way the idiot would win and at least the political season would have a clown to laugh at. I could not have been so wrong by Nov. I mean he made his announcement for candidacy descending a golden fucking escalator. From there he never stopped being a beyond parody asshole born from corporate America…and to this day I cannot really grasp how he became that popular. Although, I have strong feelings that much of it is born out of reaction to Obama’s presidency
  
  I'm so completely with you. I was maybe a tiny bit less surprised because I have a coworker why travels a lot across middle America and he said he heard a lot of people talking about needing a change and Trump being a "man of the people" (which is objectively insane to say). I agree with you, though: a lot was in reaction to Obama, especially to having a black president.
  
  You really shouldn’t discount the role of russian propagandists and hackers. They were synchronized at the perfect moment in time when the boomers lost they damned minds and started posting insane screeds on the interwebs.
  
  I keep reading comments from people who cannot grasp how he became popular, so I keep flogging this article: What Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán Understand About Your Brain It's not precisely on-point, but it's the only one I've seen in the popular media to even start to address the issue.
  TL;DR: It's not a conscious, rational decision to support him. It's a hijacking of the fight-or-flight reaction to fear and resist facts.
- At least he is sane enough to regret it, unlike massive swaths of dimwits across the country.
  
  I agree. I honestly think his demographic was key to Biden winning.
- Eight years of Obama telling everyone his hands were tied because of Congress and the Courts and the states and public opinion and the need to win the next election cycle.
  Trump comes in like a wrecking ball, giving his goon squad cover to do anything they pleased. And after four years of that, we were convinced Presidents are powerful after all.
  Then Biden steps into office and the President can't do anything again.
  
  Right, because Republicans only care about getting their way and Democrats try to play by the rules and tradition. It gets pretty frustrating.
  
  If they have no problems with impropriety, blatantly breaking established norms and laws, and getting impeached a couple times, a President can do quite a bit!
  
  Now imagine the Suer of the United States stepping into office
- Someone I know who voted for McCain because she said "liberals don't care enough about individual rights" went psychotic on her Republican friends when he was elected. I asked her if she understood if voting for Sarah Palin laid the ground work for this and she unfriended me.
  
  Not like she was going to admit fault
- He has my respect. It takes a lot of courage and humility to recognize that you were completely wrong and stand in opposition.
  He shouldn't about conversations about Trump voters. He should be proud he isn't one any longer.
  
  It does take a lot of stupid to ever vote for a clearly destructive president and it just should be a permanent stain on your soul if you do that to others
- Yeah. My co-worker pissed his vote away on johnson because he bought into the Clinton derangement propaganda. Still hated trump, but ensured trump would win. He doesn’t like to talk about it either for some reason.
  
  he bought into the Clinton derangement propaganda
  Clinton was a bad candidate. Her time at Sec State gave us a slew of foreign policy bungles. Her time in the Senate under Bush Jr was even worse.
  That's why she got upset by Obama in 2008. People rightfully didn't trust her to run the country, even from within her own party. She was so unpopular that she nearly lost to a socialist junior senator from Vermont in her second attempt.
  If we could have just left the office vacant from 2016 to 2020, that might have been a better move for the country.

A heartfelt "fuck you" to everyone who told me I was overreacting in July of 2016.
- I actually blame myself for all of this, after Barry(who is still pretty problematic) got reelected in 2012 I kinda figured that eventually all the bullshit would work itself out and stopped paying too much attention to politics. Then the history major in me woke up in that July and now realize I must be forever vigilant
  
  In a history perspective, how do we get out of this?
- Yeah that would have been a better one.

My god when Trump did his presidential announcement way back when, I was thinking this is going to be a weird few months while he does this publicity thing and then doesn’t get elected and we’ll never talk about him again until his next weird announcement. Here we are 8 years later. What a ride it’s been. I literally don’t think we could have come up with this in 2012. We wouldn’t have been creative enough.
- I loved the interview when he was like ''mexicans, man fuck all of them racially'' and the wet nossle shit stick interviewing him is all ''oh that sounds quite racist... try saying hispanic or Latino people and say it's only the illegal ones you hate, it sounds less openly racist''
  Like, good job asshole, you just helped him convince the stupidest non racists around that he's not openly racist. We really needed that to happen. His constant grooming to say shit that ment what he still always ment but wasn't just unbelievably blatant really pissed me off. How about DON'T help him, ask questions like 'what IS wrong with the blacks' and let him speak his mind. Why are you fucking helping him!!
  But you know. Ratings were so good....
  
  you just helped him convince the stupidest non racists around that he’s not openly racist.
  I think you greatly underestimate the amount of racism in the U.S. and the amount of people who will tolerate a racist even if they don't really have any racist feelings themselves if they think it will get them some sort of benefit.
  Trump appealed to both.
  I don't think anyone was under any illusion that the "when Mexico sends its people, its not sending its best" speech was anything but racist.
- Yeah, when he entered the race, it was hilarious. You were able to distance yourself from the hilarious things and the horrible things he'd say about Marco Rubio, or Ted Cruz, or JEB! (please clap) Bush, because he'd never win. But as he crept closer to the nomination, it got less funny and more horrifying every day.
- When he actually got elected i thought it's gonna take a few month and then even gis fanclub realizes that he's not a president, smart, or hardly a human being. Then it's gonna drag on, he's not gonna get re elected and even the people who voted for him go: yeah, i don't know who voted for him, that was crazy, right?
  But now the brain-dead pedophile convicted criminal rapist is apparently still the best they have to offer.
  
  And the few who have turned on him now prefer the guy who literally had a worm eat part of his brain.
  This reality must be satire.
- Dude I remember seeing the first debate before going on a backpacking trip with my parents.
  My parents at the time I considered Republican, but not conservative. When they saw the debate they laughed and made jokes that the dude will never win.
  Then when I came closer to the election, they turned around. Thinking he was awesome and the answer to the "government" problem.
  Now, they aren't hard-line Trump supporters, but their views have definitely changed towards being a lot more conservative. I've seen their stances change quite a bit since then.
  
  I'm sorry for your loss.

I'll admit that for a week I said, "he won, let's see what he can do" and quickly learned that he was absolutely the douche everyone was saying he would be.
- As someone who also fell into that boat once upon a time as well, it's crazy to me that people can look back and say "oh he did a good job, we totally need four more years of that".
- For me it lasted until the first press conference.
- I thought for sure that he could do a terrible enough job that nearly all the average Americans would quickly realize what a piece of shit he was and demand his impeachment.

Me in 2016: "Weeeeelp I guess we'll see if these checks and balances work"
Me in 2024: "Somehow I'm still not sure"
- Them in 2016: Institutions will save us!
  Them in 2021: inchoate screaming

Remember those first 90 days or so when Republicans were dead convinced that Trump was going to pivot at any moment and start acting more presidential?
Yeah, they gave up on that eventually and moved the goalposts, as usual.
- Guys! He's just acting retarded to appeal to us retards! He'll be presidential once he's in the white house!
  I don't think they even realized how idiotic they were being.
  I just hate how short lived people's memory is... After W there shouldn't have been a Republican president for the next 50 years... Yet people forgot after 8....now it seems even worse because you've got morons on here already bOtH sIdInG like the fucking orange traitor never happened.

I took election day off and went to see Dr. Strange. I had been waiting 33 years for that movie so it is no surprise that it was a disappointment. Then, to see the exit polling was like a stab to the heart. What a crappy day.
- whaaa you didnt like dr strange? its one of my favorites of the mcu
  
  "Mister Doctor!!"

Yeah but watching the President have a twitter spat with Kim Jong Un was pretty funny.
- I was about 30% convinced that that Twitter feud was going to lead to North Korea firing nukes at the US. Trump just wouldn’t shut his mouth and I was freaking out.
  
  Agreed. I didn't find it funny, I found it terrifying. World leaders behaving like literal children.
  
  North Korea firing nukes at the US.
  Fair, but also North Korea has demonstrated they can't even reliably hit Japan (or at least they couldn't at the time) so I don't think we had much to worry about.
  
  Lol
- He fixed it all when he saluted their soldiers!

My face is stuck in a permanent "YOU DENSE MOTHERFUCKER" meme because of these people.
- People really enjoy discarding reality to make themselves feel better.
  The latest dense motherfucker moment is all people right now who think Trump's conviction means he will go to prison and they won't have to worry about voting in November.
  I've been called a nazi repeatedly for explaining that while the fantasy might make us all feel better, the reality is no judge on EARTH would condemn a geriatric, senile, ex-president to die in prison, to think nothing of the complications of things like Secret Service. "FuCk yOu FaSciSt!" they reply.
  
  A strange day when you get called a fascist for encouraging center and left wing turnout to an election.

Imagine getting put into a coma at the end of 2015 and waking up going online. You have to contend with the fact that yes, Trump for president was real, that people voted for him, that he is running for his second term and its an inconsecutive term. And that is all shit related to the elections nothing about 1/6, covid or ukraine.
- 1/6?
  
  January 6.

The worst part is those SAME people are claiming we are overreacting about the real chance he wins again...
- Not me. I was a myopic "you are overreacting" person in 2016. I didn't like Hillary, but I also didn't think DT would win, and if he did I didn't think he would be much worse, just bad in different ways.
  I admit that I was shortsighted, uninformed, and completely wrong. On the upside, I pay way more attention than I used to, and I have been disabused of my notion that nothing would ever change (for better or worse) as a result of the pendulum of politics.

A heartfelt "fuck you" to everyone.

This memory was made possible by donations from the DNC
- But she was right about everything!
  The part that really hurts is that it seems like the Democrats are setting themselves up to do it again.
  
  I wouldn’t say she was right about anything other than calling trump supporters deplorables
  https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774/
  
  Liberalism, by definition, is a set of values that maintains that all social and political problems can be addressed via existing power structures and systems.
  The current democratic party is about as liberal as they come, with many bordering on neo-liberal, which is just a new way to say "old fashioned republican."
  They may look neutered and impotent and terrible at planning, but they're right where they want to be. They maintain power but can also use the excuse of not being able to get past Republican obstructionism so that's why they haven't pushed major political reform.
  The system is only broken for those it's not benefitting directly.
  (You don't have to like them, but you need to vote for them right now because I rather have a grifters in charge than evil grifters who want to bring about the dark-ages all over again.)
  
  But she was right about everything!
  Except the bit about assuming she could easily beat trump.
- And voters like you, Thank you.

I'm not familiar with (I'm guessing) american politics can someone give me a short summary?

This. I felt so betrayed by who was on the ballot that I changed my political party to Green Party, voted for Jill Stein, took a job near a hippy little town in the woods, moved my kids, told them we were cutting off corporate America and changing our diets…only to eventually lose my house in foreclosure after not being able to provide on one income, with an unemployed spouse. I’d like to just say that it’s tough being new in a small town, but that wasn’t it. America f_cked my family over so bad in 2016, and politics/the election were just the tip of the iceberg of it all.

Is he finally your president?

i agree with you, but thats quite a petty thing to say.
Stop spreading hate, it helps no one.

A person can still be overreacting even if they end up being right.

Ah, I remember November 2016. The kids in the hippie dorm beat the shit out of someone on their floor because they didn't vote.
Don't get me wrong, Trump is a fascist. With that out of the way, just let me say that if you freak the fuck out over everything all the time, you are bound to be right every once in a while. It's not impressive when you live your entire life in a histrionic state.
- Uh, username . . . checks out? :)
- Correctly predicted 47 of the last 4 disasters

- Cope harder, brownshirt