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On November 16 2024 03:43 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Question: How much should we be blaming American voters for making the stupid, gullible, uninformed decision to vote against their own interests by electing Trump again? Obviously, we've talked quite a bit about all of Biden's mistakes and Harris's mistakes and Democrats' mistakes and Trump's successes and Republican social media's successes, which all absolutely contributed to Trump's victory and Harris's defeat. What about the average person though - how much of a responsibility do they have to do even a simple Google search to find Harris's website, or to watch 20 minutes of one of her speeches, or to learn what a tariff is, or to fact-check anything Trump says? The fact that a large number of American voters - even on Election Day - still didn't even know that Joe Biden dropped out several months ago, is deeply concerning ( https://www.10news.com/news/fact-or-fiction/fact-or-fiction-did-biden-drop-out-search-spiked-tuesday ).
I gotta say, I really, really dislike Trump personally. I think he's an absolutely awful person to lead the country. However, this conversation is far more nuanced than the whole people who voted for Trump are "stupid, gullible, uninformed"..... How about watching this:
There are a lot of people in the USA that can relate to the experiences shared in this video. That is probably closer to the average American's experience than your own..... Education and opportunities in rural areas are getting worse relative to the opportunities in bigger cities, and he even mentions the "brain drain" that occurs when people move to the cities for those better opportunities.
The democrats have done a shitty job trying to appeal to the "average American"..... It really doesn't matter if a voter doesn't understand what a tariff is at this point..... Too many people are concerned with how they're going to pay their rent or mortgage. Too many people are trying to figure out how to pay their bills on time, or how to pay for food until their next payday. Too many people are struggling right now, and often in ways that could have been avoided. Vance mentions almost falling for a predatory interest rate on his first car purchase. He was lucky that he had guidance and some support which helped him avoid a huge mistake. Many "average people don't have that, and end up getting screwed.
Trump picking Vance as his running mate so they could put out messaging like this was an absolutely brilliant move in comparison. Vance changed his tune from being anti-Trump to very pro-Trump, but the messaging clearly resonated with enough people to help get them elected. Calling people "stupid, gullible, uninformed" will never get them to vote for you or the way you want them to.....
On November 16 2024 03:43 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Question: How much should we be blaming American voters for making the stupid, gullible, uninformed decision to vote against their own interests by electing Trump again? Obviously, we've talked quite a bit about all of Biden's mistakes and Harris's mistakes and Democrats' mistakes and Trump's successes and Republican social media's successes, which all absolutely contributed to Trump's victory and Harris's defeat. What about the average person though - how much of a responsibility do they have to do even a simple Google search to find Harris's website, or to watch 20 minutes of one of her speeches, or to learn what a tariff is, or to fact-check anything Trump says? The fact that a large number of American voters - even on Election Day - still didn't even know that Joe Biden dropped out several months ago, is deeply concerning ( https://www.10news.com/news/fact-or-fiction/fact-or-fiction-did-biden-drop-out-search-spiked-tuesday ).
I think there is an ideal level of responsibility a voter should have, however I have a hard time holding people to that responsibility given the atrocious literacy rates and general crappy living situations people are feeling.
American society is failing it's citizenry, and I'd rather put that fault at the feet of the people who have been systematically failing us than the people who have been most negatively impacted.
We can start blaming voters more directly when the government starts doing a genuinely good job of supporting and educating people lol
On November 15 2024 19:10 BlackJack wrote: Cabinet picks by Trump are a joke. Matt Gaetz is a clown. An anti-vaxxer as your health guy. Fox News host for Secretary of Defense. Tulsi Gabbard is just a shill that realized her career would be better with an R next to her name. It's basically a who's who of anyone willing to kiss his ass the hardest.
The only pick that could possibly remedy the situation is Alex Jones as head of the NSA. Let’s goooooooo maga.
On November 15 2024 17:47 Velr wrote: When ideas are based in reality, I like to engage.
If it's moronic left/right wing extremist garbage. I don't see any value in it and that so many people do, is part of the problem.
My dad always used to tell me that if everyone else seems like the problem its probably worth looking at yourself.
Pretending like the cozy centrist political consensus is working for enough people for you to consider only centrism to be worth engaging with is what I would call delusional.
If you don't believe me, look at the results of recent elections.
I don't think it is fair to claim that Velr only views centrists as worth engaging with.
I personally consider myself to be pretty leftwing. Not GH-style leftwing, but rather leftwing nonetheless. I believe that our society requires a lot more redistribution of wealth from the rich to normal people, and that that is one of the top problems currently. I do not think i am a centrist.
And yet i have not had the impression that Velr had any problems engaging with me so far.
I don't think this is actually about political positions, but about sanity and being rooted in reality. And i would agree that in the last decade or so, groups of people that are just completely detached from reality have gained ever more prominence. And those groups of people with "alternate facts" are really, really hard to talk to.
I suppose it depends on how you define things. I didn't bother to ask Velr so you might be right tbh. Some people would define socialists as anything to the left of Elon Musk economically so when velr says socialists are awful i assume he just means leftists in general. I get that that's wrong but everyone seems to have their own definitions of these terms these days.
When it comes to alternative facts, I get just as frustrated as you guys do with the whole idea, but its worth examining where they have come from and why. If the story being told by the more 'sane' governments who tend to be centrists or medium left/right came across as true and worth listening to people probably wouldn't be driven to go find their own convenient facts. The problem is the people we are supposed to listen to are just as likely to come out with utter BS as anyone else is these days. I'll give an example from the UK, The minister in charge of our treasury, Rachel Reeves, said a couple of years ago that she was running for this position because she felt our economy needed completely redesigning from the bottom up to make it more fair and equal and to rebalance things to stop the growth in income inequality. Then she got near government and as soon as it became obvious she was going to get the job it was 'oh yeah sorry about all that we're just going to have more austerity instead.' Where are people supposed to go if you can't get a straight story our of the sensible. centrist-y parties? Take a big enough group of people and you'll find enough of them flocking to the extreme positions that it causes problems.
The center has let everybody down, their growing mutual resentment of the working class will ruin them, and instead of any serious self analysis we just get flaming at anyone who didn't go along with their bullshit.
I'm pretty far left, as long as you don't want to overcome/abolish capitalism or other delusional ideas. Cheap/Free education, redistribution of wealth, raising taxes to pay for concrete programs/plans, subsidising/furthering green energy/tech/infrastructure, strenghtening labour rights/laws and so on i'm all on board with.
What drives me mad are things like "doomersim", "utopianism" and "accelerationism". All this stuff helps absolutely no one. I would love to have discussions about possible(!!!) policies. Biden wasn't perfect but he actually got a pretty good track record in his 4 years... Yet Democrats are too pussy to even take credit for it and the right is just flinging blatant lies and feacies around... At the same time progressives are sitting there shouting genocide Joe and act like voting for Harris/Joe over Trump is somehow not the easiest choice ever, actively trying to hold the decmoratic party hostage. Seriously, progressives can go fuck themselves.
If anything I blame the Democrats for listening to progressives way too much. I hope the democratic party takes a giant dump on all of them and ignores whatever these worthless, harmfull, self important assholes want for the forseeable future. Listening to them is as usefull as arguing with the russian trolls in the Ukraine/Russia tread. There is no harm in saying "trans woman shouldn't compete in womens sports" or "we got issues at the border and we plan to do XYZ to improve the situation, illegal immigration is in fact not the sort of immigration we want". Yeah, a few morons will call them transphobic and/or racist - No one outside of these circles cares anyway, if anything it would win them votes.
I can understand and even support being "radical" if your a teenager... If your over 30 and find yourself still advocating for "overcoming capitalism" and other daydreams, whiteout serious political/democratic action behind it beyond Twitter/online Spaces, it's imho just sad and actively harmfull to furthering feasible "leftist" policies.
I think it’s perfectly possible to have parallel frameworks of discussion, the more constrained and pragmatic can co-exist alongside the hypothetical and the lofty. Overcoming or extremely reforming capitalism is not an innately delusional position.
Actual bigotry also does throw people in quite a difficult position. Either be perceived as abandoning x group to face bigotry, or weigh in on defence. Often people overcompensate.
I’d prefer not, for example to constantly be talking about trans issues. Live and let live, let them live their lives. they’re a small section of the population that takes up an inordinate amount of discourse. There’s probably a similarish proportion of folks in the population who one could consider extremely, extremely wealthy, I’d rather have that discussion.
But then, I see all this bigoted nonsense, scaremongering and hyperbole, all the time. I’ve no issue with trans folks, I have trans friends so quelle surprise I’ll react. Not known for my impulse control me.
Now perhaps this doesn’t mean to taking an enthusiastic leap into every one of these traps, sure.
Less a problem in other locales, you’ve also got parties that are just too broad a coalition ideologically and socio-economically in the likes of the US and UK. I’d be towards Labour’s left, so I’ll naturally be a bit more critical of the centre, but it absolutely goes both ways.
Furthermore you can sell incremental progress from, some may complain it’s not fast enough sure. It’s very hard to sell going actively backwards in domains people really directly experience.
In the UK we went from free college, to fees that are ever-increasing in my lifetime. Indeed not long after taking charge Labour raised them again. Ostensibly the working person’s party of course.
Housing well, same as everywhere really. Perpetually rising prices above wage rises/inflation-adjusted wages.
Relatively stagnant wages and an ever-increasing wealth gap.
Progressives perpetually complain about these things not because they’re not getting better fast enough, they’re just not getting better full stop. Furthermore a fundamental failure to deal with these problems creates dissatisfaction that ultimately fuels right wing populism with all that entails as well.
Hell I’d probably vote for the ‘We are Centrist, Socially Moderate but We’ll Fix Housing’ Party.
I'd vote for them too, and I'd regret it 100% of the time. I voted Labour this election and I already hugely regret it, although admittedly they are very marginally better than the tories. Only for them to turn around and go "We're not just going to redo austerity, but we're going to brief against the disabled and long term sick just like the tories were" which personally affects me in quite a drastic way.
We have two centrist parties who are very good at sounding reasonable but both want to punish the poor for the mistakes of the rich. This is what bothers me about the proponents of that ridiculous horseshoe theory. If both major parties' main economic policy is directly punishing me for the mistakes of others then I refuse to be held responsible for the fact that I'm going further left than the left most major party. Its as if the centrists don't just want me to suffer, but they want me to publicly endorse my own suffering or i get called names and told I'm just the same as the far right. If both parties want to lie, cheat and steal, but one is worse, does that mean I have to endorse lying, cheating and stealing?
I can't imagine its much different in the US when it comes to economic policy.
The Labour budget increases state spending by more than 2% of GDP per year. Half financed by taxes and the rest by borrowing. If you call that austerity the word has lost its meaning.
German public radio had a great show on election night, and people were reminded by amercian/german call ins that living situation in america is fucking hard compared to easy social market mode like in germany.
- work or homelessness - medical debt is real - education debt.. is real - non existent public transport in rural areas, expensive food, non affordable healthcare (body and car need to keep working, no safety net) - at will employment - violent crime far more present - rampant living costs (in germany rent increase is limited to 20% per 3 years..)
German employees wouldn't understand working more than 40 hours. It's barbaric and inefficient We get 20 days paid leave + 10ish national holidays in a 5 day workweek, universal healthcare, mandatory unemployment insurance and free education.
And also a national broadcast service paid for by the people - not taxes - that has a budget that outranks all private media.. and tries to stay factual (while certainly leans mainstreamy leftwing)
On November 15 2024 19:10 BlackJack wrote: Cabinet picks by Trump are a joke. Matt Gaetz is a clown. An anti-vaxxer as your health guy. Fox News host for Secretary of Defense. Tulsi Gabbard is just a shill that realized her career would be better with an R next to her name. It's basically a who's who of anyone willing to kiss his ass the hardest.
a step up from his favorite son, and don and ivanka in the white house so far.
i should say- credentials wise. much as RFK can really fuck us all.
can’t wait to hear about what Kushner has in store for us this round. will be interesting to hear about how they can send israel even more bombs without crying about the cost.
Yeah, let me use my own example for how shitty living in the US can be,
high skilled work in precarious industry known for crunch and "passion" pay with a potentially severe illness that could crop up and kill me without several years of consistent check ins to monitor it
If I lose my job, lose my health insurance, I could be either in for long, very difficult, likely extremely surgery, lengthy, extremely expensive chemo rounds, or hey maybe even death!
I live in one of three rooms on a floor of a house for 1050 dollars a month, and have six figures in student loan debt, my mother is also getting older and is probably going to have a hard time keeping her job at amazon (after a lifetime of physical labor jobs) for the several remaining years she has until she gets social security payouts, I'm the only of my siblings capable of sending any money, I work 40 - 80 hours a week depending on how the state of our project is going and whatever massive upheavals have been foisted upon us at an ungodly hour in our schedule.
On November 16 2024 03:43 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Question: How much should we be blaming American voters for making the stupid, gullible, uninformed decision to vote against their own interests by electing Trump again? Obviously, we've talked quite a bit about all of Biden's mistakes and Harris's mistakes and Democrats' mistakes and Trump's successes and Republican social media's successes, which all absolutely contributed to Trump's victory and Harris's defeat. What about the average person though - how much of a responsibility do they have to do even a simple Google search to find Harris's website, or to watch 20 minutes of one of her speeches, or to learn what a tariff is, or to fact-check anything Trump says? The fact that a large number of American voters - even on Election Day - still didn't even know that Joe Biden dropped out several months ago, is deeply concerning ( https://www.10news.com/news/fact-or-fiction/fact-or-fiction-did-biden-drop-out-search-spiked-tuesday ).
I gotta say, I really, really dislike Trump personally. I think he's an absolutely awful person to lead the country. However, this conversation is far more nuanced than the whole people who voted for Trump are "stupid, gullible, uninformed"..... How about watching this:
There are a lot of people in the USA that can relate to the experiences shared in this video. That is probably closer to the average American's experience than your own..... Education and opportunities in rural areas are getting worse relative to the opportunities in bigger cities, and he even mentions the "brain drain" that occurs when people move to the cities for those better opportunities.
The democrats have done a shitty job trying to appeal to the "average American"..... It really doesn't matter if a voter doesn't understand what a tariff is at this point..... Too many people are concerned with how they're going to pay their rent or mortgage. Too many people are trying to figure out how to pay their bills on time, or how to pay for food until their next payday. Too many people are struggling right now, and often in ways that could have been avoided. Vance mentions almost falling for a predatory interest rate on his first car purchase. He was lucky that he had guidance and some support which helped him avoid a huge mistake. Many "average people don't have that, and end up getting screwed.
Trump picking Vance as his running mate so they could put out messaging like this was an absolutely brilliant move in comparison. Vance changed his tune from being anti-Trump to very pro-Trump, but the messaging clearly resonated with enough people to help get them elected. Calling people "stupid, gullible, uninformed" will never get them to vote for you or the way you want them to.....
To paraphrase yourself though, this is your guy?
But yeah, those are legitimate concerns, I think most people here would 100% agree there as well.
It affects urbanites as well, the brain drain pushes up costs for the poorer end of that strata, so it becomes a problem for them too as well as folks in more rural areas.
The UK has a lot of regional disparity and similar trends too, I’ve never really understood why one can’t kill two birds with one stone and geographically diversify your economy a bit.
On November 16 2024 03:43 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Question: How much should we be blaming American voters for making the stupid, gullible, uninformed decision to vote against their own interests by electing Trump again? Obviously, we've talked quite a bit about all of Biden's mistakes and Harris's mistakes and Democrats' mistakes and Trump's successes and Republican social media's successes, which all absolutely contributed to Trump's victory and Harris's defeat. What about the average person though - how much of a responsibility do they have to do even a simple Google search to find Harris's website, or to watch 20 minutes of one of her speeches, or to learn what a tariff is, or to fact-check anything Trump says? The fact that a large number of American voters - even on Election Day - still didn't even know that Joe Biden dropped out several months ago, is deeply concerning ( https://www.10news.com/news/fact-or-fiction/fact-or-fiction-did-biden-drop-out-search-spiked-tuesday ).
I gotta say, I really, really dislike Trump personally. I think he's an absolutely awful person to lead the country. However, this conversation is far more nuanced than the whole people who voted for Trump are "stupid, gullible, uninformed"..... How about watching this:
There are a lot of people in the USA that can relate to the experiences shared in this video. That is probably closer to the average American's experience than your own..... Education and opportunities in rural areas are getting worse relative to the opportunities in bigger cities, and he even mentions the "brain drain" that occurs when people move to the cities for those better opportunities.
The democrats have done a shitty job trying to appeal to the "average American"..... It really doesn't matter if a voter doesn't understand what a tariff is at this point..... Too many people are concerned with how they're going to pay their rent or mortgage. Too many people are trying to figure out how to pay their bills on time, or how to pay for food until their next payday. Too many people are struggling right now, and often in ways that could have been avoided. Vance mentions almost falling for a predatory interest rate on his first car purchase. He was lucky that he had guidance and some support which helped him avoid a huge mistake. Many "average people don't have that, and end up getting screwed.
Trump picking Vance as his running mate so they could put out messaging like this was an absolutely brilliant move in comparison. Vance changed his tune from being anti-Trump to very pro-Trump, but the messaging clearly resonated with enough people to help get them elected. Calling people "stupid, gullible, uninformed" will never get them to vote for you or the way you want them to.....
No one questions the plight of the working class, this thread is full of talk about how bad things are.
The thing is that the chance of Trump and co actually doing anything about it is near 0
On November 16 2024 03:43 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Question: How much should we be blaming American voters for making the stupid, gullible, uninformed decision to vote against their own interests by electing Trump again? Obviously, we've talked quite a bit about all of Biden's mistakes and Harris's mistakes and Democrats' mistakes and Trump's successes and Republican social media's successes, which all absolutely contributed to Trump's victory and Harris's defeat. What about the average person though - how much of a responsibility do they have to do even a simple Google search to find Harris's website, or to watch 20 minutes of one of her speeches, or to learn what a tariff is, or to fact-check anything Trump says? The fact that a large number of American voters - even on Election Day - still didn't even know that Joe Biden dropped out several months ago, is deeply concerning ( https://www.10news.com/news/fact-or-fiction/fact-or-fiction-did-biden-drop-out-search-spiked-tuesday ).
I gotta say, I really, really dislike Trump personally. I think he's an absolutely awful person to lead the country. However, this conversation is far more nuanced than the whole people who voted for Trump are "stupid, gullible, uninformed"..... How about watching this:
Thanks for the video! It's not bad, and I feel like this old version of JD Vance would/should be ashamed of how much of a sellout he's become. His anecdotes in that video are legitimately touching, yet present-day Vance doesn't realize (or doesn't care about) just how much he and Trump are betraying everything he supposedly stood for in that TED Talk. For example, he admitted that he got government assistance / financial aid to pay for law school, so I guess he can partially thank the Democrats for his political success, while screwing over other people who are currently hurting financially.
There are a lot of people in the USA that can relate to the experiences shared in this video. That is probably closer to the average American's experience than your own.....
That could be the case, although rural America is only about 1/5 of the population. On the other hand, I was definitely lucky enough to be born into a family that made a little bit more than the median household income. Like JD Vance, my family life growing up was also a broken home with violence. I had only one parent in the picture - my mom - but my two younger brothers and I were extraordinary lucky in that our mom was somehow able to raise three boys by herself.
Education and opportunities in rural areas are getting worse relative to the opportunities in bigger cities, and he even mentions the "brain drain" that occurs when people move to the cities for those better opportunities.
It's not necessarily the case that rural = screwed. I was also lucky that I was born in suburban New Jersey, which is a blue state featuring solid education and a generally decent quality of life, but people living in rural areas of New Jersey are still getting a good education. I'm currently living in an area (and planning to raise a family) that's much more rural than where I grew up... still in New Jersey. I think we should take a look at who the leaders are in mostly-rural states... and they tend to be run by anti-education, anti-academia conservatives who don't want to have school standards, with a leader who appointed non-educators like Betsy DeVos and who wants to get rid of the Department of Education altogether. Whose fault is it that the education systems in red states are towards the bottom?
The democrats have done a shitty job trying to appeal to the "average American"..... It really doesn't matter if a voter doesn't understand what a tariff is at this point..... Too many people are concerned with how they're going to pay their rent or mortgage. Too many people are trying to figure out how to pay their bills on time, or how to pay for food until their next payday. Too many people are struggling right now, and often in ways that could have been avoided. Vance mentions almost falling for a predatory interest rate on his first car purchase. He was lucky that he had guidance and some support which helped him avoid a huge mistake. Many "average people don't have that, and end up getting screwed.
Trump picking Vance as his running mate so they could put out messaging like this was an absolutely brilliant move in comparison. Vance changed his tune from being anti-Trump to very pro-Trump, but the messaging clearly resonated with enough people to help get them elected. Calling people "stupid, gullible, uninformed" will never get them to vote for you or the way you want them to.....
Nowhere have I said that we should call people stupid, gullible, or uninformed as a strategy for persuading them to vote for the other side lol. Of course that's not going to work. Bringing up "messaging" is also irrelevant to this specific question of mine, as I've already talked about that in depth and how massive of a contribution it was. Parts of these last two paragraphs do highlight the issue I was originally bringing up, though: if Trump had a second consecutive term, we would be significantly worse economically than we are now. If not for Democrats'/Biden's legislation to help reduce inflation and positively impact other economic measures, the average voter (who is absolutely hurting right now, I agree with you) would be hurting wayyy worse.
Most voters are indeed low-information voters, and they also incorrectly thought that Trump would be better for the economy than Harris, during a time when it's so important to put in a little effort to listen/read/learn about what will happen over the next four years if Trump or Harris is elected. The average American family is struggling financially right now, yet the average American family is not willing to figure out how elections will impact them financially.
On November 16 2024 03:43 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Question: How much should we be blaming American voters for making the stupid, gullible, uninformed decision to vote against their own interests by electing Trump again? Obviously, we've talked quite a bit about all of Biden's mistakes and Harris's mistakes and Democrats' mistakes and Trump's successes and Republican social media's successes, which all absolutely contributed to Trump's victory and Harris's defeat. What about the average person though - how much of a responsibility do they have to do even a simple Google search to find Harris's website, or to watch 20 minutes of one of her speeches, or to learn what a tariff is, or to fact-check anything Trump says? The fact that a large number of American voters - even on Election Day - still didn't even know that Joe Biden dropped out several months ago, is deeply concerning ( https://www.10news.com/news/fact-or-fiction/fact-or-fiction-did-biden-drop-out-search-spiked-tuesday ).
I think there is an ideal level of responsibility a voter should have, however I have a hard time holding people to that responsibility given the atrocious literacy rates and general crappy living situations people are feeling.
American society is failing it's citizenry, and I'd rather put that fault at the feet of the people who have been systematically failing us than the people who have been most negatively impacted.
We can start blaming voters more directly when the government starts doing a genuinely good job of supporting and educating people lol
Yeah I see what you mean. On one hand, it's almost like victim blaming to try and hold the voters even partially responsible; on the other hand, they're literally responsible in the sense that they're the ones electing the people who are hurting them.
On November 16 2024 03:43 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Question: How much should we be blaming American voters for making the stupid, gullible, uninformed decision to vote against their own interests by electing Trump again? Obviously, we've talked quite a bit about all of Biden's mistakes and Harris's mistakes and Democrats' mistakes and Trump's successes and Republican social media's successes, which all absolutely contributed to Trump's victory and Harris's defeat. What about the average person though - how much of a responsibility do they have to do even a simple Google search to find Harris's website, or to watch 20 minutes of one of her speeches, or to learn what a tariff is, or to fact-check anything Trump says? The fact that a large number of American voters - even on Election Day - still didn't even know that Joe Biden dropped out several months ago, is deeply concerning ( https://www.10news.com/news/fact-or-fiction/fact-or-fiction-did-biden-drop-out-search-spiked-tuesday ).
I think there is an ideal level of responsibility a voter should have, however I have a hard time holding people to that responsibility given the atrocious literacy rates and general crappy living situations people are feeling.
American society is failing it's citizenry, and I'd rather put that fault at the feet of the people who have been systematically failing us than the people who have been most negatively impacted.
We can start blaming voters more directly when the government starts doing a genuinely good job of supporting and educating people lol
Yeah I see what you mean. On one hand, it's almost like victim blaming to try and hold the voters even partially responsible; on the other hand, they're literally responsible in the sense that they're the ones electing the people who are hurting them.
The system has gotten pretty good and captured, whoever we send up there seems to be a resounding failure, we're past the point where the representative part of representative democracy is actually representing anyone other than their sect of donors.
I can't blame voters for that, I firmly believe that the only responsibility voters have left for the way the system is is that we aren't nearly aggressive enough at playing video games where we throw bricks through the windows of Supreme Court Justices and Congressmen at night.
On November 16 2024 03:43 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Question: How much should we be blaming American voters for making the stupid, gullible, uninformed decision to vote against their own interests by electing Trump again? Obviously, we've talked quite a bit about all of Biden's mistakes and Harris's mistakes and Democrats' mistakes and Trump's successes and Republican social media's successes, which all absolutely contributed to Trump's victory and Harris's defeat. What about the average person though - how much of a responsibility do they have to do even a simple Google search to find Harris's website, or to watch 20 minutes of one of her speeches, or to learn what a tariff is, or to fact-check anything Trump says? The fact that a large number of American voters - even on Election Day - still didn't even know that Joe Biden dropped out several months ago, is deeply concerning ( https://www.10news.com/news/fact-or-fiction/fact-or-fiction-did-biden-drop-out-search-spiked-tuesday ).
I think there is an ideal level of responsibility a voter should have, however I have a hard time holding people to that responsibility given the atrocious literacy rates and general crappy living situations people are feeling.
American society is failing it's citizenry, and I'd rather put that fault at the feet of the people who have been systematically failing us than the people who have been most negatively impacted.
We can start blaming voters more directly when the government starts doing a genuinely good job of supporting and educating people lol
The problem here is that the GOP is generally effecting the failures that you are describing whereas the democrats are failing to counteract it to a sufficient level. Then, the GOP benefits at the polls, reinforcing the behavior. Whether you want to "blame the voters" for that or not is up to you, but it's an unfortunate loop we're in.
As long as people keep voting Republican, there's nothing Democrats can do. The race to the bottom is a vicious cycle that can only be escaped by more people voting Democrat until Republicans are forced to clean up their act. Then bigger improvements can happen for the working class and minorities. Because if Republicans are forced to stop being radical, then Democrats are allowed to splinter without fear of retribution by the radical right.
On November 16 2024 03:43 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Question: How much should we be blaming American voters for making the stupid, gullible, uninformed decision to vote against their own interests by electing Trump again? Obviously, we've talked quite a bit about all of Biden's mistakes and Harris's mistakes and Democrats' mistakes and Trump's successes and Republican social media's successes, which all absolutely contributed to Trump's victory and Harris's defeat. What about the average person though - how much of a responsibility do they have to do even a simple Google search to find Harris's website, or to watch 20 minutes of one of her speeches, or to learn what a tariff is, or to fact-check anything Trump says? The fact that a large number of American voters - even on Election Day - still didn't even know that Joe Biden dropped out several months ago, is deeply concerning ( https://www.10news.com/news/fact-or-fiction/fact-or-fiction-did-biden-drop-out-search-spiked-tuesday ).
I think there is an ideal level of responsibility a voter should have, however I have a hard time holding people to that responsibility given the atrocious literacy rates and general crappy living situations people are feeling.
American society is failing it's citizenry, and I'd rather put that fault at the feet of the people who have been systematically failing us than the people who have been most negatively impacted.
We can start blaming voters more directly when the government starts doing a genuinely good job of supporting and educating people lol
The problem here is that the GOP is generally effecting the failures that you are describing whereas the democrats are failing to counteract it to a sufficient level. Then, the GOP benefits at the polls, reinforcing the behavior. Whether you want to "blame the voters" for that or not is up to you, but it's an unfortunate loop we're in.
It's been decades of bipartisan failing of society to get here. Could put more on the GOP, but Trump got pied pipered into office by Democrat leadership in the first place.
On November 16 2024 03:43 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Question: How much should we be blaming American voters for making the stupid, gullible, uninformed decision to vote against their own interests by electing Trump again? Obviously, we've talked quite a bit about all of Biden's mistakes and Harris's mistakes and Democrats' mistakes and Trump's successes and Republican social media's successes, which all absolutely contributed to Trump's victory and Harris's defeat. What about the average person though - how much of a responsibility do they have to do even a simple Google search to find Harris's website, or to watch 20 minutes of one of her speeches, or to learn what a tariff is, or to fact-check anything Trump says? The fact that a large number of American voters - even on Election Day - still didn't even know that Joe Biden dropped out several months ago, is deeply concerning ( https://www.10news.com/news/fact-or-fiction/fact-or-fiction-did-biden-drop-out-search-spiked-tuesday ).
I think there is an ideal level of responsibility a voter should have, however I have a hard time holding people to that responsibility given the atrocious literacy rates and general crappy living situations people are feeling.
American society is failing it's citizenry, and I'd rather put that fault at the feet of the people who have been systematically failing us than the people who have been most negatively impacted.
We can start blaming voters more directly when the government starts doing a genuinely good job of supporting and educating people lol
The problem here is that the GOP is generally effecting the failures that you are describing whereas the democrats are failing to counteract it to a sufficient level. Then, the GOP benefits at the polls, reinforcing the behavior. Whether you want to "blame the voters" for that or not is up to you, but it's an unfortunate loop we're in.
It is, and one wonders how to break that loop, especially given the quality of information many consume seems to be getting actively worse year or year.
I do somewhat blame voters, or at least I think too many abrogate any kind of responsibility for the consequences of their choices. To some degree, make the call, take the fall.
However, folks can be earnest but ignorant, wrong or just have a different value system to me, I don’t know particularly wield any hammer of judgement for that.
One thing I do 100% blame voters for is if they’re motivated as much, or more by spite and vitriol for their perceived political enemies than actually improving their own station, or for their own values.
Today’s obligatory Brexit mention, from my travels failing to change the minds of the nation, plenty of just legit differences of opinion. I do still vividly recall quite a few folks who just wanted to send a ‘fuck you’ to folks they didn’t like.
To occasionally baffling degrees. Folks who literally lived in various EU nations, and not long-term residents who even when I pointed out freedom of movement works both ways didn’t budge.
On November 16 2024 03:43 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Question: How much should we be blaming American voters for making the stupid, gullible, uninformed decision to vote against their own interests by electing Trump again? Obviously, we've talked quite a bit about all of Biden's mistakes and Harris's mistakes and Democrats' mistakes and Trump's successes and Republican social media's successes, which all absolutely contributed to Trump's victory and Harris's defeat. What about the average person though - how much of a responsibility do they have to do even a simple Google search to find Harris's website, or to watch 20 minutes of one of her speeches, or to learn what a tariff is, or to fact-check anything Trump says? The fact that a large number of American voters - even on Election Day - still didn't even know that Joe Biden dropped out several months ago, is deeply concerning ( https://www.10news.com/news/fact-or-fiction/fact-or-fiction-did-biden-drop-out-search-spiked-tuesday ).
I think there is an ideal level of responsibility a voter should have, however I have a hard time holding people to that responsibility given the atrocious literacy rates and general crappy living situations people are feeling.
American society is failing it's citizenry, and I'd rather put that fault at the feet of the people who have been systematically failing us than the people who have been most negatively impacted.
We can start blaming voters more directly when the government starts doing a genuinely good job of supporting and educating people lol
The problem here is that the GOP is generally effecting the failures that you are describing whereas the democrats are failing to counteract it to a sufficient level. Then, the GOP benefits at the polls, reinforcing the behavior. Whether you want to "blame the voters" for that or not is up to you, but it's an unfortunate loop we're in.
It is a sad loop, I'd feel like voters had a tad more responsibility if the Democrats semed even vaguely capable/interested in truly fighting back, unfortunately they don't and so people dont really have any options to make their lives meaningfully better, only to, at best, stem the bleeding some.
That being said, we DO have mechanisms by which a disaffected population forcefully taken it's rights from powerful people who would with hold them from us, we're just not hurt enough or too depressed/lazy/manipulated to really utilize them.
On November 15 2024 19:10 BlackJack wrote: Cabinet picks by Trump are a joke. Matt Gaetz is a clown. An anti-vaxxer as your health guy. Fox News host for Secretary of Defense. Tulsi Gabbard is just a shill that realized her career would be better with an R next to her name. It's basically a who's who of anyone willing to kiss his ass the hardest.
The only pick that could possibly remedy the situation is Alex Jones as head of the NSA. Let’s goooooooo maga.
Or Alex Jones for press secretary/ Ministry of Truth. Press conferences would at least be entertaining.
On November 15 2024 19:10 BlackJack wrote: Cabinet picks by Trump are a joke. Matt Gaetz is a clown. An anti-vaxxer as your health guy. Fox News host for Secretary of Defense. Tulsi Gabbard is just a shill that realized her career would be better with an R next to her name. It's basically a who's who of anyone willing to kiss his ass the hardest.
The only pick that could possibly remedy the situation is Alex Jones as head of the NSA. Let’s goooooooo maga.
Or Alex Jones for press secretary/ Ministry of Truth. Press conferences would at least be entertaining.
You can 100% blame the voters for reinforcing the things they complain about. I work with almost all trump voters and they're as reprehensible as you think they are. The things they need are healthcare, education, a minimum wage increase, and economic investments. Republicans offer none of these things and they decry any effort to give it to them. Decentralized manufacturing leveraging technical and community colleges with green energy is where manufacturing in America is now, and is flourishing. Rual areas have the space to plant renewables next to factories on cheap land next to arterial transport corridors. TCC's are cheap as hell to run and a state can easily afford to send everyone poor to them for free. Depressed wages will constantly reinforce the circle of poverty that forces anyone of value to leave their hometown to not live in the same poverty they grew up in.
On top of everything you've got NIMBY's that would turn a suburban mom into a proponent of affordable housing. If you want people to live here after college they need somewhere to live that isn't another development house that's out of the price range of a factory worker. Springfield needed ten thousand hatian immigrants to keep existing and it turned into a national tantrum because they weren't white. We are going to need tens of thousands of springfields across the country over the coming decades to save rual communities. Redistributing population back into rural communities is what they need and they threw an all time tantrum over them not being white.
They are literally that hateful, understanding where their hate comes from is meaningless helps neither you nor them. We know what they need, we provide them what they need, they hate you for giving them what they need, you still need to give them what they need.
EPT
