How the US president became president is still the question that baffles me the most.
Twice. You did it twice.
Twice. You did it twice.
He has always been openly racist, sexist, misogynist, idot for as long as I remember.
Still a crazy number, but not "half of the people of a country".
Israeli lobby has enough money to elect Trump but not to change perception of Israel?
Can it be that Trump won because the public was fed up by the previous administration?
Doesn’t look this way to me. If Israeli lobby is so powerful to make sure that Trump is elected, then why stop there?
It seems to me that it’s always easier to blame someone for failures than to do an actual post mortem.
Also, Trump is obviously awful and extremely pro-Israel, but so was Biden. In fact, more Palestinians were killed under Biden. I do think the Democrats are starting to shift though, they simply cannot support Israel any more and hope to win elections.
What is ridiculous is to think that "pro-Palestinians" are a monolithic body that voted and thought exactly like you. First of all, even among the "pro-Palestinians" the opinions on what does it mean to be "pro-Palestinians" range from one extreme to the other, and second, it is ridiculous, in my opinion, to assume that Arabs and muslims did not vote for Trump at all despite his pro-Israeli stance.
We love to ask the hypothetical “what would you do if you were in Nazi Germany?”, aside from being telling that is the only era we’re asked to empathize with, it turns out most liberals answer is: “be a Nazi”.
The only justification for not voting at all is some sort of belief in "accelerationism" that will lead to a revolutionary overthrow of the Nazis. Which is not just unrealistic, but also likely to have worse consequences if it did proceed.
(It's also stupid, because you can both vote for the lesser Nazi AND still keep working towards your overthrow or whatever.)
At the end of the day, we're talking about people prioritizing their own self-satisfying moral superiority over the actual greater good. Being an adult means sucking up and doing things you'd rather not sometimes. I'm going to keep calling people out on that childish thinking and illusion of moral superiority. The proof is all around us right now.
In the Netherlands a party called "DENK" (think, in Dutch) was created, by 2 Turkish muslims, and immediately half the leftist voters (PvdA, party of labour) switched sides. They are more rightist, but especially they are extremely socially conservative. They want extreme punishments for crime and harsh application of the law, except on immigration. Along with the obvious issues (like essentially abolishing animal rights and standards of treatment, allowing islamic schooling, including extremist islamic schooling, pro-minority, except for that one minority with "confusion" between Judaism and Israel, ...)
Anyone who thinks about it for 10 seconds will realize that a long-term alliance between progressives and muslims is impossible. They are forced into that as long as they are very weak, but there's a point where that stops.
It'll be very funny when what has happened in Eastern Europe before happens first in Western Europe, and then in the US. Extreme "friction" will develop between leftist parties and any concentration of muslim voters. This has already happened in a few locations but you've seen nothing yet.
Plus, if I can be less than subtle, muslim Arabs are antisemitic and strongly anti-Israel. They are not pro-Palestinian. The big difference being that do not want Palestinians to have a good life, you will have big problems bringing the conversation to that. They want to eliminate Israel by pushing the Palestinians into misery and using them as a weapon against Israel. Sorry, but that's the reality of Arabs' political position on Israel/Palestine. They are not looking for compromise here. They are not looking for peace.
This viewpoint does not match in the slightest with Kamala Harris or any part of the democrat party as a whole, in fact it's almost the direct opposite. It has the most overlap with extreme leftists ("tankies") and republicans (because of their viewpoint social issues, LGBT, repression of viewpoints, ...), and while everyone is 100% accurate to say republicans absolutely don't share this opinion, they just want to use them for votes, it's still by far the biggest overlap.
Plenty of muslims from Michigan voted for Trump, some even made it to the news regretting their votes. You can easily find a variety of news articles from different outlets about this.
You can literally make the same argument about any other issue X, from transgender issue, gay marriage, taxes, covid, etc., etc.
“ The campaign funds can of course be used on wedge issues that don't actually relate to <put your issue here>”
See? And we are back to square one.
PS moreover, democrats had spent way more money in the past presidential campaign than republicans. So, clearly money is not the only factor here.
Delusion about Trump runs very deep. He was underfunded candidate with most of the media and Internet working against him. He still won because of the issues he was campaigning on which are important for the people.
Well, it's easier to blame his win on other factors than to acknowledge this. Hell, Trump gained like 20+ points in some of NYC boroughs.
In this particular case the credit goes go the opposite side. They screwed up so much as to make this possible.
Most likely, they needed someone actually radical, actually more on the left to actually put up the fight.
They need someone like Bill Clinton or Obama who get the position on merit rather than Hillary or Kamala getting there by being the wife or assistant.
There’s a term for the thing you’re doing here: misogyny.
We basically cannot trust America anymore since its people have, as a whole, have lost the ability to reason and think critically. And the people in power want it that way. They prefer do disenfranchise most of their population so they can win elections using their core base who will believe anything.
I'm sorry, but this is complete horse manure, albeit it's become a favorite fantasy/apologist/woe-is-me take on the right as the Trump disaster continues to unfold. But the opposition had NOTHING to do with Trump being chosen for POTUS. The Right had a perfectly decent choice: Nikki Haley. She had plenty right policies and no doubt would have made much of the left very upset, but she is also intelligent, sane, and cares to the normal degree about the country and basics of the constitution. She'd have been fine. She'd also have trivially creamed Democrats, and be holding Congress vastly better fwiw.
But out of the entirety of the US, only a single state (Vermont) voted against Trump. Every single last bit of the rest of the country chose Trump. There were no Democrats on the list for the Republican primary. Republicans could have sent Trump packing no problem, and then taken the WH and a bigger chunk of the House/Senate to boot. Trump being in the general and then WH was and forever will be 100% on the GOP.
So did the Democrats. They clung to the worst possible choice, and in the last minute replaced him with the second-worst possible choice. Absolving them of fault and putting 100% of the blame on Trump voters is the fantasy of the Left.
How did Democrats have the choice of Haley vs Trump?
>Absolving them of fault and putting 100% of the blame on Trump voters is the fantasy of the Left.
No, it's sanity of the remaining non-radical Right, and has nothing to do with the Left at all. The Democrats were not in charge of the Republican primary. Only Republicans were. Only Republicans were responsible for Trump being their coalition's nominee, all three times. They had every possibility to eliminate him with no Democrat input at all. They wanted him as POTUS vs every single other Republican possibility in a nation of hundreds of millions of people, that's all there is to it.
> Twice. You did it twice.
If you want the answer, look at the Democrats. That's why he got elected twice: they were that bad at politics.
Party of personal responsibility and all that.
Don't let the opposition off the hook: as you said they lost to "a vicious moron completely unsuitable for power." How does someone fuck up an election like that so badly? It should have been a slam dunk.
It's the fault of the opposition for not doing a better job (at all manner of political competencies). One thing I've noticed over the last ten or so years, is that Democrats/Liberals/Progressives are very averse to admitting to and learning from their own mistakes. They'd much rather focus on blaming someone else for their own incompetence.
There is only one group to blame and it's the same group that has controlled the party since the 90s: neoliberals. Neoliberals do not have a vision of the future worth fighting for, more corporate control, so it's not hard to see when other opposing forces can simply offer something different.
It's the same problem we saw in the 1920s that lead to growing fascism: pushing for austerity, more corporate control over society, and deregulation are all things that help fascists and authoritarians thrive.
Another aspect, which applies to neoliberals and many other groups in the Democratic coalition, is the seeming abandonment the idea of representing voters (in a district) in favor of persuading/lecturing them. That really appeals to the true-believer partisans (who are getting represented), but alienates everyone else.
I'm pretty sure the Democrats would have at least 5 more Senate seats if they consistently ran candidates that focused on representing the state they're running in as a whole (and continued to do that after the election was over).
The problem wasn't really Harris, who got very close to half the vote. The problem is that half the voting population does not think that electing a fascist demagogue is that big of a deal, or compares favorably to electing a boring centrist. This suggests that our civic culture is fundamentally broken at the moment. You can't run a society like this!
OK, so now we know how you voted. What fraction of the electorate are you?
> The problem wasn't really Harris, who got very close to half the vote.
Which in this case is called "losing." Trump even won the popular vote that time.
> The problem is that half the voting population does not think that electing a fascist demagogue is that big of a deal, or compares favorably to electing a boring centrist.
IMHO, one of the Democrats' many fuck-ups was they overdid the "fascist demagogue" line of attack, basically neutering it.
It's pretty clear roughly what your political views are, but let me hazard a guess that you're far away from being a swing voter. IMHO, another one of the Democrats' fuck-ups was being unwilling to make their most loyal voters uncomfortable, and instead demanding that persuadable voters tolerate discomfort, which is a tough sell.
> This suggests that our civic culture is fundamentally broken at the moment. You can't run a society like this!
How very convenient! Doesn't that mean you don't have to adapt in any way that's uncomfortable to you?
Half the voting population elected a fascist demagogue. Fundamentally, swing state voters are not the issue: that's just a weird artifact of our electoral system. The issue is that something like 40-45% of the population will literally vote for *anyone* in the Republican party, even if they're "America's Hitler". Project 2025 made it blatantly obvious what they were voting for.
Even if the Democratic party better adapts to swing voters' needs -- even if they win! -- that 40-45% remains a ticking time bomb. A democracy can't survive when close to half the voting population values party victory over democracy.
Let's not pretend that only one 40-45% part of the population votes on a party line.
In contrast, MAGA Republicanism is fundamentally centered on accruing power and codifying hierarchy at the expense of everything else.
Frankly, the point that you were making was dumb. Complaining about the voters will get you nowhere.
> Half the voting population elected a fascist demagogue.
You're high on your own rhetoric. That's not smart.
> The issue is that something like 40-45% of the population will literally vote for anyone in the Republican party, even if they're "America's Hitler". Project 2025 made it blatantly obvious what they were voting for.
So why is that? Try not to reach for some explanation that makes you feel good about yourself or your guys, because that's self-deception.
What do you have to do to change situation? If your answer is something that's comfortable and easy for you to swallow, it probably won't work. You're prioritizing your own comfort over an effective action.
It's very important to try to persuade centrists that you're a better candidate than the opposition, but it's also very important to persuade your voters that you're worth going to the polls for. The latter requires making your loyal voters comfortable at the expense of the swing voters.
Because blaming the voters for not supporting you is foolish and stupid.
Not only do they have far less room to maneuver to express themselves (essentially through a single, unclear multiple-choice question), but blaming them prevents actual political actors from doing needed self-reflection and adjustments needed to win.
It's like if you had a failing business selling poop-in-a-bag, and focused on blaming your potential customers being too dumb to see how superior and high-quality your poop is. You think it's awesome, so they must be idiots! Stop wasting your time doing that, and re-evaluate the products you're selling. Maybe no one wants to buy poop?
When the history of this time is written I believe it will be exceedingly obvious that the MAGA and the Republican Party were an incurable cancer and there was nothing that the Democratic Party could have done within the context of the existing political structure to stop it from spreading. They might have had one opportunity to avoid it by focusing more on supporting individuals and less on supporting financial institutions in 2008, but the political context of that time was entirely different. At some point it is worthless to blame one political party for another driving the country off a cliff. Yes, they should have done things differently in hindsight, but there is little value in holding them accountable for information they did not have at the time.
Not really.
> It completely ignores that at least part of that market is propagandized to the point where no matter how you sell you will not make the sale. Voters overwhelmingly support policies that Democrats support when polled.
If that's actually the case, it just means the Democrats need to work harder, for longer. But this "nothing we can do, country too propagandized, STAY THE COURSE, DON'T CHANGE," idea is just weird. It really sounds like excuses to avoid the psychological discomfort of being wrong or needing to make compromises with people you disagree with to win.
Also, polls are a data-point, but I'd never use them to jump to the conclusion they're an accurate representation of what people really want. For one, they're too easily to get wrong or even manipulate.
> I think your comparison is far too simplistic to be useful.
Sure, my poop-selling business example is pretty simplistic and exaggerated to make a point. But I think it's still useful in illustrating the foolishness and stupidity of blaming the people you need to reach.
> When the history of this time is written I believe it will be exceedingly obvious that the MAGA and the Republican Party were an incurable cancer and there was nothing that the Democratic Party could have done within the context of the existing political structure to stop it from spreading.
I am sure some history will be written that says that. It will be a lie, but of psychological comfort for some.
If there's any truth to "there was nothing that the Democratic Party could have done within the context of the existing political structure to stop it from spreading," it's about the internal dysfunctions of the Democratic party officials and partisans. This idea that "MAGA/Trump is so powerful, nothing could be done about it" is a stupid lie.
> They might have had one opportunity to avoid it by focusing more on supporting individuals and less on supporting financial institutions in 2008, but the political context of that time was entirely different. At some point it is worthless to blame one political party for another driving the country off a cliff.
I'm not blaming the Democrats for that. I'm blaming them for being incompetent (a state which continues). There's a big difference.
> Yes, they should have done things differently in hindsight, but there is little value in holding them accountable for information they did not have at the time.
What specific information did they not have at the time? Because I don't think the problem is a lack of information; it's their attitudes, priorities, and ultimately competence.
Sure, I might be selling poop in a bag, and maybe nobody wants that. I can't blame people for not buying things they don't want. But the guy next to me is selling the Handmaid's Tale But In Real Life, and people are queuing up round the block to buy it. Those people looked at all the options -including abstaining and not buying anything at all - and still made a decision. They have to take ownership of that decision.
From the perspective of the Democrats, sure, self-reflection is necessary to figure out what went wrong. They should go and do that. But from the perspective of someone voting for Trump, no, you don't get to use that excuse. You looked at an admittedly very limited field of options and voted for the guy who was backed by a group who had literally written a manifesto on overturning the US constitution, the guy who boasted about his ability to sexually assault women, the guy who had already had a full term and caused tremendous damage with it, the guy who had spent four years complaining about rigged elections and threatening to do something about it, the guy who supported an attempted insurrection and promised to pardon the people who were involved, etc etc etc.
Stop blaming other people here - if you voted for Trump, it was perfectly clear what you were getting, and you still made that decision. That's on you.
You're getting hung up. What the fuck good does any of that do? Tell me.
> Sure, I might be selling poop in a bag, and maybe nobody wants that. I can't blame people for not buying things they don't want. But the guy next to me is selling the Handmaid's Tale But In Real Life, and people are queuing up round the block to buy it. Those people looked at all the options -including abstaining and not buying anything at all - and still made a decision.
The point I was making with the poop-selling example is: you need to get outside your own head and your own biases. I don't think you're doing that. You're doubling down, making excuses for your side.
> They have to take ownership of that decision.
Sure, that would make you feel good, but it ain't going to happen. Quit tripping over it and move on.
The answer to Trump cannot be "the Democrats needed to try harder", because if democracy relies on one side never slipping up while the other side can do whatever they like, then of course that system is going to collapse eventually. We have to look at the deeper causes. And one of the most fundamental causes here is that a lot of people in the US looked at a man who openly promised a multi-pronged attack on the constitutional basis of the United States and said "yes, that's the man for me". If your analysis of the 2024 election doesn't include that point, then it's a flawed analysis.
If you truly believe those voters could’ve have been swayed by a democrat candidate, you’re delusional. You could’ve put the corpse of Ronald Reagan on that ballot and Trump would’ve won.
Wild, if true.
The question on whether they perceived (actually, whether they can perceive) what others like e.g. Bolton see is valid - nonetheless, you have to face that they explicitly, vocally refused to vote for the dems, "whatever it takes".
And the system in the USA is very broken - among the issues, there are only two options in the choice, with all the paradoxes it brings.
If you want the answer, look at Republicans. They nominated him twice, and the second time around the Republican base ignored all of the moral issues they knew about and voted for him anyway because they wanted the chaos and anger.
Look at the polling right now: even after Trump's policies have destroyed millions of Republican lives, those voters are still convinced that Trump has their best interests at heart and its really those dastardly Democrats' fault somehow even though the GOP controls all 3 branches of government.
WTF? The Democrats lost some important elections to a fool, that's nothing like getting raped.
> If you want the answer, look at Republicans. They nominated him twice, and the second time around the Republican base ignored all of the moral issues they knew about and voted for him anyway because they wanted the chaos and anger.
I'm not saying there are no problems with Republicans, but that the bigger, more important, and more tractable issue is that the Democrats could lose to someone like that, twice.
Complain about how bad Trump is all you want, but if you lose to him, it's pretty clear you are in some important sense worse than him. Focus on fixing that, because bitching about the other side is going to do no good.
Trump won with 49.8% of the vote, which is the lowest % since Bush in 2000. Democrats voted against him. Independents voted against him. But MAGA voters loved his race-baiting and voted for him in overwhelming numbers, and even anti-Trump Republican voters decided that they could live with the racism and corruption and destruction of civil liberties if they could end abortion at the federal level and make all dozen trans athletes in the country disappear.
The problem is, and always was, the Republican voters. Blame them.
The only thing blaming Republicans does is make Democrats feel better about their own incompetence and failure. Do you think the Republicans are going to take any blame you give them? It's psychological comfort for partisans who find adaptation too uncomfortable, nothing else.
The Democrats offered tolerance and economic stability. They could have run the reincarnated Jesus Christ and they still would have lost because it wasn't about "incompetence and failure" or Republicans wouldn't have voted for a man with multiple failed marriages, dozens of failed businesses, and hundreds of failed policies.
Blaming everyone except those who worked hard to achieve this is absurd.
The people most responsible for getting their candidate elected is the campaign team. If the plan is just for your opponents to do a bad job, you don't deserve to win.
And the only way to win over them is to stop centrist two sides nonsense and blame them, later prosecute them.
If you want to make the world a better place, fight for that world. Assigning blame is an activity for the historians to do after everyone is dead.
> If you’re a racist, you found your guy. If you’re a misogynist, you found your guy. If money is your only religion, you found your guy. If your heart is armored shut, you found your guy. If you mock the disabled, you found your guy. If intelligence makes you insecure, you found your guy. If you’re a sexual predator, you found your guy. If you trade in humiliation and conspiracy and filth, you found your guy.
[…]
> If he’d only carried one or two of these pathologies, he might have been dismissed as just another loud, damaged man. But he carried a buffet of them. That was the appeal. Millions could locate themselves somewhere in the wreckage. They didn’t have to agree with all of it. They just had to recognize a piece of themselves in it.
[…]
> Trump is a symptom. The deeper illness is collective. If there’s one sentence that defines his power, it’s this: “He says the things I’m thinking.”
* https://minocquabrewingcompanytimes.substack.com/p/the-thing...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jochum (?)
(AFAICT, originally posted on Facebook, but I don’t have an account so can’t really search it.)