Comment by ActorNightly | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ActorNightly | Hacker News Reader

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It doesn't matter if its stolen or not. US is pretty much done. The problem isn't with the government, its with the people.

Recession is coming no matter who is in charge. If Dems manage to win, and they will do the same undoing of damage, you are going to have 2024 again where Trump era problems are blamed on Dems, and then you will get another republican who is going to use the Trump era as a guideline on what to do, except he will do a better job.

Its almost better if Republicans steal the election tbh, because more people need to feel the hurt enough to start taking action IRL in fixing things. When people who are MAGA start getting fired from jobs for being MAGA, then we can start moving forward.

The only solution that doesn't involve a decline is for someone like Newsom to come in and be as bombastic as Trump and actually take authoritative action to suppress conservative media, and make big spectacle of all the positive things he does even if they are minor. It seems that people just want to belong to an ideology around a strong leader these days.

actually take authoritative action to suppress conservative media

I'm not sure that's a healthy approach though. For a few reasons:

1. The 1st Amendment

2. Not all conservatives are MAGA's

3. If you suppress a group, they're almost certainly going to realize they're being suppressed and that's going to engender even more anger, violent rhetoric, and radicalization.

That said, I don't claim to know what "The Answer" here is. Not entirely anyway. Not sure anybody does. :-(

1. 1st amendment was built for a time when speech itself carried the reputation of the person speaking it.

In today, with internet anonymity and prevalence of entertainment, you have shit like Fox news, which is not a news organization but an entertainment organization, solely for the purpose of being able to tell lies and not get sued because its just "fiction".

2. If you are defining MAGA as Trump supporters sure, but the ones that identify as conservatives that don't support Trump enlarge still vote for Trump or anyone republican who supports/empowers trump, and they would love to see someone who is more competent and charismatic doing like getting rid of non white people in US just through less questionable means. Conservativism in itself a ideology stemming from insecurity. And the few things that conservatives get right (like gun control approach, economic policies) are all equally suppored by the moderate Biden/Kamala type democrats.

3. All you have to do is make it more expensive for them to follow their ideology than have a normal life where they can enjoy their vices. Nobody cares THAT much more about starting a civil war en large. You are not trying to erase them from existence, you pretty much just trying to lessen their outreach.

> The only solution that doesn't involve a decline is for someone like Newsom

The problem is neoliberalism. Up until trump every single government since Reagan and the collapse of the soviet union has been neoliberal. A neoliberal but “bombastic” like newsom is just a fresh coat of paint on the same thing that’s been making these problems worse.

People can see this, tho they don’t know the word neoliberal, and want an alternative - and so far the only one that’s made it to the ballot has been populist fascist strongman.

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