Seriously, what the f*** is keeping Donald Trump in this presidential race?

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨BadmanDan@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

Kamala Harris running a damn near flawless campaign, with just a month 1/2 of campaigning. She’s been holding rallies nonstop with Tim Walz & not making her talking points about her race or gender like Hillary. She’s offering expanded healthcare, reinvestments back into public housing, wants to take on corporate greed, protect reproductive rights and chose a pro labor, pro education running mate.

Yet, she’s either barely leading or ties in most polls with a guy that:

Is a convicted felon.

Liable Sexual Predator.

Gets sentenced in November.

Has several more pending cases.

Increased Drone Strikes by 300%. (Joe Biden dosent use drones anymore).

Illegally killed an Iranian General unprovoked with a missle strike.

Increased tensions in Israel/Palestine with the Abraham Accords.

Wants war with Mexico (his words).

Tried to coup Venezuela.

Will bend the knee for Netanyahu’s potential war with Iran.

Lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% (lowest in history).

Obvious tax cuts for the rich.

Told people to drink bleach during the pandemic.

Is the main driving force for America’s current division.

Constantly attacks marginalized groups.

Tried to steal the 2020 election (Find Me 11,000 votes in GA).

Did Fake Elector Slates to pressure Mike Pence to not certify the 2020 election.

Caused a riot on the capitol that lead to his OWN supporters dying.

Just got washed by Harris in the last debate, was completely unprepared on anything but immigration (“I have concepts of a plan”).

And so much more. So seriously what is it? Is it just the attraction to bigotry/racism? Is it to end “wokeness”. Is it because Kamala is a woman of color? You can’t use the both sides argument like Hilary or Biden, Kamala is the obvious better choice. Could you imagine if Kamala had as much baggage as Trump? The media would lose their minds.

Seriously, how the f*** is this guy still in the race?

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Comments

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tiefling@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It’s simple. Bigotry. Trump plays to people’s fears that “others” will soon have the same rights they do

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- InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  it can’t be defeated with logic and reasoning
  
  YouTube channel Knowing Better made a video about the Seventh Day Adventist. Basically the same conclusion.
  
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  - BackOnMyBS@lemmy.autism.place ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Found it! It’s almost 3 hrs long, so you know what that means: a glass of wine, your favorite easy chair, and of course, this YouTube video streaming on your home system. So, go on, and indulge yourself. That’s right, kick off your shoes, put your feet up, lean back and just enjoy the rational documentary. After all, knowledge soothes even the savage lemming.
    
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- DogPeePoo@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  FOX “News” has effectively divided, conditioned and massaged Republicans for decades to regurgitate the message disseminated by Rupert Murdoch through their favorite flavor talking heads (Bill O’Reilly, Tucker Carlson, Shaun Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and more recently Greg Gutfeld and Jesse Watters).
  
  They went from Russia bad in the 1980’s to Russia good and America had it wrong. The viewers lack critical thought under scrutiny and regurgitate the talking points of their favorite broadcasters.
  
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  - shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yep, I lay the majority of our political insanity on Fox’s door. Look, we all know they’re the GOP’s propaganda arm, but how many of you have actually watched a good bit?
    
    I was stuck with a week of it during the Snowden revelations. In the space of an entire week, I didn’t hear a single word on what was worldwide news. Stunning, and I still can’t explain it, but it happened. Point being, a lot of the lies are in what they don’t say. Early afternoon of 01/06, not a blip on the website. (Which BTW, is far more sane than the TV version.)
    
    After hearing “Obama” thousands of times, over and over and over, I was sick of him! The whole time my friend’s step-mom was screaming at the screen, “The KKK ought to do their got damned JOB!” These people sat in their armchairs, 24/7 (never saw them go to their bedroom), and watched nothing but Fox. We tried to put on a movie or another show exactly twice and it promptly got switched back.
    
    One time I was stuck with Fox at the doctor’s office, some kind of round-table show going on. A metric showing black people doing better under the Obama administration came up, something about pay I think. One of the hosts slams his fist of the table and shouted, “Obama’s a RACIST!” Constantly listen to crap like that and you are, eventually, getting brainwashed.
    
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  - skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    don’t forget rush limbaugh
    
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- hexual@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  “Conservatism […] can’t be defeated with logic and reasoning”
  
  This is the key point that a lot of people miss.
  
  If you wholeheartedly, or at least performatively, believe that there is a “natural” hierarchy where some people are better than others, then what one might see as equality is seen as oppression by hardline conservatives.
  
  This is why emotion is the key component of Trumpian messaging, regardless of veracity.
  
  The key is to never play the game. Always proactivity act with questions, never “defend” and react with truth; they’re not interested in the truth.
  
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- DarkCloud@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s not conservativism, conservativism has been captured by think tanks funded by oil and banking billionaires. They’re framed conservativism, gutted it, and replaced its insides with Libertarianism (and sometimes technocratic fascism), as that’s what gives them the lowest taxes, the most corporate welfare, union busting capabilities, and defends their wealth accumulation most efficiently.
  
  They’re not good members of society, this is demonstrated in Trump’s fascism (which is based on Roy Cohn’s fascism). It seeks to destroy society, the nation, and government.
  
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- scarabic@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  His debate performance was stunning because he spent 75% of his time talking about how we are being invaded by an enormous wave of criminals and insane asylum escapees who are violently claiming buildings and territory. I was like excuse me? Do I need to go check my yard for invaders? I didn’t realize we were being overrun. And yes I live in a state that borders Mexico.
  
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radix@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
If the race were between The Literal Devil ® and Jesus Christ (D), the vote total would be 45%-55% just based on the letter they choose to run after their name.

Policy doesn’t matter when people base their entire personality on their political party identification.

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- dhork@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Jesus was a socialist Jew. We had one of those run for President, too, but couldn’t make it past the Democratic primary.
  
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  - MeekerThanBeaker@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    But see how evil he looks…
    
    /s
    
    Birdy Sanders
    
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- lath@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Jesus is a Mexican name. Check mate.
  
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- OlinOfTheHillPeople@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Closer to 50/50 with the electoral college.
  
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- dwemthy@lemdro.id ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Like the real Jesus would run as a Democrat. At least with the Devil you know where you stand! /s
  
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- Today@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  And it pisses me off that people will vote for the dipshit because he’s an R, but i would vote for a half-dead horny toad on the other side.
  
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shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Nothing I’ve read has ever explained Trump’s appeal like this article.

cracked.com/…/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-t…

Nothing in there makes a cute soundbite. “They’re racist!”, is far easier than having to digest what the author lays down.

Seriously, read it. It’s important.

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- rustydomino@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s a good article. It explains rural America. It doesn’t explain the well off assholes living in Huntington Beach CA. It doesn’t explain the well off assholes living in suburban Inland SoCal. It doesn’t explain rich privileged shitheads like Musk and Thiel.
  
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  - roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Exactly. I get the frustrations of the son and grandson of factory workers that finds it hard to imagine anything more than working at Walmart wanting to tear it all down. What I don’t understand is my neighbor in Dana Point.
    
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  - DelightfullyDivisive@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    People like Musk are cynical, attention-seeking manipulators and narcissists. They aren’t afraid that their way of life is being threatened, they’re using the fears of others to further their own ends, and consider themselves above it all.
    
    That article was the most cogent take I have seen on this subject. I have a similar cultural background (rednecks and urban, religious Polish-Americans), but see myself as a science-literate atheist. I have seen this first-hand, but wasn’t able to articulate it as well.
    
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  - scarabic@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Those guys just don’t want to see the US go the way of Europe where scorched-earth capitalism has been tamed and extreme wealth is taxed extremely. They are wealthy beyond avarice and STILL don’t feel they are free because they come up against regulations and institutions.
    
    They capitalize on the rural Trumpism because it is the path most likely to lead to unchecked capitalism. Remember, the US isn’t like Europe - yet. And It will take a lot of work to get it there. All those rich guys need is a government that will do nothing. So not only is tax-cut Trump their friend objectively, he creates chaos. And chaos prevents action. Rancorous divisiveness means a logjammed national agenda. Which is all they want: no action. Look the other way while they rape the world.
    
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- tacosanonymous@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I remember reading this and thinking it had some points. Then I remembered that despite having some of the same issues, we have vastly different responses. When I’m lied to and beaten, I don’t look to the person that did it for help.
  
  For instance, the church being the only social space. They could have a community center or a library. Sure funds are hard to come by but what kind of political party would even consider that? The answer is probably further left than democrats but fifty years of red scare won’t let anyone accept that.
  
  The “writing them off” part comes from their willingness to not ostracize evil people when they get something they want. We can all be bullheaded or blinded by bias from time to time but accountability and decency shouldn’t be political.
  
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  - gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    They could have a community center or a library. Sure funds are hard to come by but what kind of political party would even consider that?
    
    Funny enough here in the rural parts of CA I’ve seen Raleys and Holiday Markets putting in large community areas with amenities like cheap (sometimes free) printers, office space, children’s areas, etc.
    
    They’re not perfect or anything but its wild to see capitalist behemoths pull off something actually close to what the ideal would be, even if it’s likely to manipulate people somehow
    
    Make it law that communities with a dollar general or fuck it any grocery store we all have to eat have a community center of halfway decent quality in it like those places have done willingly and you’ll have an improvement, guaranteed
    
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- SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Honestly, hadn’t read this one and it’s got some seriously solid points in it.
  
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- Waldowal@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I feel like this is just gift wrapping being a dumb racist hick in prettier paper. They are scared of cities because their full of black people, gays, and Mexicans. They like assholes who show the same level of hate as they do - who will keep the black people, gays, and Mexicans away. And they like someone who justifies hiding behind religion so they can tell themselves that God made them this dumb and rascist. So they can delude themselves into thinking they are really the good guy.
  
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  - yeather@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The article describes how the rural population has been overlooked and abandoned in favor of the inner cities, leading to higher levels of racism.
    
    “This is just dumb hicks mad at black people!”
    
    Good job buddy
    
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  - Azzu@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Funny how you made exactly the comment the article predicted within itself xD
    
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- BigDiction@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Great read. There’s 70+ million people out there choosing to vote for Trump, why? Even if the answer is complicated you can’t dismiss them all outright.
  
  I see a decent amount of comments painting all republics with one brush. I think it’s low effort and unproductive.
  
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- Wav_function@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Good read thanks
  
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- Today@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Good read. Thanks!
  
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  - TheLoneMinon@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Good. Read, Thanks!
    
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- danciestlobster@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I mean it’s definitely an interesting read. I’m just not sure what to actually do with this information. The fundamental problem feels like a generally small bubble, and at times a specific disinterest in venturing outside of it. If anyone’s whole worldview is shaped entirely by their tiny rural hometown, it’s easy to understand why others with radically different backgrounds feel scary.
  
  But at the end of the day, it doesn’t feel like a good enough reason to drag the rest of the country through rigid christofacist moral dogmas and support the industries that prop up those small towns at the expense of the planet as a whole. But as long as those people aren’t interested in venturing outside their communities and meeting other different people, im not sure how to convince them of this.
  
  Maybe if the cost of living becomes too untenable in major cities and work from home continues in certain industries rural areas will see more growth and this will improve somewhat? Idk
  
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  - Azzu@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    What to do with it is to act understanding and empathetic with people like that instead of standoffish and hostile. You still insist on the better way of doing things, but there’s no actual need to attack anyone that doesn’t support the better way of doing things, even if their reasons aren’t rational.
    
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- Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The problem with that argument is that 80% of people live in cities. There are not enough rural people for them to be a majority of the Republican party.
  
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  - bamfic@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    In america, land votes more than people. We have the electoral college, the senate, and gerrymandering. Rural areas by design have wildly outsized power. This was done intentionally to preserve slavery
    
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- AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That was an amazing read.
  
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- Bobmighty@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That was from before we knew better. We’ve seen since then that it is indeed racism and hatred that powers the Republican base. That’s why the GOP doesn’t need to have any real policy laid out anymore. They just have to promise to hurt the “right” people this time around. Any sane Republicans that existed then are voting Democrat now.
  
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- tanisnikana@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Jason Pargin is a goddamn hero.
  
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- jjjalljs@ttrpg.network ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Low density places are always going to kind of suck on a lot of metrics. You just don’t have the people to support a lot of stuff. I’m sorry that small towns are dying but like there’s not really a reason they’d thrive.
  
  Cities have been important since like the dawn of history. At least farms grow food. Suburban sprawl is the worst.
  
  Cost of living needs to go down and wages up, but no one should be vying for low density.
  
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- DarkCloud@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This explains a demographic analysis without explaining anything meaningful or unique. The article could be about any post-Regan Republican campaign, so it wasn’t satisfying. Combined with all the pop culture references, ot comes off as quite immature and an unextraordinary explanation. Mediocre.
  
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- scarabic@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Fun piece. I don’t know about best explanation ever.
  
  It starts out talking about how movies idealize simple honest people from the heartlands (Star Wars, The Hunger Games, Braveheart) but then says:
  
  the whole goddamn world revolves around them. Every TV show is about LA or New York, maybe with some Chicago or Baltimore thrown in. When they did make a show about us, we were jokes
  
  So which is it? Does pop culture feed rural America’s sense that it is “Real America” or does it make them hillbillies?
  
  As if explaining politics through TV and movies isn’t reductive enough, it can’t seem to keep its own story straight for ten paragraphs in row.
  
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- octopus_ink@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’ve read this article when it was posted before and my impression is it does EXACTLY the thing to non-rural voters as it warns the reader about doing to rural voters. I can quote the bits if you are going to force me to read it again, but I don’t see how anyone can fail to see that.
  
  It also doesn’t change the fact that the party who might actually make their lives better is NOT the one they are voting for.
  
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- pressanykeynow@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That’s an interesting point of view.
  
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- Kalysta@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I would love to but the amount of ads on that article make it absolute cancer on my phone.
  
  An add every other paragraph. It’s fucking gross. And yes. I am using addblockers.
  
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- Pandantic@midwest.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That was an amazing read. My hometown was really similar, though maybe not as desolate. Lucky there was a college town close by so we could shop at some place that wasn’t Walmart. This really does sum it up, though, the appeal of Trump out of these smaller rural communities. I like the message at the end, too. Thanks for sharing. 🙏
  
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aesthelete@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This country has lost its fucking mind is the only conclusion I can reach.

I remember the summer of 2016, when I was playing Pokemon Go in the parks and people I had never talked to or knew they lived nearby were playing it next to me. We were all celebrating when we caught a pokemon when we were after, and comparing which ones we’d caught with each other.

At the time I thought…who would buy Trump’s conman routine? Who actually thinks that the country is in a terrible enough place that we need to elect this person who seems to actively hate the country and seemed to want to set the entire thing on fire?

I left my Californian home and went back to my original state to visit my family. We went to several different areas of the state in fall of 2016 because my wife was from a rural area and I originally grew up in a slightly more suburban area. I saw the signs in the yards, I saw the discontent, and I saw how people did not seem to be reacting the same way to his craziness. I saw how casually they would put on his rants in the background while talking about other issues. I saw how some of them were amused by his antics. It had been a couple of years since I had last been back and it once again struck me how much worse the area appeared to be from the last time I was there. I was in a rural area when the “Access Hollywood” tape dropped. People seemed to visibly shrink at even the mention of the news. I thought he was done for, and that this was a bridge too far for his supporters to cross. That people would vote third party, or not vote at all.

When I came back to California, people were talking about the debates. It was sunny and nice out, and people would talk about the projects they had going on in their houses, or they’d talk about work related affairs. People were sometimes amused by Trump’s antics, but everyone uniformly thought it was impossible for him to win the election. Having seen what I had seen in the weeks prior, I was no longer one of these people. “They’ll never let him win” one of my co-workers said. I was stunned…who are “they”? Does the rest of the country actually believe this?

It turns out quite a few of them did. Many people thought there was just simply no way that Trump would win, because either the system was already rigged against him and would not allow him to win, or because the country was just not in dire straits enough to elect such a madman (as I once thought).

Hindsight is 20/20 but when I thought it was bizarre that he was even a viable candidate at one point in 2016, and I saw the decaying state where I grew up, I thought “if he wins the election, then we are in a much worse state as a country than I thought”. And we undoubtedly are.

Of course he won, but the reason that I have this somewhat rambling response to this question is that the answer to “why is he still in the race?” ultimately comes down to the overall state of this country.

He is in this race because this is where we are as a country: barely able to imagine a possible future that is brighter than the current one, because we are still caught up in degenerative non-sense that keeps us thinking that our broken down towns, and our poor social bonds are caused by some horde of “others” instead of their true cause: our ever-widening wealth inequality and our ever-decaying moral responsibilities to each other as well as our national instinct to absolve ourselves of our responsibilities by claiming it is correct to be forever self-serving, that even the idea of altruism is a facade.

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- half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  even the idea of altruism is a lie.
  
  Wow. You’re right. Helping others is as politicized as abortion. One of the tribes can’t even fathom uplifting their neighbors because that could be equated to socialism and it would get them kicked out of their in-group.
  
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  - explodicle@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That explains the “virtue signaling” accusations.
    
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- MissJinx@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I rmember stephen colbert’s face lol
  
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pearable@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
You’re in a media bubble. It feels like there’s no way anyone could see it differently. The people who disagree with you are also in a media bubble and don’t understand how you could believe what you do.

For everything you said they

don’t believe happened

think it was a deep state plot

believe it’s good actually and believing anything else means you want to kill babies or destroy the economy

have never heard of it

Reality may have a leftist bias but most people don’t live in reality. Most people live in a reality constructed by corporate media. Social media is largely derivative of it.
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SSJMarx@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Elections in America are all about vibes. People who care about facts are nerds.

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jaschen@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I live in Taiwan and met a guy yesterday who is moving to Taiwan because Austin is a “liberal hell hole”.

When pressed on any issues about Trump, his answer was that Biden is worse than Trump. When I asked about Harris, he just mentioned she will just copy Biden.

The funny thing is that Taiwan is by far more liberal and more progressive than Austin Texas. He seemed to like the universal healthcare and the many social services. He didn’t mind the high corporate taxes companies have to pay.

My assessment is that he is only basing his vote on vibes and feels alone. Judging from the conversation, he is more of a Bernie supporter.

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dhork@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Many Conservatives have been conditioned to stop looking for facts and believe what the TV tells them. Trump admitted as much during the debate. When challenged on the cat thing, he dismissed the reporter’s research and said that he believes it because he saw it on TV. His voters will, too.

Roger Ailes was Nixon’s media consultant during Watergate, and the lesson he learned was that if the media was on Nixon’s side, he could have gotten away with it. Ailes went on to run Fox News. That is no accident.

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kava@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Did everyone just collectively agree to forget 2016? The polls were all favoring Clinton by a dramatic margin. CNN famously had a headline where they predicted Clinton had a 99% chance to win off of the polls.

And what ended up happening? 538 (before bought and neutered by ABC) gave the odds 65-35 or so, in Clinton’s favor. Trump ended up winning that 35%. This year, according to polls, Trump’s odds are better than in 2016. Kamala has the upper hand, but

A) lots of things can change suddenly before the election (like the Hilary emails thing)

B) polls are not the ultimate arbiter of who will win an election- actual real votes are

C) Trump more than likely has some “extracurricular plans” in store, much like Jan 6th, that has a chance of working.

Tldr: don’t get drunk on positive news. Keep a level head and you’ll see this election is still very close to a coin flip

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Angry_Autist@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The media is owned by rich old white men that would gladly accept fascism for lower taxes. It’s that simple.

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randon31415@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
We have the baby boomers on the edge of dying. They are afraid of it, but there is nothing that can be done - so those fears shift to other things that “could” be dealt with.

-Immigrants destroying the culture they grew up in (that culture went away for other reasons), -Gays and trans people being happy (The closeted Senator Graham saying there is no happiness in real life - why did gays of old have to suffer and hide if it was all for not?), -The worst economy in the history of the US! (They are in their 80s, don’t have a job, and running out of money, so it is bad for them)
-Small town on the edge of dying (because there is no jobs or amenities because they didn’t want them in their town)

Trump speaks their insecurities and offers a path to fix things that no other politician dares to go down: “Burn the system to the grown and the people you hate will be hurt”. Because modern Republicans care more about hurting the ones they hate than helping themselves, either because of self hate or a illusion that they won’t get hurt in the process.

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fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
My take:

Americans are either republican or democrat.

If you’re a republican then you’re going to vote for your guy. They see everything he does as just bullshit and bluster. “He says things to rile up the lefties but that’s just his brand.” They see the legal issues as politically motivated, or “maybe he’s a bit dirty, but all politicians are”.

I think it really is that simple. The vast majority of the population is not making a decision of whom to vote for based on their research regarding each party’s policies. They will just always vote the way they’ve always voted.

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SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Seriously, how the f*** is this guy still in the race?

Some very deep pockets.

People want to say it’s just racism, but we have to stop ignoring how much of this is happening because of obscenely wealthy media moguls who don’t give a damn about the future of the country and are only worried about ratings, and holy shit, Trump brings in ratings.

I worked in local television news from 2000-2010ish. I watched it spin out of control during the Bush years. I remember the CEO of Disney (waaaaaaaay prior to Disney+) claiming she would nail a TV to her child’s dorm room wall since her child had expressed "she didn’t need a TV because she had a laptop).

These fucking dinosaurs did fuck nothing for twenty fucking years while the internet ate their lunch. The only idea they ever had was doubling down on insane shit to grab views. They never once considered becoming a better source of news.

It’s the money, especially the money in traditional radio and television media, that is propping him up. He’s truly the last gasp of a dying generation, desperate to keep control over people who are way more informed than ever before and the only tool they have in their toolchest to fight that is misinformation and disinformation.

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Kcap@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Many good points on here. I’d also suggest watching “Get Me Roger Stone”. In it, Stone basically details his secrets to getting the ‘silent majority’ to pay attention. He says that fear is a bigger motivator than love. He says that the uneducated can’t tell the difference between entertainment and politics. There’s so many lines in that documentary that will make your ears perk up and be like, damnt, this was exactly how they did it.

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TheBlue22@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
if you are rich and souless

if you are a moron. I am tired of people saying trumptards are “misguided” or some bullshit like that. If you voted for him in 2016, sure, you could have been misled. But after his trainwreck of a presidential run, if you vote for him, you are just stupid. Straight up a dumbfuck.
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hesusingthespiritbomb@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is a serious answer so it’s gonna get down voted to hell, but whatever.

There’s a huge portion of Americans who are suffering. Their personal lives are kind of awful, they live in communities that are impossible to get ahead and the communities are often that way to due the direct actions of the political establishment in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Above all else, these communities don’t really feel heard by the liberal establishment. They feel as though their concerns are dismissed by what they see as the powers that be. They feel that their anguish is belittled as a personal failure, and often downright mocked. They also feel as though a lot of entities that fucked them are liberally coded.

To these people, Trump is the guy who makes those people seethes and tells them to fuck off. That endears them to him and offers extreme loyalty. They often dismiss the allegations against him because at some point every single conservative has been implied to be a disgusting person in popular culture.

Ironically I think a lot of Trump’s worst actions solidified the support of his base, because of where America has been at since his political ascendency. The US culture war has been raging for a decade now, and both sides have a habit of taking extreme positions while vilifying their opposition. That is naturally going to cause people to get more aggressive, which in turn villifies Trump.

An example I love to use is vaccine skepticism during covid. There were two huge groups of vaccine skeptics in America: rural whites, and black Americans. Both had suffered greatly at the hands of an aloof medical establishment, and both had their suffering ignored. While the Black community’s wounds run deeper, the rural white community was fresh off the opioid crisis. They had every reason to be skeptical about big pharma lying to them for profit, because that’s literally what happened just a few years prior.

The liberal response to the black community was understanding and outreach. The medical community made a huge effort to reach out to black community members and popular figures in black culture. There was a direct acknowledgement of the medical establishment’s bigotry in the past. There was not a culture of shame for people who did not choose to get vaccinated. This was also reflected in news articles and social media posts.

Their response to the rural white community was basically the opposite. The medical establishment’s outreach was extremely limited by comparison. The opioid crisis was written off as a failure by the Sacklers as opposed to any systemic issues that the medical establishment needs to address. Vaccine skeptics were repeatedly and aggressively shamed, with open discussion in regards to simply enforcing vaccination via mandates. Basically every MSM article talked about how the vaccine hesitancy was a character flaw. Social media went even farther. Not only did they call conservative vaccine skeptics things like death cultists, but there were forums dedicated to making fun of antivaxxers dying of covid. People would post private Facebook posts of people they knew by two or three degrees of separation, and then liberals would more or less celebrate their demise. You even had the return of the word “sky fairy” on reddit to describe when these people prayed to God.

Trump, for his part, encouraged people to get vaccinated. He stated multiple times at his rallies that vaccines could end covid, and that they were making him look bad by not doing so. He was, at his own rallies, booed so loud he had to stop talking. He quickly changed his tune.

A consistent trend in liberal circles is the belief that they have complete moral and intellectual authority, as well as the belief that this authority gives them the ability to treat people who don’t conform like shit. I’m pretty sure I’m voting for Harris, but there are also times where I felt like I should just say home. It’s completely fucking insufferable, and ironically has a ton in common with evangelical christian politics that dominated the US in the 1980s. So long as that mentality is there, you’ll have people like Trump gaining undeserved support.

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s_s@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Trump was elected in 2016 because he got on twitter and was a birther dickhead.

Democrats ran Hillary and that was just a bridge too far for some Americans.

Democrats ran an old white man in 2020 and won.

2024 Democrats are running a black woman. Is that a bridge too far for Middle Amerikkka?

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spankmonkey@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Republicans have been taught to ignore reality and give in to their hatred.

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Disaster@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The same thing that is powering most other political figures, all of which can be termed “Populists”

People are angry about a number of things. The wealth gap is very large, they are constantly told that the reason they aren’t doing well in life is because of their own failings, whilst they watch elites with political access get away with things they can only dream of. They’re being told immigrants and/or AI’s are coming for their jobs. They’re being told they can’t have what their parents or the wealthy had because Climate Change, or because inflation.

This generates a great deal of friction, which in turn pushes people to radicalize their beliefs. You can’t continue to sell a liberal, centrist viewpoint of the world when it simply isn’t working for them. They might cotton on to “dumb” ideas, but this does not mean that they are stupid. It means that they are angry. This is is demonstrative of a deeper problem that is being very deliberately ignored or papered over, because those in power have a vested interest in keeping the gravy train running for as long as possible. The sheer scale of the problems we now have to deal with are exceeding the kinds of moves and actions most Western politicians have learned over the years, so we aren’t getting appropriate results out of our political apparatus.

In times such as these, many people will look to the past for ideas on how to deal with their current situation. They sometimes come back with bad ones, sometimes they come back with good ones, and the pre-existing power structure will do everything it can to resist both of them, because to change is tantamount to completely losing grip on power for many of the people invested in the way things are. They cannot adapt, and once gone they will never get it back.

So we have a kind of a worst-case situation with a maladaptive leadership, extreme public resentment and actual natural/physical catastrophes forming a kind of crucible that this civilization needs to endure.

The trumps/erdogans/farages/orbans/lukashenkos/putins/meleis of this world are symptoms of these issues.

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f4f4f4f4f4f4f4f4@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
He’s still in it for the fascist coup.

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Sway_Chameleon@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
What’s keeping him in the race is the delusional nature of his supporters. Think about all those points you wrote about what a horrible person he is. How many other candidates could survive even one of those controversies? He lives in an imaginary world of his own creation where whatever he says he believes to be true, and his cult like followers are so brainwashed that their perfectly smooth grey matter just soaks it up like a sponge. There’s precious little he could do or say at this point that would have his base leave him.

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Goldmage263@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Rhetoric about scapegoats that distract people from the real causes of their issues, a cult of personality, and lots of money. Additionally, a lot of his voters thought he started to expose the truth behind how things actually run in the government instead of seeing how he is playing them for fools just as much (or more than) other politicians. Mostly though, it’s the money.

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Sundial@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
A cult of fanatics who worship him due to his ability to let them display their complete lack of empathy as well as their extremely racist and misogynistic views.

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Asafum@feddit.nl ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It’s propaganda.

Everything you listed is a “Democrat lie” if you were to ask a Magoo. Fox news, Newsmax, and the like spend an enormous amount of effort in creating a reality where Republicans are always the victim, and they point to the population to say “you’re next!”

Anything they can’t say is specifically a lie, they’ll say “well you did it too so it’s not bad.” Anything else just isn’t a concern to them since people like Hannity tell them what to think.

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Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Conservatism is a social cancer that primarily affects unintellectual people and sociopaths.

This cancer metastasizes as fascism. Social progress is sometimes an effective treatment, but a permanent cure is long overdue.

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Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
What keeps him in the race? The lack of alternatives. No Republican candidate but Trump has even a chance to win. The GOP has no viable political program that could create a victory, all they have are the blind and dumb masses of Trump followers.

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bouh@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Your mistake is to consider an election is a rational competition. It’s not. Not anymore, because medias make it impossible to know the truth. So it is more like a football match. People have the team they support, and for most nothing will change their mind because there’s too much propaganda. When almost everything is propaganda, you get to choose the reality you “prefer”.

So the point of the campaign is more about convincing people to vote in order to defeat the opposing team. Or to persuade the other team to concede.

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Objection@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I think the phrase is, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

The economy had been trending upwards under Obama, and it peaked under Trump. If you’re a Keynesian, you might gripe that Trump increased spending when the economy was doing well rather then saving for a rainy day. Then, the rainiest of all rainy days hit with the pandemic, which shot spending through the roof. That caused rapid inflation that became most noticeable after Biden came in. Most Americans either don’t pay enough attention or attribute cause and effect to more or less random factors, so the experience is, Trump economy good, Biden economy bad.

Second, skepticism of the government is a facet of American culture, fed into from the national mythos regarding the Revolutionary War, by anticommunist propaganda about how the government doing stuff makes things worse, and also from experience with getting disillusioned from politicians not delivering on promises and the government generally not acting in people’s best interests. Kamala comes across more as representing the political establishment, and her messaging doesn’t tap into that dissatisfaction or contrarian nature.

Third, people feel like they’re getting fucked, and Trump offers a clear, simple narrative of who is fucking them. And the narrative scapegoats people at the bottom of the social structure, who are least able to push back against said narratives, and who already have negative stereotypes about them. If you’re not going to do that, then you either have to tell people they’re not getting fucked, or you have to blame the people who are actually doing the fucking, who are at the top of the social structure, who are most able to push back against your narrative. Imo, in order to employ the latter strategy most successfully, you need a sense of solidarity, a sense that everyone is included in your movement and you won’t allow anyone to be scapegoated or sacrifice anyone for your own advancement -and it’s kind of hard to do that with the whole genocide thing going on.

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Doom@ttrpg.network ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Money

The american people do not own the elections like people think. It is big bucks to run an election and very very few politicians are supported financially by the people. Trump grifts sure but he’s paid by people because he’ll get the most votes, they think.

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Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Trump’s ego and desire for self preservation (throwing a sitting president in prison never happened) is unmatched in US politics. And don’t forget, there is still a lot of new gerrymandering shit that is going on that will still swing in his favor no matter how demented he gets.

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