Submitted 5 months ago by Technotica@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/87976e71-d2e5-4c62-8e73-6b3b493701a6.jpeg
Wisconsin, US here. My county went 70% for Trump this time. That’s versus ~48$ in 2016. The problem isn’t democracy. The problem is the people. Pissed as hell for all the wrong reasons at all the wrong people. Unable to see reality, expecting that the person in charge could make it a utopia with the flick of a switch. The average American is delusional and irreparably stupid.
We constantly joke that it’s Idiocracy, but the truth is…
Thank you for saying it. The voter is the fucking problem. Anyone with half a brain realizes this. Gaza, egg prices, and the candidate not having a dick was enough to the traitor rapist felon to get a trifecta. That’s not a campaign problem. Maybe Harris didn’t run a perfect campaign, but that’s clearly not the issue here
I’m not American. Maybe my opinion also comes from a place of not understanding how government works in the US. But in 2020, Biden won the Presidency and the Democrats had control of the House and the Senate. Yet, they had a harder time of reversing Trump’s policies than he had pushing them through. Let alone not even trying to enact progressive policies.
As an outside observer, maybe that’s why people have lost faith in the Democratic party.
This. Was crazy to see everyone turn on the DNC and Harris the moment it was over like we are just unable to come to terms with the fact that we’re surrounded by garbage and morons and there’s no way around it
The results aren’t showing that though. They are showing a large amount of Democrat voters just stayed on the couch. Trump didn’t get more votes than 2020, all that was needed was an energized democratic base.
Yeah uh, I really really hate to say it, but… democracy worked this time. The voice of the people is “Trump please”. Democracy just means you get what most people want, not what the best option is.
I’m pretty sure the majority of people mourning the loss of democracy aren’t saying it because they feel the democratic process was broken this election, rather they say it because Dump vowed to dismantle democracy and serve as a dictator.
It’s funny that you can now actually do a Pro/Con list about the Idiocracy universe over our own:
Pros:
Cons:
Same:
At least we’ll always have Costco that really lifted my spirits 👍
I can’t tell you how much faith I’ve lost in the average person in America, especially compared to how… ok, I guess, the last election went and how tight, or possibly over this one is.
I can’t fathom how fucking stupid anyone would have to be to elect this orange piece of shit that has been upping the dangerous rhetoric constantly. America is broken and it isn’t worth fixing, especially not for the morons that somehow get him elected again. I just hope that I can get to a point in my career that I can move elsewhere, maybe Ireland or New Zealand or something, fuck.
For real. The rest of the world needs to get their shit together and cripple the US. Cease all trades immediately, end all alliances with the US. The US has the largest military in the world, and now the facists have the reins entirely. They have the oval office, the have the house, they have the Senate and they have the supreme court. The entire world is going to suffer because of this election.
US politics have gone to dangerous direction for decades. Orange freak is only a symptom. US is gonna become Russia level cleptocracy and when climate crysis hits fully, world will be more separated and chaotic than ever.
There may not be any need for that.
The United States, China, etc. all have trade policies that are fundamentally unsustainable and result in persistent trade imbalances.
This causes all sorts of poor economic outcomes for large sectors of those countries. For example, an anaemic household sector in China and over investments in housing, huge private and public sector deficits in the United States, etc.
In the free market world of Adam Smith, persistent trade imbalances should not exist.
At some point, there is going to be an economic crisis.
God you blue conservatives are ridiculous.
You’d rather support the death of America over doing away with the two party system.
Remember when they bombed a neighborhood in Philadelphia?
Remember when they burned children alive because their parents may or may not have modified some firearms.
Holy fuck.
Also say goodbye to internet freedom of speech, if even a small portion of Project 2025 comes into play. Anti-pornography activism sounds nice on paper, until you realize everyone has a different definition of pornography, and the people that want to ban porn the most have a rather interesting take on what constitutes as porn and what doesn’t…
How does anti-pornography sound good to you? If you are about to give some religious nonsense, please don’t bother.
Some people define porn as the stuff corporations do, except they will side with anyone that promises a blanket ban on stuff.
It absolutely does not sound nice on paper.
“Anti-pornography” specifically means “anti-LGBT”.
They will extend it to mean anything outside of what their version of Christianity allows, which will include a lot of straight people
Anti-pornography activism sounds nice on paper
I am absolutely ashamed I’m forced to vote along side you by First Past the Post voting. Disgusting.
When you figure out that the United States was established by wealthy white males who owned slaves, had a revolution due to “no taxation without representation” but then purposefully ignored to repent the 99% until major reforms over the years, it makes sense.
The first set presidential elections were only voted by a handful of Americans. Not the women. Not the slaves. Not the natives who were here first. The landowning white men.
When we claimed England is a tyranny but abolished slavery and gave universal aufferage before we did, I think we lost that argument. America was built by out of touch white men, and it has always been ran by out of touch white men.
Rebecca Latimer Felton, the first woman elected to the US Senate, She “spoke vigorously in favor of lynching African Americans, under the pretense of protecting the sexual purity of European-American women.”
Fuck all it all be about the white men.
Man, I’m not above being petty, so lemme just say she looks exactly as I expected.
Not to mention that the civil war was lost through the presidential election of 1876 even though it was won in battle before that. That election was so corrupt that the Union conceded a lot to get their president including removing Federal forces from the South on the promise that the South would protect Federal rights of minorities, blacks, etc. (among other things) The North pulled out and the south reneged without consequence (the KKK was the strong arm then) until the Civil Rights act in the 60s. That’s only roughly 60 years ago. Most of the institutional segregation from before then is still firmly in place.
It’s amazing the stories that Americans tell themselves about the American Revolution. They pretend that the “founding fathers” were heroic idealists standing up for honorable values against an evil despotic regime. The truth is much more complicated.
A major goal of the 7 Years War was about controlling the colonies in the Americas. Had the French won those wars, the modern people of North America would probably speak French. Look at how many US places still have French names, and especially are named after the French king: Louisiana, Louisville, St. Louis, Mobile, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Detroit, Lafayette, Arkansas, Illinois, Calumet, Decatur, Boise, Montpelier, etc. But, the French lost the war, so the English took over all that territory. Fighting that war was incredibly expensive, but it was worth it for the English because they now controlled a whole new continent with all its resources. To pay for that war, they levied taxes. The English colonists in the US, who were largely the beneficiaries of that part of the war, decided they didn’t want to pay those taxes, so they rebelled. They got the benefit of a continent won for them by English armies, but without having to pay the bill for that fight. Now, again, it’s complicated. The English armies were integrated with the colonial armies. George Washington was initially an officer in the British army (and was part of starting the French and Indian wars, which became the 7-years-war). The US colonists were part of the force that fought against the French and their native allies.
Anyhow, it was complicated. But, the end result was that after a war that took place both in Europe and in the Americas, the British crown had a huge debt. I have no idea what proportion of that debt was due to the part of the war fought in Europe vs. the part of the war fought in the Americas, but overall there was a big debt and the English crown tried to tax whoever they could to pay for it.
Was the English king a tyrant? Sure. Did the Americans have fair representation in the English parliament? Probably not. But, their main reason for rebelling was the same one that is nearly always the cause of rebellions: the rebels are in an area that’s wealthy for some reason, and they don’t want to have to share that wealth with the rest of the country / empire. In fact, it was suspected that the colonists chose not to send representatives to the colonial assembly partially because they knew that if they did that it would undermine their “without representation” argument, and the real issue was that they simply didn’t want to pay taxes.
As for the English system being tyrannical, the reality is that it has been a very slow, gradual change from an absolute monarchy to a ceremonial one. The English crown is significantly less wealthy than Elon Musk, and arguably has a lot less influence on British politics than Musk does on American politics.
By the letter of the laws, the British system is still more classist and controlled by money than the American system. But, is that true if you look at the actual real way that power is used? It doesn’t seem like it to me.
I particularly enjoy the bit about how after the French helped us win our revolution and took some revolution home in a doggy bag. We reneged on our debt claiming “Our deal was with the king.”
What??? We literally saw democracy play out. You can’t even use the excuse that he lost the popular vote, he won every type of democratic way we have.
You know what wasn’t democracy? Installing candidates into primaries over democratically popular candidates. Hillary in 2016, Biden in 2020 and Kamala in 2024. In every single one of these primaries, they did everything they could to shut down anyone popular who showed any sign of having a backbone.
If you’re referencing Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020, he wasn’t “democratically popular” in either race. That simply is not supported by polling or election results. He was well behind Clinton by all metrics. Then in 2020, he was briefly “winning” because several similar candidates were splitting the center-left lane. The moment the center-left lane narrowed, Sanders’ lead evaporated.
It’s SOP for candidates to more or less clear the field for an incumbent president. This is partially because of a perceived effect from a strong primary challenger weakening an incumbent. So Democrats were just doing what both parties have been doing for the last half century.
The change from Biden was in response to clear reactions from the US electorate. The electorate saw Biden’s debate performance and was not impressed. There wasn’t time to run a process, so Kamala was the obvious choice given a non-ideal situation. But the electorate got what it wanted in terms of an option that wasn’t elderly.
Bernie Sanders won 3 out of 5 primaries that occurred before the DNC called it for Biden in 2020 with Buttigeg picking up 1 other. In 2016 Sanders won 23 races and was at 43% of the popular vote despite extreme pushback by the DNC. He was democratically supported cause he had people voting for him. Democratically.
And sure but with some of the worst polling numbers Biden, did not need to or should have thought he had incumbent advantage. Mud had a better approval rating.
And the change was from that and a protest vote of 100,000 voters voting against Biden in a primary that had no other option that’s was being ignored until the rich donors realized the polling wasnt gonna get better after the debate proved he was not fit for office.
There was time but the argument was made that it would be difficult and all the donations already made could be immediately given to Harris as she was already on the ticket, thus letting the money flow (which the DNC outspent Trump 2:1)
They got what they wanted which was a younger centrist willing to do Biden-esque policy without question that they thought would be easy with identity politics and being “not Trump” which is viewed as the main issue and not what issues he represents as a fix for.
Mostly being a willingness to change from status quo.
Which is exactly what hasn’t been allowed in races as shown before.
He wasn’t “democratically popular” because the Dems suppressed all support he had. All those news medias that have been hounding on trump being the worst thing since Hitler? Yeah, they used that same power to stifle anyone who had an iota of a chance to get votes
I think you’re forgetting the part where Clinton paid off the DNC’s debts and became it’s only financial lifeline, for which DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz abdicated control of party to Clinton’s team long before she secured the nomination.. Or that the AP controversially called the primary for Hillary just before California voted, giving voters the impression the primary was over before voting finished. Or that the DNC argued in court that they had no obligation give Bernie a fair, democratic primary. Or that Representatives Ford and Smith admitted the party did coalesced around Biden in 2020 to block Bernie. Or that polls had Bernie beating Trump by a wider margin than Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020.
I am not sure you remember but the media reaction to Bernie doing well initially was major outlets like CNN reacting with fear, loathing, and uncertainty. And it impacted rhe course of an election. You had anchors yelling about how Sanders will result in public executions in central park during the primary.
Trump has threatened to end democracy. So yesterday may end up being the last time anyone in the US gets to vote.
I wouldn’t call that a win for democracy.
*Candidate backed by the world’s richest billionaire wins*
.ml users: “Democracy Won!”
Clownocracy
FWIW most clowns are hard-working, skilled individuals who bring joy to people’s lives.
Clown country
Yeah, a two party system with two right wings only.
That wouldn’t work.
Funny and true. I like it.
Well, it is nearly dead now.
US is system is so bad. The constant pandering to “founding fathers” as if it’s even possible to have strong enough vision that it would last 200+ years and refusal to innovate past the ridiculous two party system is just sad tbh.
Yet nothing will change because you can’t change these things without a revolution apparently.
It’s a democracy controlled by people who don’t care about regular working people. It was designed by rich white dudes and slaveowners 250 years ago to protect and increase their wealth.
Your institutions have failed you. Americans need to demand better and throw off the chains that the wealthy have put on them.
Kind of feels like our “crossing the Rubicon” moment. Except instead of an intellgent and accomplished general leading an army, we got a clown leading a circus.
Democrats were voting to avoid a repeat. Republicans were voting to avoid jail time. The latter was a bigger motivator to get off the couch.
this is what a terminal case of neoliberalism looks like, kids
Not that I’m advocating for it, but it’s completely legal for Biden to order the assassination of Trump and Vance. So yeah, US democracy is dead.
I hope the American people will resist any draconian measures there are bound to be, whether with civil unrest or other forms of protest.
You guys should have listened to Thomas Paine, the only founding father with a clue and a set of principles.
Topical.
Yet y’all have an audacity to blame people from authoritarian states
If American democracy survived Jackson, Buchanan, Hoover, and Nixon…
Yeah but it was our democracy, damn it.
On the bright side, at least we’ll finally be rid of the motherfucker on Inauguration Day 2029, assuming he doesn’t keel over from oldasfuckitis before then.
Kleptocracy
It’s not too much different to the chinese democracy. There isn’t even a direct democracy
Now is time for the “well, if we don’t develop it first, the bad guys will” superpower to show itself off, I guess.
If we had a more representative electoral system, more of the non voters would be engaged by the political process. More voters always has lead to more democratic votes.
Why is the democratic party saying no to these easy extra votes when they fail to replace First Past the Post voting in states they control between elections?
I hope our future dictators are handsome or beautiful and that they come with nice body parts, so when we have to suck their dicks, we can at least enjoy it.
The USA is a bourgeois democracy. It is only a democracy for the rich.
Snapz@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Plain and simple… She was a woman, and a black person - There will be months of tap dancing and “deep” analysis, but we’re just an ugly, atrophied, broken, racist and patriarchal nation, like deep down in our DNA. We were able to elect Obama, yes - he is half white, and a man. Again, it’s not satisfying, but it’s just the plain truth here.
Plenty of deliberate work has been done, mostly by republicans, to keep America stupid, poor and in untreated pain, yes… But we’re also just trash on the whole. We raise trash and we vote for trash. We just aren’t smarter than social algorithms, TV soap opera narratives, costumes and makeup. “The pretend business man is white, old, wears a tie and has a gold watch. He feels like how daddy felt when I was little, and when things are bad, daddy fixed them the way I remember it.”
Video game trolls, people who failed the cop application physical and triple DUI wine moms are America. No further explanation or analysis needed.
MarcomachtKuchen@feddit.org 5 months ago
This reads like straight out of disco elysium. Great choice of words
Snapz@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Thanks, I still need to play it. Maybe a good distraction for a bit to regroup and prepare for a rough road ahead.
Fredselfish@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I remember hearing many democrats that joked how they voted for the white side of Obama. It wasn’t funny and isn’t funny now. They are not only voting against a woman but one of color.
We are going let christian fascism take control of America because a large portion of our population is sexiest, and racist. Not to mention all those protest votes or fucker who sat on their couch rather than do the right thing.
Now we are all fucked.
LappingDog@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
I voted for Harris walz, but I think a lot of this is the fault of Biden for trying to run for reelection and sticking it out until July. I live in the south and I think the lack of a primary reallly hurt the ticket because a sizable portion of the people I’ve talked to felt like she was appointed instead of being elected, which is a bad move when public trust in our institutions is already at an all time low.
Croquette@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
This is all excuses. The fact that Trump made it all the way as the primary candidate for the GOP means that Republicans were okay with what he said and what he did.
For a normal person, it shouldn’t even take a second to choose Harris. But this isn’t the case. Trump won the popular vote and the presidency despite all the crazy shit because a sizeable part of the citizens voted him in regardless of the reason.
And not only that, but Republicans won the senate and well on their way to win the house.
It is about to get real bad, and Americans have themselves to blame for that.
Krauerking@lemy.lol 5 months ago
Institutional democrats who thought they knew what they were doing and could ignore the base of the party is to blame. Biden being top of the list. Stubborn self assured who when finally pushed to change was only willing to do it on his terms. And made a decision for everyone, again.
One of the big stories is a Democratic party Mayor of a super Blue city being corrupt and organizing police to defend him and yet not a single member of the party has spoken out against it. Endorsed by Hakeem Jeffries.
Status quo is far more important than listening to their base right now and hopefully it changes instead of them once again thinking they need to head further right.
And for the love all things holy I hope the Democrats learn to stop “gaming” the election with specific counties in “blue walls” because they did advanced math that told them it was all they needed. Bare minimum should never have been the goal.
Snapz@lemmy.world 5 months ago
The people you talked to are bigoted cowards that wouldn’t have been swayed by any of that shit - She has a vagina and she’s black - That’s all it was ever going to be.
You’re hearing the thing they hope their neighbor would think of them after the fact, " I was this close, Bill… I just wanted more policy detail… More time… If only they didn’t make me vote for trump".
Your neighbor fucking sucks, Bill - this is the time you pause, take a breath, and fully internalize that to inform your future interactions.
Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 5 months ago
100%
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 5 months ago
She was doing better than the old white guy she replaced though
Snapz@lemmy.world 5 months ago
What does “doing better” mean to you in this day and age in that context? Polls are no longer a viable tool. They are captured, manipulated and heavily biased. They ask misleading questions and ask them of non-representative populations.
Very big difference between “doing better” in “the race” and casting your vote on election day. Again, gramma in Pennsylvania didn’t think Kamala was doing better, or really she didn’t care what she was doing, because there was just one “key issue” that gramma would never get onboard with for Kamala… Gramma didn’t talk about that issue during “the race”, but she was thinking about it when she pulled the lever.
kreskin@lemmy.world 5 months ago
was she? She couldnt identify a single thing she’d do differently than Biden.
Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Obama was a unique situation in that he was both an incredibly charismatic JFK-style figure and ran after the Republicans had managed to both start a very unpopular war and destroy the world economy.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Barack Obama also never released a campaign ad that said “Hey white dudes, we only think some of you suck.”
GeneralInterest@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I don’t think it’s just the fact that she’s a black/Asian woman.
I saw this on BBC News which is probably correct:
Katana314@lemmy.world 5 months ago
“Imagined” is perhaps the right word considering he wanted to raise taxes for low income people, and lower taxes for rich people.
IzzyJ@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Frankly, that just shows hollywood is overhated and voters are stupid
phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
While this is a large part of it, a significant thing I think is that you get a lot more enthusiasm voting for something than against something. If she was campaigning for things I didn’t hear it above the constant “orange shit is an orange shit”.
A number of terrorist bomb threats to predominantly democratic polling locations in swing states and other fuckery may have also played a role.
IzzyJ@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Maybe care about things. Voting against him should’ve been enough to elect a ham sandwhich
OpenStars@piefed.social 5 months ago
I get more the sense that people don't care about her so much - or him either for that matter - so much as how things in general just "feel wrong". I'm no expert but the news media having been bought out seems a likely culprit. Jon Stewart tried to warn us but we would not listen. He did his part, but if people don't value things, they tend to fall - or in this case be taken - apart.
wlodi@szmer.info 5 months ago
Totally agree. After all the progress the US is still not ready to accept anyone else than white men at the top.
PlainSimpleGarak@lemm.ee 5 months ago
You people are about to overdose on copium. This is a lazy view. “she lost because of race and sex”. You need to really ask people why she couldn’t secure their vote.
quink@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
Should have stuck with the British Monarchy, powerless as it comes. A woman as head of state for 70 years and even better, no elections for any president during any of time.
Crampon@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Dems had the house for 12 years the past 16. Nothing really changed.
People have claimed Harris wasn’t capable of leading. They got their undeserved confirmation when she turned out to be a no show for 14 hours yesterday.
You construct a Strawman. If the Dems pulled a capable and charismatic woman out of the top hat she would be able to win.
Snapz@lemmy.world 5 months ago
“People have been saying…” - oh fuck you, dude.
First sentence is just beyond stupid. Ignores so many nuanced changes, recovery of the economy from COVID not the least of it and just oblivious to the overall balance of power along the way with an unreasonable, obstructionist gop opposing progress at every turn, even to spite themselves on things like the border bill and the infrastructure bill more recently.
“Enough” is never done, but that’s a problem with overall politics, mixed with subjective perception. But your ignorant oversimplification here just has no place in a conversation among adults. Maybe go play with the dirt outside or go point at the pictures in that puffy book you love about firetrucks while you shit yourself?
Your statement is just hollow. It’s defiantly ignorant, smug, selfish, cowardly and just overall, you seem to (without further qualification) fucking suck. To have failed you this poorly, can also confidently assume that your family is just generations of disappointment in front of and behind you. You’re useless lumps, impotently screaming at the sun… At least that’s what “People have been saying…”
OpenPassageways@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
People handed the election on a silver platter to a guy who refused to concede in 2020, and shills are on here saying that Harris is incapable of leading because she took a while to concede?
And I bet those same people complain that Gore concerned too soon in 2000.
What’s this about the Dems having control of the house? Another person that needs a civics lesson? It’s like the cultists saying that “Kamala had 4 years to fix these problems” because they don’t know how our government works.
The Dems have had control of the government for exactly 2 years since 1980. I don’t understand how anyone can blame the Dems for the state our country is in.
The silver lining in all this is that now that Republicans have complete control, it will be impossible for shills and cultists to blame the Dems.
aubertlone@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Slowly but surely I’m coming to terms with our modern reality