The way you qualified that sentence so carefully speaks volumes about what you now know to be true.
I’ll say. The OP is living in fantasy land and wants the rest of us to join him.
There isn’t enough dope in the world…
They’ve always done that though. There have been a wide range of tools to suppress black voters in history, and blacks only gained widespread voting rights in the 1960s because conservative whites declared war on democracy against them. Blacks in the Jim Crow south didn’t have rights under the constitution.
In modern times they use voter suppression, voter ID laws, gerrymandering, accepting Russian assistance, etc. to win.
Its been happening for centuries. I guess one of the few positives is that the tactics they use now are nowhere near as effective as the tactics of 100 years ago. 100 years ago they could use domestic terrorism and Jim Crow laws to prevent voter turnout. Now they just use gerrymandering and various voter suppression laws which while effective, aren’t as brutal or efficient.
I guess that is a bright spot, the caliber of evil that is considered allowable isn’t as intense.
But I still believe China will overtake us. Which is fine in a lot of ways. The US is in the middle of a cultural civil war and isn’t morally or intellectually competent to be a world leader right now.
He lied and a bunch of idiots bought the lie. There will be a reckoning when this ends, and end it will.
Yup. 3% population growth in those four years (I don’t know how to break it down by voting-age population, but don’t know of any particular reason why it’d be significantly less than 3%). If folks had voted in the same numbers, Clinton would have gotten about 2 million votes more than she got, almost certainly sufficient to win the electoral as well as the popular vote.
Complacency was a big deal.
Silver Lining, I think you’re fishing for leftists to admit what a brilliant candidate Trump was–or better yet to refuse to admit that so that you can jeer. Neither of these leads to intelligent conversation.
Intelligent conversation seems to be fairly low on the OP’s list of priorities.
Fine in a lot of ways? Fine for China, maybe. You do realize that China’s government may be intellectually competent to be a world leader, but their morals are very questionable.
Our country isn’t “fucked.” Humans of all varieties have always been susceptible to bad ideas if they’re packaged effectively, and people - not just collectively, but individual people - are capable of changing. You and so many other people are, like, operating under the assumption that everyone who voted for Trump was magically transformed into some kind of evil goblin, and you’re either a virtuous American or a permanently-doomed void of misery. Trump played to certain emotions and ideologies that existed at a certain point in time. At a different point in time, those emotions and ideologies might be totally different, depending on the state of the economy, the information received by the public, and social trends.
Not like your leaders, no.
You think all that will go away should the Republicans lose the next election? His enablers will still be around; his supporters will still be around. Both have tasted blood and they’ll want more. Seems to me you’re looking at the world through rose white and blue coloured glasses.
China values science. I am hoping a world with China at the helm will be one where economic growth, climate change, science and technology play a more prominent role. Plus after the failings of Mao, China seems to be very pragmatic and not really ideological while the US is going in the opposite direction, becoming more ideological and less pragmatic.
Also, from the outside, the Chinese domestic economic model seems to value building wealth among the working class while the US economic model (when applied internationally) is more about building wealth among the ownership class.
Yes China has moral problems that put ours to shame. But they are also competent. In America stupidity is a virtue. Besides there is always western Europe to promote western values. Western values aren’t going away just because China doesn’t care about them. The US will still support them, we just won’t be a reliable leader on them. Europe will take the helm on that.
I disagree with your last part. I think Trump just tapped into a wellspring of stupidity and bigotry that has existed in America, and made it mainstream. Now the entire world is probably going to say ‘until those deranged, racist Americans stop voting because they died of old age, we can’t count on the US anymore’. And that’ll take 15-40 years for that to happen, for the boomers and silent generation to be replaced by their kids and grandkids. And who knows if the next generation will be just as bad.
Ah yes, the Europe that had two horrifically brutal and destructive wars that leveled the continent, within the span of one human lifetime. Definitely a paragon of stability. Your perspective is so small-picture, man. Take a step back and look at the long term timescale.
Canada can be expected to remain stable, though. They are on top of things. If America undergoes truly serious problems, Canada is always there to provide refuge.
Until you come for our water because yours keeps getting stuck in your teeth.
I doubt it.
It was put to me thus: “I lost my job and all the Democrats think about is who can use which bathroom.”
I think the answer is found by looking at larger trends, not only here in this country but globally.
I was reading an article tonight about Jair Bolsonaro is potentially the Donald Trump of Brazil. He’s quoted as saying something to the effect of Brazilian dictatorship (1960s to 1980s) being a very good era. The usual “the trains ran on time” tripe. And it’s really no secret why: Brazil has had a 30-35 year experiment with modern, Western democracy, and in the end, it hasn’t been as successful as some had hoped.
This is part of a global trend that is infecting democracy after democracy, especially since the wave of global financial crises that began in 2007 and have had ripple effects in liberal economies and democracies throughout the globe ever since. The theme is essentially the same everywhere: the elites, the so-called educated experts failed you. Maybe they robbed you blind, or maybe they just arrogantly didn’t understand you and your needs. Or both. Whatever, it’s time for someone to come in and shake things up. When the politics of group consensus and collaboration fail, they are inevitably replaced by the politics of superman.
It’s hard to predict the weather, but we can tell that the political climate is changing. And the skies are darkening on democracy. Trump has promised to be a superman. He has promised to fix the failures of everyone else who came before him. Every day he sets himself apart, believing himself to be unlike any other president.
So the solution was to vote for a party that gave massive tax cuts to the rich which have to be paid for with tax hikes on the working class?
Also only whites who didn’t go to college bought into this argument. The democrats always do well among minorities, and did better among college educated whites than Romney did.
Economics isn’t why people voted Trump. It has been studied. It was fear of cultural displacement. America is rapidly becoming more egalitarian and multicultural. Whites, men, heteros, christians, the native born, etc. do not enjoy the level of privilege they used to have as a birthright.
Also black women struggle economically. But only 4% of them voted for Trump. And they as a class struggle more than white men.
Yes, and virtually everyone who was alive when those 2 wars happened is dead now. The average soldier who fought in WW2, if they are still alive, is 90 now. All of the politicians and political leaders who caused WW1 and WW2 are dead and have been for a long time.
Western Europe will continue to promote western values and have integrity while they do it. But the US has lost some serious credibility while we descend into white nationalism as we experience our cultural civil war with the christian white nationalists on one side and the multicultural egalitarians on the other. On the plus side, this is a global war and is happening in other nations too, so maybe the world won’t think we are especially stupid because of it.
Also what do you mean by I am small picture? I felt I was the opposite. I’m looking at the big picture. The big picture is this:
China, if they promote science and an economic model that lifts the poor and middle class up, will result in improved standards of living all over the world.
Meanwhile the US will be mired in a cultural civil war that will become less intense as white silent generation and white baby boomers die of old age and they are replaced at the polls by millennials and generation Z. I’ve heard some people talk about political strategies used in 1984, but about half the people who voted in 1984 are dead now. So those strategies aren’t going to work. It’ll be the same in another 30 years. Half the voters alive will be dead, and many of hte other half can’t vote yet.
The world in 2040+ may be one that sees a reliably sane America again and a world where China has done quite a lot to lift the world out of poverty. In the meantime, hopefully Europe can be a bulwark of western values to hold back China and the US takes a secondary role in this (or a less reliable role) while we straighten ourselves out.
I never heard Clinton or any other Democrat on the campaign trail talking about which bathroom. She may have mentioned it, but it certainly wasn’t part of her stump speech.
Trump yes.
Mike Huckabee all the time.
Ted Cruz barely talked about anything else.
Because establishment and social conservatives (also one issue R voters) were willing to make an unholy alliance with American fascists to retain political power. They were willing to have, and now protect, a fascist president so long as he was carrying the R. Make no mistake about it, Trump is a fascist. Also, certain moderate elements showed that they were pretty easy to con by Trump, and showing that they are willing to accept fascism so long as it means a return of “good paying jobs”. Trump is potentially taking the USA to a very dark place if fascism continues to be considered politically acceptable in the USA.
I think a big part of the picture is illegal immigration, every public poll I’ve looked at online paints the picture that the majority of Americans are not in favor of amnesty, unsecured borders, and unfettered immigration. It’s basically impossible that the minuscule amount of taxes immigrants do pay makes of for the tax money they suck up residing in the U.S. I guess you might argue that they work shitty jobs nobody wants but all I hear all the time is that automation and robotics will supplant unskilled labor but I never hear those arguing for all this unregulated immigration bring up that point.
And that’s the thing, the overall public is against amnesty and illegal immigration but with a lot of the leftists it’s like they don’t want any legislation on immigration enforced at all, we have basically zero tolerance right now and they are still streaming over, people with no education, no job skills that suck up limited space and resources, we can’t even take care of our own citizens but for some reason they think we can solve other countries problems?
What resources do illegal immigrants “suck up”?
Some of the people here, as well as people I know in my own personal life, are becoming reminiscent of Brunhilda and the ax. How must it feel to live one’s life carrying such an enormous mental burden? I notice that some people have become so consumed with paranoia and fear for this country, that they’re seemingly unable to enjoy their lives. Dude! Relax! Someone else will be President in a few years. The collective will of the people is malleable and can be shifted away from the intense negativity that has defined the Trump years. I don’t like this situation any more than you do, but it’s not going to last forever! America is not going to fall behind Europe and China. China has the most skewed gender ratio in the world, with tens of millions more men than women, this is going to lead to disaster. Europe is currently beset by myriad problems and I do not expect the E.U. to exist in ten years.
If America is as bad as you seem to believe it is, there would be mass migration to the country which is actually superior to the US: Canada. There would be mass migration. Canada is enormous. You can get a good house on good land in Nova Scotia for, like, nothing. The American dollar is stronger than the Canadian dollar. Cannabis is legal there. The people are smarter there. Everything is better there, the public transportation, the railway system, the healthcare system, the educational system, everything. Yet this exodus is not happening. Despite all the talk of doom and gloom, most Americans are not as intimidated by the authoritarian fascist government that they claim exists.
I’ll hazard a guess that telling Americans what they want to hear will work very well on a number of them even if what you’re telling them is not true and indeed even in the face of evidence that it is explicitly false.