Not at all what I said. I must remind you that my post was in a thread in which people were celebrating the suffering of other Americans, the face eating leopard party people. You seem to be okay with laughing about that suffering.
Watching evil people suffer karmic justice tends to be entertaining, yes.
Trump is a symptom of a deeply flawed country as is MAGA; by just blaming MAGA voters, people are missing the core causes that led to Trump. America was deeply fucked up before Trump was elected, otherwise he never would have been elected, and he could drop dead tomorrow and it will still be a deeply fucked up country. It’s fun to laugh at the dumbasses who have made their lives worse by voting Trump, but I don’t think you can do that AND try to take the high road.
That would explain it! But I fear you are being optimistic or magnanimous.
Here, on the other hand, you are commendably impartial. I endorse this plea.
Trump is more than just a symptom. He’s an enabler and amplifier of the very worst of America, taking mainstream the darkest bigotry and hatreds of a small minority of Americans. Most people who voted for Trump were just voting Republican and hoping for the usual Republican policies, not the tyrannical madhouse that he’s currently running. I hate Trump as much as anyone, but even I am surprised at just how far he’s gone in breaking laws, terrorizing both legal and undocumented immigrants alike, promoting hateful bigotry, and trying to reshape America’s culture in his own perverted image.
That said, there’s a real risk that having taken Americans’ darkest hatreds mainstream, that they’re becoming normalized and may remain mainstream even after Trump is gone.
I might agree with that statement about his first term, but not anyone who voted for him in the next two elections. They want this cruelty, they want this fascism and they’re getting exactly what they voted for.
Yes, they affirmed what a hateful people the voting majority of Americans has become. Take note of that.
You know the saying about how fish aren’t aware of water. This is demonstrated here over and over – and by here I mean this board in general, not only this thread and the one that spawned it1. There was a thread some time back celebrating that the U.S. has the best Freedom of Speech of any place in the world. This week I read that Florida schools have removed the Diary of Anne Frank.
Upthread I linked to a book I’m currently reading. It’s about politics and society in early 19th century U.S. The blatant racism is staggering of course, but it’s also interesting to read about the seeds of American Exceptionalism, the urge to build an empire at any cost.
The U.S. was the first modern democracy (for a select few) and even with the amendments, I can’t help but feel that the Constitution, so hallowed by Americans, might be a little bit out of date and maybe should be tossed and replaced with something that reflects that it’s been almost a quarter of a millennium and the world has changed.
Yes, America has achieved great things, produced wonders in science and culture. I’m beginning to think that all of that’s been done in spite of the horrible politics. Think about what you might’ve done with sane politics.
1Why am I here? Because I dislike the UI over at Reddit, because there are threads about non-political stuff. And because reading other people’s POV is interesting, even when I don’t agree. And at times I do find a differing opinion and think “Huh? Maybe they got a point.”
Maybe. But you may also be underestimating the tenacity of many Republican voters, who’d vote for anyone or anything with an “R” after its name. And apathetic citizens who don’t vote at all are always a big factor in election outcomes, giving disproportionate power to motivated voters attracted to populist demagogues.
It’s far from a foregone conclusion that half of Americans approve of what Trump is doing. His approval has gone from 47% at the beginning of his term to a new low of 40%. That’s admittedly a disturbingly high number, but I suspect it’s strongly bolstered by the know-nothings who voted for him in the first place. You usually can’t go wrong following the old maxim, “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”. Unfortunately in a practical sense it doesn’t much matter if the malicious result is the same.
If you do move overseas to avoid MAGAgeddon, won’t you still have to put up with asshole Brits, Aussies, Bhutanese, etc. holding you personally accountable for Trump?
[nitpick]
I won’t (ever) defend book-banning or Florida, for that matter, but ….
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A high school along Florida’s Atlantic Coast has removed a graphic novel based on the diary of Anne Frank after a leader of a conservative advocacy group challenged it, claiming it minimized the Holocaust.
“Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” was removed from a library at Vero Beach High School after a leader of Moms for Liberty in Indian River County raised an objection. The school’s principal agreed with the objection, and the book was removed last month.
The book at one point shows the protagonist walking in a park, enchanted by female nude statues, and later proposing to a friend that they show each other their breasts.
Single high school. Different book. Same shitty, Puritanical, Christian Taliban perpetrators and justification.
[/nitpick]
I’m not - he showed us who he was in his first term. That’s why I’ve been voting Democratic ever since. To no avail but what the hell - voting that way couldn’t hurt and it wasn’t that much out of my day. I fully expected our current shit show and I fully expect it to get worse at least until Trump is either out of office or taking his dirt nap. I don’t know what comes next, I’m just trying to survive today at this point.
You know I was asked, prodded, and advised to not make “Bad, bad, bad” threads. ‘Cause it shitted up the board. Possibly you were one of the shouters at the hole in the ground.
I was told I made too many threads. I slowed that down.
I’ve been told to STFU so many times on this board. So I slowed down.
I love all the Junior modding that goes around about me.
Do your worst. Until a MODERATOR tells me stop. I will post.
@madmonk28 …when my old Granny heard me incessantly complaining she’d say “Quit yer bitchin’ and do something about it…”
You’ve, again griped that because America ultimately put Trump in office we’re all complicit. I refuse to accept that I’m awful because he’s President when I actively tried to stop it.
If you cannot change what bugs you here or tolerate all us terrible Americans in this “deeply fucked up country” you should’ve left a long time ago(seems you saw the writin’ on the wall) If you saw it and knew it’s not where you wanted to be, thats a you problem; So, go.
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Thus removing any lingering, vestigial doubt about why “It’s taking longer than we thought.”
Remember folks; Collective national responsibility only applies when it’s a country American wants to bomb.
I don’t care about the high road. I care about getting in at least some amusement before I’m killed.
Hateful yes, majority not.
Trump did not win a majority of the votes.
… In terms of the popular vote, more people voted for someone not named Trump for president than voted for Trump in 2024, and his margin of victory over Harris was 1.5 percentage points. …
From the Council On Foreign Relations website.
And yet it is also true that the majority did not vote against Trump.
The majority did vote against him but split their votes against him between Harris and several others. The majority of votes, added together, were greater than the votes for Trump, they just weren’t all for Harris, which would of done it.
No. The majority must include eligible non-voters. The majority of voters, sure, but that ignores tens of millions whose non-choice was also a choice.