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I cannot imagine being such a dimwit as to be one of the people just now waking up to this.
I mean....did these people really not see his first term? Did they really think that the only reason he failed in his first term was because of Covid?
"What do you mean? Covid happened under Biden, as did anything else bad that happened during Trump's presidency. "
Unironically have had to walk people through the timeline because they seriously believe covid entirely happened during Biden's term.
And for those that think you're joking. The showdy is often relevant.
I forgot about the O'Reily clip. Impressive levels of cognitive dissonance that people go through to justify their feelings on events. I'm still baffled that people can misremember basic timelines facts involved with one of the biggest disruptions of people's lifetimes that only had happened a few years ago. Realizing how fictional people's memories were about even recent major events made it a lot more understandable how people were so easily manipulated in to thinking a billionaire conartist was somehow going to try to help them this time.
No wonder the same bunch think Biden had "the worst economy", LOL. Cannot even recall basic recent history.
No no no!!! Covid happened under tan suit Obama. /s
The first round of covid stimulus checks that went out had trump's fucking signature on them. He insisted that it be on there.
Do they not remember crowing about "not cashing the check if you hate him so much?" Because I fucking do.
Or all of the BS with pseudoscientific treatment of the week? Including injecting bleach and UV light?
Oh, that's just what they need to do to maintain mar-a-lago face.
The majority of my coworkers have casually stated the last week, "I don't agree with the way this is all happening.", but still overall support the agenda and hold their line. It's a combination of ignorance and stupidity. They're just fascists without even knowing. I live in a deep red area and from what I can gather when I hear talk out in the street, most people are either completely unaware or excited "they're taking America back." There is no convincing these people. I have tried for years and years, and when they seem to hear you and begin to digest what you've said, they come back the next day more sure than before that Facebook and Fox keep them informed. Many of them can't tell you what the three branches of government are or how many Senators there are or provide correct answers on the simplest of civics questions.
It’s truly incomprehensible to most blue/libs that magas and conservatives are genuinely and permanently deranged cultists
They really believe it’s possible to use words and logic to convince them of things, hence the poster being confused why they aren’t convinced of anything
Because our elected officials refuse to talk like this and many constantly stress how bipartisan they try to be with everything. Saying "about 35% of this country are raving psychopaths who can not be compromised with and must be disempowered" is not an easy feel good campaign message but it's what people need to hear.
Yeah it’s incredibly dangerous to simply ignore or pretend that these are rational people to negotiate with
They certainly aren’t negotiating with us so I’m not sure when these compromise is king types will realize this is a kill or be killed situation
Anyone who says "reach across the isle" in the primary is an automatic no. These people are not interested in governing. They are openly hostile.
^ Maybe we should prevent this sort of thing, no?
Imagine how dim the 42% must be.
21% of American adults are functionally illiterate. I wonder if that 42% has all of the 21%?
From my experience living in the US, I would say "dim" is an incorrect characterization. Supportive of corruption, crime and dishonesty is IMO a much more accurate characterization.
The 42% are locked on Fox News.
The majority of Americans have significant, legitimate material and social grievances that cause them real duress. Most are surrounded by a curated low-information media environment and society that reinforces punching down, zero sum in-out group thought, scapegoating, etc. And the only official political choice they're ever allowed is between two preselected corporate stooges.
I think we're the dimwits if we're confused as to why Trump has so much inertia.
And yet, most of the grievances that Trump bleats about are neither significant nor legitimate. "THEY'RE EATING THE DOGS AND CATS!!!"
Quit pretending those fools are reasonable and have anything behind their hatred besides stupidity.
Go on, say that both sides are the same.
At some point over the years these rage-blind takes stop being cathartic and start becoming an apologetic distraction from the institutions that prefigure our social issues in the first place.
Curious what you mean by zero sum in this context.
The conservative fallacy that the sum of all positives and negatives in the world is always zero, therefore good cannot be had by all and must always be had at someone else's expense.
The old "I don't really win unless someone else loses."
Thanks.
I would disagree (not from the US, but I have lived there, travelled extensively and have American friends who I speak to pretty regularly).
The "low information" environment is a choice (especially nowadays). Scapegoating is a choice. A two party state is a choice. Even the unaddressed material and social grievances is a choice. US is rich enough to solve all these issues with no problem at all.
The real issue is that a significant portion of Americans support corruption, crime and believe lying is good. While at the same time parroting tedious polemics about "freedumz and shiiit".
And on top of that the majority of the voter base of the centre-right opposition is fundemantely opposed to anti-corruption, anti-crime and governance (in terms of real outcomes, not words). Most of them are simply too well off to risk rocking the boat (until it's too late).
While this is a gross generalisation, there is a reason why the following stereotype is applied to Americans:
cognitive dissonance
The people who support Trump after even 2018 are literally so cognitively disabled, I would genuinely submit for consideration that those people are as true to NPCs as possible.
Your average cockroach is more capable of self reflection and complex critical thinking than your average Trump supporter.
Bacertia is a better candidate for holding its own personal, and expansive personal thoughts than a Trump supporter.
ChatGPT is more capable of hallucinating genuine human empathy and emotional intelligence than a Trump supporter.
Cosmic background radiation is more grounded to Earth than a Trump supporter.
These people are simply stupid beyond repair and shouldn't be respected as equals in any capacity.
The only people brainwashing themselves are those so fucking stupid they think people who've gleefully supported Nazism for over 10 years now don't explicitly and knowingly support autocracy and genocide.
Maybe stop coping and pretending these assholes can be redeemed in any way and aren anything but a hostile enemy that'd see you and everyone like you die, and are currently making big strides to seeing that through.
The left loses when we constantly shoot our own balls off and attempt empathy and understanding to these sadistic sociopaths who've only ever demonstrated doubling down in that direction.
So get with reality or sit down and shut the fuck up, because people like you hold all real progress back. Stop cucking yourself to Nazis.
I know exactly what you are. You are like every other pathetic, fucking moronic leftist who wants to tuck their balls inside themselves and make peace with those gleefully supporting or outright committing atrocities to all the marginalized peoples you pretend to care about to virtue signal and feel better about yourself.
Wake up and join the rest of us in reality, you fuck. Stop with the Neville Chamberlain bullshit. You really want people to find the innocence in the party spearheading genocide domestically, destroying the rule of law entirely, sending the military into opposition cities to quell dissidents, destabilizing countries by illegally kidnappings their leadership, threatening NATO (of which two other member nations have nukes), and fundamentally destroying the economy for the benefit of delusional billionaires?
And you have the fucking audacity to disagree that these assholes aren't Nazis? The mother fuckers doing all of that, plus constantly spam fucking Nazi dog whistles to the public? Seriously?
Are you just stupid or are you stupid and on their side? You act like a fucking 1990's liberal, as if these people committing so many atrocities can be conquered and tamed with talk and strongly worded letters. Wake the fuck up and stop being so fucking pathetic. At least 1/3rd of the country is fully in support of the atrocities this pedophile piece of shit president is committing. They are a hostile enemy. Wake the fuck up for once in your miserable life. The world isn't a fucking fairy tale like you want it to be.
What's your favorite Obama war?
Give us a list of them so we can choose.
There's Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, & Somalia. Iraq and Afghanistan are carryovers from Bush, so those would be cheating.
Probably Libya then.
Great choice. An African American turning one of the wealthiest nations in Africa into a failed state with open slave trade markets is quite the achievement. I, myself, and more fond of the Syrian war, where the US, the biggest military in the history of the world, literally ran out of bombs, cause it dropped so many on one nation, whose oil fields are currently controlled by America. The bombing of Yemen is also great! We successfully bombed not just weddings, but also school busses full of children, and even made Jim Carrey into a world famous artists of his drawing of the incident. And also where Obama successfully took out a family member of a known terrorist, his 16 year old American son.
One thing worth considering, is that on a global/historical basis it is not unheard of for whole societies (strong majority if not overwhelming majority) to descend into degeneracy, chauvinism and corruption.
In a sense, this is not something specific to the US. These things unfortunately happen.
I see where you are coming from, but I think it's dangerous to give too much benefit of the doubt and to look at things as we want them to be, not how they are.
I disagree with this framing.
I've travelled and lived for several years in many countries across NA (including the US), Europe and Asia.
One thing that I've learned is that it's important to keep an open mind, to look at the good things in a given society/culture and to not be overly judgmental. It's important to not frame thing in terms of expectations from another environment.
That being said there are limits to everything. Looking at the trajectory of American society, it is not unreasonable to speculate that their march towards a chauvinistic, corrupt plutocracy is not going to stop.
I would love to be wrong (it's a disaster that the US has essentially turned into a mafia state), but to deny reality is the definition of cope.
Oh god you're still ball tucking to other people.
Hey please drop the bullshit "holier than thou" narrative.
You're pathetic and rather try to hold hands with Nazis than stand up to them. How very Nevillle Chamberlain of you.
And actually it is quite black and white.
There is zero nuance to mass kidnappings of brown people by white supremachists. Its indisputably evil.
There's zero nuance to destabilizing a developing nation for the purposes of your rich buddies raping it for resources. Its indisputably evil.
There's zero nuance to threatening to annex an ally's territory, again for your rich buddies to rape it for resources. Its indisputably evil.
There's zero nuance to befriending the CEO of elite pedophiles incorporated, and trafficking and raping kids with him for a decade, its indisputably evil.
And there's zero nuance to gleefully and openly supporting genocide, foreign nor domestic. Its indisputably evil.
The fact you can't the black and white nature of the evil of these crimes shows you are fundamentally morally bankrupt, intellectually barren, and untrustworthy with even the most basic and fundamental critical analysis of any serious situation.
Sit this one out, Jr. The adults don't have time to make kids like you feel better about their insecurities.
Its ok, I'll summarize:
You're a colossal pussy and know nothing about politics, let alone reality.
I misunderstood. Apologies.
While I agree that a black and white approach isn't exactly accurate, you can get to a point where the situation becomes close enough to black/white as a matter of practical considerations (i.e. outcomes). Again, not something specific to the US, it can and does happen everywhere.
I am still clinging to the hope that the Americans will turn things around (i.e. no Obama "hope and change" while avoiding addressing crime and corruption), but it's becoming increasingly difficult.
And claiming that the overwhelming majority of the US far right is incapable of empathy (or that they are fundamentally supportive of crime and corruption) isn't factually incorrect to my knowledge.
You are correct, it's a choice. But no one (IMO even the thread OP) is arguing there is a physiologic reason for the lack of empathy. It's shorthand for saying they choose not to show empathy and this won't change any time soon (i.e. definitely not in the next 20-30 years).
Look, I am probably more on your side than our conversation would suggest, but I cannot imagine any realistic scenario of positive developments in American society. Can you? If yes, what is this scenario?
Im in Canada and have friends who believed his second term would be mostly as feckless as his first.
They didn’t understand how project 2025 meant he was going to be coming out of the gate with someone else’s agenda with all of the key players, including scotus in his back pocket. It all lined up to mean shit was going to go down fast and hard.
Look where we are one year in. 3 more years to subvert or nullify the next election.
These voters have 4 year memory capacity, at best.
A huge chunk of Americans either don't pay close attention or get their news through heavily propagandized sources.