You’re old, straight, white and rich, motherfucker – YOU’RE going to be “ok.” Everyone else is fucked.

  • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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    16 days ago

    That’s what I’ve come around to. It’s not him. He’s a figurehead that we apply blame but it’s not. It’s the people - the public. They want this. They have the fear and the hate, they actively want it. If America didn’t want him, they wouldn’t have voted him in. Even with tampering/whatever, if America didn’t, he wouldn’t be there. But America does want him, and that’s a very sobering and sad thought to me. I try to live with a simple code - do what you want, as long as it doesn’t hurt others. I learned yesterday that most American’s don’t have similar values.

    • m_f@midwest.social
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      16 days ago

      IMO that’s way off base. People want change. They know they’re getting screwed, and the grifter is promising change. He’s lying and I think most people know that, but the fact that they’d take a convicted felon over what the DNC offered up is a crushing repudiation.

      Bernie would’ve mopped the floor with Trump, because he also offers change. Someone like Obama would’ve too, even though there was a paucity of actual change during his terms.

      We need to drag the DNC kicking and screaming off of the corporate dick it’s sucking, and get it left enough to offer real change, and people will vote for it in droves.

      • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        Part of me blames the collective memory loss of the COVID years and a complete lack of understanding of cause and effect.

        It’s like everyone forgot there was this massive global pandemic which absolutely killed entire industries. And even though the important parts were propped up during the lean times by government support, that support ended eventually, with the economy still a mess that couldn’t just be put back together like nothing happened.

        I mean, people at that time didn’t even have a concept of what was going on. They have no idea how much money was spent keeping the lights on. People lost their shit over the billions it would cost to forgive student loans, but had no idea how many more billions were already spent on—and abused by—businesses whose pandemic loans were forgiven by the government.

        Everyone forgot the pandemic was only as bad as it was in the US because it was so completely mishandled by the Trump administration. We could have had everything back to normal a lot sooner if there was even a little bit of national preparedness, not to mention if we didn’t have all the misinformation spread by his own administration.

        So when the economy went to shit in 2021-2022 during the Biden administration, people shrugged their shoulders and put the blame on the old man in the white house, despite the fact that it’s been on a recovery trend during this last year. And so Trump’s first year is going to start with stronger markets, he’ll get the credit, and then things will get worse just in time for someone else to take the blame for it.

          • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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            16 days ago

            Do you have figures that include 2024? That data seems to stop at 2021. Not saying you’re wrong but the picture being painted is just Biden’s first year as president during the height of the pandemic.

            Comparing things like rates of inflation and the consumer price index, we see the numbers drop dramatically within the past two years, which seems to have been improving cost of living somewhat (or, ruining less quickly, at least) for the average American, though there is still a lot more to be done.

              • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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                15 days ago

                I think there are two separate but related metrics at play here. Addressing income inequality would certainly go a long way towards improving quality of life for the working class, but Americans don’t care about someone having too much money as much as they care about having too little themselves.

                Despite large movements like Occupy Wall Street bringing the topic of income inequality to the forefront of news for a while, the fact that it petered out and has ceased to be an issue means that enough members of the working class were still contented enough by their bread and circuses, so nothing came of it.

                These voters don’t care if their CEO gets a $10 million bonus at the end of the year as long as they can still afford groceries and housing, but they do start to care a lot when they don’t. Only, blame is being directed at the government (inflated cost of living) rather than their rich bosses (wage stagnation).

                • m_f@midwest.social
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                  15 days ago

                  It didn’t peter out, it got co-opted and suppressed until Trump capitalized on it. This is that exact same sentiment. People can’t afford groceries and housing, that was a huge issue during the election, so yeah we’ve finally reached a breaking point where people are pissed off about inequality and showed it. Anybody still pushing neolib shit is either braindead or benefits from neofeudalism.

                  • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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                    15 days ago

                    If people were pissed about income inequality, they’d vote for the “tax the rich” candidates. Donald Trump’s agenda is the exact opposite about that.

      • AngryRobot@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        How is voting for a literal past president any kind of change? America chose hate and blame this week.

        • m_f@midwest.social
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          15 days ago

          He will bring lots of change. None of it good, but the DNC should view that as a crushing repudiation of their approach. They can’t even blame the Electoral College, they fucked up that badly. Hopefully they’ll learn a goddamn thing or two and run someone offering positive change.

          • AngryRobot@lemmy.world
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            15 days ago

            It was incredibly hard to fight the constant youtube and tiktok right-wing extremism that they’ve been fed. They’ve been taught to hate women and minorities so much that they vote for literal Hitler.

            • m_f@midwest.social
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              15 days ago

              If you’re just some dude, and you’ve got youtubers saying “you matter and you’re cool” on the one hand, and “cis white men suck #KillAllMen”, what do you think you’d be attracted to? That’s a generalization of course, but identity politics has got to go. We need more of this aesthetic on the left:

              Not that exact poster obviously, but we need something that gives people a vision of the future and makes it cool. Until that happens, get ready for more Trump and his ilk.

              • AngryRobot@lemmy.world
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                15 days ago

                Or, so,ething needs to be done about the massive fucking foreign influence from hostile foreign countries. Of course, it allowed the coming fzctionmto sieve power, so it will just get worse.

                • m_f@midwest.social
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                  15 days ago

                  If things didn’t suck for so many people, they would’ve been casting seeds onto stone. It’s much, much harder to radicalize someone that’s content. Instead, the messages found fertile ground. The solution isn’t to just ignore the issue and say “actually everything’s fine, look at numbers go up!”. It’s to give people hope that you’re actually fixing the issue.

                  • AngryRobot@lemmy.world
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                    15 days ago

                    The entire world experienced massive inflation. Biden’s policies brought us out of it better than most 1st world nations. People seem to think trump will bring prices back down. They apparently don’t know that deflation is even worse than inflation.

    • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
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      16 days ago

      Apparently people see him as the strongman lesser evil who’s gonna bring back economy, “fix” illegal immigration (both of which the current administration has done), and keep status quo on energy and abortion. I blame the Democrats for not campaigning on their successes.

      • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        They DID campaign on their successes, but nobody believed that anything had gotten better because they still couldn’t afford groceries.

        • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
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          16 days ago

          The food scarcity percentage (sometimes or often not being able to afford groceries) is down 1%, but yeah it might not be noticeable. I don’t think Harris’s campaign did anything substantial on the other economic stuff, though. In trying to campaign a message of change, it seems like they neglected their incumbent successes and failed at both.