Are political threads allowed?

Voters in the key states have fucked their country over, while acting like it's a victory.

Last time trump had staffers with some traces of conscience, who advised against his actions and turned against him when he tried overthrowing the election. He's now surrounded himself with loyal supporters with no such qualms. As he becomes increasingly deranged and non-functioning in the next few years, they will ensure every dictatorial scheme of his is enacted. Expect US democracy to be dismantled from the top and global security is about to look very shaky.

A horrible result. In 2016 I blamed the DNC and Clinton. It's American voters' fault this year. Can only hope it won't be as catastrophic as the online chatter would lead indicate. But with talk - for example - of RFK being in a position to push for a nationwide vaccine ban, I simply feel horrible about it in so many ways. Selfishly for my own kids. Americans voted loudly against decency, common sense and fundamentally, against democracy.

Trumphouse - bonza!

Quote from thewatcher

I simply feel horrible about it in so many ways. Selfishly for my own kids. Americans voted loudly against decency, common sense and fundamentally, against democracy.

It's not selfish to worry about your family, especially as you're clearly also concerned for your adopted home nation as a whole.

It'll have ripple effects for us here in Europe too. 'Tough guy' orbanic putinoid politics just received a major boost.

I don't know where to start, so I will just say that whatever remains of 'the left' in the US, which barely had a 'left' anyway, is dead. Because constantly going on about 'misogyny' and identity politics does not galvanise people who don't care about those things. It alienates them.

The US at its core has always had an authoritarian impulse. The presidency is far too powerful for those of us who are used to the Westminster system and its cabinet government. Trump himself may be elected, but now we will also have unelected power hungry zealots like Musk and Kennedy riding roughshod over legislation, Congress, anything that gets in their way. A compliant Supreme Court. Both houses of Congress at Trump's beck & call.. Rampant gerrymandering and voter suppression. That is just the start.

In the meantime the German chancellor has sacked the finance minister - which leads to the end of the German government. General elections at the end of March are likely.

RFK has already said they plan to remove fluoride from drinking water, and will be considering their policy on vaccines.

Quote from FeelItComing

I don't know where to start, so I will just say that whatever remains of 'the left' in the US, which barely had a 'left' anyway, is dead. Because constantly going on about 'misogyny' and identity politics does not galvanise people who don't care about those things. It alienates them.

Who's constantly gone on about those things and why is misogyny in sneery-sounding quotes?

There's a lot of ugly talk on twitter about how bad this is, or could be. RFK gutting the FDA, Dana White in charge of education, a 7-2 or even 8-1 split on the Supreme court, supposedly a contract for building large immigration camps in south Texas, further rollback of any climate protection, and worst of all some implication that the 2028 election (and presumably those beyond) will not be free or fair.

Hopefully it turns out to be fear mongering but I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach about it all. The stupid dems need to spend less time virtue signaling and seeking celebrity endorsements, that is if they even get the chance again. Ugh. Whole thing fucking sucks. I wish I owned a small farm in northern Scandinavia or something.

This is a long read and it will probably terrify you if you aren't already, but it's also an important read. Heather Cox Richardson is an American History Professor at Boston College. She is not affiliated with any political party but calls herself a Lincoln Republican.

It's too long for one post so I will post it in two.

Heather Cox Richardson

November 6, 2024 (Wednesday)

Yesterday, November 5, 2024, Americans reelected former president Donald Trump, a Republican, to the presidency over Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris. As of Wednesday night, Trump is projected to get at least 295 electoral votes to Harris’s 226, with two Republican-leaning states still not called. The popular vote count is still underway.

Republicans also retook control of the Senate, where Democrats were defending far more seats than Republicans. Control of the House is not yet clear.

These results were a surprise to everyone. Trump is a 78-year-old convicted felon who has been found liable for sexual assault and is currently under indictment in a number of jurisdictions. He refused to leave office peacefully when voters elected President Joe Biden in 2020, instead launching an unprecedented attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes, and said during his campaign that he would be a “dictator” on his first day in office.

Pollsters thought the race would be very close but showed increasing momentum for Harris, and Harris’s team expressed confidence during the day. By posting on social media—with no evidence—that the voting in Pennsylvania was rigged, Trump himself suggested he expected he would lose the popular vote, at least, as he did in 2016 and 2020.

But in 2024, it appears a majority of American voters chose to put Trump back into office.

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, offered a message of unity, the expansion of the economic policies that have made the U.S. economy the strongest in the world in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, and the creation of an “opportunity economy” that echoed many of the policies Republicans used to embrace. Trump vowed to take revenge on his enemies and to return the country to the neoliberal policies President Joe Biden had rejected in favor of investing in the middle class.

When he took office, Biden acknowledged that democracy was in danger around the globe, as authoritarians like Russian president Vladimir Putin and China’s president Xi Jinping maintained that democracy was obsolete and must be replaced by autocracies. Russia set out to undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that enforced the rules-based international order that stood against Russian expansion.

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who overturned democracy in his own country, explained that the historical liberal democracy of the United States weakens a nation because the equality it champions means treating immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, and women as equal to men, thus ending traditionally patriarchal society.

In place of democracy, Orbán champions “illiberal democracy,” or “Christian democracy.” This form of government holds nominal elections, although their outcome is preordained because the government controls all the media and has silenced opposition. Orbán’s model of minority rule promises a return to a white-dominated, religiously based society, and he has pushed his vision by eliminating the independent press, cracking down on political opposition, getting rid of the rule of law, and dominating the economy with a group of crony oligarchs.

In order to strengthen democracy at home and abroad, Biden worked to show that it delivered for ordinary Americans. He and the Democrats passed groundbreaking legislation to invest in rebuilding roads and bridges and build new factories to usher in green energy. They defended unions and used the Federal Trade Commission to break up monopolies and return more economic power to consumers.

Their system worked. It created record low unemployment rates, lifted wages for the bottom 80% of Americans, and built the strongest economy in the world in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, setting multiple stock market records. But that success turned out not to be enough to protect democracy.

In contrast, Trump promised he would return to the ideology of the era before 2021, when leaders believed in relying on markets to order the economy with the idea that wealthy individuals would invest more efficiently than if the government regulated business or skewed markets with targeted investment (in green energy, for example). Trump vowed to cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations and to make up lost revenue through tariffs, which he incorrectly insists are paid by foreign countries; tariffs are paid by U.S. consumers.

For policies, Trump’s campaign embraced the Project 2025 agenda led by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which has close ties to Orbán. That plan calls for getting rid of the nonpartisan civil service the U.S. has had since 1883 and for making both the Department of Justice and the military partisan instruments of a strong president, much as Orbán did in Hungary. It also calls for instituting religious rule, including an end to abortion rights, across the U.S. Part of the idea of “purifying” the country is the deportation of undocumented immigrants: Trump promised to deport 20 million people at an estimated cost of $88 billion to $315 billion a year.

That is what voters chose.

Part 2

Pundits today have spent time dissecting the election results, many trying to find the one tweak that would have changed the outcome, and suggesting sweeping solutions to the Democrats’ obvious inability to attract voters. There is no doubt that a key factor in voters’ swing to Trump is that they associated the inflation of the post-pandemic months with Biden and turned the incumbents out, a phenomenon seen all over the world.

There is also no doubt that both racism and sexism played an important role in Harris’s defeat.

But my own conclusion is that both of those things were amplified by the flood of disinformation that has plagued the U.S. for years now. Russian political theorists called the construction of a virtual political reality through modern media “political technology.” They developed several techniques in this approach to politics, but the key was creating a false narrative in order to control public debate. These techniques perverted democracy, turning it from the concept of voters choosing their leaders into the concept of voters rubber-stamping the leaders they had been manipulated into backing.

In the U.S., pervasive right-wing media, from the Fox News Channel through right-wing podcasts and YouTube channels run by influencers, have permitted Trump and right-wing influencers to portray the booming economy as “failing” and to run away from the hugely unpopular Project 2025. They allowed MAGA Republicans to portray a dramatically falling crime rate as a crime wave and immigration as an invasion. They also shielded its audience from the many statements of Trump’s former staff that he is unfit for office, and even that his chief of staff General John Kelly considers him a fascist and noted that he admires German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

As actor Walter Masterson posted: “I tried to educate people about tariffs, I tried to explain that undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes and are the foundation of this country. I explained Project 2025, I interviewed to show that they supported it. I can not compete against the propaganda machines of Twitter, Fox News, [Joe Rogan Experience], and NY Post. These spaces will continue to create reality unless we create a more effective way of reaching people.”

X users noted a dramatic drop in their followers today, likely as bots, no longer necessary, disengaged.

Many voters who were using their vote to make an economic statement are likely going to be surprised to discover what they have actually voted for. In his victory speech, Trump said the American people had given him an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.”

White nationalist Nick Fuentes posted, “Your body, my choice. Forever,” and gloated that men will now legally control women’s bodies. His post got at least 22,000 “likes.” Right-wing influencer Benny Johnson, previously funded by Russia, posted: “It is my honor to inform you that Project 2025 was real the whole time.”

Today, Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would launch the “largest mass deportation operation” of undocumented immigrants, and the stock in private prison companies GEO Group and CoreCivic jumped 41% and 29%, respectively. Those jumps were part of a bigger overall jump: the Dow Jones Industrial Average moved up 1,508 points in what Washington Post economic columnist Heather Long said was the largest post-election jump in more than 100 years.

As for the lower prices Trump voters wanted, Kate Gibson of CBS today noted that on Monday, the National Retail Federation said that Trump’s proposed tariffs will cost American consumers between $46 billion and $78 billion a year as clothing, toys, furniture, appliances, and footwear all become more expensive. A $50 pair of running shoes, Gibson said, would retail for $59 to $64 under the new tariffs.

U.S. retailers are already preparing to raise prices of items from foreign suppliers, passing to consumers the cost of any future tariffs.

Trump’s election will also mean he will no longer have to answer to the law for his federal indictments: special counsel Jack Smith is winding them down ahead of Trump’s inauguration. So he will not be tried for retaining classified documents or attempting to overthrow the U.S. government when he lost in 2020.

This evening, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán posted on social media that he had just spoken with Trump, and said: “We have big plans for the future!”

This afternoon, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at her alma mater, Howard University, to concede the election to Trump.

She thanked her supporters, her family, the Bidens, the Walz family, and her campaign staff and volunteers. She reiterated that she believes Americans have far more in common than separating us.

In what appeared to be a message to Trump, she noted: “A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results. That principle as much as any other distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny, and anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it. At the same time in our nation, we owe loyalty not to a president or a party, but to the Constitution of the United States, and loyalty to our conscience and to our God.

“My allegiance to all three is why I am here to say, while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fuels this campaign, the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness and the dignity of all people, a fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up.”

Harris urged people “to organize, to mobilize and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together.” She told those feeling as if the world is dark indeed these days, to “fill the sky with the light of a billion brilliant stars, the light of optimism, of faith, of truth and service,” and to let “that work guide us, even in the face of setbacks, toward the extraordinary promise of the United States of America.”

Quote from Joey

A $50 pair of running shoes, Gibson said, would retail for $59 to $64 under the new tariffs.

Watch them blame the Democrats for this. Watch the media allow them to do it. And watch their slavish adherents believe them.

Quote from Backdrifter

Who's constantly gone on about those things and why is misogyny in sneery-sounding quotes?

Nobody on this forum, but media like the Guardian.

Our mistake was to think we lived in a better country than we do | Rebecca Solnit

Americans will be stuck cleaning up after Maga’s destructive streak because men like this never clean up after themselves

www.theguardian.com

I agree with the basic thrust of this, but while progressives keep demonising these people as being misogynist and full of toxic masculinity, they continue to alienate them, and they (conservatives) win. I have even seen suggestions that women no longer be allowed to vote.

Here I am proving the Guardian's point! Woman complains about misogyny! All I am trying to say is that progressives will never get anywhere until they give these alienated people something they can believe in, otherwise they will continue to turn to people like Trump & Farage.

It's just a knee jerk reaction as to what went wrong, and that is part of what went wrong - not all of it, by a long shot.

The Heather Cox Richardson posts make scary reading, sure enough. Couple of observations: Tariffs against China: I'm all for that. We shouldn't be buying (or manufacturing, eh Dyson?) from such a potential enemy. Would we have bought from Nazi Germany? Hungary: The logical response for the EU would be to eject them, but as we saw during the Brexit "negotiations" they are more concerned about their potential loss of members then ANYTHING ELSE! No doubt Ursula Van Der Layen will continue to ponce about in her pastel trouser suits, achieving nothing. (And apologies to FeelItComing, that's not misogyny, she would still be useless if she were a man, many feel the same including members of her own party. And you're right, there's no "left" in the US, more like centre right in any other country.)

As an aside, while Trump winning is very upsetting, the fact Musk is involved is even worse, in my mind. Buying from him is worse than buying from China, IMO. Think of the electricity we could generate by hooking up a dynamo to Nikola Tesla's remains, cos h must be turning at about 5000000rpm in his grave, knowing his name is on those pieces of cr@p.

The EU should expel Hungary but, considerations of trouser suits aside, it'd be a big decision not to be taken lightly given that a majority of the Hungary population still support remaining as a member state and there'd be severe economic consequences for them from a Hungarexit.

Quote

she would still be useless if she were a man

Notwithstanding the metaphysical considerations of that, it's giving me an image of a male politician "poncing around in a pastel trouser suit".

Re Musk, I'm wondering if he's going to experience any form of the phenomenon that afflicts others who ally themselves with trump in that he will get burned in some way. Trump is ultimately all about conflict and division as a way of bullying through to what he sees as best for himself, and it has a tendency to eventually affect even his close supporters.

Quote from FeelItComing

Nobody on this forum, but media like the Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/co…ssive-election-trump-maga

I agree with the basic thrust of this, but while progressives keep demonising these people as being misogynist and full of toxic masculinity, they continue to alienate them, and they (conservatives) win. I have even seen suggestions that women no longer be allowed to vote.

Here I am proving the Guardian's point! Woman complains about misogyny! All I am trying to say is that progressives will never get anywhere until they give these alienated people something they can believe in, otherwise they will continue to turn to people like Trump & Farage.

It's just a knee jerk reaction as to what went wrong, and that is part of what went wrong - not all of it, by a long shot.

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I disagree. Well, I think I do, as you seem to be saying that misogynistic views are fuelled by "progressives" calling out misogyny, causing the people holding those views to feel alienated. Please correct me if I've misunderstood you.

For progressives I would say people with decent reasonable views rightly calling out vile attitudes. There might possibly be a small number of men who attain those attitudes because of what those people say, but you then have to ask why they take that course rather than considering that they - oh I don't know - shouldn't be misogynists.

As part of trump's campaign he said Harris progressed in her career by granting sexual favours and if elected would be a "playtoy" for male world leaders. This slur immediately became a repeated fact by his supporters, including his campaign team. He called Nancy Pelosi a bitch, and laughingly encouraged attendees at a rally to repeat it. He joked how interesting it would be to throw Harris into a boxing ring with Mike Tyson. At his MSG rally he laughed as a speaker said Harris was "a prostitute controlled by pimps". Vance said liberal female leaders were "miserable childless cat ladies." Tucker Carlson said all this sort of stuff was simply trump being like "an angry father showing tough love to a bad little girl." Conservative youth organisation Turning Point said wives who vote for Harris "undermine their husbands."

Following trump's victory white nationalist & outspoken misogynist podcaster Nick Fuentes tweeted "Your body, MY choice, forever" in a distortion of the "MY body, MY choice" female reproductive rights slogan. (EDIT 1: since the election there's been a surge of reports by women on social media that they're having Fuentes's twisted version posted at them).

There's way more of this stuff just from the election campaign alone. I don't believe any of the above comes from alienation, but rather from enabling of already entrenched views, causing those who hold them to feel they now have a green light to freely express them. Imagine young boys absorbing all this, by osmosis given it's in the air and directly from fathers, older brothers, other male elders with these views. In the UK alone, schoolgirls increasingly cite overt sexism towards them from boys enabled by easy access to porn and the toxic views of scumbags like Fuentes and Andrew Tate with huge followings. What hope is there?

EDIT 2: I focused on the misogyny issue but I agree there is a broad set of reasons why trump won so comfortably.

Quote from Backdrifter

I disagree. Well, I think I do, as you seem to be saying that misogynistic views are fuelled by "progressives" calling out misogyny, causing the people holding those views to feel alienated. Please correct me if I've misunderstood you.

For progressives I would say people with decent reasonable views rightly calling out vile attitudes. There might possibly be a small number of men who attain those attitudes because of what those people say, but you then have to ask why they take that course rather than considering that they - oh I don't know - shouldn't be misogynists.

As part of trump's campaign he said Harris progressed in her career by granting sexual favours and if elected would be a "playtoy" for male world leaders. This slur immediately became a repeated fact by his supporters, including his campaign team. He called Nancy Pelosi a bitch, and laughingly encouraged attendees at a rally to repeat it. He joked how interesting it would be to throw Harris into a boxing ring with Mike Tyson. At his MSG rally he laughed as a speaker said Harris was "a prostitute controlled by pimps". Vance said liberal female leaders were "miserable childless cat ladies." Tucker Carlson said all this sort of stuff was simply trump being like "an angry father showing tough love to a bad little girl." Conservative youth organisation Turning Point said wives who vote for Harris "undermine their husbands."

Following trump's victory white nationalist & outspoken misogynist podcaster Nick Fuentes tweeted "Your body, MY choice, forever" in a distortion of the "MY body, MY choice" female reproductive rights slogan. (EDIT 1: since the election there's been a surge of reports by women on social media that they're having Fuentes's twisted version posted at them).

There's way more of this stuff just from the election campaign alone. I don't believe any of the above comes from alienation, but rather from enabling of already entrenched views, causing those who hold them to feel they now have a green light to freely express them. Imagine young boys absorbing all this, by osmosis given it's in the air and directly from fathers, older brothers, other male elders with these views. In the UK alone, schoolgirls increasingly cite overt sexism towards them from boys enabled by easy access to porn and the toxic views of scumbags like Fuentes and Andrew Tate with huge followings. What hope is there?

EDIT 2: I focused on the misogyny issue but I agree there is a broad set of reasons why trump won so comfortably.

Display More

Yes, that's good. I don't know what I was trying to say earlier. I was going down the 'stop making excuses' path.

Quote from foxfeeder

The Heather Cox Richardson posts make scary reading, sure enough. Couple of observations: Tariffs against China: I'm all for that. We shouldn't be buying (or manufacturing, eh Dyson?) from such a potential enemy. Would we have bought from Nazi Germany? Hungary: The logical response for the EU would be to eject them, but as we saw during the Brexit "negotiations" they are more concerned about their potential loss of members then ANYTHING ELSE! No doubt Ursula Van Der Layen will continue to ponce about in her pastel trouser suits, achieving nothing. (And apologies to FeelItComing, that's not misogyny, she would still be useless if she were a man, many feel the same including members of her own party. And you're right, there's no "left" in the US, more like centre right in any other country.)

As an aside, while Trump winning is very upsetting, the fact Musk is involved is even worse, in my mind. Buying from him is worse than buying from China, IMO. Think of the electricity we could generate by hooking up a dynamo to Nikola Tesla's remains, cos h must be turning at about 5000000rpm in his grave, knowing his name is on those pieces of cr@p.

Tariffs hurt nobody except the consumer.

Musk was on Trump's phone call to Zelenskyy.

From Heather Cox Richardson this morning is this ...

Today the Trump family posed for a post-election photo. Missing from the group was former first lady Melania Trump. Joining the family was billionaire Elon Musk...