Summary
Despite Trump’s criminal record, serial lying, and racist demagoguery, he won the 2024 US presidential election, reflecting America’s deep-seated anxieties and cultural divisions.
Trump’s celebrity persona, economic populism, and culture warrior appeals resonated with his base, while Kamala Harris faced challenges in defining herself and overcoming gender and racial biases.
The election underscores the decay of American democracy, raising concerns about the future of the nation.
It happened because Americans are easily fooled. This country has had all the evidence of what a total piece of shit this guy is, and they chose not to believe it because he played a business man on a fucking game show. It sucks for anyone who wanted to see America do well.
Yup. With the high likelihood that Republicans get the trifecta, this country is about to become a lot more dangerous for my kids, both LGBTQ+, because dipshits believed that a “businessman” whose businesses all fail is good for the economy.
Not just the LGTBQ kids. I worry about most kids. Child labor laws were getting more shakey already. Schools and education have been suffering. Healthcare also stands to take a hit. I’m worried.
Robert Kennedy is about to be put in charge of American health care and Elon Musk om our federal budget. When Musk said next 4 years was going be tough for the majority of Americans they meant it. Yet still majority voted for Trump.
Honestly at least with musk theres a non zero chance he bankrupts the federal government.
You mean default on its debt? I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump could be convinced to stiff the creditors, ignoring the implications.
Pretty much, either that or something as stupid as dissolving the IRS and trying to get sheriffs to collect taxes. The one good thing about Trump and company is that the smartest one still only has room temperature IQ.
That’s actually the plan.
Bankrupt the government and sell it off for parts.
There will be face eating leopards like no one has ever seen before
If they actually move as fast as Trump has promised to, the next four years are going to be absolute chaos. Anything that relies on federal funding will be mired in uncertainty - 23 million people work for federal, state and local governments.
Edit - not to mention the tens of millions more who work for contractors and consultants who have contracts with federal, state, and local agencies
Every kid’s future just got worse because of the impending abolition of the EPA (among other things) and shift back to a “drill, baby, drill” approach to climate change.
Plus you can kiss education goodbye you can’t get an educated man to go down into a mine. Or blindly obey your authoritarian leader
Honestly, I’m going to laugh long and hard at the economic collapse when it comes. These fucking idiot “captains of industry” wanted this. Enjoy the results, I guess. You’ll get a few good quarters, and then absolute, complete chaos.
The true captains of industry do want this. chaos is how they transfer wealth from the poor to themselves.
In a depression, the money doesn’t vanish, it goes into the pockets of the super rich.
I’m tired of the “fooled innocent Americans” trope. Fuck that. They knew exactly what they did. Face the reality: half of Americans are now trumpists. FACE IT.
Yup. It’s the Good German trope from the Nazi era. People knew damn well there was something awful going on.
I’ve seen vastly more ignorance than evil in my life, but it seems like some people prefer to feel surrounded by malevolence.
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Why do you think they are being fooled? If anything I think one of the appeal of Trump is the fact that he owns his corruption and shadiness.
this election was lost by single issue voters not showing up.
Some of it is…understandable, albeit self-sabotaging (Gaza, for example,) others are on about abortion or the economy or immigration, taxes.
What they don’t see is that there’s so many issues a proper government needs to balance; and being a single-issue-voter is exactly what lets this happen. The sad truth is gaza is gonna get royally fucked now. Abortion is gonna get banned and women are gonna die; the economy is going to get wrecked so the oligarchs get to buy up all the cheap shit they want, immigrants are gonna get blamed for all of it; including the taxes because the oligarchs are too busy fucking us to pay their own damn taxes.
this election was lost by single issue voters not showing up.
Absolutely. Look at the vote totals; not all votes are in, but Trump is actually running a few million behind his 2020 total, while Harris is 15M+ behind what Biden pulled in. Trump doesn’t seem to have much more support than last time, but about 1 out of 7 voters that Biden earned did not vote this time.
The ones who did it over Gaza should prepare to be heartbroken when they see what Bibi and Trump do there next year.
I mean I am also interested to see how many votes the fucking Cheneys brought in…that was supposed to be bargain they were making by tacking very hard to the right. If the dems lost on enthusiasm its because they were decidedly not running an enthusiasm campaign.
None, I’m afraid. 5% of Republicans voted for Biden in 2020. 5% voted for Harris in 2024. A centrist waste
I don’t know about that. I and most all the others I know were pretty goddamn enthusiastic about Kamala.
Absolutely.
And as for Gaza, they just announced dumping the MoDefense(?) because he wasn’t genocidal enough.
Announced it on election day as hopefully one last fuck-you to Biden.
The people that refused to vote entirely on the basis of the Gaza have effectively shot themselves, and everyone else, in the foot.
There was never a real choice to stop Israel on the ballet, but now with Trump in office, even deescalation is off the cards.
It must be great for these folks to be able to wash their hands of it like Ponchus Pilot, whilst Trump gives Israel the go-ahead to annhilate the people of Gaza.
this election was lost by single issue voters not showing up.
I doubt it, unless their single issue was “can we have a real candidate”. It’s not about one or a few unpopular policies; Harris was just an incompetent, uninspiring corporate slop candidate who made enemies of her voters. I mean look at her campaign, or the lack thereof, and you’ll notice she had a much more fundamental problem than pissing off single issue voters. I mean she lost (or is on the way to losing) all swing states. I am very doubtful that this can be attributed to single issue voters.
this election was lost by single issue voters not showing up
You mean, the candidate didn’t do her fucking job pandering to the electorate? You mean the democratic machine didn’t take their own rhetoric about democracy being threatened seriously enough to make sure to pander to every corner of the electorate to build the broadest possible coalition? You mean that the shitty electioneering consultants fucked up so much that they created a void for Donald Fucking Trump to show up to Michigan and get imams to endorse him as the “peace candidate”?
If you want to blame voters for electing Trump, blame the fucking white trumpist majority. Not the minorities that the Democrats didn’t deign to try to woo and win their vote.
There are multiple causes.
The main one? Nazis. By about a trillion percent.
They weren’t fooled. They knew exactly what he is.
They didn’t care.
That’s the fallacy that us lefties kinda fall into, that if someone was just educated enough or knew enough or could see the facts, the person would change their mind.
The thing is, this was all about trying to get back at the left and minorities. “Fuck you I don’t like the changing world I want my pretend 50s universe with no blacks and gays”
No, Americans didn’t vote. The same thing happened when he beat Clinton. She went too far right and her base didn’t vote for her.
All blame falls on the Democrats for failing to learn.
And also because his base is a cult. Which would require deprogramming.
You say this like they would care if he’s a criminal. I actually think they like that about him. At least a few million of these dickheads do.
I think this is an oversimplification and lets Democrats off the hook.
A large part of how he won is to do with how polarised US politics are. The Democrats and Republicans are polar opposites, to the point that no matter who the candidates are the core voters could never conscience voting for the other side. Some Republicans may hate Trump but they will still vote republican as they see the Democrats standing for things they just don’t agree with (whether that’s Immigration or abortion or conservative values or fiscal conservatism etc). It just takes one; things are so polarised that it’s inbuilt that it’s a binary decision. The Democrats are just as guilty as the Republicans for carving up US democracy between the two of them. If you look at polls, they say 50:50 split but actually thats just “likely voters”; the underlying split is more like 1/3:1/3 with a whole 1/3 of the electorate disenfranchised and not bothering to vote. When they talk about undecideds, they’re talking about 2% of people likely to vote; not the whole 1/3 of the election who don’t vote at all. 3rd parties don’t get a look in, and even get blamed for taking votes from the anointed of the two big parties.
On top of that, the Democrats really fucked up. The party leadership supported Biden running, and no serious candidates stood in the primary race even though he was already clearly a weakened candidate due to age. Then when he was finally persuaded to go at near the last minute, it was too late. They again didn’t have a primary, they had a coronation, and then a short run to establish her. I like Harris but she inherited his team, his set up and was unable and unwilling to paint herself as a change candidate as she wouldn’t criticise the perceived mistakes of her own incumbent white house. She focused on abortion, and could seemingly not address the economy in a meaningful way to appeal to voters.
I don’t think it’s because Americans are easily fooled. I think it’s because both parties have created an extremely polarised political landscape which they have both used to their advantage to suppress 3rd parties and other views across the 50 states. In addition, the Democrat party tried to claim it was an election about “preserving democracy” and yet chose to do that by not enabling democracy in their own party.
Hopefully the Democrats will take a long hard look at themselves. And the good news, a slither of good news, is that in 2028 there will not be any Clintons or Bidens hanging around whose “turn” it is to run. The party can actually have an open primary and the best candidates can stand instead of feeling they shouldn’t run. Would we be in this position if there had been a full primary and the candidate had been someone like Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsome, Josh Shapiro or even just a truly independent run by Harris?
These liberal tears will provide energy for my nuclear generator for a long time. Thank you.
All I know is
Gaza is fucked.
Ukraine is fucked.
Black people are fucked.
Women are fucked.
LGBT+ people are fucked.
Everybody’s health care is fucked.
WMass deportation ruining families and affecting the economy.
But hey, at least Elon Musk is happy right?
you left out consumer protections, labor laws, overtime, PTO, regulatory oversight, whistleblower protections, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom, the ACLU, the ALA, and everything else you thought was safe
i would say delete all your social media, but it’s not going to matter
You left out literally everyone on the planet being fucked over by climate change.
Yes fuck you very much America. From the rest of us. You are the worst.
Also, rolling back the little the US did to combat climate change, making sure the climate catastrophe will only accelerate in this century.
By the end of the century, the US being a fascist state might not even matter because civilisation as we know it will break down anway, with worldwide temperature rising as far as 5 degrees above preindustrial standards (that’s the worst case scenario of the IPCC).
There won’t be another century.
He IS THE ANTICHRIST.
God isn’t real
Neither is trump.
Bur people who believe in both are world ending dangerous.
Children are fucked including child marriage laws and probably those conversion therapy camps
Education is fucked, like really fucked
The public library is fucked
Museums are fucked
NOAA is fucked
It’s honestly shocking but not. The rich have known about climate change since the 70s and again in 2000. They are simply Noah’s Arking us to climate change and pulling up the ladder now while making us think we chose this. It’s the Titanic sub all over again - their ego and hubris makes them think they can bend science to their will. They want to kill us (long reason for this is due to how narcissism works) and think they are so perfect they will survive. Musk wasn’t making Mars homes, he was making those for earth. He’s sending people to space in case a bunch of nukes or bombs go off, so they can come back and repopulate the earth. These rich people have insane views about life fed by confirmation bias they had their entire lives along with bootlicking.
We are fucked unless some really really smart people can figure some shit out.
Don’t call it fear. It’s hate. Plain and simple hate.
They hate minorities.
They hate women.
They hate lgbt+.
They hate anyone that’s “not like them”.
they also hate themselves.
Well, they have a good goddamn reason for that.
Hate is a result of fear and not a primary emotion.
Don’t give them credit for their fucking strong madam pose. They are just a bunch of angsty people and vote out of fear.
But in a world in crisis, because of climate change and resulting conflicts, people always get fearful and try to vote for people who say, that’s they will protect them.
It’s just fear at the base
No, it’s hate.
The orange cunt said openly that he wants mass deportations, that he wouldn’t care if someone shot at the press, he endorses violents like the ones who assaulted the capitol, he is against any kind of difference from the white supremacism. That is hate, and the people who voted for him, voted for this. Fear for their economy? Sure, but if you decide to vote for a guy who thinks this way against who is different, your fear for the economy is worth shit, you are ready to let others die (or even indirectly kill them), and that’s hate.
edit: typos
They had four years to find him guilty of an insurrection, disqualify him from running, and put his ass in jail. They should not be a surprise to anyone.
The Democrats impeached him twice but there was no way he was ever going to be convicted with the Senate in its then-state. Meanwhile, his lawyers and Judge Cannon have been doing nothing but delaying until checks watch now! Unless you have an idea for speeding up the American judicial system? If there was enough support from any state to straight up not let him run, then they would have done so. But as we’ve seen, 40% of the American voting populace have the intelligence of a kindergartner and just votes for “the other party” when the economy isn’t doing well.
Real talk, it’s so sad watching idiots idiot in spite of their goals and dreams.
Some don’t care, and some don’t have the energy to. This is by design.
It happened because the DNC is detached from the concerns of Americans. They’re certainly better than the alternative but they have become extremely complacent.
I think its half that. The Dems need a reckoning.
But the other half is that they don’t play dirty like Trump. They don’t understand that engagement is all that matters, lying does not, because us Americans have the critical thinking ability of an ant.
If they want to win, they need their own reality distortion field.
The Dems got a reckoning in 2016 when their career politician Hillary Clinton lost to Trump.
Nothing is going to shake them out of their ways.
Democrats suck at politics. Frustrating when their candidates are the only ones that come even close to aligning with my values.
Spending the first like 2 months campaigning on how she doesn’t care about certain demographics’ vote (primarily arab and college-age voters, and avoiding any popular policy discussion (only focusing on ways they were shifting further right) until the week of election probably didn’t help. Trump got the majority of 1st time voters this cycle. Biden got 64%.
And, just like her campaign, her voters did little but try to insult people. What a surprise… insulting people doesn’t convince people to vote for you or your candidate.
And, just like her campaign, her voters did little but try to insult people. What a surprise… insulting people doesn’t convince people to vote for you or your candidate.
Unless you are Trump.
But he insulted others. He hardly was as vitriolic towards his base demographic.
Um wut?
Trump literally called the last Republican Candidate (John McCain) a loser. Trump insulted his way through the entire Republican primary, 4 times in a row (starting way back in 2012 during Obama years).
In fact, one of the top insults to Republicans today is RINO: Republican In Name only.
Today’s Republican Party is one that has been bullied into submission. Paul Ryan has left. Bohner has left. The RNC chair has been literally replaced by Trump’s daughter. Etc. etc. etc.
Did McCain vote for Trump?
It happened because people are dumb. They think he’s bringing 2016-2020 prices with him. He’s not. There was dumb in the Harris campaign approach too, but that would add too much for one post. I voted for her, but even so.
And remember what’s on the slash list: social security and Medicare. How many of you 45+ people have a retirement? Anything you start now won’t be enough without the benefit of social security. Which you should get because you’ve been buying into it your entire work life.
And remember Elon? The guy said well have to learn to tighten our belts for a while. Endure some hardship. Like we haven’t been doing that already. I wonder if unions will be federally legal after he’s done.
Preexisting conditions anyone? You’re well and truly fucked.
Small business? Well. That’s not happening.
Wanna buy a house? Yea that’s still not happening either.
Rent going down? Again. No.
The list goes on.
…
My partner last night before he went to bed in a Benadryl induced sleep: I’m going to be spending more time in the woods if he wins. No you’re not. You’re going to be working 60hrs a week to keep up and so am I.
Which will probably be the point of the Elon Musk / Trump economy.
The decision to seek re-election by President Biden’s inflated sense of self-importance cost us.
It would have been prudent for him to adhere to his previous commitment and serve a single term, allowing the Democratic Party to conduct its primaries without undue interference. The Harris campaign’s very late entry into the race was premature and potentially detrimental to the party’s chances of success.
The Harris campaign turned out great initially.
They fucked it up immediately by saying they weren’t going to be any different from Biden on Gaza and that was one of the wedge topics that had been created about Biden.
Rather than compromise with the electorate to get people out to vote, they tried to use Trump to bully voters out of the house saying he’d be worse.
They fucked it up immediately by saying they weren’t going to be any different from Gaza on Biden and that was one of the wedge topics that had been created about Biden.
I don’t think Gaza specifically was decisive here. It could’ve been with a thinner majority, but Harris lost before Michigan finished counting and Trump is collecting swing states like MTG cards. The way I see it, this isn’t the result of one unpopular policy, but rather a wider campaign failure that destroyed Democrat voter enthusiasm.
Yeah. I think it was the biggest issue and was easily solvable, but the campaign was a fuck up through and through.
Across Biden and Harris they kept trying to steal a sliver of the conservative vote instead of just taking from the huge infrequent voter slice. They didn’t do anything to try to get that slice to vote for them, they just threatened them with Trump if they didn’t get out to vote.
They were right to. Everybody who abstained from voting is going to end up getting their comeuppance now, and I’m not going to feel bad for them.
It’s ironic that Palestine is just going to be more Israel now. At least we won’t have to worry anymore about Palestine.
Maybe, but I strongly suspect that there were enough other things going in Trump’s favor that if she’d broken with Biden on Gaza–which is not nearly as easy as you make it sound–then we would have still ended up in the same place, except that different people would now be blaming her for that decision.
(Just to be clear, I am not saying that her campaign was flawless, only that it is easy to second guess.)
Even worse, it appears that Republicans have also managed to win majorities in the Senate and House. While thin, those majorities are enough that we can expect some of the Republican priorities to start getting passed. My major question for the first six months of 2025 will be, does the filibuster survive? I know many folks on the left wanted to kill it, when Republican Senators were using it to obstruct anything more progressive than not kicking puppies. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, will the left suddenly fall back in love with the filibuster? I suspect so. I also suspect that the MAGA wing of the GOP is going to be keen to kill the filibuster the first time it gets in the way of their project. And I wonder where the less dickish members of the GOP will come down on the issue.
They will kill the filibuster because they don’t foresee Dems ever holding power again for some reason. I wonder what that reason could be…
I’m not completely sold on that idea. While I’m sure there are wings of the GOP who will buy into the idea of never losing power again, I also suspect that there will be members of the Senate who are old enough to know from experience that things never quite go to plan. Yes, we could be in for an end to Democracy, that possible. But, if we’re there, the filibuster doesn’t mean a thing. If our institutions are strong enough to hold up for the next four years, then the filibuster will be as contentious as it always is, when the majority has only a slim hold on power.
The resistance will be eliminated.
He’s already said this.
He absolutely will order the arrest or killing of his enemies.
I have little doubt, and I’m fuckkng.glad, the end is actually near.
I am sick of this game.
Oh friend, it aint over till the last drop is bled.
My money is on civil war.
All part of the plan.
There will be blood.
Rivers.
Your institutions WILL NOT SAVE YOU. Hannah Arendt’s most important warning.
I like your optimism. I don’t share it yet, but I like it.
I don’t think that Republicans need to kill the filibuster further. It’s already dead for judicial nominations, which they have used to full effect. Also, the map is much more favorable to Democrats in the next two Senate election cycles. The next election, in particular, there are 13 Democratic seats vs. 20 Republican seats up (really 21, counting a special election for Vance’s seat, and more vacancies may be coming). That, combined with the standard midterm bounce for the opposition party, makes it very likely that Republicans lose their gains in the Senate next election.
OTOH, if Republicans do keep the Senate in 2026, that is a bad omen for Democrats in general. We may see the Senate kill the filibuster then, out of the belief that it will help Vance win the Presidency in 2028.
(And looking forward, the Presidential election in 2028 will be even more important than this one, because of the 2030 census. The Census is supposed to enumerate all people in the country, regardless of legal status. Trump tried, and failed, to add a citizenship question to the census last time. If Republicans are in charge of the Census, I fully expect them to attempt to apportion Congress based on citizenship status (in spite of the Constitution), which will directly affect states like NY and CA, where Texas and Florida have been bussing all their migrants to. We don’t have a permanent minority government in fhe US right now, but if they pull off that Census trick we might as of 2032.)
I don’t think that Republicans need to kill the filibuster further. It’s already dead for judicial nominations, which they have used to full effect.
I’m not sure I agree that this removes the incentive to kill the filibuster. A lot of what the GOP wants to do will require passing legislation. Sure, they can kill a lot of existing legislation via the courts and I also expect “budget reconciliation process” to re-enter the political lexicon in full force again. But, there is going to be stuff they want to do, which will be blocked in Congress, via the filibuster. And I think that will raise the specter of killing the filibuster in some wings of the GOP.
Also, the map is much more favorable to Democrats in the next two Senate election cycles.
Ya, and this is why I mentioned there being wings of the GOP who understood just how useful the filibuster is.
Not fear, racism and fascism. Everyone who voted Trump is a piece of shit in my eyes, they all heard what he said and decided it was ok. He doesn’t think I’m a human being and anyone who voted for him is the same as far as I’m concerned
Don’t forget misogyny
Harris should have swung left and not far right. This is her doing as much as it is Republicans.
I hope each of them dies of kidney stones
It is simple. The economy and the media.
Call it selfish, but most people are more concerned with their own well being and that of their families than anything external. They don’t see Gaza, climate change, or abortion in the grocery store, they see prices that are massively higher than they were during Trump. You can try to explain how economics works, how tarrifs are a bad idea, how inflation is actually down, but to many that’s just noise and why should they trust these economists over anyone else. Their lived experience is that, excluding covid, life was more affordable under Trump.
Take a look at the most popular cable channels and you see Fox news. Look at podcasts and there is Joe Rogan. Social media is arguably better, but X and Facebook are still big and skew right, plus the others are ripe for disinformation campaigns and bots. A large number of Americans regularly consume a diet of right wing propaganda.
Trump didn’t get any more votes than last time.
He won because the Democrats lost.
You try to tell them that and they go nuts on you.
This is the real answer. No one who mattered came out for Kamala even like they came out for joe
I wonder what people think of Musk’s investment in Twitter now? He lost a ton of money, but it’s pocket change to him, and now he will get a prime government job which he will use to his advantage to get more government contracts.
He literally bought his way into power, without needing to run for office himself.
Voter: Why does the economy suck so bad?
MAGA: Because brown people.
Harris: You’re crazy, the economy is doing better than ever!
Simple as.
Her economic plan literally led off by saying they know prices are too high for most middle class people. This like that she was saying it was better than ever is just ridiculous.
Are the bots and trolls here, or do they just stop when the objective is reached?
Stopped when they got control over all 3 branches… prepare for one fucked up ride.
Dems punched left instead of right… Enabled a genocide and lost the support of their base.
Surprise… genocide is going to continue even faster and more so now that trump is in power. All the voters who sat out because of gaza are fucking idiots and will now get to see gaza completely destroyed and helped by the US even more with trump…and they get to watch Ukrainians die as well…and probably Taiwan.
So good job dipshits.
See this is where your train of reasoning is stupid and pointless. You’re blaming and shaming millions of individual voters, most of which will never read your comments and the ones who do won’t get a shit what you think 😘
Instead of trying to alter the individual behavior of all those people, maybe we should just give them what they want to vote for instead. But hey it don’t matter democracy is over.
When you’re staring at fascist you don’t decide to not pull the trigger when they’ve got a gun pointed at you. Now was not the time to protest vote.
Wow! Shaming millions of individual voters sure worked in 2016 and 2024. I’m glad you’re still doing it /s
Yea millions of voters that might not get a chance to make a change now that the turnip is going to get into power…and add 2 more lifelong theocratic judges to the scotus…yea that’ll teach em…
Exactly so your shaming and blaming is even more useless now.
Whiners like you enabled the genocide. What are you gonna do about it now, write the White House, " plz mister Trump I did my best to generate voter apathy so you can get elected, plz stop the genocide now"
Now the Dems have NO political power, and geniuses like you will most certainly continue to blame them for not stopping Trump and the Republicans from finishing the job.
Congrats, Quisling! You win!
What you’re doing right now is the real culprit… punching left. I voted and I’m in a solid blue state so my electoral votes would have went to Kamala regardless but you’re not going to get that and I guess it really doesn’t matter cuz you’re never going to have a chance to vote in real election again anyway.
The title is so tone deaf that made me not wanna read the rest of the article.
Kamala didn’t represent hope. She represented the “nothing will fundamentally change” stance.
Honestly, I think anybody who saw no hope in Harris wasn’t paying attention, just validating their own hopelessness in a vacuum.
Once again, “economic anxiety” combined with the American electorate is just planing living up to George Carlin’s rants.
