this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
449 points (96.1% liked)

politics

19239 readers
2326 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The real tragedy is knowing some of the kindest and most educated people I've met are still willing to vote for this monster. I can't tell if they have some ulterior motives or they're just willing to play dumb over loving a dictator because they believe in some fantasy that Trump's not a bad person deep down.

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Very true. We've all witnessed this. I've thought about this a good bit, especially coming from a former Republican household decades ago.

1/3 are people who who may be educated or hard workers but are duped easily by propaganda because they're short on free time or not educated specifically in how to critically-think and analyze sources. They get home from a hard day's work and flip on fox news because they were roped in by sports and now stay for the pretty news anchors or the angry men telling them their paychecks are being stolen etc etc. Some of these people may be reachable if you could sit down with them for hours and hours at a time and lay it all out.

1/3 are the greedy socio/psychopaths who are aware enough to know the game being played and move the pieces accordingly to grift the gullible. (Bannon comes to mind)

1/3 are the world-burner outcasts who don't care or are simply too stupid to understand the long-term consequences of their actions. (Typical 4channers or Trump rally groupies).

The documentary, The Brainwashing of my Dad delves into this: How can kind, smart people be duped into this?

[–] TechyDad@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

1/3 are the world-burner outcasts who don't care or are simply too stupid to understand the longterm consequences of their actions.

This group concerns me. I saw them in 2016 saying that they were voting for Trump in the hopes that the chaos he brought would change the system. Maybe you could have been fooled once into thinking this, but one would think seeing the result would make people realize that Trump's chaos wouldn't bring positive change.

Unfortunately, I'm now seeing people saying they'll vote for Trump in 2024 in order to somehow change the Democratic party. A vote for Trump won't change the Democratic party to make them better, though.

If Trump gets elected, he'll target the heads of the Democratic party and imprison them. He might allow the Democrats to continue to exist as an "other" to blame all bad things on. (Why did the economy just crash? It's those Democrats again!) But Trump won't allow the Democratic party to be an actual threat to his power, though.

It will be like opposition parties in Russia. They exist, but if they gain any traction, their leaders are suddenly arrested or have "accidents."

Voting for Trump in 2024 won't mean you get better options from the Democrats in 2028. It would mean you don't get any options but Vote Trump Again or Prison.

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Well said. I've seen the same. Here's my hope that diminishing returns means Trump's rhetoric is losing its power. Here's hoping that at least this election will be run from the perspective of Trump NOT being in the White House to try to influence the outcome . Now we know the game being played. Now we have investigators watching.

And here's the thing: Those who are Trump supporters are and have always been. The cult is saturated while at the same time boomers continue to die off and a new generation is taking over. With Taylor Swift's push to turn out voter registration for the youth and the good signs coming out of the last midterm no less, I feel eerily-confident we should be able to avert fascism. Especially if economic trends persist (not saying economy is perfect in reality, but by all metrics that Republicans typically hit Obama or Biden on).