politics

Now that you mentioned putin, I propose we go looking for the Mexican cartel people who do the political events such as head and shoulders separations and we give them a challenge. Maybe give them a small island as a reward? 😉 Could you please bring back putin's happy face for a chance to win Mara Lago! Or Mara Island! 🏝️🏖️. With margaritas!

yup. Amoral leadership lying to gullible supporters who want conspiracies, it's really that simple. A base who want simplistic explanations that reinforce their prejudices. Truth doesn't even rate.

Trump is the urban elitist you are referencing. Why does he get a pass from the voters from rural places?

To be fair, there is a kernel of truth there.

https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about

The rural folk with the Trump signs in their yards say their way of life is dying, and you smirk and say what they really mean is that blacks and gays are finally getting equal rights and they hate it. But I'm telling you, they say their way of life is dying because their way of life is dying. It's not their imagination. No movie about the future portrays it as being full of traditional families, hunters, and coal mines. Well, except for Hunger Games, and that was depicted as an apocalypse.

Partly...

But also that the Dem party today is significantly more "conservative" economically than we used to be, as the article points out:

In 1910, Teddy Roosevelt thundered his warning that “a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power” could destroy US democracy. Roosevelt’s answer was to tax wealth. The estate tax was eventually enacted in 1916, and the capital gains tax in 1922.

In the 1912 presidential campaign, Woodrow Wilson promised “a crusade against powers that have governed us … that have limited our development … that have determined our lives … that have set us in a straitjacket to do as they please”. The struggle to break up the giant trusts would be, in Wilson’s words, a “second struggle for emancipation”.

Wilson signed into law the Clayton Antitrust Act, which strengthened antitrust laws and protected unions. He also established the Federal Trade Commission to root out “unfair acts and practices in commerce”, and created the first permanent national income tax.

Years later, Teddy Roosevelt’s fifth-cousin, Franklin D Roosevelt, attacked corporate and financial power by giving workers the right to unionize, the 40-hour workweek, unemployment insurance, and social security. FDR instituted a high marginal income tax on the wealthy – those making more than $5m a year were taxed up to 75% – and he regulated finance.

Plus, Teddy was the first presidential platform that used universal healthcare....

So part of it is that Republicans lie and propaganda

But if the modern Dem party didn't think the Dem party platform from a fucking century ago wasnt "too extreme" the modern Dem party would be as popular as it was with FDR.

This is the correct answer to the question the Guardian poses. I've lived among them and can 100% confirm this is how they think.

Elites is all about having a college degree and being "book smart" vs their "street smart" or "wise in the ways of man" sort of bullshit charlatans throughout history have used to make up for a lack of critical thinking skills.

To be fair, in this monopolized 2 party system, both parties are owned by pretty much the exact same corporate interests and mega rich. Everything is by design. There is nothing they leave to chance.

Because the media is owned and operated by rich men who benefit from putting the blame on others and calling it "news."