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At lunch yesterday, I overheard two women talking about how they should totally be hired for the new department of government efficiency, and how they have a lot of great ideas to offer from their years of experience in federal jobs.
"You should cut my job."
Granted.
These are the people who vote on vibes and emotions, it's important candidates and politics don't discount them because they're the main voter block.
They've been reacting to the perceived moralist shaming of WOKE since 2014, and the right have kept that perception around whilst mocking it, being unPC, and joking around to show they're "cool guys".
So when Kamala makes a face when Trump says something about eating cats, the left think he's an idiot whilst emotional voters think he's play a game, joking and she's being rude/shaming.
Or when he dresses like a garbage man, and the left calls them stupid for enjoying it, that pushes emotional voters towards voting for him, and away from voting for her/them.
Dems lost sight of the emotional game/narrative being played. So he played the fun guy, they played the shaming upright moralists who can't take jokes and want to be serious or angry all the time (often bejng baited into this role).
Made for an easy choice for emotional voters. It was not rational (hence the regret). But it's what got the Republicans into office.
Ye gods, no wonder it's so easy to grift people. They've got the savvy of a toddler.
So next time we gotta call everyone up, knock on every door and ask ''hay what are you, your kids, your family'' them tell them ''heres exactly what's going to happen to all of you when this goes down''
I know it's a cliche at this point, and I hate that it's true, but there's plenty of doubt about whether "next time" will be a thing.
Read DOE as department of energy and was confused.
Whose responsability is one's ignorance? A ruthless individualist would place the blame only on the person, ignoring the world wround them and the community or lack thereof.
I think everyone has a duty to be the best they can, and everyone is responsible for themselves, yet it is undeniable to me that we all live, and especially the people from the US, in an information system that aims at eroding the truth and our capabilities to gather it. I also think an important part in how this corruption of information works is by also eroding our empathy for the people who are "dumber" than us. You dehumanize ignorant people. You can deny it, but so many like you repeat this. You will justify yourself, which is understandable, no one wants to be the cause of suffering. And yet.
Dehumanization is the weapon of the enemy, we do not need it, we will not use it. These people won't magically get smarter if you hate on them, in fact, they will take refuge on those that present themselves as loving teachers, but are actually ruthless abusers.
I guess it's cathartic to hate those ignorant bums, see where that leads you
It's so easy to shit on voters for not being informed.
Dems had $1B to reach this lady with a message about how they were going to improve her material conditions and they couldn't or wouldn't. At least they got that sweet sweet Cheney fan vote.
When people have to work constantly or their kids will starve and it just keeps getting worse wtf is anyone supposed to do?
"You didn't do your homework, so you deserve to have your life destroyed lol"
The system is fucked. Well and truly.
Maybe if they just googled? Takes about 15 sec. They'd see something like this: https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/sep/30/kamala-harris-2024-campaign-promises-here-are-her/ It's hard to imagine it could have been any easier for people who weren't aware of Harris' policies.
When people have to work constantly or their kids will starve and it just keeps getting worse wtf is anyone supposed to do?
I agree with you when it comes to a lot of things in terms of civic engagement, but in this case, there are lots of websites out there with information that won't even take you more than 20 minutes to read in terms learning of who the candidates are and what they stand for.
You can literally do that on a break (or more than one break since you'll get them every day) at work. And if you're not getting breaks at work, your boss is violating the labor laws which should be posted where all employees can see them. Not that they ever read them. Employees are entitled by federal law to a 5-20 minute paid break. I realize 5-20 minutes is shit, but most full time jobs at least give you longer unpaid breaks than that, if for no other reason than they don't want their employees passing out from hunger.
You're not wrong about having the physical and temporal capacity to inform yourself regardless, but you've also got to have the mental and emotional capacity as well.
I'm sure you're aware of how exhausting it is to live here, even just having nominal exposure to all the campaign ads and the outrage bait "news." That's before all the regular stress of living here with a family, all of your material conditions. Is my car gonna break down? If it does will I get fired? How can I afford my kids soccer cleats? Will the babysitter cancel on me for my extra shift?
If the only exposure you got for the election that you paid attention to because it was "entertainment" was a "funny" Joe Rogan clip your buddy sent you of the Trump interview it'd be real easy to be like "well, we made it through the first one, and at least he acknowledges that things are more expensive..."
Obviously if you're tuned in, you know that's a bullshit front. But if you don't have the capacity to be tuned in because fucking everything is designed to stress you out and extract what little money you have... Well, here we are.
I guess you're right. It's just so damn important to them and their families... I have been there, super exhausted from all that, but I knew the risk of not being informed about who I'm voting for. I guess it was enough for me to make sure I knew, but not for others.
I'm definitely not saying you should blame yourself for not phone banking or door knocking enough or something.
The system that we live in is just perfect for making us feel like this. And the people in charge are not incentivized to change it for us.
The only way we fix it is by trying to make things better locally, from the bottom up.
If the only exposure you got for the election that you paid attention to because it was “entertainment” was a “funny” Joe Rogan clip your buddy sent you of the Trump interview...
This right here is hitting on the real problem. People are fed bullshit from firehoses coming in all direction, so they feel like they are informed because of what they have passively taken in. It takes some real effort to step back and think "What if the things I've been hearing are not the full story?", and even more effort to take the next step and actively seek out information that might challenge what you have already heard and internalized. We are ALL guilty of this to some degree.
But if you don’t have the capacity to be tuned in because fucking everything is designed to stress you out and extract what little money you have…
Precisely--it is 100% the point. If you are stressed out working 2 jobs and raising a kid, you are going to have a lot less energy to keep your bullshit detector running and the simple solutions to complex problems naturally sound more appealing.
there are lots of websites out there … You can literally do that on a break
Correct. Now your task, should you choose to accept it, is to show someone how to do that. Teach them to do their research. Easy? Now come up with a way to communicate the same message to maybe 150 million people. And make sure they don’t ignore it.
This is why strategies like advertising, canvassing, and media interviews are effective. Unlike expecting voters to “just do the research,” these methods meet people where they already are—at home, watching TV, listening to the radio, scrolling through social media, or catching up on the news. They reach voters directly, without assuming any prior knowledge or effort on their part.
I guess. I was told in high school before I was even old enough to vote that the League of Women Voters always gives out election info. They used to do it in a free pamphlet and now they do it on their website. Are people really not told that in school anymore or do they just not pay attention?
I personally wasn’t told that in high school. Also in high school I was told that consuming weed was a moral failing and that blood is blue when it’s inside the body so
I remember being taught all kinds of lies about weed for sure. I also remember "Officer Friendly" coming to my elementary school and telling us not to pick up any pieces of paper with cartoon characters on it, by which I think he meant a whole blotter paper's worth of acid?
And now that I am able to monitor my own child's schooling because she's going to an online school, but it's a public school and it's run by evil Pearson, the company that makes all the public school textbooks, I can see that they're still going with all kinds of bullshit lies like "marijuana is a gateway drug" and they don't even bring up the fact that there are pharmaceutical options when it comes to alcohol and tobacco.
But they sure did push that AA crap.
Democracy isn't government on cruise control. Democracy is a responsibility. Blaming politicians isn't going to change the fact that it is not institutions that uphold democracy. It's the people.
So yeah, ultimately the people failed themselves. Some people just need to learn the hard way. If that is the only way these people will learn, why try to stop them from getting their lessons?
Americans are basically spoiled children. Never experienced government hardship. Why expect them to understand the value of what they have that prevents the hardship?
I can see why they might woo current Republicans... In the case the lose by a thin margin, it would give them greater leverage to block Trump's administration.
"Maybe if we work to bring the nazis into power, they'll think about us later on!"
I don't think Liz Cheney is particularly Nazi affiliated. I suspect the biggest defectors are actually repulsed by what Trump has come to represent.