Completly out of context, but I want to ask an important question
I am from India, currently studying in Australia and back home I was actively involved in politics. Being involved in politics means I have to give a damn about the US, and for the first time in my life I happened to watch the presidental debate. Ever since, I have been wondering how Trump has so much following and how was he a president of your country? Not a single statement of his made sense, and not to mention how he always deviated from the topic being discussed. Can someone please explain what is happening in the US?
I think the simplest answer is that Trump “owns the libs” and that’s enough to make people who don’t follow politics vote for him. Hillary ran a pretty shitty campaign also. Trump has definitely gotten older and way more whacky so I guess we wait and see what happens in November.
Are libs of US that naive/insane to blindly follow him? I observed that good number democrats(supporter’s) acknowledge that Kamala is not the perfect solution. Are libs truly that naive/insane?
It’s difficult for at least half of us to understand as well, but the only answer is repressed anger, desperation, fear of change. People are unhappy and Trump gives them an outlet with his rants, identifies scapegoats to hate, attacks changes they are afraid of. Even his open flouting of the law attracts those who feel stifled by overbearing laws.
Let’s take the Department of Education as an example. Here, education is mostly at the state and local level. The federal department of education doesn’t have much say, but they can give money with strings attached. In the last few decades, those strings included requirements for the disabled, racial and gender equity in school sports, separation of church and state (like our Constitution requires), programs to uplift the impoverished or poorly served, as well as programs to identify and remediate failing schools. For example my town just built a new high school: some of the reasons for the insane cost are federal requirements because they paid for most of it. People may not be comfortable with all these changes imposed by the federal government, despite the funding that comes with it and regardless of the overall good. Demagogues like Trump can stoke outrage based on outsiders telling people what to do.
Now it’s a core Republican plank to shut down the Department of Education, so state and local governments can run Education their way. I don’t believe they even think about what they’d lose, who they’d lose it for, or how much worse off they’d be., just “stop telling us what to do”
This is the conclusion I’ve come to as well. I used to be frustrated at how stupid Trump supporters are. I would wonder how anyone could be so gullible, cynical, racist, or mysogynist as to vote for Trump. How does he get away with, even prosper, saying such crazy and harmful things? But I’ve come to the conclusion that Trump voters are just extremely unhappy. A vote for Trump is a big fuck-you to the establishment. Both parties were basically run by a modern day aristocracy. The Kennedys, the Clintons, and the Bushes are the most obvious dynasties, but they also have many, many surrogates. More importantly, they defined a kind of cursus honorum for becoming president, including all of the right schools, fraternities, clubs, contacts, donors, etc that you have to follow to move up through the various offices to get to the top. The Tea Party disrupted the Republican aristocracy, but then Trump came along and just obliterated it.
Now, on the one hand, we can probably all get behind the idea that breaking up the aristocratic hold on political parties is a good thing. However, history has also shown that supporting populist demagogues who specialize in chaos and hateful rhetoric often leads to a bad time for the country and the people.
These last five years are the first time in my life that I’m genuinely worried for the stability of the republic. It has been said many times by people who have lived through it that people never think civil war will actually happen until it does. And then they look back and the signs were obvious. Whoever actually wins, when half of the population is voting for a hateful chaos candidate, that’s a big red flag.
A vote for Trump is a big fuck-you to the establishment.
This was true in 2016, but it isn’t any more. Trump IS the establishment as far as the GOP is concerned, and voters are doubly stupid for believing otherwise.
I suspect a big part of it is that he actually acknowledged that people are having problems, while Hilary decided to go “America is already great” as if their problems aren’t real.
Very few people are doing their research and making a logical decision about who will best represent their interests. They will just vote for whoever their friends vote for.
The way the president is elected through the electoral college means that a few states are over represented. IDK the numbers but for example, it might be possible to become president with as few as 40% of the votes.
Completly out of context, but I want to ask an important question
I am from India, currently studying in Australia and back home I was actively involved in politics. Being involved in politics means I have to give a damn about the US, and for the first time in my life I happened to watch the presidental debate. Ever since, I have been wondering how Trump has so much following and how was he a president of your country? Not a single statement of his made sense, and not to mention how he always deviated from the topic being discussed. Can someone please explain what is happening in the US?
I think the simplest answer is that Trump “owns the libs” and that’s enough to make people who don’t follow politics vote for him. Hillary ran a pretty shitty campaign also. Trump has definitely gotten older and way more whacky so I guess we wait and see what happens in November.
Are libs of US that naive/insane to blindly follow him? I observed that good number democrats(supporter’s) acknowledge that Kamala is not the perfect solution. Are libs truly that naive/insane?
It means he makes libs mad, and that’s all his right wing supporters care about.
It’s misspelled slang
“Trump pwns the libs” == “ Trump defeats the liberals”
Conservative/Reactionaries love anything to beat the liberals who are trying to bring change
It’s difficult for at least half of us to understand as well, but the only answer is repressed anger, desperation, fear of change. People are unhappy and Trump gives them an outlet with his rants, identifies scapegoats to hate, attacks changes they are afraid of. Even his open flouting of the law attracts those who feel stifled by overbearing laws.
Let’s take the Department of Education as an example. Here, education is mostly at the state and local level. The federal department of education doesn’t have much say, but they can give money with strings attached. In the last few decades, those strings included requirements for the disabled, racial and gender equity in school sports, separation of church and state (like our Constitution requires), programs to uplift the impoverished or poorly served, as well as programs to identify and remediate failing schools. For example my town just built a new high school: some of the reasons for the insane cost are federal requirements because they paid for most of it. People may not be comfortable with all these changes imposed by the federal government, despite the funding that comes with it and regardless of the overall good. Demagogues like Trump can stoke outrage based on outsiders telling people what to do.
Now it’s a core Republican plank to shut down the Department of Education, so state and local governments can run Education their way. I don’t believe they even think about what they’d lose, who they’d lose it for, or how much worse off they’d be., just “stop telling us what to do”
This is the conclusion I’ve come to as well. I used to be frustrated at how stupid Trump supporters are. I would wonder how anyone could be so gullible, cynical, racist, or mysogynist as to vote for Trump. How does he get away with, even prosper, saying such crazy and harmful things? But I’ve come to the conclusion that Trump voters are just extremely unhappy. A vote for Trump is a big fuck-you to the establishment. Both parties were basically run by a modern day aristocracy. The Kennedys, the Clintons, and the Bushes are the most obvious dynasties, but they also have many, many surrogates. More importantly, they defined a kind of cursus honorum for becoming president, including all of the right schools, fraternities, clubs, contacts, donors, etc that you have to follow to move up through the various offices to get to the top. The Tea Party disrupted the Republican aristocracy, but then Trump came along and just obliterated it.
Now, on the one hand, we can probably all get behind the idea that breaking up the aristocratic hold on political parties is a good thing. However, history has also shown that supporting populist demagogues who specialize in chaos and hateful rhetoric often leads to a bad time for the country and the people.
These last five years are the first time in my life that I’m genuinely worried for the stability of the republic. It has been said many times by people who have lived through it that people never think civil war will actually happen until it does. And then they look back and the signs were obvious. Whoever actually wins, when half of the population is voting for a hateful chaos candidate, that’s a big red flag.
This was true in 2016, but it isn’t any more. Trump IS the establishment as far as the GOP is concerned, and voters are doubly stupid for believing otherwise.
I suspect a big part of it is that he actually acknowledged that people are having problems, while Hilary decided to go “America is already great” as if their problems aren’t real.
There are 2 important factors.
Very few people are doing their research and making a logical decision about who will best represent their interests. They will just vote for whoever their friends vote for.
The way the president is elected through the electoral college means that a few states are over represented. IDK the numbers but for example, it might be possible to become president with as few as 40% of the votes.