Fucking this. Its like people bitching about when workers go on strike and it affects them. "How dare amazon workers go on strike, now my packages are going to be late." Like lets stop blaming the people who are deciding not to play the game, and instead blame the people making us play it in the first place

well yeah but it was more important to enforce binary gender roles on 1% of the population who I will never interact with anyway.

Well you see, he bribed that one union member and also took both sides of every issue, so the average voter wasn't sure who to vote for.

“No I think Trump will just go up to Putin and say ‘You have to stop this or we’re gonna fuck you up’ and Putin will listen because he knows Trump means business.”

That's the real secret behind the GOP's success. They don't try to be a functional political party, because they don't need to be one to win election.

The Republicans have turned their party into a branding to be adopted as an affirmation of masculinity. No one's listening to Trump and thinking "that makes sense", because they're not listening to Trump at all. All they care about is the idea of Trump as this man's man.

It's not that they look at him and think "This is the champion of the people." and start photoshopping him into Rocky Balboa. You've got cause and effect backwards. You see a bunch of Trump people hyping him up as being this hypermasculine hypervirile man of God and Country, and they go "Oh shit! That's my guy!", and start projecting what they want Trump to be onto him.

This is why they don't vote for Democrats. Democrats don't do this sort of thing, they just stick to the issues not realizing that's not the game anymore.

It's easy for them to believe the claims of "Sleepy Joe", because where's the Biden tent selling t-shirts of him wrestling a bear? Why is Tampon Tim being a giant pussy and using big words like "bi-partisanship" and "finance", instead of showboating and talking about how big his dick is? Clearly the Democrats are "just politicians"

But Americans aren't looking for leadership. They've accepted their lot in life is shit, they don't wanna hear about policies, they don't dream of a better tomorrow; They simple want to live the fantasy of having a President who's a real "man's man", the daydream of this guy who men want to be and women want to be with, the real life John Galt who's also the second coming of John Wayne.

It's why Romney was the "out of touch rich guy", and Trump wasn't. Romney didn't go around mugging for the camera and insulting his foes.

Americans are dumb and are outright hostile to intelligence, empathy, and class.. or as they'd put it "nerd shit", "being a pussy", and "snobbishness"

Source: I'm American and am used to being the smartest person in the room. That's not a brag about how smart I am, never let it be said that I think I'm smart. I know I'm a fucking dumbass, my own stupidity couldn't be anymore obvious to me. It's simply recognition that my life would be vastly different (for the better) if I lived in Europe instead of America.

It's choosing to hope the reality that you see in your head will match the one before their eyes, it's the same thing that always happens with right wing populist movements.

True but people shouldn't have voted for a sociopath either. There is more blame there.

Well sure, so you get a milqtoast candidate on the one habd and a literal rapist, felon, liar and entitled billionare kiddy fiddler on the other. You k iw who yoi want on charge ? A compentnet administrator reluctant to make decisions becase only an idiot would be assured at the level with so much nuance .

But you know what, lets choose the felon becase they're "much the same"

The Dems are asshats for sure, the GOP is striaght up fucking Nazis, voters who can't tell the difference are the real concern. This isnt even lesser evil.

I think the problem here is that the democrats got addicted to the lazy politics of fear. It's always kinda been there, but we got where we are today in '16 when they decided that their best shot at getting HRC her win was promoting the craziest Republican possible. If your opponent is turbo Hitler, then you don't need to promise anything and therefore don't need to keep any promises, you just promise to not be turbo Hitler and go back to yucking it up with the lobbyists and your pals from the hedge funds. And Hillary didn't promise much (inb4 she offered a pretty means-tested half-hearted helping hand to a select few people under special circumstances). I'm now convinced that the only reason Trump lost in '20 was COVID, and democrats misread it as people being willing to embrace their spineless platform of "not that guy". So, when they of course tried it again in '24, they got egg on their face.

The thing is, you can't keep people afraid, eventually they burn out on the fear for better or worse. I remember the government tried that post-9/11. Every day for years (and especially when they were trying to sell the Iraq war) the terror threat level was Orange or Red. The news even had a little dooblie-doo in the bottom left corner that showed the threat level of the day. Well, when it's orange or red for six years and nothing happens, people eventually just stop paying attention. People stopped being afraid of Trump, and with nothing really on offer besides more "not that guy"ism, it's not a shock they lost.

Of course, the lesson the democrats already seem to be taking from this is that they all need to become republicans, because surely Republicans will finally vote for Democrats if democrats are Republicans. Because, you know, the only voters that matter are Republicans, and they definitely will vote for a different party if given the chance, right?

Law and order has always been a tool to oppress minorities. The people who loudly proclaim to be in favour of it never feel bound by laws themselves.

“law and order”

You jest. Murder a bunch of innocent kids in schools - prison. Kill a CEO who headed up a death panel - death penalty.

'Member when Jon Stewart had to publicly and repeatedly shame our leaders until they created the fund in the first place? I 'member.

How do Americans live in such a openly broken country

By force mostly

ah, more "boTh sIDES ARe THE SAMe" fallacy.

Also, judging by the reactions to the CEO shooting, many, many Americans would love a change.

The legislature creates the budget, not the presidency. And the legislature is controlled by Republicans.