Current Affairs 2024 POTUS race

[davek]

Yup...

 

[Kever10]

I'm not reading all that pal

Good for you. I don't blame you.

Skip ahead and watch the video at the end though, it'll cheer you up.

It's a classic

 

[Efcjake]

Yes, I can see that the urgency would have been blunted. But in another way - if the issue was anywhere like at the top of a voter's agenda - you'd think that the political force that presented the problem would, as in the mid-terms, have been punished?

The abortion issue is a big deal, but Harris failed to diversify her appeal beyond that and the threat to civil liberties in general...which the electorate didn't buy.

Harris's priorities were out of whack with most working people and she was demolished because of it. Too much time spent listening to donors and not enough time addressing bread and butter issues. Plus the fact she was a charisma bypass of a candidate who failed to attract people to her.

It's a weird one because Trump can simply wipe his hands of that decision by the supreme Court. He appointed a few of the judges, but not all of them, and he doesn't control them.

That's enough distance for people to vote for him and feel strongly against the overthrowing of Roe.

People who voted for Trump, outside of wanting to stuff the libs, mainly claim to have done so because of economic reasons. Harris and the Dems were unlikely to pull any of those.

For me where the Dems and global liberal movements are losing ground are with the youth. Gen Z voters, men in particular, are finding the Republican and conservative claims appealing. Largely because they have no experience of living through the lies and are enjoying the social and cultural Rights won by previous generations.

 

[chrismpw]

Unlike an alpha male, sigma males are more introverted and seek to dominate themselves, in other words "self-mastery".

Makes it's own jokes really...

True. I won't follow and I'm reluctant to lead or be associated with others. I'm the one that normally gets a job done while a "team" is still discussing the first steps. Bunch of eejits.

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

Btw when did you suddenly start saying orcs rather than orks like you used to do, mirroring Ukrop dill speak?

About 46 minutes ago

 

[BlueTX]

Who is that repulsive little virgin?

He's a white nationalist little freak with more than half a million followers on twitter alone.

 

[davek]

It's a weird one because Trump can simply wipe his hands of that decision by the supreme Court. He appointed a few of the judges, but not all of them, and he doesn't control them.

That's enough distance for people to vote for him and feel strongly against the overthrowing of Roe.

People who voted for Trump, outside of wanting to stuff the libs, mainly claim to have done so because of economic reasons. Harris and the Dems were unlikely to pull any of those.

For me where the Dems and global liberal movements are losing ground are with the youth. Gen Z voters, men in particular, are finding the Republican and conservative claims appealing. Largely because they have no experience of living through the lies and are enjoying the social and cultural Rights won by previous generations.

I think there's plenty of good young people - they're at the heart of the anti-war campaigns around Gaza. They get battered for their concerns by heavy handed policing.

Overall: as Sanders said - the Democrats have moved away from the American working class and Trump has moved into that vacuum.

You destroy Trump and Trumpism by shifting left and fighting on class issues (which include abortion but are more broader than that, obvioulsy).

Harris was a terrible candidate because she was mired in the Biden administrations crimes against humanity abroad and ignoring the suffering of working class people at home. Running on a message of women taking back control of their bodies was - in and of itself - never going to trouble Trumpism.

 

[BlueTX]

Its dishonest, its corrupt, and people are tired of it.

I'll agree there's a lot of dishonesty, corruption, and exhaustion.

 

[neil999]

....hold on, I spoke too soon...

'Leftist' what a burk

 

[Tommy Chong]

He's a white nationalist little freak with more than half a million followers on twitter alone.

What a sad, sad little man.

Trump winning the election has now paved the way for this type of misogynistic rhetoric to become prevalent for the next four years.

 

[davek]

'Leftist' what a burk

I can think of another 4 letter word for her.

 

[ChesterBlue]

This awful excuse of a human being has been a guest of the new POTUS at Mar a Lago.

I despise Fuentes with a passion. Such a disgusting little Nazi freak. If I wrote what I wanted to about him on here I would 100% get banned.

 

[Efcjake]

I think there's plenty of good young people - they're at the heart of the anti-war campaigns around Gaza. They get battered for their concerns by heavy handed policing.

Overall: as Sanders said - the Democrats have moved away from the American working class and Trump has moved into that vacuum.

You destroy Trump and Trumpism by shifting left and fighting on class issues (which include abortion but are more broader than that, obvioulsy).

Harris was a terrible candidate because she was mired in the Biden administrations crimes against humanity abroad and ignoring the suffering of working class people at home. Running on a message of women taking back control of their bodies was - in and of itself - never going to trouble Trumpism.

Class issues don't take hold enough on this continent.

Coming from the Liverpool to Canada there's a huge amount of class ignorance here. Less so than the State's, there is still an overwhelming mentality of the "temporarily impoverished millionaire".

For a lot of it I think it has to do with the fact that for the most part class lines have traditionally fallen along racial divides for historical reasons here.

As a result of that you see a lot of class issues being reframed or addressed from a racial lense. This has actually worked to push the white working class away from the non-white working class to the point where they have swung right and are choosing to blame immigration, DEI, employment equity, and other initiatives that are trying to tackle class inequality from a race-based perspective.


They need to pull those young white men back and educate them enough to understand they're voting against their interests. How they begin to do this I don't know. They've got Joe Rogan and Elon Musk telling them the world is out to get them and only Trump will help because nobody else cares about poor whites.

 

[davek]

Class issues don't take hold enough on this continent.

Coming from the Liverpool to Canada there's a huge amount of class ignorance here. Less so than the State's, there is still an overwhelming mentality of the "temporarily impoverished millionaire".

For a lot of it I think it has to do with the fact that for the most part class lines have traditionally fallen along racial divides for historical reasons here.

As a result of that you see a lot of class issues being reframed or addressed from a racial lense. This has actually worked to push the white working class away from the non-white working class to the point where they have swung right and are choosing to blame immigration, DEI, employment equity, and other initiatives that are trying to tackle class inequality from a race-based perspective.


They need to pull those young white men back and educate them enough to understand they're voting against their interests. How they begin to do this I don't know. They've got Joe Rogan and Elon Musk telling them the world is out to get them and only Trump will help because nobody else cares about poor whites.

Bernie Sanders a few years back showed what momentum can be gained pushing left of centre policies. He should never have backed out and let Clinton a free run to the presidency in 2016. He should have pushed that all the way.

 

[TimHowardsBeardJuice]

It's a weird one because Trump can simply wipe his hands of that decision by the supreme Court. He appointed a few of the judges, but not all of them, and he doesn't control them.

That's enough distance for people to vote for him and feel strongly against the overthrowing of Roe.

People who voted for Trump, outside of wanting to stuff the libs, mainly claim to have done so because of economic reasons. Harris and the Dems were unlikely to pull any of those.

For me where the Dems and global liberal movements are losing ground are with the youth. Gen Z voters, men in particular, are finding the Republican and conservative claims appealing. Largely because they have no experience of living through the lies and are enjoying the social and cultural Rights won by previous generations.

There's a couple of things going on here and I agree with all of them.

1. On abortion - Trump himself has been all over the place publicly, creating his usual fog where he can plausibly claim to be on all sides of an issue at once - and for someone who is primarily in the conservative media ecosystem, it doesn't matter because there's no substantive analysis going on. Many, many voters appeared to have satisfied themselves by voting for pro-choice ballot measures even while voting for Trump - not knowing, or caring, that Trump carried out years of planning to pack the court with enough justices to overturn Roe. No realistic or principled analyst of this issue could square supporting Trump with supporting the right of a woman to have an abortion - but (lack of) perception is reality.

2. Even though the economy is booming, and even though (notwithstanding his other flaws) Biden helped engineer the best recovery from COVID of any economy in the USA's weight class, the average working guy, to the extent that such a thing still exists, feels precarious in 2024. Well paying jobs abound, but whole skillsets, whole regions of the country, whole industries become obsolete overnight with the rapidity of change brought on by technology. I think the increased "efficiency" of the capital markets contributes to this, in that billions of dollars can be diverted to shiny new sectors of the economy quickly - which hollows out the "left behind" parts, in perception if not reality. In the heyday of US global economic domination, post-WWII to the late 1970's, men without university education had good jobs, for life, that paid for a house, two cars, college for the kids, and good vacations/a summer cottage/a boat etc. That's still possible, and many Trump supporters have those things, but the housing and the education are MUCH more expensive, sometimes beyond reach. Most importantly, the loyalty bond between employer and employee is gone, never to return. Of course, these men also enjoyed affirmative action in their favor, in that women and minorities were effectively banned from competing for "their" jobs. So the propensity of the economy to pull the rug out from even the most stable employees, even in the best of times, combined with the fact that the workforce is more diverse, creates the petri dish where Trumpism can grow. A shock to the system is all it takes. The shocks to the system in my adult lifetime have been: the 1991 recession; September 11, 2001; the 2008 depression; COVID; and, perhaps most importantly, whether anyone cares to admit it or not, in 2008 we elected a black guy and they lost their minds.

3. I maintain that many Trumpists are bored. Many of the January 6 attackers were quite well off or even downright rich, as a successful blue collar tradesman can be - I am an attorney, and many of my clients are contractors, electricians, etc - and these guys have made a lot more money than me (their contribution to society is probably more meaningful but that's for another day). They see the negative trends that I'm talking about, but they really don't suffer them in a meaningful way - the rise of Woke isn't really hurting you if you can fly your Trump flag from your $80,000 pickup truck or $150,000 boat. Affluence and the lack of true, deep, widespread hardship have softened us - even though some aspects of American life, for some people, in many places, are objectively miserable, and even though poverty is a very real presence here, it's been a long time since Americans, on our own soil, lived through anything as horrible as, say, the World Wars. The shocks I mentioned above were bad, but they weren't as as bad as, say, the Blitz. Even September 11 - to which I was a first-hand witness, living about a mile as the crow flies from the Twin Towers across the river in Brooklyn - actually personally involved only a fraction of the US population, for a day. The deaths of 3,000 people were tragic, and inexcusable - there were places not far off, and times not long ago, where that many people were killed so fast, every day, that no one could keep count. Misery on a scale we can't fathom. So in the absence of pervasive, every-man-and-woman trauma, these well-to-do folks who see their status being questioned - as in, they can't make fun of minorities anymore, or refuse a guy a job or a flat because of his skin color, it's not socially acceptable - play footsie at being revolutionaries and overthrowing the government, expecting to go back home and play a round of golf on Saturday. Except that they've been the footmen for some truly malevolent actors who are now going to use Trump and Trumpism to bring us some real pain.

We have effe'd around. We are about to find out.