Anyone else think it’s likely America ends up without being a meaningful democracy by the end of this? I am skeptical the stated goal is efficiency it’s loyalty to MAGA. Imagine how extreme they will get if you can never vote them out.
As ever, the problem is compounded by the chunk of population who enable it, and the typically larger chunk of population who are unable or unwilling to recognize clear and present danger.
Ends up…i think it’s just happened. Been on this path for a while but the simple fact its treaties mean nothing totally trashes any reputation that was left, and it’s clear it’s run by the ultra wealthy. The people are just bystanders.
> and it’s clear it’s run by the ultra wealthy. The people are just bystanders.
The first part is true, the second is not. Yes, it's run by the ultra wealthy. But the people wanted this. The election wasn't in debate, and this wasn't a case of a popular vote/electoral college split. Also, for all of Trump's faults, hidden agendas really aren't one of them. People know exactly who he is, he said pretty much exactly what he would do, and a majority voted for this.
I think that's why so many "on the left" are resigned. Y'all voted for this shit, so knock yourself out. We may be looking at some massive cases of "But I never thought the leopard would eat MY face!" in the future, but at this point IDGAF, people voted for this.
I think the left are resigned because the reason people were so fine with a "shake it up" Trump presidency is we've been run by billionaires over citizens for thirty+ years already, regardless of the party in power.
The Dems are part of the path that lead us to this moment and aren't doing much of anything to reverse things. To me, it felt at the time like I was either making my last fair vote now, or they kick the can another 4 years with a do-nothing presidency where inequality keeps getting worse, and we lose to fascists next time.
There isn't a real opposition big enough and popular enough to oppose this , and tbh I doubt one can be built in time
You're talking about them as separate groups, but it's likely that the majority of Americans who consider themselves part of "the left" have been voting for these piss-poor Dem candidates that have indeed willfully have led to this, for at least the last 3+ elections.
If no one considering themselves part of "the left" would've gone out and voted for HRC and the dems got sent home with 40% of the vote back then, the path may have changed. They voted for her, and for Biden, meaning the path never changed. There were zero punishments for the DNC's despicable behaviour.
I have a lot of sympathy for those who did the opposite and did not vote for these candidates. You did the right thing.
Oh you're 100% right! All evidence points toward them not doing so! My (potentially hot) take is that if they'd gottten spanked with 40% the first time around, or Biden had lost, there'd have been much more external pressure for meaningful change to start trying to win elections.
People wanted this because news and social media have told them to want – both which are functionally mouth-pieces of the ultra-wealthy. News has been consolidating into fewer hands for decades; it’s only getting worse, and their owners more emboldened. The popular social media sites, when not owned and manipulated directly by their owning oligarchs, are subject to a massive amount of astroturfing bankrolled by other ultra-wealthy folks. The wealthy chose Trump, and so it is.
We aren’t completely bystanders, but the cards are unimaginably stacked against us. We need to break up massive media companies, get rid of manipulative algorithms, and fight tooth and nail to get money out of politics – as much as we can.
> People wanted this because news and social media have told them to want ...
> are subject to a massive amount of astroturfing ... The wealthy chose Trump, and so it is
People refuse to believe this can happen to them. Just as people do not believe they can be influenced by TikTok algos or advertising. They would know if it were happening to them; doesn't matter if they are left right east west up down or sideways, they are special snowflakes and it's those "others" that are the sheep that fall for it.
I did a stint in door-to-door sales (during a period of burn-out); as much as I didn't want to believe the shifty sales consultant that would come in and give sales training clinics, it's the people that absolutely know for sure they are not buying that were the ones I liked best--they won't be "tricked" or persuaded. No tricks needed, my personal ethics would not allow it even though there were "tips & suggestions" other sales people gave out; those that claim to be unsellable were almost always the sales I got the most commission from.
The exact same argument, that Trump voters were “influenced” by algos, can be made that anti-Trump voters were influenced by mainstream media or whatever.
So you either believe that people have agency and actually decide for themselves, or that they are puppets and democracy is a sham.
> So you either believe that people have agency and actually decide for themselves, or that they are puppets and democracy is a sham.
Do you always think in such binary terms? Life is nuanced, there very few absolute binaries, but as I originally pointed out, those that hold on to that "either or" absolute type of thinking were my easiest, most profitable sales.
The people did not want this. A majority of voters voted for not Trump. He also spent the bulk of his campaign — aided by the press — distancing himself from project 2025.
I’m on the left and I’m not resigned to this. I still have some fight left in me.
> The people did not want this. A majority of voters voted for not Trump.
He won the popular vote though, unless I'm misunderstanding your point.
> He also spent the bulk of his campaign — aided by the press — distancing himself from project 2025.
What specific media companies did this?
I heard nothing but negative things about Trump and constant pointing out ties to project 2025 by all major news networks, cable and textual.
Except maybe Fox, but I don't watch it nor know anyone that does. (Well, not that many people I know even watch or read mainstream news in the first place anymore...)
This is a good question. Aside from the most popular cable news network for the past 20+ years in a row[1] that’s considered trusted by 40% of Americans[2], where did we hear that stuff?
No, the distinction is that 1.5% more voters chose Trump than chose Harris, but that still didn’t push Trump over 50% of the vote, so it’s correct to say that most voters didn’t vote for Trump, but to win the popular vote he only needed the most votes.
This whole thing verges on “silent majority” thinking. The people who don’t vote have no bearing in this calculation. If they cared either way, they would have voted.
If we just talk about the people who voted, and who they voted for, then almost half of them voted for Trump, almost half of them voted for Harris (although a slightly lesser "half" than Trump).
If you want talk about people who didn't vote and how they would vote, young people (over 18 but under 30) are less likely to vote and participate in polling services like KnowledgePanel. But they didn't vote so whatever.
Trump won a plurality of the popular vote, but still only 49.8% of those who voted. So not even a majority of American voters, just that Harris got less (48.3%), so 1.5% of voters voted for Trump than Harris, and then the rest of the voters voting for someone else or leaving the president column blank.
Trump literally got up on stage with Elon promising to do what he’s doing. Elon spent the entire last week before the election in Pennsylvania, a major swing state, telling people what the administration was to do. Trump also got up on stage with many of his key appointees, who were outspoken about what they were going to do. Now, they’re all doing those things.
Like, you can say his policies are bad and you don’t like them for whatever reason. But the “false consciousness” argument applies to Trump the least of any president in my lifetime. He won spending less money both times, with the uniform hostility of big, centralized media. Trump’s big thing this campaign was in person rallies and podcasts.
I don’t watch mainstream media. I listen to some podcasts twice a week driving to work, and follow some people on X. Nothing Trump has done came as any surprise at all to me.
> I don’t watch mainstream media. I listen to some podcasts twice a week driving to work, and follow some people on X. Nothing Trump has done came as any surprise at all to me.
honestly its shocking that any of this is a surprise. dude was President once, and was consistently making attempts at this before, only to be hamstrung by Congress.
his entire 2nd run was pretty blunt about ties to Project 2025 and their aims. Even Drudge and Fox News covered this stuff.
Framing this as “Project 2025” makes it seem like he distanced himself from these policies. The policies in his EOs are from his own platform: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-pa.... If you listened to a couple of his long form podcasts and rallies, these things were all in there.
Obviously there’s a lot of overlap between what Trump campaigned on and Project 2025. But Trump hasn’t issued any EOs banning abortion or similar issues that were in Project 2025 but not his own platform.
> Former President Donald Trump denied any connection to Project 2025, the handbook for a new conservative government written by the Heritage Foundation and several right-wing think tanks, in his Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.
> “I have nothing to do with Project 2025,” Trump said in the ABC News Presidential Debate. “I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it purposely. I’m not going to read it.”
Then they hired/appointed its people and implemented their policies.
The “Project 2025” thing was an effort to pin him to Heritage Foundation policies on abortion. He correctly pointed out that Heritage didn’t speak for him. You can’t say that Biden’s platform is the same as Sunrise’s platform just because they agree on some things.
Not necessarily a lie on Trump's part. Trump wants to retain independence - he's not going to agree to implement a think tank's program by name. For example, he notably distanced himself from making promises on abortion policy during the 2024 campaign, and indeed so far the only move he's made to benefit pro-lifers is freeing protesters imprisoned under the Biden administration.
Also, much of the energy behind Trump and MAGA is rejecting the dominant conservative think tank culture that's existed since the Reagan administration. This is seen by them as only fighting for the interests of large corporations - notably including completely selling out American workers in favor of immigration and offshoring - while losing every cultural battle in the last few decades from being too conciliatory to the liberal establishment that dominates the cities where these think tanks are based.
Many of these think tanks (including the Heritage Foundation, which is why Project 2025 takes the tone that it does) are in the process of being replaced by younger right-wingers more aligned by MAGA - they often reject the label of "conservative" as denoting a failed movement, preferring "dissident right" or similar terms. They want a counterrevolution - "what is there left to conserve", they say. But until their takeover is complete (which will probably happen in Trump's term, and will definitely be complete if Republicans win in 2028), it's understandable why younger Republicans would reject any explicit association with the old conservative think tanks.
Yes. I sadly agree with obama: we can survive 4 years. I don't know we can survive 8.
“I think that four years is OK,” Obama said. “Take on some water, but we can kind of bail fast enough to be OK. Eight years would be a problem. I would be concerned about a sustained period in which some of these norms have broken down and started to corrode.”
We're already far beyond some norms breaking down...
Sadly I can't find a great source for that quote. just found it on scmp and jp. weird. I swear I have this memory of that being in politico or nytimes at the time. iirc was from an 'otr' towards the end of his term.
According to Brennan center, CA is number one at losing people relative to other states.
If it hypothetically exits to prevent other states from making it more like them and less like itself, that would presumably accelerate.
Did you budget for a DMZ or a Berlin wall to keep newly minted California citizens in? Especially those that pay all the taxes, like e.g. myself (I bailed in 2015)
“People think if you’re a secessionist, you’re crazy,” Ruiz Evans said on Saturday. “I hate Donald Trump,” he added. “I am full-blooded Mexican. The day he went on TV and said all Mexicans are rapists, I said, ‘He can go f** himself.’ “
He added: “When I see Trump pick on women, on LGBTQ people … my family left Texas for California to escape that. And when I look at Trump, it reminds me of all the horror stories my mom and my grandma told me from [the time] before they left.”
"""
Sign me up.
(original below)
I am absolutely in favor of an independent California, but in the past at least the backing for this has had ties to Putin (which makes sense, I suppose, it would cripple the US)
I doubt public demonstrations would do it. They'd have to start losing MAGA cult people for them to change course themselves.
But if we can hold out for 2 years (big if) there's a very strong chance we'll retake the house.
And if things continue down this path (i think it will get worse) we could maybe take back the senate. but the map is very hard.
That would give power to fight back.
If we get a once in a generation swing of seats we could think about getting rid of the filibuster / few remaining norms. Then we could rebalance judicial. But that's a big risk if not sure the power will endure beyond a handful of cycles.
i dont think demonstrations would work either fwiw.
a big swing requires the dems to seem credibly like a real opposition, for people to want an opposition, and for that election result to be untampered.
given how little they've done to stop this so far and how little they're promising to do now, and how shaky the foundations for the elections are in the first place ..
Trump is itching to trigger provisions of the Insurrection Act as far ahead of the mid-term elections as possible. Public demonstrations by anyone associated with the left will achieve nothing right now given the composition of Congress. The best bet is to stand down, and stand by. The ground will probably be fertile for local organizing though.
Clearly the Democrats think American democracy is secure because they insist on running terrible candidates and pursuing unpopular policies. It's funny how the politicians yelling about how Trump 2 is an existential risk seem to be more concerned about their careers than this "threat to democracy". I'm frankly tired of taking this stuff seriously.
I'm with you fwiw. Except I think its less that MAGA isn't an exstisential threat to democracy (they are) but that the Democrats are really just that useless.
There is no reason to think that democracy in America is going to stop.
There are lots of reasons to think this is a real possibility. The American republic isn’t going to last forever and right now we are experiencing the greatest threat to our political stability since the Civil War. Texas likes to pass resolutions calling for secession when a Democrat wins the Presidency. We’ll see the call for secession become more common in the coming years and from liberal states.
Did you miss the part where the mob that stormed the capital was fully pardoned despite the incredible violence? This is dictator shit. He's telling his supporters violence is okay against his political enemies and he will cover for you.
There’s also the part where Secret Service agents are going to schools, lying about who they are, and trying to arrest children for making statements critical of Trump:
> "We had an incident happen in Chicago on Friday where there were some federal agents that showed up at a school asking to come in to interview an 11-year-old who had posted an anti-Trump video on TikTok.
> "They presented their credentials, they said [they were] Department of Homeland Security. The school was confused and said, 'No, you cannot come in.'
> "It turned out they were actually from the Secret Service, which does not enforce immigration law, but the school activated its protocol as if it were protecting that student, and said, 'You can't come in because you don't have a signed warrant.
Of course, Trump previously threatened to prosecute any state employees that don’t cooperate with such stuff. The school administration took on a lot of personal risk to protect that kid.
I am reminded of my colleague who grew up in the USSR, and said agents would come to their class and show kids pictures of western cartoon characters (Mickey, etc.) to see who had disloyal parents.
We're not far from that happening here. There is currently an attempt to discontinue students' ability to check out mobile hotspots because access to the Internet could, "censor kids' exposure to conservative viewpoints." [1]
Is this not exactly what Biden also did in his last month in office?
So far both presidents have blanket pardoned a mix of political allies, family members, and rioters right in front of the American public and no one's talking about it...
I feel like I'm going crazy, are people really this oblivious?
Sorry, which violent insurrectionists did Biden pardon? Or are you comparing this to Biden pardoning people who were already receiving threats that they would be targeted for political prosecutions from the incoming administration, or is it the non-violent offenders who were placed in jail for such crimes as having a bag of pot? Or are you talking about his son who, while I don’t agree with, I also recognize that it’s his son at the end of the day?
“Both sides” is the excuse of people too lazy to objectively look at the real differences between actions while they sit on their party line. I don’t particularly like what liberals want, but they and their real Republican counterparts go about it in a lot different way than Trumpers.
These guys maced a cop until he had a heart attack. They beat a guy nearly to death with a flagpole. Pardoning lunatics thst stormed the capital and nearly killed cops is not the same thing as Biden pardoning his son.
I think it is a very reasonable concern. The closest we've gotten was Trump, recorded on call, demanding that a Georgia election official "find" a few thousand more votes, and the attempt to "stop the steal" on Jan 6.
In response to that ... the courts have decided that the president has immunity for all acts, the insurrectionists were paroned, and a series of blatantly unconstitutional changes made including an end to birthright citizenship and shutting down all government payments despite being required to disperse them by congress.
It seems very, Very possible to me that we will have "elections" soon in the same way Russia has "elections".
That is exactly what people who believe Fox News fabrications and Trump lies say; that the “liberal” (read, “independently found to be the least biased comparatively”) media is just fear-mongering for reporting on the crooked behavior everyone knew would happen. Steps that he’s taken have all been outlined in Project 2025, which literally lays out the plan to rig elections moving forward by excluding any dissenting voices from a position of power that might resist such an overtaking of government, followed by wide spread gerrymandering. Then make excuses for why Democrats are being ousted at every level. The fact that people are so closed-minded as to believe anything he’s done is in good faith are astonishingly…gullible. I say this as someone who has voted for Republicans most of my life, until the Tea-party and the Trump-ilk poisoned the party. Worse still are, again, the gullible buying into the myriad of what are clearly, factually, lies. But, I’m sure if we all put our heads in the sand our democracy will totally be fine. At least it isn’t like one of his first actions was to attempt to prevent the exercise of constitutional rights to citizenship or anything, so I’m sure all our rights including those to a free and fair election are safe.
The problem is they believe the other side stole the election, has pizza shop child abuse cults run by Hilary Clinton, that liberals in the government are the “enemy from within” etc. etc.
With such beliefs any response becomes not only possible but reasonable.
Faith in the system is no substitute for the actual work of maintenance. Right now there are people in power actively dismantling the system -- faith is not enough.
I would say there is plenty of reason. When we stop living by the laws we put in place, stop pledging allegiance to our country, stop solving problems that the people of the country face while simultaneously start pledging allegiance to a single man [1] who breaks those laws[2] and cares little about the situation of individuals in this country[3], we are definitely on the road to ending our democracy.
[1] New whitehouse/government employees are being asked when their moment of “MAGA revelation” occurred. This. is. not. normal.
[2] Trump is a convicted felon, adulterer, conman, etc...
[3] See his response to many crises in his first term including his initial and continued denial of Covid
No. The people, over the course of long periods of time, voted for agencies to exist, through laws, that are controlled legally, according to laws that have evolved over time.
What is happening now is those agencies are being illegally co-opted by loyalists and sycophants who have shirked their constitutional duties as congressmen. They are ignoring the laws that describe how these agencies should be run, and it doesn't matter because it's a metastatic blob of folks who have forsaken their oath at the behest of a felon who avoided trial for sedition.
This is a pro-democracy move!
Elections being accompanied by a large scale shakeup to help the elected president enact the agenda people voted for is a good thing actually. Ideally, every federal employee would respond to an election by maximally pushing to achieve the president’s agenda, like at a startup. That would be responsive democracy, where voting yields immediate and visible changes.
If you mean something other than “democracy” then say it.
I think they mean democracy, as in, if he's willing to disregard laws passed by congress and the constitution, and has been caught on record demanding poll workers to "find" votes, and has disbanded all oversight -
why would you expect future elections to be free and fair?
What general point are you trying to make? That there is no democratic process in the USA? Because we have federal and state level democratic processes.
