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The problem isn't that America voted for this. Only 21% of the country voted for Trump.
The problem is that America didn't vote at all.
That only makes them more blameworthy, not less.
Unless we understand why they didn't vote it's just going to keep happening
I think most didn’t vote because they are apathetic, ill-informed morons with the attention span of a gnat. They don’t understand inflation, tariffs, deflation, international relations, trade, renewable energy, oil production, gas prices, vaccines, healthcare, or much of anything else. They also don’t care to learn about how anything works. It’s not like the last chapter of the history book on the United States is going to blame the pro-democracy candidate for not doing enough to appeal to a public that was too lazy to continue living in a democracy. They have access to more educational resources than any humans in history and they just ignore it.
If that's the case then we are well and truly fucked because that's not changing without significant education investment, and Trump is going to get rid of the Department of Education.
I believe we are well and truly fucked.
Education and critical thinking is lacking in the majority of the electorate and the trend is that we elect leaders that reinforce that instead of mitigate it. Defunding education doesn't improve this situation, and I feel we hit a tipping point where we might not be able to get these skills back in the curriculum going forward.
Humanity in general is fucked. This isn't a uniquely American problem. The growth of entertainment and technology has broken our primitive monkey brains.
People always say education is to blame but the educational system was significantly better when the majority of Trump voters were in the school system. It's only gotten worse in my lifetime and I responded to say that I think the tipping point was COVID.
Those attending school four years ago appear to have suffered a large blow educationally and I've read lots of things suggesting that those losses may be permanent. Some losses are from the school closures, some are from COVID itself which has a deleterious effect on mental acuity.
In addition to all of this, the amount of microplastics Americans have been eating since 2016 has roughly doubled. We're finding microplastics in people's balls and brains.
This time, the election wasn't about dems or reps, it was about democracy or fascism. If you didn't vote, means you are ok with fascism.
Or just incredibly ignorant. I think we vastly overestimate the political intelligence of the people in this country.
There are a metric fuckton of apathetic people that are "too busy" to give a shit about politics unfortunately. Hell just look at the articles after the election that called out Google searches for "did Biden drop out?" spiking on election day.
These people are too busy watching whatever braindead Netflix bullshit, or just not watching anything at all to know what's even going on.
That can't excuse them.
Even if they lived in a bubble, it's impossible that they never heard anything about all the orange turd rants and how dangerous he is. Not voting for any reason makes you an accomplice of whoever wins, because your apathy means you are ok with whatever goes, including fascism.
That might be correct but it's not going to get more people to vote, which is what we need to happen.
But when you look at what people said in the exit poll interviews, most were not voting for fascism when they voted for Trump. They were voting on the illusion that he would be better for their pocket book.
In exit polls, people actually hated Trump and his extremism significantly more, but they’re hurting so much financially that they were willing to roll the dice on his “I’ll take you back to 2017-19” bullshit.
He go in the same way other strongmen often get into power, claims of economic populism.
Billionaires own the legacy media and most social media.
In other words, they control the means of social reproduction.
Yes, it’s true that this election was about democracy vs fascism, but the election result tells us that it’s possible to see the election from other angles where it’s about other things. I think the Democratic party has to view the election from those angles, see what those things are, and take that to heart.
I think that's a great way to look at it. I'm hoping we can get some better leadership in the democratic party willing to listen to people and offer fresh ideas instead of taking the "if you don't vote for me then you're hitler" approach.
Leaning to the right didn't work for Harris. We need someone to energize the base by offering meaningful change.
Yes and it's extremely possible to think the election was about something else when every available form of media talked about it being about something else.
It’s your right to point fingers and blame people, but if you want to get them to vote and bring them over to your side, that is historically not been the best motivator.
I think there’s truth to this. The Democratic party has to engage with people in good faith and learn what it’s important for them and why they voted the way they did.
I don't think my vote does anything, but I know if I don't vote my mom will disown me.
So guilt might work.
This election showed us that the majority of americans are some combination of stupid, hateful and too apathetic to even vote to save their neighbor's lives. It doesn't matter which one, these people are dangerous.
The people who abstained from voting, made their vote. When fascism is on the line, you don't get to sit out and be absolved. They've signed on for everything that is to come.
You can't count people under the voting age and you need to add the people who didn't vote because it means they supported whoever got in power. 170m registered voters in 2020 so must be similar. 43% of registered voters voted for him, 40% for Harris, 1% others, that's 16% who didn't vote that we can add to Trump's number... But that's just registered voters and doesn't count eligible ones who didn't register!
Not taking a vote, just like postponing or not taking a decision, is equivalent to taking one, so here we are.
Right, and unless we figure out why people didn't bother voting this election we will be right back here in another four years. Just like we get right back here every single time there's low turnout that gets a Republican elected.
Seriously good luck having an election in 4 years.
Yup. For all who were able but didn't, a non voter is a trump voter for the next 4 years.
“There comes a time when the… the risk of doing nothing becomes the greatest risk of all.”