Canada

Empathy at what my American friends are going through, and dread about our own incoming conservative wave.

Shocked, saddened here.

I can't believe Trump did so well. He'll be the first Republican to win the popular vote since 2004. He's a racist, sexist, transphobic, fascist, anti-science rapist, convicted felon, climate change-denier, and champion of the uber wealthy.

I guess there are many more deeply racist and sexist people than I wish to believe. It's BS how first-past-the-post and the electoral college systems work - it's so very easy to manipulate the system when you know the precious few key areas in advance to try to influence. Control of mainstream news and social media by the billionaire gives dis-, misinformation, and other bias so much reach to undermine democracy and voters' rational self-interest.

I’m worried this will embolden the bigots of the North and justify some of the terrifying things happening in Prairie politics with anti-trans laws and involuntary placement of homeless people into mental hospitals (AKA the rise of Sanitoriums).

Numb. Sad. Mostly numb.

I was cheering for Kamala. I wanted the US to succeed. She had the big rallies, the celebrity endorsements, the polls were saying it was neck-and-neck. It looked like sanity was going to prevail. Then Trump just basically sweeps it and it's like...oh. It's easy to call the Americans "stupid" or whatever insults I've seen flying around the internet, but there was a vote. He won the vote. Over 72 million people think that Trump and the Republican ideology lines up best with their ideology. Who am I to argue with that? I don't agree with it, but I guess that's democracy in action. Regardless of what lies were told or what disinformation was spread, people overwhelmingly went out, voted for ol' Donny, and this is the result. That's how she goes I guess...? I don't fucking know anymore dude.

My heart absolutely breaks for the people of Ukraine. I'm sure they'll lose their US support come January. They don't deserve that.

I don't feel as bad as I thought I would. I've been an NDP voter all my life, so like most lefties I was shocked by Trump's win in 2016, horrified by his COVID bullshit, and appalled by his conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric in the 2024 campaign. Trump is so obviously horrible that I kept asking the same question: how could HALF of the US electorate support him? I just can't believe that HALF of America are fascist misogynistic white supremacists.

So, I started listening to alternative media. For example, I listened to Trump's interview with Joe Rogan (yes, the whole three+ hours). I listened to Bari Weiss's Honestly podcast, where she talks to disaffected progressives, and had a great debate between Sam Harris and Ben Shapiro. And many others.

So far, this is what I've come up with:

1. The Democratic Party has abandoned the traditional working class, or at least the working class feels abandoned by the Democratic Party. The Dems have become "cultural elites" that too many average people just can't identify with at all. Trump may not be good for the working class, but at least he speaks to them and their concerns. This of course leads to a discussion about how the Dems would have a better relationship with labour if they hadn't fucked over Bernie Sanders.
2. The Democratic Party has become obsessed with identity politics, at the expense of real issues that matter to most people. Identity politics is pure poison that has become the leftist version of McCarthyism to a lot of people.
3. The Dems foreign policy is seen as weak by both the left and right. They fucked around on the Ukraine war to the point where Russia is now winning. And they lifted the sanctions on Iran that allowed it to fund Islamist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis and blow up the Middle East. And the left is pissed off that they don't speak out against Israel's aggressive policy toward the Palestinians. So, the Dems aren't pleasing anyone when it comes to foreign policy.
4. The Dems had a good issue with reproductive rights, but a lot of states are moving to protect reproductive rights on theor own (including ballot measures), which may have relieved some of the pressure on Trump.
5. People talk a lot about Trump being better for the economy. I'm not sure economists would agree, but that is a large part of the sentiment favouringTrump. Edit: 6. Immigration. How could I forget immigration. Illegal immigration really pisses off Americans, including and perhaps especially among legal immigrants. I'm not sure that immigrants love Trump's immigration position, but most of the country see the Dems as too ideologically compromised by identity politics to be able to do anything constructive on immigration.

You don't have to agree with those positions and I don't plan on defending them. This is just what I've picked up in trying to understand why so many people vote for Trump.

There are some important parallels and lessons here for the next Canadian election. Trudeau and the Liberals parallel the cultural elitism of the establishment Democrats. Singh appeals more to the identity politics culture warriors than he does to the working class. This is a big departure from the NDP's traditional roots in the labour movement. And Poilievre is Trump's mini-me. So, what can we do in Canada to avoid a repeat of the left's failure in the US election? Doubling down on identity politics and cultural elitism isn't going to go well.

Not fucking great buddy. Not fucking great.

Pretty terrible, I was hoping Kamala would win

Trump is about to destroy the lives of Americans for narcisstic greed and irrational hatred

You know, I work a pretty stressful job, and I think a lot of that stress and anger came from, in some twisted way, a misguided faith of sorts. I did believe that people were, at the very least, capable of making the most sensible decision when given overwhelming evidence of good vs. bad choices; that they intentionally make bad choices either because they weren't given enough information or were acting intentionally selfish or duplicitous in some way. So whenever I had to deal with someone trying to exploit a loophole or arguing about how they swear they are going to x and such place and will pay at a later time (when you know they won't do so), it would frustrate me, because I did believe that they were capable of making better choices.

This election is proof that people are just genuinely dumb and hopeless, to a far and large extent. Choosing to omit your own vote, or willingly voting for him, is beyond imagination. We have seen so much of what he has done in the past 8 years now, at minimum. They know what he will likely do in the next 4 years. And they still chose him. Or chose not to participate.

So I'm choosing not to feel angry at people anymore, to not give a shit if they break the rules for whatever reason they justify. Because why be angry at something if you have lost faith in it being better?

Bracing for impact on Canadian elections.

Upon hearing the news, I felt despondent and a pit in my stomach... I went to do a bit of karaoke and my mood has recovered from that at least.

Clearly political con-artistry is effective. Ford, Smith, Moe, Poilievre and any wannabe dictators of Canada who may emerge in the future, are all taking down notes.

Honestly terrified for what this will mean for marginalized groups in America. I'm worried that we tend to copy American trends, so what will this mean for our future?

The outcome is not good for Canada and is deeply bad for several issues I care deeply about.

I do hope this drives introspection here about how our working class feels and has been struggling, and that it drives political change before we see a sweeping conservative majority in the next election.

Concerning, to say the least.

Consider this.

Trump is...a life-long conartist, a convicted felon, adulterer, rapist, womanizer, misogynist, racist, a twice impeached President, a guy who somehow had nearly a dozen close associates found to be guilty of crimes ... Breathes

Someone who "gets along" with some of the most brutal dictators alive like they're buddies, has been caught on tape describing sexually assaulting women, who has lied over 30,000 times in a span of 4 years, who has made threats against journalists, who has publicly mocked a disabled person, who has publicly shat on veterans, who criticised a POW for getting caught... Breathes

A guy who denied COVID, who promoted unproven treatments while condemning those who wanted to safeguard public health, who rambles incoherently about topics he has little to no grasp on, who thinks everything he does is "perfect" and "nobody has done a "better job", is in obvious mental decline, has never admitted to being wrong or apologized for anything...

And so on!

Now, would you invite someone like that to dinner? Or have him work in your small business?

Probably not. Nobody would, not even if they were related to such a person.

Why then, would over half the voting public stake the future of their country on giving him a second term as President?

You don't have to like Harris, or even agree with most of her policies, but she is not a trainwreak of a human being and would most certainly be a better person for the job. Any job.

As a Canadian, to know that a garbage heap of a person like Trump could be freely given excessive power by the voting public only tells me that it could happen in Canada, even if the alternative candidate was 1000x better in every way.

North America, and democracy as a whole, seems doomed. And with rich idiots, podcast morons, and domestic terrorists actively supporting a candidate like that, I worry about the future stability of our global community. And we aren't even close to being prepared for what malicious use of AI could do during an election.

It takes far more effort and time to build a peaceful, balanced society. And less than four years to completely dismantle that progress.

Vile. Disgusting.

I feel so bad for the minority of people there. But the majority apparently, instead of seeing "fuck yeah, Kamala, she could be beacon of democracy and progress in the world" decided "nope, orange man hate people me hate so FUCK YOU OTHER PEOPLE".

It's so sad.

I have a lot of thoughts on it, mostly unhappy thoughts.

Two things stand out:

First, I'm having a hard time with the voting turnout numbers. More people showed up to boot Trump out of office (voting for Biden), than every before. If you look at the numbers, the Republicans have gone up and up in vote count, albeit, not by a lot. While the Democratic vote count varies wildly year over year. It tells me that if people, specifically democratic voting people, show up, they win. When they don't, then the GOP wins. It is clear to me that they didn't show up.

Clearly, more people believed he was a threat to the country in 2020 and turned up in droves to drive him out, but in 2024 when we needed all of those people to turn up again, and keep him out, they just, didn't bother. I'm sure, a nontrivial amount of the voters flipped between Dem and Rep.... Or vice versa.... But the total votes when Biden won, were simply a lot more.

So I'm having trouble reconciling that fewer people turned up to vote and keep the orange one out of office, than the number that showed up to kick him out of office to begin with. I don't understand why they thought they needed to show up in 2020, but felt that they didn't need to in 2024. I just don't get it.

The second thing is centered around project 2025. Holy shit that entire plan is cursed. I feel bad for every American that isn't a straight white male right now. You're all going to get fucked over in some way, shape, or form. Even if you are a straight white male, you're probably still fucked because of all the fucked up things that Trump is going to do to the economy that will benefit his billionaire friends (at your expense). You'll get fucked slightly less than everyone else, but you'll still get fucked.

The only solace I have in this, is that Trump is done. He cannot run for a third term. Assuming that he isn't successful in dismantling the democracy at the heart of what the US is, it will only be four years and they can start the very long journey to repairing all the damage that this clown is about to do.

I have no illusions, that even if America survives his second term, they will be fucked for decades to come.

If they enact a tariff like Trump is proposing we're going to have to pivot hard. I've been in favor of Canada trying to join the shengen economic zone for a while - this may be a good opportunity.

Meh. It's not good, but there's not a lot we can do about it.

I'm not feeling good about Canada's future. The cost of living is increasing, we don't have enough medical staff, and the price of rent is too damn high. Our conservative politicians want to play culture war, and our left leaning politicians are AWOL.

It's fertile ground for populism, and nobody competent seems to have a plan.

So I guess you could say I'm a bit bummed.

The true colours of much of the US is revealed.

As much as some pay lip service to gender equality, ignoring race and ethnicity and taking care of the environment in public, once they’re in a private voting booth, the mask comes off to reveal an awful lot of racist, sexist, bully boys who only care about themselves.

In a word...

FUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!

I'm a dual citizen from the UK/Canada.

I feel the same way after Brexit. I felt a huge sense of dread and my coworker said to me, "we work in a high paying position and we're men, we're mostly going to be okay. The people that voted for Brexit have just f*cked themselves and there's nothing we can do about it."

I do feel a lot of animosity to any Trump supporter and I feel that's warranted. I don't care to elaborate further. I'm thinking of dropping social media for the next six months because there's a lot of shit going on that I have no control over and I can't change.

Nervous. Fascism is getting more popular, not less. We WILL see the same trend.

Anxious. I'm already dreading the next 4 years. I usually like to keep informed and up to date on world news but I think I'm going to have to avoid all news for the next few years and just try to ignore what America is doing.

The turnout in the states says a lot. no one is happy. Even trump lost total votes; the Dems failed the mobilize their vote... which screams of people not thinking anything will change no matter what vote they place. It is a mirror for what is going on up here... In all likelihood the libs are out and its the cost of living and scarce jobs to blame for it. If they actually wanted to win the next election, they have already shown they could change things with a stroke of a pen and DON'T.

Sick. There are too many people in the world who care only about making others suffer that there is no hope for the future.

I'm optimistic that this administration will destroy so much that it implodes and all the states will seperate and become their own countries.

I feel like we're going to see an increase in this hate-filled, scapegoating rhetoric that the Republican party won votes with. All we can do now though is try to fight this kind of stuff here in Canada and try to avoid becoming the atates

All the andrew tate fanboys screaming your body my choice is a tad much but fully expected... I mean you did vote in a rapist....

A lot has been said about how shocking and awful the results are, and I do agree with them. I definitely do not condone any of the far-right parties, their representatives, or their policies.

But what hasn't been said (and might be a bit controversial) is the fact that liberal parties are the biggest problem that the world is facing right now. It's the parties that pretend to be an opposition force, but in reality they just keep shitting on voters, making broken promises, and saying "it'll be better next time, just one more term!" They keep trying to convince people that the system works and that iterative changes will make things better. But in reality, things have actually been getting worse for 10, 15, maybe even 20 years... (the exact number depends on where you live and what you do for a living).

After a while, people stop believing in those broken promises. And the longer they refuse to put up any real opposition, the more and more they empower the far right.

In Canada, Trudeau needs to implement proportional representation NOW. If he doesn't want to do that, he might as well just come out and endorse Poilievre, because he damn well knows what will happen if he doesn't give people a real alternative (even he can't pretend it's any other way at this point). And no, ranked choice voting is not the answer here.

In the US, I have to be honest: it's not a country anymore. It's several countries, all jammed into one, and half of whom hate each other with no limit. And to be honest, this is how it's supposed to work!!! This is how the constitution is framed! Federal government is supposed to be weak and state governments are supposed to fill that void, but the States refuse to actually work that way and keep looking to control a Federal government in a way that they'll never be able to.

The USA really ought to break into constituent countries. The West Coast is a country. The Northeast is at least one country, maybe 3-4. And you can slice up the red states however you like - I honestly don't care. Maybe this way, they can finally actually get shit done in a way that starts making people happy, because there's far too much animosity between different and disparate parts of the "country" in its current form. It's definitely not going to come from the Federal government.

I know that none of these things are going to happen, so things will just continue getting worse and worse over the next decade or two. Fair warning to everyone: we're not even close to rock bottom yet.

OH SHIT OH FUCK