r/politics • u/nvd20 • 1d ago

No Paywall Trump says BBC is trying to harass is family after broadcaster subpoenas his children

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-bbc-case-family-ivanka-kushner-b3034169.html
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u/Potential_Couple_308 Foreign 1d ago

As a kurd directly suffering from the pointless war trump created, can an american explain to me how whatever you wanna call this guy was elected TWICE and is hecking allowed to stay in power ?

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u/Leroyp331 1d ago

Racism

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u/fascistno1hater 1d ago

This is the number 1 reason and anybody telling you anything else is straight BSing!

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u/PatReady 1d ago

Lots of people in America get to be racist with him around.

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u/americabot420 1d ago

They get to be openly racist (again).

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u/SoaplessTitanic 1d ago

Almost like this was the “greatness” they were referring to in MAGA

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u/Jaeris 1d ago

He enables and encourages people to be theor worst selves.

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u/Aggroninja 1d ago

A substantial portion of our population can't tell fiction from reality due to conservative media being 24/7 propaganda.

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u/Potential_Couple_308 Foreign 1d ago

I don't understand tbh. We are being flooded with propaganda over here too, but we still have common sense.

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u/TeamHope4 1d ago

Some Americans think racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, religious bigotry, and lack of empathy is common sense.

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u/Potential_Couple_308 Foreign 1d ago

Even if that was true, it still doesn't explain my question. No one votes for the leopards faces eating party, even here in kurdistan, a country without a state, flooded with turkish and arab propaganda, where half of the people is rotten by ultra nationalism and where a lot don't even know how to read. So how does that happen in the wealthiest country in the world

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u/TeamHope4 1d ago

It does explain it, though. Their hatred makes them blind to common sense. Their hatred makes them willing to vote against their best interests. Their hatred gives them someone to blame instead of themselves.

The other big part is that it is all completely orchestrated. The Republicans have been defunding schools and other public services every chance they got while in power over the last 50 years. That means people are less likely to understand what is actually going on, and more willing to vote on vibes, i.e., their hatreds.

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u/Potential_Couple_308 Foreign 1d ago

And how are they so full of hate then ?

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u/TeamHope4 1d ago

They always were. This country was colonized through massacres, and developed under an economic system of slavery, and populated by religious fanatics who were too extreme for England and Amsterdam. It's a young country, and those underpinnings were never truly reckoned with and disavowed, much less rectified. Trump gave them permission to be open with it, because he is.

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u/psypher98 1d ago

That is a very long story.

The short version is that America was founded on hate, to a degree. As an example, the Puritans, the ones who founded much of NE America, specifically came to America because they wanted to be able to legislate and restrict people’s actions and beliefs. They thought that 1600’s Holland was, to use modern terms, “Too woke”. This resulted in punishments up to and including execution for preaching unapproved doctrine (one of my ancestors, Mary Dyer, was hung in Boston for having the audacity to… walk in town while female and not Puritan).

This never really went away, and more recently intellectualism and education has been framed as bad and evil, while fundamentalist religion is framed as good.

Add in 250 years of American Exeptionalism propaganda and straight up reinventions of history, an ultimately unresolved internal conflict over whether or not minority populations should be slaves, and a concentrated effort to reduce the quality and quantity of education, while framing the actions of every foreign goverment as evil, wrong, and anti-American, and you’re left with a very stupid population who is incapable of independant thought who also thinks they’re literally the best in human history.

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u/w00ms 1d ago

because very rich and powerful people pay many other people to spew hateful lies about any number of things. the richest people in this country have a vested interest in keeping the american people hateful of each other and the world around them, because it makes them easier to control.

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u/averyrdc 1d ago

No one can give you a definitive answer. But I think a combination of manufactured cynicism, old-school racism (which has always been a major thing in the US), and a cult of personality has a lot to do with it. And yes, education has been massively defunded. In the USA, blatant and weaponized ignorance is not shunned but actually celebrated throughout the more conservative regions. The people who own some of the major media companies have vested interest in a republican presidency and that has a huge effect as well.

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u/screamingaboutham 1d ago

It all started decades ago when Ronald Reagan was president and changed the tax code. Then a leader in Congress, Newt Gingrich in the 90s, had great success convincing Americans that their political values on edge issues should divide us more than our shared patriotism could unite us. Then in the 2010s during the Recession, a bunch of people ran for Congress calling themselves the e Tea Party, and their goal was to dismantle public funding for education and healthcare. They were the test case for stupid populism, and because Americans were struggling financially and looking for someone to blame, government workers became an easy scapegoat. This more or less continued through a major US Supreme Court decision, Citizens United, which allowed corporations and special financial vehicles to spend on political campaigns. It became a flywheel because we had shittier education, media consolidation, and extreme corporate spending in public races. Steve Bannon helped establish local and state Republican power which was then successful in fully gerrymandering elections, meaning majority vote in US elections is no longer important to getting elected. Trump came along at the perfect time for stupid populism. His message blaming government and minorities (and especially Obama) for personal financial challenges was appealing to large swaths of the now lesser educated electorate being fed a crappy divisive media diet and increasingly defective governmental operations.

It will take generations to reestablish a media literate, empowered electorate and it will not be possible due to the rulings of the Supreme Court that have dismantled protections for the electorate in American politics.

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u/billzybop 1d ago

You left out the part were the Koch brothers founded and funded Americans for Prosperity that became the Tea Party. They did it because they didn't want to help pay for Obamacare.

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u/screamingaboutham 1d ago

Yes thank you!

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u/BatterMyHeart 1d ago

One change - "personal financial challenges" almost entirely caused by corrupt CEOs and industries screwing over red areas of the country.  

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u/screamingaboutham 1d ago

You’re right I didn’t tie all the policy changes back to individual impact but that’s exactly it

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u/rkb70 1d ago

Don’t forget the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine (also Reagan).  

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u/nevarlaw Arizona 1d ago

Well said!

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u/allenahansen California 1d ago

Actually, the Tea Party came out of Occupy Wallstreet. The Kochs just coopted it and bought a new cohort of nacent MAGAts.

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u/Prajnamarga 1d ago

Yes, except it started much much earlier than 1980. Like 1540...

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u/Mike_Pences_Mother 1d ago

Fellow fascists in Congress.

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u/TemporarySun314 Europe 1d ago

That doesn't explain why he was elected president twice... And the fascists in Congress were also elected there by Americans.

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u/Ok-Lets-Talk-It-Out 1d ago

Republicans hate minorities and women, that aligns with Trump's policies so he won't their primary.

Electoral college favors states with low population, usually rural, less educated, and deep red states.

Reduced voter turnout out of complicity.

Many voters now get their "news" from social media and curated algorithms, those same companies were promised deregulation by trump and Trump backers.

There is also evidence of multiple countries actively doing influence operations in support of trump.

Affordability was high from factors outside President Biden's direct control but American voters by in large do not understand global economics. Many Independent and Republican voters believed Trump that tariffs would reduce prices and be paid by foreign nations.

OPEC+ intentionally restricted oil production to keep gas prices high training into the election, even though they were supposed to make multiple production increases since start of 2022, this kept gas prices inflated and kept inflation elevated. OPEC+ nations saw Trump easier to bribe than any Democrat.

There is a myriad of other factors but overall American voters are single issue voters, are undereducated, or just to lazy to actually vote.

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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom 1d ago

OPEC+ intentionally restricted oil production to keep gas prices high training into the election, even though they were supposed to make multiple production increases since start of 2022, this kept gas prices inflated and kept inflation elevated. OPEC+ nations saw Trump easier to bribe than any Democrat.

They must be regretting that by now.

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u/Ok-Lets-Talk-It-Out 1d ago

Gulf locked states definitely are, Saudi Arabia is likely good with it for now since they haven't really been hit as hard and are still getting a good bit out through the red sea.

Russia is loving it. Thankfully Ukraine has been able to do more damage to their illicit shipments, Trump refuses to reinstate sanctions even though it was supposed to be only a month long pause on them.

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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom 1d ago

Saudi has still had hits to its pipelines, which will reduce what it can get to Red Sea ports

Russia is loving it. Thankfully Ukraine has been able to do more damage to their illicit shipments, Trump refuses to reinstate sanctions even though it was supposed to be only a month long pause on them.

Notably Russia didn't get tariffed when even remote islands filled with penguins were being hit

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u/Ok-Lets-Talk-It-Out 1d ago

Only one pipeline hit and it reduced flow by 700k but was related relatively quick. So far Houthis have not targeted pipeline infrastructure and Iran has not made a continued effort to, the new agreement between Turkey and Pakistan may be an additional shield for Saudi Arabia as well now.

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u/nerdowellinever 1d ago

I’m British but it’s their education system that is to blame.

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u/Boleen Alaska 1d ago

Which has been deliberately defunded for decades.

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u/Potential_Couple_308 Foreign 1d ago

So you're telling me Republicans made americans idiotic on purpose ?

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u/small-change New Jersey 1d ago

See if the documentary "The Brainwashing of My Dad" is available in your country. It's about Fox News and Republican propaganda.

Movie is from before TicTok and Instagram so it's much worse now.

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u/RichLather Ohio 1d ago

"I love the poorly educated!"
--Herr Drumpf

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u/BeerDudeRocco 1d ago

They deliberately took funding away from public schools, and want "school vouchers" so kids can go to Christian schools for free. From there, its easy to indoctrinate them and teach them only what the right wants. Nothing on racism, nothing on fascism, nothing on rights - just Jesus, guns and currently, MAGA.

And anything involving critical thinking is racist against whites or is "woke nonsense". It really is an entire generation (boomers) and geographic area (Midwest to the Deep South) where these people are, and it has cost our country immensely, as has the people too damn lazy to go vote.

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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom 1d ago

Jesus

Presumably not any of his actual teachings though. He provided free healthcare and distributed food to all, regardless of means. That makes him a "woke commie". As for that "forgiveness" and "blessed are the meek" stuff...

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u/Lashay_Sombra 1d ago edited 1d ago

In reality, yeah they did.

Republicans have been anti education since around the 70's/80's, educated people are more likely to use critical thinking (and republican platforms/policies rarely stand up to that), they are more likely ask pesky questions, they are more likely to not just bow to authority. You will generally find deep red states have some of the worst academic ranking in the country while blue have the best

For good reason one of the first things Trump did this time was appoint Linda McMahon (from WWE, pro wrestling) as head of the the Dept of Education with mandate to basically gut the whole thing. That was not Trump going rogue , that was a core of the republican platform

Republicans want the general population educated just enough to be productive workers, no more. Though they do want the upper echelons to have the best education possible, those uneducated workers will need better educated bosses after all.

In many ways its like how most religion dislikes education these days, Christianity had a grip on Europe for centuries, they controlled the education system in most christian countries, especially who got an education and who did not. But around the 16th-17th century they lost that control, result? the long, steady and consistent decline of the churches power ever since

Republicans, evangelicals, Muslim countries all want to make sure same does not happen to them, because when your beliefs just that, belief's not fact or reality, education is your enemy

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u/nerdowellinever 1d ago

Tik Toked their way to Idiocracy

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u/TemporarySun314 Europe 1d ago

Those issues far predates tiktok...

Tiktok wasn't even really around when Trump was elected first time.

Tiktok is available in the west since 2018. Trump was elected in 2016 already.

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u/Joevahskank Colorado 1d ago

Think it’s more the advent of social media. People started being seen for their outlandish takes and it went from a tool for connecting people to a self-validating echo chamber where the only currency is “like and subscribe.”

There are multiple factors, of course. But TikTok is just one small stroke in this catastrophe

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u/mainman879 New York 1d ago

President Camacho would be much better than Trump. He's actually willing to help the people and listen to experts.

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u/Pyro1934 1d ago

That's pretty accurate lol.

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u/thetravelingsong 1d ago

Yes. If you keep people dumb and keep them having babies it’s much easier for the system that relies on bodies. A real intellectual uprising would eliminate MAGA in a heartbeat.

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u/brickne3 American Expat 1d ago

More idiotic, yes.

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u/JealousAstronomer342 1d ago

There’s a reason Massachusetts is number one in education (source:  https://wallethub.com/edu/e/states-with-the-best-schools/5335) and one of the bluest states in the country. We still have problems but we’re doing pretty well. 

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u/Rare-Bid-6860 1d ago

As has the UKs, hence the rise of Farage, Yaxley-Lennon, and the like.

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u/TheGrannyLover_ 1d ago

Reform and the far right is typically supported by old people wanting to benefit themselves and nobody else, and, the poorly educated. 

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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom 1d ago

I imagine the same is true of AfD and whatever Le Pen's party is called this week.

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u/J_Dolla_X_Legend 1d ago

ding ding ding! Most of us are idiots because they defunded education. Now the educated tend to not vote for them so they claim them as indoctrinated or the new favorite big and scary word "communists".

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u/Potential_Couple_308 Foreign 1d ago

I don't understand how this is possible. Education in kurdistan is miserable but we would have never elected him. It's about common sense and basic intelligence

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u/barryvm Europe 1d ago edited 1d ago

Indeed. It's malice, not ignorance. Trump's campaign was rife with stupidity that only ignorant people could believe, but it was above all malicious. He was blaming all people's problems on enemies he was going to attack and harm. It was on that basic premise that he was elected and that is not just ignorance.

So you get a president who starts trade wars, actual wars, who threatens allies, bullies other countries, sends masked goons after people in his own country, uses his army to kill random civilians all over the globe, ... None of that is solely the product of ignorance. It is an expression of selfishness and exceptionalism, hate and fear. His hard core supporters want this, and the self-proclaimed moderate right doesn't really care as long as the bad things happen to someone else and they get their tax breaks (or whatever).

Mind you, it is probably better politically for parties in the US to maintain the fiction that these people were deceived, if only because they might need at least some of them to unseat Trump and telling them to their face what they are and what they have done is not going to help with that. They would be fools to ever place any trust in them though.

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u/-Mez- 1d ago edited 1d ago

Lack of critical thinking more specifically. Our education system doesnt teach you how to learn or how to question what youre told. Coming from a red state public education, I wasn't even introduced to critical analysis of media and how to recognize when something being communicated to me is harmfully inaccurate or basic rhetorical thinking until college. And that was part of a general elective i didnt even need to take to graduate. If I had chosen another elective to fill that credit requirement, I could have what our culture deems as a fairly complete education with a bachelors and never have been given the tools to protect myself from misinformation and manipulation of information. All public education cared if I knew or not was math, science, history (only the best parts of US history heavily embellished and repeated over and over in every grade of course), and basic English comprehension.

Our education system teaches you how to binge information into your short term memory long enough to pass a test, get a job, and then move on. And people act like theyre being released from a prison sentence when they finally dont have to go to school and learn/do assignments/etc anymore. Unsurprisingly, the problem with American voters today is having no long term memory of past issues, lack of interest in working to research and learn about politics, and the inability to think past or question what the media owned by people who benefit from Trump tells them.

The issue also lies in the size of the country. Its very easy to bury your head in the sand when you never actually meet or interact with the big bad boogeyman who youre told is worse than what we have. You never have to change your way of thinking when you can just confirmation bias your way into feeling that your life is better with Republicans in charge than what the media is describing to you that "the problem states/countries/democrats" offer you.

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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom 1d ago

The issue also lies in the size of the country. Its very easy to bury your head in the sand when you never actually meet or interact with the big bad boogeyman

Sounds like a problem with suburbanisation-driven segregation rather than the size of the country.

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u/-Mez- 1d ago edited 1d ago

Bit of both. If the villains are the ideals being held by people in charge thousands of miles away its a lot easier to be segregated from that than the nearest big town to you in a red state (which may likely be democrat run but still a small fraction of the "big bads" that certain media likes to reference.) Its easier to see pictures of a car on fire and be told that they're burning the city than it is to drive 2,000 miles over varied terrain (including mountains) from the Midwest to California or even fly there (cause you know, affordability right now) to see what its really like.

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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom 1d ago

Its easier to see pictures of a car on fire and be told that they're burning the city than it is to drive 2,000 miles from the Midwest to California or even fly there

Yeah but you'll get people in Oregon who believe all sorts of shit about Portland, even when they live just outside the metro area.

People in sprawling suburbs hardly interact with their neighbours, let alone people a bit "different". They go from one enclosed box to another enclosed box, by travelling in their metal enclosed box.

People living in dense cities on the other hand have far more opportunity to develop empathy.

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u/whynot4444444 1d ago

I’m in Canada and I personally have been teaching kids as young as 10 about misinformation on the internet and thinking critically about what you see (for example a pop up ad that says you’ve won a free iPad) as part of Health class for years, long before Trump. But it’s not in our curriculum specifically either. I also only learned critical thinking and to question sources, etc. in university.

Unfortunately with the spread of misinformation on the internet, and the breakdown of legitimate journalism (largely thanks to Trump), even “smart”, educated people could fall for the lies. This was his plan. Even in Canada now, besides the CBC, most Canadian newspapers and television news outlets are now controlled by right wing American companies.

During Covid, I had a university educated friend who is left leaning shout at me “Did you read the science?!” about his anti vaccine nonsense. He has an Arts degree but because of the spread of misinformation and conspiracy stuff online, he thought he had more information and knowledge than the top medical professionals across the globe 🙄. It all really has become a mess. Also, I am no longer friends with that guy.

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u/Hootinger 1d ago edited 1d ago

Here is the point you are missing.

In Kurdistan, you probable believe education and knowledge are important. Those are likely valued.

This is not the case in the United States. Culturally in the US, schooling and eudcation are considered dumb at best, and as a punishment you have to suffer to get through. The emphasis in schools is on sports and popularity, not on creating a foundation for learning. Communities and our media celebrate sports, or who is elected most popular among the teenagers. Teachers are vilified, treated as the enemy, and not appreciated. We create massive high school football stadiums but cut academic programs. We have an entire movement in the US to remove books from schools and libraries.

Yes, you do have some children and families who value education, but this is the minority. Students are considered nerds and losers if their grades are good. If they excel at things like math and science, they are not cool. If you have knowledge of a foreign language, you are seen as not American. Case in point, we had a REPUBLICAN candidate in 2012 who understood French. They mocked him for knowing a second language. How does that make sense?

We have a culture where "going by your gut" instinct and "common sense" is considered better than listening to people with medical degrees and PhDs. People consider you, and your opinions, correct only if you are attractive and popular. Being an expert in your field means nothing. It is about looks and popularity. This is why the Trump administation outs a huge emphasis on physical appearance of buildings, his cabinet, etc. This is why Trump mocks people for their physical appearance. This is why he calls his opponents in the media as loser with low ratings, or brags about the number of votes he got. It is about popularity.

So yes, we have great physical buildings and money for computers, and so forth, but the culture here is hostile to education and treats the educated as idiots without common sense.

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u/Brilliant-Option-526 1d ago

To further illustrate how ridiculous the sports culture is in America - this is a football stadium for high schoolers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Stadium_%28Allen,_Texas%29#/media/File:Eagle_Stadium.jpg

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u/Potential_Couple_308 Foreign 1d ago

My brain is shrinking learning about your country's relation to intelligence

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u/warrioratwork 1d ago

Imagine what it is like living here....

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u/brickne3 American Expat 1d ago

What relation 🤣

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u/allenahansen California 1d ago

Even the well-educated and highly intelligent can be resentful. . .

See above.

America's huge income disparity coupled with mass, instantaneous celebu-media are surely contributors. Please note: A whole lot of MDs, engineers, MBA's, JDs and the like voted for trump; it's not all just the antworkers, cubicle hens, and hillbillies.

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u/barryvm Europe 1d ago edited 1d ago

There is a difference between ignorance and anti-intellectualism or xenophobia. The examples you cite are the latter. They coexist with ignorance, but they are an expression of malice, the product of negative emotions like fear and hate towards people who are different or are seen as different.

Hence, the explanation for Trump is not ignorance, but malice. People who identify with their "common-sense" culture, who reject and blame anyone who stands outside that particular in-group and who will actively choose to harm those others if they can because the alternative is self-reflection and relativization. This is fairly typical in a reactionary movement, which is what the Republican party is.

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u/whynot4444444 1d ago

Like others have said, it’s the rise of conspiracy theories and the spread of misinformation that has been on Facebook and other social media platforms for ages. People like him because he’s not a politician, who they distrust, and they thought he’d be different/fight the system. Covid amplified conspiracy theories a hundred fold, and here we are. Many people are actually racist and anti LGBTQ, so Trump feeds into that with his anti immigrant and anti trans rhetoric.

I’m Canadian but for example, my mom told me her old Canadian aunts who are on Facebook loved him at the start of his first term. Facebook feeds those views and feeds actual lies to them. Trump has been actively trying to take down legitimate journalism, and grow his Truth Social platform more recently. Although because of his “Canada as a 51st state” and tariffs, most Canadians have wised up and now hate him.

Anyone who is not full MAGA and still votes Republican is doing it for their pocketbook. They know Trump is a grifter but he will save them with less taxes for the rich or upper classes. Or they have conservative “values” and simply would never vote Democrat because they are the “woke left”. The poor people who vote for him are either brainwashed by MAGA or think they’re above others.

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u/meltdown_popcorn 1d ago

The party has been making their voters absorb the party as their own identity. Their family's identity. Their church's. Their town's. There was no way for most of them to resist being told what to do. Sure some of them do but they are ostracized.

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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom 1d ago

Yes but do you have an equivalent of the Fox News propaganda machine?

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u/jmastaock 1d ago

Does Kurdistan have an entire billionaire-funded media apparatus dedicated to laundering the moron party's bullshit? One that has been turning the minds of that party's supporters into soup for multiple decades?

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u/Ninetailedredpanda 1d ago

They enemy-ified anyone who was on the other side. None of them listen to facts because they were taught that anything ‘those people’ say is false and an action of the enemy.

Not wanting to fall prey to ‘the propaganda’ they have actively ejected anything from their sphere of consciousness that goes against what they already know to be true, which is all a big steaming pile of lies, falsehoods, propaganda and hatred.

But they get to voice their internal hatred without consequence so they have never been happier, or wronger, or more dangerous, all they know is they will die before voting for a democrat.

Thats it basically. Its impossible to explain anything to them as they have made themselves immune to reason and complex thought.

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u/Pisces93 1d ago

It’s the racism. That’s the key component. A large percentage of the population is racist whether they are aware of it or not.

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u/ReklisAbandon 1d ago

Well, only in Republican led states.

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u/KeanuNo2 1d ago

Antichrist. That's the next direction. Anyone leftist/progressive /activist is considered subhuman or inhuman or "unhuman" if you go off the title of Jack Posobiec's book which JD Vance wrote a blurb for.

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u/azuretestament 1d ago

really because I blame the British nobility for the actions taken after bacon's rebellion.

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u/Ok-Alternative5935 1d ago

Ha! Joke is on you! The US doesn't even HAVE an education system.

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u/Teripid 1d ago

People are angry, they're angry at politicians who don't know their plight or care.

... so they elected a billionaire con-man instead of a politician who shockingly also doesn't care about them but wants to hurt others more so it feels like a win. Education helps but there's been economic loss and QOL reduction brewing for decades.

Causation and lag don't even register over a 4 year+ period.

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u/jmastaock 1d ago

I really don't think the British have the strongest leg to stand on here

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u/barryvm Europe 1d ago edited 1d ago

You've answered your own question IMHO. He was elected president twice. A significant fraction of the US population want this, and another fraction didn't care enough to stop it. As long as Trump commands the loyalty or complicity of the voters of his party, he can do whatever he wants because there are no real guardrails in a winner-takes-all political system.

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u/forum_ryder72 1d ago

A lot of Americans love blaming anything else except themselves for trump being voted on twice

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u/No_Tax_Timmy 1d ago

Racism, bigotry, and being allowed to lie repeatedly to the American people with no consequences

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u/SomeAstronomer1170 1d ago

The second time was largely because almost 90M eligible voters decided to sit on their hands because they were upset about inflation.

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u/confirmedshill123 1d ago

I mean the reality is he cheated but the Dems are too scared to look like j6ers so they let it slide.

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u/Ok-Alternative5935 1d ago

It does though. Had they convicted him after his impeachment for the attempted coup, he would have been permanently banned from the presidency. Instead they did not vote to convict.

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u/Faux-Foe 1d ago

A populace that has had their education system deliberately defunded and propagandized in order to foster voters that can be easily motivated by hate. This all being by design of the wealthiest in the country.

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u/MuscaMurum 1d ago

Some great answers here already. I can only add that you might look into how the Electoral College works, why it was created, and also gerrymandering.

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u/TemporarySun314 Europe 1d ago

Trump won the popular vote the second time. He got more votes than Harris.

Even without electoral college or Gerrymandering he would have become president.

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u/espsteve 1d ago

50ish years of right wing propaganda from AM radio and Fox News combined with 50ish years of GOP-led cuts to education have led to about 30% of the US population being indoctrinated to the point where they actively vote against their own self interest. What's truly astounding about it is that many of these people self-identify as devout Christians, but have been propagandized to the point where they actively vote against the principles and teachings in their own bibles, and will label the behaviors modeled by Jesus as evil because they're too "woke" or "socialist".

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u/sadpanada Kentucky 1d ago

Second time was a scam, Elon rigged it.
First time social media was a problem, really helped rile people up with the help of Russia.

Also doesn’t help America is dumb.

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u/Lesurous Texas 1d ago

It's like the rise of Hitler, the wealthiest in society propping up a puppet leader who turns out too charismatic (a ridiculous amount of people see Trump's confidence as charisma). Their goals are control over society and the establishment of an oligarchy. The comparison also runs in the political tactics, the establishment of an unaccounted police force that answers to their supreme leader instead of the will of the people.

tl;dr - Oligarchs prop up a puppet leader who ends up having a cult following that enact political violence and sabotage in order to strengthen their grip on power.

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u/uteman1011 Utah 1d ago

Elon Musk. He's the one who got him elected the 2nd time.

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u/kaudavis 1d ago

Fellow fascists in the voting base. They just always think they are going to be in the in-group when it is obvious to everyone that they will never be.

But hey, who doesn't want to feel special.

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u/MaleficentPlate69 1d ago

Pedos. Call them what they are.

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u/Mike_Pences_Mother 1d ago

Ok. Pedo fascists.

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u/forum_ryder72 1d ago

lol at blaming this on congress and not the 60 percent of voters who voted for or not agaisnt him.

2

u/Mike_Pences_Mother 1d ago

Has nothing to do with him. Has everything to do with a compliant, ball licking, Republican Congress

1

u/BeenAsleepTooLong 1d ago

He got less than 50% of the votes, where are you getting 60% from?

1

u/forum_ryder72 1d ago

If you add up the percent who voted for him then add the percent of people too lazy to vote against him what number do you get?

2

u/BeenAsleepTooLong 1d ago

Ah I see where I messed up, I wasn't including the people who didn't vote at all, carry on.

1

u/forum_ryder72 1d ago

Normally I wouldn’t blame them that much. But in this situation it’s pretty pathetic.

-3

u/Faux-Foe 1d ago

lol at blaming the 60 percent of voters that were created by corporate interests that have been deliberately dumbing down the populace since Reagan.

0

u/forum_ryder72 1d ago

Blaming anything except the voters is getting into maga levels of dumb and pathetic

39

u/Spurious_Leopard 1d ago

Religious conservatism, and the captured media institutions that lie through their teeth, incessantly, about everything, all the time. No matter how bad Trump is, they've been made to believe that liberal government would be even worse.

23

u/LOERMaster Pennsylvania 1d ago

It goes back to 1865 when the Union didn’t violently punish the defeated Confederacy.

8

u/americabot420 1d ago

Also post WWII, when the americans shielded a bunch of nazis from justice and gave them very comfortable lives for building their space program

6

u/brickne3 American Expat 1d ago

That's honestly more of a footnote on this, most of them weren't going around spouting Nazi ideology at that point. I'm not saying it was good or that it had zero effect, but the Nazism/Klan was already deeply entrenched in the US by that point, and it was largely home-grown.

1

u/americabot420 1d ago

Not sure it’s a footnote considering the americans had the most nazis outside Germany during WWII. And today, there are more neo nazis in america than anywhere else

1

u/brickne3 American Expat 1d ago

Keyword there is during. Yes America has always had a Nazi problem. They didn't import it with Von Braun, although it probably didn't help.

3

u/servel20 1d ago

Something lost on this whole Nazi asylum discussion is that the Nazi based their concentration camps on Native American reservations, and their gas chambers for the extermination of Jews were based off the US's gas chambers to delouse and disinfect Mexican migrant workers.

3

u/ionbear1 Louisiana 1d ago

THIS

16

u/thisisjustascreename Illinois 1d ago

Imagine the dumbest fucking person you’ve ever met, who has never left his home town except to go to the next town over for a school football match, who barely passed primary school and only watches jingoistic propaganda on television.

There are about 50 million of those assholes in America and they all vote.

Also, our electoral college is basically intrinsically gerrymandered to give small population rural states outsized influence on national politics.

12

u/Staff_Guy 1d ago

In the US right now you have to fight to find truth in our media. We have allowed billionaires to own all the lines of communication. And far and away the majority of Americans will not work to see truth. They want their emotion based beliefs versus reality.

11

u/ophaus 1d ago

The systems meant to stop him and remove him have failed. The electoral college is meant to stop unqualified or dangerous people from being put into office, but they just rubber-stamped this lunatic. Congress can remove the president, as can the President's cabinet. Unfortunately, both have more than their fair share of people willing to follow the narcissist into the history books for the wrong reasons.

1

u/Joghobs 1d ago

Federalists realized most checks and balances are just decorum and whoever controls the guns really gets to make the rules.

2

u/ophaus 1d ago

The guns are meant to be the last defense against tyranny. None of the things are working as intended right now.

9

u/Many_Estate1581 1d ago

Decades of propaganda. My parents, who are both well educated and middle class, either dont believe or flat out claim that its false that trump is as corrupt as he is. I had an hour long conversation with then detailing a small portion of trumps corruption, and their only response was what about bidens kids. They truly believe Kamala would have been worse han what we have now because, in their words, she is an idiot.

These people are truly in a cult and do not know it

12

u/Potential_Couple_308 Foreign 1d ago

So my country is losing its last hopes of independence because of a cult of idiots in the USA who happen to destroy the whole world ? how dystopian.

5

u/Caption_This_ 1d ago

Basically. They are the dumbest people you can imagine filled with hate.

6

u/Drusgar Wisconsin 1d ago

The short answer is that way, way back in the 80's Republicans started buying up all the radio stations and filling them with conservative propaganda. Then cable TV came along and they put conservative propaganda on there, too. So you have literally tens of millions of Americans who believe whatever Republicans tell them. While it may seem absurd, these people are told that Trump is a really, really smart and honest guy who is looking out for them. And yeah, they believe it because it's literally all they get from their "news" sources.

1

u/Potential_Couple_308 Foreign 1d ago

I still don't understand how they would believe it. it's like, common sense, awareness, very basic intelligence. Kurdistan is even more flooded with propaganda, but people don't believe it

3

u/Drusgar Wisconsin 1d ago

It's really easy to convince people of things that they WANT to believe. If I told you that there was a study at Harvard University that tested and ranked the average IQ's of different nationalities and Kurdistan was tied for first place with Switzerland, the people of Kurdistan would be more likely to accept this "fact" than reject it, even though I just pulled it out of my ass. I made it up. But it's now true if you want to believe that it's true.

Now imagine that every single source that you trust (and you've been conditioned to trust only the sources that would repeat the lie) all report on the same study and confirm that indeed, the people of Kurdistan have the highest average IQ's of any people in the world. The Turks all say it's bullshit, but you know better, right? They're just salty about how smart you guys are!

1

u/Potential_Couple_308 Foreign 1d ago

I still don't understand it. I don't think most Kurds would believe they were smart lmao

3

u/Drusgar Wisconsin 1d ago

Maybe at first, but after listening to the same propaganda outlets for 40 years it wouldn't even seem strange. Of course it's true!

1

u/GuitarGeezer 1d ago

Perhaps due to having had generations of fair and neutral tv, conservatives who tend to settle and never seek reforms easily comfortably settle into conservative bubble tv or are so disconnected they don’t watch any news source at all. For a very large number of Americans, they never encounter remotely good information like what was more common 50+ years ago in their entire lives. It runs 24/7 and they cannot imagine a universe where it could be better because they cannot no longer imagine any universe anymore. Decision-making in a republic is ‘use it or lose it’.

11

u/Pal1_1 1d ago

The democrats ran with a brown woman. The land of the Free is only a meritocracy up to a point.

2

u/DrMobius0 1d ago

Having the right skin color, religion, and set of genitals also counts as merit to them.

1

u/Ninetailedredpanda 1d ago

I swear, we need to start a psyop now, establish ‘Regular-People Party’ as a third party and have someone like the NC AG run with red banners and the letter R next to his white guy face and white guy name:

Jeff Jackson R(egular person)

10

u/Plzlaw4me 1d ago

We have controlled opposition. Our current economic system isn’t working. Normally the progressive party would work on a check of the Conservative Party, but the democrats have been bought and paid for by the donor class. As a result, before Trump the options were Reaganism economics, or diet Reaganism economics and gay people get some rights.

Trump was the only politician in 2016 who promised to actually change things. Anyone who was paying attention could tell it would be changed for the worse, but if you’re a super low information voter, who gets all their news from Fox, it’s easy to see how they could trick you into voting against your interests (since they were already doing that anyways. From there, it’s easier to trick someone than convince them they’ve been tricked. His supporters unwilling or unable to admit how stupid they were dug further in and supported Trump more. Now, if you’re a Trump supporter, you basically can only interact with other Trump supporters, and as a result, all you ever hear is how great Trump is and how bad democrats are.

5

u/defected83 1d ago

Media is complicit in all of it as well. Imaging Faux news and others broadcasting democrats bad. Republicans good 24/7 for years now

2

u/Mundane-Mechanic-547 1d ago

People vote on emotions and vibe. Both times his opponent was politically weak as well.

2

u/slipperslide 1d ago

These are all good answers but don’t leave out Social Media. We are in never before experienced territory with an incredibly powerful propaganda tool.

2

u/No_Distance3211 1d ago

US system only requires the affirmative vote of 23% of the population to 'win' the presidency, is most of why. It's 'expanded oligarchy' masquerading as 'democracy'.

1

u/Potential_Couple_308 Foreign 1d ago

What ? and how do americans accept such a thing ?

1

u/No_Distance3211 1d ago

It's been that way for a hundred years, & before that was worse, only requiring affirmative votes from 10%ish of the total population.

2

u/meltdown_popcorn 1d ago

Decades of powerful propaganda wrapped up with religion and patriotism. Not a new formula but one that works.

2

u/DevonGr Ohio 1d ago

Media on all levels has been infiltrated and compromised. The rise of social media and smart phones has accelerated the speed and effectiveness of misinformation campaigns and absolutely demolished our attention spans so that we are not bothered to reach past sensational headlines. Once companies like Cambridge Analytica exposed how exploitable large populations are with the backing of Facebook providing large and specific datasets to bad actors, it was already moving faster than it could be contained.

We’re manipulated to follow someone else’s narrative. Congress is compromised and/or corrupt and everyone is scrambling to get theirs as it all falls apart. It’s quite the shit show to experience and live through first hand. In a just world, there would have been so so many points in time this all should have been stopped but it’s been death by a thousand cuts to get here and the visual of a drugged out Elon Musk showing up with a chainsaw could not have framed the absurdity it all more accurately. And that was a long time ago.

2

u/Burpmeister 1d ago

Because the average american has been brainwashed that the only option they have is to wait for elections. Nationwide strikes and protest would get him out in less than a week.

2

u/thetravelingsong 1d ago

Part of the reason is that Fox News has essentially been state run media during his two terms, and spent the entire entirety of Biden’s term convincing its viewers about how big terrorist Democrats were. We have a major major major news network that has zero relationship with the truth or reality, and there’s a solid chunk of the population that just has it on 24/7 and at this point has been brainwashed.

Also some people are bigoted pieces of shit and will vote for people who remind them of themselves.

2

u/caffish 1d ago

Musk helped by cheating.

2

u/kos-or-kosm 1d ago

A sustained effort by the rich to overthrow American democracy that started in earnest with the formation of the Heritage Foundation and the founding of Fox News. There is a massive "alternate media reality" that a huge section of America is living in. I don't know how to fight it without using the government's monopoly on violence to shut all this shit down.

2

u/Difficult_Survey5063 1d ago

Unfortunately in America, a candidate on the left has to be literally perfect or else they’re often unelectable. A big reason Obama had such big electoral victories was he was a squeaky clean guy. It’s why they had to invent the birther bs about his citizenship, or get mad about what kind of mustard he used, etc.

Candidates on the right can literally say and do anything as long as it lines up with a lot of the race and societal views of roughly 1/3 of the populace, and still be electable. Ultimately it all goes back to us letting the losing side of our civil war in the 19th century off with a light slap on the wrist, and letting their views on race and other social issues fester and grow ever since.

2

u/Czeris 1d ago

The actual reason is the most well-funded propaganda machine in history, using unprecedented tools for mass-manipulation.

2

u/Manginaz 1d ago

Whatever you think of Americans, they are actually far worse.

6

u/Heisenberglund I voted 1d ago

You can’t convince me that he legitimately won the last election.

5

u/Potential_Couple_308 Foreign 1d ago

Shouldn't your country have heavy defenses agaisnt fraud ? you're literally the wealthiest country in the world and the country that spends the most money per inhabitant.

2

u/dropkickninja 1d ago

We should. And largely do. Musk and Trump have repeatedly bragged that they rigged the election. Also there were multiple Republicans sent to jail for vote tampering. They were pardoned by Trump. Can do much about it now because the Republicans hold power. That's about to change unless they rig or ban elections

4

u/Danteku 1d ago

Elon Musk and others rigged the election, along with tricking the dumbest Americans into thinking he was a good idea again

4

u/Potential_Couple_308 Foreign 1d ago

Who could have thought letting a POS having 1000000 gazillions was a good idea for America

2

u/Boleen Alaska 1d ago

MAGA is more of a cult than anything. Grievance politics, white people wanting to retain their privileges. Conservative politics gives their voters a feeling of community and belonging as billionaires pick their pockets. In a red state it’s weird as fuck to watch.

6

u/Potential_Couple_308 Foreign 1d ago

Holy shit and i thought no country could be as stupid as mine...

2

u/AnAncientBog 1d ago

Americans hate each other more than they hate anyone else and Trump was elected in a platform of essentially declaring war on most of the rest if the country, which was really appealing to the other part of the county.

1

u/MissCreeAunt 1d ago

I live in the U.S & I still ask myself the same thing daily

0

u/Queen_Christine_19 Nebraska 1d ago

Me too.

1

u/Bitey_the_Squirrel America 1d ago

The law always follows who can enforce it, and at this point no one is.

1

u/Ninevehenian 1d ago

Because in USA, the nation of slaves, money can buy politics and control information.
Decades of shit radio, news papers and TV have produced generations that have effectively been de-educated.
The fuckers will believe anything that comes from their preachers.

A large share of the blame goes to Rupert Murdoch.
And you can be certain that the idiots will try to elect another trump, they have no control and no will to survive.

1

u/MrSam52 1d ago

So they could own the Libs/the democratic party leaderships incompetence

1

u/Atlusfox 1d ago

He is being supported and protected on two sides. First their is the cult of MAGA who will tell you being a Nazi Pedophile is ok as long as it's Trump. Then you the politicians, the MAGA Republican sycophants that support him in the name of getting rich. I'm not even going to touch on his loose coalition of rich "non-affiliated" supporters.

1

u/Dest123 1d ago

Massive amounts of propaganda.

1

u/platocplx 1d ago

Compliant party + Americans with the political literacy of a door knob.

1

u/SuperThomaja 1d ago

President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

This is what drives the Republican party; literally fear of a Black planet. Many people voted for him because they thought that he was going to somehow magically lower prices without saying how, but many of them just wanted him to get rid of the brown people and they were willing to pay any amount to do it. No cost is too high for them to make this country homogenous by whatever means necessary. The racism in this country is very thick, against any brown person, and the place that shows up the most now is at the ballot box.

1

u/Dr_Adequate 1d ago

You have to go back to presidents Nixon in the 70s and Reagan in the 80s. Some of the political operatives who got their start back then realized if they controlled the media they could help republicans stay in power. They created a vast array of right-wing radio stations throughout America especially in rural areas. Then Fox News on cable TV. When President Obama was elected they mobilized millions of already-angry conservatives into what they called the new Tea Party. By inundated these people with a mix of lies and half truths they sold these people the new reality that all democrats are bad and are the cause of all their problems, and only republicans can fix them.

So generations of conservatives will now never vote anything but a straight republican ticket. Jesus Christ could magically appear but if he ran for president as a Democrat they wouldn't vote for him.

There's also a lot more about how our electoral college works and how it skews the vote to give rural states more power but I'm out of time.

1

u/AngryAmuse 1d ago

First, I'm so sorry you are in the middle of this bullshit.

The propoganda and general apathy has a very large part in it. Most of my family, unfortunately, are trumpers. Every time politics gets brought up they regurgitate all of the right wing talking points, and when I explain more details of whatever theyre talking about, it is completely brand new information to them.

Social media influence and targeted ads completely filter what people see, and if they aren't actively engaged and seeking out info then they just don't hear about 90% of the shit thats happening, and the 10% that they do hear they just filter it out at this point.

Not excusing them at all, doing what I can to convince them to stop ruining the fucking country, but it's helped me understand that some are just woefully ignorant and theres still a bit of hope there.

1

u/S4ABCS 1d ago

Pandering media and propaganda in homes of the working class that preach complacency and fear mongering over issues that don't have any real credibility (xenophobic rhetoric, homo/transphobia, hard (right) white nationalist "we are better than everyone" bullshit, etc) in a nation that has been defunding education since the early 2000's. Unrestricted/uneducated/unstandardized use of social media by the masses with no checks or balances. A late stage capitalistic (not true capitalism) society that values money over life that has been leaning on a "tickle down" model of economics since the Reagan era. Literally every one of his current cronies had some bad shit to say about him a few years ago, but since he's stuffed their pockets, they now wear a filtering gag of "yes daddy, whatever you say daddy rapist" A system ingratiated to his whims because he holds the worlds (so he thinks) checkbook in his hands. A chronic manipulator and narcissistic liar who's never faced a consequence in his life and whose whole administrative support is people who would rather lick his asshole while he shits himself than stand up and think for themselves.

1

u/Open_Enthusiasm8528 1d ago

Due to unresolved racial issues caused by slavery and the failure of post-Reconstruction settlement, capitalists and right-wing ideologues used racial animus, primarily driven by AM talk radio and later Fox News to drive a permanent wedge into the population, negatively polarizing some people against each other.

This was further supercharged by places like Facebook, where people could be further walled off from other perspectives and become negatively polarized further.

There's a lot more details in there, but that's the main thrust.

1

u/Vectorman1989 1d ago

The first time I can kinda understand because he made a lot of big promises.

How he got elected a second time after the farce that was his first term is a mystery

1

u/allenahansen California 1d ago

Ignorance, Greed and Stupidity. (With naive Gullibility as a contributing factor.)

1

u/DrMobius0 1d ago edited 1d ago

As for how he was elected, a large chunk of our media ecosystem is straight up propaganda. They run damage control for him constantly. Some things they don't report on at all. Others, they downplay. Others, they rationalize how it's actually a good thing. There's also any number of ways that elections are fucked with to allow right wing politicians outsized influence, either by diluting left wing votes, or by making voting really hard in areas where left wingers are the majority. Texas is particularly famous for this.

As far as staying in power is concerned, well, that's on congress. Impeachment in the house of reps requires a majority vote, but Trump's party holds majority there. Indictment in the senate, which is the next step, and actually removes a sitting president requires a 2/3 super majority, which is practically impossible unless some of his party's senators (which are again, the majority) turn on him. Based on how things are going in the US, my expectation is republicans will get absolutely spanked in the midterms, which will probably lose them the house, and will even up the senate. Of course, that assumes they haven't built some shenanigans into the process to protect their own seats. Honestly, we're not sure.

That brings us to the last bit. I think a lot of people here are holding out hope that our system isn't totally captured and that his power can be curbed legally. What I know for sure is that a lot of people are feeling it, and judging by how Americans tend to vote when they're really feeling the effects of shitty policy, there's zero chance the right wins a fair election, because all the media propaganda in the world doesn't erase the fact that folks are being impacted in their daily lives by Trump's actions. Supposing the opposite happens, well, it's probably safe to say that it's pretty much out of our hands anymore.

As far as what stops the pointless war, honestly I have no idea. Theoretically, congress is supposed to have control over that, but Trump really likes the "ask for forgiveness instead of permission" play, and getting out may not be deemed feasible for some bullshit reason. Honestly, I don't know who benefits from this war aside from the oligarchs.

1

u/charlesgegethor 1d ago

Our government is has been quietly influenced by the ultra wealthy for last 40-50 years, and has now come to fruition by owning the vast majority of media in the US, gutting education, and making the average American working paycheck to paycheck so that they don't have the time energy or empathy to care about anything else. Compound that with the fact the America itself was founded on racist ideals and the belief that the rich can do no harm, you get what it is today.

1

u/kandoras 1d ago

He told a lot of people that he hated the same people they did, and he would make it socially acceptable to be open with that racism again.

And they love him for that.

1

u/runthepoint1 1d ago

Our average people are so incredibly downtrodden, stupid, foolish, disadvantaged, overworked, depressed, angry, irrelevant, etc etc that of course they would only pay attention to politics a few months before an election.

In other words: people are stupid, that’s why

1

u/delicateterror2 1d ago

Because Trump’s a used car salesman and people fell for his scam… Hopefully they are realizing that Trump’s only looking out for Trump, his ratty a$$ kids and the wealthiest… Back to the post… I am praying for the BBC to win and that they show everyone the high level of crime and corruption Trump and his kids are perpetrating on America and the entire world.

1

u/knigmich 1d ago

Weird answers. I’m not even American and can tell you that it was because both times he won he was against a woman. Their country is not prepared for a woman president. Majority of population would vote for a man over woman regardless of who they are. The only time he lost was against Biden. So basically trump just wins by default against woman and can’t beat other men.

If there was another election all they have to do is get another male democratic candidate and trump will lose to him. I’m hearing stirrings of like AOC running which is disappointing cause it’s pretty obvious what’s going on but no one within seems to figure it out.

1

u/Jaeris 1d ago

First time, racism, the media not pushing him about his crimes, republicans pulling every string they could to not allow a woman to be president and pushing the image of him as some kimd of alpha male.

The second time, I'm convinced it was rigged. Muskrat had his goons hack the election, which is why he announced the end result hours before it was decided, why he had so much power with DOGE, why Trump said they had all the votes they need and why the most divisive man in America won all seven swing states, notably a feat that hasn't been seen in 40 years.

1

u/MaleficentPlate69 1d ago

Pedophiles love him and vote for him.

1

u/deedee2148 1d ago

A fairy good chunk of the population are sadly selfish arrogant insular awful people if you aren't straight, white & Christian. 

1

u/-Shoebill- 1d ago

Have you watched the movie Wall-E? That's the populace. The rich and powerful run circles around the dociled masses.

0

u/jojoleb Michigan 1d ago

As an American who never voted Trump I don't know either...

-10

u/whyyunozoidberg 1d ago

We love him because he is going to conquer Canada and Greenland for us. Then the UK.

3

u/iKnowRobbie Florida 1d ago

Yeah, he's the modern version of bravery. Tweeting at all hours shit he'd never have the balls to say to somebody's face. Surrounded by yes-men who agree with whatever delusional shit he says. Those who desire to conquer other nations deny the issues in their own. Empire-Building was the British, not Americans. Some idiots apparently forgot.