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Why is Kamala Harris being held at such a higher standard than Trump this election?

It feels like Harris has to run a damn near flawless campaign just to BARELY beat this guy. Yeah you can bring up the current state of the country, but Trump mishandled COVID, there were over 200k deaths, BLM protest and was 2x impeached. And yet, Joe Biden BARELY beat him.

Trump is a convicted felon, liable sexual predator, caused an insurrection on the Capitol Hill, tried to steal the 2020 election (find me 11,000 votes), constantly kisses Russia’s ass, has more pending court cases and gets sentenced next month and overall has been the main driving factor in America’s division.

Yet, this race is STILL either 50/50 or a slight tilt (Harris leads the polling aggregate right now). Harris gets destroyed by the corporate media for almost anything, yet Trump is still lying and saying the most outlandish shit and nobody cares.

Why does it feel standards are much higher for Harris than Trump?

dhork ,

Because too many people treat politics like a sporting event. You root for your team no matter what, and against the other team. You have to do it this way, because if the other side wins that means your side loses.

So there are too many people who view Trump as “Their Guy”, and are “rooting” for him. Anything they hear that might portray Trump in a negative light (like a criminal trial, for instance) must be the Other Side trying to cheat to win unfairly.

I remind people that Roger Ailes was Nixon’s media consultant, and the lesson he learned from Watergate was that Nixon could have gotten away with it if the media was more sympathetic. He then went on to be the CEO of Fox News. That’s no accident. There is a direct line from Nixon to Trump, and Roger Ailes drew it.

BadmanDan OP ,

Thanks for that info, I never about the Ailes Nixon-Trump connection. This is so frustrating to see unravel in real time.

stinerman ,
@stinerman@midwest.social avatar

Also white supremacy is a hell of a drug.

Don_Dickle ,

That is why I move to bigger more ethnic cities or countries where I am wanted at and dont have to put up with that shit. Just worked with a nazi/neonazi/skinhead or whatever and I while he would talk to me about his beliefs I woulld always find an excuse to walk away

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

the lesson he learned from Watergate was that Nixon could have gotten away with it if the media was more sympathetic.

Then we got Reagan, Bush, and Trump, and he proved it.

halcyoncmdr ,
@halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world avatar

The media almost singlehandedly bringing Watergate to the average American’s attention was why Murdoch created Fox News. It was created specifically so they could force control of the narrative to their advantage.

And then we allowed every other media corporation to be bought and do the same once they saw it worked so well.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

The media almost singlehandedly bringing Watergate to the average American’s attention

If you really get under the hood of Watergate, it had all the fingerprints of a soft coup. Nixon was a shit and made for an easy fall guy, but also Trumpian in his stubbornness and his refusal to go whole hog on the Cold War. Ford toed the line - installing Bush Sr to clean Kennedy’s liberals out of the CIA, promoting Greenspan and Rumsfield to the Republican inner circle, and tapping the breaks on our openness with China.

There was no real reason to break into the Watergate given that Nixon was beating McGovern in a landslide. But it did a lot of favors for the movement conservatives like Goldwater and Reagan to get Nixon’s ass out on the curb.

The WaPo (a hotbed of spooks even back then) played a big roll in that for a reason. Ffs, Woodward was an agency man going back to his time in Naval Intelligence. He broke Watergate less than a year after joining the paper.

HobbitFoot ,

If you really get under the hood of Watergate, it had all the fingerprints of a soft coup.

Not really. The major issue was that the President got caught and there wasn’t a propaganda network out there to drum up support.

Several Republican senators visited Nixon before he resigned because it was too politically costly for them to not vote for impeachment. In contrast, there weren’t political consequences for voting against Clinton’s and Trump’s impeachments.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

The major issue was that the President got caught

E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy got caught. Hunt was an old school pro and close friends with Allen Dulles. He was also directly employed by future Bush FBI director Robert Muller, before joining Nixon’s team. After committing a string of crimes for Nixon, he served a mere 33 months in a low security federal prison.

Liddy served a slightly longer 55, then got a series of sweetheart media deals from his friends in conservative media. He was the top speaker on the college circuit in 1982, three years after leaving prison.

Several Republican senators visited Nixon before he resigned because it was too politically costly for them to not vote for impeachment.

Lead by Goldwater, a major Nixon rival for leadership in the party. Ford was Goldwater’s pick for the VP slot after Agnew resigned as well.

In contrast, there weren’t political consequences for voting against Clinton’s and Trump’s impeachments.

There was a big reward for Lieberman when he voted for impeachment. Gore put him on the VP ticket.

Meanwhile, a handful of Republicans who voted to impeach Trump - most notably Liz Cheney - got primaried out of office.

TokenBoomer ,

Now this a conspiracy I can get behind. Love it.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Woodward going on to not reveal Trump’s admission that Trump knew exactly how dangerous COVID was and was purposefully downplaying it until Woodward published his book on Trump couldn’t be anymore revealing of capitulation to power while claiming to speak truth to power.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

He was celebrated as a whistleblower for releasing it long after the news was worth more than court gossip.

The man is the poster child for why American major news media is absolute dog shit. We see the same pattern with Bush Iraq War fuck ups sat on through to 2005. And all the banking scandals squelched during the thick of the OWS protests. And the Theranos woman misdiagnosing hundreds of patients with her hoax machine while parading around as a business celebrity. And the Bitcoin scams hushed up until the biggest players had exited the market.

Whether it’s Bob Woodward or Micheal Lewis or Judith Miller, there’s a cast of these characters who exist to hoodwink people into thinking they have a free press.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

And the Theranos woman misdiagnosing hundreds of patients with her hoax machine while parading around as a business celebrity.

Although, to be fair, this story has at least one comical bent. She was obsessed with those fucking dogs that she did absolutely nothing to care for. Combine that with the fact that she didn’t just hoax her patients, she also hoaxed investors. My favorite is knowing at some point she was buttering up Kissinger while those dogs were dropping big steaming piles of shit in the same room. Kissinger nodding along, seriously, while dogshit smell permeates everything.

It’s fucking comical how stupid some of the ostensibly smartest and most important people are.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Combine that with the fact that she didn’t just hoax her patients, she also hoaxed investors.

That was the comedy angle. The tragedy angle is that the patients never able to sue, because it was impossible for them to determine if they’d been part of the faulty test group.

Investors got their pound of flesh while folks who were actually harmed were left without recourse.

HessiaNerd ,

How Regan didn’t get impeached over Iran Contra is baffling.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

He avoided impeachment the same way Clarence Thomas survived his confirmation hearing.

Ted Kennedy and Tip O’Neal decided it wasn’t worth pursuing.

HobbitFoot ,

Nixon’s approval rating before resigning was 24% while Reagan only dropped to 43%.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Reagan had already lost a big midterm in '86 and should have been easy to impeach by the incoming Dem majority. With 55 seats, they could even talk about conviction.

They choose to roll the dice on electoralism instead, and gave the White House to Reagan’s (heavily complicit) VP.

rayyy ,

Well, yeah, thanks to Fox entertainment.

CCMan1701A ,

I have heard from friends of mine that like Trump claim that since he’s a business man he is good for running the country. I could’t roll my eyes hard enough after hearing that remark.

I have also found that there is nothing you can say to sway a trump supporter.

neidu2 ,

Because a cult leader is automatically the purest one can be and needs no scrutiny.

BadmanDan OP ,

I understand the MAGA cult, but do moderates not see this?

neidu2 ,

There the opposite is true. They already know that the other guy is a villain. Their candidate will have to prove themselves not to be.

Addv4 ,

Plus since they are the figurehead of the party, if they are lackluster in their proof it could affect downstream elections.

MataVatnik ,
@MataVatnik@lemmy.world avatar

Because moderates pathological like to bring up “both sides”

grue ,

“Moderates” are a fiction. They’re just an excuse Democrats make for pandering to corporate donors while giving only the barest scraps to their leftist base.

Buffalox , (edited )

That only explains the cultists, and I doubt the entire media industry is in the cult.

pearsaltchocolatebar ,

Trump gets views. That’s why they love him.

Buffalox ,

Yes I agree, but only because they are a capitalists first and a human beings second.
They love him because they are morons, who don’t know they are engaging in self harm.
It’s sad that people of power, like for instance Elon Musk and the people behind Fox are so stupid they can’t see they are digging their own graves.

Professorozone ,

Can’t believe you are asking this now. In the 70s, I don’t believe any of these yokels would have been elected. Lauren Beaubert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Trump, they’ve all done things and said things that are so far over the line, it isn’t even funny. Nixon? Please, he would be small potatoes today.

Why? Gerrymandering. Social Media. Lack of critical thinking skills. A sense of hopelessness. Apathy. Billionaire brainwashing. The list goes on. The strange thing is, conservatives want to go back to the way things were. For them that means when women had to go to back alleys to get abortions, when gays were stoned, when blacks weren’t allowed to vote. For me it means when people didn’t justify these ridiculous notions, but instead just said, “No!”

BadmanDan OP ,

It’s wild that Trump has done things far worse than watergate, and still got the nomination.

Professorozone ,

It is. The world is stranger than I could possibly ever have imagined. Sometimes I play a thought game. What if I had to explain this to, an alien.

“Yes, this is how it works. Are you going to destroy us now? Yeah, we probably deserve this.”

shalafi ,

My game is explaining this to my dad who died in the mid-80s. Cannot even summon words.

Angry_Autist ,

It’s not wild, it’s the GOP plan since Nixon got nabbed.

Drumpf just happened to have that crazy crowd draw, so they yoked their hopes that he would be the first king of America, and disregarded everything else to forward that goal.

Cheetolini could eat a baby live on national television and his numbers would barely dip.

barsquid ,

I don’t think they took him willingly, since he is a narcissistic moron. I think they were stuck with him when he managed to win over the far right radicals they have been grooming for decades. He is a racist schoolyard bully making their enemies angry, that’s all they care about.

lurch ,

conservatives aren’t conservative any more. they are radically backwards. the things they want are so far back, they don’t even want democracy any more. i don’t really have a say in that, but maybe the time has come to stop calling them conservative.

kautau ,

Yeah there was a long time ago when conservatives voted to protect national parks. These aren’t those times

SkyNTP ,

They are “regressives”.

derpgon ,

I call them “degeneratives”. They are both degenerated, and want others to degenerate Atwell.

Disgracefulone ,

Atwell can’t be degenerated. his regeneration power is far too great (at least in the comics.). /s

shalafi ,

I’m conservative vs. most of lemmy and damned if I’ll vote anything but straight D right down to dogcatcher. I wouldn’t vote for an R even if I liked them! The message must be sent. Even if it’s a loss, your vote ends up as a percentage on a spreadsheet. It is still seen.

bradorsomething ,

I know, as a conservative I get everything I asked for in the 1990’s by voting mainstream Democrat now. The parties can change all they want, I vote my views.

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@quokk.au avatar

Yeah sadly American has no left wing party, just a right and far right.

Naz ,

That’s a hell of a vacuous argument. Would you rather get seen outside of a window or let into the store?

Nobody gives a shit about the non-voting numbers or third party ballots, if anything, their response is negative, not positive: They claim people aren’t exercising their right to vote, or that someone has “spoiled the election”.

Meanwhile, those aligned to parties are forming orderly queues and voting consistently.

Which strategy do you think is more effective, from a political science and historical perspective?

barsquid ,

Yes. Dems are conservatives. Repubs are regressives.

Corkyskog ,

It’s what the radical far left has been saying all along lol

KillingTimeItself ,

i really wish more conservatives would accept this, or at the very least not back trump even a little bit, the dude who literally tried to overthrow the election, they throw so much bullshit at dems and dem controlled cities, but have literally no evidence other than “BUT BUT BLM” and “well, they’re taxes are higher” which is literally meaningless.

themeatbridge ,

Conservatives are exactly the same as they have always been. It’s just that conservatives define their priorities and their values and priorities around their identity, and that means their values and priorities shift with whatever is best for the conservative at the time. There are no universally conservative values, just the generic resistance to change things conservatives like. When a conservative benefits from a strong federal government, they support it. When a conservative benefits from abortion, they support it. When a conservative is a minority, or gay, or a woman, they support equalish rights for themselves. It’s narcissism wearing the cloak of stoic preservation of their “heritage,” and it’s always paper-thin.

This also means anyone opposing the conservative is not a member of the self, but a member of the other. The other is evil, because they are outside of the self. Anything the other does in opposition to the self is evil. An other could save a busload of nuns and kittens, and the conservative would complain about the traffic caused by the other. Anything the self does in support of the self is good. Lying, cheating, stealing, killing, raping, everything is on the table if it can be justified in support or defense of the self. From the outside of the self, it looks like hypocrisy, but it’s really not, because the conservative never truly holds an opinion. They just say what they need to say to win.

Curious_Canid ,
@Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca avatar

The right wing has been actively working to undermine our educational system since the early 80’s. A poorly educated populace, particularly one without critical thinking skills, is much easier to manipulate. After four decades of underfunding, restrictive policies, and anti-intellectual propaganda, those efforts are really paying off.

Newt Gingrich and his co-conspirators have been waging war against the people of this country since Reagan was elected. And they are now dangerously close to winning that war.

shalafi ,

I don’t think the attack on education was a long-term manipulation thing. Rather, it evolved from the question, “Why are all these educated people turning into liberals?!”

That question demands an answer. They can hardly let the appearance that they’re dumb stand! So guys like Limbaugh started attacking “ivory tower liberals”. That resonated, they rolled with it. Then the Christians saw the opportunity, got their filthy fingers into the cracks, started undermining public education in favor of their own.

postmateDumbass ,

MTG would have been right at home as a Dixiecrat.

She would have neen standing beside George Wallace.

Professorozone ,

If you say so. I’m more of an 80s person. All I know about George Wallace is that he was shot.

Etterra ,

They’re probably just young.

pseudonym ,

All those things you said against Trump are actually working in his favor. His base sees it as persecution of their chosen one.

BadmanDan OP ,

But he can’t just win off his cult votes. He has to get moderate votes too.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Not if he cheats as hard as they plan to!

Literally, the Supreme Court just made clear they’re helping promote the false narrative of “illegal immigrants voting,” which helps promote the understanding that the plan is to contest the fucking election, no matter the outcome.

That’s why they have those electioneering hooligans in Georgia and why people are fighting it.

They have zero intent to make this a fair fight. That’s why they don’t give a fuck about actual votes.

BadmanDan OP ,

Yeah I read about the 70 electors in swing states that are Trump loyalists and election deniers. How these people are even allowed to certify votes is beyond me.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I mean, I’m still confused as to why a guy who caused an insurrection in the capital is even allowed to run for President.

Our country is a weak fucking joke.

pearsaltchocolatebar ,

Yeah, he should have been executed for treason.

silasmariner ,

Bring back political executions! I can see no downsides!

Don_Dickle ,

And its sad because kids are growing up today and have a poor taste for the US. Which is sad in itself.

halcyoncmdr ,
@halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world avatar

Because it system if government was setup with certain assumptions of the time.

Only rich landowning white men would be voting. Those men had the time to stay educated on world events because of either slaves or staff running their day to day business.

Certain customs were socially enforced simply as a matter of course. Scandal often meant resignation or recusal, or you would be ostracized from society entirely. If no one would work with you, your business, and wealth would die.

XeroxCool ,

And the cheating will be tolerated promoted because they seriously beleive the other side is cheating. “Trump got more votes in 2020 than any prior candidate” is proof enough. Certainly can’t be that he’s such a polarizing, vile piece of shit that actually scared more non-voting people to vote tod defeat him, and they certainly can’t beleive Biden actually holds the vote record (note the key use of “prior” in trump’s claim). They really think the orange coastal elite is somehow on the working man’s side. The same cheeto that has declined to pay every contractor on his towers. The same cheese puff that couldn’t sell steaks. The same crayon that couldn’t find profit in a casino.

Buffalox ,

That doesn’t seem realistic. I don’t see how you can vote for Trump 2024, and claim to be a moderate.

Rentlar ,

Ask CNN

KillingTimeItself ,

there is literally no world in which this happens, unless you are either fucking stupid, or so under/mis informed that you shouldnt be allowed to vote.

KillingTimeItself ,

His base sees it as persecution of their chosen one.

yeah, cuz he’s a criminal, who did crimes, that’s normally what happens to criminals that do crimes.

Guy_Fieris_Hair ,

You must be young. Because Republicans will vote for a criminal before they vote for “communism”. Because the Republicans attempt to destroy the educational system to keep people dumb enough to vote for them has worked. Because dispite the corporate media pandering and acting like they want Harris Because that’s what their viewers want, their billionaire owners don’t. They want the republican led centrist enabled tax breaks on their money. Harris has also brought in the progressives which have zero tolerance for the centrist mindset. She is in a situation where she has to dance a dance of trying to reel in the progressives even though they are going to throw a fit when she panders to the centrists and the corporate overlords.

The system is made and controlled by the billionaires. No hard progressive that doesn’t play the game a little is going to get elected… right now. They will destroy anyone that threatens their billions. Everytime she goes a little too hard left they throw a fit.

Welcome to end stage capitalism.

JusticeForPorygon ,
@JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world avatar

No hard progressive that doesn’t play the game a little is going to get elected…

Poor Bernie…

Angry_Autist ,

I still Bern myself, though at least Harris’s votes have aligned with Bernie’s more than any other congressman.

JusticeForPorygon ,
@JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world avatar

I still wonder where we would be if he won in 2016

Angry_Autist ,

That’s a suffering trap because we all know 1) how good it would have been, and 2) A true progressive will never be allowed the nomination as long as the DNC exists in its current form.

Better to use that time to figure out what up and coming politicians have Bernie’s heart for when the future sentiment shifts.

ChonkyOwlbear ,

Can you imagine a woman or a black man (let alone a black woman) running for president while being three-times divorced with kids from multiple partners and having cheated multiple times on top of that? Even if they were rich like Trump, it would never fly.

transientpunk ,
@transientpunk@sh.itjust.works avatar

You forgot to add convicted felon

BadmanDan OP ,

Obama’s political career would’ve ended the second “grab em by the p****” got leaked.

HobbitFoot ,

I feel like a lot of people on Trump’s side don’t care and all of his issues have been documented in the press. If people cared, he wouldn’t be this close.

You also have enough people left of Harris who don’t want to hold their collective noses and vote for her. They’ll complain about the Overton window shifting right, but won’t be a bulwark for keeping it from shifting right. Hell, there are people on Lemmy complaining about political utilitarianism as a reason for voting for Harris and will even complain about Bernie if he says something being done by the Biden administration is good.

acosmichippo ,
@acosmichippo@lemmy.world avatar

it’s so frustrating. I admit I used to vote green, but the entry of Trump opened my eyes. Things like judge appointments, incremental advances in fighting climate change, and NOT having a seditionist as president are all issues we can’t afford to lose on in the next 4 years just for some rhetorical vote for the Green Party.

in a perfect world we’d have ranked choice voting, but we aren’t in that world.

distantsounds ,

Demand ranked choice voting and make sure you are doing so locally

KillingTimeItself ,

move to maine, and you’ll have it.

Realistically, you shouldn’t move to maine, and you should popularize moving towards something like IRV instead of FPTP

WoahWoah , (edited )

Because Harris’s supporters have standards.

One thing particular to Trump is the percentage of his supporters in polling that support him no matter what. Trump has maintained some of the most sustained, consistent support of any modern political candidate. His base polling numbers basically haven’t moved in like 10 years.

Trying to have his VP executed, injecting bleach, porn stars, felonies, treason, domestic use of military, anti-veteran sentiment, belittling the disabled, racist comments, sexist comments, sexual assault, etc., etc., etc. None of that meaningfully moved the needle.

You are not going to “get” Trump on anything like that. If you want him to lose support, he needs to be seen as weak, ineffective, and laughable in the eyes of his supporters. None of the above does that, because that isn’t what Trump supporters care about. They care about hurting people they don’t like or see as lesser-than. If Trump stops doing that effectively, he will lose support. But, frankly, he’s really good at it.

jonne ,

Yep, do we want to have 2 parties where the candidate isn’t accountable to viewers, or just the 1?

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Because the kind of people who run CNN and other staples of traditional media are the same people who covered for people like Jimmy Savile.

Mark Thompson is Chairman and CEO of CNN. Here’s some blurbs from his Wikipedia, the Savile one being the most salacious.

In September 2010, Thompson acknowledged some of the BBC’s previous political bias, which he said he had witnessed early in his career. He stated: “In the BBC I joined 30 years ago there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people’s personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left”. He added: “the organisation did struggle then with impartiality”.

Fucking news to me, mate.

Although Thompson departed the BBC before public exposure of the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal and is not noted in the BBC chronology of the unfolding coverage, Thompson faced questions about his role in the events around Savile’s actions and BBC coverage of them. According to a New York Times review, Thompson denied knowing of a BBC Newsnight programme on accusations against Savile before it was dropped soon after Savile’s death in October 2011.

Literally everyone around Savile is fucking trash.

In a 4 February 2024 investigation by The Guardian, some CNN staff blamed their channel’s newly appointed director Mark Thompson for what they described as biased reporting of the Israel–Hamas war. The staff criticized their network’s coverage of the war, charging that it had promoted Israeli propaganda, and gave more attention to Israeli suffering, and the Israeli narrative of the war. One staffer claimed that this bias was systematic and institutionalized, as many journalists’ stories were forced to be cleared by channel’s Jerusalem bureau before publication. Staffers claimed that statements by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority were rarely reported on, while Israeli statements were taken at face value. A CNN spokesperson denied the charges of bias.

That’s to say nothing about the pro-Trump head of Discovery (which owns CNN) David Zaslav slobbing this guys knob.

Discovery CEO David Zaslav shared, “I am confident he is exactly the leader we need to take the helm of CNN at this pivotal time.”

Thompson was also formerly at the New York Times, another publication that has been swinging to the right. However, if you check out the Lifestyle section of the NYT, you quickly realize why, because it’s aimed at rich fucks with a second house in the Hamptons.

It’s literally in their short-term-financial-interest to get Trump. They don’t give a damn about long-term-interests at all.

BadmanDan OP ,

Oh yeah I definitely know all about Zaslav’s love for Trump, hopefully the investors give him the boot soon, he’s been awful for WB.

Rolando ,

Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal

Most Americans don’t know about Jimmy Savile btw.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

It’s so huge it has it’s own Wikipedia page:

en.wikipedia.org/…/Jimmy_Savile_sexual_abuse_scan…

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Thompson was also formerly at the New York Times, another publication that has been swinging to the right.

The NYT has been right wing since it was purchased by the Ochs-Sulzberger family in the 19th century.

The New York Herald Tribune was America’s premier left wing newspaper, but they got bought out by John Hay Whitney, a multimillionaire Wall Street investor, who ran it into the ground less than eight years later.

The NYT only looks liberal by comparison to the surviving media landscape. They have routinely played host to anti-environmentalism, war hawkery, and bigotry of every persuasion, going straight back to the Eisenhower Era.

Unlike the Tribune, the Times has focused first and foremost on cultivating a rich vein of lucrative advertisement. It’s a creature of Madison Avenue and K Street. Always has been.

Buffalox , (edited )

USA as a society is mentally ill, where sociopathy is often seen as a virtue. For instance denying poor people health care and food, denying pregnant women with potentially lethal complications the right to abortion. Allowing (white) people to kill (black) people without reason based on stand your ground rules. Refusing stricter gun rules despite countless school shootings. Denying workers a living wage. The list of sociopathy permeating US society goes on and on.

Now I know that despite this, about half the population see the problems. There are also Americans that fight this, and are world class people. But the other half, somehow confuse Trump’s sociopathy with strength, and admire him for it. Yes this is how it is in USA, sociopathy is widely not only accepted but admired, people want Trump to hurt people, the poor, emigrants, people of color, LGBT. Many Americans want all these people to suffer, for no other reason than their mere existence. Somehow this is OK to even extend to women in general too! As Trump is clearly a major misogynist.

If you are a normal well functioning person, it’s near impossible to grasp that such hate can be this widespread, and Trump is fueling it, and before him Republicans have been fueling it for decades.

This makes all the hateful illegal stuff Trump does nearly irrelevant, people simply don’t care, his followers just want to see the people they hate burn. It’s not that Trump isn’t called out at times, it’s just that it doesn’t really make a difference.

SLVRDRGN ,

people want Trump to hurt people, the poor, emigrants, people of color, LGBT. Many Americans want all these people to suffer, for no other reason than their mere existence. Somehow this is OK to even extend to women in general too!

I can understand that this might be true of people, but sooo many people in this country are women, poor, emigrants, people of color, LGBT. To have as much support as Trump manages to have, clearly there are people within these groups that target themselves… it makes no sense.

Buffalox ,

Remember in 2016 there were LGBT for Trump?
It was absolutely insane!! No it doesn’t make sense, but there are always a percentage that are delusional, and sometimes they manage to convince others.
Probably there are people who actually believe they don’t deserve equal rights, this can be indoctrinated through religion, and religiousness in USA is VERY high.
There are probably also people who don’t see themselves as part of one of the groups even if they clearly are.
Remember the MAGA woman who was extremely surprised when her husband was expelled because he was an illegal alien? That’s how stupid people can be!
Because it’s “all the others” not “me” they think.

pimeys ,

Upper middle class gays somewhere in Gilbert Arizona who just want to see their retirement savings to go zoink. You have your walled swimming pool and Trader Joe’s nearby.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Common things that pop up in regards to Republicans voting against their own interests:

Women with the attitude that “the only moral abortion is my abortion.”

Immigrants who are angry at other immigrants, wanting to close the door behind them. (Just look at Cubans in Florida)

Log Cabin Republicans, LGBT+ members who are somehow shocked when the party turns on them.

What do most of these people have in common? Money.

Trump supporters are more likely to be small business owners. Capitalism doesn’t care about your skin color, your creed, your nationality, your history, it just wants your fucking money.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair was talking about jobs, but this can be extended to… women who financially rely on their husbands becoming more politically aligned with their husbands (especially if they like the lifestyle), immigrants financially relying on the “good people” willing to hire them as an immigrant (stockholm syndrome?), and the number of rich white gay dudes who may as well have been rich white straight dudes at any other point in history is too damn high (they love to hide behind their sexuality when anyone critiques their horrible positions, “You can’t critique Tim Cook for tax dodging at Apple, he just came out, he’s BRAVE!”).

jelloeater85 ,
@jelloeater85@lemmy.world avatar

For what it’s worth, alot of us see the problem and are doing what we can to help. To stick up for queer folks, to not buy products from places like Walmart, and tell everyone we know to vote for people with empathy.

Greed is good, became the norm.

Conservative folks want to conserve what they have, at any cost. Simple as that. Fuck you, I got mine.

KillingTimeItself ,

If you are a normal well functioning person, it’s near impossible to grasp that such hate can be this widespread, and Trump is fueling it, and before him Republicans have been fueling it for decades.

the only reason this shit ever gets this popular is literally because of fascism.

bitjunkie ,

Because what passes for journalism these days subsists on engagement metrics, and Harris doesn’t say crazy off-the-wall shit every 10 seconds.

Angry_Autist ,

Don’t forget ‘and are largely owned by old rich conservative white men with a vested interest in keeping a black woman who would raise their taxes out of office’.

Hegar ,
@Hegar@fedia.io avatar

Our electoral system is just shit.

She's way more popular and so are her policies, but having the support of the majority of voters doesn't guarantee victory like it would if we lived in a democracy.

BadmanDan OP ,

It’s insane how the PA suburbs are essentially deciding the next president…

kryptonianCodeMonkey , (edited )

Because apparently half of the active voters in this country are either greedy corporate cunts, wealthy sociopaths, MAGA morons, authoritarian Christian ideologue crazies, psuedo-intellectual “centrists”/independents that somehow conflate basic human respect for minorities and outright fascism as “both sides are the same”, or some combination thereof. Those type of people are the type that think the ends always justify the means and that the ends they want is a US that looks like a cross between A Handmaid’s Tale, Atlas Shrugged, and modern day Russia. It is one of the most disheartening realizations of my adult life to learn that so many of my fellow Americans are fucking vile people.

Do keep in mind, that roughly half of voters is not the same as roughly half of Americans. The highest turnout of voting eligible people in the last century was only 66.6% in 2020. Basically every Trump nut votes. It is there entire reason for being these days, to support and vote for Trump. And in 2020, Trump only got 46.9% of the popular vote, i.e. only 33.03% of the US voting eligible actually cast a vote for Trump. The rest of us are either actively trying to stop Trump or are at least not actively supporting him. The absolute BEST thing we can do as a country is to bump those numbers up. There is no excuse for 1 in 3 people to not vote, leaving another 1 in 3 people to have disproportionate power over everyone else’s lives. Complacency and apathy or counting on enough others to do their civic duty so you don’t have to is how Trump wins again. Vote and make every single person you know go vote too. Tell them to register. Tell them to vote early if that is more convenient for them. Whatever. Just go vote.

Update: The second best thing you can do is vote for state and federal epresentatives and leaders that will advocate for election reforms like joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) and/or abolishing the electoral college, fighting Gerrymandering, establishing new, more fair and representative voting systems (Ranked Choice, Approval, Proportional, etc.), term limits, etc. The goal is for representative government is to actually represent the popular will of their voters. It absolutely does NOT do that right now. That should be our first and greatest goal for our government.

Feathercrown ,

It is one of the most disheartening realizations of my adult life to learn that so many of my fellow Americans are fucking vile people.

I think this is one of the single most important realizations of my societal awakening as well. I actually think a lot of the cognitive dissonance we see daily is a refusal to accept this premise. People refusing to believe that evil people exist in a real, meaningful capacity HAS to have some effect on the amount of people that deny republican politicians are That Bad and attack the left for truthfully acting like they are.

Rentlar ,

You know what was eye-opening to me? I was once talking to a couple homeless women sitting outside a parish on a cold Canadian winter day, they were saying government needs to restrict access further to free and subsidized programs.

Apparently there were too many undeserving homeless people using the program that can’t take care of a place if it’s free, so according to these poor women, they shouldn’t let people like themselves have a roof over their head unless they can put up a $1-5k deposit for a unit. I wished them a good day, and gave them $10 each and my gloves…

corroded ,

The problem isn’t that Harris is being held to a higher standard. The problem is that Americans think of elections the same way they think of a sporting match. It’s “my team is going to win!” not “I’m going to vote for the candidate that is best aligned with my beliefs.” A huge number of the people who are voting Republican are doing so because the Republican party is their “team,” and damn it, their team is going to win even if it kills them.

Many years ago, I was discussing politics with a coworker (always a bad idea, but whatever). It went something like this:

“So, you don’t think the less-fortunate should be able to afford medical care?” “No, of course not, everyone should be able to see a doctor.”

“You don’t think gay people should be allowed to marry?” “I’m not gay, but they can do whatever makes them happy.”

“You support the war in Iraq, then?” “I support our troops, but the war is kind of a waste.”

“We definitely should legalize weed, right?” “Um, I’d smoke it if I didn’t get drug tested.”

“So why are you voting Republican, then?” “My family is Republican; we always do.”

aStonedSanta ,

We call this indoctrination. Cult. And fucking sheep. Lmao

BallsandBayonets ,

People who would ever consider voting for the Toupee have no standards. No bar, no logic or even thought goes in to who they vote for.

The people who are planning to vote against the Toupee have standards. And the Democratic party has continually failed to meet those standards. And the only time the people have any power to pressure a politician is when they’re running for office. Anyone claiming “just vote in the D, then we can focus on getting progress made” is a centrist who is ok being perpetually part of the oppressed class.

Yes, we need to vote against the Toupee, and the GOP in general. We also need a presidential administration who will get progress done. And since the human species has, at best, 30 years left before the majority of the world is uninhabitable, little baby steps won’t cut it.

So Harris and the Dems have a high bar. Because the alternative is fascism, or death by climate change.

LifeInMultipleChoice ,

That would add up if you thought people should choose fascism or death from climate change over some sense of chance.

We need to make larger demands, but voting for those options you listed shouldn’t be 50/50 as the post is questioning.

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