Surely this will make groceries more affordable.
I knew this would happen and loads of people on lemmy accused me of “fearmongering” or “only caring about myself” when I said I’d vote Harris
“Kamala Harris is not the perfect progressive candidate in every way. How can I possibly vote for her? I’ll sit this one out. That’ll show 'em!”
People need to accept that the electoral system in the US is just a trolley problem at the end of the day unfortunately.
Basically, and people let ‘the enemy of perfect get in the way of good enough’. Progress is incremental unfortunately. That’s just how it is. We can accept that, or we get this crap.
not really close to ‘good enough’ but least bad
This is exactly the fucking problem, if it’s not perfect enough then people allow it to get worse instead.
The only way a political party changes is when they stop winning.
If Democrats think they will win by being Republicans who hate the gays a little bit less, then that is what they’ll do. They were just shown that that isn’t a winning strategy, so we’ll see if the party changes tack or doubles down.
“You monster, it is your fault you gave us Trump”
I make my voting preferences known in every primary, state, and federal election. I actively volunteer for candidates I like. The party knows what will earn my vote, if they wanted it. If they make the strategic bet that getting my vote will cost them more from somewhere else, then that is on them.
“That is so entitled, how could you”
Have you ever considered that the reason both parties seem so out of touch with mainstream thought is because they have 10s of millions of people who will vote regardless of policy, thereby preventing the parties from understanding what is actually effective in getting them votes?
Elections are an information gathering mechanism.
You seem to think there will be real elections again rather than the type they have in Russia now that Republicans control all three branches of government.
I’m not sure why. Do you think they will ever willingly give up power?
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Your vote was meaningless? Even in local elections? You sat out the whole thing because of the top of the ticket?
Not quite.
For starters it didn’t use to be a choice of “who would you rather see killed” - or in other words, nothing was forever lost if one side won instead of the other - and beyond that it has always been a cyclical choice, so it made sense for voters who felt insufficiently catered to, to punish a side on one cycle to try and get it to offer a better deal on the next cycle.
Whether that remains the case - i.e. will Trump make himself dictator for life - is the big question.
That’s true but I didn’t mean it as a choice of who you’d rather see killed, just that the system is set up in such a way that as a rational voter you are forced into a situation where you must act to prevent the worst outcome rather than voting for your interests and what you believe in.
I think I used a wrong methaphor (sorry!) because the whole death thing carries a lot more implications than what I meant to convey.
In a Trolley Problem the A/B choice is fixed, is a once-only choice and its effects cannot be undone. My point is that, unlike a Trolley Problem, even in the US deeply flawed voting system the choice is (so far) not an irrevocable one time only choice - there is a new choice every 4 years, most effects from the previous choice can be undone (the chosen one of the next cycle always has the option to undo most of what the chosen one of the previous cycle did) and the actual choices available at voting time are not fixed and can be influenced before the actual vote (Parties can be convinced to field different candidates).
My theory is that in part Presidential Elections in the US system are a Cyclical Ultimatum Game, in that for each Party a candidate is fielded whose political offerings are a certain approportioning of the “cake” amongst different societal interests and the voters who care about such societal interests can chose to Accept or Reject, and given the cyclical nature of the choice, one can use Reject to Punish a party for fielding a candidate who is offering a specific approportioning of the “cake”, the difference between a mere Reject and Punish being that the latter is done with the intention of affecting the choice of “cake” approportioning of the other side of the game (i.e. the Party whose candidate is being rejected) that they offer on the next cycle.
Or in common language, in the US system it’s a logical strategy to, on one election, reject the candidate of one’s “natural” Party who is offering an unacceptable approportioning of the “cake”, to incentivise that Party to offer a better candidate in the next electoral cycle - the decision tree in the system is a lot deeper than merelly the single unrevocable choice of a Trolley Problem.
Had most Democrat voters actually been following this logic for the last couple of decades, rather than treating each vote as an independent event from all other votes, the situation in the US would be totally different, IMHO, not least because somebody like Trump would be facing Democrat candidates who actually would be trying much harder to appeal to the common people (as they otherwise would be rejected and hence never win).
Further, the mob here claiming that “natural” Democrat voters who refrained from voting Democrat in this election are losing everytime Trump does one of his extreme measures are totally missing the picture - those people did not reject Democrat to get Trump, they Rejected Democrat to get a better Democrat next time around and a Trump presidency was the risk they were taking for it. That choice will only be a “loss” if the Democrats do not field a better candidate next time around (or if Trump somehow manages to make it so that there is no “next time around”).
Thanks for taking the time to come back and clarify your position in detail like that, I think I see where you’re coming from here and I have to disagree with you. I think the trolley problem is still the best analogy and I’d go so far as to say some of the assumptions underpinning your view here are very dangerous.
Firstly, I would say voting is absolutely an irrevocable one time only choice from the simple fact that the past is immutable. Trump will always have been the president from 2016 - 2020 and now he’s going to be the president for another term. No amount of voting in the future can ever change that. Roe v Wade is still overturned for example and the supreme court is still stacked as far as I understand.
Just ask Josseli Barnica’s loved ones how easily the damage of some of Trump’s decisions can be undone.
If someone thinks that the price is worth it for sending a message to the Democrats then that’s up to them. Let’s not be under any illusions though that we can simply change anything in the present day to undo history. That’s why the trolley problem is the more apt analogy in my view because you must choose between two different bad outcomes irrevocably.
I’m also not from the US.
I would say that the full picture is somewhere in the middle - generally most actions of a President are not irrevocable but many do have consequences which are irrevocable (for example, Bush’s decision to invade Iraq after 9/11 has as a consequence destroyed many lives and created ISIS and that will never be undone, especially the deaths, even if the president after him had immediatelly pulled the troops out from Iraq).
As you say, Trump might very well turn what was mainly (IMHO) not a Trolley Problem, into much more of one by (in “more likelly” to “less likely” order):
- Take a lot more decisions which are hard to revoke.
- Take a lot more decisions with irrevocable effects or with more of such effects.
- Stop the cyclical nature of the “game” (i.e. change the rules so that nobody but a Republican can ever become President).
The time for Punishing the Democrats to try and influence the approportioning of the “cake” they put forward in the next round of the “game” was before in elections before this one, but that was not done hence the “quality” of the candidate offered by the Democrats. The wisdom of Punishing it in this election was, with hindsight, not so great, but it’s still understandable that some people chose to Punish the Democrats by refraining from voting, even if one thinks their estimation of the associated risks of doing so was very wrong.
I suppose I agree with your original idea that in this cycle the US elections have turned into a Trolley Problem (though I see it as a high probability rather than absolute certainty), though I disegree with the wider portrayal (maybe not by you, but many others) of people who chose to not vote Democrat as responsible for what Trump is doing - I strongly suspect they merelly erred by underestimating the risk they were taking, which is understandable since in the Propaganda Heavy US environment the extreme warnings about Trump coming from Democrats were self-serving and very much a repeat of their propaganda techniques in previous elections, so many simply did not believe they were true or at least that they were not purposeful exagerations (i.e. a “boy who cried wolf” situation).
At this point the trolley problem is "would you like to vote for killing 1000 per year for the next four years or would you like to vote for killing 4000 people this year with the hope that maybe it’ll cause the whole trolley system to self destruct…? (The numbers are purely illustrative).
Edit: apparently it’s not obvious that I think these are both horrible options, and I voted for the limping painfully along for an extended period.
Making things worse based on the idiotic hope that it might somehow magically spark things to get better is the absolute dumbest fucking idea one can have.
If by “trolley system to self-destruct” you mean violent revolution and a new system of government imperfect in a completely different way, yes. Good luck with the wait.
That’s exactly what I mean, and I agree that it sounds awful. It’s like people go into these conversations deciding which side the other person is on based on which they can argue the most with.
At least you’re honest about this half-baked excuse for a plan
Got a better one?
I don’t need an excuse. I voted against the horror that is unfolding right now.
That isn’t how trolleys work.
Trump won because the people that voted for him actually like him, they aren’t choosing the lesser of two evils or whatever nonsense. The democrats message of “at least we aren’t as bad” was awfully inspiring.
Hey democrats, if you win what will you do with that power? Change nothing? Cool!
Blame the democrats for getting tight lipped about literally anything anyone cared about.
You didn’t listen - they talked about corporations buying houses, the middle class disappearing, being unable to live on minimum wage, expanding medical for people that need it.
The idea that a political party will change just because they lost because they weren’t exactly where you wanted is also ignorant. That’s never a guarantee. Otherwise we would currently be living in utopia. Maybe it will cycle back, by the time we’re all dead
They talked about problems but rarely gave solutions. The ones the did would only help very specific sub groups of people, and there were still concerns they were only doing what their corporate donors permitted them to. The democrats need to stop acting like they think they are better than everyone else, it doesnt help.
They honestly spent too much time talking about tax credits to start a business. Starting a business? Lady, I’m starting to look seriously at fleeing the country in hopes of finding one that hasn’t lost its collective mind.
Seriously, that and the first time home buyer assistance.
I voted for her because she was the lesser evil, but describing her as just “not the perfect progressive candidate in every way” is a gross misrepresentation. She was probably the most right leaning Democratic candidate to run in a general election and was openly adopting many of the Republican stances. There were basically two Republicans running.
Really? She was to the right of the Clintons? Obama? John Kerry, even? I think you have a selective memory.
There were basically two Republicans running.
Fucking absurd. There is a reason you don’t name one specific
Single issue voters are the reason the USA is now a dictatorship building concentration camps. That’s not an opinion.
With me, at least, they have moved on to, “you care more about your gay daughter than Palestinians!” Which… yeah. That’s called parenting. Along with, “why are you worried about a queer genocide that hasn’t happened yet?!” Because I don’t want to chance it? People can be such assholes.
It’s like yeah.
If both candidates mean gaza is fucked, but one of them means hundreds of thousands of extra unnecessary deaths to disabled people, homeless people, migrants, poor people, queer and trans people etc.
Of fucking course I’ll pick the least bad option instead of being apathetic about it. Especially since I’m a disabled poor person who has had bouts of homelessness.
These same people do not seem to understand that “least bad option” does not mean “good option.” Some of them are now justifying it by saying Harris supports genocide but all Trump supports is ethnic cleansing. Seriously.
I have always taken the advice of W.C. Fields: “I never vote for, only against.” Because there has never been a politician in my adult life that I would have voted for in a general presidential election. Or even a senatorial election,
Same. I’m an anarchist. I don’t believe in this distorted liberal democratic system that seems to benefit the elite no matter the outcome.
But I sure as hell am going to exercise my right to vote. It being a shitty system where I have little power doesn’t mean I should throw away the power I do have!
That’s nuts. “Only voting for yourself” is usually a trump vote. Generally, a Left-wing voter asks “What’s best for everyone?” and a Right-wing voter asks “What’s best for me?”
Of course, the Democrat party isn’t left-wing (more like middle-right) but still, it’s a far less selfish vote than trump.
I don’t know about your life, but my life is made better by the acceptance and participation of all sorts of people. I’m selfishly voting for Democrats because I have 4 daughter and a gay son.
My wife and I make enough money and I could be happy on less if it improved the environment around me by improving the lives of the people I share the world with. Those brown people would be a hell of a lot less scary to us white people if so many of them weren’t in desperate financial straits, and if we didn’t teach them to expect hatred and cruelty from us.
I’m a selfish-as-fuck-left-wing-voter.
Amen brother, a rising tide raises all ships
Don’t forget the new tax plan also includes tax increases for us plebs too!
Cut benefits, increase payments! Good job Magoos!
National sales tax incoming.
Don’t start giving Mango Mussolini any ideas.
What do you think Tariffs are? It’s the Trump Sales Tax.
I thought the Trump sales tax was the $64B crypto rug-pull he did on his sycophants.
Nah that’s just him defrauding the people who voted for them after they are no longer of use to him.
Voters are of no consequence on a second term when your political party is literally a cult of personality. I can’t believe the republican party sold out so quickly for a cash grab like this.
Well, that was the opt-in stuff. There are other things that will get everyone, not just his dumbass supporters.
Yup and expect some things to get expensive starting as early as this Saturday:
Why does this joyless asshole insist on dropping political bullshit on Saturdays and holidays? I guess misery really does love company.
Idk but if he does it, things are about to get ugly. We’re (Canada) threatening to cut off power to places like NY and Wisconsin in retaliation. Ontario is also in an election cycle and the incumbent (conservative ironically) is running on a platform of being the toughest person to fight the US on this stuff, so he’s really going to fight it.
We’re all going to really be hurt by this shit
We’re all going to really be hurt by this shit
Indeed. I love our maple syrup cartel neighbors. Sweet death is vastly preferred to this mutually assured destruction of ‘tariff’ sales tax bullshit.
Oh they’ve been proposing that for years.
Oh I know, just making jokes to compensate for the crushingly depressive state of things.
But the price for food is down… It is, right?
Its going to double or tripple if we deport or scare half the ag workforce away and don’t offer an exorbitant wage to do the time sensitive work leading to food rotting
He’ll probably just use prisoners.
cutting taxes for the wealthy could risk damaging the populist image that Trump has cultivated.
It’s never seemed to damage his image with his supporters before. He could hold them down and shit into their mouths and they’d find a reason to think it was an ok thing to do
Many of his supporters don’t consider themselves poor or middle-class, they consider themselves pre-millionaires.
When I was a kid, I was told that “The American Dream” was a house and two cars. At some point along the way, that morphed into “anyone can be a millionaire.”
Probably about the time it started taking a million dollars to comfortably maintain a house and two cars…
Have it. Don’t want it. New American dream is to be able to fuck off in the woods for weeks at a time, and still have medical care.
That’s because in many places you need to be a millionaire to get that two story ranch style house and 2 cars made in the last 5 years.
He’s feeding the poor!!
To the rich. 🫤
Let them eat eggs.
He wouldn’t need to hold them down. They would be lining up for it.
Socialism for the Rich. Rugged individualism for the Poor.
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I don’t understand why do people upvote this.
Fuck so-called socialism, anarchism, communism and other far-left or extreme ideologies, and collectivism too (where everyone is poor).
Individualism made living for the people better. Democracies were based on individualism (and liberalism), where they care about every person.
What do you need is to not to build another system, but to make rule of law and regulations strong. In the EU, for example, and around the world, there is problem not in social democracy/liberal democracy, but with economic inequality.
But you’re just want to trick Americans to another utopia, fairytales like “capitalism = evil”. It will eventually turn into chaos, tyranny, and then there will dictator after dictator. Again, there will be small group of rich people, who will be oppress everyone, deprive food from them, don’t care about basic needs of population. They will steal resources from the country, but regular people in the country will be poor.
Look at Russia or China, where they also thought that all problems with
If individualism is so great and socialism so horrible why do the rich get constant support from the government? Shouldn’t they be the best at being individuals? Why is it the poor are expected to make do with little to no help? But the rich walk into the upper reaches of government for simply graduating high school?
You say if we get rid of our economic system it will cause a resurgence of a small ruling elite who will oppress everyone, deprive them of food. And they won’t care about the basic needs of the population. Did you not see Trump turn off Medicaid? Have you not checked the grocery prices lately?
You also make the mistake of an either/or fallacy. It’s either unregulated capitalism, or centrally planned communism. But that’s just not how the world works. For example we can have a market economy with government administered health, education, telecoms, and mass transit. A guaranteed job program is not incompatible with private industry.
Finally, you responded to a sarcastic remark about how our country treats the different classes with this utterly crap take that ironically demonstrates the exact problem. The second someone mentions the dreaded S word the woodworks bleed people running to shout about Totalitarian rule like we would be forced to give up Democracy. All to defend the system that supports people who were born with a silver spoon and oppresses those born into a family of debt.
As a note - Something to think about, the Annual US GDP is 27 Trillion dollars. Evenly split among all adults that’s over 100,000 dollars. Hardly poverty…
You’re OK? Why do you answer on deleted comment? And I don’t see the point to downvoting already deleted comment too.
Because you don’t get off that easy.
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I dont think these people realize how close they are to being ripped apart in the street by an angry mob…and I kind of hope they don’t realize it until its too late.
You’re way more optimistic than me about the future of America.
For real. I talk with my friends about the tipping point, and this unfortunately ain’t it by a mile. MAGAts don’t make up the entirety of R voters, but not one MAGAt would give a shit if D voters started getting rounded up. It’s been an incredibly thorough brainwashing effort by whoever spearheaded the effort. R used to mean small government, states rights! Now it means fuck Joe Biden, fuck your feelings, fuck work culture. And it all feels like it happened so fast. Say what you want about Bush, but the sentiment among those who voted for him wasn’t this open hostility that we have today.
but not one MAGAt would give a shit if D voters started getting rounded up.
Just like in Germany nearly a hundred years ago, when they rounded up the socialists. And you know who they were back then, and who they are now.
if you know what’s coming, you make a preemptive strike.
Really? The people affected by this wanted this turd in the office or at least didn’t have a problem enough with him to go vote for someone else.
Because the people who need this money are leading rough, rough lives already and often don’t have the time or energy to properly learn politics. They’re the kind of people who can’t afford to miss work or looking after their family to vote.
They’re victims of their circumstances and now they’re going to suffer more for it. They’re not the enemies here.
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The angry mob came when they didn’t win the election 4 years ago.
The only thing getting ripped apart are his pants so they can kiss his ass raw
Are they though? Are they? Or is everyone too focused on not upsetting the status quo to even throw a pebble in protest?
Give it a few months. Also it will be a situation of critical mass. Seemingly nothing until it hits the tipping point, then suddenly massive
Comes as NO SURPRISE
Their level of cruelty is just expected now, huh. Sad times.
of course it is, and yes it’s sad. now do something about it.
I wish I could, honestly. Well-meaning Americans have my full support, though.
dumbfucks voted for this. jesus fucking christ.
You guys gotta get out of this teamsport mindset.
It’s not just them feeling the pinch. It’s real people that you probably care about. And we’re all in the shit together.
Your comment is utterly irrelevant to mine.
Yes, but they keep voting for this shit because they want to harm “certain” Americans. And yes, we are all having to live through it.
And they do that because of decades of propaganda and being lied to by cunts.
They’re as much victims of this shit as the people they’ve been told to hate.
You and I have more in common with the most rabid chud on this continent than we do with oligarchs like Musk and Zucc or carpetbaggers like Trump.
Be mad. Go through those stages. But when shit gets bad and they turn on him. Don’t go wagging a finger. Offer a hand instead.
I want to thank you for posting this. In dark times like these, it’s a much needed reminder to show compassion when the time comes. People will have a hard enough time once they realize they’ve been duped. No need to make it any more difficult.
I have zero sympathy for the malignant assholes who voted for trump and remain willfully blind to the consequences. Those who have some sort of epiphany and are able to learn from their mistake are worthy of consideration.
It’s hard not to be angry at the legion of angry, scared, dimwits that voted for this. It’s also just not productive. In the end, what’s the point of that anger? We have to figure out how to reach those people, and how to cut through the fog of misinformation and propaganda that they are lost in. Things are just going to get worse and worse unless we do.
LMFAO, WHAT BENEFITS?!?!?
While I agree the US does a fraction of what they could: Social Security
Medicare
Medicaid
WIC
HUD
ESG
COC
Department of Education
The list goes on and on. If you think there aren’t a LOT of social programs that they can cut, you are in for a very, very rough time.
Buddy, I’m being sarcastic here. I KNOW they’re gonna destroy tons of public services like that. The cruelty is the point.
I sympathize with the commentor who you are responding to although I know my present crap life could always get worse and probably will. Just doesn’t feel like much to lose
Hmm interesting how all the efficiency that they are introducing requires cutting benefits. Almost as if they were pleasing the 1% or something.
See, this right here is the MAIN AGENDA of the qon elitists.
All the other identity politics bullshit is largely red meat for his dipshit base. Sure, there are true believers like Bannon and Miller that are for that, but this is the MAIN thing: sending more money to the already extremely and obscenely affluent, and fucking the 99%.
Well, that and crashing the economy to steal everything they don’t already own for a pittance.
Luigis needed
What ya waiting for?
Crippling back pain that ruins my life anyways
the only answer. don’t care about how we got here. no need to highlight their hypocrisy. we move forward from here. keep making the calls until it’s deafening.
Chopping off the head of a hydra is not an answer.
Who is feeding it?
a voter base of idiots that need to be dealt with the same way
almost as if it were billionaires working for the benefit of other billionaires…
Idk how it hasn’t occurred to these billionaires yet that some of those few benefits are what keeping people from going full Luigi. They keep fucking around.
I’m shocked.
Your tax returns, Sir.
