Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Kaleredar]

Easy.

Don't just vote for a color. Learn the platforms.
Don't just believe what they say they will do. Look at what they've actually done.
Don't just vote during Presidential elections. Vote during the midterms. Vote for city council.

I agree. Which is why when I initially registered to vote it was as an independent.

However, I have not seen a single republican politician in my lifetime on the ballot worth voting for.

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I feel like Trump and Elon both know that winning in 2026 and 2028 are a sure thing, just like they knew 2024 was a sure thing days and hours before the election even happened. They're going to rob the treasury blind and try to install Trump and his family as president for life, a Republican super majority with stolen elections across the country would make it simple to end most of the constitutional amendments before the tenth.

I'm not saying that it's an impossibility that they rig the elections.

But doing it completely clandestinely? A lot more difficult. And also a lot less straightforward than you might think.

Do they rig the party races prior to the midterms/elections? Like, the GOP runoffs? Does Trump pick the candidates to win in those as well? Every single one of them? Do they do it for the dems? The governorships? Do they decide the votes for propositions? Special elections?

I don't doubt Trump and Musk's malice, but I certainly doubt their competence. And their ability to go completely uncaught, as it were, across a majority of states that aren't necessarily friendly to them and their attempted fuckery. Just because the swing states went Trump this last election doesn't mean they're socked up by hard-right loons in the governorship and state senates that would just happily look the other way. All it takes is literally one whistleblower anywhere it can actually gain traction to blow the whole thing wide open.

[gondrin]

Happy to watch conservatives suffer for their own choices. You voted to be a bigot, so smile you get to suffer with the ones you wanted to harm as well.

That is the thing here.

My heart goes out to any federal worker that is now fired through no fault of their own. Especially for bullshit reasons. However, if any of them voted FOR Trump, that is on them. They chose to exactly have that happen to them.

Look at one of the responses "I thought it would happen to other people". That is the theme here. They didn't care about it because they didn't expect it to be them. Now it is them and now they absolutely have to come to terms with their actual actions. To them, I say "You voted for him. You got him.". They literally thought a couple of billionaires, both whom have absolutely screwed over a large number of people, wouldn't screw them over. Especially Musk who literally is an extreme libertarian who wants NO government. NONE.

So, the pain must continue as that is the only way they will learn. This is why, unless there is a massive amount of rigging, the GOP will literally lose a LARGE number of seats in both the House and the Senate. Seeing as they literally have the ability to do something about this(either by outlawing positions like Musks or by impeachment of the President, the VP and his entire cabinet) but won't and actively are agreeing with it in mass. There are a few here and there that don't and in private, more are having issue with all of this but nearly all refuse to actually do a damn thing about it.

So, sorry federal workers who voted for Trump, let that leopard eat your face. Because you are getting exactly what you wanted here.

[Malkiah]

Stop voting for the parties you don't like. And vote for ones you do.

ok, love it in theory... so what do you do when there's no party that you like?
this is partially rhetorical but partially serious, because you're presenting a black and white dichotomy that i would love to believe in but i don't see how the realities of the physical world support it.

Of course, it's not that simple. You also have to help build parties you do like. That's the process. And if you can't be arsed, well, you're the problem. You're why the system is like this. You and ~180 million other people just like you.

which comes back to the question of the extent to which you can hold people responsible for not being fulcrums of history, which i feel is something you kind of ignored.
"help build parties" is great and all but how do karen and bob from bum-fuck kansas who work 10 hours a day to live paycheck to paycheck also organize a national political project of 180 million people?
i'm not saying it's impossible or shooting down the idea on its face but i don't understand the actual logistical mechanics of how this is supposed to be able to happen.

No, that's the equivalent of wishing your thoughts and prayers for victims of a tragedy. You're doing absolutely nothing, and expecting to take a moral high ground.

my man, of the two of us, you are rather explicitly the one who is familiar with adopting an attitude of taking the moral high ground so i think you may want to take a moment to step back and rethink your attitude.

not to mention the explicit irony of your claim is that "thoughts and prayers" is being said by the people who actually are already in positions of structural power with access to the mechanisms by which actual change could be applied to society and yet they're doing nothing.
claiming that it's an equivalent for joe-nobody to see that there is a deeply fundamental problem with government and yet not being capable of doing anything about it is quite ridiculous.

That's such a blatant false dilemma. There are other parties. There are other candidates. You could get involved in building more if you don't like what's out there.

do i need to dig up your post history and quote the umpteen times that you yourself have said that voting for 3rd parties is stupid and pointless and equivalent to voting for nazis?
in the US one of two parties will win a given election, period. that is just reality.
it would be awesome if it didn't work that way and i'd love to see it, but i don't know how you mechanically make that happen.
you seem to think there's a big red button floating somewhere in idaho that can be pushed to just spontaneously recalibrate an entire populace, tell me exactly where it is and i'll go push it myself.

I do not accept "I've tried absolutely fuck-all and I'm all out of ideas" as a valid position.

yes, we're all aware of that. the problem from the position of your rhetoric is that you don't seem to have any alternatives, at least not ones that you've deigned to actually explain.

A "priest of the orthodoxy"? The Canadian market socialist who thinks capitalism is the root of all evils and that the world would be better off if everyone with a net worth north of say $50m just up and died?

i have no idea what any of that has to do with your position as a head clergyman in the church of SDoVA, but sure whatever.

That's the wrong question, because these things don't change on the action of one single person in the first place. Kind of a factor to democracy.

so if things don't change on the action of one single person, then how do you blame one single person for not taking action?
you cannot just blanket accuse 180 million people of "doing nothing" and say that the state of things is their fault, and then offer zero logistics of how those 180 million spontaneously self-organize into a coherent political project, at least not while also having an argument that doesn't sound totally insane.
i mean, i do understand that this cognitive dissonance is the foundation of SDoVA that you adhere to but for those of us who aren't members of the faith you're not offering much.

The masses sitting on their asses and twiddling their thumbs waiting for someone else to fix things absolutely is how things stay forever broken, with the only extant parties being the ones who broke things for their own gain.

true, but as you're so fond of accusing other people of doing... sitting there and patting yourself on the back for noticing it doesn't make you special.
as the saying goes, nut up or shut up: what's the actual mechanical process by which disparate peoples with zero access to mechanisms of power spontaneously self organize and overthrow a system of power explicitly intent of suppressing them that *also* has on its side another 180 million people?

I do not understand this "wait for a magical saviour-figure to come save you" stance you're taking. That's not how this mess was made, and it isn't how it'll be fixed. It just seems like a really bad excuse for patting yourself on the back about doing nothing.

i'm not taking any stance at all, and i'll thank you to for once in your post history stop straw manning other people and actually address the questions being asked of your personal doctrine that you so often refuse to confront.

historical precedent in human history (which you should know, you're mr. expert on the subject right?) is that in modern civilizations social and political movements either have a direct leader or at least a nominal figurehead who acts as the first domino that gets the ball rolling.
unprompted disorganized spontaneous mass political projects do not happen, and have never happened.

Where did I say "a few months"?

directly in the claim that some kind of mass movement is possible, because the material conditions that we're talking about involve an elite cabal of agents deliberately plotting to keep themselves in wealth and power and to keep anyone and everyone else out of it.
you think that a slow-burn grass roots movement inside of a heavily propagandized and woefully uneducated populace is going to just magically phase through that kind of opposition? do you honestly believe that an indoctrinated populace is capable of large scale unprompted ideological realignment?

a forced change to the paradigm of the US social order would have to be orchestrated and executed suddenly and with such overwhelming force that it could not be stopped by any existing mechanisms of power, or else it will be killed at the outset by the establishment of powers that don't wish it to exist.
the larger the population, the more exponential this downward pressure becomes, how can you possibly not understand that?

Ignoring that attempt to demand effectively instant action, the USA itself is a self-organized mass of a similar number of humans working together on the current political project. The USA's existence (or any country, really) demonstrates it's possible.

ok so either you don't understand what the term "political project" means or else i don't, because what you just typed looks hopelessly moronic to me with my understanding of the term. before any meaningful dialogue can be had, we need to establish we're talking about the same thing.

when i say "political project" i mean an organized plan to enact a specific social shift or re/alignment through the leverage of sociopolitical power.
my understanding of the term is explicitly one of contrived action, and it is not a suitable term to be used to broadly define the abstract of human social behavior on a macro level.
the civil rights movement would be an example of a political project, as would the new deal, as would the project #### thesis, as would broadly speaking "reaganomics" or the religious political right movement in the US.

utilizing this strict definition is important to keep on track for the point being made here.

In fact, I'd say it's pretty accurate that it's happening right now, it's just 3.5% of the population you probably really really don't like much who're the ones active and pushing for change. And they're getting that change. That's what you're experiencing.

i don't disagree with you, the regressive US right absolutely has a political project in operation right now, and it's one that was devised by and spearheaded by a handful of individuals who were effectively fulcrums of history, who plotted up a scheme and bent a considerable amount of time and resources to enacting it.

i'm totally behind the reality that this can happen, but you're the one who keeps saying you don't need figureheads or any central organizing principle for mass spontaneous change, so it's kind of on you to explain how that works.

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Easy.

Don't just vote for a color. Learn the platforms.
Don't just believe what they say they will do. Look at what they've actually done.
Don't just vote during Presidential elections. Vote during the midterms. Vote for city council.

ok but isn't all this basically just saying "vote democrat and everything is fixed"?

a huge number of people do what you outlined, and the current state of the US is the result of them doing that.
i think you might be falling into the trap of thinking that all republican voters are dupes who are doing it by accident and will snap out of it if you just show them a clever enough meme.

also, in context, endus is saying that some fairytale candidate exists that embodies genuine progressive values and that the only reason they're not in power is because every election we refuse to vote for them, which is both farcical bullshit and also just more SDoVA lunacy.

[Tech614]

also, in context, endus is saying that some fairytale candidate exists that embodies genuine progressive values and that the only reason they're not in power is because every election we refuse to vote for them, which is both farcical bullshit and also just more SDoVA lunacy.

People that aren't living here don't know how hard it is to primary out established neo liberal dems, and if the candidate is independent 9/10 they have no shot at all.

Nancy Pelosi the very definition of a neo lib is elected from one of the most progressive districts in the entire US. People have tried and failed to primary her, and it's not because they aren't better candidates it's because they get absolutely destroyed by her campaign marketing because they can't get anywhere close to the same funding.

It would take severe regulations on political spending and term limits to change the status quo of politics in the country. It's not happening, because why would the existing lifers in congress vote for such a thing?

[Endus]

ok, love it in theory... so what do you do when there's no party that you like?

Find like-minded people and get involved, running as an Independent or even forming a new party.

this is partially rhetorical but partially serious, because you're presenting a black and white dichotomy that i would love to believe in but i don't see how the realities of the physical world support it.

How do they not? Are you (hypothetically) not capable of running for office? Are the institutional barriers denying you that option? Or is it just that it's a lot of work and you don't want to do it, because you're satisfied enough with the options already on the table?

which comes back to the question of the extent to which you can hold people responsible for not being fulcrums of history, which i feel is something you kind of ignored.

You keep returning to this idea of "one great person", and I seriously don't know where you're getting it from. It's certainly not anything I've argued. I've been proposing collective action.

"help build parties" is great and all but how do karen and bob from bum-fuck kansas who work 10 hours a day to live paycheck to paycheck also organize a national political project of 180 million people?
i'm not saying it's impossible or shooting down the idea on its face but i don't understand the actual logistical mechanics of how this is supposed to be able to happen.

Literally the same ways every other political party in every other democratic nation on the world's done it.

Where do you think parties come from? Do you think they just grow up out of the ground naturally like a cabbage?

do i need to dig up your post history and quote the umpteen times that you yourself have said that voting for 3rd parties is stupid and pointless and equivalent to voting for nazis?

Doing so would only demonstrate your inability to understand two different arguments.

In any given election, you only have the options on the ballot. In any given ballot decision, you have to determine how to best apply pressure to the system to edge it in the direction you want. Not voting doesn't do that, and voting for a third party candidate who doesn't have broad support won't affect anything either.

And then there's all the political action between elections building up such a party to present a valid alternative that can garner such votes. That can swing that "third party" into being one of the Big Two. That's not even a hypothetical, it's literally happened multiple times.

Some elections, there may not be much difference between the parties, and your choice may not matter as much as a result, and that might make a third party more enticing. But in critical elections, voting strategically is pretty standard practice.

in the US one of two parties will win a given election, period. that is just reality.

One party will win that election, at whatever level you're talking about. But sometimes, that party is "Independent", as with representatives like Bernie Sanders. And sometimes, that party will be a party that hasn't won seats before.

Your statement here basically boils down to "one guy wins a given election", which yeah, that's how elections work. The claim that the victor will always be a Democrat or Republic is provably, objectively incorrect.

i have no idea what any of that has to do with your position as a head clergyman in the church of SDoVA, but sure whatever.

I have no idea what that acronym is even supposed to mean. Google suggests it's a musician I don't know, but otherwise, you're not making sense.

so if things don't change on the action of one single person, then how do you blame one single person for not taking action?

Where did I ever blame the outcome of the election on one single person's actions?

This is what I mean; you're inventing arguments no one made, straw men you attack because you're ducking the actual point.

you cannot just blanket accuse 180 million people of "doing nothing" and say that the state of things is their fault, and then offer zero logistics of how those 180 million spontaneously self-organize into a coherent political project, at least not while also having an argument that doesn't sound totally insane.
i mean, i do understand that this cognitive dissonance is the foundation of SDoVA that you adhere to but for those of us who aren't members of the faith you're not offering much.

I'll repeat and point to literally every political movement and/or party in every single democratic nation on the planet as my counterexamples.

This is like when Americans say you can't have universal healthcare, it's so hard only every other developed nation has managed to figure it out.

historical precedent in human history (which you should know, you're mr. expert on the subject right?) is that in modern civilizations social and political movements either have a direct leader or at least a nominal figurehead who acts as the first domino that gets the ball rolling.
unprompted disorganized spontaneous mass political projects do not happen, and have never happened.

And? How is this a response to anything I've said? Where did I say there shouldn't be a figurehead?

You keep attacking straw men.

directly in the claim that some kind of mass movement is possible, because the material conditions that we're talking about involve an elite cabal of agents deliberately plotting to keep themselves in wealth and power and to keep anyone and everyone else out of it.
you think that a slow-burn grass roots movement inside of a heavily propagandized and woefully uneducated populace is going to just magically phase through that kind of opposition? do you honestly believe that an indoctrinated populace is capable of large scale unprompted ideological realignment?

It's happened repeatedly in human history, so yes. Obviously. You keep asking how one can expect Americans to achieve something that's been repeatedly achieved by others in history, and I keep wondering why you think it's impossible.

a forced change to the paradigm of the US social order would have to be orchestrated and executed suddenly and with such overwhelming force that it could not be stopped by any existing mechanisms of power, or else it will be killed at the outset by the establishment of powers that don't wish it to exist.
the larger the population, the more exponential this downward pressure becomes, how can you possibly not understand that?

Because it's not true. How did the French Revolution happen? Or the American Revolution? How did Canada and other Commonwealth nations become independent? History is rich with examples that disprove your position here.

ok so either you don't understand what the term "political project" means or else i don't, because what you just typed looks hopelessly moronic to me with my understanding of the term. before any meaningful dialogue can be had, we need to establish we're talking about the same thing.

when i say "political project" i mean an organized plan to enact a specific social shift or re/alignment through the leverage of sociopolitical power.
my understanding of the term is explicitly one of contrived action, and it is not a suitable term to be used to broadly define the abstract of human social behavior on a macro level.
the civil rights movement would be an example of a political project, as would the new deal, as would the project #### thesis, as would broadly speaking "reaganomics" or the religious political right movement in the US.

utilizing this strict definition is important to keep on track for the point being made here.

Perhaps define the term that specifically next time? You can hardly blame me for using a broader application if you didn't narrow it down pre-emptively.

i'm totally behind the reality that this can happen, but you're the one who keeps saying you don't need figureheads or any central organizing principle for mass spontaneous change, so it's kind of on you to explain how that works.

I never said either thing, and I'm getting really tired of you making shit up and pretending I said it.

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People that aren't living here don't know how hard it is to primary out established neo liberal dems, and if the candidate is independent 9/10 they have no shot at all.

Nancy Pelosi the very definition of a neo lib is elected from one of the most progressive districts in the entire US. People have tried and failed to primary her, and it's not because they aren't better candidates it's because they get absolutely destroyed by her campaign marketing because they can't get anywhere close to the same funding

I will point out here that I have been saying it is simple to do such a thing.

That is not the same as saying it is easy.

Bowling a perfect game is simple; just knock down all the pins in each of your first 12 throws. It is not easy.

I'm pretty sure I've been clear all along that this is an endeavour that would take a lot of people and a lot of work to ever have a chance of succeeding. If not, let me clearly state it here. All you've got to do is have your candidate get more votes than the other guys. Simple.

But not easy. There's absolutely a ton of barriers in place. But if you sit down and give up in the face of those barriers, nothing's ever going to change. It's a steep hill to climb and you'll be under fire the whole way. But the only alternative is dying in the mud at the bottom, where you are now.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

ok but isn't all this basically just saying "vote democrat and everything is fixed"?

No. Did you not read the first point?

Don't just vote for a color. Learn the platforms.

That seems like very much the opposite of "Just vote Blue". I am saying "inform yourself of the agendas of the candidates before you decide which one you are voting for"

You were asking how people can "vote better". I gave you some ways.

i think you might be falling into the trap of thinking that all republican voters are dupes who are doing it by accident and will snap out of it if you just show them a clever enough meme.

I didn't say anything about "all Republican Voters". That's a conclusion you jumped to all on your own.

There are millions of Republican Voters that look at the Platform and they say "Yup, that's for me". I'm not talking about any of those people. They are making an informed choice. It's a choice I may find repugnant...but they are making it all on their own.

Some people however do not make informed choices about who they are voting for. They see a clip on the TV where a guy says he'll do X and they say "I'll vote for that guy". But if you look at his voting record he clearly voted against things related to X every time.

[Malkiah]

Find like-minded people and get involved, running as an Independent or even forming a new party.

i don't see this as explaining how, it reads more as a "what to do" makes a radical assumption that there are like-minded people, and that being an independent or forming a new party are even viable options.
so i'll ask you again very specifically: how do you propose that happens within the US in 2025, factoring in everything related to the status quo of both politics and the social order. be specific.

i see the situation in the US that the voting public is solidly entrenched in a zeitgeist of two political parties and resigned to the reality that one of those parties will win a given election no matter what - there has been no statistically significant third party electoral wins in the US in about 30 years, and the last time there was one that "significance" was 8% and it involved a self-funding billionaire riding on the coattails of an established political organization, neither of which are spontaneous citizen uprisings nor karen and rob from bum-fuck kansas rising to national prominence.

i'd like to believe in this idea you present but i'm seeing an actual path to it.

How do they not? Are you (hypothetically) not capable of running for office?

define "hypothetically" because that word is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting for the concept you're proposing.

could i go down to the country registration office and file myself as a candidate? yes, i could.
could i convince enough people to sign the petition that is required to be able to get on a ballot? i highly doubt it, given my political views.
could i then self fund a campaign even on a county level that would garner enough media attention so that the general population of my area was aware of my existence and had enough exposure to my platform to have an understanding of my political position? no, i could not under any circumstances materially pull this off.
could i leverage the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars required at even the local level to initiate a propaganda war against the political establishment to either win over or trick the rubes into voting for me? absolutely zero chance in hell.

Are the institutional barriers denying you that option?

yes, multitudes. undeniably and demonstrably.

Or is it just that it's a lot of work and you don't want to do it, because you're satisfied enough with the options already on the table?

this kind of statement really makes me question your grasp on how US politics operates because this is just ridiculous on its face.
political forces outside the dems and the repubs in the modern US era are very few and far between, and each can be traced to fairly unique circumstances wherein their prominence is not the result of hard work moving through a difficult but accessible system, they're each the result of events coalescing into a burst of luck.

You keep returning to this idea of "one great person", and I seriously don't know where you're getting it from. It's certainly not anything I've argued. I've been proposing collective action.

i keep returning to it because that's how reality works, and your claims of spontaneous collective action apropos of nothing seem like a fairy tale.
we've been over this before, and i assert the same thing i did the last time: collective action simply does not happen in humans excepting significantly large scale material crisis, or when orchestrated by a wealthy person or persons with an agenda they are using the masses to enact.

Literally the same ways every other political party in every other democratic nation on the world's done it.

Where do you think parties come from? Do you think they just grow up out of the ground naturally like a cabbage?

so... by having rich ideologues fund it in an environment with little to no structural opposition and without an institutional financial barrier created for the sole purpose of excluding everyone who isn't in one of the two parties?

how do you think those parties form? do you think they just grow out of the ground naturally like a cabbage?

In any given election, you only have the options on the ballot. In any given ballot decision, you have to determine how to best apply pressure to the system to edge it in the direction you want. Not voting doesn't do that, and voting for a third party candidate who doesn't have broad support won't affect anything either.

so in any given election voting third party doesn't effect anything, so to fix that one should vote third party.
do you not see how self-contradictory these assertions are?

And then there's all the political action between elections building up such a party to present a valid alternative that can garner such votes. That can swing that "third party" into being one of the Big Two. That's not even a hypothetical, it's literally happened multiple times.

yes and for the nth time i will ask you: HOW?
not abstractly or with some half-assed quote pulled out of das kapital, i mean logistically how do you do that in 2025 america? lay it out, in detail, since it's so simple in your mind. give us the step by step instructions, preferably in bullet point, with an action item plan for how to fund and execute each point.
for all your accusations of "you're just sitting around waiting for someone else to figure it out" it sure seems like your solution is to sit around and wait for someone else to figure it out, because there's a lot of structural barriers to this scenario that you seem to be glossing over.

one such notable example: in an era where exposure via traditional media is still essential for national traction, how does one break through a landscape where corporate ownership of every outlet means that only those deemed worthy by oligarchs receive any attention?
your theory feels a bit ayn randian, positing that if one just architects hard enough or makes magical steel good enough they can somehow overcome the human condition through sheer force of competence, but i don't think things work that way.

Some elections, there may not be much difference between the parties, and your choice may not matter as much as a result, and that might make a third party more enticing. But in critical elections, voting strategically is pretty standard practice.

that's a beautifully canadian way of looking at it, and you are fortunate to live in a society that operates like that.
however, pro tip, the US isn't canada and that's not how things work here.

One party will win that election, at whatever level you're talking about. But sometimes, that party is "Independent", as with representatives like Bernie Sanders. And sometimes, that party will be a party that hasn't won seats before.

Your statement here basically boils down to "one guy wins a given election", which yeah, that's how elections work. The claim that the victor will always be a Democrat or Republic is provably, objectively incorrect.

i'm glad you bring up sanders because that is a fantastic example - he's "independent" in the same way that your hand is independent from your torso.
he won a congressional seat made up of 200,000 voters and effectively won because the incumbent fucked up and publicly backed cutting social programs in order to bail out banks.
he had been failing to get elected as an independent since the 60s and only won in 1990 because the other guy fucked up very monumentally and very publicly right before the election.
and in 1991, he joined with the democrats and remained as one ever since.

like i said... single fulcrum point in history. right place, right time. this can and does happen, but it's a fluke and i don't see how you can orchestrate it large scale without shitloads of money and a focused organizational body directing the movement, and it seems farcical use these flukes as an example of how an entire nation suddenly realigns itself.

I have no idea what that acronym is even supposed to mean. Google suggests it's a musician I don't know, but otherwise, you're not making sense.

ah, sorry - you always pretend to know me so very well i assumed you remembered.
Sacred Doctrine of Voting Absolutism, it's a label i came up with to refer to the jumble of incomprehensible and self-contradictory nonsense a number of people on this forum spout when it comes to voting.

the doctrine states:
1. voting has a 1:1 material impact on the world and if you personally don't vote "the right way" you are changing physical reality for the worse, except for when that's inconvenient for the adherent's argument (in which case, see 2).
2. voting has no material impact on the world and you can't expect that you voting will change anything for the better, except for when that's inconvenient for the adherent's argument (in which case, see 1).
3. you absolutely MUST vote for the adherent's preferred candidate or else you want the world to get materially worse.
4. you must NEVER have any expectation the adherent's preferred candidate will actually do anything to improve the material conditions of the world.

these 4 points perfectly encapsulate every assertion of yours i have ever read about voting on these forums.

Where did I ever blame the outcome of the election on one single person's actions?

If you see a guy about to chuck a puppy off a bridge into a river, I don't really care if you're cheering him on or if you're just standing by watching and checking the score for the game last night. Same difference to the puppy. If you're not gonna try and stop the guy, or at least jump in the river to save the puppy if he drops it before you can get there, you're at least indifferent/okay with that puppy drowning. Hey, you might not even succeed; the puppy may die anyway. But I couldn't live with myself if I didn't at least try. And yeah; I question why you seem to be so casually indifferent to the suffering.

see items 1 and 2 on the list above.

not to put too fine a point on it, but you have often stated that one's vote, when used "incorrectly" by your definition, makes one morally culpable for negative electoral outcomes.
the logical end point of that argument is that one's vote carries responsibility for the outcome, thus the outcome of an election can be blamed on one person's actions.
have you explicitly said that verbatim? i would argue you don't need to have done so, as it's an inevitable result of the position you're arguing for.

I'll repeat and point to literally every political movement and/or party in every single democratic nation on the planet as my counterexamples.

This is like when Americans say you can't have universal healthcare, it's so hard only every other developed nation has managed to figure it out.

oh you mean like when you said that a single city-state of 100,000 people having a revolt 3000 years ago over an oppressive military dictatorship was an example of how a country of 4 million square miles with 340 million people could just spontaneously self organize into a citizen revolt over thinking that the president is rude?
i'm afraid that i feel you've pretty much lost any shred of credibility when it comes to comparative political theory.

And? How is this a response to anything I've said? Where did I say there shouldn't be a figurehead?

literally every time you've asserted that spontaneous citizen uprisings should occur unprompted, and every time you've replied back to me denying my assertion that the same is necessary?

It's happened repeatedly in human history, so yes. Obviously. You keep asking how one can expect Americans to achieve something that's been repeatedly achieved by others in history, and I keep wondering why you think it's impossible.

i don't think it's impossible and i never said it was, speaking of attacking straw men.
i've been very consistent in saying that i don't see how the mechanical logistics of a massive political realignment works in modern day US and asked you, who claims it's super duper easy peasy to do, how exactly it happens.
you have yet to bother to explain it.

Because it's not true. How did the French Revolution happen?

massive material crisis resulting in the populace overthrowing an entrenched monarchy.
the US does not have a massive material crisis and is not an entrenched monarchy.
as a reminder we've had this discussion before, just recently, and i said that large scale social movements are possible when there is a material crisis, which is something you have repeatedly argued against.

Or the American Revolution?

sweet zombie jesus...
that was literally a bunch of plutocrats orchestrating a colonial defection in order to expand their own personal wealth, expressly and intently at the expense of the common people.
so not only is that a hilariously piss poor example to use, but it *also* is one that goes to my point about political projects needing organizing agents with wealth and time and will to enact it.

How did Canada and other Commonwealth nations become independent? History is rich with examples that disprove your position here.

well i mean canada became independent because the french went bankrupt having a dick slapping contest with england, which when you break it down is also pretty much how the US became independent.
it's funny how every time you try to bring something up it just argues my point for me.

Perhaps define the term that specifically next time? You can hardly blame me for using a broader application if you didn't narrow it down pre-emptively.

i was unaware anybody ever used it other than the way i described, no need to get pissy over a matter of semantics.

I never said either thing, and I'm getting really tired of you making shit up and pretending I said it.

then perhaps you should try reading your own posts, it might help clear this some of this up.

do i need to post the entirety of the exchange that we had just a few weeks ago regarding whether or not spontaneous citizen uprisings were a thing that happen?
you've repeatedly asserted that a vast population of hundreds of millions of independent and disconnected agents can and will spontaneously self organize into single minded political bodies, and when i asked you how you said "athens" of all bloody things, and then refused to respond any further.
it's not my fault that you make wild assertions and never have the data to back them up and then just stop responding.

Bowling a perfect game is simple; just knock down all the pins in each of your first 12 throws. It is not easy.

I'm pretty sure I've been clear all along that this is an endeavour that would take a lot of people and a lot of work to ever have a chance of succeeding. If not, let me clearly state it here. All you've got to do is have your candidate get more votes than the other guys. Simple.

But not easy. There's absolutely a ton of barriers in place. But if you sit down and give up in the face of those barriers, nothing's ever going to change. It's a steep hill to climb and you'll be under fire the whole way. But the only alternative is dying in the mud at the bottom, where you are now.

but this just the exact sort of "patting yourself on the back for noticing" that you were just chiding me for, because you're not offering any solutions.

to use your analogy, you're not knocking any pins down at all (in fact, you're playing golf or something), and you're just yelling at me from across the green that i just need to roll the ball the right way to knock them all down at once, and when i ask you "ok cool how do you do that?" your answer is... "i dunno. athens?"

- - - Updated - - -

No. Did you not read the first point?

i did, i'm just getting kind of an endus vibe from it - an assertion of "well just do the better thing" without saying really how you get to that point.

i mean broadly speaking? ok sure yeah... pretend every US citizen pays attention and looks at policy and educates themselves and makes an informed choice.
but we had a lengthy discussion (in this thread perhaps?) just recently about that, were you not also involved in it? memory is hazy, i recall a few specific posts by endus on the subject but thought i remembered you being in it too.
anyways, the point is that we generally concluded that being informed is easy for those with two functioning neurons and a piece of lint to rub together, but that most US citizens do not clear that bar.

this is part of why i keep asking for mechanics and logistics: at least 50% of the voting population of the US is functionally chromosomally retarded, so how do you enact your plan of "Don't just vote for a color. Learn the platforms" with those people?
and/or, secondarily, how does the other 50% of the voting population doing that fix anything?

You were asking how people can "vote better". I gave you some ways.

respectfully, i don't believe that you did.
i get that your heart is in the right place but i don't think you're thinking this through all the way.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

i did, i'm just getting kind of an endus vibe from it - an assertion of "well just do the better thing" without saying really how you get to that point.

I said exactly how you get to that point.

respectfully, i don't believe that you did.
i get that your heart is in the right place but i don't think you're thinking this through all the way.

Respectfully, you don't ever actually counter any of my points...you just say that I'm wrong.

[Fugus]

Some things to think about with the current discussion going on.

1. When was the last time a 3rd party ever won the presidency without first already growing bigger than one of the previous two big parties?

2. With the US’s first past the post system, what does voting 3rd party do as the odds as that guy getting in versus the odds of the guy you want the least getting in?

3. How many third party politicians caucus with one of the big two and why do they do that?

With the way the US system is setup, you will have a vastly easier time coming up in the primaries within that party, overcoming all of the party leadership and their donors and eating that party from the inside than you do of actually winning against them in an election under this system unless the party is already so damaged they are falling apart and splintering into subgroups that you can poach from.

Edit: please note I am not advocating giving up or any of that. Just work with what you know is there and not what you wish was there. Vote in the primaries or run in it and make sure you get your name out there because one of the things that keep me and others out of the primaries is the fact that I don’t know enough about the people in them to make an informed decision and finding that information is hard to impossible many times given that no major outlets want to cover them unless it’s a scandal.

[Malkiah]

I said exactly how you get to that point.

i'm afraid you did not - at least, not in context of the original snippet that you quote.
if you're just riffing on a general point and used the post you first replied to as a jumping off point, i get that and i'll let the subject lie completely because i don't disagree with what you're saying in theory.
but, what you're saying doesn't seem to me like a valid strategy for the original point that was being made which you quoted when you first hopped in on this.

Respectfully, you don't ever actually counter any of my points...you just say that I'm wrong.

i didn't say you're wrong, no need to try and escalate this into an argument.
i asked you how your bulleted points work in a population physically incapable of acting on your bullet points.
i'm not trying to "counter" you, i'm seeing some logical gaps in what you're saying and asking you to please fill those gaps in.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

i'm afraid you did not - at least, not in context.

Context was very clear.

Some people don't educate themselves before they vote. I'm saying if they did...they could "vote better"

i didn't say you're wrong, no need to try and escalate this into an argument.

You said "I'm not thinking things through". Which means you think I am wrong.

i asked you how your bulleted points work in a population physically incapable of acting on your bullet points.

You've just declared that they aren't. You haven't provided any reasoning for that declaration.

i'm not trying to "counter" you, i'm seeing some logical gaps in what you're saying and asking you to please fill those gaps in.

The "logical gaps" are that I don't agree with your assessment that Americans are incapable of learning.

[Malkiah]

okie doke well hey, this post i'm making here isn't conversationally constructive but i don't want to be someone who just ghosts on a reply.
you seem pretty intent are drawing hostility out of this exchange and i don't have any desire to egg you on.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

okie doke well hey, this post i'm making here isn't conversationally constructive but i don't want to be someone who just ghosts on a reply.
you seem pretty intent are drawing hostility out of this exchange and i don't have any desire to egg you on.

What hostility? What actions of mine constitute hostility? Not agreeing with you?

[Muzjhath]

The discussion the last few pages is why I generally tell my US friends:

"Vote for the least suck at federal/state elections. Then vote for what you like and get involved in local elections".

Most politics are local. Will that new square be wheelchair accessible? Minimum parking requirements? Having a bike path network? Public transit?
Local!

State/Federal you need people who won't fuck shit up, for now. Until you've got enough of a grass-roots coalition to challenge it.

But while that happens you can't have legislators who install judges who say you can't improve your community.

[fwc577]

To understand why 2026 and 2028 might be political bloodbaths, you need to look at voter motivation and historical patterns. Voter sentiment generally favors Democrats, but Republicans hold slim House majorities due to gerrymandering and propaganda. People are susceptible to misinformation—until they aren’t.

We’re in a period reminiscent of the 1920s–1940s, when control of Congress frequently flipped, often in response to economic turmoil like the early-1920s recession and the Great Depression.

By 1946, Republicans won both chambers amid economic uncertainty and frustration with the New Deal, gaining 55 House seats and 12 Senate seats. However, by 1948, Truman’s campaign against the "Do-Nothing Congress" resonated with voters as the economy recovered. Democrats regained 75 House seats and 9 in the Senate.

Congress remained relatively stable until the 1990s.

Today, Democrats might face long-term struggles if Trump can deliver prosperity, much like Truman did. But that’s not happening right now and it doesn't look like there is a chance in hell of that happening. History suggests voters shift power when problems persist and the outlook right now is that grocery and gas prices aren't getting any cheaper.

This is why we are going to see a bloodbath in 2026 and 2028.

Voters cannot replace the President in 2026 so Republicans will be punished in the House and Senate. Then in 2028, the punishment will continue.

Back in the mid-to-late 40s, the voters kept flipping until one side showed they can improve things. I think what is likely going to happen this time around, is voters will see how utterly horrifying Republicans are fucking everything. There are a lot of people who are going to "wake up" and we're already seeing a lot of them do that. There is a massive amount of Trump regret that are costing thousands, many of which are in red states, their jobs. These tariffs are going to supercharge our inflation. More jobs are going to be lost. We're heading for another recession (at best).

True voters don't give a shit about DEI. They don't give a shit about Trans. Or any of that other nonsense. The only reason that bullshit is amplified is because it's really really important to a few bigots. The average voter doesn't go and spend hours on MMO Champ and Reddit or watching news and getting angry.

The things that Trump/Musk are doing right now are going to affect those people who just went out and voted because things cost more and they're not making enough money. The things that Trump/Musk are doing right now are ALSO going to affect those people who were loyal to them, and that loyalty is going to be lost the more pain that is inflicted on the population.

Add these two groups of voters to the existing Democrats who showed up for Kamala, and then add in the voters who weren't energized enough to show up for Kamala in 2024, there is no other conclusion that we are headed toward a congressional bloodbath in 2026 and 2028.

[Malkiah]

To understand why 2026 and 2028 might be political bloodbaths

if you don't mind, may i ask you for clarification on this? pursuant to an earlier exchange prompted by one of your own posts, i was asking about the political meaning of "bloodbath" in this context, and since it was one of your posts that sparked my interest in people's thoughts i'd love your input.

when you say "bloodbath" are you picturing a long term electoral shift? or do you just mean that the nominal flipping that happens almost every mid-term cycle will be unusually large in terms of democratic wins?

[gondrin]

There are a lot of people who are going to "wake up" and we're already seeing a lot of them do that. There is a massive amount of Trump regret that are costing thousands, many of which are in red states, their jobs. These tariffs are going to supercharge our inflation. More jobs are going to be lost. We're heading for another recession (at best).

True voters don't give a shit about DEI. They don't give a shit about Trans. Or any of that other nonsense. The only reason that bullshit is amplified is because it's really really important to a few bigots. The average voter doesn't go and spend hours on MMO Champ and Reddit or watching news and getting angry.

The things that Trump/Musk are doing right now are going to affect those people who just went out and voted because things cost more and they're not making enough money. The things that Trump/Musk are doing right now are ALSO going to affect those people who were loyal to them, and that loyalty is going to be lost the more pain that is inflicted on the population.

Add these two groups of voters to the existing Democrats who showed up for Kamala, and then add in the voters who weren't energized enough to show up for Kamala in 2024, there is no other conclusion that we are headed toward a congressional bloodbath in 2026 and 2028.

The amount of people that are pissed off at Trump right now that weren't before is only going to grow as they cut more and more jobs from the Federal Government and as more and more people get harmed by the actions of Musk and Trump.

These people tend to vote republican too so they will see that their Republican representatives didn't do anything to prevent or get back their jobs and actually encouraged it. So either they will sit it out or outright vote for anyone but them. The thing is, Elon is looking to cut not just 15% of the workforce(that was the initial amount), it is far higher. He wants to do to the government what he did to twitter. Pretty much fire 80% of the people in it and only hire a fraction of them back. That is why there is an EO that shows that they have to fire 3 people for every one person they want to hire back or keep.

This is also why they are moving fast because they know there is going to be pushback and it will be hard too.

Here is a little thing that did happen though. Trump did listen to the courts. He is making a big statement out of it BUT it is still listening to the courts. A few government websites now have disclaimers on them stating they had to restore the websites due to a court order.

It reads as follows:

Per a court order, HHS is required to restore this website as of 11:59 PM on February 11, 2025. Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female. The Trump Administration rejects gender ideology and condemns the harms it causes to children, by promoting their chemical and surgical mutilation, and to women, by depriving them of their dignity, safety, well-being, and opportunities. This page does not reflect biological reality and therefore the Administration and this Department reject it.

https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-infor...dical-products

https://www.samhsa.gov/data/report/l...al-health-2023

Small win but still a win.

- - - Updated - - -

if you don't mind, may i ask you for clarification on this? pursuant to an earlier exchange prompted by one of your own posts, i was asking about the political meaning of "bloodbath" in this context, and since it was one of your posts that sparked my interest in people's thoughts i'd love your input.

when you say "bloodbath" are you picturing a long term electoral shift? or do you just mean that the nominal flipping that happens almost every mid-term cycle will be unusually large in terms of democratic wins?

Bloodbath meaning there will be a massive shift in the opposite direction and the minority party will gain a larger than expected gain in seats. Instead of, lets say a predicted 10 seat shift, it would end up being a 20 or more seat shift.

Basically, due to the actions of Trump via Musk, the House should flip majorly for the Democrats and they may see a flip in the Senate and not a small one. It isn't guaranteed seeing it is about a bit under 2 years from now but, that is the trend.

[Malkiah]

Bloodbath meaning there will be a massive shift in the opposite direction and the minority party will gain a larger than expected gain in seats. Instead of, lets say a predicted 10 seat shift, it would end up being a 20 or more seat shift.

Basically, due to the actions of Trump via Musk, the House should flip majorly for the Democrats and they may see a flip in the Senate and not a small one. It isn't guaranteed seeing it is about a bit under 2 years from now but, that is the trend.

do you have any expectation that change will be long term, as in a shift in the political climate in the US in a broader sense?
or would you view it as being what has become the norm of these seats flipping back and forth every mid-term, but this one will be numerically a bit larger than is common?

by that i mean, do you anticipate that this "bloodbath" will extend into '32, '34, and beyond? or would you expect it to last for the immediate political moment and then revert to the previous norm?

[gondrin]

do you have any expectation currently that change will be long term, as in a shift in the political climate in the US in a broader sense?
or would you view it as being what has become the norm of these seats flipping back and forth every mid-term, but this one will be numerically a bit larger than is common?

by that i mean, do you anticipate that this "bloodbath" will extend into '32, '34, and beyond? or would you expect it to last for the immediate political moment and then revert to the previous norm?

Right now, no. Due to the fickle nature of the electorate right now, I figure most changes will be temporary for a number of years. Probably for the next couple of decades. The problem is, Trump could literally do a lot of good. He has an entire political party eating out of his hand. The last time this happened was literally with FDR and look how much actually got changed. However, because Trump is pretty much on a vengeance tour, he is going to do massive harm to everything and everyone. This also doesn't include allowing Musk to do what he wants because, in the end, Trump wants the same thing. Vengeance against the government for basically going against him in his eyes. So instead of actually causing great change for the better, he is literally wanting to burn the whole thing down because he literally hates the government for the perceived slights against him. Elon, Thiel and other billionaires are there to basically get it on the cheap after it is all said and done and try to make their own little fiefdoms.

And in the end, Trump has also completely destroyed in 3 weeks what has taken the US 80 years to build up. Actual trust around the world. It will take decades, MANY decades to even get back a portion of it. And that is if everything goes right. As of now, our neighbors and allies are no longer allies as they cannot trust us. And they have good reason to not trust the US anymore.

[Iphie]

Bloodbath meaning there will be a massive shift in the opposite direction and the minority party will gain a larger than expected gain in seats. Instead of, lets say a predicted 10 seat shift, it would end up being a 20 or more seat shift.

Basically, due to the actions of Trump via Musk, the House should flip majorly for the Democrats and they may see a flip in the Senate and not a small one. It isn't guaranteed seeing it is about a bit under 2 years from now but, that is the trend.

now that would be monumental since it would put around 70-ish seats in the hands of the dems and get them serious political firepower.