The democrats in this country have sent a very strong message to the dictator of the current regime this past election day, and I couldn’t be happier.
Trump and the Republican Party have gotten a bloody nose.
What are your thoughts?
I think most magas are either oblivious to it, think the voters made a huge mistake, or don’t believe it actually happened.
Just ask the regular maga poster here what he thinks.
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Thank you. 20 characters
I think there’s a fair bit of “irrational exuberance” on the part of democrats in general and progressives in particular.
There is a subset of dems (mostly old-guard centrists / incrementalists) who believe Trump’s failure to deliver on his promises will, with no unusual effort or drama, organically result in a resounding defeat in this and coming elections, at which point we will immediately “return to brunch” as they say, or in other words, back to things as they were before Trump. Because after all the whole political process in this country isn’t fundamentally broken, just experiencing a mysterious hiccup.
This does not account for the scope and depth of the utter destruction Trump 2.0 has wrought on the machinery of government – wiping out entire government departments, ruining good will and trust that were generations in the making here and abroad, starting a huge brain drain particularly in the sciences, etc. All of this will have to be rebuilt, often from scratch, into headwinds of climate change, increasing economic hardship and the rising tide of fascism in the world generally.
I can also think of scenarios that can take the wind out of these particular sails. For example, SCOTUS appears to be poised to tell Trump he has no authority to do his blanket tariffs (probably because the oligarchs they are beholden to are bleating louder than Trump and his minions as the tariff chaos interferes with business). Suppose Trump catches a break (even if he doesn’t see it as one) where SCOTUS and other actors keep him from his biggest blunders, the economy lurches along without obvious major problems, we are spared potential black swans like bird flu, etc. In that scenario it’s possible that the alarm and naked terror that lit a fire under all these voters could fade and people could mistakenly breathe a sign of relief and go back to putting one foot in front of the other while the regime solidifies its hold on everything in more quiet ways.
We cannot let up even a little bit … Trump will stop at nothing to sabotage the mid term elections next year, and we absolutely need the kind of energy represented by Mamdani in elections all up and down the ballot – which is to say, not the unrelatable, out of touch timidity and hand-wringing indecision that the Democratic Party leadership is currently shot through with, largely because of their need to please wealthy donors. This hostile takeover of the Party by young upstarts is overdue and must continue.
Even Gavin Newsom’s Johnny-come-lately pivot to social media politics is, annoyingly, part of what needs to happen, IMO.
If this represents any sort of inflection point that many hope for, AND we keep fighting like hell, AND we have some decent luck, we might yet draw back from the brink. But hopefuly as that may be, it’s hardly a fait accompli.
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I’m not that fully involved in US politics, but I know one of the news media outlets over here had an interesting take on the recent mayoral election in New York.
They saw Trump’s reluctant endorsement of Cuomo as an intentional ploy to get Mamdani into position, because it could cause the democrat party to consider shifting further left, and away from the majority views of Americans that are more right of centre leaning. Also, that it gives them ammunition to attack the democrats as supporting a socialist (communist as Trump tries to call it) position.
With the midterm elections coming up, I think it’s fair to say things will be heating up politically on both sides. I hope it works out for the best for everyone involved.
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Thank you, I agree with you.
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I think everything remains in the current state of dysfunctional chaos until the mid-terms. After the mid-terms, it will be an all new type of dysfunctional chaos.
Let me preface this with the observation that until the Anarcho-Socialist party fields a candidate I just don’t have a dog in this fight.
The Republican party we see now didn’t start with Trump. I would argue that the modern Republican party was born on January 4, 1995 with Newt Gingrich becoming Speaker of the House. Trump is just the logical evolution Gingrich’s philosophy. Fear sells…and in Trump’s case, it sells quite well.
The Democrats have no plan, aside from gaining power, either. A cursory look at the 2024 elections backs up the old maxim “Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love”. By bypassing the primary scramble to select a candidate based on national elect-ability, they opted for a “divine right” of selection…and lost accordingly.
George Carlin put it best, “Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders.” Face facts, Americans elected all of these people. Whether we diligently researched our choice or just did eeny, meeny, miny, moe in the ballot box, it was a free election where the candidate with the most votes won.
Rather than wasting time sniping at each other, I believe the time would be better spent in pensive retrospection. The genius of the American system has always been compromise. History details what happens when compromise is substituted for self-interest and personal gain.
Jefferson said, “The cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate” Until we treat Democracy as a responsibility rather than a validation of tribalism nothing will change.
My money is on tribalism…
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Americans, unfortunately, don’t know the difference between socialism and social democracy. Social democracy is the form of government used by some of the most successful European countries, such as Norway and Denmark.
Socialism is characterized by government ownership of the means of production, which is certainly not the case here in the U.S., although Trump himself is moving in that direction recently with the government’s acquisition of 10% of Intel (which seems to be a longer term position compared to the government bailouts of auto companies and banks that have occurred in the past).
A social democracy is based on capitalism with a stronger social safety net (including universal healthcare).
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For that matter, a great many – possibly most – Americans don’t even know the difference between socialism and communism, and consider them either synonymous or at least equally and unambiguously “bad”. All the right has to do here is label someone a “communist” and most of the rank and file look no further than that accusation / label.
Mamdani for example is falsely said to be a “communist” and then all sorts of evil plans can be assigned to him, such as “taking away all the police”, taking a chain of grocery stores away from its owner (I heard both of these ridiculous and baseless claims in the past couple of days since he was elected). In reality he wants to pretty much keep the police at current levels while clearing out high level corrupt leadership and bringing social workers into relieve the police of most domestic violence and mental health calls so that they can concentrate on actual crime, and, regarding groceries, he wants to open some city-run groceries in areas considered “food deserts” to make affordable food more accessible to residents without forcing them to pay a premium at a local bodega or travel a significant distance to a more affordable outlet. This is no different than the state-run liquor stores in many states, which are somehow okay with beer-loving MAGAs. It is not going to “take away” anything from existing capitalists, though it may force them to be more competitive and less predatory.
There are plenty of super-cuts on social media of claims over the past many years that if such and such progressive thing were implemented or progressive candidate X elected, millionaires would leave the City in droves, and it’s never happened.* Millionaires want to be where the financial center and the happening social scene are, where the most prestigious penthouses can be had, in the City That Never Sleeps. They aren’t going to move over a 2% tax on income over $1M. It’s chump change to them. They’d be cutting off their nose to spite their face, and they know it.
I imagine all this kind of pearl-clutching is unique to the US; maybe some of our members across the pond have similar examples though, for all I know. I think we have refined it into a real, if dubious, art form, but I’m willing to be disabused of that notion.
* Although, when sex pest Andrew Cuomo said he’d move from NYC to Florida if Mamdani won, someone said, “Please don’t threaten us with a good time, Andrew.”
Millionaires will be millionaires; they love their money over almost everything else. Over here, we have seen a small exodus of rich people that have made millions upon millions on liberal practices that encourage and enable starting lucrative businesses using natural resources practically free. But when they make enough money and abuse the system so much so that society and the politicians start saying that they should pay their fair share of taxes, then suddenly they claim that it’s not possible doing business here, and they move to e.g. Switzerland to avoid taxation. Their loyalty to the system only goes as far as to when they have to start contributing to it, instead of just receiving.
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I was fishing more for whether you have this “red meat for the base” phenomenon where people are widely triggered by ill-informed concepts of what, e.g., communism is or isn’t. But yes I suppose the way millionaires think would be more universal. And you are absolutely correct, they will turn on their host country at a moment’s notice.
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