How in the hell did this country get so stupid that we would elect this imbecile twice?

[IrishBubbaLiberal]

“ I guess it’s tiresome and futile to keep saying this but I will anyway. How in the hell did this country get so stupid that we would elect this imbecile twice? I will never be able to wrap my mind around it.”

Digby

https://digbysblog.net/2025/04/08/all-the-presidents-numbers/



In an excellent column about how incredibly dumb Trump is about tariffs, Michael Tomasky makes this excellent point. Trump has said many times that he thinks we can replace the income tax with tariffs, you know, like it was before 1913. But it’s not just about the insanity of that, he’s also, as usual, completely making up numbers:

Read this, from CBS.com: “In a recent news conference, White House staff secretary Will Sharf estimated that Mr. Trump’s 25 percent tariff on vehicles and auto parts imported into the U.S. could raise ‘roughly $100 billion in new revenue.’ At the same news conference, Mr. Trump claimed moments later ‘anywhere from $600 billion to $1 trillion will be taken in over the relatively short-term period, meaning a year from now.’”

The aide says $100 billion. Trump casually ups it to a trillion. Billion, trillion; who knows. Well, even I know: A trillion is a thousand billions. That’s like the difference between 10 and 10,000. Pretty vast, in other words. But Trump knows that nobody really thinks about the difference between a billion and a trillion, so just say a trillion.

Finally, before I let you go: How much do tariffs bring in now? Around $80 billion. Sounds like a lot, and it is. But take a guess as to how much total revenue the federal government takes in, from (1) income taxes, which is half of all revenue, (2) payroll taxes, (3) excise taxes, and (4) corporate taxes.It’s around $4.7 trillion. Know what percentage of $4.7 trillion $80 billion is? About 1.7 percent. That’s how much of our current federal revenue comes from tariffs.

Going from 1.7 percent to 100 percent sounds, um, like something that will cause vast, unknowable dislocations; and more to the point, like the fantasy of a stupid man who’s never read a book and has no effing idea what he’s talking about.

More

[sakabatou]

1. Social media and the propagation of bullshit

[jrthin]

11. Let's not forget the oligarch/billionaire media like FOX, NewMax, and Washington Post (to name

just a few) offering their audience misinformation 24/7.

[DENVERPOPS]

46. In addition to being stupid

or ignorant, more importantly they have appeared to all be brainwashed........which was weird..........

That is, until the psychiatrists stated that if a person only listened to FOX for years, that would effectively render them brainwashed.

Add in Rural right wing radio and it makes the MAGAots owned by these New Republicans forever......and don't forget all of them that listened to Rush Limbaugh...................

The mass media in the U.S. does the same thing.......94+% of ALL media in the U.S. is owned/operated by Uber Wealthy Republicans or Corporations..........

[jrthin]

53. Very, very spot on. And this is why when many here mention

the NYT's, Washington Post, CNN, etc. as though they are credible sources, my head explodes.

[DENVERPOPS]

68. Or

MSNBC the other 20 hours they don't have Maddow, Lawrence, etc on.........

They make more money off of those libs than they could ever match by having right wing talk show hosts, and if there is one thing more important to MSNBC than the Republican Party, it is MONEY, and MSNBC makes a TON off Maddow and the other Lib hosts......

[jrthin]

72. Amen! So true.

[c-rational]

57. You are so right wise one. I have also heard that since words are so imortant, it would behoove us

not to call it the main stream media or legacy but the OLIGARCHS/BILLIONAIRES media. You could even call it the corporate media, but one thing for sure they do not intend to provide/sell/or peddle the truth. It is now disinformation all the time.

[Bev54]

15. It is the simple minds that soak it up, and that is a problem.

[Woodycall]

44. That was a very deliberate move.

The operative word here is "fungibility". FOX was created based on the concept of fungibility. That is, smart people's votes, and dumb people's votes, count equally. FOX, created and financed by the financial elite, was designed to indoctrinate the intellectually challenged to vote against their own best interests. In short, they have “weaponized” stupid. It’s really just as simple as that.

[Traildogbob]

55. Their brains

Were so empty they were like a dried up dishwashing sponge. So dry and empty, they sucked up Fux Noice, with a loud sucking sound. Got addicted to believing they are not as stupid as they are. So admitting they are that damn stupid, ain’t gonna happen. They will cling to that ship all the way to the bottom, and hopefully stay the fuck down there

[brush]

2. Exactly right. Of all the people on the right side of the aisle, they go with this...

Last edited Tue Apr 8, 2025, 07:35 PM - Edit history (1)

orange, bloviating, megalomaniacal, lying-a-mile-a-minute, tariff-ignorant moron.

This is the best they can do? I mean come on...and don't get me wrong, all the extreme, right megats are not to be considered, but there must be an old-school republican somewhere with some integrity in the Romney mold...somebody?

[markodochartaigh]

16. "...some integrity in the Romney mold."

Because of the twin threats against those Republicans who would defy Trump/maga, the threat of oligarchical money and the threat of maga violence, I think that there are only three types of Republicans who are willing to stand up against Trump.

A) Powerful old school party leaders like Romney, Bush II, and the Cheneys.
B) Republicans who are about to leave public life.
C) A few Republicans in purple districts.

[brush]

62. God, I wish one of them would step up. They'd neet 24-hour security though.

The extreme magats are dangerous.

[bif]

3. Because the average American is an idiot?

[Ray Bruns]

32. Bingo!

[Sky Jewels]

4. 45 years of non-stop and ever-increasing rightwing propaganda

with incredibly weak "pushback" from the left and its "leaders."

[Upthevibe]

19. Sky Jewels,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Bingo............Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and I could go on and on but you summed it up perfectly...

[justsomeguy01]

41. money corrupts

The Dem "leaders" were corrupted by money. Like every other institution in the US (religion, education, media, health care, etc). Gotta keep our funders, err constituents happy.

[maveric]

5. NCLB was the start.

They stopped teaching kids.

[Mariana]

75. That doesn't explain why so many older people voted for Trump.

[JI7]

6. We never really dealt with racism and other bigotry

People have still been saying things like the civil war was about state's rights and not slavery.

The Republican embrace of the southern strategy after democrats embraced civil rights is another huge problem. If they had stayed how they were before they would have appealed to more social liberals and had more non whites and would be closer to mainstream conservatives in Europe.

[markodochartaigh]

17. Growing up in Texas a half century ago

there was a common saying "a Texas Democrat is like a New York Republican". There were many good, actually liberal Texas Democratic politicians, but I think that the saying had a lot of truth in it.

[Submariner]

7. maga voters like their serial liar

A pathological liar.

Supported by a political party (GOP) that makes a huge deal about following the 10 commandments, like the one that says "thou shalt not lie", yet they support the liar, and are led by a bible thumping Speaker of the House who lies, and is a fascist who supports an insurrection, which was entirely based on lies.

[Rebl2]

29. They

like their serial liar because they think if he can lie, then they can lie and be just as nasty as he is to other people.

[mr715]

8. Common core

That helped

[Tickle]

9. The belief we have open borders and trans in sports

That's all it took

[Skittles]

48. yup, they have been using the same playbook for decades and it WORKS

the targets change but the sentiment remains the same.....President Johnson nailed it:

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

― Lyndon B. Johnson

[MineralMan]

10. Well, enough people didn't bother to vote in 2024, so Trump won.

They thought he'd lose or they didn't care or they wanted some other outcome that could never happen. So, they didn't vote for Harris, one way or another.

And we have what we have now. Will we ever learn? I'm beginning to doubt that we will.

[sop]

12. "I will never be able to wrap my mind around it." I am still in disbelief Trump was actually elected president.

The times I've discussed politics and current events with people (something I very rarely do), I have been astounded by how uninformed and misinformed most of them are. We really are a nation of incurious know-nothings.

[moose65]

13. Propaganda was shoved into 7 swing states

That was it. I can't believe the number of ads I saw here in NC, and most of them were the standard anti-trans ads. They were revolting. Musk's money allowed Republicans to tailor their message to specific groups of swing-state voters, and they hammered them over and over and over. The Democrats just couldn't counter that onslaught.

That's how Trump won, by micro-targeting swing state voters and siphoning off just enough of them, or convincing Dem-leaning voters to stay home.

[bronxiteforever]

22. Agree. In Pa the anti trans ads were on nonstop.

Musk cost us Pa and Bob Casey.

[Bev54]

14. The world is asking the same question.

I remember how I felt when US voted for Dubya twice, I was in Thailand then and the world was shaking their heads over that. This is why trust will not be restored for a very very long time.

[EncantoCatColony]

18. A combo plate of right-wing propaganda and lead in the pipes

[twodogsbarking]

20. My father once told me "The first time is experience, the second is stupidity". Good advice.

[Pas-de-Calais]

21. Not enough Democrats voted

[elocs]

26. Due to a lack of vigilance, complacence, and overconfidence.

Where did those 6 million votes that Biden received in 2020 go that Harris never got?

[Polybius]

73. It's been explained many times here

2020 was exceptional. Because of Covid, there was a huge push to vote mail-in. People voted who never voted before, because it was so easy and fear of Trump further worsening Covid.

2024 was back to normal, and with many states shying away from mail-in voting, many of those "never before voters" never voted again.

We were never supposed to replicate 2020's turnout in 2024. We may never, actually.

[Rebl2]

31. I think

for whatever reason, some younger people voted for trump when they otherwise would have voted for a democrat. Why I still don’t understand.

[jrthin]

58. It really is simple. People make up their minds by the information they read and hear. If

what they are hearing is right wing propaganda 24/7 it's inevitable that they will start to think that way.

[LilElf70]

23. I see it as this.

Trump had the best dog and pony show amongst the contenders. And he showed it over and over and over, until he convinced his followers that Trump was a God. Think about it. He's been the center of attention his entire life. He was well versed at what he was going to do to get what he wanted. He lives for that attention. Somehow he then turned the entire shit show into a grifting exercise, to make him hundreds of millions from stupid innocent people. Where's the signs now? And what about Trumpy bear . It was his time to strike, and strike hard he did. Once he got what he wanted (power and money), he was out to make everyone think he was right. ON EVERYTHING!!!!! Now we pay. How bad is up to us.

It's the greatest scam ever. Now look at the magats. Every day I see at least one article showing the magats indicating they had made a huge mistake. Yes, they did.

Trump's finale is just around the bend. And believe me, he's taking many, many with him. A lot of people fell for all the bullshit, and constant lies. Look at us now.

[elocs]

24. It's the result of an educational system that does not teach critical thinking. n/t

[Rebl2]

25. Watch

Faux news 24/7

[annielion]

27. Both Elections were stolen

Although the election in 2016 was close, both elections were stolen. ElectionTruthAlliance.org (ETA) wrote to the Wisconsin Secretary of State before the Wisconsin election of 4/1/25, requesting that after the election Wisconsin audit the urban areas to compare their results with ETA's audit information. ETA also published their findings. If Elon had stolen that election, ETA and Wisconsin would have had proof of election manipulation. Elon decided not to steal it. SmartElections.us also has evidence of the 2024 vote abnormalities. As does GregPalast.com. Trump's goal is to destroy our country for Russia. Elon's goal is to destroy all Democracies, but he supports both China and Russia.

[Blue Owl]

28. The USA's most shameful moment

[Bettie]

30. Well, it used to be that there were only a few wingnuts

who got constant airtime.

Now, it is everywhere, including the so-called mainstream media.

Most media has a rightward slant, most of it is owned by right wing oligarchs.

[LR3]

33. Rupert Murdoch says hi

nt

[rich7862]

34. Public Education has been dumbing down Americans for over 50 years

Democracy cannot exist in an uneducated populace. Democracy demands freedom of speech. The nazi lovers [The Oligarchy} own and control almost all of the venues of news.

[lees1975]

37. You nailed it! It takes an educated electorate to preserve a Democratic society.

In our quest to turn public education into a marketable skills development corporation, education has lost its ability to be a primary means of social reform, which was what it was purposed to be. The end result has been to slowly eliminate social studies requirements from the curriculum objectives, and pushing the focus to technical education. We still require, in most states anyway, constitution class in the eighth grade and some of the kids get a trip to Washington DC as part of the experience. And that's about it.

When I started teaching, high school students needed four full social studies credits to graduate. Now it's down to two in a lot of states, and just a semester of government.

[drmeow]

94. 1994

Notice "continuing"

[SleeplessinSoCal]

35. We need disclaimers for Reality TV.

Too many believe the shows are real. They aren't. We are being manipulated at our peril. Just as the MSM is controlled by financial incentives. We have been intentionally dummed down. I've lived and voted hoping there was a swing of the pendulum between progressive and conservative ideas. No more.

[usonian]

36. Dems don't understand people's REAL needs.

Hate works. Fascist playbook.

[love_katz]

61. Agreed.

I keep quoting the British author, Terry Pratchett: " poison goes where poison is welcome".

I can't speak for anyone else here on DU, but I'm not highly educated, in terms of formal education. I have a high school diploma and some very scattered college ( no degree). And yet, I am not a bigot or a misogynist.
I don't think it takes a college degree to see other people as humans and to be in favor of civil rights for all.
I quit watching TV in 1984, after Reagan was re-elected. Feeling angry and horrified, I did a bit of research into what had happened. Can't remember exactly how I heard about it, but I ended up reading the book, "Four Arguments For the Elimination of Television", by Jerry Mander. The book made it clear to me that main stream media was owned by about 5 or 6 corporations. This reflected a consolidation of media, which had been going on for some years. The results are what we see today: a policing of tone and content and a suppression of dissent.
I didn't grow up in a hugely liberal household, and yet I learned to think for myself and began at an early age to reject bigoted and misogynist thought and speech. Something in the hateful and unfair tone of such speech caused me to backpedal away from the people who expressed such ideas.
I am a boomer. I remember the horrible newscasts showing the vicious abuse of peaceful civil rights marchers. I had no trouble agreeing with the movements to achieve civil rights for women and minorities, and to save and protect the life support systems of our planet from the selfish desires of those who would destroy the Earth for selfish gain.
I'm guessing that part of what helped me to avoid becoming a bigot was several things: my parents were not big church goers ( too many churches are fire hoses for bigotry, greed, and misogyny); I grew up on the West Coast, instead of the South or the Midwest, where there seems to be much greater pressure for conformity to bigoted beliefs, and I grew up in a large city, where I had ample opportunity to interact with people who were different than me and my family.
I have always felt an instant revulsion to hate radio or TV, and I prefer to spend my time reading, which is where I have expanded my education beyond what I got in school.
The high school I went to required us to read Mein Kampf and to study the Holocaust. The book, in particular, made clear that Adolf Hitler's hatred of Jewish people was completely irrational. His hatred began with his reaction to a Jewish man he saw one day, while waiting at a bus stop.
Part of me thinks that bigotry is based on something within the person who accepts those ideas and values. As Mr. Pratchett says, through some of his characters, " Poison goes where poison is welcome". They see hate as giving them some sort of advantage, and completely fail to see that we're all connected, that what goes around, comes around. The haters fail to see that their behavior and attitudes will come back to bite them. I think that they know, deep inside, that they are wrong in their treatment of others, but they
just turn away from and deny that knowledge.
Industrial society, the world over, has a profound disconnection syndrome: disconnection from the Earth and all the living beings who share it with us, disconnection from each other as a community, and a belief that people can escape from the predictable outcomes of their actions, because too many of us have been taught to view ourselves only as separate beings.
And, the churches whose doctrine is hate and greed, and the oligarchs who own the media continually encourage us to blame and attack each other, so we won't notice who the real sources of our problems are.

[usonian]

66. That's pretty thoughtful and I grew up in the 60's as well.

No room for war, nor for racism. The previous generation had been in war and rattled off racist jokes. Even educated educators. All this is taught: nationalism, fear of others who are different, hate, insecurity, projection, and so on.

They are taught by manipulators, rather than self-confidence, and equality is taught OUT of people.

The pattern repeats through history, I call it the fascist playbook.

Any other country, religion, ethnic group is the scapegoat, one's fears, weaknesses and failures projected on them.

It continues to power dictators and when they are defeated, there's a horrible mess to clean up, except that lives lost are just lost.

Daisaku Ikeda, a Buddhist leader, wrote:

While celebrating the unique characteristics of different peoples and cultures, we must create solidarity on the level of our common humanity, our common life. Without such solidarity, there will be no future for the human race. Diversity should not beget conflict in the world, but richness.

When people join together across nations and cultures, these "scapegoating" means to gain power, like the racist "Southern Strategy" promoted by Lee Atwater (1), are stopped in their tracks by the prevailing culture of acceptance and equality, rather than enabled (and think of the brutal 24 by 7 media hate propaganda) They take hold because people let them, through the projection mentioned above, rather than tuning them out. It's a definite choice.

The general culture, and I include many religions, are entirely about assigning blame rather than taking responsibility and improving oneself and others equally.

We seem to be at rock bottom, here and internationally. No time like the present to take a different tack. These fascist power fantasies are entirely destructive, as if we didn't already have an insane concentration of power and wealth.



(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater

[love_katz]

67. Exactly.

Lee Atwater took advantage of something that was already there: racism, classism, misogyny and a tendency to fear anyone who is different, and to scapegoat anyone who is different.
John Trudell, who was a spoken word performer, and spokesman and philosopher for the Lakota tribe often said that those of us who were descended from the tribes of Europe were subjected to brutality from our various conquerors, as well as destruction of our cultures and sense of community for far longer than the First Nations people of this continent were. By the time our ancestors arrived here, they had long forgotten who they were and even feared learning about it, let alone trying to reclaim who we had been.
Europe has a complicated history, but some of what happened can be boiled down to some basic facts: the people's connection to Nature and their land, and their awareness of themselves as a community had been deliberately broken. Doing that destroyed their ability to stand together against the invaders. Examples to check out are the brutality of the Roman Centurions; the efforts to go after the local leaders/chieftains first, through trickery and bribery ( see Cartimandua and Bodicaea); the rise of the Celtic tribes under Bodicaea against the invading Roman Legions ( some accounts say that her two daughters were gang raped and she was whipped before her people); also, read about the Enclosure movement during the Middle Ages, in which land that had been held in Common, where it was available for use by all the people, was simply taken and enclosed for wealthy people who wanted to use it for raising sheep so they could profit from the highly lucrative wool industry.
There's a lot more, but the information has to be searched out.
Bottom line: from the evidence of history, it looks like Europe had its tribal cultures destroyed. We seem to have been infected by a mental and spiritual disease, which has been termed: Power Over. It is about money and power being accumulated by a very few, and keeping the majority of people fighting each other over petty manufactured grievances, which keeps us from seeing who our real enemies are. And, sadly, as Europeans left Europe during the era of emigration, the disease was spread across the world.
As diseases do, that infection of separateness seems to have flared up again, and it's world wide. Just like during the Pandemic, we need to inoculate as many people as possible in order to stop the spread of the hate and violence. Unfortunately, we can't do this by a simple shot in the arm.
I think that this is part of the reason why Darth Marmalade's regime is so determined to stop all DEI (A) regulations and why they are attacking colleges, schools and museums to prevent them from teaching our real history. They continue to attack any thing which could help us break down the barriers between us and achieve real solidarity, which would give us the strength to fight back and win.

[usonian]

70. Divide and conquer.

They're trying to fire up the haters, to completely distract them from the destruction of their lives, and keep cult members in congress.

See my FAFO's.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219770873

The techbro "leet" mafia is firing up anti-intellectualism. Hoping they fail this time. It's so obvious and they don't see it. There's a saying "I'll see it when I believe it".

And when white collar people need jobs, states will eagerly grab them (fact) or they displace maga bros.



Moron Bannon gets it. Hates Musk.

[love_katz]

81. A quote from your 4th paragraph:

" It's so obvious and they don't see it.", and then you quote the saying, " I'll believe it when I see it. "
They refuse to see what's really happening because they don't want to believe it. There's a problem with the words believe and belief. The word LIE is included in both of them. They have swallowed the Big Lie, hook, line, and sinker. Saying that we believe something is a lie to begin with, because the truth is, when we use those words, is that we really don't know if something is true or not. Saying that we believe something is not the same thing as saying that we know something. We either know or we don't know, and saying that we don't know is a more honest answer than saying that we believe something is true.
As John Trudell pointed out, we need to work on thinking more and believe a lot less.

The FAFO flags are both funny and painful to look at, if for no other reason than the fact that the MAGA morons have hooked a chain to all of us, so we will be dragged down with them when the Trumptanic finally breaks in two and heads for the bottom.

The hardest part to understand is that the hideous idiocy and blind arrogance of Darth Marmalade and all of his enablers are glaringly obvious to most of us, but the people who chose to not vote couldn't see the danger, even though we were shouting it from the roof tops. I get the fact that the MAGAts are brainwashed and in a cult, so they are hopelessly lost, but the largest group of people who could have changed course ( instead of booking another trip on the Titanic, despite the iceberg), I just keep thinking WTF!?!? How could they not see the disaster looming ahead?
Like I said, it doesn't take a PhD to figure it out. The only thing that makes any sense is that our side doesn't have the giant megaphone of the corporate McGreedia to present our side of the story. Instead the McGreedia FAFO'd big time, by sanewashing Agolf $hitler's insanity and also, constantly attacking the Democrats.

[usonian]

84. One point of many: The Dems let RW media bash Joe Biden, relentlessly with smears and lies, and some piled on to it

you know their names.

While giving a hall pass to a deranged hate and greed machine way past senility (I am 76 and sharp as a tack)

The message sunk in. Dems are not pro working person and evil, and Joe created a recession, quite the opposite and we are seeing one now, thanks to medieval thinking about trade. The fool is hung up on China and I predict that China will (further) hack the shit out of the US in return.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=20215296

Item 1. or Item 2. in particular. He is playing wiffle ball with major league badasses.

[Martin Eden]

80. What ARE those needs?

Please translate those needs into legislation, then compare where the two parties stand on those issues.

For example:

Minimum wage
Worker protections
Taxing the rich
Affordable housing
Womens rights
Voting rights
Health care
Social Security
Education
Gun control
Environment

I'm sure more can be added to a list that impacts the REAL needs of the American people

Does immigration really have a huge negative impact? If so, candidate Trump with one call to Mike Johnson killed bipartisan legislation that actually addressed the issue.

To the extent that one political party or the other has proposed legislation to actually address these issues, the Democratic Party has at least tried while the Republican Party has obstructed such efforts at every turn.

What about transgender kids, gay marriage, and wokeness -- do those have huge negative impacts on the REAL needs of Americans?

Now, an argument can be made that thirty-plus years ago Bill Clinton signed into law free trade agreements that resulted in the loss of manufacturing jobs to China, and financial deregulation that led to the crash in 2007-2008.

Would a Republican president have signed those into law?

In the House and Senate, which party was more in favor of those measures?

Bottom line:
Which party has a better consistent record of trying to address the REAL needs of Americans, and which party consistently thwarts those efforts?

[usonian]

85. People have proven that they have one "REAL" (translation, imaginary) need. Confirmation.

To the extent that the media shapes the perception of reality, all of the above EXCELLENT and REAL needs are downright wrong and evil.

They want their biases, however implanted, to be confirmed.



They project their weaknesses, fears and failures onto others, namely dems, women, minorities, immigrants, "welfare queens", the poor, the middle class (who don't drive F-150's and carry automatic weapons) and the "edgicated" WHOM THEY PUT IN POWER.

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

(confirmed)

We entered an era of "personality politics" where issues don't count for people who think with something else than their brains.

The projection of bitterness (relentless propagandizing) and short-sightedness.

[Martin Eden]

88. Disinformation, bias confirmation, fearmongering

Yes -- THAT is how Republicans win elections.

NOT by actually serving the REAL needs of the American people.

The Democratic Party is far from perfect, but there is only one choice in a binary election.

[Buns_of_Fire]

38. My standard response to those who ask me "How did we get this screwed up?":

"My conscience is clear. Yours?"

[uponit7771]

39. ***US MEDIA LEANING MAGA*** Dems need their own amplification network to compete

[kbowman]

40. Fox News?

I think most of the blame should go to Fox News for feeding people's baser instincts over the past 30 years. There have been others, e.g. Newt Gangrene and the right wingers who keep trying to raise the volume of their "outrage" to justify themselves.

[Initech]

43. Elon Musk and Xitter were definitely a factor in 2024.

Facebook too. The internet propaganda is just as strong as the cable news propaganda.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

90. Welcome to DU

[Initech]

42. 40 years of Rush Limbaugh, 25 years of Fox News.

[Dlpger61]

45. WHITE PEOPLE

This is all on white people who think they are the super race of America. As MLK Jr. said the most dangerous thing about humans are their sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

Their was only one group of people in country that did what they were supposed to do this past November, African American women voted 92% and African American men voted 88%.
So ignorance and stupidity is the reason.

[Celerity]

54. In 2024, around 3 in 10 Black men under the age of 45 voted Trump, double what he got in 2020.

https://apnews.com/article/election-harris-trump-women-latinos-black-voters-0f3fbda3362f3dcfe41aa6b858f22d12

snip

[uponit7771]

86. Biggest outgroup swing towards Putin's Puppet was Hispanic men why are black men being extrapolated here?

[Celerity]

87. Because the post I replied to mentioned African Americans. It made no mention of Hispanics. nt

[uponit7771]

89. In context of black men and women voting against Putin's Puppet in overwhelming percentages despite an uptick in support

... that didn't make a difference in any swing state.

No wonder black people are sitting this shit out nationally; no acknowledgement .. too much blame ... too much physical risk ... and no change of electorate in site.

[Torchlight]

47. The war on education--and on the educated

—has produced some strange and troubling consequences. One of the most visible is an electorate increasingly driven by hatred and opposition, rather than unity and cooperation to solve problems.

A growing number of people are lying to themselves, blaming schools for their inability to think critically, when the real issue is often their own lack of attention in school. It’s a weak excuse, but it’s wildly popular among those who love to say, “School didn’t teach me anything.”

[Cosmocat]

49. And ... money from AMERICANS

The vast majority of the people supporting this choose to believe this $ will come from other countries.

[lonely bird]

50. Iirc

During the Gilded Age excise taxes brought in twice the revenue of tariffs.

[bucolic_frolic]

51. The populace no longer understands politics

Money and pop culture and self-interest rule their minds. The Me Generation has been groomed for a long time.

[JustAnotherGen]

52. Too many people

Didn't understand the binary choice.

[al bupp]

56. I'm sorry to say it, but the country

Has always been this stupid. My high school chemistry teacher from back in the 70s used to say, "nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public". I'm afraid he was right. Only now they vote, as well.

[Strelnikov_]

64. Pretty much

[Blue Owl]

59. Voter disenfranchisement played a HUGE role in getting this fat fuck back in office

Make no mistake -- tRump supporters are a MINORITY in this country -- most Americans want this fucker GONE.

[B.See]

60. My frankly blunt take on it?

Trump, MUSK, Vance and their MAGA SICKcophants are a bunch of SOCIOPATHS, who are empowered by an ELECTORATE of sociopaths.

Given all that we know and have seen, it is imo, the ONLY rational explanation.

[Strelnikov_]

63. Brawndo . . It's got electrolytes!

Um . . what were we talking about.

[efhmc]

65. To this feminist it a truism that is not going away: the hatred and/or disregard of women.

[UniqueUserName]

69. You'd have to include white women hating black women too, then, because. . .

The majority of white women voted for Trump.

(I say this as a white man who voted for Harris. I get tired of all the blame in one direction.)

[Oneironaut]

71. Social media has spotlighted the dumb people that always existed, and, gave them a platform to make others dumb.

Anyone can claim to be an expert now, and, they do.

Add to this that being dumb pays handsomely online, and, you get to where we are today.

[Mariana]

74. Religion.

Most Americans are Christian, and most Christians voted for Trump.

[live love laugh]

76. I think focusing on blaming voters takes away from the real reason he's in office.

Trump said himself the election was rigged.

What’s not acknowledged can’t be fixed.

[Meowmee]

77. That is the $64 trillion question

However, these are the main reasons, dumbass, idiots, and fascists 😹 as well as election interference I believe. Not holding the criminal in chief accountable in any way, and having no standards for who can run for office and a system that can’t remove a crazy leader, and we must not forget the complicit traitorous R party.

[no_hypocrisy]

78. I'm still thinking about how many Independents voted for TSF.

I can understand "the Base" (MAGA). But you would give Independents the benefit of the doubt by weighing each candidate before voting.

Unless Greg Palast is correct, that certain districts were targeted and rigged. Then I'll let the Independents off the hook.

[Emile]

79. How you ask, Propaganda!

[mucholderthandirt]

82. It was done on purpose, and took decades to accomplish.

Started with destroying education, where people were taught to think, and now only study to pass a test each year. Sure, a lot of people didn't actually learn to think, but more did then than now.

Then it was buying up the media outlets. Control of the message was key.

They attempted to control the internet, much as with the media, but the old WWW fought back.

And using churches to spread their message to the gullible.

Removing a lot of access to mental health treatment didn't help the average man, either. And drugged/drunk people are vulnerable to hearing bad messaging.

It took a lot of effort, and a lot of time, but look where we are. In less than four months, America has died. It may never come back, and for most of the world, that will be a good thing. If there's any sign of aggression from America, expect the nukes. I am serious. No sane country would allow us to start anything, with the arsenal we have. Canada and Mexico will be the first, my guess is, other nations will have to follow.

We think tariffs are bad? Wait until the embargoes start. We need them a lot more than they need us.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

83. MAGA Liberation! Trump and MAGA give us permission to hate again.

We can now be as racist, sexist, classist as we want, with no consequences. We can destroy with exotic abandon. We can roll coal, own libs as much as we want.

The hangover, however, will be a b*tch.

[Behind the Aegis]

91. Many factors: extremism, demonization, anti-intellectualism, social media, and piss-poor journalism

All of these, and I am probably forgetting something, created bubbles that were impenetrable. In a country that can't be bothered to read, that everything has to be "RIGHT FUCKING NOW!", and where debate has devolved into name-calling, it was bound to happen. The groundwork for all of this has been laid out by the Right for YEARS and the response from the Left was impotent.

[3catwoman3]

92. I ask myself this every damned day.

Several times a day.

[Iggo]

93. Reagan. (n/t)