I highly doubt the left will do anything uncivil. How can they win back the country? Is it too late?

  • Jeena@piefed.jeena.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    191
    arrow-down
    41
    ·
    29 days ago

    Democracy is just the tyranny of the majority.

    I think that most of the Americans want this, even if people on the outside do not understand. So in that sense they are right now winning back their country, as confusing as it might sound.

    • Deadlytosty@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      103
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      28 days ago

      Normally in Democracy the majority or popular vote wins, however due to the electoral college America has, it doesnt necessarily mean the majority voted for the winner. This was the case for Bush, and some other moments in the past.

        • Dasus@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          168
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          28 days ago

          How in the fuck.

          Like what drives a majority of Americans to vote for a demented toddler. It’s insane.

          As a kid I always wondered how on Earth did Hitler ever make anyone follow himself, how did those people not realise. Turns out a majority of people are just fucking morons.

          • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            81
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            edit-2
            28 days ago

            Yep and the slow gutting of the education system isn’t making it any better.

            You have an entire generation coming of voting age who are rabid Trump supporters. They don’t care about policies or democracy or public institutions. They don’t care about healthcare, social securities, or the stability of the economy.

            They don’t care about any of the things that have been built up through generations. They lack critical thinking ability.

            The recipe works. If you make dumb kids they will vote for dumb people. It works so well that part of the future plan for a trump presidency is to get rid of the department of education. Solidifying the Republican party indefinitely.

            Without critical thinking and with mass media it’s so easy to say every problem that people deal with is because the “other side” made it so. Even if the other side has been doing everything possible to achieve the opposite.

            • HungryJerboa@lemmy.ca
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              36
              ·
              28 days ago

              Americans aren’t special. They’re just as vulnerable to fascism as anybody else.

              The MAGATs might as well be wearing brownshirts and saluting like Mussolini.

            • Wooki@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              13
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              28 days ago

              Blaming young people is up their with blaming immigrants and “gays” ect for [insert topic]. I would be very surprised if this was the case.

              I think it’s a little more nuanced.

                • Wooki@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  5
                  arrow-down
                  10
                  ·
                  28 days ago

                  You sure about that?

                  You have an entire generation coming of voting age who are rabid Trump supporters.

                  It goes on.

                  Anecodtally (at this point, this is all these discussions are), I think that Apathy, fear campaigns or outright money and campaigns ect become powerful levers where voting is non-mandatory.

          • yeahiknow3@lemmings.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            22
            arrow-down
            16
            ·
            edit-2
            28 days ago

            For all practical purposes, about 30% of people are unfeeling morons - basically psychopaths. That’s the number that consistently opposes abortion, for instance. Add to that all the dumbasses who don’t know any better (the undecideds on any extremely obvious moral issue), et voila. That’s how you get slavery, nationalism, genocide, theocracy, you name it.

            Unless people are willing to screen for psychopathy and remove it from the gene pool, the human species will keep fucking around until it finds out. Might be nuclear apocalypse or environmental collapse, but at this rate it’s inevitable.

              • yeahiknow3@lemmings.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                arrow-down
                6
                ·
                edit-2
                28 days ago

                “Oh no, we wouldn’t want the psychopaths with the broken brains not to exist. That’s eugenics.”

                You’re all fucking idiots.

          • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            28 days ago

            The rise of the NSDAP has been studied quite a bit. Also, the psychological aspects are really interesting. Basically normal people can make all of this possible as long as the conditions are just right.

          • Coco@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            28 days ago

            There are many leftists and minorities that have “voted strategically” time and time and time again only for things to get worse and worse.

            This kind of disenfranchisement leads to apathy and low turnout.

            We are told from a young age that our vote matters, and then when we are older we are told you can only vote for red fascist or blue fascist and many choose not to participate.

            There are more who did not vote than who voted for Trump. This is not what the majority wants, but with the system as it is, it is not possible for the majority to voice what they actually genuinely want and have a chance to get it.

            The votes do not have to be rigged at the ballot box for voting as a whole system to be rigged.

          • Wooki@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            28 days ago

            Non mandatory voting wouldnt help, being that its more susceptible to eroding a merit process from campaigns of fear or otherwise.

        • s38b35M5@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          edit-2
          28 days ago

          And I was so loving Lina Khan’s FTC, asking among other things…

          Edit: autocorrect

        • Jackthelad@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          28 days ago

          And Harris has done worse than Biden in every county in America.

          Not every state. Every county.

            • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              28 days ago

              While I’m sure the statement “some Americans just don’t want a female president” is true, I think the vast majority of them were going to vote Republican basically no matter what.

              To paraphrase the conversation that took place on the left:

              “The DNC isn’t doing well among young straight white men and it’s getting worse. Barack Obama polled at 66% favorable among that demographic in 2008, and that number has fallen every election until now Harris is polling in the low 40s. There’s a lot of them, and we’re losing them.” A hot mic caught Kamala herself saying exactly that. “We’re losing men.”

              Responds the feminists, “Look at the pathetic men throwing a fit because they’re not fully in charge. Something something privilege something something patriarchy. Be better.” I’ll note this didn’t come from Kamala’s campaign, it came from the faceless rabble. The people who said “Yeah no we should probably also talk about issues that are important to men” got shouted down. So white men see that as “The people who vote for this candidate hate me no matter what, and yet they demand my vote no matter what.”

              Kamala started this race as Biden’s running mate, then Biden showed up in “mummified during the 6th dynasty of the Old Kingdom” condition at that first debate. No time for a primary, Biden’s out and Kamala’s in. Now she needs a running mate. They put out an APB for a white guy preferably from the south but the midwest will do. There was some brief discussion of North Carolina governor Roy Cooper, well-liked lame duck democrat from a former confederate state, ticks all those boxes. But we landed on Tim Walz. As far as I can tell he was a genuinely solid choice; I’d never heard of him before he was announced as a short runner for Harris’ running mate. Every headline I read about the guy was some new and exciting way he was a saint. Almost suspiciously so. He’s still the only one on the campaign trail who I’d lend a lawnmower to.

              Problem #1: We heard the APB as it went out. Here’s my turn to get shouted down: This works on women, muslims, and a significant number of black men, because those demographics have an automatic in-group dynamic. You see posts talking about “My boyfriend was talking to me at the gym and a woman I’ve never met before comes up to pretend to be my friend. I see u gurl.” So both Hilary and Kamala had the white chick vote sewn up just for existing while female. Obama, to a slightly lesser extent, had a similar effect among black men. That doesn’t work on white guys, or at least, the white guys that does work on are very reliable Republican voters.

              But, credit where credit is due, Walz seems like a solid guy. If they hadn’t announced out loud they picked him to identity pander I wouldn’t have noticed.

              Problem #2: The next time I saw Walz, he was on a commercial cosplaying as a straight white man. “Governor Walz here in a camouflage hat with a dog. Watch me perform a minor repair on an antique SUV.” They ran ads that literally said “I bet you’re tired of hearing how much white guys suck. I mean, some of them do…” That same ad says “They’re really talkin’ to guys like us.” No they weren’t.

              They ran ads talking about “I’m a REAL MAN and I’m MAN enough to vote for a WOMAN.”

              I didn’t see Tim Walz talking about “The boys who played on my football team are struggling to afford homes. They’re choosing not to get married or have children because for an increasing number of young men it’s just not in the cards.” No I heard a doughy guy dressed like a cowboy say “I eat carburetors for breakfast.”

              Among a male loneliness epidemic they ran an ad that said “Women will withhold sex unless you vote for Harris.”

              Obama polled well among young men because he engaged with them in their spaces. At the time, Facebook and Twitter were where the young people hung out, and he showed up there to talk to us, which was a welcome change from George W. “An internet” Bush. Obama campaigned on messages of hope and progress. I don’t recall Kamala herself really doing much actual reach-out, and her campaign messaging was either lazy attempts at pandering or naked feminist grievance airing. “We need you to show up and vote for us for the second decade in a row even though we’ve done nothing at all to measurably improve your lives in that time, when we had the power to do so we pissed it down your leg, and we’re okay saying out loud that we thoroughly hate you” has proven to be a losing campaign message.

              Turns out there are more straight white men than feminists and queers in the United States voter pool. Hilary proved it and Kamala proved it, pandering exclusively to the former while demanding the support of the former will lose an election to worn out diaper hitler.

                • MolochAlter@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  28 days ago

                  If you look back at her primary in 2020, she was.

                  Hard to wash that off with some last minute recanting, like with fracking and other such campaign claims.

                  Her hand was tipped as to her ideal term in office 4 years ago, I’m surprised Trump didn’t use that shit in attack ads given how much more stereotypically progressive she was then.

                  Personally I called it in when a clip of hers saying “we’ve got to get woke” (not sure about the wording but the word woke was used positively) from some talk show aimed at black people from this year came out.

                  You need to live in a parallel dimension to think that word is not absolutely fucking nuclear waste in the political discourse rn.

            • Jackthelad@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              28 days ago

              It’s actually incredible how they tried to copy Hilary Clinton’s campaign tactics of endorsements and warnings about Trump.

              That didn’t work last time. Why would it work now?

      • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        67
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        28 days ago

        Whether it’s 48 or 52 % is an immaterial difference. Every other American who voted, voted for Trump. The rest don’t seem to care either way. He has very broad popular assent and is as popular as Harris give or take a margin of error.

        Everyone is lasered-focused on the EC because it makes all the difference for the practicalities, but if one is to make a broad judgement of whether Trump won fair and square the answer is “yeah, mostly”. Further proof is the fact that the House is probably going to be his as well.

        Americans now bear the collective responsibility for the horrors of the next 4(+?) years. Do not make the mistake of blaming the popular will of outright fascism on institutional failures, because institutions didn’t force half of Americans to vote for the fascist, again.

        • Serinus@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          28 days ago

          I’ll wait 72 hours before settling with it, in case any shenanigans were involved. I expect it’s legitimate, but I want that window open if it’s needed.

      • Fosheze@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        32
        ·
        28 days ago

        Trump is winning the popular vote by a pretty decent margin. The electoral college isn’t the issue here.

        • gerbler@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          20
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          28 days ago

          They haven’t finished counting that’s why. Rural areas are faster to count and skew conservative.

          A republican hasn’t won the popular vote in 20 years. Trump is projected to win but like last time he’ll lose the popular vote and win by virtue of the electoral college.

          • Fosheze@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            30
            ·
            28 days ago

            All the projections I’m seeing him show him almost certainly winning the popular vote. There’s a gap of 6 million votes and almost every state is over 90% reported in. That gap is going to likely shrink a bit, but unfortunately it almost certainly won’t be enough for him to even lose the popular vote.

            Lets face it, we’re (assuming you’re american) apparently just a country of facists. It looks like GOP is going to have majority in both houses too so here comes project 2025 I guess.

            • gerbler@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              25
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              28 days ago

              Sorry bud, not a yank. You have my sympathies though.

              If it turns out that he does indeed win the popular vote then yeah I’m sorry for your loss. A nest of at least 50% fascists or fascist enablers.

              Heart aches for those that did their civic duty and yet have to suffer the repercussions :(

          • dhork@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            13
            ·
            edit-2
            28 days ago

            It looks like turnout is way down compared to last election. Trump is pulling about the same amount he did last time ( maybe a few million down, but there are still results to get). Harris is currently down 15M from where Biden was.

            Trump’s support is no larger than it was last time. Harris’ supporters just didn’t show up

            • superkret@feddit.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              12
              ·
              28 days ago

              Harris’ supporters just didn’t show up

              Anyone who didn’t show up is not a Harris supporter.

          • Ioughttamow@fedia.io
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            28 days ago

            Wasn’t he ahead in 2016 around this time, but then once all was said and done he was a few mil behind?

      • DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        28 days ago

        I believe the states responsible for those silly outcomes have since passed laws to prevent it happening again.

        Could be wrong, but I listened to a podcast last week with an American professor who’s pretty much written the book, explaining the history of the Electoral College and how it really works. I’m sure he said those states since fixed those loopholes.

        Either way, the damage is done today. Another four years of stupidity in charge.

        • zkfcfbzr@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          28 days ago

          This is not correct. The electoral college is exactly as susceptible to giving the win to the person with fewer votes as it was in 2000 and 2016. It’s also not an issue that’s due to any state in particular and is not an issue that can be solved by individual state action. The NPVIC would fix it but requires the cooperation of many states and is not in effect, and has stalled pretty hard in recent years.

              • DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                28 days ago

                Seriously - the whole thing is such a befuddling mess to us non-Americans.

                How exactly can one win the popular vote but not the actual election? From the outside, the reporting I’ve seen always talks about the faithless elector problem (not in those words - just in describing the problems). Is it more to do with how many votes (electors) each state gets, based on population size?

                • zkfcfbzr@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  28 days ago

                  That’s it, yes - each state gets as many electoral votes as it has congressmen, including senators. Most states award all of their electoral votes to whoever wins the state, with no proportionality to it at all - only two states (Nebraska and Maine, neither one large) do anything proportional with their votes.

                  With a system like that it’s easier to see how things can end up with the less popular candidate winning - they can, for example, sneak by with 50.1% of the vote in just enough states to win, but bomb it out with 20% of the vote in all the other states. That’s an extreme example specifically for the purpose of illustration, but less extreme versions of that are usually what happens.

                  The electoral votes also aren’t distributed entirely fairly - the number of electoral votes per person tends to be larger for less populated states. The less populated states also tend to be Republican states. So in a very real sense, each person’s vote counts for “more” in those states, and “less” in states with high populations. I don’t believe it’s really possible to fix this problem without vastly increasing the number of electoral votes, but congress currently has its size capped at 535 members for what I consider not very good reasons.

                  Yes, the whole system is trash from the ground up. But much of its structure is defined in the constitution itself, which is very difficult to change.

      • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        15
        ·
        28 days ago

        u̇nfoṙtcėnetlı, H ſımz t bı ƿinıŋ ð pȯpyulṙ vot æz ƿel.

        spoiler

        Unfortunately, he seems to be winning the popular vote as well.

    • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      21
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      28 days ago

      No, there is a concerted effort by conservatives to use voter suppression to subvert the will of the majority in the US.

      conservatives are clawing back the country right now by hook and by crook.

      can’t go on forever, but I don’t know which is going to last longer: the country or the aging frightened conservatives willing to subvert democracy to hang on to control.

      • Seleni@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        28 days ago

        Isn’t just the aging ones sadly. Lots of young people, especially young men, went for Trump. Andrew Tate has taught them well.

        • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          28 days ago

          progressive policies are annually more popular and conservative policies and election results like 2016 and 2024 are won mainly by the old guard funding and utilizing their careful network of voting interference and collusion.

          Andrew Tate is a vile exception amongst younger generations, not the rule.

    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      28 days ago

      I think that most of the Americans want this

      Maybe, but none of the facts directly support this.

      There have been large campaigns to disenfranchise several types of voters for decades in the country. The Electoral College was designed to be unfair to appease Slave states. Voter turnout is abysmal, only about 35% of eligible citizens vote. Out of those turnout is usually around the same percentage. The highest turnout recently was 2020 only because mail in voting was expanded so dramatically, and even then it was only 67% of registered voters, so it was still only 67% of that original 37% of eligible voters. So with the highest recent turnout, we’re looking at about 25% of eligible citizens actually voting.

      • Max@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        28 days ago

        I believe that the 67% number for the 2020 election is of eligible voters and not registered voters. While turnout is low, it’s not 25% low.

        • Billiam@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          28 days ago

          It was ~67% of eligible voters that were registered to vote. Over 94% of registered voters actually voted.

      • where_am_i@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        28 days ago

        Dafuk are you talking about? Voter turnout is 67% of all eligible voters. It’s highest since it’s ever been. And Trump won the popular vote. At least look at the facts instead of crying “stolen election”.

    • C126@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      28 days ago

      vote against this and save us all from this idiocy.

      Nope. There was just more people lined up to vote for more idiocy. We failed the world. I’d say I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’ll help. This is America.

      America needs to focus on decentralizing power. That way, when the other side wins, they can’t do much damage. Biggest problem America faces is too much centralized control.

    • illi@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      28 days ago

      Democracy really is the worst form of government, just not as bad as all the others…

      Unfortunately in such polarized times like now, even though majority wants this, the ammount of people for which this is unacceptable is only slightly less than “the majority”. And besides, I believe a big part of “the majority” is just gullible enough to be persuaded they want this while it actually goes against their interests

      • where_am_i@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        28 days ago

        And if the other candidate won, the other half would’ve been in the same state of “this is unacceptable”. Solutions?

        Cuz lemmy seems to think if their party wins it’s all good and if the other wins it’s the end of the world. While in reality it seems there’s a 50-50 split with each side equally hating the other.

        • illi@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          27 days ago

          It is the limitation of democracy and why it is the worst (except all the others) - because it allows this.

          How to fix this? These would be a good start: don’t polarize the society like this and create us vs. them mentality. In place of power hungry populists have people in charge who want the best for the country. Don’t enable fascists - they never should make it this far. Respect other people. Invest in education so people understand these basics.

          And this is not just about US. It’s scary that this is wherr us got because they are such a big player on the world stage

          • where_am_i@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            27 days ago

            The whole lemmy has been essentially about “us vs them” for the last few months. With zero discourse tolerated, only one opinion being allowed: trump bad, republicans fascist.

            So, if you worry about polarization, you guys are the biggest echo chamber I’ve seen to date.

        • Hugin@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          28 days ago

          It’s a famous quote. The contradiction is intentional. It means democracy has a lot of problems and often looks terrible. However when you step back and consider the alternatives they are worse.

        • illi@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          28 days ago

          Take it up with Winston Churchil - I was just paraphrasing his quote.

          The point is democracy is terrible, but we don’t have anything better.