I’m only 20 years old, I’ve never voted or even really bothered paying attention to any other election, and I dunno it kinda feels like I started on one that was really crazy? But I’m not sure maybe every election has been insane and I just didn’t know because I wasn’t paying attention.

  • resin85@lemmy.ca
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    5 days ago

    Not normal at all. This was America’s 1932 Germany moment, there’s no going back now. 70 plus million of the dumbest Americans on the planet welcomed the Nazis with open arms.

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      4 days ago

      It’s not Nazis, it’s different. It’s probably just as bad but it’s a weirdo mix.

      Trump is a mobster wannabe. He is also dumb as fuck and a useful idiot who is controlled on the one hand by foreign powers, but also by right wing extremist Christians, some of whom actually see him as a Messiah figure. I fully assume he is going to install himself as a dictator fast, as that’s what the past 4 years of preparation were about. He’ll also die, probably. He’s old, fat, doesn’t exercise, eats unhealthy, in a super stressful job and loads of people want him dead.

      I can’t remember the time (in my time anyway ) that so many people wanted a US president dead.

      Anyway, he’ll die soon and the the christo fascists will start the infighting who can become the next US dictator.

      I fully expect chaos in this year with chaos being the sweet synonym for that mass deportation starting, people will resist, people will get shot and die, people will start terrorist attacks. Whenever you work for years to pit one group of citizens against another, it’s not going to end well.

      Man this is fun…

  • mlg@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Yes, read history or take a serious gov class.

    This was almost a 1:1 repeat of 2016 and yet lemmy is still getting spammed with denialism posts with hundreds of upvotes.

    Trump is representative of the systemic issues America has left unresolved, not a cause, and the writing has been on the wall for decades; so much so that people think old media (ex: simpsons) was very cunningly predicting the future when in reality it was parodying the same issues at the time.

    The one key difference has been the rather recent introduction of the internet. You can often find both much more reliable and higher quality information in less than a minute that what you could get from something like 10 newspapers combined 30 years ago. Especially for the younger generation, not everyone is falling for the same stupid tricks anymore.

    Great example is Washington Post. People think it dropped in quality after it was bought by Bezos, but ask any international academic and they’ll probably tell you WaPo was always hot trash.

    All this stuff you see being “worse” has been predicted for years on end, so while you can technically say it is “new”, it’s nothing unexpected. Even the next level filthy mouth ramblings of Trump are just something the previous guy did off camera (cough bush).

    • blakemiller@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Trump is representative of the systemic issues America has left unresolved

      Him and literally every other politician, so thanks for defining politics for us. The problem is that enough people think he’s the right solution. Oh boy are they wrong.

  • phoneymouse@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    I started paying attention in 2000, even though I didn’t really understand it and couldn’t vote, however my first voting election was 2004 and I remember being disappointed when John Kerry lost to Bush, who had already gotten us involved in two wars that would cost trillions of dollars.

    My experience has been that Republican administrations tend to be rife with corruption, cut taxes for rich people and run up the deficit.

    Eventually, people get sick of the moral decay and tanking economic prospects and put a democrat back in, who tries to undo all the damage, but is blocked most of the time by Republicans in Congress acting in bad faith.

    Then, the right wing media environment drums up a load of fear about immigrants and actual lies about the economy to get everyone voting for a Republican again.

    That’s the cycle, except the Republican media ecosystem gets more extreme over time, and so do the candidates.

    • imaqtpie@lemmy.myserv.one
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      6 days ago

      It’s remarkable how effective that strategy has been.

      Reagan/Bush run up the deficit by 300%+ due to tax cuts and massive military spending, foreign wars

      Clinton pays off the deficit, gets the economy booming, scales back military spending and foreign entanglements

      GWB campaigns on a platform of tax cuts and increased military spending, along with denying climate change, barely wins

      deficit skyrockets due to tax cuts, multi trillion dollar wars, lack of financial regulation collapses global economy

      Obama has to save the economy again, extricate us from foreign entanglements again, while fighting against a republican establishment that refuses to pass any legislation

      Trump administration completely fails to deal with COVID pandemic and tanks the economy yet again

      Biden has to clean up that mess, and the resultant inflation is blamed on the Democrats

      How many times are people going to fall for this shit?

  • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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    6 days ago

    Yeah pretty much. 2016 was crazier than this one for sure. This one didn’t have a competitive primary on either side, and it was predicted as a toss-up whereas in 2016 every poll and media outlet was saying it was impossible for Trump to win, and there was no precedent to predict what would happen when he was in office. This is like, after people have had eight years to come to terms with Trump being a thing in whatever form that looks like. The general trend though is that things are getting crazier, and that trend is likely to continue.

  • aStonedSanta@lemm.ee
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    6 days ago

    No. It’s always been rather cordial if not a bit of mud slinging. Till trump entered and started questioning Obama birth certificate imo. Maybe I’m just too young to remember insane shit like that prior though.

  • Boiglenoight@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    No. This is extremely abnormal. I grew up in the 80s and elections were boring. Something happened in 2000, where Al Gore should have won but Bush was favored in court. That was the start of a sense of wrongness with our political system, that has manifested into what we have today.

  • Swordgeek@lemmy.ca
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    6 days ago

    I’m nearly three times your age and so will likely have a very different perspective, but…

    I remember watching the news (from Canada) when Reagan was first elected. it felt HORRIBLE, and turned out to be just that - Reagan, Thatcher, and their psychophant hanger-on Mulroney ushered in a new era of “get fucked by the rich, fuck the poor” also known as trickle-down economics.

    And yet, there was always a sense of decorum among them. Even Harper and Bush jr. at least pretended to be civil in the world of politics, no matter how corrupt and evil they were.

    Trump changed everything. He was loud, abrasive, offensive, and off the rails. And he won! Suddenly the doors were open. Here in Canada, O’Toole did outhouse attack ads against Trudeau. Jingoistic, vapid, fear-mongering populism took root throughout Europe. And it just kept getting worse.

    Now this election in the US was unhinged beyond description. Trump said things and did things that should have gotten him locked up. Musk should be facing either life in jail or the electric chair for his interference. There are no limits in American elections anymore - I would genuinely say including shooting someone onstage.

    Here in Canada, Poilievre has been carefully fanning the same embers - stoking fear, instilling rage, creating groups to hate; and at the same time, throwing out meaningless attacks on his opponents. Unlike when O’Toole awkwardly attempted it, it is working very effectively. Having an entire room or stadium chanting “AXE THE TAX” without even offering an alternative shows that he’s winning by being the same empty bully as Trump.

    (And meanwhile, Harper is chortling quietly from behind the curtain as he pulls the puppet strings.)

    So yeah, this is crazy - and it’s the new normal, until we start showing politicians that it doesn’t work, and can get them arrested.

    • FrederikNJS@lemm.ee
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      5 days ago

      Since all of these politicians are at the same time ensuring that they are above the law, I don’t think you can count on getting them arrested.

  • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    I think most elections would have been as if a Kamala Harris ran against another Kamala Harris. In other words, two normal politicians so that the result wasn’t perceived as much of a difference who one. Also, in the past if a politician said things like, “you won’t have to vote again” or called the opponent names, he would have been shredded in the media and probably lost the election due to scandal. I mean a felon has never run for president before. Trump just somehow has different rules.

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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    6 days ago

    Going forward? Maybe and I fear likely. Im over 50. voting for a republican when I was young was not completely crazy. Especially moderate ones in a liberal areas. Believe it or not there used to be institutional biases. Like senators were sorta snooty about the senate to the level they would be with a senator of the opposing party over a house rep from their own party. And party members in congress would be adversarial to their own parties president. A lot of this was a stay in your lane kind of thing. Like woa mr pres thats a congress thing and woa mr rep thats a senate thing. Also legitimately conern for the good of the country over party. If you have the patients read this wikipedia on ross perot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Perot# you can see he is a conservative rich bastard but then click on the presidential campaign. Higher taxes, investing in education, direct democracy. Granted he was third party stuff but it was a coming out of the conservative side. Back then drug, prostitution, and other victimless crimes legalization was a major part of the libertarian party. Over time the conservative side got worse and worse and voting for them became more and more unacceptable and also made voting third party a dangerous proposition. I was never really for the conservative party but I miss the days when they could be a legitimate option and individuals in the party could be decent.