I think most people don’t feel like they have much control over their world and resign themselves to it. This atomization is a central feature of the pseudo-stable system we live under. The antidote is solidarity and collective action. But that requires bravery to jump start because people only tend to turn to that when circumstances become truly bleak.
Plenty of layoffs and offshoring have occurred under Democratic administrations as well. Both parties serve the wealthy against the working class. One is indeed more brazen about it however.
He didn’t “institute” anything. He can’t do it without getting a law passed.
That’s just like the “deal” he made with Nvidia that Nvidia would pay 15% of revenue for every processor shipped to China.
The CFO of Nvidia said on the earnings call that it doesn’t matter what deal someone at his company made with Trump, he isn’t authorizing any funds transfer until there is a law passed.
Even my mid sized company when asked when they would start allowing private equity and crypto based on Trump’s announcement, they said not until a law is passed by Congress.
On a completely separate note, of the large tech companies can’t get H1Bs cheaply, they will continue to expand their presence outside of the country.
You realize that the large country you're mentioning, with many opinions, still elect 1 president, who represents that large country with different opinions?
No, I don't realize that, because it's laughably false. The president is not elected to represent me, that's what Congress is supposed to be for. A single man cannot possibly represent a country of 340 million people. It's understandably easy for people from smaller countries to not be able to fathom just how big and divided America is.
It's exactly the same thing man. 34 million people is pretty unfathomable too. One person can't truly represent all those just like one person can't truly represent 340 people. Unless of course those 340 people all self selected to follow that one person, but that's not how countries work. In all cases the members of the group choose whoever gets the most votes and everyone is never happy. The semantics of how the voting works may change but at the end of the day the people chose their president. And it just so happens the US chose a disgraceful orange clown twice.
For all their biglyness and dividedness, that's who they managed to unite behind. You can explain it however you want, to me it definitely means something and it's not a good thing.
You are fundamentally misunderstanding the size and complexity of US politics, and harmfully oversimplifying what it means for a country to "choose" representation.
America is extremely divided, and viewing it as a single country where the "losers" deserve the negative consequences of the "winners'" choices is just absurd and void of empathy.
> A single man cannot possibly represent a country of 340 million people.
So how many presidents US have? 1 or many? I don't mind you're putting your opinion out, but it doesn't change the fact, despite that it sounds laughable to you.
It might seem like an opinion if you're uneducated about the American political system, but if you kill the negativity and actually go study how our government is balanced, you would realize that Congress represents the people, the president is a necessary function within our political framework, but the intention was never for a single person to represent the entire country, or we wouldn't have an entire legislative branch dedicated to just that.
To go further, there is an inherent expectation that the president might go against the wishes of the people, which is why we have two other branches of government designed to enforce checks and balances.
This check and balance system has completely failed due to mass coordination, but the idea is that individual governmental positions have theoretical pressures against corruption, the possibility of corruption is built right into our Constitution.
Lol. You're a product of the system. And you believe what the system tells you. If you'd actually go and study how your system works, you would realize your non sense you're typing. Either you're an uneducated kid, still have time to grow up, or the one who's been first in line during covid vaccinations.
PS: you didn't answer the question, how many presidents US have?
Your comment contains so many baseless assumptions, there is nothing to gain from speaking to someone with such a closed, negative mind. I don't think you have the capacity to understand how wrong you are, and your vagueposting of "go and study how your system works" is such a lazy, hollow argument.
If you cannot explain how "the system works" and need to ask me to go learn myself, then you demonstrably don't know what you're talking about. You're employing a bag full of argumentative fallacies in lieu of providing a coherent, effective argument.
I genuinely believe that, at this point, that starts to stretch the definition of the word "represents."
It's readily apparent that no president for the past decade has clearly represented a majority of the country (as opposed to a plurality) in the sense that they voted for or supported him. But Trump has gone further, and openly declared that not only does he not consider himself to represent the people politically opposed to him, he considers them to be dangerous violent extremists.
At what point do you admit that a fascist dictator no longer meaningfully "represents" the people he rules?
Please keep in mind many non-voters aren't laying around on the couch, but working multiple jobs trying to pay rent and healthcare. Our unitary president is talking about restricting mail in voting and taking other measures to ensure the desired outcome.
He's already resorted to sending fake electors, demanding votes be 'found', and inciting violence to interrupt the results of elections he doesn't like. (And pardoning those found guilty of participating in such interference on his behalf.)
Trump is trying hard to get voter id passed (common sense in Europe) and he’s obviously not doing that because he wants to cheat in elections. Your characterization is therefore misguided in the extreme.
We only need to look at states like California and their complete absence of voter id to realize where and for whom rampant election fraud takes place.
You'd get most Democrats to support voter ID if it came with a national ID card, plus an affirmative duty to some agency to ensure that everyone has access to one.
We have neither of those things. The closest we have is driver's licenses, because our culture is such that everyone eligible wants one. The only broadly available federal photo ID is the passport.
Requiring a driver's license, passport, or equivalent is unconstitutional, though. This is because even non-driver equivalents cost money in most places, making it an unconstitutional poll tax. That's why even the places with strict voter ID laws allow really strange forms of identification - they rely mostly on people not knowing this.
Voter ID in a country without universal identification is just disenfranchisement. In the US, by and large you either have a driver's license, or no form of identification. Sure, states have non-driver's IDs available, but very few people have them. Somewhere between 5% and 10% of the population have zero up-to-date photo identification.
Voter fraud (people voting twice, voting illegally, etc) is basically a non-issue, especially in California where our elections are rarely so close that the marginal amount that's estimated to happen matters. Disenfranchisizing 9% of the population is a big fucking issue.
> We only need to look at states like California and their complete absence of voter id to realize where and for whom rampant election fraud takes place.
There are ways to make voter ID work, ways to make them free and easy to obtain, but they aren't interested in any of that because they just want to stop "the wrong people" from voting.
That's a mischaracterization of what took place. The alternate slates of electors were exactly what is prescribed legally and had to exist in case the courts ruled in his favor. If the alternate electors didn't exist, and the case was successful, too bad, so sad, original electors are sent to DC. That's why the electors who were charged with crimes had the charges all dropped. You were witnessing lawfare and media distortions of actual long-standing, but little used processes.
It is not a mischaracterization. Him and his people organized false slates of electors who tried to fraudulently claim that they were the official slate of electors for their state.
You are factually mischaracterizing what happened. It wasn’t just backup slates in case their case went through.
It’s actually the more legally damning set of actions he took compared to J6
> he’s obviously not doing that because he wants to cheat in elections
No, that's exactly why he wants to do it.
Requiring voter ID makes it much harder for poor people—disproportionately likely to be minorities, vastly more likely to be city-dwellers (who don't need a driver's license)—to vote.
There is no rampant vote fraud. There have been many, many studies on this. Even the ones from Republicans prove that there are no more than a tiny, tiny handful of people who ever deliberately try to vote where they're not eligible (including multiple voting, etc).
The billions of dollars poured into post-industrial revolution, pro-capitalist propaganda in US politics mean we cannot simply blame the populace for being brainwashed or wrong. This is a concerted effort over many generations, people are born into the propaganda machine and biased media. Fixing this starts from the top.
Maybe you could enlighten me? Cause it looks to me like he won an election.
I watch Trump speak and it just baffles me that anyone could possibly take him seriously. It's so abundantly clear that the guy just makes shit up on the spot, constantly. The guy lies more than he tells the truth and it's obvious. I'm not even a native English speaker and it's clear as day to me that pretty much every word out of that guy's mouth is bullshit.
I watch Trump interacting with other world leaders where they're struggling to keep their composure, the stuff he says and does is so ridiculous these serious, accomplished adults are about to lose it laughing in his face because he's so ridiculous.
And on top of that there's all the downright criminal stuff he pulled last time, like staging a coup, stealing classified documents (boxes and boxes worth, not just a couple sheets that fell behind the sofa), and probably a bunch of other stuff I haven't heard about. Oh and apparently he used to be besties with Epstein. You can not make this up, I almost could not imagine a worse leader. And I'm barely even paying attention to what's going on over there.
On the bright side at least we're getting some good laughs out of it like when Giuliani booked a press conference at the Four Seasons Landscaping next to a porn shop. That was fun.
You can be a smart politician and do stupid things. You can be dumb and vote for a smart politician. You can be a stupid politician and do not-that-bad-compared-to-the-smart-politician things. You can be smart and vote for a stupid politician.
Sure, a broken clock is right twice a day. And sure, you can be smart and vote for Trump. Maybe you just genuinely want the chaos and his policies. It's probably good for some people.
But it's not good for normal people. Normal people vote for Trump and then turn around and cry that their insulin and other meds are suddenly too expensive again. Lots of stuff like that. Normal people are very clearly not well served by Trump's politics. Yet they vote for him anyway and that's just stupid.
