Congratulations Americans. At least the last time you had the excuse "Damn, we could not have predicted he'd be this bad and incompetent as a president". (I mean you could have and everyone else did, but hey I can see how you might use it as an excuse)
Must be really terrifying to see a woman in a position of power if you'd rather vote for a fascist who wants to quite openly dismantle the checks and balances on his own position.
I'm Canadian and have a friend in Canada who is unemployed, mentally ill to the point of collecting disability and lives with his mother who is mentall ill and physically disabled. They both rely on extensive government support programs like disability payments, mental health care access, pharmaceutical benefits, and our healthcare system.
This friend of mine wants to vote for our right wing conservative party who will strip most if not all of these supports away from him and his family. I just don't understand how someone can vote against themselves like this, he's gobbled up the propaganda. My heart goes out to all who will suffer under the new American government.
I'm much more scared of Trumpism than I am of the man. The next guy is taking notes on how to wield his rhetoric, and will actually be competent at pushing through even greater evil.
Trump gone in four years isn't really the point anymore. It could be Trump, it could be any other MAGA republican. The mask has been off for a long time but it's never, ever been more evident how rotten to the absolute core America is. Over 70 million people voted for this. Trump isn't the problem, he's a symptom.
That's honestly what scares me the most. I think we can survive another 4 years of Trump. What I don't think we could survive is if he completely destroys what democracy stands for and gets rid of our term limit for presidency. That is completely terrifying to me and seems to be a very real threat. Trump is old and he'll probably die soon, but if he gets rid of term limits then who knows what kind of horrifying monster we could have ruling the country indefinitely after his death once that precedent is set.
But at least I have another 4 years roughly before I have to start worrying about that I guess.
This probably won't make anyone feel any better, but here in the UK we got the "lesser evil", and all of the threats that existed before, still exist now. They are going ahead with cutting benefits and making them harder to get, they are continuing their attack on trans people, they are not opposing genocide in any significant way., they continue to favour rich over poor.
The problem isn't who sits at the head of the pyramid, the problem is the pyramid itself, because by definition someone always has to be at the bottom and bear the brunt of those above.
As bad as they are, we must stop focusing on the symptoms, and address the cause - abolish capitalism, abolish the state, abolish hierarchy.
But that's still settling for suffering, which is always to be undertaken by those already most vulnerable and marginalised in society (E: as I mention, even when the "lesser evil" wins, they continue to actively target us).
And this willingness to settle for suffering is partly how we got to this point (it's functionally how the Overton window shifts).
Im in a strange position. I work in tech and so far have been able to command good pay, which I need as my wife has a lot of medical issues. Its a bit like being a single parent of a disable child. So we are fucked if he and vance do what they say they will but at the same time I can somewhat economically muscle through it but it will keep us at best on the line and maybe we will just fall and once that happens its pretty much going to be like a house of cards as medical costs can way overwelm my earnings potential.