Opinion: Trump wins 2024 election. America needs to admit it's not 'better than this.'
Opinion: Trump wins 2024 election. America needs to admit it's not 'better than this.'
Donald Trump won, and I never want to hear the words 'America is better than this' again. I never want to be told about America's better angels.
We can no longer hide behind the excuse of "the electoral college". We can no longer say that Trump did not win the popular vote. Trump won the Presidency, retook the Senate, and are poised to retain the house. Progressive candidates and initiatives either underperformed or failed nationwide. A majority of voters nationwide saw everything that came with a Trump presidency and a MAGA agenda and said "Yes. We want more of that."
We are not better than this.
I'm German, and non-Germans always find it weird that most of us don't have a very strong sense of national pride and are even very critical of our country, sometimes maybe even excessively so.
We have learned what uncritical, unreflected national pride leads to. What the price is to not confront the dark side that every society has.
And now, sadly, the US has to learn the same lesson the hard way too. I only hope the US and the rest of the world can come out of it with as little bloodshed as possible. But I fear for the worst.
"Remember, remember the 5th of november." has a altogether new meaning now.
Instead of doubling down on our beliefs with authenticity as the Right does (I mean, many abortion referendums did pass), we repeatedly cede ground to the Overton Window.
The problem is we don't actually engage in the same degree of activism in the off-season and always let conservatives control the narrative on largely manufactured issues and half truths.
Well, there is the fact that that right-wing activism is bankrolled by some wacko billionaires, while even the DNC works against progressives where it can.
Money in politics is what it boils down to, again, and wealth inequality.
I do think we can blame the electoral college to a certain extent. How many people sat home in deep red states because their vote never matters? Unless you live in a handful of states there is almost no point. Take that away and let the people have a voice, not some bullshit system which was designed to prevent leaders like him getting elected.
This is basically the big thing that has been weighing on me. It’s very clear that the culture I thought I was brought up in, the thing that gave me pride, was not really US culture. It’s very clear to me that US culture values justice, democracy, truth, and the general wellbeing of people in no meaningful ways beyond the PR value of pretending to value these things. It’s very clear to me that this culture is way more racist, sexist, and classist than I was led to believe. It’s also very clear that this culture has an active disdain for education. In aggregate we are a gullible, irrationally emotional, entitled and greedy population with a nearly insatiable bloodlust for violence. We are, on the whole, a profoundly evil country made up of willfully ignorant masses that are ruled by duplicitous oligarchs. Now, I know that there are a lot of good people here. But there is nothing intrinsically American about their goodness. If anything they are an aberration from the seething awfulness that is America.
This hurt me to read because I believe it. I wouldn’t have yesterday. I feel shame to live among these people anymore. I can’t reasonably leave but I’m not sure what else to do. This feels like defeat in a way I thought could never happen. Probably because I believed in those things that made America great. Not the government, but the people. You’re right, they are not the norm but the exception to what it means to be American. Fuck me.
This is the thought that I’ve been trying to articulate. Those that are decent people aren’t good because they are Americans but in spite of being American.
Yep. Our culture teaches our children that being uneducated (or at least acting the part) is cool. That money and physical attractiveness are the only truly important things. We embody everything that all moral philosophies warn against. Even the good ones among us in this country are tainted by the toxic culture.
A lot of people are going to flip out mentally over this, maybe Ted Kazinsky level. I'm hoping to not lose my sanity, but I will never believe in America again. It cannot be trusted with not killing itself in a haze of selfish rage. Fuck this country.
This post does a good job of articulating how I've been feeling. I think last night made it very clear what the character of our country really is. Unsalvageable garbage, unworthy of our efforts to improve it.
I'd say we tend to still have a few good qualities from our culture (or at least a product of a subculture), but there absolutely no doubt about the bad ones. I especially hate how they are regarding education, since that's one of the most important things we have.
It's a shame we're slowly losing those good qualities, though. Individualism, for instance, is at it's extreme in the US and is one of the ways it's attracted so many artists and creatives. Too bad corporate interests are eroding that steadily for decades, and fascism is likely to stifle the first amendment once and for all.
Voting booths are secret places where people can admit how they really feel without feeling judged. Trump won the popular vote because he appealed to a lot of people who didn't wear MAGA hats, or walk around in garbage bags.
The sad thing is that this isn't really a shock to the rest of the world. There's a reason why, for decades, Americans going on backpacking trips have put Canadian flags on their gear.
The only saving grace here is that it might not be that most Americans are cruel, racist, sexist, classist, etc. It might just be that they're incredibly dumb. I've listened to a lot of interviews of Trump supporters and the vast majority are idiots. They believe in crazy conspiracies. They say they love Trump's policies then can't name any of them. They can't accept that he actually legitimately lost all his legal cases. They regurgitate things they've heard, but clearly haven't even spent a second thinking about, because they go blank as soon as they're asked to elaborate on anything.
And, if the problem is really that they're morons, it may not be their fault. For some reason, the US obsession with free speech and free markets means that Internet companies can keep feeding people bullshit that makes them angry, which keeps them engaged, which keeps the ad dollars flowing. US TV networks can tell absurd lies under the guise of news, and they're apparently immune from being sued for doing it. "Concerned parents" funded by lobbying groups can fuck up the education system so that kids never learn anything that might make them feel bad. The US is allowed to have a government funded state media network that delivers factual video, audio and written news and information around the world. But, most Americans have never heard of it because it's not allowed to compete with the for-profit media in the country itself.
I dunno, maybe the world can save the US. The fact is, Europe does occasionally have strong influence in the US. Americans have to deal with cookie banners because of a GDPR law that doesn't apply in the US. Maybe if the EU took on the US tech monopolies it would actually affect the way Americans are brainwashed. But, unfortunately, I have serious doubts about whether the US can dig itself out of the hole it's in. Right now it looks like the hole is just getting deeper and deeper.
Very sad but very true.
I just need to reply to this, a couple days late even. Thank you for writing this here. It is a powerful statement, and also extremely saddening and so very accurate. Saved to share with others, so thank you.
We absolutely are not. We are a nation of bigots, racists, and simpletons.
This is us, this is America.
No no no. That's who voted. Those that sat on their ass and pouted about other shit is who did not. There are only 67 million of us that said no to the orange man.
Honestly, I would consider anyone who sat out also a simpleton for not realizing the importance
Back in 2016 they did a panel of all the creators of the TV political dramas. West Wing, Veep, Scandal, House of Cards, and all the rest.
All the creators said the same thing; if they'd had a character who said he 'liked soldiers who didn't get captured' the networks and advertisers would have demanded that character be shown to be hated by all Americans.
I used to give the collective 'us' the benefit of the doubt and assume we're just stupid, not evil.
After 4 years of Trump + all the Nazi shit he's said since, he did even better than he did the first time. People aren't ignorant to all that, they fucking love it.
We need to hurry up and go extinct and hope some critter rises from the ashes and evolves to be less of a collective sack of shit.
Just with a bit of estimation of the remaining 12% of votes uncounted, Trump is going to beat his 2020 vote record by a couple million, 81 million on the high end and maybe closer to 77 million on the low end. Unlikely, but possible he beats the 2020 all time record set by Biden. Definitely beats his 2020 numbers.
Kamala recently pulled ahead of Hillary’s 65 million and Obama’s 66 million, she’s gonna end up around 71-74 million.
Kamala lost the Popular Vote. In fact she won some blue states by smaller margins then she lost some ‘swing’ states. Nevada might not even be tight enough to qualify as a swing state this election(needs to be 5% or less, Trump’s currently winning by 5.2% meaning it wasn’t a swing state), meanwhile Minnesota was won by 3, New Jersey by 4, New Hampshire by 4 and a half, and Maine might be lost we’ll see, but those 4 were all swing states as the margin was less than 5%. New Mexico and Virginia came very close(and New Mexico would have been under 5 without RFK Jr dragging Trump down a point).
This also suggests the Electoral College no longer favors Republicans, and is somewhere between neutral and actually favoring Democrats again. 2028 a tight election with a Democrat win could see them lose the PV and win the EC.
I had a ton of 2004 vibes from the start and it looks like that was correct. He is coming back to serve a second term, and YES, this time he won the national electiiion
(Also you can’t blame third parties this time, they did horribly nationwide. At worst maybe they tightened up Virginia a bit just through how uniquely bad for Democrats it was there, but on the other hand RFK Jr is the only reason New Mexico didn’t crack a sub 5 margin and go into Swing State territory again(Harris won by 5.2 there and RFK got 1 point. No third party means that crosses the 5 point threshold)
I saw some numbers that showed Kamala underperformed in EVERY SINGLE COUNTY compared to Biden. I hope the Dems will learn from this but they literally never do.
I think there's a handful of small rural counties where a couple fewer Trump voters showed up? I mean there's like 3 or 4 counties where John Kerry is the best democrat preformance since 2000 so weird shit can happen
Trump, again, played the god card. Affirming his divine and righteous purpose.*
* god put him here because he's the Antichrist. A fucking demon. There are no angels left.
(Shamelessly stolen from c/politicalmemes:)
I'm still unconvinced of any God's existence, let alone the Abrahamic God.
But if I did, I'd believe with 100% certainty that this man is the antichrist.
I can't remember the website, but awhile back someone made a blog post that draws parallels between the Bible and real life to show that DT is the antichrist, and as someone who's read it cover to cover, it's creepy how much matches up directly, and how much more could fit a general aspect.
By general aspect I mean like how you could see someone 500-2,000 years ago describing an A-10 Warthog (with the stereotypical angry face painted on the side) as a screeching bird of prey with the head of a lion that spits fire and thunder from its mouth.
Enough fits. Even if you don't believe in an antichrist, the fact that so much lines up with the LITERAL worst possible being on earth should be alarming.
‘member when Americans apologised to the world for re-electing Bush?
Yeah. They didn’t mean it.
To be fair, the Americans doing the apologizing probably did, the ones that liked having Bush wouldn't have apologized in the first place?
Either that or America wanted a progressive Democrat candidate. We will never know because the second never happens.
weird that we chose a fascist instead then.
I used to think this, not anymore, this one was obvious, everyone who pulled that lever, knew what they were voting for.
America is a shit hole. Who could argue at this point?
If only journalism was this blunt at an earlier point than after he won, again.
I'd agree if it wasn't in their opinion section
Nope, America is and wants to be, a big, racist wagie prison. I hope the jumpsuits are red white and blue.
Running as Republican-lite and courting the neocons will just serve to validate right-wing ideologies and strengthen the vote for the real Republican candidate. Harris needed to lean into the Walz platform, but her consultants clearly failed (sabotaged?) her. Add to this the fact that Americans grown to hate standard politicians—at least for president—and it's clear this was Trump's election to lose.
Wrong sentence to put "Opinion:" in front of
that's just, like, a fact, man
I'm fully ready to admit that America is an Idiocracy. It prefer to stay optimistic about the future, but when the majority of voters choose the Orange Sack of Shit in spite of everything we know about him, they must be fucking idiots. I'm ashamed to be associated with this country anymore. I've actually been anticipating that it will break up and balkanize. The goalposts keep moving but I really think it's inevitable, and I just hope the process isn't an apocalyptic mess.
Idiots and evil. Dont forget the evil voters.
Ill take balkanization over a dictatorship tbh, maybe we can try this union thing again when ruralites get sick of being trampled
We were so close to electing a president that can speak in complete sentences!
Two inches. We avoided Gilead by two inches
I used to naively believe that sometimes things need to get bad before they can get good. Like, sometimes someone needs to lie in the gutter first before they are able to look up at the stars…
It seems there’s no floor to how bad things can get.
It’s mostly just all gutter now.
And the gutter is just a rest stop before the sewer.
Well said.
This is the US of A. Fear, anger, hate. Everyone else knows it. They just need to admit it to themselves.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Keep on clicking those "Trump" headlines.
Send a tweet as well!Opinion: Rex Huppke needs to crawl up his own ass.