He got 2.3 million more votes than Harris, which 1.5% more than her for a grand total of 49.8% of the vote. Almost 2% voted 3rd party, which basically means they didn't vote in FPTP. That still doesn't mean a majority voted for him. Both Obama and Biden won more than 50%, so him not breaking that threshold in either election he won was noteworthy. He's always been the most popular of the unpopular.
And all the ones that didn't vote who could have, were OK with Trump winning, or else they would have turned up to vote against him.
You're not wrong on this point, at least mechanically. Unfortunately for all of us who understand this, most people are don't view voting this way. They lack the imagination for an election meaning the death of liberal democracy. Many who sat out might not have thought Trump would win. They thought even if he did win, he'd only be as bad as his first term, which while bad, could still be passed off as more of the same. Even to this day, people still think we live in a nation of laws, that things will go back to normal next election, that we aren't doomed to decades of instability where nothing is off the table.
I really don't blame them for thinking this, as a Democrats didn't really campaign with the desperation they needed to. They tried a new way Democrat approach of appealing to the middle, thinking the left was secure. They didn't harp on project 2025 or Trump's open promises of dictatorship. They didn't want people to panic, to realize how fragile things were, to realize that the rich donors they served were already on Trump's side. They made everyone, even the loyal voters like me, feel like we had no choice in policy. They made clear that their promises of promoting democracy and regulating capitalism were lies. They made it as hard as possible to rationally support them, so I'll never blame those who didn't vote blue more than I blame the Democrats.
You are correct that Americans failed to prevent this; that everything we see is our collective fault. However, most don't want this. Fascism taking power doesn't mean it is popular or what most really want. It's stupidity, not malice.
He got slightly less than half of the vote with a voter turnout of 64%, meaning only a third of eligible voters actual voted for him. The turnout in 2024 was slightly lower than 2020, but it was still higher than most years before. He has never even reached 50% approval rating, which is low compared to the highs of most presidents before him.
Fascists rarely have majority support, only needing a reliable plurality. They did gain power because not enough was done to stop them, but the lack of action was not just from non voters. The Democrats made multiple political blunders that even their own internal investigations revealed. Not only did they fuck up on Gaza, they completely dropped the ball on economic issues; failing to even acknowledge problems let alone offer anything new.
I swear to God you motherfuckers will never learn! How jingoistic do you need to be to think violent conquest is a distraction to anything? A country's future was just forever altered by an imperial power, and you think it's just a distraction?!
EPSTEIN IS THE GODDAMN DISTRACTION YOU ABSOLUTE BUFFOONS!!!HE COULD RELEASE A TAPE OF HIM RAPING A CHILD WITH EPSTEIN AND IT WOULDN'T SERIOUSLY THREATEN HIS POWER!!!!!!!!!! I don't know why I even bother bringing this up because y'all never wise up 😞
It could definitely imply female incel, but in places like !femcelmemes@lemmy.blahaj.zone it's fairly ironic. In that case, it's more about being a loser than a sexist asshole.
Venezuela was a far easier target than a landlocked country in a part of the world where the US isn't a major imperial player. Maduro was the perfect bad guy for him; an unlikable dictator who bullied neighboring countries over their own oil supply.
The Epstein situation is more depressing than outrageous to me and always has been. As fucked up as it is, I have no faith in it ever jeopardizing his power in any way. Conservatives that often push for child marriages won't care. Edgy 4chaners who think loli porn is based are a major force in his youth support. Trump's fascism fundamentally mocks any moral outrage about right and wrong, viewing power as the only metric to determine right to rule. He does not care about God or country, something that most of the Christian nationalists who follow him accept because at least he wins.
My view has long been that Epstein is more of the distraction, despite what him and Trump did being pure evil. The forest is the systemic horrors inflicted on kids by ICE, by increased poverty, by a rise in right wingers who are controlling of kids, while the kids one group of pedos abused is just the biggest tree. All this flaffing around trying to find proof of what everyone already knows is outsized to its usefulness. Trump raped kids and there will never be accountability, while we can see actual good if we work to save new kids from cruel parents, a cruel legal system, and poverty. Even helping one kid in your own neighborhood will do more good than all the attention people have given to Trump/Epstein in the past year.
Idk, this actually hits really close to home for me. For the longest time, I would choose the male option whenever I had the choice. Even though nobody was watching me play, I thought I had to pick my AGAB when playing roleplaying games. Needless to say, when I finally decided to pick a female MC, I never felt right going back.
How the fuck is invading another country for oil about a dead pedo who Trump was a well known friend of? This is literally conquest and you're still obsessing about an issue that could never seriously threaten Trump
He got 2.3 million more votes than Harris, which 1.5% more than her for a grand total of 49.8% of the vote. Almost 2% voted 3rd party, which basically means they didn't vote in FPTP. That still doesn't mean a majority voted for him. Both Obama and Biden won more than 50%, so him not breaking that threshold in either election he won was noteworthy. He's always been the most popular of the unpopular.
You're not wrong on this point, at least mechanically. Unfortunately for all of us who understand this, most people are don't view voting this way. They lack the imagination for an election meaning the death of liberal democracy. Many who sat out might not have thought Trump would win. They thought even if he did win, he'd only be as bad as his first term, which while bad, could still be passed off as more of the same. Even to this day, people still think we live in a nation of laws, that things will go back to normal next election, that we aren't doomed to decades of instability where nothing is off the table.
I really don't blame them for thinking this, as a Democrats didn't really campaign with the desperation they needed to. They tried a new way Democrat approach of appealing to the middle, thinking the left was secure. They didn't harp on project 2025 or Trump's open promises of dictatorship. They didn't want people to panic, to realize how fragile things were, to realize that the rich donors they served were already on Trump's side. They made everyone, even the loyal voters like me, feel like we had no choice in policy. They made clear that their promises of promoting democracy and regulating capitalism were lies. They made it as hard as possible to rationally support them, so I'll never blame those who didn't vote blue more than I blame the Democrats.
You are correct that Americans failed to prevent this; that everything we see is our collective fault. However, most don't want this. Fascism taking power doesn't mean it is popular or what most really want. It's stupidity, not malice.