Couldn’t have been successive gerrymandering, anti-voting laws, Democrats becoming Republican-Lite, increasing inflation, steadying wages, Democrats actively touting policies against the popular public mindset, Democrats failing to advertise their wins, Joe Biden going back on his word and waiting too long to drop out, Joe Biden and establishment Dems muting Kamala’s & Tim’s popular, progressive agenda, Joe Biden dropping out to force the least liked Californian politician to be the presidential front runner, Kamala literally saying she’s no different from Joe Biden, that we don’t have a federal holiday to allow all people the freedom to step away from the lifeline that is work to exercise their civic duty, on and on.

Nah, it wasn’t the system. People are just dumb.

And they are! Hell, I remember seeing interviews on Election Day where people still thought that it was Biden v. Trump. Even Trump forgot he wasn’t campaigning against Biden.

Democrats snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. They could have accounted for all of these social issues, but establishment leadership doesn’t care for the working class if it means they still get their paycheck and their spotlight in Congress.

And then think about how the Democrats could have campaigned those people rather than chasing Republicans by adopting anti-immigration policies and platforming people like Liz Cheney, for example.

But they didn’t.

Welcome to adulthood. Establishment politicians, whether Republican or Democrat, are beholden to the rich and neoliberalism. We’re even seeing this with how establishment Dems are pushing back against populist, progressive figures like Bernie Sanders and AOC in favor of Cory Booker and Chris Murphy.

AND then consider how Joe Biden is coming back from the brink of death by saying that he and Jill will build back the Democratic party, thinking that people will forget how Biden shot down Bernie’s chances in 2020 or how he said he’d be a single term president, waiting until the first presidential debate with Trump months before the election to show just how fucking incompetent he is.

Maybe more people abstained from this election because the two biggest parties didn’t look any different, so who cares about the outcome!

Good point. Original Commenter (OC) is claiming a specificity after the fact when initially they were claiming a generality.

As a reader though, OC’s meaning came across in my first reading. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

This is so wrong man. Jfc

Yeah I found that annoying as well. Sometimes you see it in long sentences too, and it really doesn’t need to be there. The sentence will flow without it.

The protests in Turkey are something I wish Americans would demonstrate. I agree.

I think the reality is that Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, they’re highly individualistic after decades of materialistic conditioning, and younger generations are captured by social media instead of voicing their woes in the streets.

But there is an appetite for action. Look at Bernie’s rallies. People want change, and polls reflect how people have little to no faith in the Democrats.

There needs to be an organizing principle if any political action should be effective. I’m finding the group 50501 to be that, and I try to share their plans on social media and with my friends & family. The next protest I plan on going to is on April 5th.

But you’re right. Americans are distracted with their toys and treats. Make no mistake though. If Trump’s decisions continue to tank the economy, and toys and treats become too expensive, even for the middle and lower class, I believe there will be more action.

What do you mean my that? Like, your own posts or those of others?

Not sure I’m seeing that on my side. Could be wrong tho

I fixed it. Thanks for dunking on my character rather than correcting me tho

My bad. Just ran through the numbers on ballotpedia the other day.

~32% of Americans voted for Trump. ~31% for Kamala, and the remaining ~37% voted third party or not at all.

Republicans are taking these actions, not Americans. And Democrats should have captured more of the 67% instead of going after the ~32%.

That being said, Americans are dumbbbb

Edit: 37% didn’t vote, not 67%. Thanks Lemming

Sync for Lemmy feels just like Reddit is Fun (RiF). So good

Welcome!

Housed persons are peaceful. Unhoused persons are dangerous.

Literally if public housing was dispersed equally and equitably across a given city or area, as time goes by, unhoused people would housed people nearby anyone. They become peaceful by your logic.

The government might be able to do this using eminent domain, but people like you would oppose it in your neighborhood.

Everyone has to be onboard with this so the load on everyone becomes proportional and not disproportional.

And this is where American individualism gets in the way. People don’t value community, and so politicians would be hard pressed to get this done while being shunned from office come time for the next election.

How do you break down American individualism? By removing barriers between housed and unhoused people, doing outreach, having conversations, and lending a helping hand in redevelopment.

Sounds like you’re allergic to all of those though

And no one ever proposes where to build this housing. Sorry, but NIMBY, not around my children and home.

Tell me you don’t live in a city without telling me you don’t live in a city

Oh I’m sorry, I’m an engineer and learned about bases in college. I was just saying how the above comment was pretty much exactly what I’d expect to see in a c/eli5 post! Super succinct

c/eli5

Buddy half of American voters voted for trump.

Incorrect. Only 63.7% of eligible voters turned out to vote in the 2024 US General Election.

That comes out to around 155 million voters, of which around 77 million voted for Trump or ~49.8%. Democrats on the other hand got around 75 million or ~48.3%. of the vote.

This comes out to ~31.7% of eligible voters voting Republican with ~30.8% voting Democrat.

Less than a third of Americans wanted Trump in office, not half. Let’s get the facts straight.

The reality is that the majority of American voters

~31.7% of Americans is not a majority, according to the American Heritage Dictionary.

are stupid, lazy, or both.

Have you considered that the actions of Republicans gerrymandering voting districts to hell and passing anti-voting laws and policies, that the actions of Democrats failing to represent their constituents by veering more and more Right, and that the pressures of capitalism, rising inflation, stagnating wages, and a lack of a national holiday where people take off work to go exercise their civic duties are reasons for why more people don’t go out and vote?

Noooooooo, that can’t be. Voters are stupid. Voters are racist. Voters are lazy. And it isn’t the system that has stripped away their material needs that is the problem.

Hell yeah!

I’d kill to see a Bernie/AOC rally outside of Chicago.

I went ahead and donated to their campaign, but if you’re in a similar boat, give this link a look:

https://berniesanders.com/oligarchy/

Cost of living differs across the world. While you may think that someone living in the US is “rich”, and that might be true compared to the rest of the world, within the US it may mean middle class or borderline lower class depending on the living context.

Say you make $60,000 USD per year as a single adult with no dependents. You’d do ok in Chicago, but would be scraping by in New York City.

Compare that same $60,000 to somewhere outside the US like Rio de Janiero in Brazil, and you’ll see that the you’ll make over 12 times the average living wage there. Conversely, if you took Brazil’s yearly living wage of ~$4,700 and applied it to the US, then you’d be below the average poverty line.

It does us no good to debate how good we have it vs you, or vice versa. (Almost) all of us live under capitalism, and although costs of living vary across the world, this isn’t an argument against UBI. The same issues the US experiences likely are also felt by citizens of many other countries, unless you live somewhere that has already introduced these sorts of safety nets.

Your point about “hard” labor (work done with body) vs “soft” labor (work done with mind and/or little body) doesn’t argue against this either. The economy is greatly stratified. We all don’t have to do the agriculture anymore, like when humans first transitioned from hunter-gatherers to farmers. There are many other things to do and things we can provide for each other, some good some bad. And this also isn’t to say that hard labor is worse than soft labor, or vice versa. They are mainly different kinds of experiences. No judgement need be applied, although many cultures tend to do so. This is one of many reasons why you see and have seen across history labor unions stick up for hard laborers against the “soft laboring” wealthy. This prejudice needs to be uprooted across the world imo.

I 100% agree with you that many formulations of “rich countries” depends on colonizing and extracting wealth from “poor countries”. That is not right. Every country should be able to produce for its own, with help offered in the form of imports/exports of goods & labor to every country. It is not fair that the Global South essentially funds the Global North.

Instead of pointing that out and blaming an entire hemisphere of people for that, we should instead be looking to those in our countries that wield power and make this system the way it is. A farmer in the US Is no different than a farmer in Brazil, at least in terms of the class struggle. It would all benefit us if we see that class divide everywhere in the world, and join together to try to defeat it.

Based