All American presidents up to this point have, to varying degrees, had a sense of self-preservation, that while their vision of America didn't necessarily align with that of other people it was what was best for the country. Maybe what was best was a war in Iraq, or a tax break for the rich, but it was at least based on some principle.
Now all that's gone out the window. Policies are based on complete nonsense. Allies are shown the door. Theories with zero credibility are being treated as hard fact.
The toughest part about resisting all of this is that it won't stop. This will be a tidal wave of unimaginable bullshit that must be held back.
The bitter irony is that we have a seated president that promised such things, but only stood to do the opposite. We simply can not trust the vast majority of our political body to do what they say, promise and in turn we elect them to do.
We are probably less than a couple decades away from a 1984-like dystopian future, or a very large scale block of civil unrest and domestic warfare. The increasing separation of classes combined with the duplicitous nature of politics and corporatism in the U.S. (let alone through the world) can not be strained much further without one of those results taking hold.
Our fellow citizens elected a reality TV star as president of a country with nuclear weapons.
People are passing judgment for, I think, fully rational reasons.
The Atlantic has had several good articles on how fundamental societal trust is dissociating in America. The election of Trump isn't the only aspect of it, but it did scare about half the country into thinking the other half isn't rational in the same way they are. And the feeling is mutual.
One scary side of this is that it appears to have led ordinary people who see the system as rigged to elect an “anti establishment” president who is even more zealously rigging the system. American politics needs profound change and brave new leaders with a new vision.
The frightening thing is that this would-be-king still has support from 40% of the populace. We're stuck with them and they are the greatest threat to the principles of American freedom. This country can't work with so many people happily supporting demagogues who pander to their pet issues and ignoring the damage they cause.
What I was afraid of has now come to pass. People are too divided to even reach out and talk. Is there any hope that sanity will return to Politics in the States?
The USA is really quickly drifting away from our civilization. Way too many Americans have lost any connection with reality and have become Fox News zombies, to continued believing Drumpf was an accident or Russian hack.
The US seems to be nosediving at breakneck speed though, regardless of the change of president, due to the immense systemic issues it accumulated over the decades. Please try escaping out of your own liberal fantasy bubble and explore some other bubbles if you want to see how other people think about your country.
This is conventional wisdom, but I take a contrarian position:
"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities"
-- Winston Churchill (allegedly)
I've been following politics since the 1968 of Robert Kennedy (broke my young heart) and my sense is that Americans are fed up with Republican antics and extreme positions. I think it's worth looking at the Goldwater campaign in '64. He was riding a wave of cold war anti-communism hysteria, but got crushed by Lyndon Johnson.
I think similarly Republicans will get crushed in '22 and '24 because Americans have sobered up and realized we have serious problems to confront. Republicans are offering no solutions, only antics. The flim/flam trolling party is over.
That's my feeling and I'm looking for ways to make bets on prediction markets:
When we are electing the president by the same principle, I assure you that it is even worse than you can imagine. Societal collapse is imminent. Those who are comforted by their station in life always think they are living in a utopia. You are surrounded by fake smiles adorning people forced into subservience. At one time the myth that hard work and dedication would pay off in the end kept people in line, the "american dream" they called it. Now that myth has been tempered by reality, watching the last generation work all their lives with many having little to their names and no security is what looms over the current generation. We know it's a lie. That lie was keeping things together. We are heading into an age of great civil brawling fueled by immense economic pressure caused by corruption on all fronts.
What's extremely worrying is that his election and subsequent events have shown a very sizable portion of the electorate to have problems with mental stability.
So when it's convenient, we look to Trump as an example?
It's terrifying to watch so many people argue back and forth so adamantly defending their sides, meanwhile almost no one even brings up the possibility that they both screwed up.
One dimensional politics will be the end of the American Empire.
Events/(choices) like this have disastrous consequences for any hope of bridging the widening polarization. I'm starting to think we may never get back to where we were.
The author is delusional. This isn't a re-run of Bush 2000 for liberals or Obama 2008 for conservatives.
At a time of greatest institutional weakness, a demagogue with authoritarian tendencies that considers the norms of a liberal democracy to be a inconvenience and subordinate to the needs of order has just been elected on a wave of hate, lies, racism, and bigotry with the promise of locking up his political opponents and abandoning international allies and obligations.
This is potentially a game changer from which there is no return and everyone is a loser.
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