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Comments

• Jehuty@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  For me, it has been a process of accepting that we can’t handwave actual opposing worldviews by talking about intelligence.

  I know people who aren’t “smart” by most definitions, but who still have a lot of empathy and kindness. On the other hand, I have peers who I consider geniuses in their interests and fields, but with whom I struggled to find common ground politically.

  It’s more useful to look at values. I can agree with most people in my life on the broad strokes. It’s when we get bogged down with micropolitics that fights happen.

  I still think the public reaction to Luigi Mangione was a prime example of how people actually agree about a lot in this country, but frame it differently.

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• aaron@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Theory: this is late-stage capitalism, where the working class are so exploited and overworked that they don’t know who to be angry at. Someone like Trump comes along and (falsely) mirrors their anger and they unwittingly roll out the red carpet for a fascist. I’m really hopeful that once they see what they actually voted for, they’ll not be so welcoming. Trump 1.0 was absolutely nothing compared to what Trump 2.0 is going to be. There are way more puppeteers who are way more prepared this time. Shit’s going down and their constituents are not the ones to piss off. Just feasting on popcorn here.

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• ikidd@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  S O C I A L M E D I A M A N I P U L A T I O N.

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• Fluke@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Stupid does as stupid is.

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• Varyk@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  “am I just imagining some idealistic version of the past that never existed”

  yup.

  Americans have always been this stupid, but stupid people aren’t the problem.

  everyone is stupid, greedy, or otherwise morally corrupt at some point or another or in some situation or another, that’s why legal rights and protections were so important, to keep the playing field level and the trains running on time when the assholes wanted to run riot.

  the successful conservative suppression of civil rights and removal of restrictions on corporate and wealthy political stuff civil activity, particularly the allowance by the Supreme Court of money to dictate political action, has removed the guardrails that used to protect the stupid and keep corrupt people in line.

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• jasoman@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Ever since the lead in gas…

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• fievel@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Somehow related, I have also questions as an European (Belgian) who then observe what is happening right now in the USA with curiosity (and fear to be honest). In my country, we have got a new government almost at the same time Trump was inaugurated. They plan to do some changes to the way some aspects of our society is, changes that are a bit difficult for some categories of the population but really nothing like in the USA. Anyway, since January, there have been strikes, protests, people going in the streets,…

  Why are we not seeing such things in the USA? I would have thought that there will be millions of people in the streets protesting against the F-gesture done to democracy, LGBT rights, women rights, nonsense with economy (tarriff, that at the end the “middle class workers” will have to pay) and foreign politics but, as far as we are aware here in Europe, I seen no such protests. The only action I seen is some boycott of Tesla.

  • Is it a cultural difference with Europe (and other parts of the world) to not go in the streets?
  • Are those occurring but the medias do not inform us on it?
  • Are people scared to protest?
  • Or, people just don’t care or are even, in majority, happy with what happens now?

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  • edgemaster72@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Is it a cultural difference with Europe (and other parts of the world) to not go in the streets?

    Yes, it’s not like it’s entirely unheard of here in the USA (look at what happened with the killing of George Floyd) but for systemic issues, it doesn’t generally get people in the streets, I think at least partly because there’s so many we’ve put up with for so long. There’s also the economics of it where we have less or no time off from work to get out for such events.

    Are those occurring but the medias do not inform us on it?

    There are protests happening but there does seem to be, putting it charitably, a lack of interest to report on such things, and the protests that are happening don’t seem to be of very notable size (again, that could be media spin).

    Are people scared to protest?

    Yes, I imagine plenty are, especially those who may be targeted by ICE or have friends/family who may be targeted by ICE.

    Or, people just don’t care or are even, in majority, happy with what happens now?

    To an extent, yes. I don’t know if I’d say that the majority are happy with the things happening, but a majority are probably okay with it, or just going along in ignorance (willful or otherwise), or too busy or tired just trying to survive rather than make things better.

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• Serinus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Yes. It didn’t help that we spent 50 years saying not to discuss politics or religion.

  But the current situation was largely a coordinated propaganda effort, likely combined with blackmail on politicians. Possibly caused by the hacked emails. Both the DNC and RNC were hacked. Only the DNC side was released.

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• libra00@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  First, your premise is inflammatory and I’m pretty sure it’s intentional, so apology not accepted.

  Second, this is not a uniquely American problem. The UK, for example, has been dealing with the rising conservatism, the dismantling of their government, the privatization of major public services like the rail network, etc. This is the natural conclusion of that process: oligarchs gain so much power they can outright buy presidential elections and accelerate the trend toward fascism. Lots of people have seen this coming, but we can only vote so hard.

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  • leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    There was a post on some Lemmy community or other yesterday which stated that most Americnas support ideas like universal healthcare (55%) and getting rid of guns from private ownership (mid 60% IIRC).

    In that thread someone said it was awful that even amongst progressives the support for universal healthcare was so low and the very few responses to that were basically - :shrug: we’ve been lied to what are we gonna do about it?

    The responses to the gun ownership stat were numerous and declared support for ‘second amendment rights’.

    When even US progressives are passionately defending the biggest cause of child death in the USA in 2022 but are apathetic about universal healthcare, that’s a uniquely US problem that speaks very much to the level of thinking power available.

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    • libra00@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I think I saw that post, and IIRC it was something like 60% of people own guns, and 90% of people support more gun control - there was no mention of getting rid of guns. But, fair enough.

      Yes, America has been sliding into a hypercapitalist hellhole because the right breaks the rules and wins no matter what and then throws wrench after wrench in the works, while the left has no positive vision for the future and has abandoned the working class, so yeah, it’s not surprising that there’s been little to now resistance and lots of appeasement and collaboration with this bullshit. It’s infuriating. But it’s not uniquely American; as I said, we’re just further along than everyone else.

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• Lexam@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Before micro plastics and covid, we had hook worms in the south and leaded gasoline everywhere.

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• Kaboom@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Dude get off lemmy. Go outside, talk to your neighbors.

  Nothings changed, we’re still a giant group of humans. Only your perception has changed.

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  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    We’ve never elected a felon rapist who attempted to overthrow our government.

    So clearly something has changed.

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    • Kaboom@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      We still haven’t. He’s not a felon, and he’s not a rapist. You should really actually read the articles instead of the headlines.

      Funnily enough, there’s been rapists in office before, like Bill Clinton, a democrat.

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• PP_BOY_@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  America has been under the threat of foreign influence since Day 1 and right now, it looks like we are temporarily under attack by agents of Eastern Europe and South Africa. Literally every noteworthy poll of the last 20 years will show that the majority of Americans are against this and it’s important to remember this harm is coming from outside.

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  • Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It’s mostly Russian as the primary contributor.

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  • IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    South Africa

    Musk is under russian control, South Africa got nothing to do with this

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• FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I would say “stupid” is a judgement you should keep between your ears. I think Americans are undereducated before they get released into a mad for-profit higher education system that gives them debts for life (but hitherto also great sciencing at a high level). The strong cultural undercurrent of exceptionalism hardly ever lets them look elsewhere for comparison. And the political system, which is based on who can spend more money, not so much on ideas, is proving to be a system that’s rarely bringing out the best people for top jobs. But it’s a dog and pony show and that favors characters over good policies. The fragmentation of people all watching the same news show at night 3 decades ago, to watching partisan 24h news channels 2 decades ago, to splintering even further on the socials now adds to the problem. There is no largely unified audience with the same facts at their disposal.

  It’s also nice that Trump is now dismantling the democratic state because voting in the US always gets filtered through electoral colleges and gerimandered districts, skewing results to favor the two main parties, often only one of them. It was pretend-democratic until now.

  Something that gets overlooked easily is the long history of fascist rules that was in place in the south after the civil war. Jim Crow laws masqueraded as democracy for a long time and every time courts tried to put a stop to it, the white people in charge found other ways to be a-holes. That’s part of American culture already.

  America has always had a penchant for whacky leaders. Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. None of them fit my idea of a virtuous leader. But at least the ones this century adhered to a decorum, an unwritten standard of how to behave as president. Nixon didn’t want to get caught. Trump doesn’t give a sh!t. So the leadership culture has shifted, not for the better.

  All this mixes a large chunk, an uncurious population that still sees itself pretty much as a role model for the world, falling for simple populist messages. It should also be said that tarring all Americans with the same brush is unfair. I think it was the votes of less than a third of eligible voters that made Trump 2.0 a reality, roughly another third just behind it, with the remainder not bothering to vote at all. I would say the often fantasized silent majority is actually not pro Trump.

  So calling all Americans stupid is not right. There are a lot of people hurting right now as they watch their country develop in a bad way. We need those people to stand up and fight and calling them names doesn’t help.

  (Other countries have gone down similar routes, have had whacky leaders, have done questionable things. The US is not alone on this path.)

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  • Condiment2085@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I really appreciate your level headed take.

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  • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It should also be said that tarring all Americans with the same brush is unfair. I think it was the votes of less than a third of eligible voters that made Trump 2.0 a reality

    But that means all the non-voters are to blame as well.

    And why are the streets so empty now? I can’t see all these democrats out there.

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    • FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I have stated elsewhere in this thread that I have limited sympathy for the US non-voters. So refer to that if you’re curious. I am trying my best not to condemn everybody equally. A free election, in most democracies, means you’re free not to go. Perhaps we’d all be fine with non-voters if Mrs. Harris had won. Putting blame at their feet is also shutting the barn door when the horse has already bolted. We should motivate the ones willing to stand up and resist. You don’t want to injure their pride and get them to jump on the MAGA bandwagon out of spite.

      There are protests taking place. I just saw Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were in the news leading rallies and protests. American and Canadian protesters gathered on either side of one of the lakes, forgot which one. There are people who are saying something. Even GOP voters are shouting down their elected leaders in town hall meetings because Elon chainsawed a benefit that affected them and theirs. It’s easy to draw parallels to 1930s Germany but this Trump 2.0 administration will plot its own despicable course.

      One of the reasons why you don’t see so many mass gatherings like you saw in Serbia recently or Slovakia is also US infrastructure. It’s real hard to get thousands of Americans into one place anywhere when there isn’t sufficient public transport and it would statistically be 1.2 people per car - you’d need a Rhode Island just for parking.

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  • rumschlumpel@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I think it was the votes of less than a third of eligible voters that made Trump 2.0 a reality, roughly another third just behind it, with the remainder not bothering to vote at all. I would say the often fantasized silent majority is actually not pro Trump.

    That means that a third didn’t bother, though. The exact reason is up to debate, but it doesn’t say any good things about them or the political system.

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    • FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I agree. I didn’t mean to imply all of the remainder would be pro just one of the candidates. My guess is that it’s still enough to make up a silent majority. Which sounds great but no one can prove anyways.

      I’m inclined to give American voters a limited raincheck on not bothering to show up. Voting is often a booklet of ballots on various issues and elections for office. It takes forever to fill it in. That explains the long, slow-moving lines outside pulling stations, much rarer occurrences in other democracies. And that’s only the people who are able to come on a workday (and didn’t have the foresight or were unable to get mail-ins). That’s after a registration process that can have Kafkaesque features in many states. So I would forgive the single mother who didn’t have time to do this between working her two low paid jobs. It’s part of a subtle but deliberate disenfranchisement. We’ll add that one to the list of grievances as well.

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• Today@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  People who seem reasonable still say there are good people on both sides. I don’t understand that at all! My hairstylist moved here from vietnam as a kid. Last week i made a comment about bezos and he actually said, “both sides…”. I thought my brain was going to pop.

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  • Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Vietnamese people are very conservative people, not surprising. When I was a public speech course, we had a Viet guy speak and he was very pro war and Republican( this was pre trump(

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  • Kaboom@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    They’re talking about the moderates on both sides. I can probably assume you aren’t.

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• ogmios@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Ask yourself what you think your country would look like if the Internet was hyper fixated on every single bad example anyone could find within your borders.

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• Pronell@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  The gish gallop has gone mainstream.

  What we needed, twenty to forty years ago at the bare minimum, were journalists who were willing to shut that shit down.

  I remember being a child watching the news with my parents and seeing an oil company defender accusing the scientists of chasing profits.

  Like what the fuck? How did that not end immediately with “And who is currently profiting?” is and always has been beyond me.

  …I’m not sure that’s a great example of the gish gallop. Technically.

  My point was that we now report the untrue claims rather than saying, from the start, “This candidate said something completely false and not worth repeating.”

  For clicks, views, the algorithm, for profit. Nope. It was all to game the system in order to destroy it.

  Sorry, this probably isn’t coherent but I’m tired and tipsy, and I’ve chosen to hit save.

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  • Philote@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Of course this is death by a thousand cuts. For me a lot of blame goes to the Reagan administration. They really set up the next 40 yrs plus with trickle down economics. It really hammered home that government is for profit of corporations, not a non-profit service for the people. Citizens United vs FEC (1988) also opened the flood gates to money in politics with no recourse by the public. It’s been a downhill from there in my opinion.

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    • banadushi@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      *2010

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    • Pronell@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I should’ve given the full context - when I was a kid watching the news with my parents it was likely late in the Carter administration, or early in Reagan’s. So yeah, fully agreed.

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• HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Yes, they’ve always been here. There has always been more stupid ignorant people than educated and intelligent people.

  Previously, the stupid had no platform.

  The fire hose of stupid shit we are inundated with nowadays used to only trickle through in person.

  Someone would say something insanely stupid to you at the bar, at the grocery store, at the barber shop etc… and all we had to do was ignore them or tell them to shut up

  Thanks to social media, now they’ve teamed up and have millions of followers.

  The question ought to be, How are the the educated and intelligent going to rise above it?

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  • abbadon420@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Democracy might be the problem. You could put a threshold to vote in place, something to test that you know all the views from all the parties and the relevant topics. It’s a slippery slope though, because once you enable restrictions on voting, it’s hard to disable it again. If you accidentally get a Trump in power, he might just as easily restrict voting back to cis, white males only.

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    • refurbishedrefurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Democracy isn’t the problem; it’s the money in politics, which is an intended effect of capitalism.

      Capitalism is the problem.

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    • Condiment2085@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I was wondering if a top age restriction could be good though. People use to not live so damn long that they could fuck over the future generation.

      Like shouldn’t people who will actually be alive to see the changes they are making make the decisions? Why are we letting people vote who are on their death bed, probably base their decisions on stuff from 50 years ago, and don’t really care about what the people who will actually live that reality will experience?

      Not sure what the cutoff should be. But if 17 year olds aren’t old enough to vote, maybe 60+ year olds aren’t young enough to vote?

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• rumschlumpel@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Anti-intellectualism has a certain tradition in the USA, it’s kind of well-known.

  A German perspective: I think Germans have always been this stupid, they’re mostly just more willing to say the quiet part out loud than they were between 1970 and 2014 (rough estimate). The difference is that the far right extremists have a popular platform now, and the mainstream parties refuse to ban either the far right party or all the media (X, Facebook, local tabloid press etc.) that’s pushing them. If this party had been around in 1960, it would definitely have been banned.

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• My_IFAKs___gone@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Yes. Image aphelis.net/…/ASIMOV_1980_Cult_of_Ignorance.pdf

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• GuyFawkes@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I blame the Left becoming TOO tolerant of all beliefs and allowing this direct to flourish. We really need to acknowledge that some ideas are too far out of mainstream to not be ridiculed into oblivion.

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  • orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    People are down voting you, but I’m hyper left and also believe this. A big one for me is overly sensitive consideration for things that aren’t truly problematic, such as the use of “LatinX.”

    A massive majority of us Latinos do not give a shit about this or think its idiotic. A white person definitely decided that the linguistic gendering inherent to Spanish was sexist.

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  • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The left has undeniably alienated some of their group (my mum was alienated by trans rights, I was alienated by the DNC, Elon was allegedly alienated by Biden’s EV push ignoring Tesla), but I think the bigger problem is the left doesn’t fight for things people care about.

    The right are the only ones in the news cycle (look at how many articles we have about Trump, even when he wasn’t president) which, to anyone who doesn’t treat politics like sports teams, makes you obviously see a thing or true that you support Republicans on. This imo is the critical flaw of the left; I now have no reason to be excited about their platform, and I’m completely numb to anything they say negatively about Trump.

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    • DarkFuture@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I now have no reason to be excited about their platform

      I’m excited about the part where they AREN’T FUCKING FASCISTS.

      I’m completely numb to anything they say negatively about Trump.

      Then Trump has beaten you through attrition, which was his goal.

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    • pulsewidth@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Lol @ thinking Elon Musk was ever ‘left’ he was never even left of center.

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    • november@lemmy.vg ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      my mum was alienated by trans rights

      How in the world does us trying to exist and not be harassed alienate anyone?

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  • Pronell@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    And this is why the Left can’t win.

    It’s too obsessed with purity and infighting to focus on the true enemy.

    The fascists, on the other hand, focus on the true enemy, then focus on purity and infighting!

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    • Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      If you keep thinking there is a left in America, you have to stop looking at Fox and right wing sources. It’s center right at most

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    • merde@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      those people you call “fascists” are too selfish to be fascists. Trump and his minions don’t care about their nation or the well being of its state and people.

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    • BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Most leftists are unarmed finger waggling sign-holders.

      We spent the last thirty years making gun control a priority, making anywhere near a blue state or democrat controlled city impossible to buy a gun, making democrat/Leftist protests just impotent and likely helped with police training rather than change policies or influencepoliticians tonl protect LGBTQ.

      Meanwhile Bubba and his redneck Republican states allowed him to have his ergonimic advanced arsenals delivered to his front door from online purchases at cheaper prices.

      And if you are a Leftist who wants to rebuke me, prove it by posting a pic of your gun. That’s right, you don’t have one and can’t protect our trans folk if they needed our help, you think fascist cops would do that. GTFO of here.

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