politicalantibody reblogged
not-safe-for-democracy
World’s biggest loser!
politicalantibody reblogged
politicalantibody reblogged
By now, every pundit in America has their own 2024 election take, mostly confirming their prior opinions. Every Republican has a take, too, which is that Americans voted resoundingly for — well, for whatever policy that Republican cares about, from opposition to transgender rights to support for prayer in schools. And of course, progressives, especially younger ones, have every right to feel afraid, angry, or alienated.
But the data tells a specific story, not a choose-your-own-adventure. And that is that swing voters voted mostly out of economic insecurity and discontent. They actually liked Kamala Harris more than Donald Trump (Harris’ favorability was 48 percent, compared to 44 percent for Trump). But Harris was the incumbent, and incumbents don’t win elections when people think the economy is bad.
This is not just an American phenomenon. As the Financial Times reported, in every developed country in the world, the incumbents lost this year. This is unprecedented.
If, like me, you’re being kept awake at night thinking about this election, this explanation helps. Yes, people were willing to put up with Trump’s criminality, coup attempts, and extreme xenophobia, and that is still terrible. Many were also on board with scapegoating immigrants for our economic woes, which is as factually preposterous as it is morally offensive.
But they didn’t vote for MAGA. They didn’t vote against women, or wokeness, or coastal elites, or climate regulation, or government regulation in general, or queer people. Not directly, anyway. They voted against the incumbent party, like every other developed country in the world this year. The shock waves from the Covid-19 pandemic — inflation, empty shelves, housing prices — are global, and this is a global trend. Everywhere in the world, voters have chosen to throw the bastards out because of the economy.
In fact, if you look closely at the Financial Times data, Trump actually did worse than most other non-incumbents. Yes, he won a clear victory. But it was not as big a victory as parties in France, Italy, or even New Zealand.
[...]
So what happens when the emperor is revealed to have no clothes — or even worse, the garb of the same financial “elites” he claims to be against? Obviously, the MAGA faithful will stay with Trump no matter what — after all, his failure to bring about revolution in 2017 spawned the QAnon conspiracy theory, which said he was really about to do it, any day now. But the economic voters that gave him his victory could abandon Trump if he can’t deliver results. And he cannot. While Trump is busy trying to throw his enemies in jail, he has no plan — not even “concepts of a plan” — for the kitchen-table concerns that actually put him into office. Maybe, just maybe, voters will see they’ve been conned.
That is the best we can hope for.
Jay Michaelson wrote in Rolling Stone that some of who voted in Donald Trump due to “muh economy” or “muh grocery costs” could be in for a shock.
Trump will actually make inflation worse, either through tariffs, deportation of undocumented workers, or both. This is not rocket science, even for us non-economists.
Source: Rolling Stone
politicalantibody reblogged
“There's a reason why you separate the military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state. The other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.” - Commander Adama, Battlestar Galactica
politicalantibody reblogged
Our first victory against trump!
Time to start celebrating ALL the small wins, because EVERY win means a lot, and every win helps us fight for the next one!
politicalantibody reblogged
Margaret Mead
politicalantibody reblogged
Accurate portrayal. “Killer Klowns from the Outer Right”. Now showing in a government near you.
politicalantibody reblogged
Nominating the sex trafficker is MAGA gospel.
politicalantibody reblogged
Thank you Stephen King for calling Elon Musk the First Lady 🤣
Getting booted from X like this is a true badge of honor
politicalantibody reblogged
Love this! To quote Firesign Theater: “Everything you know is wrong!”
politicalantibody reblogged
politicalantibody reblogged
Trump supporters don't see marginization of others as connected to their vote.
Live with your choice.
I do my best to dissociate myself from Trump supporters because their very presence seems to suck the joy out of me. I need them to be isolated from my personal space.
politicalantibody reblogged
Republicans carve up a good Democratic econony to reward the worst oligarchs.
politicalantibody reblogged
politicalantibody reblogged
Can you spot the difference?
Which group looks more like America?
politicalantibody reblogged
1. “How could Donald Trump have won 51 percent of the popular vote?”
2. “How hard is it to immigrate to New Zealand?”
3. “What the actual fuck?”
Fair questions. Let’s try a thought experiment. Could Tuesday’s election results have been any worse?
Well, what if, instead of 51 percent, the Republican nominee had won 59 percent? Or 61 percent? And what if he had won 49 states?
Those aren’t hypotheticals. Those were the results of the 1972 and 1984 landslides that reelected Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
With thumping victories like those, what could possibly go wrong for the winners?
If history’s any guide, some nasty surprises await Donald Trump.
In 1972, the Democratic presidential nominee, George McGovern, won just 37.5 percent of the vote, carrying only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia for a total of 17 Electoral College votes. He didn’t even win his home state, South Dakota.
In 1984, Democrat Walter Mondale did carry his native Minnesota, but that was as good as it got for him. In the Electoral College, he fared even worse than McGovern, with a whopping 13 votes.
In the aftermath of these thrashings, the Democratic Party lay in smoldering ruins, and Republicans looked like indestructible conquerors.
Now, some might argue that those GOP victories, though statistically more resounding than Trump’s, weren’t nearly as alarming, because he’s a criminal and wannabe autocrat.
But Trump’s heinousness shouldn’t make us nostalgic for Nixon and Reagan. They were also criminals—albeit unindicted ones. And they were up to all manner of autocratic shit—until they got caught.
The Watergate scandal was only one small part of the sprawling criminal enterprise that Nixon directed from the Oval Office in order to subvert democracy. For his part, Reagan’s contribution to the annals of presidential crime, Iran-Contra, broke myriad laws and violated Constitutional norms.
The hubris engendered by both men’s landslides propelled them to reckless behavior in their second terms—behavior that came back to haunt them. Nixon was forced to resign the presidency; Reagan was lucky to escape impeachment.After the Watergate scandal forced Richard Nixon from office, this bumper sticker helped Massachusetts voters brag that they handed him his only Electoral College loss in 1972.
Of course, Trump would be justified in believing that no matter how reckless he becomes, he’ll never pay a price. He’s already been impeached—twice—only to be acquitted by his Republican toadies in the Senate. And now that the right-wing supermajority of the Supreme Court has adorned him with an immunity idol, he’ll likely feel free to commit crimes that Nixon and Reagan could only dream of. Who’ll stop him from using his vast power to persecute his voluminous list of enemies?
Well, the enemy most likely to thwart Trump in his second term might be one who isn’t on his list: himself. The seeds of Trump’s downfall may reside in two promises he made to win this election: the mass deportation of immigrants and the elimination of inflation.
Trump’s concept of a plan to deport 20 million immigrants is as destined for success as were two of his other brainchildren, Trump University and Trump Steaks. The US doesn’t have anything approaching the law-enforcement capacity to realize this xenophobic fever dream.
And as for Trump’s war on inflation, the skyrocketing prices caused by his proposed tariffs will make Americans nostalgic for pandemic-era price-gouging on Charmin.
It's possible that Trump’s 24/7 disinformation machine, led by Batman villains Rupert Murdoch, Tucker Carlson, and Elon Musk, will prevent his MAGA followers from ever discovering that 20 million immigrants didn’t go anywhere. And it’s possible that if inflation spikes, he’ll find a scapegoat for that. (Nancy Pelosi? Dr. Fauci? Taylor Swift?)
And, yes, it’s possible that Trump will somehow accomplish his goal of becoming America’s Kim Jong Un, and our democracy will go belly-up like the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City.
But I wouldn’t bet on it. I tend to agree with the British politician Enoch Powell (1912-1998), who observed that all political careers end in failure. I doubt that Trump, with his signature blend of inattention, impulsiveness, and incompetence, will avoid that fate.
And when the ketchup hits the fan, the MAGA movement may suddenly appear far more fragmented and fractious than it does this week. You can already see the cracks. Two towering ignoramuses like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert should be BFFs, but they despise each other—the only policy of theirs I agree with.
If things really go south, expect MAGA Republicans to devour each other as hungrily as the worm who feasted on RFK Jr.’s brain—and that, my friends, will be worth binge-watching. I’m stocking up on popcorn now before Trumpflation makes it unaffordable.
One parting thought. Post-election, the mainstream media’s hyperbolic reassessment of Trump—apparently, he’s now a political genius in a league with Talleyrand and Metternich—has been nauseating. It’s also insanely short-sighted. Again, a look at the not-so-distant past is instructive.
In 1984, after Reagan romped to victory with 59 percent of the popular vote and 525 electoral votes, Reaganism was universally declared an unstoppable juggernaut. But only two years later, in the 1986 midterms, Democrats proved the pundits wrong: they regained control of both the House and Senate for the first time since 1980. Those majorities enabled them to slam the brakes on Ronnie’s right-wing agenda, block the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork, and investigate Iran-Contra.
The lesson of the 1986 midterms is clear: the game’s far from over and there’s everything to play for. If we want to stem the tide of autocracy and kleptocracy, restore women’s rights and protect the most vulnerable, we don’t have the luxury of despair. The work starts now.
politicalantibody reblogged
anyway yeah DELETE YOUR FUCKING ADVERTISING IDS
Android:
Settings ➡️ Google ➡️ all services ➡️ Ads ➡️ Delete advertising ID
(may differ slightly depending on android version and manufacturer firmware. you can't just search settings for "advertising ID" of course 🔪)
iOS:
Settings ➡️ privacy ➡️ tracking ➡️ toggle "allow apps to request to track" to OFF
and ALSO settings ➡️ privacy ➡️ Apple advertising ➡️ toggle "personalized ads" to OFF
more details about the process here via the EFF
PSA. We all know that maintaining our electronic privacy is getting more difficult. But it has just become much more likely that knowledge of your digital footprint will be weaponized.