US Presidential Election, Nov 5th 2024

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

Seems clear to me that Musk is the Goebbels of MAGA. And he’s been very successful in his role.
What looks likely is that he will be the puppet master of the incoming administration. Trump is in awe of him because of his vast wealth and we all know that Trump can be bought by anyone willing to flash the cash.
Worrying times if Musk becomes the de facto president behind the scenes.

I'm not sure it's that much more worrying than dick Cheney or any number of democrat donor's tbh. Until there is some sort of cap on campaign donations / spending, then US democracy will be owned and dictated by corporate interests that are looking after themselves rather than the population.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

Laughable...



The Guardian has completely lost the plot, it lost it a long time ago.

The worrying thing is that the journalists traumatised by the US election result expected (and probably still expect) us to believe they are unbiased professionals giving impartial analysis of the news.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

Trump now has the problem of the hugely unpopular agenda his followers will want to push.

There are people in his orbit who want to disband the big government agencies. Gut the IRS, FBI, etc etc.... They will want him to release all the Jan 6th prisoners and create a federal abortion ban.

He has to push back against his own people or implement a car crash. Last time round his administration ground to a halt with all the infighting and he mostly golfed his way through the second half.

This time he looks set to put far more hardliners in top positions and with full control of the other houses he can do some radical things. But as soon as the difficulties hit, the leaking starts and the bad coverage he will start blaming and firing them.

Hugely unpopular? He has a MANDATE.

His supporters WANT mass deportations, they WANT Gaza razed, they WANT NATO withdrawal, they WANT 60 percent tariffs, they WANT trans kids dragged through town by pick up trucks, they WANT the death penalty for abortion doctors, they WANT the Bible taught in public schools. More than anything, they want those they hate and blame to SUFFER.

That’s what they voted for. There isn’t going to be any pushback. There isn’t going to be any bad coverage.

No one voted for a kinder, gentler Trump. They voted for a wrathful, vengeful one.

 

[Dax777]

He's a hate monger, if you vote for him it's a facilitation of that hate mongering whether intentional or not.

Do you want me to list the times he's stood on public platforms and actively encouraged the othering of minorities, vulnerable people, perceived enemies etc? We could be here a while.

I disagree with a lot of this. But I won't belabor the issue. I am as unlikely to convince you as you are to convince me.

At a slightly more scientific level, he's a populist and there's now a body of research that shows the relationship between populism and hate. Populism has typically been studied from the supply side rather than demand side as it were; but researchers have taken to looking at the relationships i.e whether hate filled people simply seek out and drive populists forwards or whether being exposed to populism increases the levels of hatefulness people experience. It transpires that exposure to populism increases the levels of hatred people experience rather than hate begetting the popularism. This is bad at one level as it means levels of hatred within the population can be increased by populist behaviour but good at another level in that the rise in populism at any given point doesn't suggest an inherently more hateful population at that time. It's also been shown that you can reverse those levels of hatred in the majority of people (i.e those that don't suffer from underlying personality disorders). However that's not cheap to do, so much better to not let people sow hatred in the first place for both the obvious and less obvious reasons.

This might have something. But I'm have almost as little faith in studies coming out of the social science and humanities fields of higher education these days.

That said, is probably have to see these studies their methodologies and biases before I can opine. But I'm unfortunately probably not as interested in wading through it.

For example if I had the energy, I'd like to know how they defined "populist" and what qualifies one. How did they define 'hate' or hate filled people.

Let's for example use this and similar threads as an example

Am I the hateful one when if I disagree with the opinion of the majority and think men shouldn't be allowed in female jails or sports... to use a present relevant example. Or are the people who call me a piss of shit, a bigot, am asshole , a bastard and transphope the hateful ones?

I suppose that would depend on where you stand on the issue, no? Or better yet, if you stood outside the fray perhaps you'd conclude both I and the abusers are both hateful. A conclusion I certainly would not abide.

Anyway, still enjoyed reading your summary on the studies.

 

[KS55]

Amazing how all these academics can tell us now why what happened happened. But nobody could interpret the signs and see it before it happened.

I had asked for some introspection on here these last few weeks and there was none. Even now, there isn't much. If this is typical of democrat thinking, they will be out of power for a long while unless Trump tanks everything or the democrats find themselves a new Obama. A heterosexual one, obviously.

What a country.

If you look at the discussion panels on US tv, there are democrats saying exactly that. They don’t have any answers yet but they are aware of the need to change.

 

[KS55]

Hugely unpopular? He has a MANDATE.

His supporters WANT mass deportations, they WANT Gaza razed, they WANT NATO withdrawal, they WANT 60 percent tariffs, they WANT trans kids dragged through town by pick up trucks, they WANT the death penalty for abortion doctors, they WANT the Bible taught in public schools. More than anything, they want those they hate and blame to SUFFER.

That’s what they voted for. There isn’t going to be any pushback. There isn’t going to be any bad coverage.

No one voted for a kinder, gentler Trump. They voted for a wrathful, vengeful one.

I fear you are right. The only hope is Trumps lack of discipline leading to infighting in the ranks but the prospects are not great.

 

[Ifwecouldjust.......]

Hugely unpopular? He has a MANDATE.

His supporters WANT mass deportations, they WANT Gaza razed, they WANT NATO withdrawal, they WANT 60 percent tariffs, they WANT trans kids dragged through town by pick up trucks, they WANT the death penalty for abortion doctors, they WANT the Bible taught in public schools. More than anything, they want those they hate and blame to SUFFER.

That’s what they voted for. There isn’t going to be any pushback. There isn’t going to be any bad coverage.

No one voted for a kinder, gentler Trump. They voted for a wrathful, vengeful one.

Perhaps no one voted for him at all ..... somethings up as he has gone very very quiet....

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

Hugely unpopular? He has a MANDATE.

His supporters WANT mass deportations, they WANT Gaza razed, they WANT NATO withdrawal, they WANT 60 percent tariffs, they WANT trans kids dragged through town by pick up trucks, they WANT the death penalty for abortion doctors, they WANT the Bible taught in public schools. More than anything, they want those they hate and blame to SUFFER.

That’s what they voted for. There isn’t going to be any pushback. There isn’t going to be any bad coverage.

No one voted for a kinder, gentler Trump. They voted for a wrathful, vengeful one.

I don't expect him to deliver on the bad things he's promised any more reliably than the good ones.

 

[KS55]

"It's the economy, stupid" - if that's indeed the explanation - which I think is true (with the interpretation that it's not how the economy is going but rather how individuals are faring under the economy) then... well, it's somewhat out of the Dems hands... absent some sort of campaign that promises to fix income inequality and that somehow manages to resonate with the majority of voters.

If very high tariffs lead to a trade war, you can see plenty of Americans losing their jobs as the world economy slows down. Also serious inflation.

 

[BlueMoonAcrossThePond]

If very high tariffs lead to a trade war, you can see plenty of Americans losing their jobs as the world economy slows down. Also serious inflation.

+1.
Nonetheless, Trump will impose huge tariffs against China once in power - that's almost for certain. Any adverse negative impact on the economy will be blamed on well, space aliens... - he'll continue in this vein as a know-better-than-you-do... but would possibly change tack if things go horribly awry, depending on if he could save face changing his mind.