2024 Elections Thread

[Kron3007]

Growing up, everyone always wonders how the Nazis came to power and how ordinary Germans let it happen.  Now we have a pretty clear picture.

I'm not saying Trump is Hitler, but he clearly shows authoritarian signs and has used many of the same tricks.  It's amazing (and tragic) to see this play out in real time and I really fear for America and the world. 

I just hope I am wrong.

One of the explanations for the average German interwar Weimar was that the average German was destitute, in part due to hyper-inflation.

This is the part that really bugs me. The average US citizen of the last ten years was nowhere near as bad off, economically, as the average German was, in the Weimar Republic. Relative to Weimar, the average US citizen was affluent. 

Yet, the so-called bad economy and inflation in the USA lifted Trump back into power.

For this reason, I don't like comparisons to the average German during the rise of Hitler, because not only was the US economy much better than Weimar's economy, we also have access to information, so we can't say "I didn't know" which is the other apologist reason for the average German allowing Hitler to come to power.

Yes, we are worse than the Germans.

I also hope that I am wrong.

I think the other issue is that we have too much information, but not necessarily good information.

If you start googling vaccines, it is fairly easy to conclude that they definitely cause autism and should be avoided, especially if that's what you want to believe.

We live in an era with so much information that if is becoming hard to know what is true, and so easy to find support for whatever you want to believe.

Couple this with the general distrust of science and expertise I see growing and it is a recipe for this.

More information is really part of the issue.

I don't have a problem with too much information. I have a problem with lots of people who see a newspaper article with a picture, from a space probe, of a diving board on Mars, presented as evidence of water on Mars. And, they believe it.

You may not have a problem with too much information, but the general public does.

It isn't just one picture of a diving board on mars, it is hundreds, from different angles and various "experts" corroborating the image. 

With this much evidence, you would be crazy to doubt it.

[spork]

Since we're veering toward Godwin's Law territory:

Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.

As pointed out by writers like Lily Tsai in When People Want Punishment: Retributive Justice and the Puzzle of Authoritarian Popularity, some people just want to be told what to do. Thinking for oneself requires effort and makes one responsible for bad outcomes. Far easier to blame others. This makes authoritarian demagogues appealing.

Fareed Zakaria's analysis of election results on the Freakonomics podcast: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/fareed-zakaria-on-what-just-happened-and-what-comes-next/. He's in part pitching his book, which I can't recommend and think is far inferior to Pankaj Mishra's Age of Anger that I mentioned upthread, but I think he and Dubner make a couple of interesting points in the interview.

There are more recent parallels than the Nazis. Trump's playbook is basically the same as that of the Mexican Left - never admit to losing an election, rail against "the mafia of power" committing fraud to stay in power, never apologize and double down instead, etc. Bear in mind the Mexican Left enacted a hardline immigration policy - with soldiers deployed to the southern border, and basically stayed silent on Trump seizing migrant children from their parents and putting them in cages (they're in "good" company, the same can be said of the "family values" crows). The rise of Trump also closely resembles the rise of Chavez in Venezuela - down to attempting a coup and then getting voted in.

How dare you use Mexicans and Venezuelans to point out that the myth of American exceptionalism is in fact a myth!

Tim Dillon: "You can't run a campaign on the word 'joy' when people can't afford to buy food." What makes this even funnier, in terms of voters' choices, is the correlation between poverty and obesity in the U.S. As my Vietnamese mom once said, "America is the only country in the world where the poor people are pale and fat and the rich people are dark and thin."

[Stockmann]

Ironically, that's not so exceptional either - Mexico actually beats the US for childhood obesity.

[secundem_artem]

Since we're veering toward Godwin's Law territory:

Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.

As pointed out by writers like Lily Tsai in When People Want Punishment: Retributive Justice and the Puzzle of Authoritarian Popularity, some people just want to be told what to do. Thinking for oneself requires effort and makes one responsible for bad outcomes. Far easier to blame others. This makes authoritarian demagogues appealing.

Fareed Zakaria's analysis of election results on the Freakonomics podcast: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/fareed-zakaria-on-what-just-happened-and-what-comes-next/. He's in part pitching his book, which I can't recommend and think is far inferior to Pankaj Mishra's Age of Anger that I mentioned upthread, but I think he and Dubner make a couple of interesting points in the interview.

There are more recent parallels than the Nazis. Trump's playbook is basically the same as that of the Mexican Left - never admit to losing an election, rail against "the mafia of power" committing fraud to stay in power, never apologize and double down instead, etc. Bear in mind the Mexican Left enacted a hardline immigration policy - with soldiers deployed to the southern border, and basically stayed silent on Trump seizing migrant children from their parents and putting them in cages (they're in "good" company, the same can be said of the "family values" crows). The rise of Trump also closely resembles the rise of Chavez in Venezuela - down to attempting a coup and then getting voted in.

America voted for change.

And Trump is gonna give it to 'em good and hard.

[Langue_doc]

The Democrats lost due to a variety of reasons, the economy being the most important. Working class people in the city have been having a difficult time during the past three or four years to be able to afford housing and food. Instead of addressing the distress caused by the increasing food and heating costs, the Democrats have been focused on spending millions and millions of $$ on Ukraine, Israel, and, here in the city, feeding and housing the migrants.

Six years ago, one in ten students in our city were homeless.

Homelessness in New York Public Schools Is at a Record High: 114,659 Students
One out of every 10 students lived in temporary housing during the last school year. 

Now, it's one out of eight students, despite declining enrollment.

1 in 8 N.Y.C. Public School Students Was Homeless Last Year
A record 146,000 students did not have permanent housing, state data shows, as the city dealt with an ongoing housing crisis and an influx of migrants.

There are no extra funds for housing and feeding the migrants, as city services such as libraries, parks and other essential services have seen unprecedented budget cuts. Furthermore, some of the parks have been used for housing the migrants much to the dismay of the people who were in the habit of using these parks for their walks and outings. While the migrants have been given debit cards, citizens have had to cut down on food and other necessities.

Understandably, people who are living on the edge have lost faith in the Democrats and either stayed home or voted for the other party. Identity politics also played a role in voters leaving the party in droves. Legal immigrants who had to wait years to get a visa, and have relatives waiting patiently in line for years in their country of origin to get a visa were upset that all one had to do was walk into the country and claim asylum, hence the naturalized citizens voting against the Democrats. Idenity politics has also not made any strides in improving the lives of the Black community:

Some Black Voters Ask, What Have Democrats Done for Us?

For many Black Americans, the election was "not really a question of a choice between Harris and Trump," said Christopher Towler, an associate professor of political science at Sacramento State and the director of the Black Voter Project, which studies political attitudes and engagement.

"It was a choice between participating at all or staying home," Mr. Towler said.

For example, in Milwaukee, the heart of the Black population in Wisconsin, the city's crucial base of Democratic voters seems to have steadily lost enthusiasm for the party.

In interviews, these voters, especially men, questioned what dividends have come from their loyalty: "I'm just kind of over it all."

Other factors were crime, especially here in NYC, corruption (see the ongoing investigations on the mayor and his associates), and also our politicians, most of whom don't seem to know what matters to their consituents.

[Sea_Ice]

And so it begins / continues -- masked thugs, with Nazi flags, yelling various slurs, parading through Columbus, Ohio with apparent impunity.

Anyone want to bet how long it takes before they feel comfortable enough to remove the masks?

Also, for everyone who has been afraid of gang violence before, how does this make you feel?

[Kron3007]

And so it begins / continues -- masked thugs, with Nazi flags, yelling various slurs, parading through Columbus, Ohio with apparent impunity.

Anyone want to bet how long it takes before they feel comfortable enough to remove the masks?

Also, for everyone who has been afraid of gang violence before, how does this make you feel?

I think what scares me more is the open talk of using the military to round up illegal immigrants and "temporarily" put them in tent camps for deportation.  Sounds an awfully lot like a concentration camp, because it is...

[Myword]

Here's a thought. Since Trump is a felon turn the White House into a jail. Install bars
Around it and give him an orange suit. He cannot leave the grounds and must be supervised
At all times by guards and a warden   His sentence is 4 years on good behavior. That's making it easy
Then he is on parole and monitored forever with gag orders.  Nice idea for a story

[dismalist]

Here's a thought. Since Trump is a felon turn the White House into a jail. Install bars
Around it and give him an orange suit. He cannot leave the grounds and must be supervised
At all times by guards and a warden   His sentence is 4 years on good behavior. That's making it easy
Then he is on parole and monitored forever with gag orders.  Nice idea for a story

That is so lame! :-)

Eugene Debs, leader of the Socialist Party of America, got 3.4% of the vote for President in 1920, running from a prison cell. My fantasy was to see Trump run for President from a prison cell in 2024 and win! I suppose he could've acted as president from a prison cell.

The entertainment possibilities have been enormous.