Rhetorical question: How the fuck is this election even close?

[Aviation Pro]

The answer is the stupid, stupid will be our bane, malfeasance we can deal with, but stupid has caused the downfall of many nation-states. A block of stupid is prepared to vote for that stupid motherfucker and his equally stupid running mate, you know, the couch fucker.

And on a personal note, should stupid succeed, I'm going to have reevaluate my retirement plans because stupid will affect all the planning I've done up to this point.

So, fuck stupid, fuck it to its stupid core.

Let's put stupid to rest on Nov. 5th.

[Blue Owl]

1. K&R

[RandySF]

2. This country lost its shit when a black man was elected POTUS.

It literally broke half the country.

[Aviation Pro]

6. Not the entire country

Not even close. Just a very vocal and stupid minority.

[Playingmantis]

3. Someone explained it to me this way

Open racism is no longer acceptable, but the feelings are still there..,,they just get expressed in different ways..

I could give examples but I think we all know what I am talking about.....

[Tree Lady]

4. Remember Colbert and when he did the word

truthiness? There is no truth anymore, its all twisted. There is no impartial side that both sides agree to. There are many respected experts our side agrees to but they don't.

So who do you send the other side to with our facts? That is the question as they don't seem to believe experts anymore.

[3catwoman3]

5. It is baffling, embarrassing, distressing, infuriating, appalling...

...horrifying, astounding, shocking, etc, etc, etc, that such a huge segment of the voting population in this country are so fucking stupid.

[littlemissmartypants]

18. I had a boss who used to complain that...

The masses are asses.

I didn't fully understand him until now.

❤️

[Silent Type]

7. It is hard for me believe. I think racism/bigotry is a big part of it. The other is rural rubes cannot stand liberals.

trump is their boy.

It’s been extremely disappointing to see roughly half of the country supporting trump and hatred. I think there are more of us who detest trump or at least won’t vote for him, but we won’t know until November.

[lindysalsagal]

9. The white European patriarchy is trying to retain power through fear

[rubbersole]

44. It's working so far.

Unlimited money is going to be tough to beat. Truly a generational struggle. With women, youth and the people that support them the fight is on in this election like never before. Pissed off women rarely lose a fight. Just sayin'.

[mitch96]

8. "How is this election even close?" For me it's always follow the money. It's close b/c MSM wants it close

They want a horse race, a tight competition to keep you interested. If your on the "hook" they have eyeballs on the information AND THEY ARE SELLING ADVERTISING!! If one or the other was way out front leading there would be no need to watch the race.
How often have the MSM polls been dead on the money right?
I think Harris is going to win, TFG will have a stroke and all will be well.
m

[usonian]

10. You and I don't exactly see it (on purpose) but it's decades of 24 by 7 by 365 brainwash propaganda.

Fascist Playbook, exactly.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-on-the-quot-big-lie-quot

The OSS psychological profile of Hitler described his use of the big lie:

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

This has grown to be a cult. Now, cults only grow to a certain size. But others on the periphery are affected by the constant hate. There were very long hate and character assassination campaigns against Barack, Hillary and Joe Biden. The political master move of all times was Joe Biden seeing this negativity and handing the nomination to Kamala. The GOP spent all its ammunition, money and strategy on Joe, and is still attacking him. They can't recover and they can't cram years and years of propaganda into a few months. Their cult is a bit slow on the uptake for character assassination, though they pivot daily on "outrage du jour". They can't connect them, and since the attacks on Joe (like everything else) were and are projection of their own sins and crimes, they are backfiring. It gives me special pleasure to see the ageism fly right back in their faces.

The hate machine is late to the new game and failing miserably. And it's on that periphery that people have fewer negatives deeply implanted.

I always argue big issues,
https://democraticunderground.com/100219539535
Not in great detail. Just enough, IMO, to make the very clear distinction, past all the deliberate "flooding of the zone" with crap meant to bury issues --- for certain, past the sensationalist clickbait media.


THOUGH psy-ops by the good guys, which I think we're seeing these days, are just fine with me. Whatever works!!

[eppur_se_muova]

26. "concentrate on one enemy at a time ..." tfg is incapable of doing that; he lacks the self-discipline.

Have you ever heard someone described by the remark, "If he had a brain, he's be dangerous"? It sounds witty, but tfg shows it's possible to be exceedingly dangerous with an absolute minimum of brainpower, particularly if you can hire better brains than you live in.

[usonian]

43. So who's perfect?

He has deluded himself in the brain department, as many wealthy people do, since money is God in our culture, and they feel like supreme beings.

That's about all I can add to your argument.

Is it better to be a smart "son of a rich dad" malevolent Bond villain with IQ, or a bumbling idiot son ( I won't mention Steve Forbes by name) oops! I guess it depends on their skill at demagoguery.

His drugs are showing, as did Hitler's. Check the History Channel show on YT "High Hitler". No amount of IQ can survive all those meds.

[eppur_se_muova]

49. "bumbling idiot son" -- how did Dubya get dragged into this ? nt

[Tumbulu]

11. Rush Limbaugh was allowed to pollute the hearts and minds

of two generations.

No resistance, no pushback, despite the please of all of us in rural areas who were and still are terrorized by the rhetoric that has metastasized into MAGA / Q anon , etc.

Urban people utterly ignored the crazy aunts and uncles, and the rural kids who got swept up into this way of seeing the world.

The Mega churches and Evangelicals and super right wing branch of the Catholic Church all sort of coalesced into a unit to fight Roe V Wade.

By getting enough people in the rural areas brainwashed critical mass was achieved by all of these different groups. T just saw the opportunity to capitalize on this population. And lead them further into the crazy land.

Until something, somehow. Is done about all this propaganda making and sharing, the threat will remain perpetually. The problem as I see it is that only when T was elected did the urban people finally get to see what those of us in rural areas have been having to navigate since the mid ‘80’s when it all began.

[appalachiablue]

19. ++ Began 1970s, 80s, Powell Memo, Reagan, Moral Maj, RW Media, Culture Wars, AntiGov, AntiCivil Rts

[larwdem]

12. Yes

Makes me sick, I'm scared.

[littlemissmartypants]

17. ❤️

[IbogaProject]

13. Because the other side has their own media

I waded over to TruthSocial today to read the last week of DJT posts. It is an actual alternate reality, if someone only read that they'd want to vote for him. Scary how little it takes to sway low info voters. It is all B$ but that is how Hitler funded with American money from wall street came to power, appealing to the dumbest cultivating their base instincts. Obviously I know it is all BS, but it can be exhausting trying to counter it.

[betsuni]

14. The long-term plan to make Americans hate government and see fellow citizens as enemies certainly paid off.

[Skittles]

15. pretty simple to me

women have to be twice as good to be considered half as good

women of color, TEN TIMES AS GOOD

Democrats in general are held to a much higher standard, a female POC MUCH MORE SO; yes indeed.

[ColinC]

16. It probably isn't but let's assume it is

It’s better that way. Knock on doors if you can

[RidinWithHarris]

31. Come on, even beating Trump by 20% (which sure as shit isn't happening) would be too damned close

4 out of 10 voters voting for Trump would still be disgusting and inexcusable.

A "wow the polls sure were off!" result would be something like a 5-6% popular vote lead for Harris.

[ColinC]

33. 5-6% lead would be close to -if not within, the MOE

But I think 10% isn’t entirely out of the question.

[RidinWithHarris]

36. I'd gladly place a bet at 100-to-1 odds on Harris not being Trump by 10% of the popular vote

At any rate, when it's not just a matter of who ultimately wins, but rating the health of our country's culture and politics, 9 out of 20 voters voting for Trump would be a damning assessment, and even doing that well is probably out of reach.

[moonscape]

55. I'm scared by the herculean

efforts it takes to defeat them. What when they have an on-the-surface not crazy candidate as we live with the Electoral College?

[aggiesal]

20. It's not ...

Media needs a horse race to satisfy their monies overlords.
I predict Kamala will win with more than 10M votes with 300+ EV.
But, that's just me.

[RidinWithHarris]

35. Don't pretend, even if Harris wins easily, that the race isn't disgustingly close

You're pooh-poohing the horse race narrative, but still internalizing the horse-race value system where we consider a 5% popular vote lead "big". It's not.

Even a 20% win would mean 4 out of 10 voters voting for Trump, more than enough to still be an appalling reflection on our country and its culture.

[RainCaster]

21. Ever read all those stickers on a ladder?

Those are all there because we have a lot of stupid people. Those are the same people who think TSF will give them fabulous tax breaks, even though they may still be living in Mom's basement.

[valleyrogue]

22. In reality it isn't. n/t

[FirstLight]

23. This keeps coming to my mind...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_doctrine

Unfortunately, I was too young to pay attention at the time in 1987...but I was a reporter in 1997 at a small newspaper. It was still very old school in thought and bias was not taken lightly.

It seems like this action was a huge reason why we see society divided into echo chambers

[Woodycall]

24. Because the wealthy and powerful moneyed interests...

...along with the advertising people and behavioral scientists they employed, understood the fungibility of money. They knew they could sell simple-minded and low intelligence people products that were harmful to them, and society in general. Even though they knew they were deceiving them and harming their and society's interests, they also knew that the simple-minded and low intelligence people's money was just as valuable as informed and intelligent people's money. That's the "dirty little secret" of advertising. They prey on fools. They just took that concept a small step further and realized it would also work for votes because votes are fungible as well. An ignorant, low intelligence, and gullible person's vote counts just as much as a learned, intelligent, discerning person's vote. This was intimated in the Powell Memo about fifty years ago and they have pursued that course ever since. I could provide many more details but the hour is late. Just remember this: These are people who will knowingly, and willfully, poison children for money. If you think that sounds harsh, let me just direct your attention to the tobacco industry, the chemical industry, the drug Industry, the gun industry, ... Remember, history has shown that these people ALWAYS "weaponize stupid" and, they are capable of anything...

[rubbersole]

45. Madison Avenue has a basic formula...

...use sex or/and fear to sell your product. It's working well.

[Nululu]

25. Misogyny, Bigotry, Cruelty, Celebrity worshiping

A lot is backlash against women. People are voting against their own self interest.

Also people are susceptible to self brainwashing as they go down the Russian/Republican rabbithole on social media.

[xocetaceans]

27. Rhetorical answer:

[msongs]

28. half the country s looking for a messiah that's more violent than previous ones nt

[RockRaven]

29. (Too) many Americans alive today have been raised from birth to be

ignorant and hateful and shallow, and proud of it.

[yliza]

30. Gerrymandering and the electoral college

We need a blue tsunami so we can get rid of both.

[calimary]

39. Yes.

Delete the "middleman". Get rid of the Electoral College.

What? OUR votes somehow just aren't good enough?

[spanone]

32. Fucking A

K&R

[Doodley]

34. In eight years, why haven't Democratic lawmakers been able to make inroads into convincing just a fraction of those

who still believe that Trump is a good businessman and is therefore good for the economy?

[betsuni]

47. Democratic lawmakers ARE obviously good for the economy, protect the social safety net, support unions

and protect pensions, their policies help working/middle classes, prevented insurance companies from refusing coverage for pre-existing conditions, have been trying to lower the age of Medicare eligibly and lower Pharma costs for decades, Democratic-controlled states have higher minimum wages and better standards of living, support education, environmentalism, infrastructure, equality, etc.

Reality doesn't convince them. What magic words would convince them?

[Metaphorical]

37. Goes way back

The rich didn't like FDR - he was a class traitor. A lot of the conservative agenda arose in the wake of that, and accelerated with the Civil Rights movements of the 60s and 70s. The Hitler sympathizers among the upper class never really want away, they just put on protective coloration.

There was an interesting commentary on the Forbes 30 under 30 feature that they've been doing for a couple of decades now, highlighting the young entrepreneurs that were the future of business. Significantly, if you look back at who has been on that list, a surprising number of them (mostly conservative) are now in prison or disgraced. Our fearless business leaders have inculcated Hitler's propaganda into their children, and not surprisingly, all too many have become sociopaths of the first order. What is most remarkable about Trump is the fact that he has managed to avoid getting thrown into jail, but there are all too many others that are not all that different.

[Warpy]

38. Ratings and clicks. That's your answer.

And no matter what the margin is, TFG will claim a los was rigged and false on the basis of all that TV hot air. That will keep the drama going and generate more ratings and clicks.

The truth? No clicks and ratings.

[calimary]

42. Yep. Ratings and clicks.

You get good ratings? The boss will decide you're golden.

[Metaphorical]

40. Also

Remember that 50% of the population is, by definition, below average.

[markodochartaigh]

41. "...going to have

to reevaluate my retirement plans because stupid will affect all the planning I've done up to this point."

I think that very few people understand how true this is.
Before Trump only Iran and Libya talked about an alternative to the dollar as reserve currency. During Trump's administration even France and Germany were talking about it. If the dollar loses reserve currency status the following economic turmoil will dwarf the Great Depression.

If the Republicans succeed in tanking Social Security and Medicare millions of seniors will have to dump their homes into a market rapidly spiraling downward in order to get money to pay for living expenses and health care. Their children, of course, will lose their inheritance. Of course we know what will happen to the homes, we saw it after the 2007 crisis. The homes will be bought up in large lots for pennies on the dollar by hedge funds and well-connected "investors". Even regular people who happen to have the cash will rarely be able to buy one of these houses because the banks will favor the "investors" who can buy a hundred homes at once for cash.

[JI7]

46. It's bigotry and resentment more than stupidity .

[moniss]

48. It is a reminder that this country is far from

Last edited Mon Oct 7, 2024, 04:36 AM - Edit history (1)

most people being welcoming nice people. I remember very well when black leaders and voting rights people were being beaten and killed in the '60's that it was very, very common for white people in private to say things like "Good. They had it coming." Those kind of people never diminished in number all that much.

[NNadir]

50. I'm not entirely sure it is.

[OnDoutside]

52. When you have both Cheneys supporting Harris it really

is inconceivable to me that she's at least not going to get enough to get over the line by something semi clear. The polls have been completely untrustworthy imo.

[lees1975]

53. If Harris wins by 52-44 margin, which is what I think it will be, the fact that 44% of the electorate voted Trump

will be a sign of several things that have occurred, and which need to be addressed somehow.

It's a sign that we've lost our free press and that media has descended into a partisan, corporately greedy profit market.

It's a sign that our students are graduating from high school and college without a working knowledge of either a Constitutional Democracy or a large swath of American history. Too much time with technology and techno education, not enough time making social studies a standards-required course offering.

It's a sign that those who are charged with the responsibility for administering justice are no longer respected.

The first thing we need to do is to pack the Supreme Court. We need six good liberal progressive justices under 45 years of age. Then we need to figure out how to get to the 66 votes necessary to amend the Constitution to eliminate the electoral college.

[angrychair]

57. On Constitutional Convention

I remind people all the time that as long as the majority of state legislatures in the country are controlled by Republicans you do not want a Constitutional Convention because Republicans would have the majority and would have the ability to modify the Constitution in any way they want and Democrats could not stop them.

[bdamomma]

54. Yes

good idea, let's put the felon in dust bin of losers. It's really enough.

The world is watching.

[Stuckinthebush]

56. If we had a national popular vote to choose then it wouldn't be

So it is only close because of our 250 year history of using the electoral college to choose our president. Ridiculous.

[Martin Eden]

58. Multiple incessant fire hoses of disinformation

Millions believe the lies, while others don't know what to believe then disengage from politics.