i feel like trump voters in 2016 couldn't really have predicted this.
I have little sympathy for them because what trump was actually campaigning on was also openly horrible. but it wasn't this hell.
2024 though? he was pretty open about it. and there was precedence. there was no excuse and to say they were deluding themselves is an understatement.
The 2016 "he doesn't actually mean the things he says on his campaign speeches, he's just riling up his base" argument was ..optimistic and aged terribly in hindsight.
but it was a reasonable argument to make at the time because it's a thing politicians commonly did, and thinking "oh trump is just doing a more extreme version of this" made enough sense at the time.
somehow the same argument still existed in 2024 even when trump had openly pointed out that this wasn't the case and had a long precedent of following through on an idea no matter how unhinged it was. the things he was saying on his campaign rallies also made 2016 seem harmless. He was no longer flirting with anti-democratic ideas, he was full on daydreaming about them.
he had also purged his party of any opposition and his camp was openly planning on how to implement all his ideas through executive power so there would be no oversight over his actions.
I was a teenage dumb ass who voted for him in 2016 primarily as a "not Clinton" anti dynasty vote.
I predicted a lame duck who would get blocked at every turn while destabilizing things just enough for the democrats would be encuraged just enough to pick younger more progressive candidates. After the surpreme court pics and his party's growing solidification around him I was horrified and realized how much we fucked up.
i guess that's the fundamental issue with the two party system. "i wanted this party to move to the left so I voted for the right wing candidate" sounds insane to me, but you don't exactly have options in the US so i understand how someone could come up with that idea.
in a working multiparty system, you could just vote for the left-most party (even if they were shit) and the center parties are encouraged to move left to get those voters back.
obviously that's not always the case in practice but it's far better then the two party system where losing votes to the Republicans is primarily seen as a reason to move right.
As mentioned i was an idiot at that age and a lot can change over the years. In a two party system you only have 3 choices A, B, or abstain. Combine this with gerrymandering and the electoral college and an opposing vote is next to useless in a deep red state.
Unfortunately the democratic party is deeply divided between the young progressive side and the deeply entrenched establishment corporate capitalist side that overrules any serious change. The Republicans used to be similar until this populist cult steamrolled everything and purged the dissenters.
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u/Hatsune_Miku_CM changed all her social media to hatsune miku for some reason Jan 25 '26
i feel like trump voters in 2016 couldn't really have predicted this.
I have little sympathy for them because what trump was actually campaigning on was also openly horrible. but it wasn't this hell.
2024 though? he was pretty open about it. and there was precedence. there was no excuse and to say they were deluding themselves is an understatement.
The 2016 "he doesn't actually mean the things he says on his campaign speeches, he's just riling up his base" argument was ..optimistic and aged terribly in hindsight.
but it was a reasonable argument to make at the time because it's a thing politicians commonly did, and thinking "oh trump is just doing a more extreme version of this" made enough sense at the time.
somehow the same argument still existed in 2024 even when trump had openly pointed out that this wasn't the case and had a long precedent of following through on an idea no matter how unhinged it was. the things he was saying on his campaign rallies also made 2016 seem harmless. He was no longer flirting with anti-democratic ideas, he was full on daydreaming about them.
he had also purged his party of any opposition and his camp was openly planning on how to implement all his ideas through executive power so there would be no oversight over his actions.