Lived there for 16 years & worked there for over 20 on visas. What America was becoming started with 9/11. trump simply made it acceptable for the ugly belly of the beast to emerge. It is one of the reasons why I returned to Canada at the end of 2020.
I will say this, Canada needs to get its act together and start investing in its military. trump & his enablers view this country as a resource. And do you think for a moment if Putin decides to make incursions into the Arctic archipelago, as has already been hinted at, that the US will intervene? It is beyond the time that we need to start planning for the worst outcome but plan & take action we must.
Thank you for not reflexively blaming Harris and her campaign for somehow being responsible for this, which is what a lot of pundits on Twitter started doing before the blood had dried. The electorate are adults and they deserve full credit.
I’m not even sure what a conversation about her campaign even looks like. I think the early takeaway from exit polls is that, by and large, the electorate had no idea what either candidate’s actual policies or positions were. Based on the Google trends, a meaningful number didn’t even know Biden wasn’t on the ballot until they showed up to vote.
Just votes based on vibes and personal projection
What sort of conversation can you have about moving right, or left, or whatever, when it’s clear the electorate has no idea where you are currently?
And I don’t think that’s on the campaign. Either of them. I’m not convinced that Trump managed to communicate anything more to voters than Harris did. One of the things that had me optimistic for Harris was Trump’s visible inability to project any sort of narrative. Turns out it didn’t matter. Voters liked what they projected on Trump better
How do you even navigate a media environment like that? What does it even mean to campaign?
Unfortunately the US was exposed for what it really is. A society where a majority of voters believe it is more important that life becomes more (or much more) unpleasant for people they believe are not worthy of living a good or safe life.
In other words, these people are not motivated by improving life, for everybody or even for themselves, but they are primarily motivated by making life miserable for “others”. It is impossible to convince these people to vote for you through policies that try to improve lives. No, they want to see policies that deliberately hurt people.
I share all of your broader feelings except for hope that enough of the tight Senate races may turn Democratic. This looks to me like an all-level win for the forces of darkness: White House, Senate, House, Judiciary all aligned to make "government of the people by the people, for the people" disappear from that nation. Even though the principals can only arrange their plans and people between now and inauguration day, I think of this as Day One of Project 2025.
Also, I'd say that Hilary's loss was comparable to this in that Americans knew what they were voting for then too, and it was NOT A WOMAN. Being a brown woman just kicked the racism into gear as well, so it was a doubling down.
I thought women being half the population would figure into this election and we'd have an Obama moment, especially with all the young ones affected by an abortion ban (possibly followed by birth control too with such a Catholic, captured Supreme Court) but silly me, I'm a woman.
Ian McEwen wrote in one of his books something that stuck because it's so true: Their clergyman father was too busy writing his Sunday sermon for directing his "flock" to be bothered with either his wife's or his daughters' "SILLY DISTANT LIVES."
Evan, you can be absolutely certain, Trump is crude, he's lewd but he's renewed.
I think that Trump is in most ways unfit to be President. But, if I were an American, I might well have voted for him. Trump certainly doesn't REALLY represent the "little guy" but he manages to represent the forgotten and ignored Americans far, far more effectively than the Democrats.
The Democrats have over a number of decades become the party of the managerial / political / educated / liberal class and have ignored (at best) or dismissively insulted (more commonly) the hard working "ordinary" Americans. You argue that assessment? Think of Hillary's "basket of deplorables" or Sleepy Joe's "Trump supporters are garbage" comments.
Remember also that so many "middle" [literally] Americans are dismissed as living in "flyover states" that have no merit or reason for attention.
The Democrats lost for many reasons, among them that for so long they were insisting that Sleepy Joe was sharp as a tack and absolutely deserving of another four years. Then, their lies were exposed and they wanted the whole world to forget those lies and ignore new lies and vote for an empty pant suit of an elitest whose claim for votes was that she was female, of color and above all, wasn't Trump. She didn't do much else than that. And, again, she wanted voters to ignore the previous lies.
There will be those who claim that the election was lost because of those who voted against a woman and against a black. I would posit that if that argument was offered, then what about those who voted FOR her only because she was a woman and/or because she was a black.
Ultimately, however, the Democratic Party has proven themselves to be hypocrites and liars and interested not in the interests of "average" [whatever that means!] Americans but of the elite who have bought wholesale into the whole DIE (yes, that is deliberate) thingy.
One forecast I will offer. Over the next few years, DJT will exhibit all of the issues that Sleepy Joe has exhibited; the only saving grace is that he cannot run for re-election.
Now, the Democratic Party has to figure out just why they lost to such an ignoble specimen as DJT but I am not at all expecting such introspection. So, who will win in 2028 when Vance runs? I am not hopeful for the Democrats.
I highly doubt that any Democrat was telling "lies" about Biden's cognition. He always had notable limits with his communications skills, and if you are someone who works with the President every day then you would not notice a long-term decline, much as one does not consciously notice the facial wrinkles from someone one is intimately close with. Plus Democrats would be instinctively skeptical of Biden-is-demented arguments for the simple reason that the allegations started from Republicans rather than persons who worked respectfully with him.
A more serious problem is that Kamala Harris was simply given too little time. Trump's brand and name-recognition have been many decades in the making, but she was obscure and not much in the public limelight before starting a mere 100-day campaign - not nearly enough to give her the kind of name-recognition and familiarity equivalent to that of Trump.
There's a lot to unpack here and I'm not going to get into tit for tat arguments about the democrats ignoring or insulting Americans, telling lies about Biden's mental decline or blaming the Harris loss on a specific ethnic or demographic group.
I will say that the rise of social media platforms and their ability to spread disinformation at a rate that Goebbels would embrace is a major contributing factor, especially when they are controlled by supporters of a specific political party. Combine that with the Citizens United ruling allowing money from all quarters to be flushed into the US political system and the rise of corporate media outlets such as Fox, NewsMax, OANN, RebelNews and many others and you have a perfect storm for this type of situation.
Not to be outdone, the corporate controlled media practiced sane-washing of the gibberish that was regularly spread by trump throughout the campaign and before. I find that to be a bit of a double standard however, again, it is not surprising considering the corporate media or, as MAGA world likes to describe it, the main stream media or fake news, are owned by the billionaire class.
And as long as we're into forecasts, here's mine. trump will be removed from office 12-18 months after being sworn in via the 25th Amendment. His cognitive decline was evident before he started campaigning and throughout his many rallies where he basically lost it, although in his mind it was an act of genius as he was performing 'the weave'. Vance and others in the party will act and act swiftly. And with control of both the legislative and judicial branches of government, there is zero ability to push back or to erect guard rails to prevent some of the more insidious parts of the Project 2025 playbook to be implemented.
One can only hope that America will wake up before it is too late and regain control of the House in 2026.
the democratic party has been even less capable of introspection than the liberal party of canada.
evan made a tweet about this earlier, but i really hope the latter learns something from all of this. won't hold my breath, but that's what has me worried. the dems deserve this loss so i find it too hard to be too sad for them - i pray the liberals don't put us in the same position in a year.
Victor, you "... pray the liberals don't put us in the same position in a year."
Huh! The damned LPC has already proven itself to be liars and total incompetents. I for one will be absolutely over the moon to see the back of them for many, many, many years.
Trump's victory proves once and for all that Americans are not a special or compassionate or heavenly sort of people. Sure, we are powerful, but that is the consequence of many accidents of history too numerous to go into here (Our exceptional wealth of natural rescource, tyrannical European kingdoms which made talented people immigrate to America, etc.). Although we are strong, we are not necessarily kind. Not after having elected a man who hopes to see Liz Cheyney shot down by gun fire, his political opponents massacred by the army, who wants generals like Hitler's generals etc.
IN FACT WE ARE JUST AS GERMAN AS THE MOST VEHEMENT JUNKERS OF PRUSSIA
Thanks for sharing this Evan. Perfectly captured my feelings of what just happens in a way I don’t know I have the wherewithal to encapsulate. America knew what it was getting and the risk of Trump was in it’s opinion, worth it for the chance to return to a false nostalgia of life before COVID.
perfectly written. one of the few things i've read this morning that avoids the lazy reflex of pointing fingers at a specific demographic and/or faction, so props on that.
we save ourselves by taking this as a cold wake up call that america is not the beacon on the hill. we - canada - cannot rely on them almost solely as we have for the last century. we need to forge relationships with our other partners in the world, whether that be japan, germany, the uk, korea, australia, or hell, nigeria, mexico, brazil, and maybe even india and china. the economies that stand to benefit the most from america losing itself.
but i don't feel sadness for them at all. this is what they chose. nothing will change in that country until there are real consequences to their choices and this time might be it. i hope their idea of american exceptionalism doesn't just crumble, but gets eviscerated.
You're kidding. You're bringing "God" into it, as if that EXACT magical thinking BS isn't one of the main reasons AND the sanction for trademark American exceptionalism, with that and their somehow "divinely-inspired" constitution ALREADy tipping them toward THEOCRACY?
Note: religion is a doctrine devised by MEN for controlling women and/or having a leg up on other men and/or ruling the world, but despite its broad allure, theocracy is fundamentally incompatible with democracy; you have to pick ONE or the other. It's kind of like TRUTH or LIES. Not just kind of. Totally the heart of the matter.
So by "virtue" of being the first, worst "big lie" itself, widespread religious belief offered a massive platform for Trump's big lie(s) that were so bold, fresh and therefore wildly entertaining that they (and him) were also embraced as revelatory; was he not "Q" to the followers of yet another made-in-America religion, Q-Anon?
Americans also created "exponentialism" via homegrown big tech ("go big or go home y'all") that facilitated the takedown of that contagious American ideal that Evan describes so well.
Good article expressing the grief and true horror of "The Ugly American" and please NOTE: HE'S A GUY. A "guy's guy."
Imagine how it feels to be a woman there now, or one of the candidates for deportation, understandable if you confuse the two as invalid citizens.
Yoko Ono was right, "women are the niggers of the world."
Frances Legault is now bracing for a wave of migrants storming their sweetly secular gates. Living in the stupid bible belt of Alberduh, wannabe Texas FFS, I'm thinking about moving there just for that, but French is too central. It seems "extreme" to force people to leave their religion at home or in the clubhouse, but is it really? What's actually extreme is the doctrine of Islam, speaking of women and the outright GENDER APARTHEID of Islamic theocracies....
In terms of pure timing, it makes sense to argue that Trump voters knew what they were voting for. They saw him in 2016, lived through his presidency and they watched him campaign two more times. Yet, it continues to seem as if significant numbers of his voters are supporting an image or vibe. Many continue to claim that the economy was better four years ago when it was not. Even a comparison against the economy of five years ago does not favour Trump. They lived through inflation and that feeling persists. Many do not seem to believe he will set up deportation camps. Or that somehow he will effortlessly be able to pull millions of people out of the country. Yet others believed his contention that foreign countries pay for tariffs. And so on…
I think you captured exactly how some of us feel today. It is sad. Incredibly, achingly sad. The Emperor is naked and exposed for us all to see. Today I realized that so many people are hurting, left behind and frustrated. They are desperate for someone to do something to bridge the gap that has been widening. They care about their lives in this moment, Trump came across as 'on their side'. They felt heard. This should be a lesson for our politicians. Bernie said that Democrats forgot the working class and this is the result. He's not wrong.
It will be interesting (and quite a scary) to see how Polievre will manage “working with” Trump. I have this feeling he will need support from all parties to keep Canada going.
Wow, you guys still don’t get it do you? All of the things you attribute to Trump - racism, authoritarianism, not caring for his fellow countrymen, etc - are all things being perpetrated by the Left. America has seen this and voted accordingly. You can take a good long look in the mirror as to what lead you and the rest of the Left to embrace fascism, or you can keep blaming others for your own failings and continue to lose elections.
The left has hardly embraced fascism, as you suggest. The first signal to me that the US is in serious trouble was when he said his victory was a great win for the MAGA movement. He did not say a great win for the GOP - if that doesn't seem strange to you then I'm not sure what is. Now, combine that with arguments made by Steve Bannon, from the first trump administration, and many others that all of the institutions in the US need to be burned down and re-made according to MAGA principles and beliefs and the Project 2025 playbook and where do you think that leads?
Of course trump's description of the left as vermin, the characterization of the 'free press' and politicians who disagree with trump/MAGA as the enemy within, the attribution of all that is bad in the US as being the fault of immigration are normal, conservative talking points and not the type of language one would expect to hear from an individual who embraces authoritarianism, right?
Is the left blameless in all of this? No, they have a lot to account for as well. But based on the evidence and the support shown for trump by the MAGA movement and the MAGA curious, I'd say authoritarianism fits pretty well. We'll see if that moves to fascism once he's sworn in.
The Left has constantly demonized their political opponents as a “danger to democracy”, refused to acknowledge election results (Russian interference), weaponized the judicial system against political opponents, attempted to install an unelected figurehead, control the media narrative (% of positive news stories related to Harris vs Trump), and demand ideological purity.
I understand you can make many of these claims against the GOP as well - but if I’m picking between different flavors of fascism, I’ll choose the one with lower taxes, strong property rights, and support of individual freedom.
The US will be just fine. In fact, I’m looking forward to a much stronger position on the world stage. Someone has to stand against the 21st century axis of evil: China, Islam, and the EU.
Your post is full of falsehoods. The Democrats did "acknowledge election results", Hillary Clinton showed up at the 2017 Trump inauguration and Harris will probably do the same. The Democrats debated the merit of the information environment that caused Americans to vote the way that they did, but they never put actual vote tallies into doubt the way that Trump shamelessly did with his lies about the 2020 election.
No one "weaponized the judicial system against political opponents", the justice system did not become infected with partisanship overnight just because it targeted your preferred political leader. But Trump has plainly insinuated intent to weaponize the judicial system against his opponents.
Trump has already contributed to the outbreak of war even before retaking the Presidency. Putin has been murdering Ukrainians for years because he suspected that Trump would eventually come back to power and cut the flow of weapons of self-defense to Ukraine. So far, all indications are that Putin gambled correctly.
Again, lots to unpack here. As I wrote above, I lived in the US for 16 years and was there when trump won his first term. My taxes went up primarily due to caps on the SALT exemption. You do realize the SALT exemption was directed at a target audience that lived primarily in blue states, right? It was trump's reaction to voters in blue states not supporting him or his views. So for 10s of millions of Americans who were not in the top 1% of income earners there was no tax break.
Long term your taxes will go up to pay for his first term during which ~$8 trillion was added to the debt - more than any other president in US history over 4 years AND during a booming economy. I'm not discounting the additions to the US national debt that have occurred during other administrations. There are, however, significant differences between the trump incurred debt and debt incurred by, say, President Obama. Obama inherited an economy & financial system that was collapsing in 2008. The debt increased by ~ $12 trillion over 8 YEARS to address that situation. Obviously, taxes need to increase to deal with the policies implemented to stabilize the US economy, including the US auto industry. An industry, by the way, that the GOP suggested should just fail. trump's position was, let's give everybody a tax break (something that didn't happen) and run up the debt even more.
Moreover, just wait until he implements his blanket tariff policy and the US sees prices of imported good rise along with its direct effect on inflation. Then again, you may actually believe trump's statements that the countries exporting goods to the US pay the tariff. Spoiler alert, that isn't how tariffs work. True that tariffs are collected by the government - they are, however, paid by the importer (not the foreign government) and then it is baked into the cost of goods sold. Guess who ultimately pays for it?
You support individual freedom yet you have no comment or position on the Dobbs decision and the current patchwork of laws that directly affect a woman's choice over her own body. That position seems to be either a false one or a view that as long as I can do what I want, I'm good with it.
I almost choked on my coffee with your statement on the 21st century axis of evil. I see that you have replaced Russia & North Korea with the EU. Really? The EU? Who have they invaded or threatened recently?
Because they are a danger to democracy. Two words - Project 2025. Perhaps you should go stand on the other side of the 49th. In just two months, American democracy will meet its quietus, and something akin to the Republic of Gilead will be taking over. America "is" the new axis of evil.
This pearl clutching cost the Dems the presidential election and likely both houses of congress. By all means please refrain from any type of self reflection.
Lived there for 16 years & worked there for over 20 on visas. What America was becoming started with 9/11. trump simply made it acceptable for the ugly belly of the beast to emerge. It is one of the reasons why I returned to Canada at the end of 2020.
I will say this, Canada needs to get its act together and start investing in its military. trump & his enablers view this country as a resource. And do you think for a moment if Putin decides to make incursions into the Arctic archipelago, as has already been hinted at, that the US will intervene? It is beyond the time that we need to start planning for the worst outcome but plan & take action we must.
Thank you for not reflexively blaming Harris and her campaign for somehow being responsible for this, which is what a lot of pundits on Twitter started doing before the blood had dried. The electorate are adults and they deserve full credit.
I’m not even sure what a conversation about her campaign even looks like. I think the early takeaway from exit polls is that, by and large, the electorate had no idea what either candidate’s actual policies or positions were. Based on the Google trends, a meaningful number didn’t even know Biden wasn’t on the ballot until they showed up to vote.
Just votes based on vibes and personal projection
What sort of conversation can you have about moving right, or left, or whatever, when it’s clear the electorate has no idea where you are currently?
And I don’t think that’s on the campaign. Either of them. I’m not convinced that Trump managed to communicate anything more to voters than Harris did. One of the things that had me optimistic for Harris was Trump’s visible inability to project any sort of narrative. Turns out it didn’t matter. Voters liked what they projected on Trump better
How do you even navigate a media environment like that? What does it even mean to campaign?
I appreciate you and your cautious predictions actually sobered me so this is less painful.
I’m in my mid 70’s, Canadian. This is not the world that I was going to try and stay in. So I’m sad too.
Younger folks have time to turn this around in their lifetime. We don’t.
As a women tho, I believe we have galvanized across borders and oceans.
A small crack of light in the abyss we seemed to have fallen into.
Carry on Evan!🤗
Unfortunately the US was exposed for what it really is. A society where a majority of voters believe it is more important that life becomes more (or much more) unpleasant for people they believe are not worthy of living a good or safe life.
In other words, these people are not motivated by improving life, for everybody or even for themselves, but they are primarily motivated by making life miserable for “others”. It is impossible to convince these people to vote for you through policies that try to improve lives. No, they want to see policies that deliberately hurt people.
I share all of your broader feelings except for hope that enough of the tight Senate races may turn Democratic. This looks to me like an all-level win for the forces of darkness: White House, Senate, House, Judiciary all aligned to make "government of the people by the people, for the people" disappear from that nation. Even though the principals can only arrange their plans and people between now and inauguration day, I think of this as Day One of Project 2025.
Also, I'd say that Hilary's loss was comparable to this in that Americans knew what they were voting for then too, and it was NOT A WOMAN. Being a brown woman just kicked the racism into gear as well, so it was a doubling down.
I thought women being half the population would figure into this election and we'd have an Obama moment, especially with all the young ones affected by an abortion ban (possibly followed by birth control too with such a Catholic, captured Supreme Court) but silly me, I'm a woman.
Ian McEwen wrote in one of his books something that stuck because it's so true: Their clergyman father was too busy writing his Sunday sermon for directing his "flock" to be bothered with either his wife's or his daughters' "SILLY DISTANT LIVES."
Evan, you can be absolutely certain, Trump is crude, he's lewd but he's renewed.
I think that Trump is in most ways unfit to be President. But, if I were an American, I might well have voted for him. Trump certainly doesn't REALLY represent the "little guy" but he manages to represent the forgotten and ignored Americans far, far more effectively than the Democrats.
The Democrats have over a number of decades become the party of the managerial / political / educated / liberal class and have ignored (at best) or dismissively insulted (more commonly) the hard working "ordinary" Americans. You argue that assessment? Think of Hillary's "basket of deplorables" or Sleepy Joe's "Trump supporters are garbage" comments.
Remember also that so many "middle" [literally] Americans are dismissed as living in "flyover states" that have no merit or reason for attention.
The Democrats lost for many reasons, among them that for so long they were insisting that Sleepy Joe was sharp as a tack and absolutely deserving of another four years. Then, their lies were exposed and they wanted the whole world to forget those lies and ignore new lies and vote for an empty pant suit of an elitest whose claim for votes was that she was female, of color and above all, wasn't Trump. She didn't do much else than that. And, again, she wanted voters to ignore the previous lies.
There will be those who claim that the election was lost because of those who voted against a woman and against a black. I would posit that if that argument was offered, then what about those who voted FOR her only because she was a woman and/or because she was a black.
Ultimately, however, the Democratic Party has proven themselves to be hypocrites and liars and interested not in the interests of "average" [whatever that means!] Americans but of the elite who have bought wholesale into the whole DIE (yes, that is deliberate) thingy.
One forecast I will offer. Over the next few years, DJT will exhibit all of the issues that Sleepy Joe has exhibited; the only saving grace is that he cannot run for re-election.
Now, the Democratic Party has to figure out just why they lost to such an ignoble specimen as DJT but I am not at all expecting such introspection. So, who will win in 2028 when Vance runs? I am not hopeful for the Democrats.
I highly doubt that any Democrat was telling "lies" about Biden's cognition. He always had notable limits with his communications skills, and if you are someone who works with the President every day then you would not notice a long-term decline, much as one does not consciously notice the facial wrinkles from someone one is intimately close with. Plus Democrats would be instinctively skeptical of Biden-is-demented arguments for the simple reason that the allegations started from Republicans rather than persons who worked respectfully with him.
A more serious problem is that Kamala Harris was simply given too little time. Trump's brand and name-recognition have been many decades in the making, but she was obscure and not much in the public limelight before starting a mere 100-day campaign - not nearly enough to give her the kind of name-recognition and familiarity equivalent to that of Trump.
There's a lot to unpack here and I'm not going to get into tit for tat arguments about the democrats ignoring or insulting Americans, telling lies about Biden's mental decline or blaming the Harris loss on a specific ethnic or demographic group.
I will say that the rise of social media platforms and their ability to spread disinformation at a rate that Goebbels would embrace is a major contributing factor, especially when they are controlled by supporters of a specific political party. Combine that with the Citizens United ruling allowing money from all quarters to be flushed into the US political system and the rise of corporate media outlets such as Fox, NewsMax, OANN, RebelNews and many others and you have a perfect storm for this type of situation.
Not to be outdone, the corporate controlled media practiced sane-washing of the gibberish that was regularly spread by trump throughout the campaign and before. I find that to be a bit of a double standard however, again, it is not surprising considering the corporate media or, as MAGA world likes to describe it, the main stream media or fake news, are owned by the billionaire class.
And as long as we're into forecasts, here's mine. trump will be removed from office 12-18 months after being sworn in via the 25th Amendment. His cognitive decline was evident before he started campaigning and throughout his many rallies where he basically lost it, although in his mind it was an act of genius as he was performing 'the weave'. Vance and others in the party will act and act swiftly. And with control of both the legislative and judicial branches of government, there is zero ability to push back or to erect guard rails to prevent some of the more insidious parts of the Project 2025 playbook to be implemented.
One can only hope that America will wake up before it is too late and regain control of the House in 2026.
100%, agreed with every word here.
the democratic party has been even less capable of introspection than the liberal party of canada.
evan made a tweet about this earlier, but i really hope the latter learns something from all of this. won't hold my breath, but that's what has me worried. the dems deserve this loss so i find it too hard to be too sad for them - i pray the liberals don't put us in the same position in a year.
Victor, you "... pray the liberals don't put us in the same position in a year."
Huh! The damned LPC has already proven itself to be liars and total incompetents. I for one will be absolutely over the moon to see the back of them for many, many, many years.
You deserve it.
Trump's victory proves once and for all that Americans are not a special or compassionate or heavenly sort of people. Sure, we are powerful, but that is the consequence of many accidents of history too numerous to go into here (Our exceptional wealth of natural rescource, tyrannical European kingdoms which made talented people immigrate to America, etc.). Although we are strong, we are not necessarily kind. Not after having elected a man who hopes to see Liz Cheyney shot down by gun fire, his political opponents massacred by the army, who wants generals like Hitler's generals etc.
IN FACT WE ARE JUST AS GERMAN AS THE MOST VEHEMENT JUNKERS OF PRUSSIA
https://davidgottfried.substack.com/p/the-trump-sucking-dumb-fucks-of-america
Thanks for sharing this Evan. Perfectly captured my feelings of what just happens in a way I don’t know I have the wherewithal to encapsulate. America knew what it was getting and the risk of Trump was in it’s opinion, worth it for the chance to return to a false nostalgia of life before COVID.
"[then] I don’t know what we do to save ourselves."
I know what I have to do. GET TO WORK. Fundamental principles are at stake.
perfectly written. one of the few things i've read this morning that avoids the lazy reflex of pointing fingers at a specific demographic and/or faction, so props on that.
we save ourselves by taking this as a cold wake up call that america is not the beacon on the hill. we - canada - cannot rely on them almost solely as we have for the last century. we need to forge relationships with our other partners in the world, whether that be japan, germany, the uk, korea, australia, or hell, nigeria, mexico, brazil, and maybe even india and china. the economies that stand to benefit the most from america losing itself.
but i don't feel sadness for them at all. this is what they chose. nothing will change in that country until there are real consequences to their choices and this time might be it. i hope their idea of american exceptionalism doesn't just crumble, but gets eviscerated.
God's retribution to the US of A.....Pity for the rest of us
You're kidding. You're bringing "God" into it, as if that EXACT magical thinking BS isn't one of the main reasons AND the sanction for trademark American exceptionalism, with that and their somehow "divinely-inspired" constitution ALREADy tipping them toward THEOCRACY?
Note: religion is a doctrine devised by MEN for controlling women and/or having a leg up on other men and/or ruling the world, but despite its broad allure, theocracy is fundamentally incompatible with democracy; you have to pick ONE or the other. It's kind of like TRUTH or LIES. Not just kind of. Totally the heart of the matter.
So by "virtue" of being the first, worst "big lie" itself, widespread religious belief offered a massive platform for Trump's big lie(s) that were so bold, fresh and therefore wildly entertaining that they (and him) were also embraced as revelatory; was he not "Q" to the followers of yet another made-in-America religion, Q-Anon?
Americans also created "exponentialism" via homegrown big tech ("go big or go home y'all") that facilitated the takedown of that contagious American ideal that Evan describes so well.
Good article expressing the grief and true horror of "The Ugly American" and please NOTE: HE'S A GUY. A "guy's guy."
Imagine how it feels to be a woman there now, or one of the candidates for deportation, understandable if you confuse the two as invalid citizens.
Yoko Ono was right, "women are the niggers of the world."
Frances Legault is now bracing for a wave of migrants storming their sweetly secular gates. Living in the stupid bible belt of Alberduh, wannabe Texas FFS, I'm thinking about moving there just for that, but French is too central. It seems "extreme" to force people to leave their religion at home or in the clubhouse, but is it really? What's actually extreme is the doctrine of Islam, speaking of women and the outright GENDER APARTHEID of Islamic theocracies....
In terms of pure timing, it makes sense to argue that Trump voters knew what they were voting for. They saw him in 2016, lived through his presidency and they watched him campaign two more times. Yet, it continues to seem as if significant numbers of his voters are supporting an image or vibe. Many continue to claim that the economy was better four years ago when it was not. Even a comparison against the economy of five years ago does not favour Trump. They lived through inflation and that feeling persists. Many do not seem to believe he will set up deportation camps. Or that somehow he will effortlessly be able to pull millions of people out of the country. Yet others believed his contention that foreign countries pay for tariffs. And so on…
I think you captured exactly how some of us feel today. It is sad. Incredibly, achingly sad. The Emperor is naked and exposed for us all to see. Today I realized that so many people are hurting, left behind and frustrated. They are desperate for someone to do something to bridge the gap that has been widening. They care about their lives in this moment, Trump came across as 'on their side'. They felt heard. This should be a lesson for our politicians. Bernie said that Democrats forgot the working class and this is the result. He's not wrong.
It will be interesting (and quite a scary) to see how Polievre will manage “working with” Trump. I have this feeling he will need support from all parties to keep Canada going.
Wow, you guys still don’t get it do you? All of the things you attribute to Trump - racism, authoritarianism, not caring for his fellow countrymen, etc - are all things being perpetrated by the Left. America has seen this and voted accordingly. You can take a good long look in the mirror as to what lead you and the rest of the Left to embrace fascism, or you can keep blaming others for your own failings and continue to lose elections.
The left has hardly embraced fascism, as you suggest. The first signal to me that the US is in serious trouble was when he said his victory was a great win for the MAGA movement. He did not say a great win for the GOP - if that doesn't seem strange to you then I'm not sure what is. Now, combine that with arguments made by Steve Bannon, from the first trump administration, and many others that all of the institutions in the US need to be burned down and re-made according to MAGA principles and beliefs and the Project 2025 playbook and where do you think that leads?
Of course trump's description of the left as vermin, the characterization of the 'free press' and politicians who disagree with trump/MAGA as the enemy within, the attribution of all that is bad in the US as being the fault of immigration are normal, conservative talking points and not the type of language one would expect to hear from an individual who embraces authoritarianism, right?
Is the left blameless in all of this? No, they have a lot to account for as well. But based on the evidence and the support shown for trump by the MAGA movement and the MAGA curious, I'd say authoritarianism fits pretty well. We'll see if that moves to fascism once he's sworn in.
The Left has constantly demonized their political opponents as a “danger to democracy”, refused to acknowledge election results (Russian interference), weaponized the judicial system against political opponents, attempted to install an unelected figurehead, control the media narrative (% of positive news stories related to Harris vs Trump), and demand ideological purity.
I understand you can make many of these claims against the GOP as well - but if I’m picking between different flavors of fascism, I’ll choose the one with lower taxes, strong property rights, and support of individual freedom.
The US will be just fine. In fact, I’m looking forward to a much stronger position on the world stage. Someone has to stand against the 21st century axis of evil: China, Islam, and the EU.
Your post is full of falsehoods. The Democrats did "acknowledge election results", Hillary Clinton showed up at the 2017 Trump inauguration and Harris will probably do the same. The Democrats debated the merit of the information environment that caused Americans to vote the way that they did, but they never put actual vote tallies into doubt the way that Trump shamelessly did with his lies about the 2020 election.
No one "weaponized the judicial system against political opponents", the justice system did not become infected with partisanship overnight just because it targeted your preferred political leader. But Trump has plainly insinuated intent to weaponize the judicial system against his opponents.
Trump has already contributed to the outbreak of war even before retaking the Presidency. Putin has been murdering Ukrainians for years because he suspected that Trump would eventually come back to power and cut the flow of weapons of self-defense to Ukraine. So far, all indications are that Putin gambled correctly.
Again, lots to unpack here. As I wrote above, I lived in the US for 16 years and was there when trump won his first term. My taxes went up primarily due to caps on the SALT exemption. You do realize the SALT exemption was directed at a target audience that lived primarily in blue states, right? It was trump's reaction to voters in blue states not supporting him or his views. So for 10s of millions of Americans who were not in the top 1% of income earners there was no tax break.
Long term your taxes will go up to pay for his first term during which ~$8 trillion was added to the debt - more than any other president in US history over 4 years AND during a booming economy. I'm not discounting the additions to the US national debt that have occurred during other administrations. There are, however, significant differences between the trump incurred debt and debt incurred by, say, President Obama. Obama inherited an economy & financial system that was collapsing in 2008. The debt increased by ~ $12 trillion over 8 YEARS to address that situation. Obviously, taxes need to increase to deal with the policies implemented to stabilize the US economy, including the US auto industry. An industry, by the way, that the GOP suggested should just fail. trump's position was, let's give everybody a tax break (something that didn't happen) and run up the debt even more.
Moreover, just wait until he implements his blanket tariff policy and the US sees prices of imported good rise along with its direct effect on inflation. Then again, you may actually believe trump's statements that the countries exporting goods to the US pay the tariff. Spoiler alert, that isn't how tariffs work. True that tariffs are collected by the government - they are, however, paid by the importer (not the foreign government) and then it is baked into the cost of goods sold. Guess who ultimately pays for it?
You support individual freedom yet you have no comment or position on the Dobbs decision and the current patchwork of laws that directly affect a woman's choice over her own body. That position seems to be either a false one or a view that as long as I can do what I want, I'm good with it.
I almost choked on my coffee with your statement on the 21st century axis of evil. I see that you have replaced Russia & North Korea with the EU. Really? The EU? Who have they invaded or threatened recently?
Because they are a danger to democracy. Two words - Project 2025. Perhaps you should go stand on the other side of the 49th. In just two months, American democracy will meet its quietus, and something akin to the Republic of Gilead will be taking over. America "is" the new axis of evil.
This pearl clutching cost the Dems the presidential election and likely both houses of congress. By all means please refrain from any type of self reflection.
JFC you are so off-base it's comical. It appears you haven't been paying attention or alternatively you are brainwashed.
You are proving my point, boss 🤣