I think that if “we will end cancer research and throw ourselves into a recession within six months” was actually what people realized they were voting for the election would have turned out differently - ThreadSky

rincewind.run • 61 days ago

I think that if “we will end cancer research and throw ourselves into a recession within six months” was actually what people realized they were voting for the election would have turned out differently

Reposted from GOLIKEHELLMACHINE

“this is what they voted for” has gotten stretched a lot in the [checks notes] last 72 days

Comments

bigbadbugsteak.bsky.social•61 days ago

youre a very kind and optimistic fellow to give these shrieking maws so much benefit of the doubt

slam4.bsky.social•61 days ago

They're getting what they voted for- hurting the people they want to hurt. Anyone who's not white, immigrants, women. Sure, the implicit promise was that white people would be protected. But as long as non-white people are hurt more than they are, that's the core impulse

travellingmatt78.bsky.social•61 days ago

Respectfully disagree. People have no idea what they vote for. MAGA voters have one issue they care about: “America, fuck yeah!”

deborah-c.bsky.social•60 days ago

I mean, it’s not like he didn’t SAY that’s what he was planning

kbethany.bsky.social•61 days ago

And yet if it was bundled with “and we’ll throw libtards and brown folks into gulags”, I’m not sure how that math would work out.

Sure we’re all living in a dystopian hellscape but at least white supremacy is back baby!

whimsicalsquirrel.bsky.social•61 days ago

I dunno, don't forget to the add the "but in exchange, we'll ruin a Haitian's life" bit. We're talking primarily about white voters, not normal voters.

lydiabeeyoobee.bsky.social•61 days ago

Racism is surely a part of it but there were many of immigrants who felt (real or imagined/wishful) secure/assimilated enough that they would reap the rewards rather than suffer the consequences. I’ve met people who I normally consider very smart and rational who somehow fell under the spell.

lydiabeeyoobee.bsky.social•61 days ago

And I also have extended family members who are white, rural, and not college educated who did NOT vote for him ever, because it was obvious that he has always been a mean and greedy person who throws others under the bus for his own gain

zzzeek.zzzeek.org•61 days ago

there was literally no way to make that known. everything they are doing they stated loudly and clearly they would do, even the market thought they were bullshitting

obscuricom.bsky.social•60 days ago

My favourite type of trump supporters are the ones who did vote for crashing the economy & cutting "wasteful" public services they had to pay taxes on, to shake up society into the new world order, but like in a good way where they'd be rich and happy and everyone would love them for some reason.

obscuricom.bsky.social•60 days ago

It's American Brexit baby!

cv-danes.com•61 days ago

Certainly if the people who voted for ruin realized they were voting for their own ruin, too, but maybe not.

hurricanexyz.bsky.social•61 days ago

I agree but also I think on SOME level people knew, not the details, but the broad atmospherics of what was coming, and just decided to pretend they didn't know so they could indulge themselves in not caring

on-tannhausergate.bsky.social•61 days ago

every election for decades conservatives lie about their policy goals if they told the truth they would universally lose every election all the time

Also, why Trumpism is so hard to defeat is they’ve reached the point that they blatantly lie about everything all the time no matter what

enjoyertimes.bsky.social•60 days ago

I hate to be this guy, but no. A sad-ass ton of these people were voting to Inflict Pain On Others. They very successfully did that. They're probably very happy in their vote. I, for one, think all those people are fucking monsters.

shanzival.bsky.social•61 days ago

They voted for the candidate that promised to ban homework and have pizza parties every Friday.

tylergscott.com•60 days ago

optimistic of you. I'm not so sure

danjac.bsky.social•61 days ago

I think they would have still voted for self-annihilation tbh

mumbly-joe.bsky.social•61 days ago

And yet these things were *knowable*, which creates an issue.

Our information problem is a propaganda problem, and the right has fought tooth and nail to protect their propaganda engines from even the most liberalism-friendly pushback rooted in counterspeech.

mumbly-joe.bsky.social•61 days ago

Add to that now the use of state power to orchestrate a broad-based attack on independent vectors of counterspeech and I frankly don't see a remaining means to fix this within liberalism.

chrislay.bsky.social•61 days ago

I don't think the median million voters would have believed it, based on the entire financial profession (1000% more attentive observers than the median voters) not believing it.

cynbelterreus.bsky.social•61 days ago

And it's not like people didn't tell them this is what would happen, they just didn't believe any of it at all.

silentconsole.com•61 days ago

I agree, but I also think that what people voted for was: "I am willing to accept all the hate and lies on the faith that this thing I care for he isn't lying about." All while ignoring people pointing out that this is also a lie.

baphometta.bsky.social•61 days ago

I dunno, seems like conservatism is nothing but deluded, nihilistic shitheads who thinks they're God's special little guy anyway, this kind of mindless death and destruction ought to be right up their alley.

boloboffin.bsky.social•61 days ago

Also, "invading Greenland, retaking the Panama Canal, and making Canada the 51st State" were not big applause lines in Trump's stump speeches

chrisbrockett.bsky.social•61 days ago

Unless it was announced on Fox News, the notion would not have penetrated the MAGA infosphere, and possibly not even then.

huevos-ranchero.bsky.social•61 days ago

This is absolutely correct. For low information (or even median) voters, they need to see direct evidence of things going south before believing it will happen. And, y’know, American Exceptionalism brain.

davidkelley718.bsky.social•61 days ago

I’d love to hope so.

golikehellmachine.com•61 days ago

"people should have expected this", man, we're putting tariffs on countries that have no population partly based on conversations trump had with dead lee iacocca and he renamed it the gulf of america, no, there are some new and unpredictable consequences here

xiane.bsky.social•61 days ago

My suspicion might be correct, that the tariff chart was both too strange, and too complete, to be the work of Trumpies. It's the work of ChatGPT/et al. I imagine their fake complex math (that does nothing) is, too.

https://www.theverge.com/news/642620/trump-tariffs-formula-ai-chatgpt-gemini-claude-grok

nohalmos.bsky.social•61 days ago

I agree that the specifics were pretty unpredictable, but I generally take comments in that vein to mean "people were offered experienced and measured governance and chose stupid baboons shitting everywhere." the baboons taking bigger shits than expected doesn't make this not what they voted for.

kehlkeh.bsky.social•61 days ago

Yeah his dementia is progressing. He had occasional flickers of impulse control before

bencates.bsky.social•61 days ago

The broad scope of the damage and general YOLO nature of everything was very foreseeable but the specifics have been and will continue to be surprising.

mrpaulymac.bsky.social•61 days ago

Well, not specifically THIS, but something utterly batshit insane was absolutely coming.

hraedon.com•61 days ago

I think it is important that the message his voters take away is that this *is* the predictable consequence of voting for republicans, so I am somewhat tolerant of this flavor of chiding

infinitelyloopy.bsky.social•61 days ago

They tariffed penguins and a US military base. That alone should be a signal this was just some slap dash project.

The tariff formula is the equivalent of how to ascertain if a woman is a witch.

And some in the media call it a strategy, still refusing to see Trump is a thoughtless moron.

mrgoh.bsky.social•61 days ago

I dunno if anyone in 11/2024 should have expected any specific policy from the Trump admin, but I think many expected extreme nonsense and incompetence, which is what we got.

faeelin.bsky.social•61 days ago

The rebuttal is what is his polling like

wrongbottom.bsky.social•61 days ago

rincewind.run•61 days ago

“this was all in project 2025”

well, one, they successfully lied about disavowing that

two, and it blows my mind to say this, project 2025 was way the fuck more organized about any of this than the DOGE hatchet saw

milacj.bsky.social•61 days ago

To whom were they successful in lying about Project 2025? They didn't successfully lie to me about it. OF COURSE that was their plan. I don't know any thinking person who believed the lies

oregonbeersnob.bsky.social•61 days ago

Seriously! Project 2025 was awful enough on its own, and now I'm wishing that all they did was stick to that awfulness. But no, they had to start there and add a ketamine-addled freak and a bunch of AI bros in to make everything somehow 10 times worse.

kaikronfield.bsky.social•61 days ago

the chaotic nature of it is possibly our only saving grace. if they were doing this all piecemeal, we'd just boil away as 5the water temp increased. this is forcing our hand.

jordansmed.bsky.social•61 days ago

Hey, be fair, it’s also from plugging a list of countries into GPT

jlwastooshort.bsky.social•61 days ago

I think that "things will be chaotic and dumb and evil" was entirely foreseeable even if perhaps no one would have thought to hit the specific "ghost of lee iacocca" prop bet

anthrodiva.bsky.social•61 days ago

They kinda did though. They wanted a feudal economy and they are getting one.

teramis.bsky.social•61 days ago

I think the only ones who wanted a feudal economy are the oligarchs and regressive fundamentalists orchestrating this. Rank and file voters don't even understand what a tariff is. They wanted cheaper eggs. *This* is not what they voted for.

anthrodiva.bsky.social•61 days ago

I think the ones who didn't have a grand plan were just either "libs bad" or chaos monkeys because bored. I really, truly, deeply do not believe any of them really thought he'd fix the price of eggs.

teramis.bsky.social•61 days ago

Tho I agree there are also "libs bad" and chaos monkey factions at play, but the rank and file Trump supporters? Sincerely delusional--and ignorant

anthrodiva.bsky.social•61 days ago

I live in West Virginia and have heard them hiss "poisoned" as they pass us handing out free cookies, so I'd still bump "libs are bad" as a primary factor!

teramis.bsky.social•61 days ago

Sort of a side tangent here: one of the things that pisses me off most is the *decades* long program of the right to demonize the left. With great malice aforethought they have painted everyone more liberal than the radical right with a very black brush and that's been endlessly

teramis.bsky.social•61 days ago

I'm in a red state & have had many convos where koolaid drinkers unquestioningly believe **what he says is true**. A great many srsly thought he could & would fix eggs, and everything else he claimed.
Never underestimate the power of blind devotion coupled with 24/7 propaganda pushing a mindset.

efinkelnburg.bsky.social•61 days ago

I admire your optimism, but I think a lot of them still would have happily voted for him if it meant they could call people slurs again without consequence

ravenonthill.bsky.social•61 days ago

At some level most voters do not believe in consequences. It's like only 15% who do.

betterkevin.bsky.social•61 days ago

They voted for other people's faces to be eaten, not theirs.

sonartaxlaw.bsky.social•61 days ago

Yeah it would have been more of a landslide. The American people yearn for the dirt

tomstpatrick.bsky.social•61 days ago

This is what they voted for because they were intentionally ignorant, or racist, misogynistic, or xenophobic.

phillyinsomniac.bsky.social•61 days ago

I mean, I get you, but I don't know how you can separate "this is what they voted for" vs "this is what the guy they voted for said he was going to do if they voted for him in very plain language over and over and over and over again"

burntcopper.bsky.social•61 days ago

they're the same people that voted for Brexit in the UK. I have no sympathy.

anti-you.bsky.social•61 days ago

He left behind a smoking crater last time he was in office and tried to murder his own Vice President and then was convicted of 34 felonies. What’s the functional difference between reality and “he’ll do insanely stupid stuff like end cancer research (after having stolen from cancer charities)”?

anti-you.bsky.social•61 days ago

Like I have no fucking idea why people voted for him. None. Other than they are nihilistic, selfish, racists who would rather let a senile old grifter who bragged about sexual assault be President again then let a black woman be President.

werrrp.bsky.social•61 days ago

Trump discussed a lot of things that US voters stupidly ignored, but "let's invade Canada and Greenland" was actually not among them at all

danc96.bsky.social•60 days ago

They didn’t realize it bc they refused to listen to what trump was saying. And instead invented an idea of what they wanted him to be and voted for that. He promised tariffs! He promised to tear the government apart! To seek revenge! He was explicit, his voters didn’t listen

hemlockautumn.bsky.social•61 days ago

I am really not sure why anybody was expecting anything else since he said that this is the plan point blank.

kaikronfield.bsky.social•61 days ago

if only Fox hadn't lied to everyone for decades

pegasusisme.bsky.social•61 days ago

I think it was @radiofreetom.bsky.social who said that Trump in this campaign functioned as a kind of blank slate for most voters who assumed he would implement the promises they liked and would not implement the promises they didn’t like.

bmceuen.bsky.social•61 days ago

But you can’t just assume he’s gonna do the things he says he will do that you like but not do the things he says he will do that you don’t like. That sort of thinking from a large section of the population leads to a very unhealthy democracy.

rincewind.run•61 days ago

yes, the information environment was and is actively designed to mislead people on this front and I don’t know how to fix it

but that is still a better state than “every single person who voted for him is in thrall of the cult and can never be reached again”

too many are, but not all

stratocaster.bsky.social•61 days ago

If only one of the major parties and their sitting president and presidential candidate had warned America what was in store if Trump won.

vagabending.bsky.social•61 days ago

We're definitely somewhere in between the two potential realities of 'everyone in the Republican Party is a delusional asshole' and 'a lot of the Republican Party is terrible, but some are less terrible'.

yossarianlive.bsky.social•61 days ago

Nah, fuck em all. Go back to November 1 with this knowledge and they’d all vote for it again.

Never trust a Republican to make the right choice.

warrenwp.bsky.social•61 days ago

That failure of imagination will prove to be fatal for many

chrislay.bsky.social•61 days ago

Even beyond the info environment, I've found it very hard to convince people of various things that are actually happening, seemingly bc the real events break too many of their assumptions about the way the world works.

"That wouldn't make any sense!"
vs
"It doesn't have to. These guys are dumb."

evilmam.bsky.social•61 days ago

I'm having that experience too.
"They deleted Jackie Robinson's military record from the DoD website"
"They didn't do that"
"They did do that"
"Why would they do that? It's stupid. They didn't do that"
"It IS stupid, and they DID do it"
"How do you know?"
"AP, Reuters, NYT, WaPo"
"Oh, fake news"

schcrt.bsky.social•61 days ago

I think the vast majority of the people who voted for him are effectively in that cult. BUT... there are just so many that didn't vote. Those are the ones I care about. Why didn't they. What would get them to next time.

ecbean.bsky.social•61 days ago

I think the trick is they have all these different views that people can latch onto. So if you interview 10 Trump voters 9 will all say a different version of, "well, that's bad, sure, but my one single issue is being heard so fuck everyone else." That 1 in 10 might say, "hmmm yeah you're right."

tobellz.bsky.social•61 days ago

100% heard a guy on the radio whose business is selling blinds made overseas lamenting about how he was going to have to raise his prices and he expected to lose sales.

But then said he still supported Trump because a couple local high school kids died from Fentanyl last year.

obscuricom.bsky.social•60 days ago

This is what's so frustrating about these voters, it's not that they make these decisions based on propaganda, it's that they live in their own reality of vaguely connected ideas & half-heard/imagined promises. It's all vibes, just vibes that determine billions of futures.

zoneleft.bsky.social•61 days ago

10% would have been enough before the election.

I think we'd need 30% or more of his voters to flip to fix the problem now.

sporkboot.bsky.social•61 days ago

what can anyone say other than we're a nation of suckers

kevinrsours.bsky.social•61 days ago

I get it. But I think an acknowledgement from these people that they messed up and will do better is in order. Because I'm hearing way too much "I still agree with what he's doing it just shouldn't affect *me*" out there.

gaudynight78.bsky.social•61 days ago

Except they literally fucking said that, repeatedly

It's not like they were trying to hide it

grahamiancummins.bsky.social•61 days ago

You'd hope.

If you phrased that "We will break the US government and dismantle its critical institutions. There will be some collateral damage" many of them would have voted the same.

grahamiancummins.bsky.social•61 days ago

It's not clear how they thought there would be cancer research and a stable economy in that libertarian paradise, but "everything the government does is always bad, so everything would be better without it" is a surprisingly common belief.

grahamiancummins.bsky.social•61 days ago

If there was _no_ government at least we wouldn't have unconstitutional arrests and imprisonment, but many voters want those too.

azery.bsky.social•61 days ago

see the fucked up thing is that most if not all this stuff was either in Project 2025 or actively what Trump was stumping for as his policy platform

people just either didn't pay attention or didn't take him seriously and idk what you can say to that

sinfall.bsky.social•61 days ago

The general sense I get is that anything you dont agree with he wont do. Its just talk etc. Plus you know cant vote for a woman.

ciananas.bsky.social•61 days ago

I always come back to how eliminating the Education Department was explicitly in Project 2025 that, of course, Trump lied about knowing. If you don’t know whether Trump said it on the trail (but he’s enacting it), then rest assured that it’s likely in Project 2025.

People are just that stupid

tracyanice.bsky.social•61 days ago

I don’t really think maga has the capability to process information in a way where they must admit they were wrong.

kentindell.bsky.social•61 days ago

I'm sure if you ask MAGAs now, they'll confirm this is what they wanted.

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