So, I knew the second term of Trump would be bad. Like, I could see the GOP was gearing up for something, and Trump would be absolutely horrid if he won, trying to dismantle democracy. But this time, Trump is actually going for broke on a lot of long term GOP promises. We got bills in congress for stuff like "terminating the department of education", "abolishing the occupational safety and health administration", as well as many anti abortion acts. Just today, as it turns out, elon musk has access to all of our social security data and is evaluating the agency as part of his "government efficiency" thing. We just put tariffs on mexico and canada for no fricking legitimate reason and started a trade war with them. We are in hell. Wtf is wrong with this country?
And it seems like the dems are just rolling over. Like the narrative is basically that this is trump's country now and he has a mandate and we gotta just roll over and give the right what they want. They're literally likening Trump to Reagan and FDR. While Trump is arguably a realigning figure of sorts, he doesn't have ANYWHERE near the mandate of Reagan or FDR. THose guys had like 60% of the country behind them and electoral college mandates that were overwhelming. Here, we lost 226-312 and by a margin of 1.7%. We can come back from this. Get over yourselves. He doesn't have a mandate. His agenda isn't even popular. he won because everyone hated the last guy for being old and perceived as ineffective. His approval rating is contentious and no higher than any previous president in my life time, most of whom werent realigning figures. And honestly, i expect that number to drop. The more crazy crap trump does, the lower it will go. Yeah, he will always have that 40-45% of die hards, but if he goes far enough he might lose a lot of those guys too.
Here's the thing. Trump is the realigning figure because no one on the democratic side stepped up. We got this neoliberal technocratic wing of the party that wanted to realign it along the lines of centrism and doing F all for the working class as we enter a second gilded age. I think the problems with the country in general right now are laid bare. The right is beholden by a billionaire class with a radical anti working class agenda, and they're going for broke. They're doing the stuff all the crazies have been wanting since the FDR era when the working class got good things in the first place, and they're taking advantage of the disaffection of the populace toward politics to push their agenda. Look at who was in trump's front row, ahead of his cabinet...it was the billionaires. Who is basically the shadow president? it's elon musk. Like, really, this administration is literally by and for the billionaires. Musk is just the face of it, but they ALL seem in on it. Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, the google guy, etc. They're ALL in with the trump administration. This is an era of rank political corruption and an oligarchic class dominating politics.
And you know what? The democrats are the same way. maybe they're not "as bad" but it seems that the reason they're so useless in responding to trump is because they're beholden to that billionaire cash too and they're too busy appealing to donors instead of the people. That's why clinton leaned into wokeness and the party has been a bunch of lukewarm centrists.
Ideally, we would've had a real working class movement in 2016 take over and run things. And that would've been the real realignment. But the billionaires diverted the energy away from that populism toward this hitler lite crap. And they defanged and detoothed the democratic party giving us the biden administration, an administration that no one actually wanted, but we got whether we liked it or not.
You know, I've been reflecting lately. Should I have just bit the bullet and voted clinton in 2016? It did occur to me that maybe trump wouldnt have won and it would've shifted the GOP in a different direction as well. But...here's the thing. I'm not convinced it would make a difference. here's why. It's because of the dynamics between the parties, the dominant, bold in your face republicans, the passive, weak, and feckless democrats. That dynamic would still exist. While a third term of democrats would've likely sealed the fate of the GOP in some form, looks are deceptive. Clinton would have won like Biden did, by the skin of his teeth. She would've gotten into office, done nothing, and by 2020, when COVID hit, everyone would be dogpiling on her and hating her. And the dems' legacy would've been ruined anyway. hell, that's kinda why in a sense I actually did want clinton to lose and felt schadenfreude when she did. Because I honestly believed if the dems won 2016, the party would've been screwed. The GOP would've come back, and they would've pushed the same realignment moment bullcrap they're doing now. And I feared that.
But...the dems didn't learn, we got that clinton presidency in the form of joe biden, he was about as useless as i anticipated he would have been, approval for his administration tanked, and here we are, with trump winning again and this time the GOP being bold and psychotic. And now they're framing this as a massive realignment.
2024 is not a realignment. it's 2016 part 3. 2016 was a realignment. Trump's first term was realignment. ANd electorally, it's not really that the people like the GOP. Support for them is tepid at best. People honestly hate both sides, they're exhausted of a government that doesn't do F all for any of us, and they keep trying to throw a brick through the window to show how dissatisfied with the status quo that they are. If people like trump for any reason, it's because he's a populist. It's more a rejection of the democrats than anything in all honesty. No one likes these tepid technocrats who don't do anything. But the dems just act like they're paid to lose. They're beholden to the billionaires too. Both parties are just puppets of the billionaires. it was always gonna end this way. Because what matters is the dynamics between the two parties. Unless you break the dynamics, nothing changes. ANd the only way to break the dynamic is for the democrats to be strong and bold and progressive. Otherwise, as long as the democrats remain weak and centrist and useless, this was always the outcome. it doesnt matter who won in 2016, or 2020, or 2024, because the same thing will happen every election cycle. It just happens in a different order.
If Clinton won in 2016, we'd have the GOP win in 2020. We might have the dems win in 2024, but it really depends who the GOP runs and how crazy they are.
But because trump won, we got biden in 2020, the GOP and Trump radicalized to literal fascism lite, and now we elected them in 2024. Maybe this leads to a dem victory in 2028. maybe if clinton on we would see continual GOP support through the 2020s. Who knows? I don't actually know. All I know is we got these dynamics where the GOP is radically right wing and the dems are so centrist they're useless, and the combined effect of the two means we get an ever shifting overton window to the right.
All I can hope is that trump is so crazy, and his presidency so disastrous, that it shocks people to the point that they correct in the other direction and ensure we never elect him again.
Of course, that's what i hoped would happen when he won in 2016. I likened it to smoking a whole pack of cigarettes all at once. Ya know how some people used to suggest kids who started smoking do that so that they would be so turned off they never do it again? Yeah. Well...we just elected that psycho again. And people are nostalgic for the guy. They genuinely like him, wtf. like, not everyone does, again, we only lost by 1.7, but still.
Either way, this country is just so screwed. It's ridiculous. Like, wtf is going on any more? Even I dont know. All I hope is that we get some real leopards eating the voters' faces energy where the country turns on trump, but it really does seem like a significant portion of the country is satisfied to just let the psycho be psycho. I don't even know any more. I'm just so over this crap. Ugh.
Really, blogging in the trump era is depressing. Theres just so much stuff to cover, it's all bad, and honestly, I just wanna do other stuff. I aint fully stepping away. But like ive been doing lately, I'm not really making this my main focus. It's too depressing. And what more can I say other than "yes, trump is bad" like 50 times? We all know hes bad. It's boring. it's played out. I dont like covering the guy because he's so stupid and so psycho that i just feel like I'm literally writing.
Bad things bad. bad things bad. hey did you know bad things bad? Did you know idiot is idiot? Like, I keep saying it, the reason i spend more of my time talking about the left is because it's more interesting and intellectually stimulating. Like we can actually have discussions and it energizes me. This stuff doesnt energize me. it drains me. Because it's just like "hey, trump just did the 10th batcrap insane thing today!" and we are literally talking that scale any more.
It's like we just put wheatley back in charge of aperture science. Again. After portal 2 already happened and he almost blew up the place. Because we decided yeah, glados sucks. Again. And she does suck. But is the answer to that to give us wheatley again? No. Now give wheatley a german accent and a funny mustache and that's where we are. Yeah.
Anyway, I don't know how to end this. So...yeah. That's all i guess.
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