When your nation voted poorly last time you picked a homicidal maniac who killed people in death factories. Americans helped you then, at extreme cost.
Trump pumps-and-dumps the world economy, but his approval rating is also below 1/3. Most Americans clearly don't approve, so why should we not trust them?
If all it takes for democratic nations to stop working together is that they elect a crook once, we're all doomed. Many european nations are very close to picking their own "Trumps" in the next elections.
In a democracy, any one crook's influence should be short-lived. That's the whole point of a democracy.
We need to help each other remain democracies, as the alternatives are so much worse.
That said, sometimes help comes in the form of removing the gold to say "you're out of line buddy".
Except they did. Votes for Grump in 2016 were completely understandable, sympathizable even. Responsibility for the train wreck of a first term didn't fall at the feet of the voters - it's explainable by one politician being an utter shitbag once in office. And for the most part our institutions did function to contain most of the (direct) damage.
But Grump 2024 was a known quantity. The votes in 2024 demonstrate that the average American is either proudly ignorant of the actual policies they're choosing (ie fully steeped in propaganda that hides/downplays the destruction), or actively malicious towards the rest of the world (while benefiting from a privileged international position). Neither one bodes well for future decisions, even if there is some political will to pull up from the current autocratic destruction.
And no, the "we didn't know how bad he was going to be" of a 33% approval rating doesn't make up for that. Grump was a known quantity for this election, and the only way someone could have "not known" is by actively rejecting listening to their fellow citizens. Which goes right back to willful ignorance.
>The votes in 2024 demonstrate that the average American is either proudly ignorant of the actual policies they're choosing
That's a simplistic take.
Trump had less than 50% of the popular vote even though his opponent was clearly showing signs of dementia. The last-minute replacement had spent too much time being the "defund the police/eat the rich" sidekick to Biden and was clearly not representative of the views of the average American. She still got almost as many votes as Trump, from Americans who wanted to vote "Not Trump".
Seems to me the average American had little choice. All the Democrats had to do was field a candidate that could finish a coherent sentence mirroring the average American sentiment and they'd have landslide victory. But they didn't.
> too much time being the "defund the police/eat the rich" sidekick to Biden
It seems like you're merely demonstrating one dynamic by which people are able to maintain that proud ignorance - buying into simplistic feel good narratives about the "other side" which swamp their reasoning capabilities, absolving them of responsibility for their decision. This is a large part of being "fully steeped in propaganda".
For the actual reality, Harris was a public prosecutor - essentially a police officer's best friend. Neither Biden nor Harris were looking to destroy the federal government. More than anything, they represented the status quo rather than this nonsense you're repeating about "defund the police/eat the rich".
I'm a libertarian who hadn't voted for a major party in a national election until 2020. I had to come to terms with getting older, more conservative, and having to holding my nose and voting for the corpo status quo. But it was the reasonable, responsible choice. I can most certainly understand people who stayed home or voted third party. But voting for the known quantity destructionist and rationalizing it with nonsense propaganda is exactly what I was talking about.
There might be an argument to be made that your argument could be used to placate the rest of the world if we manage to turn the ship around but without Constitutional reforms that would keep the destructionists from gaining power again - "we were tricked" may work yet again. But as far as the actual question, no, people who voted for Grump in 2024 should not be allowed to look away or disown the horrible mistake they chose to make. It is in fact a necessary part of any reconciliation process.
>For the actual reality, Harris was a public prosecutor - essentially a police officer's best friend.
That's not helpful though, as she also made multiple public expressions of support for the defund movement, the protests-turned-riots after the Floyd murder, and the BLM movement.
I can't help thinking that made her a weak choice for both sides of that divide. Is she the tough on crime option or the anti-police one? Where does she actually stand?
I think if she had gone all-in on the tough-on-crime track she'd still have gotten all the protestor votes, and perhaps also the "can we stop police brutality without burning cars" votes. Which I think is a sizable chunk, perhaps even the most common opinion on the matter.
Anyway, all this to say that the explanation for the current situation is not as simple as "half of all Americans are crazy and evil". Current approval ratings clearly say most Americans know they effed up.
My first response was to a German who clearly felt the US as a whole is a lost cause, without acknowledging that Germany is in the process of making the same mistake. I wonder if the Germans will realize they effed up as quickly as the Americans have?
Both sides of the atlantic are throwing stones from glass houses, when we should be cooperating. The dictators are rejoicing...
> Trump pumps-and-dumps the world economy, but his approval rating is also below 1/3. Most Americans clearly don't approve, so why should we not trust them?
because all it takes is for someone not as toddler-y as Trump to run for the job, the "moderates" in the GOP are mostly gone.
> In a democracy, any one crook's influence should be short-lived. That's the whole point of a democracy.
The problem is, Trump's influence will last for much much longer because y'all appoint your Supreme Court judges for lifetime.
> If all it takes for democratic nations to stop working together is that they elect a crook once, we're all doomed. Many european nations are very close to picking their own "Trumps" in the next elections.
The thing is, the US keeps electing warmongering crooks (Bush 1, Bush 2 and Trump all engaged in definitely illegal wars), and Trump was reelected by the populace despite literally attempting a putsch. In any decent democracy, this would have yielded him and the ringleaders a lifetime in prison, if not capital punishment.
To me it never made any sense. The buffalo hat guys clearly had no greater plan, and the BBC actually had to apologize for faking a clip to make it seem Trump ordered it.
The BBC spreads to all of the EU's other news outlets, so Europeans "know" there was a putsch attempt based on a fake clip. Literally fake news, which plays directly into Trumps narrative and adding to the teflon layer he seems covered in.
Exaggerations, bad faith reporting, assumptions of guilt based on hunches - that's counterproductive if you really want to hold power accountable.
It's very important that the accuser of a crook is not a known liar. Because then even the true accusations won't stick and the crook gets away.
Your post sounds like concern trolling to me. I'm not a European and I watched the whole speech in real time and it was clear to me that he was attempting a coup.
If you think the buffalo hat guy was a coup attempt, fine - I have no interest in defending Trump.
I just wanted to highlight a common bubble-truth that turned out to not be as true as many think. You may be convinced he tried a coup, but does the BBC story perhaps move the needle a little bit towards understanding how someone else might feel that maybe he didn't?
Accusations of trolling is depressing, but I appreciate you actually writing a comment instead of just smashing the downvote.
>nothing was "faked", the footage shown was of things Trump actually said
Of course he said the words, but not together as the sentence the BBC reported. The meaning was faked.
What the BBC did here was literally equivalent to filming someone saying "We should support Kamala and fight Trump at every opportunity" and cutting it to say "We should support Trump at every opportunity".
No honest person can accept that. No honest person can accept Trump either, for many reasons, but perhaps an actual coup-attempt is not one of those reasons.
We all live in bubbles these days, it's not easy. :-/
> We need to help each other remain democracies, as the alternatives are so much worse.
Trump and his cronies are openly attempting to break the EU apart via funding and amplifying right-wing movements across the EU. These movements are collaborating, sharing strategies and spreading the same talking points, while they're using their control over social media platforms etc. to suffocate our democracies.
I would love to be able to trust the US. But the guy currently pissing against everyone's legs was re-elected after an attempted Putsch. How could they ever remove all MAGA influence from all of society and government?
Even if the US proves me wrong and manages to turn the wheel around, I won't see the US as an ally again until 1-2 decades pass without republicans taking any control over the government.
That's a high horse you're sitting on there!
When your nation voted poorly last time you picked a homicidal maniac who killed people in death factories. Americans helped you then, at extreme cost.
Trump pumps-and-dumps the world economy, but his approval rating is also below 1/3. Most Americans clearly don't approve, so why should we not trust them?
If all it takes for democratic nations to stop working together is that they elect a crook once, we're all doomed. Many european nations are very close to picking their own "Trumps" in the next elections.
In a democracy, any one crook's influence should be short-lived. That's the whole point of a democracy.
We need to help each other remain democracies, as the alternatives are so much worse.
That said, sometimes help comes in the form of removing the gold to say "you're out of line buddy".