Summary
Anti-Trump Americans, especially on the left, are showing a more subdued response to Trump’s 2024 reelection compared to the activism of 2016.
Exhaustion, disillusionment with repeated setbacks, and negative media coverage have led many to disengage from politics or shift focus to personal priorities.
Activist groups, like Women’s March, are planning protests but acknowledge lower enthusiasm and more localized efforts.
Experts suggest this “tune-out” may be a coping mechanism, with some hoping new, non-political participants will lead change.
Many feel drained but believe activism will eventually regain momentum.
I honestly don’t care anymore.
We just failed the most blatant test we could possibly be given. Americans are hopeless. Take the politics and politicians out of the equation and you’ve still got an abundance of stupid Americans. That story doesn’t end well regardless of other factors.
We simply aren’t intelligent or responsible enough as a whole to maintain a democracy.
I’ll be going with the “ignorance is bliss” strategy at the end of this calendar year. I’ll probably still vote in local elections, but I’m done on the federal level. Too many stupid Americans for me to keep trying to care on a large scale.
We’re going down. The only question is the speed at which it will happen.
I live in California, so I’ll be able to maintain rights while others elsewhere lose them. And at this point, I have so little faith in Americans that I simply can’t bring myself to care about them anymore.
What are we supposed to do? We tried, this one had no ambiguity. If this is what people want, so be it. Gonna suck though so I’m spending my efforts on bracing myself for what’s to come.
We tried, this one had no ambiguity.
I disagree. There is ambiguity to be found. The ambiguity cannot be found in why Trump won. He has a cult and inflation is a thing. But there exists ambiguity in why Harris lost. I do not believe in the notion that Americans are so hell-bent on fascism that they overwhelmingly support Trump and everything he does. I think Harris lost because she moved to the right and failed to meaningfully differentiate herself from an administration that inspired so much apathy that Biden himself said that he didn’t care all that much if he lost.
nah, I don’t attribute it to malice, I attribute it to stupidity and ignorance.
Pretty much the majority of Americans.
Merrick Garland and the $upreme Court slowly snuffed out any hope for America with a pillow over her nose and mouth
It’s honestly the Democrats that make me feel drained. They’re the party that ostensibly represents my political leanings, but they’ve spent the last year funding a genocide, cozying up to Republicans like Liz Cheney, and abandoning the economic populism that got them elected in 2020. If they were at least winning, ignoring progressives like me would be justified, but nope! They made an 80-year-old man their candidate without holding a primary, replaced him at the last minute with a candidate who didn’t even make it to Iowa in 2020, and the walked into their largest electoral defeat since…what, 2004?
Trump is vile, and petty, and cruel, and I’m genuinely scared of the damage he’ll do to our country, but that’s what I expect from him. The fact that the only opposition party to the fascists is this group of cowardly, selfish failures is so demoralizing. If we can’t wrestle control of the party away from these incompetent geriatrics, I honestly don’t know if there’s any hope for American democracy.
I wish I had a party that even paid lip service to representing my political leanings, but left-libertarians apparently don’t exist in the US. I voted for my district’s Democrat as that was the closest I was going to get this time around, but even that was a protest vote as I am in a conservative bastion. Even if the Democrat party is wrested away from the corporatists, it will be temporary and the problem will repeat
We need to pass graduated voting nation-wide so we can get some viable alternative parties in here. I would love to have viable candidates ranging the gamut from conservative to communist, as that promotes a healthy political ecosystem instead of the current monoculture two party system. Makes a blight like the Christian nationalists or the Trump cult or the “leftist” oligarchs capable of infecting large swaths of the system.
And honestly the worst part is: where is the dem leadership right now? Where has Harris been since her defeat? People should have accepted blame for this historic loss and stepped down, but instead - nothing. What the hell is this?
Not only where are they, but who are they? Is Harris still relevant in politics? Pelosi? AOC? Bernie?
Who is running things and what is their plan?
They lost, what do you expect them to do? Foment an insurrection? The American people have spoken and they chose 4 years of a fascist, rapist, lying criminal for a president.
I expect them to still show leadership, to try and bring hope to their constituents - and to take responsibility for the election loss.
What kind of leader just up and leaves after a loss like this? Did Bernie just fuck off after everything that happened to him? No, he’s still there, still trying to build support and help younger politicians follow in his footsteps. Harris should be doing that or should resign, not whatever she’s doing now.
Bernie is in a position where he actually does something. Vice President is a bench-warming position with no real power.
Harris isn’t just the vice president, she was the presidential candidate. For fucks sake, she wanted to be the Democrats leader for the next couple of years! She has way more power and influence compared to Bernie.
She has way more power and influence compared to Bernie.
I don’t see how, since she’s a failed candidate and the VP of a lame duck president. You’re not wrong that she could at least make an attempt to have some sort of message of resistance, but even if she did it wouldn’t have any practical effect. Milquetoast centrist is milquetoast.
I don’t see how your position makes sense. Not only was there literally a $1.4bn dollar campaign promoting her over the last few months, she also dictated the current direction of the DNC based on her campaign policies and promises. She’s VP to a government whose policies she largely supported in her campaign. There hasn’t been any broad renouncement of her.
Besides Biden, who has anywhere close to her power, both in the party and in the public eye? She should be using all of the focus to promote and support new & fresh Democrats. You can’t seriously try to tell me she has less power than Bernie.
Doctors are just fake jobs, everyone knows it’s the nurses who do all the work that’s why my surgeon didn’t even show up to my appendectomy.
If everyone treated their job like Democrats do theirs, the world wouldn’t work.
I expect them to still show leadership
Why start now?
Even more, what incentive is there for them? They know they will get the votes, and donations, from the blue no matter who crowd.
They don’t need to change
Just need to play them for absolute fools
And after this last election, it has become clear that they don’t really care about the votes as long as they get the donations.
I mean would you care about the votes, specially post fact? The money is already there, and they are only humans.
what do you expect them to do?
the person to whom you replied was perfectly clear on this:
People should have accepted blame for this historic loss and stepped down
Foment an insurrection?
If Trump’s a legitimate threat to democracy it would be unpatriotic for them not to do this.
The very very low bar that everyone should have for the Democrats right now is to expect them to be furiously working to win the House and the Senate in the next midterm election. Like balls to the wall, all out. Anything less is completely acquiescing to trumpism.
You want more? They should be strategizing how to flip state legislatures. They should be working on lower levers of government from the bottom up, to fight gerrymandering and electoral shenanigans.
And these are just the normie political stuff. I’m not even going to get into the grassroots organizing, movement building, leadership development, labour organizing etc.
Franklin did tell you, from the very start: “a republic if you can keep it”. Do you want to keep it?
My two Canadian cents, take it or leave it.
Yeah, this exactly. I voted for Harris and I’m furious at the party for being allergic to victory. By becoming so centrist they are completely crippled. They’ve done absolutely jack shit for the average man and just sweep it under the rug. The Democratic party completely ignores us. It is utterly stagnant, with status-quo nominees like Hillary, Biden and Harris. I think without true progressives nominated in the future, dems will keep losing, and it doesn’t even feel like they care.
This is exactly what I think. I really want to be positive, but the more time passes, the more I’m convinced that the message they’ll take from this isn’t, “we need to return to our New Deal roots,” but, “we got too into, ‘identity politics,’ let’s not talk about trans issues anymore.”
I think the final test as to whether there is any hope left for the party is if they select Rahm Emanuel for the DNC chair. If they do, then progressives just need to move on; this party has nothing left to offer, even as a method of countering fascism. We’d be better off trying our luck with third parties than these perennial losers.
This is exactly what I think. I really want to be positive, but the more time passes, the more I’m convinced that the message they’ll take from this isn’t, “we need to return to our New Deal roots,” but, “we got too into, ‘identity politics,’ let’s not talk about trans issues anymore.”
And the galling thing about that is that centrists used Republican “boys in girls’ sports” hatred in their own campaign ads. They talked about trans people. They made it clear that they could not expect Democrats’ support.
Wait, they, “used Republican hatred,” as in they used clips of Republicans being hateful, or they adopted Republicans hateful positions? Just trying to clarify what you mean.
The worst part to me is that Tim Walz already demonstrated how to handle trans issues, which to make the Republicans fixation on them the issue. Don’t get bogged down in all their shitty arguments, just say, “Why are you so obsessed with where people go to bathroom? Mind your own business, weirdo.”
Wait, they, “used Republican hatred,” as in they used clips of Republicans being hateful, or they adopted Republicans hateful positions?
The latter.
Oh, Jesus, I didn’t know that. I knew a bunch of them got vocal about being less supportive of trans folks after the election, but I didn’t realize they were campaigning on. Do you have any names or a source? I don’t doubt you, I just want to know more.
I’m 41. I’ve been involved with activism since I was 20. Things keep getting worse. Time to try something different.
I’m also trying to shift my views to be more like Carlin, where I stop caring about what happens.
What things have been getting worse?
All things
Lots of down votes, but no actual responses.
Because it is ignorant trolling and not a genuine question. People recognize it instantly and downvote instead of giving you the answers you don’t want or need.
Not sure how you missed that but there ya go.
Is that how you always dismiss questions you can’t answer? Who is the ignorant troll? Life expectancy is currently about ten years longer than it was in the eighties. Your turn. Prove me wrong instead of projecting?
The price of damn near everything.
Except, of course, the lowest amount you can legally pay someone for an hour of their labor. That stayed steady as a rock.
My 15 year old makes 16 per hour working fast food. I made 5.25 at his age in the 90s.
Everything is solved and no one is suffering then! Hooray for the power of anecdote!
I’m not sure if you’re aware but they’ve overturned Roe v. Wade.
And that’s just the start of the list.
How about minority rights, accessibility to health care, environmental protections, women’s pay gap and career opportunity in general, black president, woman vice president, safety laws, life expectancy.
Most of those are going away, too
I guess we will see.
None of that counters their point. GJ.
All of the numbers suggest otherwise, but don’t let that get in the way of what you believe in your heart.
Your nonsequitur has nothing to do with me.
You are the one claiming that my multiple examples don’t counter his one example.
40 here. Been watching it slide downhill for 20 solid years now. Just getting more and more absurd. I’m done. I"ll be doing the ignorance is bliss thing from here on out so I can try to enjoy myself a little. I don’t really care about Americans anymore. Too stupid.
Carlin cared a great deal. His whole career was about bringing things to light. He was just cynical and vulgar in his presentation.
“Scratch any cynic and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.”
Why did you scratch me, bro?
I like that
It’s a Carlin quote. Cynics are cynics because they cared and society let them down.
I think we are just at the “fine, let them stick the fork in the outlet” stage, and if that leads to 50 years of hard times and being on the evil side of the next great war…oh fuckin well…we told you so.
Yep, that’s pretty much it. I look at the results of the election and wonder why we bothered to fight so hard to save America from it’s own worst impulses. There’s never a shortage of people willing to vote against their own self-interest. The second coming of Trump could, and should, be a new era of social Darwinism that cleans up the clueless electorate with some hard fucking times. People who are withdrawing from politics right now and “tuning out” are just focusing on not being a casualty, and I can’t blame them. At some point, you have to let the drowning person go or they’ll drag you down with them.
I’m totally prepared for whatever the next 4 years have in store for me. If Trump blows up the economy, I’ll survive. Best of luck to everybody else.
Yup. Pretty much feel the same way.
Americans want to suffer. Now they’re going to suffer. I’m going to let them. I’ll survive. I have a stable job and live in a state that protects my rights. I’m totally fine watching the people who voted to suffer do so. They’ll either learn from the hard experiences or not. I’ll find joy in watching them do either. I could care less now.
are showing a more subdued response
…That’s because, if you’re smart, you keep your responses off public channels. Didn’t anyone learn anything from January 6? Don’t fucking plan in public.
A few of my friends went full-on lockdown mode the second he won and I heard a rumor or two of people buying up hard drives.
I think a few people are going to spend four years offline.
I heard a rumor or two of people buying up hard drives.
I’m wondering what the utility of extra hard drives represents in this context. Are people that reliant on the cloud?
Guess people see things going in this country the way fascism usually goes, restriction of information and data, maybe even connectivity. I’d say nothing is off the table.
I agree, but information and data, at least in their most vital form, can be expressed as text which is already small, further compressible, and easily stored more surreptitiously on microsd cards. All of Wikipedia is only like 22gb, and no one individual’s horde of info is likely to eclipse that volume.
On the other hand, Wikimedia commons is orders of magnitude larger, and we did just see how brittle archive.org can be.
yeah please tune out to make sure he gets zero pushback whatsoever. I mean it worked to get him elected president, why not advance to godking?
Next step, emperor of mankind
they tuned out years ago. that’s why he’s president again. who even cares about anything at this point? fuck it.
The people who are tuning out now are the ones who are active during the elections. We exhausted ourselves trying to get someone we didn’t really believe in elected president against someone we truly feared. And it was all for nothing because the Democratic party is incapable of appealing to the lower class.
I suspected we were in trouble when Kamala Harris embraced the endorsement from that absolute turd bag Dick Cheney and his equally shit daughter Liz. I saw Hillary try to pull the same stupid strategy back in 2016. They keep trying to lure Republicans to the Democratic side and it never never never works. Republicans do not care how “fiscally responsible” you tell them that you are. They will always vote for the person with the ® next to their name. And while the Democrats are doing that they are repelling just everyone on the left. Especially those who are poor and don’t give a shit how fiscally responsible you are they just want a break.
And now I really don’t have any faith in the Democratic party at all. I don’t think they’re as bad as Republicans but they sing their songs to the same tunes the Republicans do. Just with different lyrics.
the Democratic party is incapable of appealing to the lower class.
Anyone to whom Cheney is appealing is of appallingly low class.
Oh, you mean economic class.
I’m sick of hearing about the asshole, and sick of hearing about him getting “slammed” by some celebrity or politician, and sick of hearing how he’s a huge threat so we need to send a sternly worded letter.
Getting upset over this is so draining, especially because there’s nothing we can do to stop him in the short term.
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Getting upset over this is so draining, especially because there’s nothing we can do to stop him in the short term.
For me personally, I think the most draining part of the whole thing is that nothing was done to stop him in the 4 years he was out of power.
1,461 days, all of them spent listening to people talk about how horrible it would be if he got back into power, and yet absolutely fucking nothing was done in that time to prevent the horrible things we were warned about from happening.Exactly. Breathless emails and texts talking about how we have to defend democracy from fascism (by giving them money) but no real action on their part for four goddamn years.
Over a billion dollars raised in a few months for the Harris campaign, and the only people that voted for her were already going to vote blue. Nothing came out of it that helped anyone except the select few who got richer
Fuck every political consultant, and double fuck the ones who thought Cheney was a good idea.
Until Democrats stop being Republican-lite, they’ll never learn. And this is what they get. Apathy and disillusionment.
The older I get and the more things I witness like Citizens United happen, the more economically rightward both parties become, the more ruthless the Republicans become to be rewarded by The Base, the more feckless the opposition becomes. The more we vote and Democrats do nothing, or just enough Republicans win to stop them. We vote and the people we vote for suddenly go “oops I was actually a consevative the whole time!” The more time passes the more I realize organized violence or riots are really are more than likely the only things that will actually change anything. The older I get though the more I realize that will never happen.
We’re all far too “civil” and hope voting for the oligarch lite will save us. We’re far too propagandized and are denied the only real changes we need to how we vote to stop this trend. We will have to be pushed until it’s really really really bad for anyone to actually organize a revolt. By then it will be far too late.
Apathy helps the oppressor, but engagement hasn’t shown to have much of a positive affect either. :/
Why do you believe organised violence/riots help? Not that I have good ideas, but I am pretty sure that violence will further cement Trump/GOP rule.
It’s reality. When civil disobedience doesn’t work people don’t stop, they just stop being civil.
I think if anything the riots/strikes would be better than actual violence. Basically any direct sustained threat to their incomes will force some kind of change… anything short of that and these people will just continue to buy elections and buy the people who run. Threats to life might make things worse, but I think the “ownership class” need to be reminded that they can only fuck around so far until they “find out.” The only meaningful changes in society in relation to the owning classes came from violence.
I fully understand the anger and frustration that leads people to dreaming of and secretly prepping for violent insurrections, but I will absolutely urge them to redirect the energy into something that can actually make a change.
Historically, violent insurrections against the owning class have always been put down by the police or army and not resulting in changes.
The latest meaningful changes which happened in Europe in the late 1800s happened due to workers uniting, striking and supporting each other internationally.
This is rarely taught in schools for some reason, and it’s beginning to be a bit of an issue, since many people today have no clue about the foundation for their current life/working situation.
Even if there was a violent insurrection… then what? What are the demands? What is the desired outcome? If people can organize to figure that out, they might as well put it into a strike demand.
Well pass on that knowledge then cause I’m just getting starting. We got a world to save and not a whole lot of time to save it. Do whatever you can to put rockets on the elbows of those who are oppressed and misrepresented. The time to realize the monopoly on violence, and why that is was yesterday. It is now time to disobey.
I figured this out in The Tombs in Brooklyn 20 years ago. I was the only white guy and hearing these kids talk about conspiracy theories even back then… 9/11… David Icke… Aliens… etc… I knew then “if stones get thrown, it’ll be from the streets, the hungry, not the over educated upper middle class suburban whites.” And also not at all surprised when people of color went hard right last couple elections bc they haven’t trusted the govt … ever…
Funny enough the conspiracy theories were how I even got interested in politics to begin with! I always had a special hatred for Bush, but after being exposed to the 9/11 conspiracies I fell down a rabbit hole, crossed paths with Infowars for a bit, and finally dug myself back out to “reality” taking a brief tour of “maybe the Democrats actually give a shit about people.”
…yeah. We don’t actually have a party for the working people. Things are going to have to get rough for things to change :(
School report on the Ross Perot election and then reading Rage Against the Machine liner note lyrics (and going to the library to research every historical reference). By the time I was in high school in Manhattan with proximity to activism, I was grabbing the bullhorn at the protests.
Yeah… That was the 99% movement. Leftist and tea party… unity? (Anger at being fucked by banks) Have you read The Great Derangement? Check out the synopsis. Might be up your alley.
Oh- getting beat up by NYPD at age 12 prob didn’t help
Temptation? I’ve already gone to “fuck it - burn it to the ground”. There’s not fuck-all I’m going to do at this point that is going to make any difference.
And this is why the right well always win. They go for what they want till they get it. How long did they fight to repel row vs wade?
Row vs wade… Funny.
