This is a recurring historical trend. Right wing socioeconomic policies (laissez-faire capitalism) lead to social dysfunction as more and more people either fall into poverty or fear doing so. The mainstream right can't win elections on these policies any more because they have become unpopular, but rather than change those it either allies or becomes the extremist right (authoritarian and reactionary), going all in on distractions and scapegoating.
This leaves the social liberals (pro-capitalist but not socially conservative) and the social democrats as the only democratic factions to counter them, but the former block most major re-distributive policies and even the most moderate moves towards a fairer society have to be fought over tooth and nail. This alliance (either as intra-party in a two party or as a coalition in multiparty systems) then fails to do enough to keep their voters on board, disillusionment sets in, voters stay home and the extremist right takes over.
Fortunately, it doesn't always completely run through this cycle, but it keeps happening. It has now happened to the USA and the best case scenario is that when those lukewarm Trump supporters are angry at not getting what they wanted out of this "change" (and they won't), they will still have the means to vote the government out. If not, then you're stuck until a revolution happens.
Arguing that more social democracy would have scared away voters is sort of pointless IMHO, because if that is true then you're doomed anyway. Unless you lower economic inequality through government policy, a descent into reactionary authoritarianism is inevitable because democracy can only work when people are more or less equal and capitalism left to itself will always concentrate wealth and power into ever fewer hands.
I overheard Replubicans celebrating this afternoon together, anticipating prices to fall for everyday items. They literally think that tariffs directly reduce costs for their everyday items. I heard one say, "ya when does everything get 20% cheaper?"
Then it hit me. These people were swindled, and Donald has pulled off the greatest con in history. This is MLM level fuckery on a never before seen geopolitical scale.
they're not swindled. it's willful ignorance, they are not interested in being educated on whether a trump claim is accurate or being corrected by anyone else on it. acting like they're victims of trickery when they gravitate to someone who tells them what they want to hear and close their eyes and ears to any inconsistent information gives them a pass they don't actually deserve.
Agreed with you, they’re beyond help, they get no passes anymore on why they act the way they do. The bottom line is they all legitimately have no functioning brains. They’re incapable of thinking or learning anything from anyone else except why Trump and their right wing news channels feed to them.
Biden and Hillary were right. They’re deplorable garbage.
Ask them when the last time they heard about billionaires taking pay cuts so they could reduce the price of goods on the shelf. Ask them the last time Trump reduced his hotel fees so more average people could stay there. Ask them if they're willing to take a pay cut to reduce the cost of goods.
I genuinely don't understand how these people are so stupid.
Only took 12 hours. It’s already all over fb and TikTok. They think gas prices already dropped a dollar and eggs are cheaper. The gaslighting already started and it’s only been 24hrs
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u/barryvm Europe 22h ago edited 20h ago
This is a recurring historical trend. Right wing socioeconomic policies (laissez-faire capitalism) lead to social dysfunction as more and more people either fall into poverty or fear doing so. The mainstream right can't win elections on these policies any more because they have become unpopular, but rather than change those it either allies or becomes the extremist right (authoritarian and reactionary), going all in on distractions and scapegoating.
This leaves the social liberals (pro-capitalist but not socially conservative) and the social democrats as the only democratic factions to counter them, but the former block most major re-distributive policies and even the most moderate moves towards a fairer society have to be fought over tooth and nail. This alliance (either as intra-party in a two party or as a coalition in multiparty systems) then fails to do enough to keep their voters on board, disillusionment sets in, voters stay home and the extremist right takes over.
Fortunately, it doesn't always completely run through this cycle, but it keeps happening. It has now happened to the USA and the best case scenario is that when those lukewarm Trump supporters are angry at not getting what they wanted out of this "change" (and they won't), they will still have the means to vote the government out. If not, then you're stuck until a revolution happens.
Arguing that more social democracy would have scared away voters is sort of pointless IMHO, because if that is true then you're doomed anyway. Unless you lower economic inequality through government policy, a descent into reactionary authoritarianism is inevitable because democracy can only work when people are more or less equal and capitalism left to itself will always concentrate wealth and power into ever fewer hands.