Everybody is entitled to vote for who they want of course but it just baffles me personally why anyone would vote for Trump.
Same as any other populist - they offer simple solutions to complex (or even intractable) problems. One of the main reasons we have politicians and a political system in the first place is because people as a whole hate to have to think about things - especially when they have so much other stuff to worry about.
Scared about global warming and large tracts of habitable land becoming desolate hellscapes whilst your four ton SUV becomes ever more economically unjustifiable? Don't be! Global warming isn't real, so we're safe to drill, baby, drill.
Worried about non-existent global warming causing mass migrations from areas that are no longer habitable (but are, because global warming doesn't exist and it's just stinkin' furriners trying to steal your stuff)? Vote for me and my guns and torture centres and you'll never have to worry about furriners again!
Concerned about the ever-increasing encroachment of surveillance capitalism and the chilling effects on individual liberties, freedom of speech and challenging the status quo? Don't be! Big Tech is your friend and if you vote for my reforms we'll make sure that only the wrong kind of free speech is penalised and there'll be no need to challenge the status quo because everything will be perfect.
What do you mean everything
isn't perfect? Well there was absolutely nothing wrong with my plan, you all know that - it must be
their fault.
YOU know the ones I'm talking about. Keep voting for me and I'll make sure
they don't get to spoil your fun any more.
All of this kind of crap is as old as the hills, and human nature's not changed on the sort of scale that would make it an unviable tactic. Even when it's internally inconsistent, too many people will plump for the simple option rather than the complicated (and frequently painful) one.
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Those struggling Americans who think their lives are going to improve under Trump are going to be disappointed.
Those who've kept the faith since 2016-2020 certainly haven't been disappointed.
We need better politics and ones that lead us in productive directions.
From my interpretation of history at least, the "better politics" are all too rare except in the aftermath of some horrendous event like a war or a plague or a tyrannical regime. People look back on the event, look at what led up to it, collectively look to their fellow humans and say "JFC, that was bloody awful. How do fix up the aftermath, and then why don't we try doing the opposite of what led up to that fustercluck?" and, for a time at least, there's a general societal pull towards egalitarianism. Over time this message gets diluted, you get too many people only look at the system so as to know how to exploit it for their own personal gain, and eventually you're inevitably back at the point of the haves vs. the have-nots again.
WWII's probably worth a special mention here, since it trashed half the planet, and you had a rash of socially progressive programmes appearing all over the world, especially in europe. But this didn't really happen to the same degree in the states, because the aftermath of WWII made the USA the most powerful country in the world
and gave it a good 20-year largely uncontested run of the most highly developed and un-fucked industrial economy in the world, all whilst they were still basking in the relative prosperity of FDR's New Deal (itself a reaction to the Depression)... so I don't think they felt the pangs in the same way eurasia did.
If this sounds bitter and cynical, you're right. If you say that doesn't really get us anywhere, you're also right. I wish I had more hope for the immediate future, but I don't.
I fear that future historians may well refer to this time as being "the pre-war years"...
That's the same creeping feeling of inescapable dread I have, I think. Even if populist politics doesn't provoke it, dwindling natural resources and climate change absolutely will.
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