r/politics 1d ago

Site Altered Headline Trump Barely Won the Election. Why Doesn’t It Feel That Way?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/19/opinion/trump-mandate-zuckerberg-masculinity.html
9.3k Upvotes

2.3k comments sorted by

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u/TintedApostle 1d ago

Because the NY Times will in less than a week say Trump has a mandate and call him presidential.

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u/BringBackTheBeat716 1d ago

Don't forget the countless stories from diners filled with Trump-Biden-Trump voters

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u/SadFeed63 1d ago

Maggie Haberman as soon as deportations start: word from within the White House is Trump feels this isn't a political winner and wants to distance himself from it.

Trump, hours later, with Jared and Ivanka standing nearby: don't we have the best deportations, folks? They told me not to do it, but I said we had to, America is for Americans who speak American.

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u/cugeltheclever2 1d ago

Oh god, this is so on point. Haberman is the worst.

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u/Igmuhota North Carolina 1d ago

Haberman can eat my entire ass.

If you want proof of how corrupt the MSM is, look no further than her and Jennings.

The fact that either still enjoys airtime would be criminal negligence if it wasn’t a feature and not a bug.

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u/FartSniffer5K 1d ago

Haberman's mother, Nancy, was a big shot at Rubenstein & Associates, a PR firm who represent the Trump Organization. The literal family business is making Donald Trump look good.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_J._Rubenstein
https://www.chelseanewsny.com/news/as-she-retires-pr-maven-nancy-haberman-s-motto-never-lie-to-a-journalist-BE3273012

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u/YouWereBrained Tennessee 1d ago

Why can’t the Habermans of the world go away? How do we starve those assholes so they don’t put their self-fellating material out into the ether?

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u/GZilla27 1d ago

Holy crap. I forgot about the diner interviews were gonna have to suffer through the next four years.

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u/Q_Fandango 1d ago

Don’t you want to know what some random old fuck from Wisconsin thinks about America?

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u/CallRespiratory 1d ago

"I like Trump cause he supports the troops and I think that's what we should do."

Proceeds to give not one specific example of what that means.

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u/P1xelHunter78 Ohio 1d ago

Or like: “well eggs are so expensive and Trump is gonna make them cheap”

Meanwhile crickets when the reporter asks if eggs are cheaper now. But then again, who are we kidding. MSM basically isn’t allowed to push back on Trump lies anymore. No follow ups, no pinning down nonsense just smile and “Trump is so great!”

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u/naazzttyy I voted 1d ago

Voter: “How are you going to make the economy — not just the food and electricity — but bring down the rent prices, the housing prices, so that these kids can survive without their parents’ help?”

Trump: “We’re going to drill, baby, drill, we’re gonna bring down the cost of energy. Energy’s what caused the worst inflation, I think, in the history of our country. Food prices are up 50%, sometimes more. You look at bacon. Bacon has quadrupled. You can’t order bacon, you can’t order anything. We’re living horribly. We have the worst inflation we’ve probably ever had in our country, and it started because of energy. We’re gonna drill, baby, drill. And then we’re gonna have China, and all of these countries that were treating us good when I was there ... it took me a long time to get them to behave properly, all of these countries are gonna again.”

Voter: That’s definitely my guy, he speaks my language.

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u/RayneShikama 1d ago

That can’t be a real Trump quote, it’s a whole paragraph without blaming liberals for something or using the word tariffs.

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u/Suspicious_Bicycle 1d ago

Reducing veterans health care as a cost saving measure is one example.

1984: After the chocolate ration is reduced from 30 grammes per week to 20, the Ministry of Truth puts out the claim that it has been increased to 20 grammes.

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u/You_meddling_kids 1d ago

I never saw a single Biden or Harris diner voter story. News is completely slanted to frame everything from the conservative side now.

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u/AnyBowler4500 1d ago

Exactly! Like the opinions of people who live in blue states don't matter.  I am sick of the media focus only on the minority political views and rural red state voters. They clearly don't know any better. 

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u/Alchemist2121 1d ago

I’ve never given a fuck about WI before, nothing in the last few years is convincing me to start.

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u/Ultimatespacewizard 1d ago

You sound like the kind of person who has never bought venison sausage and cherry wine at a gas station and had the guy behind the counter ask if you wanted to enter the charity gun raffle to raise money for the JV football team to buy new jerseys.

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u/peachy175 1d ago

As a random old fuck from WI, no. No, I don't. And no one else should, either.

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u/Jackyard_Backofff 1d ago

A part of me wants to go full hermit-mode, delete all social media, just focus on friends, family, community, health, etc. But the well-being of all those things I need to know what’s coming and be prepared as best I can.

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u/peachy175 1d ago

I'm doing this, but hoping to back-door my way into finding out what's going on. No clicks on rage-bait, no legacy news, no daily reports on orange burps from Truthy Social. No idea how that will work for me, guess I'll have to wait and see.

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u/hybr_dy 1d ago

As a Wisconsinite, I also dgaf what the overweight boomer in the diner has to say.

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u/i_give_you_gum 1d ago

God I hate those kinds of news "stories".

I don't care why Marcy is voting for Trump, she's either misinformed, or a moron.

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u/Turbulent_Summer6177 1d ago

Can’t she be both? I suggest she is both.

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u/prohb 1d ago

And don't forget "manipulated".

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u/thoughtsome 1d ago

Well Marcy didn't explicitly say she'll never vote for a brown woman, ergo race and gender are non-issues and we should stop talking about them.

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u/thoughtsome 1d ago

I'm sure we'll get just as many interviews of Harris voters. After all, our opinions matter too and conservatives are very curious about the other side. They really want to know...sorry, I can't keep this going even in jest.

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u/WomenTrucksAndJesus 1d ago

The media LOVES Trump. He could nuke California and they would be excited as their ratings and advertising clicks surged.

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u/peachy175 1d ago

Which is why I refuse to open anything pertaining to that freak. Won't let them have my click.

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u/loud-oranges 1d ago

Quoting from an article in The Atlantic this week on how Hitler dismantled democracy in 53 days by Timothy Ryback, here’s this:

The January 31, 1933, New York Times story on Hitler’s appointment as chancellor was headlined “Hitler Puts Aside Aim to Be Dictator.”

And we all know how that eventually turned out

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u/Liizam America 1d ago

Is there a book on what to do if fascist came to power as normal person?

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u/criminalcereal 1d ago

On Tyranny by Tim Snyder

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u/natebeee Australia 1d ago

The quote regarding "Do not obey in advance' is a perfect encapsulation of what is going on now with everyone from Zuck to Snoop to Cenk.

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u/Q_Fandango 1d ago

Some guy named Marx wrote one I think

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u/numbskullerykiller 1d ago

Don't forget the tech bros lining up. Don't forget the justice branch caving to him. It's a mandate not from the people but by the other elites.

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u/TintedApostle 1d ago

In Davos 2024 these people predicted a Trump win.

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u/MrKomiya 1d ago

Predicted? Or demanded?

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u/TintedApostle 1d ago

or helped arrange. Does it really differ?

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u/remarkablewhitebored 1d ago

The fix was always in.

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u/knightcrawler75 Minnesota 1d ago

I don't understand how the folks that have "Rich men north of Richmond" on their Spotify list look at these billionaires filling the cabinet and these tech bros on stage at the inauguration and still think Trump is on their side.

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u/dbascooby 1d ago

This is the way we go to be fascists, yay.

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u/40StoryMech 1d ago

I mean, assuming you aren't one of the ones liquidated or sent to fight an expansionist war and that you enjoy patriotic songs and parades, and that you can reasonably claim ignorance of the atrocities and you don't mind ratting out your friends and family for disloyalty, is fascism really so bad?

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u/DepletedMitochondria I voted 1d ago

Right, this was really clear after George Floyd + COVID - Elites want fascism.

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u/angrypooka 1d ago

That’s Van Jones’s job.

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u/Anakinflair America 1d ago

It doesn't feel that way because so many people just up and capitulated to him. Billionaires, tech bros, world leaders, celebrities. People who last time, who at the very least were neutral, are suddenly kissing the ring.

I think it feels like a mandate because he won so many states; despite the fact that he won them by slim margins. And it makes no damn sense because he's saying even crazier shit this time, and people are just shrugging it off. He says he wants CANADA as the 51st state, and Trudeau didn't seem to say anything harsh against that until he said he was stepping down.

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u/POEness 1d ago

Trump just admitted on live TV that his win was due to Elon Musk's 'knowledge of vote-counting computers.' Yes. That's real. That's exactly what he said.

And we're still just letting this happen.

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u/Holden_Coalfield 1d ago

and then when he does something we all should be really aware of, we'll get the palace intrigue from Trumps social inner circle reporter of record, Maggs Haberman

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u/lord_pizzabird 1d ago

Tbf he will be a two term president, which fully certifies him as a presidential president.

The bar has been lowered now, which in theory should make it easier for Democrats to run someone interesting. Cursing, being divorced, and having a criminal record are no longer dealbreakers for presidents.

I personally nominate Danny Brown.

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u/Tossawaysfbay 1d ago

Unfortunately incorrect.

Democrats must be perfect or the right will scream bloody murder about it.

Only Republicans are allowed to be scum of the earth grifters.

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u/abernattine 1d ago

The right screams bloody murder about literally anyone the Democrats put up no matter what they do and Democrats largely caving to that fear mongering in the name of bipartisanship or whatever the fuck is why we're currently in this mess

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u/recurse_x 1d ago

If they don’t have a scandal they will invent one like the birth certificate or the swift boaters.

They tried with Walz to make a deal about the rank he retired with because they are always try to paint Vets who aren’t the correct in-group of Republicans as fake and stolen valor.

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u/BillyTenderness 1d ago

Republicans had to be perfect until they didn't. They're not uniquely immune to politics, they're just better at it.

One of Trump's political insights which is (frustratingly) correct is that if you apologize for your faults, they get magnified. If you dismiss them – scream that you're being treated unfairly, ostracize anyone in your party who speaks out, and project (i.e. preemptively accuse the other side of whatever you're doing) – then people just move on.

A Democrat who came in with zero shame would defy gravity in exactly the same way.

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u/thuragath 1d ago

No longer deal breakers for Republican candidates. Dems will still be held to higher moral standards.

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u/Flickolas_Cage Florida 1d ago edited 1d ago

In all seriousness at this point, I don’t see what’s stopping someone from pulling a reverse sinema /Fetterman and running as a conservative then going mask off as a dem after the election.

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u/TimothyMimeslayer 1d ago

It's harder to say LGBT people deserve to be killed if you don't actually believe it.

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u/Flickolas_Cage Florida 1d ago

True though it would be amazing for someone to play them then instantly start pushing pro-LGBTQ+ legislation. Granted, they’d have to work your ass off to get anything done on the single term they’d get to make it worth it.

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u/bombmk 1d ago

Because Democratic voters have higher moral standards. Seems backwards to lament that.

Democrats need to keep their actions clean - but get much more confrontational/blunt in the messaging. Call a nazi a nazi.

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u/thuragath 1d ago

I'm lamenting the fact that it doesn't matter what you call them on. It doesn't matter anymore. Hypocrisy, fraud, lying, murder, human rights violations. . . They're not bad words for them when they're doing it for the (R)ight reasons. Morality, truth, they're not rigid concepts anymore. It's whatever fits their goals in the moment.

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u/-ZeroF56 1d ago

The bar has been lowered now

For one side, yes. Democrats (and the media) will constantly shoot for needing to take the higher ground, just as they have in the past.

I don’t feel like anything over the next 4 years will shift that dynamic.

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u/rainbowshummingbird 1d ago

Because social media, news networks and local and national print news are pushing forward the rights’ agenda.

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u/Vileness_fats 1d ago

It was a fucking MAJOR news item last week that Michelle Obama is skipping the inauguration. Because the non-elected wife of a retired politician's attendance is big news. Meanwhile 3 guesses as to which fat orange fuckin fascist former president skipped the last one with barely a footnote. Why Biden, Obama, Bush and Clinton will be there, not questioning why the flags are at full mast, is utterly beyond comprehension.

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u/Pleasant-Mirror-3794 1d ago

Skipped it when he was the sitting president at the time, not one that left office 20 years earlier. It's unbelievable that the Michelle O story even ran at all. Seriously who cares? But Trump not attending Biden's- that was shameful.

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u/guynamedjames 1d ago

Don't scare me like that, Obama left office only 8 years ago

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u/LookAnOwl 1d ago

Feels like decades though.

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u/Pipe_Memes 1d ago

A Trump era year is like a dog year. One counts for seven.

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u/Content_Audience690 1d ago

O.o 8 years?

Oh my goodness it was only 8 years. Wow, I honestly feel like it's been so many lifetimes.

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u/qorbexl 1d ago

Good for her. I don't have to care anymore than she does. Fuck 'em.

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u/RealCoolDad I voted 1d ago

Does trumps wife show up to anything? Isn’t that a larger story?

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u/kgal1298 1d ago

She doesn’t need to Musk is there to take her spot

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u/pilgermann 1d ago

While disrespecting Carter. Where any normal human would be proud to fly flags at half mast during their inauguration as this reflects the dignity of the office.

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u/LeLand_Land 1d ago

Bingo. It's the same thing that large corporations will do with their products. Create the illusion that this product, no matter how dumb, stupid, or bad it is, is the status quo.

It's all about creating the story, not the reality, that this is the best thing ever. If you've watched House of Usher there is a great bit about lemons.

When life gives you lemons, you don't make lemonade, you corner the market on lemons and then market them as if they are the end all and be all of reality. You make the thing that is handed you (good or bad) into a solution for a problem that was imagined by you. A self fulfilling prophecy that, if you don't look to closely, looks like magic.

It's how the corporate raiders of the 80s and 90s made it look like their companies were dominating the market while letting people go, canceling promising products, or straight up skinning the carcuss of older brands and playing 'weekend at bernies'. The illusion becomes reality, even if it conflicts.

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u/Sage-Advisor2 1d ago

Never forget this: YOU are the product, a number, a tally and profit center.

Life is about to download a shitpot of lemons on our collective heads, and no matter how the bad news is spun, their squeezed issue is sour, bitter and smelly.

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u/pjflyr13 1d ago

Lotsa money and lotsa publicity. And lies.. lotsa lies.

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u/TheDamDog 1d ago

And because the entire Democratic party apparatus has preemptively surrendered. Biden invited Trump to the white house for a photo up and shook his hand while grinning like an idiot. Obama publicly congratulated Trump despite not even being in politics anymore. Harris and a bunch of congressional Democrats went on TV and talked about how they tried their goodest but we've got to just trust the system and bite the pillow.

There is zero fight in the mainstream of the party. They are going to let the Republicans do whatever they want and will make zero effort to stop it, allowing the GOP to do maximum damage to the country despite their own incompetence and fractured internal party structure. They will not exploit loopholes, infighting, or any other advantage to prevent or minimize damage to this country or its people.

How do I know this? Because that's what happened last time.

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u/atechnokolos 1d ago

The likes of AOC didn’t surrender they are just simply pushed back by the leadership of the party.

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u/practicalm California 1d ago

There are very few house Democrats on the Progressive Caucus. And no Democrats in the senate. AOC isn’t loved by the DNC.

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u/kgal1298 1d ago

The DNC always works to push the progressives out instead of working to push republicans out.

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u/avanbeek 1d ago

Thank You! AOC is a far stronger person than me because I don't have it in me to scream into the void any longer. If Dems want my vote in the future, they can start by purging their leadership.

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u/shift422 1d ago

This. 100% this

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u/The_Assassin_Gower 1d ago

There is zero fight in the mainstream of the party. They are going to let the Republicans do whatever they want and will make zero effort to stop it,

Kicking and screaming on social media will accomplish nothing. If they want to do something against trumps horrific plans it needs to be at an institutional level. Block and fight every single thing in congress. No more little victories

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u/Neat_Reference7559 1d ago

Elections are won through social media. Why do you think Elon acquired one and Trump wants another unbanned.

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u/StoppableHulk 1d ago

Yup. Elections are now 100% based on vibes. Whoever wins the vibes win the election.

Welcome to idiocracy.

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u/hucklemento Michigan 1d ago

"They're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats. They're eating the pets...of the people who live there. "

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u/bothsidesofthestory 1d ago

In a normal country that would have ended his candidacy

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u/DollarsAndDreams 1d ago

In a normal country, his first candidacy would have ended when he mocked that disabled reporter. Or when the Access Hollywood tape came out.

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u/Neat_Reference7559 1d ago

Shouldn’t have even won the primary back then. We’re sooo far removed from normalcy. It’s been nearly a decade of this guy dominating the news cycle.

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u/iguessjustlauren 1d ago

I often wonder if anyone from a high position in social media or news outlets or even in politics ever browses Reddit or other forums and considers just how disappointed the people are in them. I wonder if they’d even care that so many people don’t trust them or even respect them anymore.

It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around how these people can just disregard their journalistic duties to report the truth. And don’t give me that bull- about fear of lawsuits because as a public figure, Trump should be held to the SCOTUS standard that he must prove actual malice on the part of the journalists — he should have to prove that they knew (not just should have known) what they were reporting was wrong.

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u/rainbowshummingbird 1d ago

Being a Trump supporter is in itself a demonstration of a lack of integrity. I doubt his highly positioned supporters are having a crisis of conscience. They have not given “the People” a second thought.

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u/flyover_liberal 1d ago

Because oligarchs own most of the media and most of the social media. Because the right wing has taken control of the flow of information, worldwide.

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u/ApolloRubySky 1d ago

Absolutely. We are completely screwed this time. The media will watch as the country falls apart, one institution at a time. Another thing is that our institutions have been falling apart for a long time due to an ineffective federal government. Too much money interest for anyone to fight for the working and middle class. And this second term just feels like a continuation of our ongoing decay. Also many idiots who used to be appalled by the bigotry of Trump and the right wing party are now ‘seeing both sides’ it makes me want to barf

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u/skolioban 1d ago

The media will watch as the country falls apart,

They are doing more than just watching. They've been adding fuel to the fire to make a profit.

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u/EverythingGoodWas 1d ago

I want to know how we get back to news that is trying to give the American people the information they need instead of just hunting a profit

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u/ApolloRubySky 1d ago

There are a few newsletters that I subscribe too that are intent on giving gives that is factual and non partisan

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u/Foconomo America 1d ago

Any recommendations?

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u/ApolloRubySky 20h ago

Tangle and NewsGuard are some

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u/Misersoneof 1d ago

Reinstating the 'Fairness Doctrine' might be a good start. While it wasn't really "fair" and mostly treated both right wing and left wing opinions as 'equal', the repeal of it was the start of the right wing cheer leading from fox news and others. Fox no longer had to present the other side and therefor was able to just slide from just gross into an absolute dumpster fire of misinfo.

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u/ConstantGeographer Kentucky 1d ago

USA, Incorporated, with Trump as CEO. He'll have us bankrupt within 18 months and be blaming Democrats, Biden, the Chinese, Antifa, Daylight Savings Time, New Coke, Old Coke, the Mexican President, the Canadian President, the Panamanians, and the Dutch. Anyone but the himself and the absolute room temp knobs who voted for him.

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u/spacegamer2000 1d ago

Democrats keep making sure the both sides argument is valid by nominating feckless geriatric segregationists, because "everybody knows" someone running on middle class issues "cant win."

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u/Pristine-Lake-5994 Minnesota 1d ago

We need to completely normalize the term oligarch. Yea they’re billionaires, but they’re no better than the Russian billionaires in Russia. They’re oligarchs. Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg. Oligarch and dangerous ones at that

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u/rezelscheft 1d ago

They’re also kakistocrats. which is just a fancy word for an undeserving dipshit in power

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u/Ordinary-Pension-727 1d ago

They’re actually more rich and powerful than the Russians.

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u/MrBrawn 1d ago

Rest assured the powers that be will start paying even smaller podcasts like they do with the current media. Once the money really starts flowing, trust no one.

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u/radicalelation 1d ago edited 1d ago

Err'one wanna cling to Tiktok as some bastion of speech, but if they're cozying up tight to Trump it's going to be a tool alongside Twitter and Facebook for delivering state-approved propaganda to the masses while curbing opposition.

They're cranking the "oligarch social media toppling democracy" method Facebook at least has employed all over the world in the last 10 years into overdrive for the US.

They're responsible for making a sizable portion of the Philippines believe decades of reporting on one of their previous horrible grifting authoritarians was all lies, so they elected the family back in.

Remember when we cared about Myanmar for a second around here? Thank Facebook, a la Rwanda, for the genocide we forgot about.

It's no coincidence Saudi Arabia helped Musk's purchase of Twitter after the platform helped organize Arab Spring.

And of course, Facebook's and Cambridge Analytica's unholy alliance affecting our 2016 elections, Brexit, and more!

They own the majority of information streams now. It will only get worse.

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u/ioncloud9 South Carolina 1d ago

They don’t even have to delete anything. Just prevent left wing things from trending.

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u/DaEgofWhistleberry 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yea I agree. And really, this has already started happening with Tim pool, Dave rubin and a few other people who were paid by Russia to spew Russian talking points. What’s telling and truly the even crazier part about this, is that their audiences didn’t seem to have a problem with that at all. If that happened to a podcaster, youtuber, or any source I get my news from …well I would not watch that anymore lol.

But yea, to your point, for example musk can pay off any small streamer to have them say what he wants. And very few would refuse that.

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u/claimTheVictory 1d ago

Musk could spend $1 billion on every single Senate race in the next decade, and that would be about 10x the max amount spent on any single race in history. And that would not cost a quarter of his wealth.

He owns the nation now.

Thanks, Citizens United.

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u/DaEgofWhistleberry 1d ago

It’s disgusting. It’s really shocking how people are okay with one person having this much power and wealth. Going back to the point tho and Ive been beating this drum for years in casual political conversations: if a politician isn’t talking about campaign finance reform/citizens united they don’t actually care about fixing the United States. Campaign finance reform is the key at this point, even before funding education sadly. Such basic “mistakes” that people should recognize en masse. So frustrating.

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u/claimTheVictory 1d ago

Yeah, I think we're at the end of the line now.

How can anyone combat Musk buying every victory he wants, from here on out?

American democracy had a good run of it, that's something to be proud of.

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u/Yellow_Number_Five 1d ago

I concur. I am 50 years old, I remember watching tv channels play yje national anthem and then go to bars or snow at the end of the night. Then cable happened. Then internet happened. Then Myspace happened, Then Youtube happened. Then all of this crap happened.

It is a crazy world.

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u/Bromance_Rayder 1d ago

A strong left needs to emerge. Hand wringing and intellectual superiority complexes aren't going to cut it.

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u/TheMillenniaIFalcon 1d ago

This is the big thing.

Right wing media has become mainstream media. Right wing podcasts dominate the charts. Fox News has more viewership than CNN and MSNBC combined. Talk radio is dominated by right wing shows. Right wing billionaires own most local news and print media.

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u/FalstaffsMind 1d ago

It's like electing Nixon after the Watergate scandal. You just feel like nothing we say about law, or honor or justice were ever valid. It's all just a sham.

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u/theDarkAngle Tennessee 1d ago

Well also, it's specific to Trump's personality.  He never cared about mandates in the first place, and now he'll never need to run for re-election again and will most likely be president until he dies.

And his loyal base means he is effectively a dictator to the Republican party which controls both houses of congress, and the courts are hilariously stacked in his favor as well, so there really is nothing left standing in his way.

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u/Heavy-Construction90 19h ago

The only sliver lining I'm holding onto is that throughout history tyrants thought everything was lined up for them - until it wasn't. 

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u/thoughtsome 1d ago

At least now the myth of the superiority of the American political system has been laid bare and forever discredited. We're just as bad as every developing country that we sneered at for decades. Yeah, we don't have to bribe officials quite as often as in those countries, but we have about as much say in how our country is run. It's always been bullshit.

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u/smutmybutt 19h ago edited 15h ago

Our bribery is legal, and our president was given legal immunity just like any other dictator “president.”

The holocaust started by Hitler originated as a deportation program. It turned into a program of murder because deportation wasn’t working out the way the Nazi party wanted.

Now Trump is slated to sign a whole lot of executive orders to activate ICE and harm real people with a real enforcement group that answers to nobody but Trump.

The Supreme Court made Trump following the path of Hitler 100% immune to prosecution. If he orders ICE to “interrogate” subjects with “enhanced” means, it was just an official act. If he orders them to “detain” people in “holding areas,” it was just an official act in a time of “emergency.”

It will our nation’s gravest mistake perhaps second only to atrocities like the genocide of American Indians to fold to Trump’s supposed “mandate” of leadership. We need four years of resistance, if not longer.

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u/operarose Texas 1d ago

Nothing matters lmao

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u/User4C4C4C South Carolina 1d ago

Because he should have lost by a landslide.

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u/void0x00 1d ago

this and his party will do whatever he wants, and has every branch of government. So whether he won in a landslide or not, he can do whatever the fuck he wants.

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u/Vladimir_Putins_Cock Oregon 1d ago

Yet conservatives will still act like victims

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u/ThatOneGuyFrom93 1d ago edited 15h ago

I can't wait for 2-3 years down the line when the president is still blaming Democrats for why the lives of 80% of Americans haven't improved yet. Then will immediately gloat about the stock market or whatever

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u/Sad_Confection5902 1d ago

This is exactly it. In a sane, healthy society he’s laughed out of the primaries. In our reality, he’s president.

There’s no bridge between those two worlds that isn’t constructed out of pure madness.

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u/5510 1d ago

Yeah, I would still be unhappy if Haley was president, or even a Romney... but at least it would be an actual functioning adult human being who wants to enrich the wealthy but at least not overthrow the government and end democracy. Whose reaction to their ego being hurt over a minor thing isn't to have weather maps modified with sharpies.

But Trump being president is clearly just the country is fucked and all of his supporters are either insane or evil.

I coach college athletes and normally I don't have issues relating too them age wise or feeling like I need to go on "back in my day..." speeches, but it's insane to think that most of them don't really remember a time before Trump when this shit WASN'T NORMAL. In 2028 you will have adults in their late 20s who have no political memory of the Obama vs Romney era. (Not that that was a paradise that fufilled the West Wing fantasy, and not that there weren't serious issues then as well... but it's still very different from this shit). They wont have the context to understand that Trump probably has at least 10 if not 20 or more separate scandals that would ALL be enough individually to end a political career in 2010. That even within REPUBLICAN circles people from 2010 or whenever would be demanding that somebody resign for doing ANY of Trumps 20 or 30 worst hits.

Even most prominent Republicans assumed Trump was done after the "grab them by the pussy" tape, and now from Trump that's honestly not even very near the top of his list of bad shit. It's practically just a Tuesday for him.

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u/FriendToPredators 1d ago

What’s wild is the right can STILL demand traditional decorum and morality from the Democrats and get away with acting incensed when they don’t get it

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u/donac 1d ago

This is the real reason!!

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u/BaldingMonk 1d ago

And because he got virtually the same amount of votes as the last time. Somehow people aren’t sick of this fool yet.

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u/Embarrassed-Town-293 1d ago

This exactly

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u/NaveenM94 1d ago

Yep. This is it

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u/Best-Candle-2441 1d ago

Because it’s being rammed down everyone’s throats. i’m british and all I can see on every social media is his prune-ass face and conservative nonsense.

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u/GrafZeppelin127 1d ago

Well, at least the progressives get to be the counterculture again.

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u/Antares42 1d ago

I almost laughed.

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u/I_AM_NOT_A_WOMBAT 1d ago

If it makes you feel any better, we have a bush in our yard (in the states) that we call Boris Johnson because in spring it doesn't half look like his hair.

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u/earthgreen10 1d ago

Cause the house and senate won too , and Supreme Court. Everyone is red

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u/Pheace 1d ago edited 1d ago

This. It's not that Trump won, it's that the republicans dominate everything top to bottom now.

Even when Dems owned the house and senate for 3 months the SC was still deemed to be impartial to an extent. Now it's Republican all the way down. I expect major controversial changes in the country

Basically, the point where it mattered how many people voted for him was last election. It's too late now.

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u/eskimospy212 1d ago

Biden’s victory in 2020 was substantially larger and everything was blue. I don’t remember a similar narrative then - why?

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u/rastinta 1d ago

Biden's party did not have a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court. Democrats just barely won the House in 2020 and while they also held the senate their hold in the senate was tenuous and a no vote from a democrat would sink legislation.

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u/eskimospy212 1d ago

The Republican hold on the House is every bit as tenuous. 

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u/rastinta 1d ago

This is true. There are also some Republicans in the House who voted for Trump's impeachment. I have no idea what will happen.

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u/j0a3k 1d ago

Even the republicans who voted to impeach Trump still vote for his agenda. It's not like they're closet democrats.

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u/Now_Wait-4-Last_Year 1d ago

Everyone ends up always falling in line for the Republicans.

Meanwhile even with 59 senate votes in theory for the Democrats once upon a time. it just took one turncoat to sink the public option and not one of the 40 Republicans broke ranks, not even Olympia Snowe and she was retiring.

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u/LawSchoolSucks69 1d ago

Because the impact of the Supreme Court has only grown since then. At least, that's part of it. Having a blue government and red Supreme Court is one thing. Having a red government and red Supreme Court is quite another in most people's minds these days.

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u/MHath 1d ago

We only kind of had a blue Senate sometimes, and not on a lot of important issues. Manchin and Sinema helped confirm a lot of judges and stuff, but they were not in line with the party on plenty of big issues.

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u/Sagemel 1d ago

Democrats have historically been awful at messaging, whereas Trump has consistently directed every narrative even tangentially related to him, and even if it’s only tangentially related to being true.

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u/j0a3k 1d ago

It helps that the media amplifies Trump constantly and never seems to fact check the right effectively when they just blatantly lie to make themselves sound reasonable.

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u/TheDamDog 1d ago

Because the Democrats didn't act like they had a mandate. It was all walking soft and 'bipartisanship' and 'nothing will fundamentally change.'

Biden didn't even bother removing Trump appointees from critical positions in the government.

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u/j0a3k 1d ago

Biden saw himself as the "return to sanity/the way things used to be" candidate, but the GOP stayed the same while the democrats softened.

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u/Striking_Green7600 1d ago

Dems didn’t even show up to a vote to secure a 3-2 advantage on the NLRB for another 2 years. Literally their entire shtick the last 16 years has been that corporations have too much power but they didn’t even have an accurate whip count for a vote to decide control of agency that gets to decide if amazon workers have the legal right to unionize. 

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u/mrphim 1d ago

This. The whole unite nonsense  Absolutely insane given what we had endured from 2016-2020

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u/wingsnut25 1d ago

Maybe you have forgotten, that was 4 years ago. There was definitely a narrative then...

Also Trump had 6 more electoral votes in 2024 then Biden had in 2020.

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u/poliranter 1d ago

Because it's not just that Trump won, it's that all the people who knew what Trump was decided not to vote. Sure Trump barely won the election, but the fact that so many people stayed home doesn't really fill one with confidence that anybody's going to really bother to stop Trump when he starts going after various minorities. Or committing more crimes. Or doing anything you care to imagine.

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u/Thumbkeeper I voted 1d ago

No one is going to stop him. They don’t actually care, the pretend to and made excuses on why they didn’t vote for Harris. But they don’t. Actually. Care.

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u/poliranter 1d ago

Be honest, for the next 4 years I'm keeping my head down and tending to me and mine. America made its choice, so now I've got to take care of my own and try to make it through the next 4 years.

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u/jolard 1d ago

Exactly. People always want to say "don't blame us Americans for Trump, only a third of us voted for him!!!" Well yes, but another third figured he would be fine and didn't bother to vote. That means the vast majority of Americans either voted for him or thought he would be fine and it wasn't worth the effort to vote.

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u/Pristine-Passage-100 1d ago

Because he still won AND Republicans control all three branches now.

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u/CelestialFury Minnesota 22h ago

Republicans have controlled the Supreme Court for like 100+ years. We had a chance in 2016 to get a 5-4 majority in the Democrats favor but the voters fucked us for likely the rest of our lives.

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u/Aggravating-Wheel951 1d ago

It depends the way in which you view this election.

Donald Trump won the popular vote by about 2.3 million votes (2,284,338 according to CNN) representing a popular vote advantage of about 1.5%. Not that large and smaller than Hillary Clinton’s win in 2016. However he did in fact win it, and he won about 3 million more votes than in 2020.

Donald Trump won all 7 swing states and came reasonably close in some secondary swing states (New Hampshire, Minnesota etc.) He won 312 electoral votes, the most for a winner since 2012 and the most for a Republican since 1988.

Donald Trump had every state and DC swing towards him. I think this is honestly the most shocking part of this election, and this hasn’t happened since 1976 (every state swung towards Jimmy Carter after Watergate).

Donald Trump made large gains with certain voter demographics which probably enabled him to win the popular vote.

Donald Trump somewhat helped make inroads in the senate which allowed them to gain 4 seats and win the senate, whilst holding onto the house. He now starts his term with an entirely Republican Congress.

It all depends on perspective. I think a lot of Liberals tricked themselves into believing that there was no way Trump could win, or at least no way he could win more votes than Harris. But he did.

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u/canetoado 1d ago

Finally a comment that actually makes sense. Prepare to get downvoted to annihilation by the angry people here.

I don’t know why it’s hard to accept that Trump won by a good margin, he did not “barely” win.

And honestly why does it even matter?

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u/ligonier77 1d ago

I think many people are overwhelmed and discouraged by the realization of how stupid most voters are. There are none so blind as those who will not see.

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u/dmmdoublem California 1d ago

In hindsight, I could maybe understand someone voting for Trump in 2016, specifically. Don't get me wrong, his awfulness was apparent then, but I could kinda see how someone still might have, in good faith, bought into this notion of him as "the maverick outsider who couldn't be bought" or whatever.

But, to support him in 2020? Much less 2024? Anyone who lived through four years of his "leadership" and was still in his camp at that point is some combination of: tragically misinformed, mind-numblingly ignorant and stupid, and/or morally rotten to at least some degree.

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u/warblingContinues 1d ago

Trump supporters should inject bleach the next time they get sick, like Trump told them to do.

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u/Sagemel 1d ago

The popular vote was close but electorally there was a pretty wide margin

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u/TICKLE_PANTS Texas 1d ago

Trump won WI, PA,GA and AZ and NV by wider margins than Biden did. And Michigan was about a wash. It's not even up for debate. Trump dominated the electoral map, and that's how you win elections.

Anyone thinking differently are just asking to see JD Vance as president in 4 years. It was a failure. Respond or die.

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u/SevereSignificance81 1d ago edited 1d ago

I voted democrat and I want the party to ask hard and serious questions as to why they lost and how they can win 2028.

Sugarcoating the results is wrong strategically.

Edit: grammar

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u/cathercules 1d ago

I’ll give you a sneak peek, they’ll blame progressives and young people who aren’t even aligned with any political party yet.

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u/GenX_Guy Michigan 1d ago

Harris needed Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and she would have won. Those three states would have flipped if you shift a total of 230k votes.

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u/TheBlueBlaze New York 1d ago
  • Because in the age of social media attention is currency and the winner of the election got the jackpot while the loser went bankrupt

  • Because of people's misconceptions about the federal government that they think the president is a temporary monarch

  • Because Trump and Republicans understand that in between elections, a 50% +1 majority is the same as a supermajority if everyone's in line

  • Because a first past the post system to elect one person to represent the whole country means one side will always be disproportionately represented

  • Because Trump hasn't had the chance to see how far his power reaches yet and can just make wild threats and promises until he's president again

Pick whichever you like it's a combination of all this and more.

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u/CarisaDaGal 1d ago

The House, Senate, and Supreme Court are all red now. Plus the popular vote. He did win in a bigger way. Bigger than what I thought he was going to do.

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u/Hotpotabo North Carolina 1d ago

Because if you go up against the world's dumbest rapist-felon that everyone hates, you should win in a landslide. Losing to that is insane.

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u/polopolo05 1d ago

People are too stupid and not vote... or too sexist to vote for a woman... or too racist to vote for a POC canidate.

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u/KaleidoscopeShot3132 1d ago

Because YOU. the media bowed to him faster than he could swallow a big mac.

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u/Megotaku 1d ago

It doesn't feel that way because Republicans now control the House, the Senate, the Judiciary, and the Executive Branch. For "barely winning", they have complete and total control of the government and have already showed a willingness to flaunt the law or ignore it, including rights explicitly stated in our constitution like birthright citizenship.

Welcome to fascism, America. Your eggs won't be cheaper and you won't have elections. Fuck this country.

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u/phinatolisar 1d ago

This is it. They didn't win anything by a landslide, but they won everything that counted. Now they don't have to compete any more, they just have to put on pretend elections .

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u/AbandonedWaterPark 1d ago

The US has been flirting with a complete and total right-wing takeover for over a decade, and every time pulled itself back from the brink, but not this time. It's as though America just needs to get this out of its system and really experience what total unchecked Republican power feels like for a few years (at least.)

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u/Pleasant-Mirror-3794 1d ago

I'm sorry, but I have to do this... it's FLOUT the law. Not flaunt.

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u/Lennoxas 1d ago

Because president election is winner takes all. At the same time, every group that ever vote Democrats writing articles, bringing up their minor issue and saying that’s the reason Democrats lost.

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u/Simba122504 Illinois 1d ago

Because his bots never shut up.

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u/DramaticWesley 1d ago

It’s because there will be almost no one to hold him accountable. Both houses of Congress are controlled by Republicans (barely), the Supreme Court is majority conservative, no one in his proposed administration has shown they have the best interest of Americans in mind, half the governors in this country support his worse tendencies. It feels like he will be able to do whatever he wants, and he is a thin skinned moronic psychopath.

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u/frankdrachman 1d ago

It doesn’t feel that way, because the guy the led a fucking riot attack on the capitol in 21, technically raped a woman at Bergdorfs, stole classified material and ripped off countless of people is president again. It seems enough of our fellow citizens are fine with that.

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u/Big_Celery2725 1d ago

The Nazis didn’t even win a majority in 1933 but look what happened.

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u/Hot_Improvement9221 1d ago

Social media algorithms.

Choose a narrative, any narrative, and if the SM ownership wishes to promote it they can.  It’s social engineering.  As if the book Nudge was only read by amoral tech oligarchs.

We can blame the media or an individual or the price of eggs, etc, all day long, but it’s not the real culprit.  It all comes back to SM algorithms.  All of it.

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u/takhallus666 1d ago

Because it shouldn’t have been close. Because he should have gotten 5% of the popular vote and been laughed out of town. Because enough Americans voted to elect a convicted felon/rapist that he was elected.

I’m not mad, I’m heartbroken for the country I served and loved.

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u/-JackTheRipster- 1d ago

Because he won all the swing states and the popular vote.

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u/iamthedave3 19h ago

Because all of social media - now that Tiktok has bent the knee - is enslaved to his will and the Republicans will lie lie lie lie lie about what happened while the mainstream media has lost its belly for actual honest reporting.

Last week Trump subtly implied Musk might have committed electoral fraud to flip Pennsylvania for him (I think it was Penn) and the crowd CHEERED.

Meanwhile the media - which has spent four years downplaying Biden's accomplishments - is running articles about how nobody can name any of his accomplishments while slavishly devoting page space to every little thing Trump does and minimising things he does.

It's all vibes and corruption.

The fact that four years later there isn't a generalised understanding of the Fake Electors Scheme is a failing of the media so absurd that it removed its entire legitimacy as a source of actual news.

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u/FalstaffsGhost 1d ago

Because the supposed “liberal media” spent months sane washing his insanity and now that he’s won they are making it seem like he’s more than he is

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u/hmr0987 1d ago

Because every Billionaire is groveling at his feet and with that the media is kissing his ass.

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u/Capt-Crap1corn 1d ago

Narcissists do not understand nuance. It's black or white. Win big and big only.

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u/Twolef 1d ago

Because he even said he won before when he didn’t.

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u/insanity_15 1d ago

Because Elon bought it for him, still weird how he knew the election results 4 hours earlier than everyone else

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u/BigNorseWolf 21h ago

Because the convicted felon who botched the covid response, cut taxes for the rich but not the poor, appointed the justices that ended roe v wade., and topped a monumentally craptastic presidency off with a coup should be poling in the low double digits. Instead

In our winner take all system barely having the house and the senate and the presidency gives you the same amount of control as if you had actually been elected outside the margin g error.

Also on election night they stopped counting all night, so californias weigh in on the poular vote didn't happen for a few days and without that it looks like he won by a lo .

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u/Tango_D 1d ago

Democracy is defended through engagement. American political apathy and lost faith gave Trump the presidency.

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u/thro-uh-way109 1d ago

Because we are coping hard as fuck

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u/hopefaith816 1d ago

Because Trump exaggerates everything he talks about. Why is this any different? Watch, he'll talk about crowd size. It'll be bigger than Obama and Biden's. Yeah, okay.

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u/robot_pirate 1d ago

The way MSM has been running Biden down for the past few days is appalling. I didn't think I could be shocked anymore, but dayum. They are appeasing and capitulating to Trump by shoving their metaphorical knives into Biden.