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[Grim Portent]

Ah, so it's just an extension of the general problems of a two party system then.

[Great Order]

So apparently gen Z males had a major swing towards Trump.

This is interesting, and I feel it can be brought down to two things:

1) The lack of liberal or left-wing masculine male role models. That seems to be the refuge of the Tates of the world, who espouse misogynistic, racist, and other reactionary views.

2) The progressive attitude of telling men they're the issue. Tell a group of people they're a problem (Or idiots, I feel this is another problem American liberals have, this idea that you know better and everyone else is stupid) and they aren't inclined to vote with you. Similar to how you wouldn't expect to get black people to vote for you by being racist to black people, you shouldn't expect to get men to vote for you by being misandrist.

This is a bit worrying because odds are they're going to be set in their ways. This is a generation which isn't going to be more progressive (At least on the male side), and even though it's not my country as the saying goes, America sneezes and the world gets a cold. As someone on the leading edge of progressive issues (ie, a trans woman) this doesn't spell well for my future. This will be echoing across the West for a while.

Progressives as a whole need to have a good, hard look at themselves, their attitudes, and their culture. If they don't, they're going to see a lot more of this.

[Lord Shonus]

That's probably part of it (and not just in the "young men" category - a lot of self-identified American "leftists" and "progressives" have a really strong attitude of condescension toward low income people who dare to question a closely-held agenda), but we've been seeing a global wave of elections throwing out the incumbents or at least forcing the ruling coalitions to get extremely narrow. The global inflation problems are turning into a global problem for the people that have been in power. There's real reason to believe that this week's election was almost entirely decided by a perception that prices are out of control and that it is Biden's fault.

[Great Order]

Thing is the swing didn't bear out among gen z women, just the men.

If it was a uniform swing then yeah, I'd have given more credit to the idea that men are just lurching the same way as everyone else, but it wasn't. In fact, the swing was outright *extreme*. From 2020, they swung by a whole 29%, from 14% voting progressive to 15% voting conservative. Women, by comparison, dropped 14%, from 32% to 18%. Only half the size.

But yes, the condescension doesn't help. As a genuine socialist it's one of the things I hate about my side. Champagne socialists, the kind who look down on the people they ostensibly want to help and refuse to actually fucking *ask* them what they want because they're so convinced that they know what's best, fuelled by the fact they're middle class and the last time they saw a working class person was when the cleaner came in on the day they were sick.

[Flying Dice]

Trump may not be particularly bothered about Project 2025, but Republicans control the Senate and are probably on the way to getting the lower chamber too. Harris showed how easily manipulated Trump is during the debate, so it probably isn’t going to take much to get him to sign off on it.

I consider it unlikely that much of Project 2025 will come to pass, enough of the Republican Senate and Congress will not be in favour of various chunks of it to make it impractical. No party on earch passes all their policies without some internal dissent.

There's also considerable ability for a minority party to gum things up (especially in the Senate), and even if the GOP retains the House the margins will remain razor thin. Fighting the legislative parts of whatever agenda gets proposed (which won't necessarily be what's been pushed so far) enough to delay the worst until the midterms is entirely possible.

The bigger problem is that we won't have much ability to actually do anything beneficial on a Federal level unless the Dems make deals or manage to make gains in said midterms. Two or more years where legislative stasis is a best case scenario is not a good thing.

McConnell going off the scene was a massive blessing, he was a major component of the right's ability to accomplish anything in Congress.

That said, the stuff I'm most concerned about are the executive orders targeting environmental protection and business regulation. The damage that's going to be done there is beyond words.

(As for the whole political-violence angle... I don't think we're going to be seeing gangs of MAGA brownshirts marching people off to camps, but if I was someone who couldn't pass as straight-Anglo I would be wearing kevlar under my clothes in the week or two leading up to him taking office. I expect a lot of lone-wolf hate crimes predicated on the assumption that it's open season on minorities with presidential pardons for all.)

[martinuzz]

European banks have made some calculations. They predict that if Trump goes through with his proposed tariffs, this will hurt the average American most, since EU producers will increase end consumer prices to compensate. The banks expect to see a whopping 9,4% inflation for the US population.

I wonder. Since high prices and high costs of life are one of the main reasons for voting Trump, after hating foreigners.. How long before angry mobs demand his impeachment.

[Egan_BW]

That depends on the average person being able to draw the line of causation there. Which is possible, but would probably require something like democrats actively pointing that out.

[hector13]

It will be framed as Democrats or They actively trying to sabotage the American economy to try to hurt him.

[JoshuaFH]

Perhaps the only thing that (in my mind) might solidly block Trump from suddenly destroying the country would be the large corporations and super wealthy that I ordinarily hate so much. I'm not an economist, but I'm sure no big business wants to get dragged into some Fascist, dogmatic bullshit and wind up with a worse bottom line; they want the status quo to remain where they're wealthy and on top forever, and that's not guaranteed if Trump actually follows through with his stupid-ass promises. Though... hoping for the Corporatocracy to step in to save the day is definitely just asking the Devil to please protect me from the Nazis. It's a bad deal either way.

[Egan_BW]

The issue being that those oligarchs are exactly the people who are supporting the fascist, in the belief that they can control him to get what they want, and by the time they realize that they can't control him it might be too late.

[martinuzz]

I would like to become the next president of the USA, but I have never sexually assaulted any women. Where can I learn that?

[Great Order]

Ah, you've got it wrong there bud.

You need to also have a thing for kids or your own offspring. If you can manage to be an incestuous kiddy diddler then you're golden. Hell, get that far you can probably take any career you want.

[DrudeFiegler]

For one post, I leave my lurker status to offer all the dwarfs aficionados of the USA my sincere condolences. Trump was re-elected on hate, lies and violence so I don't know what will happen, but it sure doesn't look good.  I hope you get through these difficult times, both personally and as a Nation. And if somehow you manage to grow better through it, I'll praise the thousands of gods I'm not believing in for this miracle.
Living in France, I don't know what I can do to help... besides maybe finding you an actual guillotine.

Good luck.

[Duuvian]

Joe Manchin, retiree, was just on the NPR spewing the same horseshit. Good riddance! If holding a seat requires a corrupt politician who opposes your party, you have already lost that seat.

He went on a bunch of horseshit how rural people want their benefits taken away when they aren't working.

I want to point out that I, being a not-city Democrat, still hold the opinion that the moderate faction of the democratic party was so worried about the Sanders wing of the party that they fooled themselves into thinking rural democrats are moderate democrats. There are some, but they tend not to be. That's because why would they not just be Republican? They won't be unable to hold a job once their boss asks if they support the right of women to vote, or whether Obama is an <lies>. The remaining moderates would be more of the swing voter democrat they think of, they way the moderates themselves bind to whatever the flavor of the political year is. Again, why would they not just vote Republican? It surely makes life far easier in these small towns.

Here is a helpful link. I would suggest there is also a 4th faction as well, the "security faction" if I may give it a name I made up, and that it quietly has a dominant amount of influence and is making policy due to presenting a face of unquestionability.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factions_in_the_Democratic_Party_(United_States)

This is why rural people are known for supporting Trump. He is promising them improvements that they believe the city (moderate faction) Democrats will never consider. These are lies, for the most part, of course, or at best technical half-truths. The error the Democrat party made was making the suppression of the left a priority before the defeat of Trump.

This is because liberalism is like a fortress of the moderate. If moderates commit to investiture of this fortress, it is true they may cast it down. This is more easily accomplished with allies of convenience. However, once the garrison are trampled, in chains, or banished the moderates then find themselves in a fortress with a broken wall and among allies no more.

[MaxTheFox]

Harris could have won handily if she made a few concessions to the left wing. Not all, not most. Even one or two somewhat daring reforms would have probably helped secure otherwise non-voters and might even have swung over a few centrists. But what do you expect from the party whose totem animal is a donkey.