this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
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I've had this conversation with my SO. Technically speaking the best move for me as a white male would be to support Trump. Instead I vote for Democrats hoping for positive changes for all people. For most of my life I've thought I was "far left" for American standards, but since I've joined portions of Lemmy and Reddit you'd think I was a fucking Republican.
Certain portions of the left would rather spit in their own eye for unrealistic principles, even if it means that a worse alternative is the result.
That's a bold assumption.
How would it be beneficial? We are running head first in an existential crisis, where Trump and the GOP want to put a full stop on everything that tries to fight that. And yes no country with a significant emissions footprint is doing enough, far from it. I'm convinced that we'll live in more or less dystopian scenarios within the next 20-30 years. And if I didn't have children I wished these days would come really soon, so all those ignorant MFers would have to live in it.
It's directly beneficial in the short term. The statement obviously needs some caveats like the world coming to an end as a result of Trump's reelection, but in general Trump policies are generally going to directly benefit the middle, upper middle, and upper class white people more than Biden's policies.
DEI is good for society, but it doesn't add money to my pocket.
Social Security is probably going to be gone by the time I can collect it, so cutting Social Security means I keep more money now.
I don't have kids so cutting education funding or making it private would save me money.
I have a job with great insurance, cutting medicare/medicaid would save me money.
Global warming and emissions are a huge deal, but no truly meaningful progress is being made with Biden or the rest of the world. If you believe an apocalyptic scenario is the outcome of the current state of things, and we accept that that is inevitable, then why make things harder for myself now? It's like being in a burning house with one person running around with a glass of water and another guy getting out his lighter to light a joint.
Strictly speaking, if we take "everything is going to literally end" off the table as an outcome of a second Trump term then most likely his policies are going to be more directly beneficial to me.
Thankfully I don't feel this way, a rising tide lifts all ships, and we shouldn't look only to next quarter's profits. However, the far left shouldn't bark and bite at people helping advance their agenda for not doing it fast enough, it just alienates the altruistic people who want to help.
Social media in general loves controvery. So they push radical ideas, as they create conversation, clicks and other interactions, which means more time on the site. That then allows for more ad money.
The truth is most Americans are not that radical, due to just not caring too much about politics. They just want things to keep going as they are.
The other part of it is none Americans on social media. For Europeans for example Biden looks center right for the most part. Then again Europeans have options further left.
My biggest beef with Europeans is the military spending discussion and immigration. Yeah, it would be nice if we cut military spending and used it to better our own society. Yeah, it would be nice to move to a country with affordable housing, public transportation, great education systems, etc.
Norway, Finland, and Belgium have great policies for their citizens, but combined have less than a million troops (active and reserve), spend less than $20 billion each year, and only let in 254k immigrant per year (50k Finland, 39k Norway, and 165k Belgium). In contrast the US has 2.6 million immigrants per year.
It's like NIMBY, pull the ladder up behind you, and leopards ate my face all had a threesome.