No Stupid Questions

I started paying attention in 2000, even though I didn’t really understand it and couldn’t vote, however my first voting election was 2004 and I remember being disappointed when John Kerry lost to Bush, who had already gotten us involved in two wars that would cost trillions of dollars.

My experience has been that Republican administrations tend to be rife with corruption, cut taxes for rich people and run up the deficit.

Eventually, people get sick of the moral decay and tanking economic prospects and put a democrat back in, who tries to undo all the damage, but is blocked most of the time by Republicans in Congress acting in bad faith.

Then, the right wing media environment drums up a load of fear about immigrants and actual lies about the economy to get everyone voting for a Republican again.

That’s the cycle, except the Republican media ecosystem gets more extreme over time, and so do the candidates.

No. This is extremely abnormal. I grew up in the 80s and elections were boring. Something happened in 2000, where Al Gore should have won but Bush was favored in court. That was the start of a sense of wrongness with our political system, that has manifested into what we have today.

No

Yeah pretty much. 2016 was crazier than this one for sure. This one didn't have a competitive primary on either side, and it was predicted as a toss-up whereas in 2016 every poll and media outlet was saying it was impossible for Trump to win, and there was no precedent to predict what would happen when he was in office. This is like, after people have had eight years to come to terms with Trump being a thing in whatever form that looks like. The general trend though is that things are getting crazier, and that trend is likely to continue.

No. It’s always been rather cordial if not a bit of mud slinging. Till trump entered and started questioning Obama birth certificate imo. Maybe I’m just too young to remember insane shit like that prior though.

I'm nearly three times your age and so will likely have a very different perspective, but...

I remember watching the news (from Canada) when Reagan was first elected. it felt HORRIBLE, and turned out to be just that - Reagan, Thatcher, and their psychophant hanger-on Mulroney ushered in a new era of "get fucked by the rich, fuck the poor" also known as trickle-down economics.

And yet, there was always a sense of decorum among them. Even Harper and Bush jr. at least pretended to be civil in the world of politics, no matter how corrupt and evil they were.

Trump changed everything. He was loud, abrasive, offensive, and off the rails. And he won! Suddenly the doors were open. Here in Canada, O'Toole did outhouse attack ads against Trudeau. Jingoistic, vapid, fear-mongering populism took root throughout Europe. And it just kept getting worse.

Now this election in the US was unhinged beyond description. Trump said things and did things that should have gotten him locked up. Musk should be facing either life in jail or the electric chair for his interference. There are no limits in American elections anymore - I would genuinely say including shooting someone onstage.

Here in Canada, Poilievre has been carefully fanning the same embers - stoking fear, instilling rage, creating groups to hate; and at the same time, throwing out meaningless attacks on his opponents. Unlike when O'Toole awkwardly attempted it, it is working very effectively. Having an entire room or stadium chanting "AXE THE TAX" without even offering an alternative shows that he's winning by being the same empty bully as Trump.

(And meanwhile, Harper is chortling quietly from behind the curtain as he pulls the puppet strings.)

So yeah, this is crazy - and it's the new normal, until we start showing politicians that it doesn't work, and can get them arrested.

I think most elections would have been as if a Kamala Harris ran against another Kamala Harris. In other words, two normal politicians so that the result wasn't perceived as much of a difference who one. Also, in the past if a politician said things like, "you won't have to vote again" or called the opponent names, he would have been shredded in the media and probably lost the election due to scandal. I mean a felon has never run for president before. Trump just somehow has different rules.

No, they've been getting progressively crazier since 2016.

2000 was fairly divisive, it went to the Supreme Court after all. But it wasn't even a fraction this dramatic, people mostly shrugged and figured GWB would be like his father, which was unfortunate, but sane at any rate. Nobody was really predicting 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq.

2004 was pretty dull. John Kerry challenged GWB but felt sort of like an empty suit.

2008 was nice, Obama was a strong and exciting candidate vs the very known quantity of McCain, who was a moderate repub known for bipartisanship. Sarah Palin provided for hours of entertaining impersonations by people like Tina Fey, but since she was the VP candidate nobody really cared.

2012 was dull. Romney was a strong candidate, another moderate repub. But Obama was fine, he hadn't broken the country or anything. Brought us out of a recession, even if people were upset about bank bailouts and stuff. Lot of people got health insurance.

Then it starts getting spicy.

To me, what's different is that the modern republican party seems to think that I'm an enemy of the people. Bush was awful but I never felt like he personally wanted to harm me just for existing. I knew Bush would send emergency aid to a democratic Voting area, no question. The "enemy" was abroad. Now it's within.

Not even close. This was a turning point election.

This election determined that we will live with an ultra conservative Supreme Court for the rest of our lives. In just the last couple years that court has removed women's federally protected right to bodily autonomy and determined that presidents are above the law and can't be held accountable for anything they do while in office. Decisions like that will continue for the remainder of our lives and chip away at our nation as we once knew it.

Trump's administration ran on making fundamental changes to our government, including deconstructing the department of education. He promised to make an anti-vaxxer the head of the department of health. Ukraine will cease to exist. Palestine will cease to exist. Russia will expand their borders and threaten Europe. America will lose allies. NATO will be weakened.

We made a criminal who failed his last term as president by every conceivable metric and illegally attempted to overturn an election the most powerful figure on the planet. He will fill all positions with unqualified toadies, just like he did last time when he had the highest White House turnover rate in US history.

What Americans just did was change the political order we will be living under for the foreseeable future. And no one will suffer more for that than your generation.

We categorically failed you and the decline we are about to experience could last a generation and the suffering is currently unquantifiable. The decision we just made will change the world we live in in a negative way we can't fully fathom yet.

The remainder of your life just got a whole lot harder and I'm sorry. I did not vote for it to be this way.

In my experience mostly yeah. Except my first one, 2012 was a glorious election

Going forward? Maybe and I fear likely. Im over 50. voting for a republican when I was young was not completely crazy. Especially moderate ones in a liberal areas. Believe it or not there used to be institutional biases. Like senators were sorta snooty about the senate to the level they would be with a senator of the opposing party over a house rep from their own party. And party members in congress would be adversarial to their own parties president. A lot of this was a stay in your lane kind of thing. Like woa mr pres thats a congress thing and woa mr rep thats a senate thing. Also legitimately conern for the good of the country over party. If you have the patients read this wikipedia on ross perot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Perot# you can see he is a conservative rich bastard but then click on the presidential campaign. Higher taxes, investing in education, direct democracy. Granted he was third party stuff but it was a coming out of the conservative side. Back then drug, prostitution, and other victimless crimes legalization was a major part of the libertarian party. Over time the conservative side got worse and worse and voting for them became more and more unacceptable and also made voting third party a dangerous proposition. I was never really for the conservative party but I miss the days when they could be a legitimate option and individuals in the party could be decent.

It didn't used to be, but I'm guessing this is how it'll be from now on. It used to be a pretty mundane activity, and people could even agree to disagree. When I was your age I remember asking friends who they voted for, and those conversations would go something like this

Friend 1: Who did you vote for?

Friend 2: So-and-so

Friend 3: haha, that guy is an idiot! You're so stupid

Friend 2: lol, yeah maybe

Friend 1: whatever, let's go find a party

And it wouldn't really change much. Now everything after friend 2 would be full of hatred, people disowning each other, and outright vitriol. If we can't even talk to our friends about this stuff, how the hell are we going to talk to people who we completely disagree with that we don't know? Of course it's been engineered to be like this now. This isn't people changing of their own accord. This is intentionally manufactured division and strife to keep people fighting amongst each other while the billionaires pick everyone's pockets, and the fascists consolidate power. It's not going to go back to the way it was without significant activism and hardship.

Yes, it was really crazy. In the past few decades our politicians had different goals, but generally still followed the same rules. Trump has shown he wants to dismantle any and all systems that don't serve him, and the Republican party is happy to let him do so, so this election seems like it might have far greater consequences than the ones in memorable past.

In former times if one candidate had promised to overthrow the entire system and abolish elections and democracy, then nobody would have voted for that clown.

Not even a little bit.

And you're probably not gonna get a point of comparison, because it's looking likely to be one party rule by the absolute shittiest american embarrassments forever at this point. At least until America does some stupid shit globally and gets themselves invaded by a united band of good guys down the road.

2012 was what felt like a more normal election where the candidates respected each other and it played out a lot more typically. (Same for 2008). Trump changed that up and it’ll possibly stay that way going forward.

It's usually between someone you kinda don't like and someone you kinda like, so the stakes are lower. This year we had to choose between The Antichrist and Some Boring Lady, but this country hates women 🤷‍♂️

Not every, but a lot of them yes.

No, they have been getting extra crazy lately.

Elections have strong outcomes, strong repercussions and sometimes strong benefits. Right now, this past election will have sharp and strong repercussions. Your vote is indirectly saying that you're OKAY with whatever party you chose, to do with as they wish. And what they do with whatever they wish, will affect millions, including you.

So right now, everyone who didn't vote for the Orange Fascist, are having solid reasons to be worried. They expect a lot of things to be ripped away or outright dismantled, setting the course to potentially have irreversible damages. All because of the collective voter's choices that wanted the opposing party in.

In an election, I would much people vote to have a voice than abstain and not vote, expecting outcomes to magically work. However, there is a personal responsibility to be had when it comes to voting. That is, whatever comes your way in how people react when they find out who you voted for.

I always seem to lose friends every election, long tenure or short tenure, because of my choices that complicate theirs. It's unfortunately a thing that's going to happen. And it may happen to you.

By the way, I've failed to mention that it is important to vote, based on what you feel is valuable for the party to focus on. If they ever.

Well luckily for you, it will never matter ever again.

2000 was bugfuck insane.

This election was special, cause the candidate who got the most votes actually won.

Nah don't worry this was your first and last election anyway

Basically it just gets more and more ridiculous every 4 years.