This BTW is how you involve in the story the reality of what the voters think, which is an important portion of election coverage, while still upholding your basic journalistic responsibility to communicate to people what’s actually going on.

  • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I’m voting for Biden, as I did last time and Clinton before, but I can’t help some dark part of me knowing he does represent the US and is practically our mascot.

    The embodiment of greed and gluttony, reveling in schadenfreude, cartoonishly shameless, crowing about who he beat and who he’s enjoying the suffering of, and drunk on wholly undeserved vanity. A sociopath who stands against the very concept of empathy for others. If someone is suffering, he’ll tell you what they did to deserve their suffering and suggest ways to really turn the screws. 🇺🇸

    I’m ashamed of being an American precisely for all the American traits, that are also destroying us from the inside btw, that Trump unironically personifies. He’s more American as America actually is, not all the pretty lies we say about ourselves, than Apple pies or school shootings.

    I wish more Americans would look in the mirror that is Donald Trump and be ashamed of who we are, because we can’t begin to do anything without recognizing what monstrous values we have.

    • t3h_fool@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I wish more Americans would look in the mirror that is Donald Trump and be ashamed of who we are, because we can’t begin to do anything without recognizing what monstrous values we have.

      You are saying something I haven’t heard in a lot of discourse. Kudos and my upvote.

      • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I appreciate that, sincerely.

        I’ll never forget what elevated him into mainstream discourse, a game show literally about “I’m rich, so kiss my ass for half an hour” that somehow made him popular. You aren’t supposed to like Gordon Gecko/Mr. Potter. They are to be hissed for their antisocial greed. Our people celebrate it. Many who hate him for his violent rhetoric today still loved him for his proud celebration of greed then.

        I’ll also never forget what singular event took him from paying extras to attend his rallies to basically owning the Republican party:

        “We’re not allowed to punch back any more,” Trump lamented. The billionaire said he missed the “good old days,” “You know what they used to do to a guy like that in a place like this?” Trump said. “They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.”

        https://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/donald-trump-punch-protester-219655

        He’s a fucking monster, yes. But what does that say about US that the above elevated him, through public popularity, to basically being worshipped as a God(GodEmperor as some called him) by 40% of the electorate, while making still more consider his message?

    • ZMoney@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Have a look at Biden too. An emaciated husk clinging to tired mantras and totally blind to the present reality. Visibly fading but refusing to abandon the exceptionalism that brought him to power. Thinking the world still believes in the hollow vision that he imposes on it at gunpoint. Shrugging off any reasonable critique of his completely outmoded positions. Sounds just as American as Trump.

      • mozz@mbin.grits.devOP
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        8 months ago

        Yeah, I know whenever a US president tries to legalize marijuana federally and spend a trillion dollars on student loan forgiveness and climate change, I’m like “damn, not this again, he’s clinging to the same tired mantras and completely outmoded positions we’ve always had.”

        • Sybil@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          a US president tries to legalize marijuana federally and spend a trillion dollars on student loan forgiveness and climate change

          that didnt happen, though. he didn’t get it done, so there is no reason to believe the effort was genuine.

          • mozz@mbin.grits.devOP
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            8 months ago

            Man… why are y’all making me defend the Democrats I don’t even like most of them

            Biden: Marijuana legalization bill passes house, blocked by Republicans in senate, anyone in federal prison for possession is pardoned and free

            Biden: Loan forgiveness order is completed, then blocked by Supreme Court, $138 billion in forgiveness comes anyway through a separate executive order

            Biden: Manchin blocks half-trillion-dollar climate legislation, replacement legislation comes all the way to a signed bill and takes effect expected to produce 40% reduction in emissions by 2030, short of Biden’s original effort but still expected to cut 2 billion tons per year out of our carbon emissions

            You: WAAAAAA NOT GENUINE EFFORT, THIS IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS TRUMP, THIS ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH

            • Sybil@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              why are y’all making me defend the Democrats

              you don’t have to. i watch liberals lie about republicans dozens of times every day, actual, flat out lies, and i rarely say anything. because republicans suck, too.

            • Sybil@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Biden: Marijuana legalization bill passes house, blocked by Republicans in senate, anyone in federal prison for possession is pardoned and free

              trump actually got the first step act through both houses. it seems to me that if biden wanted to do it, he would have. instead, he didn’t.

              • mozz@mbin.grits.devOP
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                8 months ago

                What on earth are you talking about

                The Donald Trump administration took positions against marijuana and against the easing of laws regarding marijuana.[1] Although Trump indicated during his 2016 presidential campaign that he favored leaving the issue of legalization of marijuana to the states, his administration subsequently upheld the federal prohibition of cannabis, and Trump’s 2021 fiscal budget proposal included removing protections for state medical marijuana laws.[1] In 2018, the administration rescinded the 2013 Cole Memorandum, an Obama-era Justice Department policy that generally directed federal prosecutors not to pursue marijuana prosecutions in states where marijuana is legal as a matter of state law.[2]

            • Sybil@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Biden: Loan forgiveness order is completed, then blocked by Supreme Court, $138 billion in forgiveness comes anyway through a separate executive order

              seems to me, if biden wanted to do it, he would have. i don’t believe the supreme court can block it, since they don’t have an enforcement arm.

            • Sybil@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              You: WAAAAAA NOT GENUINE EFFORT, THIS IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS TRUMP, THIS ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH

              i never said this. it’s a strawman.

              • mozz@mbin.grits.devOP
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                8 months ago

                You never said “exactly the same as Trump”; that was exaggeration on my part and maybe unfair. The rest of it you absolutely said and I stand behind my characterization of how much sense it makes.

                • Sybil@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  i also didn’t waaaaaa. i’m cool as a cucumber over here pointing out the inadequacy of politicians.