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by globalnode 492 days ago
Im predicting no more elections for you guys in 4 years. Something makes me think theres gonna be some "reason" to turn them off.
4 comments

I'm not one of the "guys" as I am from the EU. There is a narrow way through for the US, but treating the incumbent as Just Another Guy is not that.
I am sure there will be elections. Question is how fair they will be. Have a look at Russia's recent presidential election. Putin "winning" it was a given from the start. US voters need to be mindful of all the ways an election can be rigged.
IMO US elections have already been less-than-fully-democratic for a while, what with the voting registration and ID nonsense, as well as obvious gerrymandering and voter intimidation. At the very least, significantly less democratic than a number of other western countries.
Let’s stop applying copium to recent events and making excuses. The American people knew exactly what they were getting and voted for him anyway. He won a majority of the popular vote.

The Senate is 2 Senators per state regardless of the population and isn’t as susceptible to gerrymandering.

That being said, I don’t feel bad for anyone who voted for Trump and is having buyers remorse.

We are already seeing it with Arabs in Minnesota who thought Trump would be better for Arabs in Gaza and are now having regrets seeing how Trump wants to use US troops to “clear out Gaza” and Latin Americans who are appalled that he tried to remove birthright citizenship.

Next up will be all of the “rural American” voters who are going to bare the brunt of inflationary tariffs.

He did not get a majority of the vote. He won with a plurality of 49.8%.
Does that somehow make you feel better about your fellow Americans? Yes I’m a born and bred US citizen.

The crap that Michelle Obama and the rest of the DNC spew about “going high when they go low” and “this is not who we are” is just that.

This has always been who we are.

This is exactly who we are. Andrew Jackson was the most popular president of the 19th century.

When national guard troops shot and killed student at Kent state university protesting Vietnam, 58% of Americans were in support of it.

Yes this is who we are.

No it does not make me feel better. I’m rather disgusted by 70 million of my fellow Americans, including a few family members and newly former friends. However, I think it’s important that we pushback on the idea that the fascists have an overwhelming mandate to do what they are now doing. The truth still matters.
Putin's meddling all over the place including here.

To the extent that he has a role in this (certainly has publically claimed to!), he will in no way seek to make America a powerful allied country to Russia. There's no reason to assume he intends Trump or even Musk to actually be powerful in their own right.

Especially Musk. Musk must be mad to put himself in the position he's in. The only reason Putin would allow Musk to do what he's doing, is because it's patently obvious that Musk is undermining his own potential political base in every way, with every action. A widely hated man who's gone full Bond villain is no threat to Putin, politically. He's setting himself up to be demonized (Musk is) and doesn't even seem to register it.

also, many of musk's actions are illegal. Which means he is now owned by Trump. Play nice or go to jail. For a long time.
Don't worry! There are a lot of fine patriots with firearms that keep them just in case of such a thing!
My current thinking for 2028/29:

- 20% likelihood of no election at all

- 70% "managed democracy" with outcome decided in advance

- 10% normal transfer of power if Trump or his successor loses

I think they're racing against the mid-terms next year. If they can lock it in by then then they're home free.

(disclosure: Brit not USian)

> I think they're racing against the mid-terms next year.

This is the race. Historically the party in power loses the mid-terms, and I think we're already seeing huge portions of the population having buyers remorse. But, Trumps team knows this. I was waiting for them to attack the FEC, and here we are.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/us/politics/federal-elect...