[easyThrowaway]

Let me give you a simpler, Occam's-razorish explanation: People who voted for Trump aren't stupid, or naive, or anything. They simply were unable or unwilling to accept the world changing around them regarding race, sexuality, welfare, climate, economy, foreign and domestic policies. They elected someone who told them "we'll go back to the old times one way or another, consequences be damned".

This is exactly what they voted for, what they were hoping for. They knew leopards would've eaten the face of a few of them, but it was somewhat expected, a calculated risk. There's a few casualties even when you win the war.

They saw something they could cling to, to avoid changes for the remaining of their lives, even if this meant destroying their country, the rest of the world or the future for the matter. And they replied with "Yes, we're fine with that".

[shadowgovt]

TBF, that sounds a lot like "stupid or naive" with extra words. You can't rewind history. Not without a lot of death; the only way to kill a meme is to destroy every mind it's hiding in and burn every record it was recorded in. There's moving forward, developing the time that is now into a future time by refining and challenging the existing ideas; backwards isn't a desirable goal.

In particular, the "Make America Great Again" era they seem to hearken to was an era of massive industrial growth fueled by being the largest country untouched domestically by a World War. Getting back there would require burning half the world again. We shouldn't want that.

These are lessons history teaches consistently, and I'm sorry they apparently slept through that day of class.

[antonvs]

> … but it was somewhat expected, a calculated risk.

The way many of them think of it is that illness and death due to disease, starvation, lack of medication, problem pregnancies, etc. are acts of god and a part of life. They don’t want relief from that, if it comes with a government that has the power to change things they don’t want to change.

[nativeit]

It is true that Trump won his reelection with 49.8% of the vote, but that isn’t the same thing as 49.8% of voters. With only 63.7% of eligible voters casting ballots last November, Trump’s share of the vote narrows to just under a third of the electorate, significantly less than half.

But it is worth noting that an April 2024 NBC News poll showed Trump leading voters who say they do not follow political news by 26-points. Meanwhile voters who said they read a newspaper every day supported Joe Biden 70% to Trump’s 21%.[0] Additionally, a survey conducted in November 2024 by Northeastern University found that just 24% of Republican voters relied on news media, while the rest said they got their news from family and friends, as well as social media.

This means that while less than 1/3rd of eligible voters cast their ballots for Trump, only ~8.3% of the electorate entered the voting booth reliably informed, and then still chose to support him.

0. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/poll-biden-tr...