[toomuchtodo]

Margin of victory was ~2M votes, about how many voters 55+ die in a year. Hopefully enough voters have aged out or learned their lesson next time around (considering election results we've seen in the last week or so [1]). You're never going to convince unsavory voters to vote with empathy, the subject brain structure does not support it (anterior insular cortex, primarily), you can only hope they're aging out of the electorate at a reasonable pace (and not being replaced).

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." (Planck's Principle [2] applied to voting)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45818505

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle

[ryandrake]

It's comforting that maybe this mentality is correcting itself one funeral at a time.

But what really makes me sad is how this mentality so quickly swept into the country to begin with. 30 years ago, the vast majority of Americans would be horrified at the thought of people being assaulted on the street in broad daylight, black-bagged, kidnapped and disappeared forever by masked, non-identifying thugs. Fast forward 30 years, and (chances are) my neighbors want this and are absolutely giddy at the thought of it happening here!

Regardless of who votes for what, how did my country turn into this?

[imiric]

> how did my country turn into this?

There are two components to this answer.

First, your country has been divided since at least the mid-19th century. Every war has a winning and losing side, but the losers don't simply vanish. Their mentality persists throughout generations, even if it remains in the background, and is ignored by the other side.

Secondly, all this technology you've built and allowed the world to use can and has been exploited by your enemies to your own detriment. The same systems you've built that allow manipulating people into buying things are also ideal channels for spreading propaganda and disinformation. Information warfare is not new, but modern technology has made it more effective than ever at manipulating groups of people, sowing dissent, and generally causing chaos and confusion within a nation.

So, putting those two together, it's not difficult to see how acts of information warfare could be used to fuel the deeply rooted social divide, directly causing or strongly contributing to the internal sociopolitical instability you've been experiencing for the past decade.

Meanwhile, your enemies can sit back and enjoy the show of an imploding nation. They know that you're untouchable via traditional warfare, which is why these tactics are so perfect. They do require a long time to come into effect, but they're highly effective, very cheap to deploy, and the best part is that they're completely untraceable to the attacker. It's still debatable whether there was Russian interference in your elections, and how effective it actually was, even though there is evidence for it. It's still debatable whether Chinese-operated social media platforms are a national security threat or not. Were J6 protesters rioters or patriots? And so on about every controversial sociopolitical topic.

This confusion is exactly the intended effect. Your regular checks and balances, your laws, ideals and values, make no difference if your communication channels are corrupted.

I don't see how you can get out of this mess, and I expect things will get much worse before they get better. Not just for you, but globally. These same tactics are also deployed in other countries, by the US as well. Though, ironically, countries that are cut off from the global internet have an upper hand in this conflict.

[toomuchtodo]

Tribalism, identity politics, low education and lack of respect for education and intellectualism, and late stage capitalism. A cautionary tale, for sure. People are angry, rightfully so, but at the wrong people. Thank Reagan (economics) and Gingrich (politics) for a lot of this we’re facing.

Deepfriedchokes is right; we need stronger, more robust systems to protect humans from other humans, because we cannot trust the human (broadly speaking).

[msandford]

The Biden admin (no idea if Biden himself was involved) literally sued Texas to stop Texas from enforcing border law. This same admin also essentially redefined "asylum" to be economic asylum rather than "I'm afraid that if I go back to my country I'll be killed" which is how people typically thought of asylum.

You can absolutely think that what's happening now is an overreaction, un-American, gross, illegal, and morally wrong.

But if you're unwilling to try and understand how it's possible that over half the country voted for someone who would enact policies that lead to what we're seeing now, you're simply not paying attention.

If you just want to see the people who voted for this as "the enemy" and "evil" you're basically doing the same tribal "othering" that's lead to these outcomes you don't like.

Is that ugly and uncomfortable? Yes, absolutely. Will things get better by ignoring it? Absolutely not.

[whoknowsidont]

>If you just want to see the people who voted for this as "the enemy" and "evil" you're basically doing the same tribal "othering" that's lead to these outcomes you don't like.

"If you point out problems, you yourself are actually the problem. I am very rational."

Incredible logic.

[drdaeman]

It is incredible, because a lot of people dismiss it so eagerly.

Let me try to phrase it differently: ostracization rarely yields positive results, and is more likely to lead to opposite of desired course of action through future radicalization.

In other words, saying that bad people are bad is - as paradoxical as it might be - less likely to making anyone better than make bad people even worse.

[whoknowsidont]

>It is incredible, because a lot of people dismiss it so eagerly.

Because it's wishful thinking, and it only serves one purpose and only benefits one group.

You can't say it wasn't tried. Far from it.

It didn't work out. Plain and simple.

[msandford]

Okay so what's the solution then that doesn't involve having to disappear the half of the country that you don't agree with? I'm super open to better solutions. I just rarely hear any other than magical thinking. "All these evil shitbags will get reeducated and agree with me now" if it's not that, what is it?

[tremon]

the solution that doesn't involve having to disappear the half of the country that you don't agree with?

You can't form a country with people who want half the country to disappear. There's only three possible outcomes here:

- civil war

- secession

- remove all people that want other people to disappear

[ryandrake]

> But if you're unwilling to try and understand how it's possible that over half the country voted for someone who would enact policies that lead to what we're seeing now, you're simply not paying attention.

Anyone who's read about the history of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s should understand how it's possible. We can still feel disappointed and helpless that the same mentality is rearing its head again, especially in a country that itself sent people overseas to fight it 100 years ago.

Off and on throughout my life as an American, I thought my fellow Americans could be sometimes be described as arrogant, sometimes uninformed, sometimes overconfident, sometimes over-patriotic, sometimes selfish. But never needlessly cruel and cold-blooded like millions are today. This is new and terrible. It's absolutely sickening to walk outside in my neighborhood, look at 10 houses and think maybe 3 or 4 of them are homes to people who are OK with what is happening.

[nobody9999]

>But if you're unwilling to try and understand how it's possible that over half the country voted for someone who would enact policies that lead to what we're seeing now, you're simply not paying attention.

Actually it was more like 25% of those eligible to vote, not "over half the country."

[don_neufeld]

Which lawsuit are you referring to?

[whoknowsidont]

Probably this one: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/03/politics/texas-immigration-la...

[deepfriedchokes]

We shouldn’t need to count on voters dying to avoid outcomes like this. Our institutions are broken if they can’t protect the public from a mentally ill public official on a power trip.

[ryandrake]

The point is that we are not talking about protecting the public from a few mentally ill public officials. These officials didn't just appear out of the ether, they were voted for by tens of millions of voters who want this. Even if the officials go away, those voters are not.

[strken]

I'm not sure this is the correct perspective on voting. Voters are often passionate about one or two key issues - crime, Israel v Palestine, cost of living, immigration policy, coal towns, Ukraine, military spending, or whatever is most important to them.

If they voted for Trump it doesn't mean they agree with him on immigration and crime. They just have to think it's less important than the positions they do agree with. An effective argument to win over those voters isn't "you're evil and should have better opinions," it's "immigration policy is important too and this one is really bad, plus Trump is doing a bad job on your pet issues."

[toomuchtodo]

You’re expecting rationality where it will not be found. The do not care about effective arguments, they are vibes and emotion driven.

[strken]

You can make a vibes- and emotion-based argument that isn't "you are evil."

[toomuchtodo]

I disagree. Can you talk someone out of their religion? Their identity? Their belief system? In most cases, you cannot. Exceptions exist, certainly, but are not the norm in this regard. This could include those who are proudly racist, proudly misogynist, or take joy or satisfaction in the harm or pain of others. Are they evil? I think that distinction is a waste of time to be honest. All that matters is: “can you convince these people to vote differently?” If not, any time or effort you spend on them is wasted, and the evidence is robust a lot of these people will keep voting as they have, regardless of argument made.

[saulpw]

The replacement voters are currently teenagers. They haven't "learned their lesson", they aren't old enough to have experienced politics at all. They were 6 years old when Trump was elected the first time. This is their reality and we can't expect that the electorate gets more sensible because old people rotate out.

[toomuchtodo]

https://www.economist.com/interactive/trump-approval-tracker

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-support-among-men-eroding-108...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-absolutely-craters...

Young women are also most liberal than ever, and who carried recent election wins. I expect this trend to continue.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/gallup-analysis-finds-yo...

https://news.gallup.com/poll/609914/women-become-liberal-men...

https://msmagazine.com/2025/11/03/2025-election-results/

[inemesitaffia]

I was told here CharlieXcX would deliver the election.

The votes move in cycles

[toomuchtodo]

Additional citation:

The 2024 Trump "realignment" is already over - https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/trumps-winning-2024-coaliti... - November 7th, 2025

[abraxas]

Complete hopium. I remember twenty years ago as we witnessed the second term of W and the talks about the republican party's base dying out and losing their support with it. Yet 21 years later they are going stronger than ever with just mayhem and chaos to show for it. Nothing constructive accomplished in two decades. They either obstructed when out of power or favoured the billionaire class when in power. Yet they rebranded themselves as the "revolutionary" party and suckered enough idiots to vote for them enthusiastically.

You are fucked, American friends. And we're all fucked with you and because of you. When you sneeze the rest of the world catches a Covid sized cold so you're taking down the rest of us with you.

[queenkjuul]

Sadly GenX seems to be getting on board as quickly as the boomers are dying off

[Izkata]

Gen X are approaching retirement age.