[sho_hn]

Despite everything that has happened over the past year, the Democrats only have a few percentage points lead over the Republicans in current midterm polling. As an outside observer: Absolutely wild. I know a lot about the reasons, but it still feels completely surreal.

[NicoJuicy]

There's a vox video about it: the firehose of falsehoods

It will explain a lot

Ps. Yes, insane

[galangalalgol]

Trump is not unique. You can find similar parties and figures in most of Europe. Usually the would-be autocrat populist is even more popular than in the US in two party systems. Multi party systems dilute it which just leads to paralysis until eventually >40% of your population is ok with abandoning democracy because the impacts of paralysis are stacking up (France).

[CodingJeebus]

The democrats have been an absolute failure of a party for the last decade and the fact their voters refuse to hold leadership accountable for those failures says everything you need to know.

There should have been a house-clearing of leadership up and down the party apparatus in 2016 and again in 2024 but nope. We'd rather hope those perpetual losers get their act together out of fear of the unknown.

[throwawayqqq11]

The internal frictions around sanders and mamdani were at least some movement in a less corrupt direction. This is more than republicans can offer.

[CodingJeebus]

The Democratic party is the reason Sanders did not win. Their refusal to back progressives in any meaningful way is exactly what I'm talking about. The dems would sooner let Trump have a 3rd term than allow a progressive like Mamdani to win the presidency, which is precisely my point.

[giarc]

And just wait until all the stimulus Trump is going to drop on Americans before the midterms to make everything look good and gain back some voters.

[seanmcdirmid]

He can’t actually do much with votes in Congress he doesn’t have. Take money from programs via executive order? Ok, I guess. Cut checks to voters with that money? Even the Supreme Court would blush at that.

[1over137]

>He can’t actually do much with votes in Congress he doesn’t have.

Can't he? He can't impose tariffs without congress, he can't declare war without congress. And yet...

[cudgy]

The last declared war by congress was WWII

[Yoric]

He doesn't have to follow through. Announcing a stimulus check might be sufficient.

Do people still believe that the tariffs are somehow decreasing taxes?