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Agree and disagree.

The US has been on a downward spiral towards 'this' for a long time, but Trump literally self-selected to be the face of the intentional rapid acceleration of it.

Calling Trump a scapegoat is incredibly kind to his intentional destruction and, to still put it far too kindly, "vindictive nastiness in attempt to profit" (which, I think, also depressingly describes what has become of the US tech sector).

If the status quo system was doing their job(s) there would be no DJT in the WH. Full stop. Not once. Certainly not twice.

But rather than own their failure, they work - hard - the “OMG it’s all his fault” narrative (read: deflection and distraction) and it works. So well, they keep doing it.

But repetition of a lie doesn’t make it true. Concession to buy into a lie, also doesn’t make it true.

No doubt DJT has his flaws. But he’s still a scapegoat. Why? Because no one is asking “How did we get here?”

That's a good point. Thanks for making it clearly.

Essentially the US cannot improve it's current direction unless it can have an honest discussion about how it got so bad in the first place, with all administrations under the spotlight for failing to address the decline.

Ironically, it's accelerating away from honesty.

Yes. In short, Trump didn’t just happen. Plenty of incompetence and negligence preceded him. The red carpet was rolled out. The engine was primed. If it wasn’t Trump it would have been someone else. That’s not his fault.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...

testfoobar 56 days ago

"How did we get here?" - No one really wants to ask this question. We've had decades of tax policy, trade policy, health policy that created tremendous wealth inequality.

In Q4 2016 (upon Trump's first election), the bottom 50% owned just $1 trillion out of $90 trillion.

The system failed them. Trump is a populist.

whatisthiseven 58 days ago

Odd, why can't Trump be both cause and symptom?

Surely, he has made things uniquely worse, and in ways that would not have happened without him.

timschmidt 58 days ago

The undercurrent of dissatisfaction which led to his popularity was already there. And has been for decades. Do you blame the drought, the dry kindling, or the match?

You don't get the wildfire without all three, and anyone paying attention can observe the looming danger and the inevitability of ignition. Who lights the match matters. But is only a small part of the contributing circumstances.

fzeroracer 58 days ago

Trump is at least in part directly responsible for said undercurrent of dissatisfaction. He's been part of the wealthy scammer class for decades, providing the drought, kindling and matches. The fact that he's the most visible of the bunch and popular thanks to being on TV doesn't remove his deep connections to the root cause.

The wealthy have been manufacturing these issues for decades now by buying up the entire media apparatus and gutting systems to the bone so that they can squeeze out a bit more blood to drink.

timschmidt 58 days ago

> The wealthy have been manufacturing these issues for decades now by buying up the entire media apparatus and gutting systems to the bone so that they can squeeze out a bit more blood to drink.

This is the stronger part of that statement to me. More than individual responsibility. Collective responsibility of the powerful. It seems to me that there's plenty of blame to spread around, which doesn't negate any of it. I even see ways democrats have contributed by, for example, conspiring to exclude Bernie Sanders who plays to the same feelings of dissatisfaction as Trump, but in a different way. More build it better than burn it down.

Though I think that's what Trump sees himself as doing as well. People don't have to agree - I appreciate some things he's done and recoil in horror at others. But similarly for democrats. I was very displeased with Obama for renewing the Patriot Act while appreciating the difficult compromise of the Affordable Care Act.

Historically, US politics has been quite volatile. The period between WWII and the 90s was unusually stable and prosperous. Which I tend to credit having bombed the rest of the world's manufacturing capacity to smithereens and the recovery period for, mostly. I think we're entering a more volatile period, but who knows?

I assign a fair portion of the blame to a consciously self-serving, opportunistic match, yes.

Do what you gotta do to feel good. But giving a free pass to all the other contributors - the ones loudest about who is to blame - is foolish, at best. To each their own.

Put another way, in terms of the political status quo, what changed between his two term? Hint: not a damn thing. That ain’t his fault. Your bias has blinded you

XorNot 58 days ago

The American voter openly and obviously said "wow. Despite the numerous management failures, more of that please?"

People didn't vote for change, they voted for the same thing they had 4 years ago that changed absolutely nothing.

To quote Vaas from Far Cry 3: Do you know what the definition of insanity is?

Exactly. They were so frustrated and disgusted by the status quo political mess that Don was still a viable choice. Twice!!!

And how did the system respond after the first win? It didn’t. It was same ol’ same ol’, and look what the led to.

Blaming Trump for the cluster fuck mess that gave him the opportunity to run and win… Sorry. Absolutely not his fault.

I don’t like the guy. But I’m not going to be foolish and blame him for winning. That’s not his fault.

Yes, Trump is a figurehead for 'everything wing with the US' but he's become that figurehead by being incredibly and publicly active in the promotion of 'everything wrong with the US'. He deserves blame well above those who voted for him.