Summary
Anti-Trump Americans, especially on the left, are showing a more subdued response to Trump’s 2024 reelection compared to the activism of 2016.
Exhaustion, disillusionment with repeated setbacks, and negative media coverage have led many to disengage from politics or shift focus to personal priorities.
Activist groups, like Women’s March, are planning protests but acknowledge lower enthusiasm and more localized efforts.
Experts suggest this “tune-out” may be a coping mechanism, with some hoping new, non-political participants will lead change.
Many feel drained but believe activism will eventually regain momentum.
I like that
I’d call you a fascist pig, but you’d probably get erect.
I’m 41. I’ve been involved with activism since I was 20. Things keep getting worse. Time to try something different.
I’m also trying to shift my views to be more like Carlin, where I stop caring about what happens.
Carlin cared a great deal. His whole career was about bringing things to light. He was just cynical and vulgar in his presentation.
“Scratch any cynic, and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.”
I like that
It’s a Carlin quote. Cynics are cynics because they cared and society let them down.
Why did you scratch me, bro?
40 here. Been watching it slide downhill for 20 solid years now. Just getting more and more absurd. I’m done. I"ll be doing the ignorance is bliss thing from here on out so I can try to enjoy myself a little. I don’t really care about Americans anymore. Too stupid.
What things have been getting worse?
The price of damn near everything.
Except, of course, the lowest amount you can legally pay someone for an hour of their labor. That stayed steady as a rock.
My 15 year old makes 16 per hour working fast food. I made 5.25 at his age in the 90s.
Everything is solved and no one is suffering then! Hooray for the power of anecdote!
All things
Lots of down votes, but no actual responses.
Because it is ignorant trolling and not a genuine question. People recognize it instantly and downvote instead of giving you the answers you don’t want or need.
Not sure how you missed that but there ya go.
I’m not sure if you’re aware but they’ve overturned Roe v. Wade.
And that’s just the start of the list.
How about minority rights, accessibility to health care, environmental protections, women’s pay gap and career opportunity in general, black president, woman vice president, safety laws, life expectancy.
None of that counters their point. GJ.
All of the numbers suggest otherwise, but don’t let that get in the way of what you believe in your heart.
Your nonsequitur has nothing to do with me.
You are the one claiming that my multiple examples don’t counter his one example.
Most of those are going away, too
Of course people are tuning out. Please keep in mind I am saying the following as a mostly liberal slightly libertarian.
What has passed for liberal culture over the last decade has included an awful lot of outrage over every injustice but not an awful lot of solid action to correct those injustices. The Democratic party has tried to harness that with a lot of identity politics that avoid the real issues. And so the result is you have a ton of people who are always upset but things never get better.
So of course people burn out. Or they get cynical and decide nothing is going to change so it’s not worth getting worked up over. You see a lot of that in this very thread.
To anyone angry at me, downvote me if you want, but if you want change actually fucking do something. Stop consuming short form content like Twitter and TikTok, start consuming long form things that make you think and expose you to different viewpoints. Lex Friedman interviews are a good place to start.
Understand that not everybody who disagrees with you is bad or evil or malicious.
Very few issues are simple. There is rarely an absolute obvious right and wrong. And if somebody adopts a viewpoint you think is wrong, consider that maybe they have reasons they think it’s right and use those reasons to challenge your own beliefs. You may conclude that they are still wrong, but you must be open to the possibility that you might be wrong. If you aren’t open to being wrong, why should they be?
And in the world where nobody can admit they are wrong, nothing productive happens. You just have two sides shouting at each other.Then take a step back from your own personal outrage and think about what is actually important. If you had to choose between ensuring every American has good health care, and ensuring every American has their pronouns recognized, which do you think is more important? So which one are you focusing your advocacy and speech on?
The simple fact is, if you (and I am addressing everybody on all sides here) stop getting riled up over wedge issues and start focusing on the things that The majority of the country can agree on, you might find there’s an awfully big agenda of problems we all agree should be fixed that aren’t even being discussed.
Based take, also great comment
It’s a shit take and here’s why:
At no point in the past 30 years have the Democrats been able to do anything because of the filibuster even when they controlled both houses of Congress. The only thing that’s held us back from moving any policy to even remotely the left is the Republican obstructionism and that’s it plain and simple
And to that I ask, why do the Democrats not also use the filibuster? Or when they have control of the Senate, rewrite the rules to disallow a procedural filibuster and make it so if you want to filibuster something you have to actually stand up there and read the phone book into the record for hours on end?
If the filibuster is the problem, why is there not a large public campaign for filibuster reform?I’m sorry but this is an excuse plain and simple. The procedural filibuster, which I personally think should be abolished, can be used as a weapon by either side. If GOP filibusters the school spending bill, Dems should filibuster the defense spending bill. If GOP filibusters the medical care bill, Dems should filibuster the warrantless wiretapping bill (well, they should do that anyway, but you get the point).
At no point in the past 30 years have the Democrats been able to do anything because of the filibuster even when they controlled both houses of Congress.
This excuse has always been garbage and here’s why:
Democrats, at any point in which they controlled a simple majority of the Senate, could have closed the loophole that permits the filibuster and ended this bullshit forever.
Another reason it’s garbage is that it’s the Democrats’ job to win elections and get control of Congress so they can do things, and they just fail spectacularly about 80% of the time.
Blah blah excuses
Rules for us not for them
i’m preparing mentally for the potential of a civil war ok. I need to be ready to bear the costs of the conflict, if it happens.
anyway, politically in the next four years we need to start building something we can’t just sit here and pretend that the DNC will unfuck itself and stop being incompetent half the time, and we also can’t pretend that abstaining from voting is going to fix things.
We need to be doing things, which for some reason, people really hate.
What are we supposed to do? We tried, this one had no ambiguity. If this is what people want, so be it. Gonna suck though so I’m spending my efforts on bracing myself for what’s to come.
We tried, this one had no ambiguity.
I disagree. There is ambiguity to be found. The ambiguity cannot be found in why Trump won. He has a cult and inflation is a thing. But there exists ambiguity in why Harris lost. I do not believe that the notion that Americans are so hell-bent on fascism that they overwhelmingly support Trump and everything he does. I think Harris lost because she moved to the right and failed to meaningfully differentiate herself from an administration that inspired so much apathy that Biden himself said that he didn’t care all that much if he lost.
nah, I don’t attribute it to malice, I attribute it to stupidity and ignorance.
What’s wrong, people don’t want a 24/7 news cycle of all the stupid shit Dumpster will say and do!?
You mean our media system pushing to have the Orange One elected to increase their ratings could backfire!?
I could only hope people stop paying attention and paying money for the corporate spun garbage we call news.
There was so much less CNN blaring in my parents house after Biden was elected. It was nice. I’m not eager to return to that.
He’s not even fucking in office yet. I think what’s really irritating the media is we aren’t all resubscribing to papers again. Sorry guys, this ain’t 2016 and we’re not going to handle it the same way we handled 2016.
Personally, I’m buying electronics and appliances now so that I don’t have to face his dumb tariff price hikes, and I’ve renewed my passport.
If you’re a person who might need to run for one reason or another, an updated passport is a great idea.
People don’t feel the need to riot or protest or anything, no amount of activism could provide the painful lessons this country needs better than the chaos and ruin the incoming administration will bring
If we survive maybe we can rebuild in the aftermath, but the time to fight is probably over. Country voted for this so why not just sit back and watch the FAFO happen
That’s how I’ve been feeling anyway, probably not the only one
I worry that by not demonstrating we’re fucking around.
But I’m done, almost half of the country voted for this.
My neighbor’s voted for this.
I used to want to be helpful and a good member of my community, now I just have regret for my past actions. I’m jaded.
1/3rd of voters voted for Trump, a 1/3rd voted for Harris, and a 1/3rd just couldn’t be bothered to vote. It’s not that Trump got a groundswell of support (he got +1million more than 2020, not a huge increase), it’s that Harris didn’t get the same number of votes as Biden got, she got around 7 million less votes than Biden got. It’s that Democrat voters didn’t turn out in the numbers they needed to.
Americans know nothing of hardship. They take their way of life for granted. And will continue to bury their head in the sand until the sand itself is poisoned.
The fact of the matter is Americans have been lulled into complacency. Both before and after the election. This should all be completely unsurprising.
The 1/3 of voters that can’t be bothered to cast a vote have abdicated their voice. Now they have to suffer the consequences of that choice.
Yup. “Doomed to repeat it.” We’re repeating it.
Hard to blame them. It’s exhausting to keep up and fight with the crazy and stupid. Because to them it’s no effort.
are showing a more subdued response
…That’s because, if you’re smart, you keep your responses off public channels. Didn’t anyone learn anything from January 6? Don’t fucking plan in public.
A few of my friends went full-on lockdown mode the second he won and I heard a rumor or two of people buying up hard drives.
I think a few people are going to spend four years offline.
I heard a rumor or two of people buying up hard drives.
I’m wondering what the utility of extra hard drives represents in this context. Are people that reliant on the cloud?
Guess people see things going in this country the way fascism usually goes, restriction of information and data, maybe even connectivity. I’d say nothing is off the table.
Scratch a liberal and they abandon you to the fascists I guess
How dense are you? People are just tired from decades worth of having corporations and wealthy elites push the middle and lower class into the ground.
Me too. Rolling over won’t help
The older I get and the more things I witness like Citizens United happen, the more economically rightward both parties become, the more ruthless the Republicans become to be rewarded by The Base, the more feckless the opposition becomes. The more we vote and Democrats do nothing, or just enough Republicans win to stop them. We vote and the people we vote for suddenly go “oops I was actually a consevative the whole time!” The more time passes the more I realize organized violence or riots are really are more than likely the only things that will actually change anything. The older I get though the more I realize that will never happen.
We’re all far too “civil” and hope voting for the oligarch lite will save us. We’re far too propagandized and are denied the only real changes we need to how we vote to stop this trend. We will have to be pushed until it’s really really really bad for anyone to actually organize a revolt. By then it will be far too late.
Apathy helps the oppressor, but engagement hasn’t shown to have much of a positive affect either. :/
I figured this out in The Tombs in Brooklyn 20 years ago. I was the only white guy and hearing these kids talk about conspiracy theories even back then… 9/11… David Icke… Aliens… etc… I knew then “if stones get thrown, it’ll be from the streets, the hungry, not the over educated upper middle class suburban whites.” And also not at all surprised when people of color went hard right last couple elections bc they haven’t trusted the govt … ever…
Funny enough the conspiracy theories were how I even got interested in politics to begin with! I always had a special hatred for Bush, but after being exposed to the 9/11 conspiracies I fell down a rabbit hole, crossed paths with Infowars for a bit, and finally dug myself back out to “reality” taking a brief tour of “maybe the Democrats actually give a shit about people.”
…yeah. We don’t actually have a party for the working people. Things are going to have to get rough for things to change :(
School report on the Ross Perot election and then reading Rage Against the Machine liner note lyrics (and going to the library to research every historical reference). By the time I was in high school in Manhattan with proximity to activism, I was grabbing the bullhorn at the protests.
Yeah… That was the 99% movement. Leftist and tea party… unity? (Anger at being fucked by banks) Have you read The Great Derangement? Check out the synopsis. Might be up your alley.
Oh- getting beat up by NYPD at age 12 prob didn’t help
Why do you believe organised violence/riots help? Not that I have good ideas, but I am pretty sure that violence will further cement Trump/GOP rule.
I think if anything the riots/strikes would be better than actual violence. Basically any direct sustained threat to their incomes will force some kind of change… anything short of that and these people will just continue to buy elections and buy the people who run. Threats to life might make things worse, but I think the “ownership class” need to be reminded that they can only fuck around so far until they “find out.” The only meaningful changes in society in relation to the owning classes came from violence.
I fully understand the anger and frustration that leads people to dreaming of and secretly prepping for violent insurrections, but I will absolutely urge them to redirect the energy into something that can actually make a change.
Historically, violent insurrections against the owning class have always been put down by the police or army and not resulting in changes.
The latest meaningful changes which happened in Europe in the late 1800s happened due to workers uniting, striking and supporting each other internationally.
This is rarely taught in schools for some reason, and it’s beginning to be a bit of an issue, since many people today have no clue about the foundation for their current life/working situation.
Even if there was a violent insurrection… then what? What are the demands? What is the desired outcome? If people can organize to figure that out, they might as well put it into a strike demand.
Well pass on that knowledge then cause I’m just getting starting. We got a world to save and not a whole lot of time to save it. Do whatever you can to put rockets on the elbows of those who are oppressed and misrepresented. The time to realize the monopoly on violence, and why that is was yesterday. It is now time to disobey.
Pretty much the majority of Americans.
I get the inflation and low-information voter angle, but watching Trump win by such a wide margin was just straight disheartening. At least with Hillary losing, you could complain about the electoral college and how few votes could have flipped it. Trump ran the table this time. His people showed up, and ours didn’t. Democrats are completely lost. They can’t craft a narrative that sticks in people’s heads to save their lives. “Weird” got traction, but “weird” doesn’t do shit for working people, who are struggling with no end in sight.
Plus, I’m waiting to see what happens. Trump is older and angrier, but he was always lazy. I’m hoping he spends all his time golfing and rage-tweeting while accomplishing very little. He’ll cut taxes for rich people and appoint shitty judges for sure, but hopefully he gets bored quickly and focuses on personal grift over wrecking the country long-term.
Trump doesn’t need to do much because he’s got a whole team behind him to get things done. He’s just some shitty Trojan horse
Yup. He’ll sign anything they put in front of him.
My concern is more the host of ghouls following him in with a plan this time around. They’ll destroy our institutions and feast on the corpses to fatten themselves even more. The damage George W Bush did to government organizations by outsourcing to private industry will seem like small potatoes.
Trump was semi-ineffectual during his first term because he was an outsider candidate. It was Jeb’s turn to get the RNC nod, but Trump won and spent the first year plus of his four trying to wrestle power from the entrenched Republican establishment and define his own administration and agenda.
Not anymore. We’re still weeks away from Jan 20 and the Republican talking heads are already murmuring about recess cabinet appointments. He’s got the party wrapped around his finger, and loyalists running the RNC, complicit Supreme Court, a House majority leader in his corner, and an affable Senate majority leader.
I hope he gets distracted trying to unfuck the effects of his policies or bogged in culture war distractions, but honestly there’s a lot of damage he can do solo as the chief executive.
The fuck am I supposed to do? I’ve been organizing, I’ve been to protests, I’ve done everything I can to head this disaster off. I’ll be fine throughout this and I’ll do what I can to take care of the innocents who’re going to suffer, but what the fuck else is there to do? Clearly people either want this, or don’t care enough to try and stop it. So, fuck it. They can reap what they sow. Maybe this will wake some of them up, or they’ll all fucking die of the next big pandemic and then they won’t be a problem any more.
Yep. Right there with you, dude. I did my part for over 15 years. The second I heard he won, I started locking down everything I use and run online.
Come January, a lot of us are going dark, homies. Stay safe, lock up those banned books.
History is about to repeat its boots all over your faces.
Support mutual aid networks locally and keep moving forward. The only way we can solve this is by local support. National politics have become a distraction. Fuckit, help your neighbors and conserve your energy for those you can actually help.
Yep the best thing we can do is make our individual communities as self sufficient, independent, and secure as possible. By doing exactly what you said which eventually might create second power
It’s ok to take a break to recharge for a bit, but know that the right has been pushing on this for decades, and they only win when we stop pushing to protect people who are vulnerable and in need.
That kind of thinking only works when enough people think protecting others is a worthy cause. It doesn’t seem like that’s the case anymore.
People are uninformed. The reality is that they vote incumbents when they feel good and for change when they feel bad. And, in the end, winning the voter base means being the best at propaganda and swaying how people are feeling. Unfortunately, even if you want to do the right thing, you still have to win people over with propaganda. Pushing for good policy that’s too complicated for the average person with the attention span of a small rodent to follow doesn’t work. Its why Trump always gets crushed in the debates and still wins elections. People literally think they’re voting for the economy which is a net positive for everyone and that Trump doesn’t mean the hateful stuff he says. That’s how good their propaganda game is.
Yup
i see the new administration as a threat to governance of all kinds in the US so maybe it would be useful to preserve the work of those institutions if they are shutdown or damaged so that they can be rebooted when the administration changes
just an idea, i totally agree with your point of view
It’s not even about the general populace and what they want. We the people do all the groundwork for progressive politics and in the end it’s our own party that ignores us and does us in. That’s why I’m demoralized personally. I don’t think I’ll ever get fired up again for this party unless there’s radical shift to the left.
Then it’s not your party anymore is it
