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.

  • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    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.

    • horse_battery_staple@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      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.

      https://www.mutualaidhub.org/

      • cmbabul@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        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

    • Jesus@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      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.

      • krashmo@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        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.

        • FinnFooted@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          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.

    • GHiLA@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      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.

    • rishado@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      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.

    • jimmy90@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      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

  • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I’m sick of hearing about the asshole, and sick of hearing about him getting “slammed” by some celebrity or politician, and sick of hearing how he’s a huge threat so we need to send a sternly worded letter.

    Getting upset over this is so draining, especially because there’s nothing we can do to stop him in the short term.

    • Chainweasel@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Getting upset over this is so draining, especially because there’s nothing we can do to stop him in the short term.

      For me personally, I think the most draining part of the whole thing is that nothing was done to stop him in the 4 years he was out of power.
      1,461 days, all of them spent listening to people talk about how horrible it would be if he got back into power, and yet absolutely fucking nothing was done in that time to prevent the horrible things we were warned about from happening.

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Exactly. Breathless emails and texts talking about how we have to defend democracy from fascism (by giving them money) but no real action on their part for four goddamn years.

        • FoxyFerengi@lemm.ee
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          2 months ago

          Over a billion dollars raised in a few months for the Harris campaign, and the only people that voted for her were already going to vote blue. Nothing came out of it that helped anyone except the select few who got richer

  • DoomHorizons@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    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

    • Donjuanme@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      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.

      • paddirn@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        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.

        • SkyNTP@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          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.

  • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    It’s honestly the Democrats that make me feel drained. They’re the party that ostensibly represents my political leanings, but they’ve spent the last year funding a genocide, cozying up to Republicans like Liz Cheney, and abandoning the economic populism that got them elected in 2020. If they were at least winning, ignoring progressives like me would be justified, but nope! They made an 80-year-old man their candidate without holding a primary, replaced him at the last minute with a candidate who didn’t even make it to Iowa in 2020, and the walked into their largest electoral defeat since…what, 2004?

    Trump is vile, and petty, and cruel, and I’m genuinely scared of the damage he’ll do to our country, but that’s what I expect from him. The fact that the only opposition party to the fascists is this group of cowardly, selfish failures is so demoralizing. If we can’t wrestle control of the party away from these incompetent geriatrics, I honestly don’t know if there’s any hope for American democracy.

    • weeeeum@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Yeah, this exactly. I voted for Harris and I’m furious at the party for being allergic to victory. By becoming so centrist they are completely crippled. They’ve done absolutely jack shit for the average man and just sweep it under the rug. The Democratic party completely ignores us. It is utterly stagnant, with status-quo nominees like Hillary, Biden and Harris. I think without true progressives nominated in the future, dems will keep losing, and it doesn’t even feel like they care.

      • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        This is exactly what I think. I really want to be positive, but the more time passes, the more I’m convinced that the message they’ll take from this isn’t, “we need to return to our New Deal roots,” but, “we got too into, ‘identity politics,’ let’s not talk about trans issues anymore.”

        I think the final test as to whether there is any hope left for the party is if they select Rahm Emanuel for the DNC chair. If they do, then progressives just need to move on; this party has nothing left to offer, even as a method of countering fascism. We’d be better off trying our luck with third parties than these perennial losers.

        • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          This is exactly what I think. I really want to be positive, but the more time passes, the more I’m convinced that the message they’ll take from this isn’t, “we need to return to our New Deal roots,” but, “we got too into, ‘identity politics,’ let’s not talk about trans issues anymore.”

          And the galling thing about that is that centrists used Republican “boys in girls’ sports” hatred in their own campaign ads. They talked about trans people. They made it clear that they could not expect Democrats’ support.

          • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Wait, they, “used Republican hatred,” as in they used clips of Republicans being hateful, or they adopted Republicans hateful positions? Just trying to clarify what you mean.

            The worst part to me is that Tim Walz already demonstrated how to handle trans issues, which to make the Republicans fixation on them the issue. Don’t get bogged down in all their shitty arguments, just say, “Why are you so obsessed with where people go to bathroom? Mind your own business, weirdo.”

    • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      And honestly the worst part is: where is the dem leadership right now? Where has Harris been since her defeat? People should have accepted blame for this historic loss and stepped down, but instead - nothing. What the hell is this?

      • havocpants@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        They lost, what do you expect them to do? Foment an insurrection? The American people have spoken and they chose 4 years of a fascist, rapist, lying criminal for a president.

        • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          I expect them to still show leadership, to try and bring hope to their constituents - and to take responsibility for the election loss.

          What kind of leader just up and leaves after a loss like this? Did Bernie just fuck off after everything that happened to him? No, he’s still there, still trying to build support and help younger politicians follow in his footsteps. Harris should be doing that or should resign, not whatever she’s doing now.

          • samus12345@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Bernie is in a position where he actually does something. Vice President is a bench-warming position with no real power.

            • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Harris isn’t just the vice president, she was the presidential candidate. For fucks sake, she wanted to be the Democrats leader for the next couple of years! She has way more power and influence compared to Bernie.

              • samus12345@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                She has way more power and influence compared to Bernie.

                I don’t see how, since she’s a failed candidate and the VP of a lame duck president. You’re not wrong that she could at least make an attempt to have some sort of message of resistance, but even if she did it wouldn’t have any practical effect. Milquetoast centrist is milquetoast.

                • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  I don’t see how your position makes sense. Not only was there literally a $1.4bn dollar campaign promoting her over the last few months, she also dictated the current direction of the DNC based on her campaign policies and promises. She’s VP to a government whose policies she largely supported in her campaign. There hasn’t been any broad renouncement of her.

                  Besides Biden, who has anywhere close to her power, both in the party and in the public eye? She should be using all of the focus to promote and support new & fresh Democrats. You can’t seriously try to tell me she has less power than Bernie.

            • Shardikprime@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              Even more, what incentive is there for them? They know they will get the votes, and donations, from the blue no matter who crowd.

              They don’t need to change

              Just need to play them for absolute fools

              • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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                1 month ago

                And after this last election, it has become clear that they don’t really care about the votes as long as they get the donations.

                • Shardikprime@lemmy.world
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                  1 month ago

                  I mean would you care about the votes, specially post fact? The money is already there, and they are only humans.

        • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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          2 months ago

          The very very low bar that everyone should have for the Democrats right now is to expect them to be furiously working to win the House and the Senate in the next midterm election. Like balls to the wall, all out. Anything less is completely acquiescing to trumpism.

          You want more? They should be strategizing how to flip state legislatures. They should be working on lower levers of government from the bottom up, to fight gerrymandering and electoral shenanigans.

          And these are just the normie political stuff. I’m not even going to get into the grassroots organizing, movement building, leadership development, labour organizing etc.

          Franklin did tell you, from the very start: “a republic if you can keep it”. Do you want to keep it?

          My two Canadian cents, take it or leave it.

        • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          what do you expect them to do?

          the person to whom you replied was perfectly clear on this:

          People should have accepted blame for this historic loss and stepped down

      • normalexit@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Not only where are they, but who are they? Is Harris still relevant in politics? Pelosi? AOC? Bernie?

        Who is running things and what is their plan?

    • Narauko@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I wish I had a party that even paid lip service to representing my political leanings, but left-libertarians apparently don’t exist in the US. I voted for my district’s Democrat as that was the closest I was going to get this time around, but even that was a protest vote as I am in a conservative bastion. Even if the Democrat party is wrested away from the corporatists, it will be temporary and the problem will repeat

      We need to pass graduated voting nation-wide so we can get some viable alternative parties in here. I would love to have viable candidates ranging the gamut from conservative to communist, as that promotes a healthy political ecosystem instead of the current monoculture two party system. Makes a blight like the Christian nationalists or the Trump cult or the “leftist” oligarchs capable of infecting large swaths of the system.

  • DogPeePoo@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Merrick Garland and the $upreme Court slowly snuffed out any hope for America with a pillow over her nose and mouth

  • frog_brawler@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    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.

  • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    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.

  • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    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.

    • GHiLA@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      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.

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        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?

        • GHiLA@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          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.

          • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            I agree, but information and data, at least in their most vital form, can be expressed as text which is already small, further compressible, and easily stored more surreptitiously on microsd cards. All of Wikipedia is only like 22gb, and no one individual’s horde of info is likely to eclipse that volume.

            On the other hand, Wikimedia commons is orders of magnitude larger, and we did just see how brittle archive.org can be.

  • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    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.

    • tempest@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      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.

  • immutable@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    The Dems raised billions for the election and lost. What did I receive after donating thousands of dollars to them.

    Pleas for more money. Give us just a little bit more money and we will finally do something.

    I’m done. We should fight the fascists but the corporate democrats have been completely captured. They only know how to raise money and hand it to consultants that will tell them to parade around Liz fucking Cheney.

    I’m not paying them to slide further and further to the right anymore.

  • MeekerThanBeaker@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Until Democrats stop being Republican-lite, they’ll never learn. And this is what they get. Apathy and disillusionment.

  • Freefall@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I think we are just at the “fine, let them stick the fork in the outlet” stage, and if that leads to 50 years of hard times and being on the evil side of the next great war…oh fuckin well…we told you so.

    • Furbag@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Yep, that’s pretty much it. I look at the results of the election and wonder why we bothered to fight so hard to save America from it’s own worst impulses. There’s never a shortage of people willing to vote against their own self-interest. The second coming of Trump could, and should, be a new era of social Darwinism that cleans up the clueless electorate with some hard fucking times. People who are withdrawing from politics right now and “tuning out” are just focusing on not being a casualty, and I can’t blame them. At some point, you have to let the drowning person go or they’ll drag you down with them.

      I’m totally prepared for whatever the next 4 years have in store for me. If Trump blows up the economy, I’ll survive. Best of luck to everybody else.

      • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Yup. Pretty much feel the same way.

        Americans want to suffer. Now they’re going to suffer. I’m going to let them. I’ll survive. I have a stable job and live in a state that protects my rights. I’m totally fine watching the people who voted to suffer do so. They’ll either learn from the hard experiences or not. I’ll find joy in watching them do either. I could care less now.

  • 4grams@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    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.

    • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      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 in 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.

  • nutsack@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    they tuned out years ago. that’s why he’s president again. who even cares about anything at this point? fuck it.

    • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      The people who are tuning out now are the ones who are active during the elections. We exhausted ourselves trying to get someone we didn’t really believe in elected president against someone we truly feared. And it was all for nothing because the Democratic party is incapable of appealing to the lower class.

      I suspected we were in trouble when Kamala Harris embraced the endorsement from that absolute turd bag Dick Cheney and his equally shit daughter Liz. I saw Hillary try to pull the same stupid strategy back in 2016. They keep trying to lure Republicans to the Democratic side and it never never never works. Republicans do not care how “fiscally responsible” you tell them that you are. They will always vote for the person with the ® next to their name. And while the Democrats are doing that they are repelling just everyone on the left. Especially those who are poor and don’t give a shit how fiscally responsible you are they just want a break.

      And now I really don’t have any faith in the Democratic party at all. I don’t think they’re as bad as Republicans but they sing their songs to the same tunes the Republicans do. Just with different lyrics.

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        the Democratic party is incapable of appealing to the lower class.

        Anyone to whom Cheney is appealing is of appallingly low class.

        Oh, you mean economic class.

  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I honestly don’t care anymore.

    We just failed the most blatant test we could possibly be given. Americans are hopeless. Take the politics and politicians out of the equation and you’ve still got an abundance of stupid Americans. That story doesn’t end well regardless of other factors.

    We simply aren’t intelligent or responsible enough as a whole to maintain a democracy.

    I’ll be going with the “ignorance is bliss” strategy at the end of this calendar year. I’ll probably still vote in local elections, but I’m done on the federal level. Too many stupid Americans for me to keep trying to care on a large scale.

    We’re going down. The only question is the speed at which it will happen.

    I live in California, so I’ll be able to maintain rights while others elsewhere lose them. And at this point, I have so little faith in Americans that I simply can’t bring myself to care about them anymore.