Why did Trump regain the presidency, Jason Sattler asks?

[pedrobizbikedu@mastodon.world]

@wdlindsy He’s a tool all right, and instrumental in permanently killing off the republic.

[mysturji@mastodonapp.uk]

@wdlindsy
Not the first step.
Not by a long way.

[structuralist@mastodon.social]

@wdlindsy

This is now the conventional wisdom, but...

Exit polls showed a lot of people struggling economically and blaming the current administration.

Voters are plenty fickle.

This narrow win by Trump may be like the dog that caught the bus if he (1) does tariffs, (2) does mass deportation, and (3) gives the rich more tax breaks.

[nceladean@mastodon.social]

@wdlindsy

Too many Americans still think the "free marketplace of ideas" will protect them from propaganda

[sherri_ingrey@spinster.xyz]

@wdlindsy They are all puppets and tools, and the Deep State runs both parties. This is dimocrat misdirection

[chuffmeister@kolektiva.social]

@wdlindsy the majority of them are owned by?
The Guardian

[josephmeyer@c.im]

@wdlindsy
I have been wondering since the Ronald Reagan years when the lower economic classes would reach their stress limit and snap back, or alternatively how oligarchs would continue to maintain control. We are seeing the answers to that question, today. But I am shocked that their strategies are no longer even well-disguised.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@ChuffMeister Please point me and other to sources that substantiate what you're saying here.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Sherri_Ingrey Sure, the Democrats are the big problem facing us now.

Stop with the dim-witted trolling or I'll block you.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@nceladean Yes, you're right.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@JosephMeyer I'm not holding my breath until working-class voters who placed Trump in office begin to admit they made a horrific choice, when his economic policies immiserate them even more.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Structuralist Exit polls showed a lot of people stating that they were struggling economically.

It's easy to state a lot of things, including counterfactual ones.

Surprisingly, a large percentage of those economically struggling Trump voters now find that they have magically enjoyed immediate economic betterment, and are reporting that.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@mysturji If you read Nafeez Ahmed's commentary, I think you'll find that he does not use that phrase, which an editor has obviously incorporated into the headline for his commentary.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@pedrobizbikedu Yes.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@jaycee Yes. Trump and Farage (and Bannon) are thick as thieves.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@foog7kip Lies fall so easily from some lying lips, don't they?

[jaycee@toot.community]

@wdlindsy They’re certainly thick and definitely thieves.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@jaycee Indeed.

[structuralist@mastodon.social]

@wdlindsy

This study says it is the result of long term economic pressures.

The deep historical forces that explain Trump’s win

Our research shows that political breakdown, from the Roman Empire to the Russian revolution, follows a clear pattern: workers’ wages stagnate, while elites multiply

the Guardian (www.theguardian.com)

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Structuralist I think it's very evident to a lot of observant people that the huge and growing disparities in wealth-holding are at the very core of the political-cultural problems we see unfolding now.

To say that, however, is not to say that people's self-reporting to pollsters is correct when they are economically distressed — when strong evidence suggests otherwise — and this is why they want authoritarian solutions to complex problems.
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