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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
Foment an insurrection?
If Trump’s a legitimate threat to democracy it would be unpatriotic for them not to do this.
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.
Bernie is in a position where he actually does something. Vice President is a bench-warming position with no real power.
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.
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.
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.
Doctors are just fake jobs, everyone knows it’s the nurses who do all the work that’s why my surgeon didn’t even show up to my appendectomy.
If everyone treated their job like Democrats do theirs, the world wouldn’t work.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.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.
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
Fuck every political consultant, and double fuck the ones who thought Cheney was a good idea.
yeah please tune out to make sure he gets zero pushback whatsoever. I mean it worked to get him elected president, why not advance to godking?
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’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.
What things have been getting worse?
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.
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.”
Why did you scratch me, bro?
I like that
It’s a Carlin quote. Cynics are cynics because they cared and society let them down.
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.
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.
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.
Pretty much the majority of Americans.
I’m going to go ahead and respect democracy. Trump won fair and square. He should be able to implement his policies because that’s what the majority wants.
Democracy just voted to end democracy. It doesn’t work when the public is uninformed.
Back up your claim.
Wait 4 years and we’ll know whether I’m right or not.
Not sufficient.
If he did it legally and without simultaneously pilfering the coffers for his own gain then I would agree with you. However, everything he does is a violation of the law and for his own enrichment.
Wants? The people who voted for him don’t even know what they want. Didn’t know what tariffs were. Say they are constitutionalist but then say they want a Christian nation. Say they want to get rid of pedos then make one the president and a lot into Congress.
The people want to survive and be able to afford to live, and some of them got duped into thinking a parasite would do that for them.
The rest are just simply racist or hate gays and trans and will vote a monster in to hurt them, even to the detriment of themselves and others.
I’m afraid that his policies will be unethical, illegal, and un-American with no checks and balances. I can’t do anything about it now though; I already voted as blue as I could.
So yeah… I’m ready to say fuck it for the next term and hope that he gets stuck on things that slow him down (like laws already on the books that can’t be easily ignored, and pressure from other world leaders)
Im not sure un American really qualifies anymore. This is America apparently.
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they tuned out years ago. that’s why he’s president again. who even cares about anything at this point? fuck it.
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 absolutely turd bag Dick Cheney and is 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 they’re 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.
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.
Nope. This is the correct response. Democrats need to relax, because they work too hard to craft intelligent messages while the other side calls them names like a four year old and sells ugly ass shoes and watches all while desecrating the flag because a billionaire asking for more money makes perfect sense to some people…
Democrats need to dumb down their messaging. Comedy vs the next president needs to be slapstick level with focus on doing makeup in the morning, eating McDonald’s, and farting. Explanations for things like tariffs need to be laid out on TikTok so anyone at or below a 6 grade comprehension level can understand.
Temptation? I’ve already gone to “fuck it - burn it to the ground”. There’s not fuck-all I’m going to do at this point that is going to make any difference.
Until Democrats stop being Republican-lite, they’ll never learn. And this is what they get. Apathy and disillusionment.
And this is why the right well always win. They go for what they want till they get it. How long did they fight to repel row vs wade?
Row vs wade… Funny.
Merrick Garland and the $upreme Court slowly snuffed out any hope for America with a pillow over her nose and mouth
