We can no longer hide behind the excuse of “the electoral college”. We can no longer say that Trump did not win the popular vote. Trump won the Presidency, retook the Senate, and are poised to retain the house. Progressive candidates and initiatives either underperformed or failed nationwide. A majority of voters nationwide saw everything that came with a Trump presidency and a MAGA agenda and said “Yes. We want more of that.”

We are not better than this.

That was my brother-in-law. In West Virginia. Votes for Obama twice then Trump.

Near as I can tell, they want “change” and doesn’t matter much what that means. They feel powerless in the face of the “other”. The government itself is “other”. It’s who they blame for problems whether it’s taxes or complicated rules for their small business or the way “elites” get away with doing the stuff they can’t do. They have some legitimate gripes with the government and “elites”.

Obama sold “change” really well. So did Trump. It’s not the same kind of change. And, he employed many more “others”. Trump’s change is a lie but Obama’s change never materialized even though he was probably more sincere about it.

These people are dealing with feelings of frustration, inadequacy, envy and shame. They’re lashing out and their only power is their vote. Trump fed those feelings and gave them a target and convinced them that only he could help them.

If you were to put on your diagnostician hat, what do you think he actually needs and would be satisfied with. Like what actual change does he seek and would it actually satisfy him?

What kind of change was Obama actually selling, what ideas did your relative have that Obama was going to fix that he became disillusioned by?

Post scriptum: This got way longer and way more opinionated than I intended. I still believe there is some fundamental argument in there, but it’s not delivered rational. Sorry.

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Something I have repeatedly heard and read in criticism of modern democratic governments is that they don’t actually do anything.

The calculus of political compromise, the promise and ideal of stability, and over complex systems they over see make them fundamentally incapable of changing anything. The way democracies govern cannot adapt to outside change and will not deliver on inside demands. Change is opposed to how they calculate decision paths, how they understand incentive.

They promise you that the continuation of injustice will guarantee price stability and then inflation happens. They ask you to cut back your carbon footprint and climate change escalates anyway. And when the fascists are appearing on the horizon they ask you to defend democracy, the system that fails you over and over again, by sacrificing your ideals, your needs, and in many cases your personal safety and security by opposing fascism.

Democratic governments have proven that they cannot and will not protect you from economic hardship, war, climate catastrophe, wealth inequality, and your neighbor’s tree standing to close to your fence.

This is nothing that is necessary or inherent to democracies, it is how the internal way of thinking of democratic governments incentives their decision making.

People want things to change. Past governments have shown that they won’t deliver on that ever.

And to make that clear I don’t think minority rights are nothing, but they are for minorities. There is no fundamental change to the lives of the majority populous on the scale of same sex marriage.

What they choose instead is burning books and people, because that is an expression of their internal suffering and pain, which they feel is ignored. They don’t care that they might be next on the chop block, as long as they get to chop for a time.

It’s a nihilistic reaction to political frustration.