The last time Donald Trump was president, he travelled to Youngstown, Ohio, among the most depressed of America’s rust belt cities, and promised voters the impossible.
The high-paying steel, railroad and car industry jobs that once made Youngstown a hard-living, hard-drinking blue-collar boom town were coming back, he said. “Don’t move. Don’t sell your house,” he crowed to a rapturous crowd in 2017. “We’re going to fill up those factories – or rip ”em down and build brand new ones”.
None of that happened. Indeed, within 18 months, General Motors (GM) announced that it was suspending operations at its one remaining manufacturing plant outside Youngstown, throwing 5,000 jobs into jeopardy in a community with little else to cling to. Trump’s reaction was to say the closure didn’t matter, because the jobs would be replaced “in, like, two minutes”.
That, too, did not happen. People moved away, marriages broke down, depression soared and, locals say, a handful of people took their own lives.
“The Democrats and the Republicans are all a den of crooks. Only one side lies about being crooks, and one doesn’t. If you’re going to be a crook, I’d rather know it than be lied to.”
“We just want a change, a change in the weather,” a retired aluminium worker wanting to go just by his first name, Paul, said as he sat with a group of friends in a cigarette shop in Struthers, a down-at-heel overwhelmingly white Youngstown suburb once known for its thick clusters of bars, pizza parlours, strip clubs and illegal gambling joints.
Oh, change you’ll get. Even less health care, workers rights and job protection. Poisoned air, water, and salted earth. Weather events like you couldn’t imagine. Not to mention the fact that you may lose people in your life, members of your family or people you know thanks to the republican hate campaign.
Guess you get what you fucking deserve. Too bad about everyone else though.
And this idiot’s vote is dozens of times more powerful than that of any voter in any major city in the country.
That guy is 200% certified dumb fuck
democrat leadership will see this and think “damn! they are on to us we have to lie and scheme even harder at the expense of human dignity next time!”
Where this fucking idiot was wrong was in thinking that Amerikkka has ever or will ever care about the common person. lol
Burn the whole country to the ground
Where does that get us other then ash?
“I’m not going to vote against my best interests, I’m also going to destroy everything that in any way helps me”
Hey idk about you but im a morrowind player and id prefer vvardenfell to amerikka any day. I happen to think ash storms are relaxing. Which is why i modded more into my game.
When Nazi Germany burned there was a Germany after. Sometimes something’s too far gone to save.
I think at some point this is just overanalyzing things. People vote for the same team they always have. It is like asking a football fan why they root for their team. There often isn’t a real answer and what they tell you is ultimately nonsensical.
If people just vote for “the home team”, wouldn’t the results be similar every time? Yet we have different parties winning by different amounts every year.
Going only by myself, I don’t know, I suppose you could be right …… I moved to an area where people were politically more like me and I vote for different variations that are mostly compatible with my desires. I have voted third party in the past but aside from local offices, that just seems like a waste of my vote. I have voted for candidates from the other party when they seem to be the better choice. So I do generally vote for candidates from the same party, except when I don’t.
Interesting idea. I watch american football but i never got into it until later. And i find it interesting that i have no teams i prefer exactly. I just like to see the different plays and stuff. I do always vote left. But ive never considered democrats my team. Just the most closely aligned i guess. I would vote 3rd party if i felt it made a difference and there was a candidate i liked that i felt could win.
Post-hoc explanations. They’re super common once you start looking into people’s everyday actions.
If you’re going to be a crook, I’d rather know it than be lied to.
Of all dumb reasons for voting for Trump, this one takes the cake.
“I might be forcibly sodomized to death in a dark closet, but at least I’ll know who’s doing it by their voice!”
They aren’t wrong. The dems keep refusing to follow through with their broken promises. People are fed up with the establishment. I wish they had a different choice than Trump, but the DNC refuses to listen to their base and keeps propping up neoliberal center right candidates who only listen to their donors.
This is not the voter’s fault, it’s 100 % Kamala and the DNC.
Almost as if the DNC prefers a candidate like Trump over an actual left of center candidate who will follow through with the economic platform of the dems.
They are wrong. The Republicans lie constantly about being crooks. They literally call themselves the “law and order” party all the time.
It’s bullshit motivated reasoning by someone who doesn’t want to admit the real reasons they went for Trump.
Most voters don’t have time to pay attention to politics… hate to break it to you
dems keep refusing to follow through with their broken promises
Dems have faced blockades from a GoP-dominated legi branch for something like all but 4 months of the last 40 years. Despite this, they offer a plan that can help and hope for the legi support to make it happen.
GoP has been united in fucking over the 99% and lying about it; Every fucking time since prez Reagan.
Blame the Dems, though.
Biden’s good friends are the ones who blocked his agenda.
He literally did nothing to fight for what he supposedly wanted. Don’t give me that crap.
That’s called cutting off your nose to spite your face. There are a lot of things to legitimately criticise about the Democrats. But on every single one of those issues the Republicans are far far worse.
This sounds eerily similar to the arguments blue no matter who folks were making before the election…. “Trump’s genocide will be worse than the one Biden is actively funding.”
The democrats are ignoring their base because they are bought and paid for by the same donors as the republicans. They literally give zero fucks and would rather have Trump than any candidate left of center.
Supermajorities of Americans support progressive policy agendas that the dems refuse to even acknowledge, let alone advocate for.
This is 100% the fault of the dem leadership, but they are happy because they will get tax cuts and more campaign donations from their oligarchs.
But in what way does voting Republican fix any of this?
I don’t know. I did not vote republican lol. But I do know that a lot of folks see the economy as the number one issue, and a lot of folks are worried about immigration…. Dems are better in general at having actual policy platforms than the repubs but Kamala failed on both of these issues, this is without regard to the whole genocide thing which Biden has been furtively supporting this whole time which has turned a lot of dems and young people away
Trump did a stupid speech with cans of beans in the background while Kamala was hugging CEO’s…. And Kamala was also celebrating that another war criminal, Dick Cheney, had endorsed her
Edit. Neither Kamala nor Biden fought back when the parliamentarian said they could not do 15 $ minimum wage in a reconciliation bill… do you believe Trump admin will listen to a parliamentarian when they want to jam through other crazy shit? They already got the boofing Supreme Court justice by ignoring precendent
Biden was weak af and if you think he is the best since FDR I can’t even talk to you bruh
That’s not even an attempt to answer my question. What I’m saying is, however bad Biden and the Dems are (and they are, of course) the Republicans are much much worse. So people who vote for Trump because they don’t like the Dems are just fucking stupid.
Thing is, yeah they’re fucking stupid but they’re also voters who the Dems could have persuaded and hardly tried. Repeatedly spamming “vote for us or you get Trumped again” doesn’t count as persuasion.
Yea, but you’re not going to get anywhere thrashing and slamming independents who voted for Trump… Hillary chastising Dems and Obama chastising black men pretty much proved that…
We are not going to get anywhere by blaming the voters like the establishment politicians have been doing, this is a leadership issue… I heard Cory bush spelling today on npr this afternoon…
If Dems don’t want progressive voters in their party they need to come out and say it. Say who you are.
And if you don’t want progressives it’s probably why you lost the election…. Because you lied about what you care about…. America is a progressive country of voters run by a citizens united corrupt Supreme Court ruling
These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.
Except no one’s laughing about that in this case.
Putin sure is, as is Winnie the Xi.
This is the state of the American electorate. Just a total lack of critical thinking.
It’s by design and their goal is to make it worse.
Look, I know things are hard, but that’s a really narrow take. At the very very least the democrats would not tear down what social services you could still claim. This is like shooting yourself in the foot, and being like “fuck that hurt, maybe it will be better next time?” Instead of “oh shit, better not shoot myself in the foot again”.
I rather shoot myself in the foot so that I know for certain my foot will be horrifically mutilated.
Or, “maybe if I shoot myself in the other foot, it’ll be better this time”
No, the analogy is “maybe I’ll shoot myself in the same foot again, but with 12 gauge”
After shooting yourself the first time, you may have recovered enough to walk normally. Imagine being so frustrated with that so you make sure you can never walk again
The same foot again.
One round is the first foot, crippling but you can still get around.
This is definitely the other foot, planned and understood it would likely hurt - now completely unable to walk.
The pain in the second foot will make me forget about the pain in the first foot.
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Only one side lies about being crooks, and one doesn’t.
And which is which? I can’t tell which the speaker wants me to think. I think that says more about the speaker than it does about me. I can’t tell if they’re trying to shoot themselves in the foot on purpose.
I assume they mean the Democrats are lying about not being crooks, but given that the article is about Trump breaking promises, that makes him the liar and obvious crook. Which means he’s the preferable candidate somehow?
I guess it’s just comfortable lies vs. difficult truths. Times change, if you don’t change with them you’ll be left behind in a ghost of a town.
Yeah, the electorate also punished Carter for being straight with Americans about oil dependence and energy security. And instead of following the path of energy transition, they went with Reagan who promised Americans everything while undermining the middle class.
A lot of voters are basically like children that want to be lied to.
A lot of voters are basically like children that want to be lied to.
Exactly this. Trump won both times by lying about helping the working class. So did Obama. Promise Americans that you care about the working class and will help them, and the “swing voter” dumbasses are more likely to vote for you regardless of your past record.
This is a great analogy for people to think about: we’re all recognizing Carter as one of the great ones, someone who lived a life of helping people, someone whose heart was always in the right place, someone with a higher sense of morals and ethics than most of todays politicians. All of that’s true, but it’s also true he was voted out of a second term. He told some uncomfortable truths, he was not photogenic, he did not just say what people wanted to hear. And we voted him out. Hindsight makes it easy to see that we voted for the face-eating leopard party all along
I like this take. I think it makes sense, even though I don’t agree with the reasoning of the speaker in the article. There is so much difference between the policies and actions being enacted that to claim an comfortable lie is somehow comparable to a difficult truth is asinine. Both are stupid! Do not vote based on this premise! Have actual policy reasons behind your position. But that’s just my opinion.
Sure, that makes sense for an informed voter and a rational actor… but real people rarely are.
This is the core problem with most analyses. People are emotional. Whoever pissed them off last might just be who they vote against. Or they may act out to hurt the party that’s least bad for them because they’re angry the most they’re willing to offer is to be less bad. It’s irrational, but no amount of complaining about irrationality is going to make it not true.
What truth is the Democratic party telling again? They’re crooks all the way.
So theyre all crooks and we’re all just gonna sit around and argue about whos better? Lol
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Reminds me of how zuck called his users dumb fucks and they still use his platform
kagis
It sounds like he’s probably referring to the Lordstown Motors auto plant that closed.
Apparently, some of the facility is now doing EV-related work.
It sounds like originally, there were about 4,500 people, and now about half that work at the new factory, and most of the rest were relocated by GM.
Most of the 4,500 workers who lost their jobs last year, and in two earlier waves of layoffs since 2017, have started over in GM plants in unfamiliar towns hundreds of miles away.
https://atlaspolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Case-Study-Ultium-Cells-Ohio-Final.pdf
Ultium Cells Ohio is a $2.6 billion joint venture between General Motors (GM) and LG Energy Solution (LGES). The companies announced their plans for the facility in December 2019 and, as of June 2024, there are nearly 2,200 hourly and salaried workers on site, surpassing Ultium’s employment expectations when they first announced the facility.
GM relocated 1,300 hourly employees [4]. This was on top of shift cuts in 2016 and 2018 that impacted 1,250 and 1,500 employees respectively [5]
So while this is probably quite bad advice aimed at scoring political points:
“They’re all coming back!” Trump told a cheering crowd at a rally in nearby Youngstown in 2017.
“Don’t move! Don’t sell your house!” he said.
Assuming that Trump’s campaign had any idea that this would happen at the time he was speaking – and apparently there was federal subsidy (albeit from the Biden-era IRA) involved:
Support from the federal government, including a $2.5 billion loan from the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office and tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act, have been and will be essential to the construction and growth of Ultium Cells facilities in Ohio, Tennessee, and Michigan.
…that might be uncharacteristically accurate for Trump in that new jobs equal to maybe half the number of jobs that exited had been there (though not necessarily the same workers or skillset, and personally, I wouldn’t have stayed around a closed auto plant for five years hoping that someone willing to hire me would show up and ramp up hiring and want to hire me).
