[kaon_]

Here's a European perspective that is somewhat pro-Trump, surprising as it may sound. I am Dutch and if someone would come along and promise the following:

"We're gonna lower your taxes so you have more money to spend" "We're gonna take a sledge hammer to bloated policies so everything will run smoothly. Then we will build a million houses per year"

I would very much consider voting for that person. That said, Trump is a madman, he lies all the time, is a danger to institutions etc. At the same time, I am so disgruntled by the current system and by not a single politician tackling or even speaking about relevant issues that I am easily swayed.

[skwee357]

And this is the problem we have with democracy, and why it's doomed to, eventually, die. People tend to believe words. I guess it fine when words are the only thing you can rely on, but in this case, we have history and past performance. And as someone who is not that interested in US politics, from my understanding, his past performance is terrible by all measures.

But I guess this is something that will never change. The older I become, the more apparently I see that it does not matter WHAT you do, it only matters how you SPEAK about what you (will) do, whether it be in politics or in a corporate environment. I'm not the kind of person who regrets things in life, but if I could travel back in time and give my younger self one advice, it would be "focus on becoming a great orator", as this opens any door regardless of the level of experience.

Edit: to clarify, in order to not reply to each comment individually, I might have used the word "terrible" harshly. The thing with politics is that as a complete outsider to the US, I don't have a reliable way to know what policies were proposed and what were adopted/rejected, nor the long term effect of them on the country. The only thing I can rely on, is information available online. His track record is not covered in a good light online.

Sure, you can say that information online is skewed in one direction, but this is true to an insider, as some comments have demonstrated. The results of a particular policy and its application are subjective rather than objective. My entire premise was to demonstrate that actions are meaningless in the eye of the public.

Theoretically, this means that you get a "get out of jail" card no matter what you do in life, as longs as you can articulate your words properly.

[Tainnor]

> his past performance is terrible by all measures.

Which was partially a good thing, since he failed to dismantle Obamacare or build a wall at the Mexican border, even though those were two very explicit campaign promises.

Who knows what he'll do or not do this time around.

[e40]

This is precisely why the word stupid is thrown around. It never helps to call a stupid person stupid, because they invariably double down.

[mettamage]

This is what the election is teaching me: people don't care a lot about what you do, they care much more about what you say. You just have to make people feel good.

[notadoomer236]

Abraham accords. Isis. Tax cuts. Booming economy of 2018-2020. Remain in Mexico. Far lower illegal immigration. People remember the actions too.

“From my understanding, his past performance was terrible too”

Depends on what you focus on. If you listen to soundbites it sounds like a circus. There’s a lot of drama displacing and stepping on toes of the entrenched players in the system.

[zpeti]

> his past performance is terrible by all measures.

What was terrible for you? He didn't start new wars, he did the abraham accords. He put in a policy of -2 regulations for every new regulation. He was much better on spending UP UNTIL COVID than Biden was.

What was so bad? He might speak like a crazy person, but his policies weren't that bad.

[Etheryte]

I think this is highly relatable, especially in the Netherlands where the housing situation is beyond bonkers. The protest vote is strong and/or gaining strength in many countries across the world to reflect this fact: the quality of life for the average person has either stagnated or fallen in many places, and that's a very strong rally point on election day.

[Cthulhu_]

Yeah but whose fault is that? A vote for the right is a vote for the rich, the very same that hovered up and concentrated all the newly gained wealth because any taxation has been dropped or they found ways to avoid paying taxes altogether, thus preventing the redistribution of generated wealth.

But this is the doublethink that the right-wing is somehow able to pull off. They aren't promising that people will be better off, that wealth will be distributed. Instead they're pointing at even poorer people like immigrants and saying "they're taking your jobs".

Yeah the quality of life for the average person is stagnating, but that's down to politicians and the rich, not to whatever boogeyman they're pushing.

[CalRobert]

I do think catering to nimbys was the democrat’s original sin in some respects. Housing unaffordability makes everything else worse and blue areas are especially bad.

[seanp2k2]

Especially in CA where the Reagan Tax Revolt lives on in CA Prop 13, where boomers sitting on $2m+ properties that they bought in 1978 for $40k pay <$1k/year in prop taxes while their new neighbors pay $40k/yr in addition to their 8% mortgage while the boomers vote down any new housing developments or zoning changes.

[theshrike79]

He spoke simple slogans at a 3rd grade speaking level to a crowd of people with similar intelligence.

It's simple marketing and if there's something he's good at is that.

Harris was trying to appeal to people's intelligence with complex answers and arguments, they just tuned out and went "lol, weird laugh".

[kelnos]

That's the thing, though. If you hear someone say those things -- attractive as they sound -- and then blindly believe them without asking how they intend to accomplish those things, then you are an irresponsible, ignorant voter.

[astrange]

> Then we will build a million houses per year

He actually promised the opposite of this last time, because suburbanites don't want any new housing built. I haven't checked what he said this time around.

[seanp2k2]

“ I wanna do infrastructure. I wanna do it more than you want to do it. I’d be really good at that, that’s what I do.”

And then his party reminded him that that is specifically NOT what they do. They like to let the private sector handle everything, because that’s who funds them and how they get rich too.

[ptman]

Actions, not words. He has shown what he does as a president.

[TrackerFF]

He's had a "concept of a plan" for over 8 years regarding health-care reform.

What makes you think he'll have anything ready this time?

[redeux]

Watch TV, drink diet cokes, eat hamburgers, rage at minorities, foment insurrections, raise taxes, and just generally crap all over the place? Those are the actions I saw.

[sanderjd]

This is not in any way a description of Trump's platform...

[Cthulhu_]

Yeah but you're speaking as someone who actually pays taxes (I presume) and feels like you're not getting any benefits from it. But when you (or I) were growing up and enjoying an education paid for by the government, or when you lose your job, or when you retire, or when you need a doctor / the hospital, etc, you'll be grateful that there is a system in place to keep it affordable.

But this is another example of a string of selfishness in modern politics; it's a "got mine, fuck you" line of thinking. Whereas post-WW2 there was much more of a cooperative mindset, collective national or european-wide trauma, and a drive to cooperate to help each other out, regardless of their employment status. But WW2 has been forgotten and both Europe and the US are shifting back to the right-wing, because there's immigrants after your jobs, benefits and women apparently.