[burningChrome]

>>> Such a shame that so many U.S. citizens do not see the ramifications of their political decisions.

Most US Citizens are not voting on what you think they're voting on. Most are worried about things that affect their day-to-day life like cost of eggs, the cost of gas, taxes going up, my 401K going in the dumpster.

I live and breathe tech everyday. I see the dangers of it all around me. Day in and day out. You try and talk to people about how dangerous some of this stuff is. Unless people feel it somehow like having their identity stolen and they spend three years trying to fix it all? Nothing will ever change.

People are 100% immune to this stuff now. Its the old frog in boiler water analogy.

[lotsofpulp]

> Most are worried about things that affect their day-to-day life like cost of eggs, the cost of gas, taxes going up, my 401K going in the dumpster.

Are they? It seems to me like they’re worried about things like women having access to too much healthcare, too many non white people, and too many women leaders. They voted for a guy that wants to make the most expensive purchase of most people’s lives even more expensive:

https://youtu.be/ToJxd3HBviE

Not to mention the enormous tax increases by way of getting rid of the expanded ACA premium credits.

[badc0ffee]

Talk to actual Trump voters and you'll see they support his tariffs and immigration crackdowns because they believe it will lead to economic prosperity and good jobs returning to their community. They believe the current system is fundamentally unfair to them. Even though that's totally backwards, and Trump is just making everything worse, that's what they believe.

Framing immigration reform as "racists think there are too many non white people" is what costs Democrats elections.

[budududuroiu]

This is why I personally believe that the "anyone is allowed to vote for anyone" style of democracy is really dumb, and Chinese "democracy" (whatever that is), is superior for governance.

[toomuchtodo]

Well, that's the problem, these people are wildly uneducated and unsophisticated. They are voting their feelings. Prices levels do not come down without a depression, even if inflation slows. Their only solution is wages going up. Do they have a mechanism to push wages up? Taxes must go up, they have been too low for too long and the debt has accumulated (~$38T in US treasuries alone) and will need to be paid back or defaulted on. Insurance costs continue to rise due to rapidly increasing costs of materials and labor, as well as climate change (the US is currently spending ~$1B/year on climate driven events). Growth is over because the US population is not growing (tangentially, total fertility rate is below replacement rate in more than half of countries in the world, and this trend will continue). 401ks predicated on the S&P500 are held up by AI investment (which is outpacing consumer spending, the primary driver of the US economy, over the last year to the tune of ~$400B) and the Mag 7. When this stalls, everyone is going to be sad and not feel as wealthy as they did previously (“wealth effect”).

Happiness is reality minus expectations, and the future is not going to be as good as the past, based on available data, evidence, and trends Everything is downstream of that. The vibes might be bad, but they ain't gonna get better.

Financial Times: The consumer sentiment puzzle deepens - https://www.ft.com/content/f3edc83f-1fd0-4d65-b773-89bec9043... | https://archive.today/nFlfY - February 3rd, 2026

(some component of price increases has been predatory monopoly gouging covered extensively by Matt Stoller on his newsletter https://www.thebignewsletter.com/, but for our purposes, we can assume this admin isn't going to impair that component of price levels and inflation with regulation for the next 3 years)

[jandrewrogers]

> Well, that's the problem, these people are wildly uneducated and unsophisticated. They are voting their feelings.

This is what people who "vote their feelings" would assert. Most people think they are "sophisticated" and "educated" on these issues, both Democrats and Republicans. There is ample evidence that this is not the case for either.

Politics is completely driven by uncritical "just so" narratives. The people pushing the discourse never check or justify their assumptions with actual data. This is the real issue.