it's just beyond belief that 100 million americans saw this career criminal who promised to absolutely fuck things up while lying about what he was going to let his mates do, and said "yeah, seems like a plan".
I think the moment that clicked for me was when I heard young people in my family circle (25 and below), _in_Europe_ claiming that Trump "will likely be good for the economy".
When I dug deeper they were effectively repeating talking points they heard on TT. When I dug deeper I also realized they are conditioned to distrusted mainstream news, but somehow 10sec videos on TT are legit.
If you can shape the opinions of young men in Europe, raised in social-democratic nations to have them believe that a bankrupt, convict, conman, traitor, kompromat, will be good for the US and global economy then you can truly shape any opinion anywhere.
> I think the moment that clicked for me was when I heard young people in my family circle (25 and below), _in_Europe_ claiming that Trump "will likely be good for the economy".
Same. I am on a plane from visiting family in Europe right now. They are all convinced Trump is good for America. When pressed, they agree he may not be good for America’s people, but definitely good for America.
The young ones get their news from Rogan (and do their own research), the old ones get it from TV and think the left-wing neoliberal elites have gone too far and must be stopped.
Nobody in my family is actually right-wing and they agree with all left-wing policies when presented individually. But not when they’re asked about “the left”.
There's precedent; notably see Berlusconi. Who, even after being removed from power and convicted of tax fraud, _managed to get elected again_ (albeit as an MEP; Italy does tend to treat their MEP vote as a _bit_ of a joke).
(Like Trump, Berlusconi was given special treatment; he was jailed for four years, but it was commuted to unpaid community service. Many countries indulge in this sort of special handling for their criminal politicians, and it's really a terribly bad idea; it only encourages more misbehaviour.)
Within mere days of Trump coming into office, we've seen:
1. ICE round up and deport violent illegal aliens. [1]
2. The US military deploy to assist with securing the southern border. [2]
These both appear to be fairly easily to implement and with tangible impacts and yet.... the previous administration did neither. So was their inaction due to incompetence, or malevolence? Either way many Americans are looking at the lying, cheating, corrupt NYC real estate demagogue and thinking "Maybe he can fix some of the stuff we actually care about...". Which is an absolutely scathing indictment of The Establishment (tm) politicians IMO.
