Summary
Donald Trump and Republicans are falsely framing his 2024 election win as a historic “landslide” and sweeping mandate, despite the data showing otherwise.
Trump won the popular vote by just 1.6%, the smallest margin for a winning president since 1968, and his 307 electoral votes rank low in U.S. history.
Crucial Senate and House gains were limited, with Republicans relying on gerrymandering for their narrow House majority.
This exaggeration of victory serves to justify potential power expansions, but the facts debunk claims of an unprecedented or overwhelming mandate.
Have you seen the crowd in his 2016 inauguration? It was huuuge. Or how he fit 80,000 people in a 20,000 capacity venue.
People should know by now that he exaggerate everything including the size of his mushroom penis.
They already have power. They don’t need a justification for expansion they’ll just do it.
Yes and no. All power, ultimately, depends on compliance. Even autocracies. There would not have been a “divine right of kings” if kings did not have a pressing need to assure people of their right to hold power.
The “mandate” narrative is aimed at convincing everyone that their objections are in the minority. That even if they stand up and say something, they’ll simply be the odd one out.
Power ultimately depends on violence. Violence can create compliance and vice versa, but the violence and compliance with violence is what’s fundamental. These politicians are very capable of overwhelming violence. It’s a crucial part of their function. It’s been the norm as long as states have existed.
There wouldn’t have been the “divine right of kings” if kings were unable to torture and murder people.
The state’s ability to use violence is entirely contingent on compliance.
There are approximately 1.3 million police officers in the US. That number doubles if you were to throw in the entire US military. That is about 1% of the adult population of the US (~260 million).
The only reason state violence is possible is because people accept it. If every time a police officer tried to arrest someone, an entire neighbourhood rolled out to stop them, no amount of military grade weaponry would prevent a total breakdown of government control. This is what is meant by “policing by consent”. It is the understanding that policing only works because people consent to be policed.
It’s time to nip that lie in the bud
Frankly, I’m sick and tired of nipping MAGA lies in the bud every day. It’s been the better part of a decade of this bullshit already… I fucking hate that my countrymen chose this for us for the next four years. Fuck every Trump voter, but a much bigger fuck you goes out to all the jackasses that stayed home on the 5th. You’re complicit, and I don’t give a shit why you think fascism is “okay” as long as you got to punish the Democratic Party for your grievances.
Exactly, until media reframes this from distraction politics to a call to action none of this matters. Wake me up when we have a functioning government again.
I’ll be focusing locally on building mutual aid networks and contributing as much as I can to local policy and governance.
If you voted for Harris, you’re complicit, and I don’t give a shit why you think blue fascism is “okay” as long as it means your rights are protected at the expense of others
Edit: to be clear, I mean complicit in the currently occurring Palestinian genocide and overall maintenance of the status quo
My choice was Trump or not!Trump.
I picked not!Trump. Harris could have been a literal turkey sandwich on a plate, I still would have voted for her. She’s not great, I actually wanted to vote for Bernie Sanders in Andrew Yang’s body, but that’s not gonna happen.
My choice was revolution or status quo.
I picked, and continue to pick, revolution
I think the bigger message is that our information environment is totally screwed.
The eye-opener for me was watching our local news station interview college students coo and rave over how “strong” he was and repeat (apparently not) obvious misinformation.
It wasn’t about apathy, not really… He just won an influencer war. And now the CEO of Twitter is basically president…
Wait until the idiots graduate and look for a job. The Orange Bag of Shit holds the record for US unemployment and he has a very good chance of breaking it again.
Doesn’t matter. He won the presidency. He has demonstrated his entire life that he will just do whatever he wants and dare the world to stop him. (Narrator: They haven’t.) Now he also has near-complete criminal immunity once he’s inaugurated. He’s already stacking up appointees who are going to follow his orders.
“B-b-but Senate confirmation --” Shut the fuck up. Whoever he wants to be in charge of departments is going to be in charge of departments. Don’t appoint anyone else, throw “Acting” in front of the title, done and done. What is anyone going to do about it? Fucking nothing.
Of course it matters. It doesn’t matter to trump but the public is not trump
If it doesn’t matter enough for anyone to do anything about it, it doesn’t matter at all.
The “public’s opinion” is of very little concern without a threat of violence to back it up.
That’s pedantic. They won the trifecta of government. The definition of landslide is academic at this point.
the point is to wake us up to that our resistance coalitions needn’t be small
The “resistance” is ineffective and fractured because its supposed leaders are largely genocidal.
who? name names. who are these resistance leaders aiding in genocide. and don’t say joe biden. if you say joe biden you don’t understand what we’re talking about.
this is a decentralized movement of care. any weakness we have is that we’re uncoordinated because we lack any leadership
resistance coalitions
Good luck with that. The last chance for an organized resistance was the 90’s before we put in mass surveillance. It’s game set and match at this point. The only chance now is maybe the hardcore blue states succeed, but that didn’t end well last time either.
