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RolStoppable said:
curl-6 said:

The share of under-30s voting Trump was up from 2016 too, by 5 points:

https://nypost.com/2024/11/06/us-news/kamala-badly-fumbles-gen-z-vote-which-broke-big-for-trump/

But yeah for the most part I agree, a large portion of young men have grown up in an environment where it can feel like left side of the political spectrum is hostile towards them, which makes the right feel welcoming by comparison.

Let's say a young white dude votes for the first time this year. For much of his life, he's seen the left constantly carrying on about how men are garbage, masculinity is toxic, white people are evil, and straight white men especially are the devil incarnate. All that adds up. Then someone like Trump or Tate comes along and says hey, you're actually great, follow me and I'll make your life better.

It's not hard to see how so many end up leaning right.

You are describing an idiot who has yet to grow up, because the left you are talking about isn't representative of the left to begin with. When a young guy spends all his time on the internet and stumbles into the bubble of far-left activists and their garbage, then I can see why he would think that way. But even then, he should be smart enough to bother to listen what politicians on the left say and do, that way he would realize that the far-left is a small movement on the fringe that merely seems to be much bigger than it really is because of how obnoxious they are by screaming on the internet.

When you look at the population on the whole, you won't find more than 1% being on the woke train - which is what fits the description you laid out in your second to last paragraph. On the other extreme you have 10-15% of the population who are convinced that they are fighting a culture war and must push back against the wokeness. Meanwhile, everyone who remains is more concerned about actual problems.

There's a reason why study after study finds that people reducing their time on the internet reduces depression and leads to increased happiness. Social media is a plague because it's not properly moderated. What happens to such a place is that the good people leave, so the worst of humanity gets to dominate the platform, be it far-left or far-right bullshit. The problem is that you can't isolate any members of these factions and make them see the light, because only they themselves can make that choice. For that reason, I consider it pointless to cater to such people, because the time is better spent on the majority inbetween who is at least willing to listen to what you have to offer.

Although the problem there is that American campaigns make people numb due to the extremely long duration, so it's difficult to pick out the little pieces of actual information in the avalanche of blown out of proportion filler. So I am not surprised that most Americans don't understand how inflation and tariffs work, because broadcasts that deal with these topics specifically get lost in the shuffle all too easily. It's this ignorance that seemed to have mattered most in this election.

That's the thing though, people you think are idiots still get to vote. I don't think such people are necessarily beyond saving though; it is possible, albeit difficult, to de-radicalize folks. Plenty of people for example have been rehabilitated from being in cults and the like. 

And yeah, as an outsider myself the American election process does seem somewhat absurd to me too; the length of the process, weird shit like the Electoral College. System needs an overhaul but I expect that's very hard to achieve.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 07 November 2024