> the people who created the conditions for him are responsible
It's just a truism though isn't it? Everything in the past is responsible for what is the current state of things. You can say it but it has next to no meaning and is not interesting.
But using plain English and the plain meanings of words: Trump is responsible. You can blame Biden for not dropping out soon enough or whatever, but ultimately: what is happening now is on Trump.
What would perhaps be interesting is to discuss this objective failure of the American system. Far from the "greatest democracy in the world", the constitution is clearly quite, quite a shit one if it allows this to happen.
It is not just about the past. A king is only as powerful as his subjects are loyal. Trump continues to hold sway because people have remained trusting of him and are willing to go along with him. They don't have to, but they choose to.
Right, and a constitution that allows that to even happen has also failed. The American system was supposed to be somewhat elitist and prevent wild populism. So it didn't do that. It failed. Perhaps related to the overly permissive definition of speech in the US and subsequent extreme partisanship. Or perhaps presidential systems actually are quite shit in comparison to parliamentary ones. Anyway, obviously the country is very, very sick at the moment.
First past the post voting is one critical root cause. It prevents coalition building and compromise. I think that's a much bigger smoking gun than presidential vs parliamentary.
I think this is too simple. The right wing was on the rise in most of the rest of the developed world too, until Trump scared everyone straight. What factors led people to think this brand of politics is a good way forward? Simple media? Social media? Propaganda? Foreign propaganda?
Personally I think it's a mix, but inequality is a big factor. Quoting Roosevelt:
"But I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, then Fascism and Communism, aided, unconsciously perhaps, by old-line Tory Republicanism, will grow in strength in our land."
> But using plain English and the plain meanings of words: Trump is responsible.
Not exactly. Being so blunt and simplistic is politics, pure and simple. The D's don't like the R's, so their analysis always stops once they can blame an R (and vice-versa).
I think it's a much more interesting and fruitful question to ask "Who is responsible for Trump," rather than "What is Trump responsible for."
IMHO, the Trump phenomenon is in large part the expression of rejection of neoliberalism, which the pre-Trump political structure made unexpressable. The result is a seriously flawed man gaining power, and causing way more damage than was necessary.
> What would perhaps be interesting is to discuss this objective failure of the American system. Far from the "greatest democracy in the world", the constitution is clearly quite, quite a shit one if it allows this to happen.
That's closer to what I'm getting at. However, what exactly is "this," though? Does it include deviation from a Wall Street-friendly stasis? Neoliberalism 'till death do us part?
I don’t know I think blaming trump for the things trump is doing is pretty straight forwards and the opposite of playing politics.
>That's closer to what I'm getting at. However, what exactly is "this," though? Does it include deviation from a Wall Street-friendly stasis? Neoliberalism 'till death do us part?
Neoliberalism is much newer than the constitution and the country. Have a sense of scope when talking about the history of your country, it's new, but it's not that new.
The country is completely fucked—that we can all agree on. It's imploding and its position in the world is frankly becoming increasingly pathetic. America's friends pity it at best and detest it for its betrayal of Western civilisation at worst. America's enemies are laughing. If there are people to blame, then I'm afraid it's the American people. Americans are not worthy of the country that they have inherited. Americans are an undignified people, that's a bit part of the problem.
> I don’t know I think blaming trump for the things trump is doing is pretty straight forwards and the opposite of playing politics.
The playing politics part is (among other things) selectively focusing only "on the things Trump is doing."
Trump isn't responsible for creating the conditions that allowed him to get elected. A lot of the people who are really interested in focusing only "on the things Trump is doing" are the ones responsible for those conditions in the first place.
I mean, how bad do you have to be that people would rather vote for a sociopathic clown than you, when given the choice? But you know, thinking about that will make you uncomfortable, lets avoid it and focus on the clown!
Here's a thought: if you don't want to be ruled by a Trump, figure out how to avoid creating the conditions where someone like him could win. Strongly advocating for reasonable policies to create those conditions would also be better politics against Trump, right now than the incessant outrage about how terrible Trump is.
Trump is responsible for his own election and is partly responsible for the division in the US, having made it much worse. He's not operating in a vacuum. He's not a force of nature, he's a person just like the rest of us and is responsible for his actions, as are his supporters, as are those who voted for him.
>I mean, how bad do you have to be that people would rather vote for a sociopathic clown than you, when given the choice? But you know, thinking about that will make you uncomfortable, lets avoid it and focus on the clown!
The people aren't always right. Just because Trump is a sociopath and actively destroying the country right now, that doesn't mean the opposition actually is worse. That's extremely flawed thinking to put it mildly. You'd really have to be a dyed in the wool member of the Trump cult to still believe that the electorate made the right choice in rejecting Clinton in 2016 and Harris in 2024.
>Here's a thought: if you don't want to be ruled by a Trump, figure out how to avoid creating the conditions where someone like him could win. Strongly advocating for reasonable policies to create those conditions would also be better politics against Trump, right now than the incessant outrage about how terrible Trump is.
Outrage is fine when he's destroying the country. Tone policing is not OK in this situation, because there's 4 more years of this and proposing new policies now changes literally nothing. The damage is already done. It's too late. The US will probably be OK in the end but the rot is much deeper than can be solved by your beloved "new policies" (which actually the Democrats proposed plenty of, but Americans just wanted Trump anyway), the US needs constitutional change at this point.
> Trump is responsible for his own election and is partly responsible for the division in the US, having made it much worse. He's not operating in a vacuum. He's not a force of nature, he's a person just like the rest of us and is responsible for his actions, as are his supporters, as are those who voted for him.
He'd have to be a force of nature to be responsible for his own election. The problem with what you're saying is that it's a one-sided perspective, and that's about ego protection ("the problem can't be with me any my side, we're all good, someone else is responsible for all the bad") not solving the actual problem.
Trump is a symptom.
> The people aren't always right. Just because Trump is a sociopath and actively destroying the country right now, that doesn't mean the opposition actually is worse. That's extremely flawed thinking to put it mildly. You'd really have to be a dyed in the wool member of the Trump cult to still believe that the electorate made the right choice in rejecting Clinton in 2016 and Harris in 2024.
Sorry, it's your thinking that is flawed. You can yell that Clinton and Harris should have won until you're blue in the face, but it won't change the fact that they lost to Trump and the Democratic party was so uncompelling that people decided to take a chance on him.
It's not that the electorate was stupid, it's that the Democratic party either undermined itself and/or failed to offer solutions to problems people were actually having. That's the problem.
> Outrage is fine when he's destroying the country. Tone policing is not OK in this situation, because there's 4 more years of this and proposing new policies now changes literally nothing.
Oh come on. Proposing policies for 4 years establishes credibility. Being outraged accomplishes nothing except a temporary catharsis. It might even be worse than nothing if it allows a squeaker win that prevents real reform to address the issues (see the 2022 midterms).
> The US will probably be OK in the end but the rot is much deeper than can be solved by your beloved "new policies" (which actually the Democrats proposed plenty of, but Americans just wanted Trump anyway), the US needs constitutional change at this point.
Except the Democrats' proposals were timid and weak, and they plugged their ears and ignored a lot of stuff (e.g. immigration: ignored until a last-minute executive order, trade/re-shoring: pretty weak, and mainly focused on protecting existing industries, no risk-taking like Trump's tariffs).
It's just a truism though isn't it? Everything in the past is responsible for what is the current state of things. You can say it but it has next to no meaning and is not interesting.
But using plain English and the plain meanings of words: Trump is responsible. You can blame Biden for not dropping out soon enough or whatever, but ultimately: what is happening now is on Trump.
What would perhaps be interesting is to discuss this objective failure of the American system. Far from the "greatest democracy in the world", the constitution is clearly quite, quite a shit one if it allows this to happen.