It is not just bots but an infrastructure of heavy investment in mass media that mislead americans. Fox News, NAEBC, Tucker Carlson, the NRA, Breitbart and then you can add in the bots on social media.
It is not just bots but an infrastructure of heavy investment in mass media that mislead americans. Fox News, NAEBC, Tucker Carlson, the NRA, Breitbart and then you can add in the bots on social media.
Trump received 74 million votes.
The NRA, which has proven to be infiltrated by russian assets has about 5.5M members so that’s almost 7% right there. https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-unveils-report-on-nra-ties-to-russia-findings-show-nra-misled-public-about-2015-moscow-trip#:~:text=New evidence that NRA insiders may have violated U.S. sanctions,pursuit of personal business opportunities.
In 2021 there were about 20M users of Parler which amplified russian propaganda: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/10/01/report-fbi-catches-another-russian-made-fake-news-site-targeting-us-voters/
There’s probably some overlap, but with just two instances we’ve seen how over 20-25M right wingers (1 out of 3 trump voters) are subject to russian propaganda.
So it is a replacement for Western Union. Not a bad thing if it’s helping people transfer money without a middle man taking too much.
Because the truth is that people have always been poor in America. We are just more advertised to than ever before and feel like we are temporarily embarrassed millionaires. There have been decades of romanticizing individual success with less emphasis on systems and social contract. There was an attack on unions. We had a shift from a war on poverty to a war on welfare. These decades long decisions will take a lot of time to change but Biden is starting. He can’t say that the America we grew up in was a bad deal so he has to stay positive yet tactful in continuing to support unions, education funding, housing programs, childcare, healthcare, and so many things that we should have as an advanced economy.
And the efforts will take time. Maybe a generation. We’ve had right wing economic environment since Reagan and are slowly shifting back to pro-labor and pro-union environment with Biden. If we lose the momentum from the past 4 years we will certainly be worse off. I would encourage everyone to read history of labor movements in the US. They take years, decades even. But they do have lasting impacts that we often take for granted, like safer working conditions, days off, reduced child labor practices… I know it sucks for things to be more expensive right now, especially with corporate profits at all time highs, but throwing away this progress would be a huge loss for all workers in America.
His state of the union definitely was pro-working class. A couple quotes from that speech: “A future where the days of trickle-down economics are over and the wealthy and biggest corporations no longer get all the breaks.” “America’s comeback is building a future of American possibilities, building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down, investing in all of America, in all Americans to make sure everyone has a fair shot and we leave no one behind!”
“ADF is not hiding its strategy. Alito, on the other hand, keeps to the stealthy shadows, attempting to advance arguments that promote fetal personhood while simultaneously insisting that this unprecedented expansion of personhood rights won’t come at the expense of women’s lives and autonomy. It’s a deception of the highest order and onlookers might be left to conclude that he either thinks we’re all too dumb to notice—or that he knows nothing can stop the 6-3 court from doing what it wants.”
Idaho is in real trouble after their abortion ban. They are already flying people out of state for medical care. I feel sorry for all the people needlessly suffering from the right wing agenda. Especially the liberals in red states who will live with deteriorating healthcare, and the societal impact of no legal access to abortion.
Companies catering to the wealthy is already happening. The richest man in the world, Bernard Arnault, sells luxury goods. It used to be that selling products to the most amount of people was better, Ford, oil barrons, even Wal-Mart. Now money is made selling products to the wealthy. The growth in inequality of the last 50 years shows up in many ways today. Housing sizes are larger because builders need to sell to the wealthy instead of to the masses where margins on modest sized homes are smaller or non-existent.
I grew up in a town where the factory closed and poverty grew. More poverty than most of the red voters will ever see. This made me move so far left and I don’t understand how seeing these things happen makes people want to vote for Trump. The lack of having a voice is partly on people in rural areas and this is a tantrum for not having made their voice known as more and more detrimental things happened. The busiest store in my home town is Wal-Mart. People love Wal-Mart. The food co-op that provides local farmers a place to sell their produce is frequented by the left leaning types. In my view, the voice that is that the right wing does not care about helping their community through any kind of sacrifice. Ease and convenience are king. Cheapest cost is best, regardless of what sweatshop clothing was made in and what underpaid illegal immigrant picked their produce. And, they vote for a party who wants to remove regulations so worse and worse corporate actions can provide cheaper goods lining the pockets of billionaire owners.
The factory that closed moved to North Carolina and then overseas. The people that live in the small town now vote for tax breaks for the owners of that factory and vote for the party that villifies ebt, welfare and programs that help their neighbor. They think people are lazy who use these programs, not that they have experienced the loss of economic activity they have seen. If this factory, which was profitable but not at a high enough margin for the owners, were owned by the workers, it may still be operating today. This is my conclusion in seeing what the Cracked article discusses. Corporate greed has done damage to communities and the ability to give more power to workers is better than voting for some con-man who gives tax breaks to the rich. How could hard working Americans look at Shawn Fain and think his view is dispicable and think that what Trump has to say is better?
Bernie isn’t in office right now.
Bernie is in office. He is the Chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. And he would not be in this position if the Democratic party had not heard what he is saying and agreed to demand government to perform better for the working class.
But Biden has not stayed on the neo-liberal hard line globalist policies. He has recoiled from international supply chains by bringing investment to manufacturing in the US. He has relieved debt payments for college educated workers. He has invested in infrastructure for transportation of goods as well as electricity which tackles the problem of emissions as well as cost of energy. I believe these moves are a reaction to understanding that life is hard and globalism left a lot of people behind.
To add to this. Biden has passed significant investments in growing manufacturing jobs in the US the results we won’t really see for years. Planting a tree that he will never enjoy the shade of. He has approved renewable energy projects and initiated much needed improvements to energy transmission so more renewable energy can be in the grid when they are built. Biden has done a lot to advance our infrastructure.
What left wing media empire has spread lies so much as to be sued for hundreds of millions of dollars? This is not a two sides issue.
These manipulative headlines only help Trump. In the same speech he says he is the only person who can stop WW3. A ridiculous statement that only a cult leader would say. He also said that Biden approved Nord Stream on day 2 of his presidency which is a complete lie. Nord Stream 1 was blown up and then Biden got Germany to cancel Nord Stream 2. The opposite of what Trump said. There is plenty of valid criticisms and no need to be manipulative of Trump’s words.
Biden saw the supply chain issues from covid and played the oil reserve game pretty much perfectly. I think his experience was very beneficial in the transition out of covid.
Idk. Maybe. I think Biden has done a great job if you look at his policies, and I would have hoped people were excited about them. I take your comment to say that people are fooled into having more enthusiasm for a candidate with the same policies just becase a different face has been put on them. But there can be other reasons for the enthusiasm. For example, maybe people believe she will do a better job since she is younger and more energetic. And those people think a younger, more energetic candidate makes for a better President even while holding the same political views. If that gets people excited, fine. It may be from being fickle and fooled or may be from a realistic view of how leaders impact the group and how a younger leader could be better.