Propaganda is a helluva drug

I remember being young and looking at all US presidents in disgust.. mind you, these were bush Clinton, etc, they were all trash presidents and horrible human beings. I distinctly recall throwing a pair of scissors at my tv in disgust when Clinton was talking. Left a nice scratch on the glass. Even he was absolute trash.

Trump? I still cannot comprehend how any sane person of any age above 5 can look at that shit stain and not see an absolute horrible narcissistic monster.

Yes, the young men who followed Trump in 2024 are becoming disillusioned and discouraged by their continued financial problems and broken promises about smashing elite pedophiles. Their lives are still miserable, and their heroic crusade seems to have ended without a satisfied conclusion.

The Bush to Obama to Trump to Biden to Trump Again pipeline is roller-coaster. But I'm afraid it really does exist.

Plenty of lay voters ping-pong between whichever political leader is popular or trending, because their media of choice is more interested in spinning out an exciting, engaging narrative than building any kind of ideology or class character within the audience. Trump was going to "Drain the Swamp" in the same way Obama was going to "Yes We Can" and Bush was going to "Restore Honor and Integrity To The White House".

The end of this ride is just burnout. People getting whiplash from being dragged liberal/conservative/liberal/conservative by their nose for too long and just growing cold and cynical. This lasts until a sufficiently exciting media campaign juices them back up again for one more rug pull.

If you're hoping that there's some subset of people who are Getting What They Deserve, you're falling into the same trap that gave us Trump to begin with. You're losing any kind of faith in a better country or a better kind of politics and just settling for "I hope my ideological opponents are miserable".

The people who really won the Trump '24 campaign are the ones currently crawling into the brains of Third Way Democrats like a worm RFK picked up off a dead dog's carcass. They're not suffering. They're not going to lose the next election cycle, no matter what happens. They won't be the one's getting their faces eaten. They'll just change out their skins for a new set of spots.

If he doesnt get 240% of the votes like that liberian guy, i dont want him as president /j

Young angry and disillusioned men with guns are a problem regardless of if there's an election. They're unpredictable and known for their electric shotgun approach to interacting with leadership

Not gonna give them views.

Right now, their "declining" support is based solely on the Epstein files. Which means that they'll continue to support fascists as soon as Rogan, Peterson, etc al, can convince them that the Epstein files have been released and were never that interesting, or that maybe we'll never see the Epstein files but that's old news and something else is way more important now.

My bet is on the latter, since that's just a matter of less time spent talking about the Epstein files and more time spent talking about [distraction].

People have agency. Don’t take that away from them.

The flip side of this is that it has to be praiseworthy to pass through that gauntlet and still care about other people. Eclusively negative incentives don't work.