Because too many people treat politics like a sporting event. You root for your team no matter what, and against the other team. You have to do it this way, because if the other side wins that means your side loses.

So there are too many people who view Trump as “Their Guy”, and are “rooting” for him. Anything they hear that might portray Trump in a negative light (like a criminal trial, for instance) must be the Other Side trying to cheat to win unfairly.

I remind people that Roger Ailes was Nixon’s media consultant, and the lesson he learned from Watergate was that Nixon could have gotten away with it if the media was more sympathetic. He then went on to be the CEO of Fox News. That’s no accident. There is a direct line from Nixon to Trump, and Roger Ailes drew it.

The problem isn’t that Harris is being held to a higher standard. The problem is that Americans think of elections the same way they think of a sporting match. It’s “my team is going to win!” not “I’m going to vote for the candidate that is best aligned with my beliefs.” A huge number of the people who are voting Republican are doing so because the Republican party is their “team,” and damn it, their team is going to win even if it kills them.

Many years ago, I was discussing politics with a coworker (always a bad idea, but whatever). It went something like this:

“So, you don’t think the less-fortunate should be able to afford medical care?” “No, of course not, everyone should be able to see a doctor.”

“You don’t think gay people should be allowed to marry?” “I’m not gay, but they can do whatever makes them happy.”

“You support the war in Iraq, then?” “I support our troops, but the war is kind of a waste.”

“We definitely should legalize weed, right?” “Um, I’d smoke it if I didn’t get drug tested.”

“So why are you voting Republican, then?” “My family is Republican; we always do.”

Because a cult leader is automatically the purest one can be and needs no scrutiny.

All those things you said against Trump are actually working in his favor. His base sees it as persecution of their chosen one.

Can’t believe you are asking this now. In the 70s, I don’t believe any of these yokels would have been elected. Lauren Beaubert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Trump, they’ve all done things and said things that are so far over the line, it isn’t even funny. Nixon? Please, he would be small potatoes today.

Why? Gerrymandering. Social Media. Lack of critical thinking skills. A sense of hopelessness. Apathy. Billionaire brainwashing. The list goes on. The strange thing is, conservatives want to go back to the way things were. For them that means when women had to go to back alleys to get abortions, when gays were stoned, when blacks weren’t allowed to vote. For me it means when people didn’t justify these ridiculous notions, but instead just said, “No!”

Trump is an outrage machine, and we have a media that deals in an economy of outrage.

Trump gets outrage. Outrage gets clicks. Clicks get money. It’s a pretty simple chain to follow.

We need to wake up and realize that a profit-driven instantaneous news system that leverages strong emotions is not good for anybody. Truth is subjective nowadays, (always has been, really, but it’s especially evident in the current media climate) and all that matters is getting information and narratives (not necessarily facts) out and people consuming it (and all the ads embedded with it) there, first, and right now.

Because the media are largely in the hands of the oligarchy that will stop at nothing to get another tax cut.

You must be young. Because Republicans will vote for a criminal before they vote for “communism”. Because the Republicans attempt to destroy the educational system to keep people dumb enough to vote for them has worked. Because dispite the corporate media pandering and acting like they want Harris Because that’s what their viewers want, their billionaire owners don’t. They want the republican led centrist enabled tax breaks on their money. Harris has also brought in the progressives which have zero tolerance for the centrist mindset. She is in a situation where she has to dance a dance of trying to reel in the progressives even though they are going to throw a fit when she panders to the centrists and the corporate overlords.

The system is made and controlled by the billionaires. No hard progressive that doesn’t play the game a little is going to get elected… right now. They will destroy anyone that threatens their billions. Everytime she goes a little too hard left they throw a fit.

Welcome to end stage capitalism.

I feel like a lot of people on Trump’s side don’t care and all of his issues have been documented in the press. If people cared, he wouldn’t be this close.

You also have enough people left of Harris who don’t want to hold their collective noses and vote for her. They’ll complain about the Overton window shifting right, but won’t be a bulwark for keeping it from shifting right. Hell, there are people on Lemmy complaining about political utilitarianism as a reason for voting for Harris and will even complain about Bernie if he says something being done by the Biden administration is good.

It’s the same when it comes to any other countries. The right always gets away with corruption because it’s expected. Whereas the left has a higher moral standpoint so it is being accused of hypocrisy and things get blown out proportion even if small scale corruption occurs. For example in UK the previous government were giving jobs and contracts to friends and family all the time and nobody cried about it. It became accepted. The new left of centre government comes in and gives a temporary pass to a donor and suddenly it’s a huge scandal…

It’s the same if you care for the environment and ever took a taxi somewhere, or a vegetarian or vegan and have shoes made out of leather. Sure you are doing better than everyone else to help but you are still the devil and worse than everyone else somehow…

I’ll take racism, sexism, propaganda and capitalism for 500 Alex.

They’ve got pretty firm control of the business sectors through tax cut agenda. They’ve got pretty firm control of the farmers for the same. Through fear and propaganda they’ve got pretty strong control of the poor and some of the educated middle class in the rural areas. A lot of the red states are doing everything they can to impede their education systems. If you keep people from becoming educated there’s less competition at the top and a lot more red voters.

All you’ve got to fight them are the poor and the middle class in the cities and suburbs and the occasional upper class that isn’t so self-serving that they’re willing to stand on everyone else.

Because so many trump voters are low-information, rabid and impervious to fact and/or reason. They will vote orange even if he shoots someone on Fifth Avenue to death, or if there are 32-or-whatever felony indictments/verdicts.

Meanwhile, many potential Democrat voters are also low-information in their own way - impressionable, fickle and with little memory retention, they seem unable to act upon a clear and present danger until it punches them in the goddamned face (and by then of course it’s too late), somehow have normalized the orange threat and are easy prey to an algorithm pushing a “both parties are the same” divide-and-conquer propaganda.

The difference between a parasite-laden excrement chip cookie and a raisin oatmeal cookie, “But I wanted chocolate chip! bOtH cOoKiEs ArE tHe SaMe!”

Can you imagine a woman or a black man (let alone a black woman) running for president while being three-times divorced with kids from multiple partners and having cheated multiple times on top of that? Even if they were rich like Trump, it would never fly.

Kamala proposed a corporate tax hike. They will be pulling out literally All. The. Stops.

Trump is more than a candidate. He validates and supports a state of mind. To many, he is a champion of a lifestyle and a way of thinking. That isn’t something that is easy to overcome.