💎 JOE BIDEN

We feel your pain. Rest assured, this administration is doing everything possible to address this situation, blah, blah, blah - blah, blah, blah.

Obama want running against a psychopath. Trump is literally the only reason for all of those votes.

Most of my Republican friends and all the older people I talked to were “yeah Trump’s terrible, but SOcIaLiSm”!!!! Fox and the GOP messaging is very effective. 

The propaganda is out of control. The Republicans think they're the good guys who are saving America from evil heathens, but the enemy is imaginary. Fear is very effective. They have been convinced to vote against their own interests for security. 911 was the trial run for trading freedom for safety and it's still a strategy that is bringing the GOP results unfortunately.

After decades of coasting and waiting, I've come to realize there are no candidates that actually will produce some real change on the horizon. "Change" is a marketing slogan used to swap out a less popular politician for a new face without any actual change (on a big scale) taking place. The system isn't really set up to allow a candidate to succeed who could bring forth any real kind of meaningful change. Shit's all corporate and money now and the Billionaire class wins no matter who's in - as long as it isn't someone who will actually change the system. The only practical change is the kind that comes about from rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship. Let me know when there's a candidate who not only wants to tear down hyper-capitalism, but has a chance a winning, and more importantly a chance of aligning the majority of fed/state/local govts. to go along with that vision instead of putting up roadblocks. If the Dems can't manage to pass simple things, I don't have much hope they can bring about any meaningful real change necessary to save ourselves from ourselves.

I don't think you're naive at all. I think America is just more inclined to idealism than most of the rest of the world. It's the only place I've ever lived where a sizeable amount of the population hold the idea that a politician or party will come along and rescue the country - it's just a matter of the right politician/party. Most other places I know people are resigned to the seeming fact that politicians aren't the source of answers; they're the source of problems and corruption. There are preferences for candidates/parties, but for most they're nowhere near as strong. More like a stronger dislike for one side than a fondness for the other - sort of like 'Biden sucks, but Trump is far worse.'

I once read how 1950's post war economic prosperity changed how Americans view what is 'normal.' It reset the bar at a new standard which most continue to use as a sort of benchmark for how things should be, instead of viewing that period as an anomalous blip. Life was hard before then, life's been harder since the age of prosperity ended, yet many believe that's how it should be and that we all deserve a house, a boat, two cars, vacations, ability to put kids through college - 'the good life,' all on a single earner, well paying factory job with nothing more than a high school education, because that's 'normal,' how it should always be, and what we should get back to.

Most people in the world are just trying to get by in life the best they can without any expectations of someone magically coming to save the day, or even make things better than they currently are. There's a saying here, roughly translated to 'For every new law, there's a new scam.' As soon as the govt. puts something through, the people come up with a way to work around it. Same as everywhere, really. No one is waiting for a savior from the political realm to make their lives better. They just hope the assholes don't make things worse and do what they have to to continue to get by with the new (stupid) challenges.

Shit's not any better because of this realization, but people are more realistic about the situation. If there's a benefit it's that the people are less divided among themselves and more unified in their dislike of the govt/system - no matter who happens to be running it today. So instead of all the national angst over Libturds and MAGAts, people identify more with what they have in common - love of futbol, asado, wine, music, family, dislike of govt./politicians, etc. One of the benefits of lowering one's expectations I guess. Instead of bumming out that you're not fucking a supermodel, you're just happy to be getting laid at all.

The sad truth is that America is in such a state that anybody and everybody is equally as divisive. I don't see Trump being any more divisive than Hilary, or Biden for that matter. I'm not saying it (or they) are rational, just that there are a significant amount of people who feel that Hilary is as divisive and bad for the country as Trump, and even feel someone like boring ole' middle of the road Corporate Joe is dividing and destroying the country, whereas Trump was uniting the country (albeit in a heavily Christo Fascist White Nationalistic way).

Sorry for the bummer rant and raining on parades. Probably a combination of age/experience and distance which allows me to look at things more objectively that's responsible for my current world view.

I know he just got over covid, but even judging by how he looked a month ago - dude's aged a lot since becoming prez. If he runs and say he won, imagine what he'd look like on Jan 20, 2029.