‘People feel drained’: anti-Trump Americans face temptation to tune out

The fuck am I supposed to do? I've been organizing, I've been to protests, I've done everything I can to head this disaster off. I'll be fine throughout this and I'll do what I can to take care of the innocents who're going to suffer, but what the fuck else is there to do? Clearly people either want this, or don't care enough to try and stop it. So, fuck it. They can reap what they sow. Maybe this will wake some of them up, or they'll all fucking die of the next big pandemic and then they won't be a problem any more.

I’m sick of hearing about the asshole, and sick of hearing about him getting “slammed” by some celebrity or politician, and sick of hearing how he’s a huge threat so we need to send a sternly worded letter.

Getting upset over this is so draining, especially because there’s nothing we can do to stop him in the short term.

The older I get and the more things I witness like Citizens United happen, the more economically rightward both parties become, the more ruthless the Republicans become to be rewarded by The Base, the more feckless the opposition becomes. The more we vote and Democrats do nothing, or just enough Republicans win to stop them. We vote and the people we vote for suddenly go "oops I was actually a consevative the whole time!" The more time passes the more I realize organized violence or riots are really are more than likely the only things that will actually change anything. The older I get though the more I realize that will never happen.

We're all far too "civil" and hope voting for the oligarch lite will save us. We're far too propagandized and are denied the only real changes we need to how we vote to stop this trend. We will have to be pushed until it's really really really bad for anyone to actually organize a revolt. By then it will be far too late.

Apathy helps the oppressor, but engagement hasn't shown to have much of a positive affect either. :/

It's honestly the Democrats that make me feel drained. They're the party that ostensibly represents my political leanings, but they've spent the last year funding a genocide, cozying up to Republicans like Liz Cheney, and abandoning the economic populism that got them elected in 2020. If they were at least winning, ignoring progressives like me would be justified, but nope! They made an 80-year-old man their candidate without holding a primary, replaced him at the last minute with a candidate who didn't even make it to Iowa in 2020, and the walked into their largest electoral defeat since...what, 2004?

Trump is vile, and petty, and cruel, and I'm genuinely scared of the damage he'll do to our country, but that's what I expect from him. The fact that the only opposition party to the fascists is this group of cowardly, selfish failures is so demoralizing. If we can't wrestle control of the party away from these incompetent geriatrics, I honestly don't know if there's any hope for American democracy.

People don't feel the need to riot or protest or anything, no amount of activism could provide the painful lessons this country needs better than the chaos and ruin the incoming administration will bring

If we survive maybe we can rebuild in the aftermath, but the time to fight is probably over. Country voted for this so why not just sit back and watch the FAFO happen

That's how I've been feeling anyway, probably not the only one

I get the inflation and low-information voter angle, but watching Trump win by such a wide margin was just straight disheartening. At least with Hillary losing, you could complain about the electoral college and how few votes could have flipped it. Trump ran the table this time. His people showed up, and ours didn't. Democrats are completely lost. They can't craft a narrative that sticks in people's heads to save their lives. "Weird" got traction, but "weird" doesn't do shit for working people, who are struggling with no end in sight.

Plus, I'm waiting to see what happens. Trump is older and angrier, but he was always lazy. I'm hoping he spends all his time golfing and rage-tweeting while accomplishing very little. He'll cut taxes for rich people and appoint shitty judges for sure, but hopefully he gets bored quickly and focuses on personal grift over wrecking the country long-term.

Hard to blame them. It's exhausting to keep up and fight with the crazy and stupid. Because to them it's no effort.

Merrick Garland and the $upreme Court slowly snuffed out any hope for America with a pillow over her nose and mouth

Temptation? I've already gone to "fuck it - burn it to the ground". There's not fuck-all I'm going to do at this point that is going to make any difference.

He's not even fucking in office yet. I think what's really irritating the media is we aren't all resubscribing to papers again. Sorry guys, this ain't 2016 and we're not going to handle it the same way we handled 2016.

Personally, I'm buying electronics and appliances now so that I don't have to face his dumb tariff price hikes, and I've renewed my passport.

Of course people are tuning out. Please keep in mind I am saying the following as a mostly liberal slightly libertarian.

What has passed for liberal culture over the last decade has included an awful lot of outrage over every injustice but not an awful lot of solid action to correct those injustices. The Democratic party has tried to harness that with a lot of identity politics that avoid the real issues. And so the result is you have a ton of people who are always upset but things never get better.

So of course people burn out. Or they get cynical and decide nothing is going to change so it's not worth getting worked up over. You see a lot of that in this very thread.

To anyone angry at me, downvote me if you want, but if you want change actually fucking do something. Stop consuming short form content like Twitter and TikTok, start consuming long form things that make you think and expose you to different viewpoints. Lex Friedman interviews are a good place to start.

Understand that not everybody who disagrees with you is bad or evil or malicious.
Very few issues are simple. There is rarely an absolute obvious right and wrong. And if somebody adopts a viewpoint you think is wrong, consider that maybe they have reasons they think it's right and use those reasons to challenge your own beliefs. You may conclude that they are still wrong, but you must be open to the possibility that you might be wrong. If you aren't open to being wrong, why should they be?
And in the world where nobody can admit they are wrong, nothing productive happens. You just have two sides shouting at each other.

Then take a step back from your own personal outrage and think about what is actually important. If you had to choose between ensuring every American has good health care, and ensuring every American has their pronouns recognized, which do you think is more important? So which one are you focusing your advocacy and speech on?

The simple fact is, if you (and I am addressing everybody on all sides here) stop getting riled up over wedge issues and start focusing on the things that The majority of the country can agree on, you might find there's an awfully big agenda of problems we all agree should be fixed that aren't even being discussed.

I’m 41. I’ve been involved with activism since I was 20. Things keep getting worse. Time to try something different.

I’m also trying to shift my views to be more like Carlin, where I stop caring about what happens.

are showing a more subdued response

...That's because, if you're smart, you keep your responses off public channels. Didn't anyone learn anything from January 6? Don't fucking plan in public.

What's wrong, people don't want a 24/7 news cycle of all the stupid shit Dumpster will say and do!?

You mean our media system pushing to have the Orange One elected to increase their ratings could backfire!?

I could only hope people stop paying attention and paying money for the corporate spun garbage we call news.

The Dems raised billions for the election and lost. What did I receive after donating thousands of dollars to them.

Pleas for more money. Give us just a little bit more money and we will finally do something.

I’m done. We should fight the fascists but the corporate democrats have been completely captured. They only know how to raise money and hand it to consultants that will tell them to parade around Liz fucking Cheney.

I’m not paying them to slide further and further to the right anymore.

Until Democrats stop being Republican-lite, they'll never learn. And this is what they get. Apathy and disillusionment.

What are we supposed to do? We tried, this one had no ambiguity. If this is what people want, so be it. Gonna suck though so I’m spending my efforts on bracing myself for what’s to come.

I think we are just at the "fine, let them stick the fork in the outlet" stage, and if that leads to 50 years of hard times and being on the evil side of the next great war.....oh fuckin well...we told you so.

i'm preparing mentally for the potential of a civil war ok. I need to be ready to bear the costs of the conflict, if it happens.

anyway, politically in the next four years we need to start building something we can't just sit here and pretend that the DNC will unfuck itself and stop being incompetent half the time, and we also can't pretend that abstaining from voting is going to fix things.

We need to be doing things, which for some reason, people really hate.

I honestly don't care anymore.

We just failed the most blatant test we could possibly be given. Americans are hopeless. Take the politics and politicians out of the equation and you've still got an abundance of stupid Americans. That story doesn't end well regardless of other factors.

We simply aren't intelligent or responsible enough as a whole to maintain a democracy.

I'll be going with the "ignorance is bliss" strategy at the end of this calendar year. I'll probably still vote in local elections, but I'm done on the federal level. Too many stupid Americans for me to keep trying to care on a large scale.

We're going down. The only question is the speed at which it will happen.

I live in California, so I'll be able to maintain rights while others elsewhere lose them. And at this point, I have so little faith in Americans that I simply can't bring myself to care about them anymore.

Pretty much the majority of Americans.

This is a damned shame to say the least but I’m as guilty as anyone.

My own ostrich coping mechanism has been long term personal goals and wondering what I’ll do when I can no longer work and SS is gone.

It’s put me in a shitty state of mind lll admit, and I have no excuses. Overwhelmed is a statement of fact, not an excuse.

Nope. This is the correct response. Democrats need to relax, because they work too hard to craft intelligent messages while the other side calls them names like a four year old and sells ugly ass shoes and watches all while desecrating the flag because a billionaire asking for more money makes perfect sense to some people...

Democrats need to dumb down their messaging. Comedy vs the next president needs to be slapstick level with focus on doing makeup in the morning, eating McDonald's, and farting. Explanations for things like tariffs need to be laid out on TikTok so anyone at or below a 6 grade comprehension level can understand.

they tuned out years ago. that's why he's president again. who even cares about anything at this point? fuck it.

I totally understand feeling worn out but I know there is light at the end of the tunnel if unite and work together. In 2025 there are going to be local elections. These local elections really matter because they decide who will run your community. In 2026 the House and some Senate seats are up for election along with some governess. That election I think will determine the fate of this country. We must come back stronger than ever vote out all the corrupt politicians who oppose our democracy.

And this is why the right well always win. They go for what they want till they get it. How long did they fight to repel row vs wade?

No this is just the liberal establishment demonstrating their aggressively "meh it won't really affect me" attitude. If you are in a left wing organization, more people are showing up and joining and participating than in years. DSA membership increased like 25% just since the election, in an org that was losing members. Not everyone is checked out, some people are very active.

If you aren't connected to an org, go to meetings and join one, pay dues if you can! If you don't know where to start, just ask! Answers will probably vary by area and some people are more isolated but there's still lots that can be done, even if you're stuck at home.

yeah please tune out to make sure he gets zero pushback whatsoever. I mean it worked to get him elected president, why not advance to godking?

I like that

Scratch a liberal and they abandon you to the fascists I guess

I'm going to go ahead and respect democracy. Trump won fair and square. He should be able to implement his policies because that's what the majority wants.