AIBU to think the US deserves the Govt it's got?

I don't understand why you think that. Individuals vote or not for a variety of reasons. But everyone ranks their reasons in some way. When you are looking at the group dynamics of voting it's more complicated.

I would say that if you look at consistent Republican voters vs consistent Democrat voters, they tend to use different kinds of metrics to choose. But that's not somehow wrong.

The Democrats have chosen not to bother with the concerns of working class union leftist voters, in fact that have chosen to oppose them. That's not on those voters. And it's pretty shitty of the Democrats to behave as if those people put their votes elsewhere somehow it makes the voters morally compromised. That's a pretty giant sense of entitlement.

No 11 year old rape victim should be forced to give birth (as recent case in Ohio)

She won’t be forced to give birth. Abortion is still legal in Ohio, as that law isn’t coming into effect until July, I believe. And it’s going to be struck down by federal courts. I get what you are saying though.

Ohio and other pro-life states pass these laws every few years, and they always get struck down by federal courts. This isn’t the first time Ohio has done this, I think this is like the third or fourth time its been passed in the state legislature.

The intention of these is to get a reversal of Roe, which is sadly a bit more likely than before

Take a whack, obviously, not a what!

It would be nice to be able to edit.

I find this boggling. Why was there 'no way' they could vote for Clinton? I know she was far from perfect (nowhere near as far from it as Trump, mind), but why was there 'no way', when the alternative was Trump? Why would they trust Trump? In this way, Americans have the government they deserve. Whose side does Trump stand on, when it comes down to the bankers...?

I don't think it's that odd. There was never any question that Clinton would continue to support the class oligarchy in place. It's easy for the professional class to be comfortable with that. In a lot of cases they don't really even get why anyone has a problem with her approach. They are social progressives who favour a neoliberal economy, not leftists.
But for people from the kind of Christian-Marxist-working class background of the writer I was describing, those people are the clear enemy, the creators and defenders of the social structures that are at the root of poverty, exploitation, racism, and all the rest. They always have been the oppressors.

Clinton didn't even admit that such a thing existed. Trump recognised it and named it and said he would break it down. Would he - well, would Clinton? Would Obama?

It's not about checking a list of progressive values and the one who checks the most boxes wins, for a lot of people. It's about how likely they are to take a what at the roots of their oppression. Any chance is larger than zero chance.

I'm not sure of the point you were making about what Trump would do about poverty. My point was that Paul Buttigieg isn't likely to do anything, or do anything to threaten the capitalists, and maybe, being very similar to Clinton, he's not the man to choose for the job of challenging Trump.

The left needs to get real, stop obsessing about identity politics and political correctness and start listening to the concerns of ordinary working people of all backgrounds

This statement is spot on and goes for for the UK as well.

One thing US-ians are desperately trying not to face is that the 2016 election was stolen. Not just the presidential, also about 23-24 Congressional races.

They started not counting the votes in 2000 (for all I know, they may have strated earlier, but that's when it became very obvious), and every cycle the situation gets worse. 2016 was just plain stolen.

There weren't just the Cambridge Analytica / Facebook shenanigans so well investigated by Carole Cadwalladr for Brexit and Trump. There was also plain old vote fraud, probably by diddling machines. Winning by 77,000 votes in three strategic counties with statistically very implausible patterns of votes just shouts fraud.

But the "It Can't Happen Here" mindset means nobody with enough money and power wanted to go back and examine what happened.

That's all water under the bridge at this point, but what makes it relevant is that the US has done functionally nothing to make sure 2020 doesn't have voter suppression and does count the votes.

I think an actual democracy would Dump Trump in 2020. Resoundingly. But that's not what they have. And I don't see much stopping the next election from being even more stolen than the last.

women will not be criminalised for travelling out of state. Northern Ireland convicts women for procuring abortions right now. Anyone from the UK would want to deal with that injustice first before fretting about some future overturning of a Roe vs Wade.

We deserve Trump the way the UK deserves Brexit.

He put Kavanagh in there, and now if Roe vs Wade goes to the Supreme Court, the GOP plants will overturn it.

I will eat my hat if John Roberts allows the Roberts' court to go down in history as the court that overturned Roe vs Wade. Even if he does, abortion will still be perfectly legal in many states (and illegal in states that already make it incredibly difficult to have one).

You do know that part of the UK currently criminalises abortion - right?

i say this as an American: when was the last time the American citizenry roused itself to significant, sustained protest against the predations and depredations of the US government, the people issuing concrete demands to their leaders?

1969, with the October Moratorium? (Which, by the way, stopped NIxon from a planned nuclear strike on Hanoi, as KIssinger told him the Moratorium showed that the American people would go into open revolt if he did that.)
The mid-1980s, with Act-Up?
Early in the Trump administration, we saw protests with concrete demands regarding the visa requirements for entering the US.

But since then?

So yes, if the citizens of the US are not bothered enough by US warmongering, US violation of Nuremberg Laws and Geneva Conventions, the devastation of the working class via labour arbitrage in globalization, the collapse in life expectancies of now even the middle class, the forty-year long continued erosion of reproductive rights such that, functionally, the right to abortion doesn’t exist in 40% of the country —

Not bothered enough to engage in the civil disobedience and sustained citizen protest that history shows over and over again does actually create change —

Then yes the American citizenry have the govt. they deserve. Democracy isn’t just about voting.

What a lovely statement of solidarity for those of us Americans reading the Mumsnet FWR board; surely amongst the Americans most likely to have joined the majority in voting against Trump and continuing to fight him and his allies ever since.

Hey ho, we'll carry on fighting to save our country. Maybe save your fire for actual enemies, though?

As an American I find it really terrible to be told that I deserve Trump. I would not say you deserve Brexit - Trump's max term would be eight years unlike Brexit but they both are causing harm (possibly irreparable harm). None of us really deserve what the ruling class decides for us, their disconnect from lives of those not pulling in massive income is damaging and self-serving.

First you get the money
Then you get the power
Respect
Hoes come last

Ay, get it, get it, get it, get it, get it
Cash rules everything around me

I don't like Trump (DT) I don't like Hillary (HRC) and I'm not fond of the two-party system. I'm not fond of the electoral override of the popular vote but it is a good tool in theory and we have to deal with voter fraud on the regular (look at our recent elections).

I didn't vote DT - I voted strategically for HRC with a heavy heart (post primaries). I do understand macro and micro economics and believe in the importance of equal protection for all under law and I center women. HRC wouldn't have been great but she would have been less bad than DT. I hated having to vote strategically instead of my conscience but I tried to keep DT out by voting HRC because DT embodies all of the worst of men. Being a two party system we haven't had an outside party win a presidential election since 1850, so if you want your voice to be counted and mean something you have to choose between a donkey and an elephant.

The night Trump was confirmed POTUS I walked outside at 3am (I had to know the outcome before sleep)... panicked, depressed, and unsure of what our future held. I saw my beloved neighbor on her lawn, praying and crying - asking the universe what would come of us. We did women's marches together, we spoke loudly that Hillary was our only choice (post primaries) and here we were - two women of different generations holding each other and lamenting the inevitable havoc our nation was set to endure.

So don't tell me I deserve it, don't you put that on me or my magnificent neighbor or any other person that voted against DT for HRC (write-ins contributed to Trump's win).

US media focuses on the Kardashians (yuck) and their ilk, on fashion, on men's sport, on objectification of women, tech, and status symbols. Kids are looking to be famous rather than make a difference. Unless you know where to look the true political agendas are difficult to ascertain as all politics are colored by the lean of the media reporting.

This perspective that Americans deserve all of the bullshit occurring behind the curtain is hateful towards America's children - especially girls. Kids today didn't pick this travesty just like my generation didn't pick trickle-down economics (which continues to fuck our economy and made the "American Dream" significantly harder to accomplish if not almost impossible unless from affluent means).

Those that voted for Trump chose this path not those of us that didn't. Politics are shrouded in deception and connections... herding sheeple towards ruling class desires all the while dividing them into echo chambers ever militant and lacking in the ability to consider another's perspective. DH and I are outliers as we detest echo chamber mentality but we are not alone.

It is dystopian, it is disheartening - I agree. But saying that people deserve the shit sandwich we are being force-fed is blindly ignorant as many of us work for the betterment of our nation (not career politicians but the real Americans)... ever attempting to hold the line while pushing against this tidal wave.

This isn't a gossipy thing this isn't some bullshit in a fictional story, this is my life and my loved one's lives you are condemning in your attempt to appear superior.

I've forgotten which US journalist coined the phrase after the election "the left took him literally, but not seriously, the right took him seriously, but not literally": it's one of the best summings up of what happened.

Moderate right wingers who voted for him (not all did - I have a friend who left the Republican party once he got the candidacy) took the view that "all that guff about women and pussies and Mexicans and rape - it's just hyperbole to look good to the great unwashed at rallies." Then he got elected, introduced the Muslim travel ban and packed the Supreme court with anti abortionists...

Meanwhile, the left were busy screaming at the top of their voices "he really does mean that shit.." - and history has proved them right. But at the same time, they thought he was a joke candidate and Hillary would walk it.

Well, I am not sure that accusing half the people of being deplorable, I mean racist, is likely to help understand why these votes happened.

YABU. If the majority did not agree with the decision, it is not reasonable to blame them. On the other hand, the majority did agree to Brexit in the UK, which is permanent and an even more overtly racist and openly destructive choice.

And do not forget the selfish narcissism of Jill Stein

But in the bigger picture, what is that really saying?

People should not be able to vote o policies they actually believe in, or run on them? There should only ever be two choices for voters? People should just suck up whatever crap candidates the two big parties offer them (two big parties funded by the same people.)

That's true, Goose. I have a great deal of sympathy with black voters - some of Bill's track record in regard to race does not read well. Ditto women voters who thought "she stood by her man when he was using power imbalance to screw his staff." (It's a hell of a thing when your choice is between the self-professed pussy grabber and the woman who "gave two arms to cling to" the man who had BJs from a junior member of his staff).

Politics is a shitty mess at times. Sometimes there are lines you feel you can't cross, even when you can see that opening the way to a massively unpalatable alternative (I couldn't bring myself to vote for Blair after the Iraq war, for instance).

The choice at the last election was crap, it was like choosing which landmine to step on!

No idea who to vote for next time

Wasn't Sanders the victim of some sharp practice by Clinton supporters at the DNC?

Yup.

What is really scary to me is that I don't think the DNC really gets it, even now. Clinton wrote that book which was totally lacking in any insight.

But they seem to be pushing they gay mayor candidate, who looks exactly like a Clinton. Talks well, is a great talker, hits an id politics button, and is a sort of pro tech pro big money guy. There is zero chance that he will do anything crazy about poverty.

I am not sure if they really want to run him against Trump, I suspect they want to use him to take interest away from Sanders or Warren so they can run Biden.

And do not forget the selfish narcissism of Jill Stein, whose 1.5 million votes might well have swung it for Clinton.

I don't think anyone deserves Trump and his damaging, bigoted, dangerous policies.

I have to say I think Hillary's arrogance in not standing down to make way for a better democrat candidate had its part to play as well.

But I stand by that nobody deserves what he's inflicted on the American people. Particularly women and BAME people.

Ah ,I see, that makes sense. And of course some people didn't vote at all, because they couldn't stand to vote for Clinton, and that might have made a difference.

I am hesitant to get angry about that kind of thing though. I am sure there are people who are basically stubborn asses, but at the same time, I think we all draw our line somewhere when it comes to voting in these kinds of situations. There were a fair number who voted or Obama but could not bring themselves to vote for Clinton, including black voters. To me that really says something about the degree to which they did not believe in her as a candidate. For that matter, I'm not sure I could have voted for her.
Then, some people don't believe in strategic voting, and I think that's a defensible view - it does undermine the system. In the long term, if people don't vote for people like Jill Stein because they won't win, it just consolidates power more firmly in the hands of Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Presumably you are not in the UK OP? (People in glass houses.....) I think we probably did a worse job of picking our last government than the US.

In both cases people have the government they deserve- we all bear some responsibility for these messes.

Wasn't Sanders the victim of some sharp practice by Clinton supporters at the DNC? Could well have led to disaffected Bernie supporters voting for Jill Stein and would hardly have had them leaping out of their beds to vote for her on polling day.