Lost Hope for my country (united states)

[DisappointedCitizen]

I’m sorry I recently found out that Kanye West of all people is running for president and I have to rant! I feel like the last few elections have really dampened my love and killed any hope or optimism I have for the united states. Trump (and don’t mistake this complaint as if I am letting democrats of the hook for their crap!) literally used the united states as a stage and platform for his reality show performance and now celebrities and TV personalities are running on a regular basis.

Politics have real world effects that ripple out and hurt real people. But us citizens’ lives are just… what? Collateral damage for their fame and money? Did TV and internet get too boring for them? Now they want to play theatre with our country or something?

I don’t think these celebrities and these politicians care about us. We are just pawns in their game. Am I the only one who feels this way?

I don’t like how it has become common place for celebrities to run for office. I don’t think they take politics or this country seriously.

Women are losing our rights left right and centre and we are just a joke. I highly doubt Trump, Kanye West or the Rock Johnson actually give a s**t about anyone or anything other than their fat bank accounts and the number or twitter followers they have!

Voting feels pointless these days. The party system has become absolute trash and both parties are falling apart at the seams and no one is doing anything about it and I’m sure the people running are just fine with that!

Oh, honestly. Hit post by accident. So sorry!

US citizens living overseas are absolutely entitled to vote. First step is to look up voting procedures for your last US address. So if you last lived in Hawaii and are now in Japan, you may vote using your HI address, including for Congress. Hth!

West isn't a serious candidate, and there have been plenty of people in entertainment who have gone into politics for years. Regan obviously, but also
Jesse Ventura, Schwarzenegger, Sonny Bono, just to name a few.

And I would argue that Trump's claim to fame wasn't really his television personality, he was on tv because he was already famous for being himself.

I don't know that Trump will get this, even many people who like his policies think he is now toxic. But it is going to depend a lot on the other options, and Biden has been bleeding supporters across almost all demographics. If no one offers an option people consider viable people will do what they feel they have to do. And many feel that in general Trump's policies were fairly successful.

Biden has been bleeding supporters across almost all demographics.

That was the prevailing narrative before the midterms but the Democrats did far better than expected. It's pretty much status quo with just a few more GOP house seats.

@MangyInseam DeSantis is becoming very popular as the candidate that can bring in many of Trump’s most popular policies but has the intelligence (BA from Yale, JD from Harvard, top of the class both times) and the political know how to appeal to a much broader demographic. (He is also decades younger, and is in his 40s).

He has been one of the very few politicians willing to go to bat in the culture war with policies dealing with Gender Ideology (especially in schools), women’s rights (minus abortion) and definition by sex in law, and is aggressively against all medical interventions for children classified as “trans”.

He won a lot of popular support and attention for being willing to call multinational company Disney’s bluff. When a law passed in Florida outlawing teaching Gender Ideology and inappropriate explicit sexual information to children in elementary (primary) school, Disney threatened to try and dismantle the law which was very popular with parents. DeSantis responded by pulling the plug on huge tax-breaks and other business advantages that had been in place for decades, benefiting Disney in the state of Florida.

DeSantis was also praised by many for keeping schools and the economy open during COVID.

How things currently stand:

DeSantis won re-election as governor in an absolute landslide, winning previously strongly Democratic counties and turning Florida from what had been a swing state into one now strongly Republican. This included winning a larger slice of the Hispanic and Latino vote.
The Disney CEO who came out against him saw Disney stock fall 40% and was just replaced this week by the previous CEO.

The Democrats have been avoiding a lot of commonsensical issues and leaving them for the Right to pick up.

However the Democrats did obviously do much better in the midterms than expected. It will be interesting to see if DeSantis’ brand of Republicanism is popular nationwide. He is already polling better nationally than Trump and has shown he can drive policy through effectively in Florida. Voters may consider DeSantis a much more likely candidate to make the policy changes they want to see at a national level, rather than the chaotic Trump.

I disagree, it wasn't a sweep that was feared, but the numbers have moved considerably since 2016, and pretty much in one direction. And maybe most importantly there is no sign that the Democrats understand the problem, so they are unlikely to fix it. Meanwhile, if the Republicans find someone without Trumps baggage that can only improve their situation.

OP have a look here to see how you can vote if you’re not living in the US uk.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/voting/