In short:

Donald Trump has claimed victory in the US presidential election, saying his political movement is the greatest the world has ever seen.

The Republican candidate swamped his Democratic rival Kamala Harris in critical swing states.

What’s next?

The Republicans were on track to win both chambers of congress, too, paving the way for Trump’s agenda to be enacted in full.

  • spudsrus
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    18 days ago

    Well fuck…

    Every time you think Americans aren’t going to fuck up the easy choice they find a way to surprise

  • CTDummy
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    18 days ago

    Welp, I said I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened but damn; how disappointing. Dark times ahead for the US and likely the rest of us I think. Would absolutely love to be wrong though.

    • veroxii
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      18 days ago

      Yeah just off the top of my head that’s probably it for Gaza and Ukraine. Unless Europe and the rest of us grow some serious spine soon.

        • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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          18 days ago

          Honestly, as one of the most pro-Palestinian people around here, nope. Trump, unlike Biden/Harris, feels no need to pretend to be doing anything to stop Israel, and in fact would be representing his voters by giving Israel more money and support. Things probably can’t get much worse for Gaza, but Lebanon has dark days ahead of it.

          • guismo
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            18 days ago

            zero_gravitas posted a very educational video showing younger biden saying “if there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one” and “the best 3 billion dollar investment we make”. So I don’t think he has a history of even pretending to stop them. It will be the same thing again, as it has been with almost every US president.

            I remember having the luck of being in front of a tv when, before trump won for the first time, I saw him complaining about why american money goes to israel and if he wins he would stop that. At that time I knew his position would change completely once he was elected. But if anything, the crazy orange candidate has a much better history of being “against” israel than the other senile, though in the end it made no difference. Both supported them as much they could, and the girl would do the same.

            But the fact that she showed them support just makes it worse. At least people who voted trump for the first time could be fooled into thinking he would do something about israel (if they ignore all his other insane promises).

            So, you don’t have to worry. Israel wise I don’t think anything changed and the genocide would not be worse (as it can’t anyway) if trump lost.

            Edit: I can’t find his post, but here’s the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HZs-v0PR44 Lovely leaders they have there. Not that Australia fares much better with military issues, but at least we are not so powerful, therefore not so dangerous.

          • zero_gravitasOP
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            17 days ago

            Trump, unlike Biden/Harris, feels no need to pretend to be doing anything to stop Israel

            The pretending is in some ways worse.

            In practical terms Biden/Harris have given the Israeli government everything they wanted. Harris is participating in a genocide. Nobody should have voted for her.

            But the Biden/Harris Whitehouse paying lip service to humanity/sanity (including ceasefire) seems to have given a lot of people a fig-leaf to vote for a génocidaire, and more generally to go about their lives as if their government is not committing genocide.

            See also ‘kids in cages’. There’s a sizable number of Americans who, it seems, can only see the atrocities their government is committing when there’s a Republican in the Whitehouse.

            • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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              18 days ago

              So first: People can be concerned about more than one thing at once. I am concerned about climate change, the war in Ukraine, the genocide in Sudan, the worldwide slide into fascism, etc etc, but nobody here needs to hear about these things, so what’s left is Palestine as a reasonably divisive topic where real conversations can be had.

              Second: I’m Arab. It’s the same reason why Westerners tend to care about Ukraine more than Gaza.

                • guismo
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                  18 days ago

                  I’m not arab, but as he said, you can worry about more than one thing. But I think the biggest difference with your tuberculosis example is: One is a problem due to lack of action, the other a problem due to direct action. You have to be competent to do something about one, while the other, just by not doing anything (by not giving them loads of money and weapons) they would already solve the problem.

                  So one problem requires effort to be solved, the other, they are putting effort to create the problem and it would be as easy as just not doing it. In theory pressuring them in just not doing something should be easier than doing other work.

                  Put in a different view, what would be your worse behaviour?

                  -A person you know died of turberculosis and you didn’t take them to the hospital

                  -A person you know died because you shoot them, or you gave someone a gun and money and told them they could shoot them?

                  Which action would get more people against you?

  • Ilandar
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    17 days ago

    Not a huge surprise so I can’t say I feel particularly bad about it. This is just the reality we have to accept and live in. The best thing is that the result was relatively quick and we didn’t drag it out for weeks to get here.

  • sola
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    18 days ago

    Federal Labor must be getting nervous about next years election. Neo-liberlisim born of the 80’s is dead and the biggest flag bearer of this is Labor. Aligning slightly to the left of the right-wing rejection of neo-liberlisim is not a winning strategy in theory nor in practice. If is wasn’t for Dutton next election Labor would be gone for sure.

    • maniacalmanicmania
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      17 days ago

      I don’t think Dutton is the blocker to a Coalition victory many to the left of the Coalition thinks he is.

    • eureka
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      17 days ago

      Honestly, they should be. Even their rank and file members have been betrayed. As for supporters, the CFMEU fiasco gave many people in my union’s chat rooms cold feet, with the pro-Labor peeps in disbelief they would do what they have, and that’s on top of the Party’s active complicity in the Middle East conflict. Labor have mirrored the US Democrat Party in many clear ways. The main difference I see in the situation is that is much easier for Australia to swing left instead of right, since we don’t have the same FPTP spoiler effect in our federal voting system, so they can’t just fearmonger over the Coalition to scare the socdems and socialists into joining them.

      It will be interesting to see how the Victorian council elections pan out as a litmus test, interestingly in NSW council elections the Labor Party lost 26 seats, with the Greens gaining 8. That’s just surface level looking at numbers but its enough for me to wonder if Federal Labor are worried.

    • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      It’s almost as though if someone wants the right, they’ll vote for the right rather than the pale imitation that’s buying into the Wright’s framing where they can’t compete rather than campaigning for something worthwhile.

      There’s a reason for this though - As long as our ruling class’ material interests are aligned with the capital class (and with it, protection of policies like negative gearing), this is the choice we’ll get.