I used to just… not vote. Didn’t like the people running but they were all mostly the same in my eyes. “Do I want this rich old white dude or that rich old white dude”

I didn’t even bother.

Then a rich old white dude came around that was actually measurably worse than the other rich old white dudes. So I had to start voting against him.

It sucks. I want to go back to not caring.

Well this is actually the root of the problem. USians not caring about politics until they are personally affected. Of course you didnt have to think about Obama, because he was only slaughtering brown people in foreign countries and not on your doorstep.

I'm torn. I do want you to care, because people like you with your head in the right place not caring may have contributed to politics getting to the place it is.

But I want politics to be boring again, too. So shall we say, when this blows over, back to caring intermittently, like a little, around elevation times?

As an Australian, and our compulsory voting, the thought of not voting is crazy to me.

This does mean it's made exceptionally easy for us to vote, and care. It's the antithesis of the US way where voter suppression is the goal.

Yeah, I think catching up to and acting upon the political news that either I can influence or that can influence me once a week (with exception of really urgent and important ones, but I'll probably hear about those either way) should be a good balance between inactivity and burnout.

Wonder if that inspired Murdoch to be an asshole in the US

Bruh…. too mean.

For real though, I’ll wake up angry at our current leadership. Ain’t good for the heart.

The whole lesson here if we live to learn it should be that even when politics are boring, they're still important. When all you see are old white dudes, it's the people you elected that put them there - not the presidents themselves, but everyone else on the ballot in your local and state elections that you probably never even thought about, much less made an informed vote for.

If all your ever did was think about your presidential vote - or didn't even bother to do that - then you specifically voted for the status quo, namely, the old white dudes. If you want change during the boring times you need to go and make it with your vote. I get it - I was the same "what's the point?" voter, but I'm not anymore, and I'd hope anyone who lived through this will have grown that much at least.

Sure, and now you know that those days gave you an excuse not to do shit to make things better.

Im aware that Obama is worthy of criticism, but it feels disingenuous to compare him to Trump? They're polar opposites.

Nah I think he simply owned all the media in Australia already so started looking elsewhere.

A lot of Americans can't imagine compulsory voting.

I can understand the concern - if you think of some of the idiots you know and think about forcing them to vote, it seems like a bad plan.

Ofc the reality is, all the normal people you know also vote, which creates a kind of inertia in the centre.

No, I've been queer my whole life.

You can compare anything to anything like what is that even supposed to mean? Thats just as nonsensical as saying you cant compare apples and oranges. They are/were both US presidents they are some of the most comparable people in the world. I even pointed out one of their differences saying Obama was only (mostly actually) slaughtering people outside of the US. Obama is a war criminal by any reasonable definition. Is he better than Trump? Yes. Is he a lying murderous piece of shit? Also yes. One thing that is worse about Obama than Trump though, is that Obama was pretending to be a good guy while Trump is just open about being a piece of shit. That made it harder to politically organize against Obamas policies. Obama also actually got a Nobel Peace Prize and people just went with it like it was a totally normal thing to happen. Like obviously Trump is way more horrible than Obama but why would that make them incomparable?

"owns"

But the key thing about Australians is that the majority of us can recognise the shitfuckery and say "yeah nah" .

Plus we also don't have a First Past The Post voting system (we have ranked choice voting and transferable votes) which minimises the amount of idiots who get in. But we also do have Queensland so some get in anyway (it's our Florida).

I should also say we don't have compulsory voting. We have compulsory "showing up". You can do whatever you want to your ballot once you've turned up and had your name crossed off the voting role. Some draw cocks or purposely spoil their ballot paper. But most will actually vote properly.

Compulsory voting does weed out the crazies because most people are a bit in the middle. The crazies are always a vocal minority who get most of the attention.

That was something my parents taught me when I was in kindergarten.

Everything is politics. Where you live, what you eat, what kind of job you have. Everything is political.

At that point you probably should have been voting third party. They won’t win but if they somehow hit 5% of the vote the party qualifies for federal funding in the subsequent election, to my knowledge. Also, the big parties do look at what votes they are losing out on to third parties to see how they should realign in the future just as much if not more as they look to see how they can engage non voters.

I was listening to a podcast about Chinese philosophy, and they were talking about the classification of governors saying that the worst is the one that is hated by the population, then the one that is loved by the population and finally the best, the one that is unknown by the population. The argument was because when the population love their governor is because they depends on they and love can become hate after a bad season. The one that is ignored is working behind the curtain to create the stability that makes the population independent of they

That's what got us here. People not thinking about it.

Idk, not being american and not thinking about how the natuon with tge biggest milutary power always somehow finds the worst person te elect would be really nice for once.

I think people here are purposely misinterpreting this post. Obviously, we need to pay attention to the actions of any president.

That said, I understand where OP is coming from 100%.

I feel like we've been going so long now with this being the norm (over a decade at this point), that I think there are a whole lot of young people who literally do not know any different.

They aren't old enough to remember what things were like before Trump took over every news cycle for the past 10+ years. Before the constant bombardment of awfulness and the existential dread that follows.

This is not normal. You need to know that this is not normal, and that things do not need to be this way.

Eh yeah no fuck that. Can you really not see that you were a big part of the problem?

Yep same. Unfortunately for them, the other related thing they tried to teach me didn't stick: that abortion is the most important issue always no matter what.

For me its almost been the inverse. Almost.

I cared a lot about politics between 2002-ish to 2024. Now I'm honestly just kind of "Whatever you stupid fucks obviously deserve this for not voting or voting for him." at least towards my fellow Americans.

I feel bad for the world though.

When was this? Childhood of every era? 'Cause I'll tell you what, there's not a single generation that once they hit a point of being able to grasp what the hell is gong on it's downhill from there. I never gave a fuck about politics until I was in maybe 7th grade, after we did a report on republicans and democrats. I was introduced to politics around 9/11 and it still bothers me. I wish I had never known or was introduced to politics, ever. I wish they would ask people if they want to learn about it or hear about it. I wish people didn't indoctrinate people to believe in and/or care about such foolishness.

The only way you will never think of it, is if you were never introduced to it.

That's how my grandma would've said it if she was still alive: "It's all such foolishness."

Back in the 1970s until mid 1980s most people would only talk about the president when something huge happened or it was election time

I couldn't help it

But that's not to say that civics and the voting process shouldn't still be taught, I mean it's important to know your rights, it's good to stay informed even if you never vote.

You should still know what's going on even if you don't care about voting. You don't need to know who the fuck for example Pete Hegseth is but it's good to know what the president is doing and the agendas for local political matters.

It's also a choice, I know a lot of people say if you don't vote you're not for democracy, you're for republican but that's a cop out. That's sore lose we lost a vote talking and that goes for the republicans as well, that if one doesn't vote for them it's a travesty and a loss for the nation and it's like no one is that special and your votes seriously do not matter when it comes to them being counted by the electoral college process.

What happens in the general election? Why should I vote?

The general election is held every four years on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. When you vote for a Presidential candidate you are actually voting for your candidate's preferred electors. Learn more about voting for the electors.

Most States have a “winner-take-all” system that awards all electors to the Presidential candidate who wins the State's popular vote. However, Maine and Nebraska each have a variation of “proportional representation.” Read more about the allocation of electors among the States.

https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/about

Why you vote:

**If the electors vote for President, why should I vote in the general election?

During the general election your vote helps determine your State’s electors. When you vote for a Presidential candidate, you aren’t actually voting for President. You are telling your State which candidate you want your State to vote for at the meeting of electors. The States use these general election results (also known as the popular vote) to appoint their electors. The winning candidate’s State political party selects the individuals who will be electors.**

Nope. I don’t feel that way because I did vote against trump and voted Democrat every time and it didn’t come close to fixing the problem.

So no, I’m not a big part of anything.

Until we have ranked choice voting third party isn’t going to get above 5 percent.

Agreed, but I still find it preferable to non voting

It wasn't nearly as bad with Obama and Biden (unless you count still hearing about Trump every fucking day). Even Bush, while shitty, it wasn't like "What horrible thing am I going to read about today?" as soon as I woke up every morning.

That's seeming like a media problem. If Trump is being overplayed in the media more than former presidents than wouldn't it be safe to assume that's a form of like psychological warfare to keep people always on edge about, "the next move" or some other stupid shit?

Probably a little of both, I don't recall ever hearing about Obama staying up all night shit posting on twitter. He didn't offer as much content as Trump.

I agree now

In my adult lifetime we've had 20-years of Democratic Presidents, all of whom were great leaders.

unknown by the population

Avasarala in The Expanse.

IRL Lina Kahn at the FTC.

I certainly don't remember reading about Obama openly embezzling tax payer money while going off on rants blaming Bush for all his constant fuck ups

We haven't had a decent Democrat president since Carter; hell, one could argue that we haven't had a good Democrat in office since FDR!

You mean when you researched then voted for a candidate and realized you could trust them to do the job (working for the people) to the best of their abilities in good faith?

Yeah it's not just the current president that's the problem..... Just the worst problem

They called him Sleepy Joe because you could get a full night's rest knowing he wasn't going to be a headline in the morning.

This!!!! What fucking high profile figure posts on Twitter for hours every day! Or even at all!!!!

Obama embraced twitter, but not on 3am pill-fueled rants

I want a president who has no social media and is so busy working for us they don't have time to complain about the previous administration

Just appreciate that you voted against him.

However he did concern us a bit because every time he made public appearances he looked like a different person, different height, different face, different ears (Did anyone ever research WTF was really happening? It was definitely either body doubles and/or clones being implemented for him) and always like a sock puppet saying nothing important, mumbling whatever words were written for him to say. He took no questions, then would get escorted away to obscurity by his security team. Biden was just a heavily drugged sock puppet. It was 4 years of Weekend at Bernie's.

While Biden was in the Whitehouse, we barely knew he was there. It was a peaceful time

I'd like access to whatever you've been smoking.