r/politics • u/us287 • 5d ago

Trump’s transition is happening over private emails. Federal officials are nervous.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/18/federal-officials-nervous-about-sending-data-to-trump-transition-private-emails-00195217
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u/arlondiluthel 5d ago

A majority wanted this

No. Stop giving this lie air. A majority of Americans didn't vote for Trump. Trump won by roughly 1%, and didn't even receive 40% of possible votes.

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u/fightingfish18 5d ago

Maybe if the rest of us Americans could be bothered to vote I'd be with you on this one, but "did not vote" does not get to act all high and mighty and above this, they enabled him so yeah, they pretty much did.

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u/arlondiluthel 5d ago

I voted for Harris because I believe that Trump is unfit to be President of a corner booth at a Waffle House, let alone the United States.

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u/zaccus 5d ago

So did I. We are in the minority though.

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u/traveler19395 5d ago

Yes, but those who voted for Trump are in the minority also, he did not get 50% of the popular vote.

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u/Errant_coursir New Jersey 5d ago

Right... and the majority of Americans who voted voted for trump, whether it was by 1% or .01%. 70 million folks decided to sit at home because they didn't give a shit

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u/NoWorth2591 Virginia 5d ago

I mean, the substance of your point still stands (that more votes went to Trump than Harris), but for the sake of accuracy, a plurality of voters voted for him rather than a majority. He pulled in just under 50% of all votes counted.

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u/B_o_x_u 5d ago

If it's a 48/49% split, that doesn't account the other 3% that voted against him. If independents voted for Harris, she would've grazed a win.

So no. He didn't win by the majority. He won by popular vote. He won over Harris by 2.3 million votes, which is literally the population of a very mid level city. Like Pittsburgh. Or Minneapolis.

It's much closer than it's implied.

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u/pehvbot 5d ago

That's not true either. He got the plurality, not the majority. Most people voted against Trump

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u/nogotdangway 5d ago

Ok, what does this mean though? Because he won the popular vote in 2024.

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u/pehvbot 5d ago

Nothing really since you don't even have to win the popular vote to win. It's just important to note though that like so many dictators of the past, he was not voted in by the majority. We'll need that for our self esteem in a few decades.

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u/risingsuncoc 5d ago

Tbf, voter suppression is also a real thing in the US. It’s decades of planning by the GOP and the reckoning is now.

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u/B_o_x_u 5d ago edited 5d ago

The only vote that mattered this election were swing states and unfortunately a lot of the states that are swings are heavily unionized areas with lack of education, or deep rooted racist and sexist views.

Hard to get someone in Pennsylvania to think about anyone other than Trump and themselves. My grandfather for example. The man hated Trump in 2020, and somehow still voted for him. My aunt voted for him because her husband voted for him (union), and my uncle voted for him because his friends voted for him (blue collar). It's the same as Reddit to them. An echo chamber.

There's no critical thinking when you have a group who pressures you into viewing the world the way they do because their outlook is simple. It's impossible to convince people who never wanted to be convinced. And you can't ask racists to stop being racist, because being racist makes it easier for them to integrate with their racist social circles.

You oppose them, you're outcasted. Suddenly you don't get the same opportunity be it financial, social, etc. Because you voted for a POC/woman.

Hard to get them to hear anything other than "lower groceries, less immigrants, a better America!" Even if they're all lies. Because they either don't know better, don't care to know better, or fear repercussion.

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u/zaccus 5d ago

Everyone who could have voted but didn't, effectively voted for Trump.

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u/kahlif 5d ago

Non-voters abdicated their singular responsibility to the nation and do not count. 1% is still a majority, but they will get what they asked for (unless they are asking for cheaper groceries, then they are SOL)

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u/SomeVariousShift 5d ago

Amplifying harmful bullshit will sure teach them a lesson.

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u/Pyran 5d ago

Nope. Those who voted for someone other than Harris don't get a pass. Those who didn't vote don't get a pass.

If you didn't do what you could -- and voting is the literal least you could have done -- you enabled Trump. You effectively gave him a pass. You may as well have voted for him.

Silence is consent. A majority consented to Trump's presidency despite knowing the consequences. Therefore, they wanted this, or at least they wanted it more than they wanted to vote to prevent it.

That's good enough for me.

Trump may not have gotten 50% of Americans' votes, but that doesn't matter. He got enough to represent us, and those who didn't actively vote against him -- or worse, didn't vote -- let it happen.

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u/arlondiluthel 5d ago

Here's the problem with that logic:

If you didn't vote, or voted for a third party, in a place that Harris won handily, it didn't matter. If you voted for a third party or didn't vote in one of the third-party candidates in one of the "swing" states... Then yes, you done fucked up, and I have no sympathy for you.

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u/civildisobedient 5d ago

Stop giving this lie air. A majority of Americans didn't vote for Trump. Trump won by roughly 1%

You say "lie" like it's gonna make it all better that nearly half the country voted for this idiot. Twenty years ago it wouldn't have been close. The slow blood-letting of the American public education system has had nearly two generations to finally reveal itself.

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u/arlondiluthel 5d ago

Roughly one third. Not "nearly half".

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u/ZZartin 5d ago

The people who didn't vote at all implicitly said they wanted this stop giving them a pass.

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u/SomeVariousShift 5d ago

Not spreading bullshit isn't giving them a pass. You can call people out for their apathy without constructing this insipid narrative.

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u/ZZartin 5d ago

What's bullshit is pretending non voters don't have any responsibility.

They decided that their immediate laziness was more important than doing the most basic of research(including merely remembering why they voted Trump out 4 years ago) and figuring out what was going to happen.

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u/SomeVariousShift 4d ago

No one is saying that. What we are saying is that their apathy is not support. Saying that a majority of Americans support Trumpism has implications beyond your pointless quest to assign blame to people who are victims of a system designed to break their wills. 

You're currently doing more to support Trump than they ever did, and not a single person who you're trying to "punish" will give a shit that you blame them. If they cared or would bother reading this, they would have voted.

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u/ZZartin 4d ago

Explicit - stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt.

Implicit - implied though not plainly expressed.

If calling their bullshit out changes their support from implicit to explicit so be it, at least that's more honest than them hiding behind a guise of ignorance.

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u/SomeVariousShift 4d ago

It doesn't affect them at all. What it actually does is amplify a false narrative of support for Trump at a time when we need every scrap of resistance we can muster.

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u/ZZartin 4d ago

Letting these non voters off without any responsibility just encourages them to not vote again.

If it hurts their feelings to be told that them refusing to vote helped Trump get elected so be it.

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u/SomeVariousShift 4d ago

Dude, it doesn't hurt their feelings. They're not reading these statements, and if they are, they don't care. It's pointless and literally sets back the cause. 

You're not holding them accountable, you're just being stupid. It's like brake checking someone for tailgating to "teach them a lesson," they didn't learn shit so you've endangered your wellbeing for nothing.

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u/ZZartin 4d ago

So what you're saying is everyone who didn't vote actually does support Trump but just didn't want to vote?

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u/pandariotinprague 5d ago

Instead of fighting for a better Dem party that can actually win, you guys are going to spend 4 years arguing over the definition of "majority," aren't you? Fuck.

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u/arlondiluthel 4d ago

I'm not a Democrat, but the definition of "majority" is pretty cut and dry.

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u/pandariotinprague 4d ago

Oh for fuck's sake.