‘People feel drained’: anti-Trump Americans face temptation to tune out
‘People feel drained’: anti-Trump Americans face temptation to tune out
The president-elect’s first term brought a wave of protest. This time, visitors to New York’s Washington Square Park are struggling for energy to resist
Summary
Anti-Trump Americans, especially on the left, are showing a more subdued response to Trump’s 2024 reelection compared to the activism of 2016.
Exhaustion, disillusionment with repeated setbacks, and negative media coverage have led many to disengage from politics or shift focus to personal priorities.
Activist groups, like Women’s March, are planning protests but acknowledge lower enthusiasm and more localized efforts.
Experts suggest this “tune-out” may be a coping mechanism, with some hoping new, non-political participants will lead change.
Many feel drained but believe activism will eventually regain momentum.
The fuck am I supposed to do? I've been organizing, I've been to protests, I've done everything I can to head this disaster off. I'll be fine throughout this and I'll do what I can to take care of the innocents who're going to suffer, but what the fuck else is there to do? Clearly people either want this, or don't care enough to try and stop it. So, fuck it. They can reap what they sow. Maybe this will wake some of them up, or they'll all fucking die of the next big pandemic and then they won't be a problem any more.
Support mutual aid networks locally and keep moving forward. The only way we can solve this is by local support. National politics have become a distraction. Fuckit, help your neighbors and conserve your energy for those you can actually help.
Yep the best thing we can do is make our individual communities as self sufficient, independent, and secure as possible. By doing exactly what you said which eventually might create second power
It’s ok to take a break to recharge for a bit, but know that the right has been pushing on this for decades, and they only win when we stop pushing to protect people who are vulnerable and in need.
Yep. Right there with you, dude. I did my part for over 15 years. The second I heard he won, I started locking down everything I use and run online.
Come January, a lot of us are going dark, homies. Stay safe, lock up those banned books.
History is about to repeat its boots all over your faces.
Yup
It's not even about the general populace and what they want. We the people do all the groundwork for progressive politics and in the end it's our own party that ignores us and does us in. That's why I'm demoralized personally. I don't think I'll ever get fired up again for this party unless there's radical shift to the left.
Then it's not your party anymore is it
i see the new administration as a threat to governance of all kinds in the US so maybe it would be useful to preserve the work of those institutions if they are shutdown or damaged so that they can be rebooted when the administration changes
just an idea, i totally agree with your point of view
I’m sick of hearing about the asshole, and sick of hearing about him getting “slammed” by some celebrity or politician, and sick of hearing how he’s a huge threat so we need to send a sternly worded letter.
Getting upset over this is so draining, especially because there’s nothing we can do to stop him in the short term.
Getting upset over this is so draining, especially because there’s nothing we can do to stop him in the short term.
For me personally, I think the most draining part of the whole thing is that nothing was done to stop him in the 4 years he was out of power.
1,461 days, all of them spent listening to people talk about how horrible it would be if he got back into power, and yet absolutely fucking nothing was done in that time to prevent the horrible things we were warned about from happening.
The older I get and the more things I witness like Citizens United happen, the more economically rightward both parties become, the more ruthless the Republicans become to be rewarded by The Base, the more feckless the opposition becomes. The more we vote and Democrats do nothing, or just enough Republicans win to stop them. We vote and the people we vote for suddenly go "oops I was actually a consevative the whole time!" The more time passes the more I realize organized violence or riots are really are more than likely the only things that will actually change anything. The older I get though the more I realize that will never happen.
We're all far too "civil" and hope voting for the oligarch lite will save us. We're far too propagandized and are denied the only real changes we need to how we vote to stop this trend. We will have to be pushed until it's really really really bad for anyone to actually organize a revolt. By then it will be far too late.
Apathy helps the oppressor, but engagement hasn't shown to have much of a positive affect either. :/
Well pass on that knowledge then cause I'm just getting starting. We got a world to save and not a whole lot of time to save it. Do whatever you can to put rockets on the elbows of those who are oppressed and misrepresented. The time to realize the monopoly on violence, and why that is was yesterday. It is now time to disobey.
I figured this out in The Tombs in Brooklyn 20 years ago. I was the only white guy and hearing these kids talk about conspiracy theories even back then.. 9/11.. David Icke... Aliens.. etc.. I knew then "if stones get thrown, it'll be from the streets, the hungry, not the over educated upper middle class suburban whites." And also not at all surprised when people of color went hard right last couple elections bc they haven't trusted the govt ... ever..
Funny enough the conspiracy theories were how I even got interested in politics to begin with! I always had a special hatred for Bush, but after being exposed to the 9/11 conspiracies I fell down a rabbit hole, crossed paths with Infowars for a bit, and finally dug myself back out to "reality" taking a brief tour of "maybe the Democrats actually give a shit about people."
...yeah. We don't actually have a party for the working people. Things are going to have to get rough for things to change :(
Why do you believe organised violence/riots help? Not that I have good ideas, but I am pretty sure that violence will further cement Trump/GOP rule.
I think if anything the riots/strikes would be better than actual violence. Basically any direct sustained threat to their incomes will force some kind of change.. anything short of that and these people will just continue to buy elections and buy the people who run. Threats to life might make things worse, but I think the "ownership class" need to be reminded that they can only fuck around so far until they "find out." The only meaningful changes in society in relation to the owning classes came from violence.
It's reality. When civil disobedience doesn't work people don't stop, they just stop being civil.
It's honestly the Democrats that make me feel drained. They're the party that ostensibly represents my political leanings, but they've spent the last year funding a genocide, cozying up to Republicans like Liz Cheney, and abandoning the economic populism that got them elected in 2020. If they were at least winning, ignoring progressives like me would be justified, but nope! They made an 80-year-old man their candidate without holding a primary, replaced him at the last minute with a candidate who didn't even make it to Iowa in 2020, and the walked into their largest electoral defeat since...what, 2004?
Trump is vile, and petty, and cruel, and I'm genuinely scared of the damage he'll do to our country, but that's what I expect from him. The fact that the only opposition party to the fascists is this group of cowardly, selfish failures is so demoralizing. If we can't wrestle control of the party away from these incompetent geriatrics, I honestly don't know if there's any hope for American democracy.
Yeah, this exactly. I voted for Harris and I'm furious at the party for being allergic to victory. By becoming so centrist they are completely crippled. They've done absolutely jack shit for the average man and just sweep it under the rug. The Democratic party completely ignores us. It is utterly stagnant, with status-quo nominees like Hillary, Biden and Harris. I think without true progressives nominated in the future, dems will keep losing, and it doesn't even feel like they care.
This is exactly what I think. I really want to be positive, but the more time passes, the more I'm convinced that the message they'll take from this isn't, "we need to return to our New Deal roots," but, "we got too into, 'identity politics,' let's not talk about trans issues anymore."
I think the final test as to whether there is any hope left for the party is if they select Rahm Emanuel for the DNC chair. If they do, then progressives just need to move on; this party has nothing left to offer, even as a method of countering fascism. We'd be better off trying our luck with third parties than these perennial losers.
And honestly the worst part is: where is the dem leadership right now? Where has Harris been since her defeat? People should have accepted blame for this historic loss and stepped down, but instead - nothing. What the hell is this?
Not only where are they, but who are they? Is Harris still relevant in politics? Pelosi? AOC? Bernie?
Who is running things and what is their plan?
I wish I had a party that even paid lip service to representing my political leanings, but left-libertarians apparently don't exist in the US. I voted for my district's Democrat as that was the closest I was going to get this time around, but even that was a protest vote as I am in a conservative bastion. Even if the Democrat party is wrested away from the corporatists, it will be temporary and the problem will repeat
We need to pass graduated voting nation-wide so we can get some viable alternative parties in here. I would love to have viable candidates ranging the gamut from conservative to communist, as that promotes a healthy political ecosystem instead of the current monoculture two party system. Makes a blight like the Christian nationalists or the Trump cult or the "leftist" oligarchs capable of infecting large swaths of the system.
People don't feel the need to riot or protest or anything, no amount of activism could provide the painful lessons this country needs better than the chaos and ruin the incoming administration will bring
If we survive maybe we can rebuild in the aftermath, but the time to fight is probably over. Country voted for this so why not just sit back and watch the FAFO happen
That's how I've been feeling anyway, probably not the only one
I worry that by not demonstrating we're fucking around.
But I'm done, almost half of the country voted for this.
My neighbor's voted for this.
I used to want to be helpful and a good member of my community, now I just have regret for my past actions. I'm jaded.
1/3rd of voters voted for Trump, a 1/3rd voted for Harris, and a 1/3rd just couldn't be bothered to vote. It's not that Trump got a groundswell of support (he got +1million more than 2020, not a huge increase), it's that Harris didn't get the same number of votes as Biden got, she got around 7 million less votes than Biden got. It's that Democrat voters didn't turn out in the numbers they needed to.
I get the inflation and low-information voter angle, but watching Trump win by such a wide margin was just straight disheartening. At least with Hillary losing, you could complain about the electoral college and how few votes could have flipped it. Trump ran the table this time. His people showed up, and ours didn't. Democrats are completely lost. They can't craft a narrative that sticks in people's heads to save their lives. "Weird" got traction, but "weird" doesn't do shit for working people, who are struggling with no end in sight.
Plus, I'm waiting to see what happens. Trump is older and angrier, but he was always lazy. I'm hoping he spends all his time golfing and rage-tweeting while accomplishing very little. He'll cut taxes for rich people and appoint shitty judges for sure, but hopefully he gets bored quickly and focuses on personal grift over wrecking the country long-term.
My concern is more the host of ghouls following him in with a plan this time around. They'll destroy our institutions and feast on the corpses to fatten themselves even more. The damage George W Bush did to government organizations by outsourcing to private industry will seem like small potatoes.
Trump doesn't need to do much because he's got a whole team behind him to get things done. He's just some shitty Trojan horse
Yup. He'll sign anything they put in front of him.
Trump was semi-ineffectual during his first term because he was an outsider candidate. It was Jeb’s turn to get the RNC nod, but Trump won and spent the first year plus of his four trying to wrestle power from the entrenched Republican establishment and define his own administration and agenda.
Not anymore. We’re still weeks away from Jan 20 and the Republican talking heads are already murmuring about recess cabinet appointments. He’s got the party wrapped around his finger, and loyalists running the RNC, complicit Supreme Court, a House majority leader in his corner, and an affable Senate majority leader.
I hope he gets distracted trying to unfuck the effects of his policies or bogged in culture war distractions, but honestly there’s a lot of damage he can do solo as the chief executive.
Hard to blame them. It's exhausting to keep up and fight with the crazy and stupid. Because to them it's no effort.
Merrick Garland and the $upreme Court slowly snuffed out any hope for America with a pillow over her nose and mouth
He's not even fucking in office yet. I think what's really irritating the media is we aren't all resubscribing to papers again. Sorry guys, this ain't 2016 and we're not going to handle it the same way we handled 2016.
Personally, I'm buying electronics and appliances now so that I don't have to face his dumb tariff price hikes, and I've renewed my passport.
If you're a person who might need to run for one reason or another, an updated passport is a great idea.
Temptation? I've already gone to "fuck it - burn it to the ground". There's not fuck-all I'm going to do at this point that is going to make any difference.
Of course people are tuning out. Please keep in mind I am saying the following as a mostly liberal slightly libertarian.
What has passed for liberal culture over the last decade has included an awful lot of outrage over every injustice but not an awful lot of solid action to correct those injustices. The Democratic party has tried to harness that with a lot of identity politics that avoid the real issues. And so the result is you have a ton of people who are always upset but things never get better.
So of course people burn out. Or they get cynical and decide nothing is going to change so it's not worth getting worked up over. You see a lot of that in this very thread.
To anyone angry at me, downvote me if you want, but if you want change actually fucking do something. Stop consuming short form content like Twitter and TikTok, start consuming long form things that make you think and expose you to different viewpoints. Lex Friedman interviews are a good place to start.
Understand that not everybody who disagrees with you is bad or evil or malicious.
Very few issues are simple. There is rarely an absolute obvious right and wrong. And if somebody adopts a viewpoint you think is wrong, consider that maybe they have reasons they think it's right and use those reasons to challenge your own beliefs. You may conclude that they are still wrong, but you must be open to the possibility that you might be wrong. If you aren't open to being wrong, why should they be?
And in the world where nobody can admit they are wrong, nothing productive happens. You just have two sides shouting at each other.Then take a step back from your own personal outrage and think about what is actually important. If you had to choose between ensuring every American has good health care, and ensuring every American has their pronouns recognized, which do you think is more important? So which one are you focusing your advocacy and speech on?
The simple fact is, if you (and I am addressing everybody on all sides here) stop getting riled up over wedge issues and start focusing on the things that The majority of the country can agree on, you might find there's an awfully big agenda of problems we all agree should be fixed that aren't even being discussed.
Rules for us not for them
Based take, also great comment
It's a shit take and here's why:
At no point in the past 30 years have the Democrats been able to do anything because of the filibuster even when they controlled both houses of Congress. The only thing that's held us back from moving any policy to even remotely the left is the Republican obstructionism and that's it plain and simple
I’m 41. I’ve been involved with activism since I was 20. Things keep getting worse. Time to try something different.
I’m also trying to shift my views to be more like Carlin, where I stop caring about what happens.
40 here. Been watching it slide downhill for 20 solid years now. Just getting more and more absurd. I'm done. I"ll be doing the ignorance is bliss thing from here on out so I can try to enjoy myself a little. I don't really care about Americans anymore. Too stupid.
What things have been getting worse?
are showing a more subdued response
...That's because, if you're smart, you keep your responses off public channels. Didn't anyone learn anything from January 6? Don't fucking plan in public.
A few of my friends went full-on lockdown mode the second he won and I heard a rumor or two of people buying up hard drives.
I think a few people are going to spend four years offline.
What's wrong, people don't want a 24/7 news cycle of all the stupid shit Dumpster will say and do!?
You mean our media system pushing to have the Orange One elected to increase their ratings could backfire!?
I could only hope people stop paying attention and paying money for the corporate spun garbage we call news.
There was so much less CNN blaring in my parents house after Biden was elected. It was nice. I'm not eager to return to that.
media 'fairness' sane-washed trump's reality.
we're all going to suffer.
The Dems raised billions for the election and lost. What did I receive after donating thousands of dollars to them.
Pleas for more money. Give us just a little bit more money and we will finally do something.
I’m done. We should fight the fascists but the corporate democrats have been completely captured. They only know how to raise money and hand it to consultants that will tell them to parade around Liz fucking Cheney.
I’m not paying them to slide further and further to the right anymore.
Until Democrats stop being Republican-lite, they'll never learn. And this is what they get. Apathy and disillusionment.
What are we supposed to do? We tried, this one had no ambiguity. If this is what people want, so be it. Gonna suck though so I’m spending my efforts on bracing myself for what’s to come.
We tried, this one had no ambiguity.
I disagree. There is ambiguity to be found. The ambiguity cannot be found in why Trump won. He has a cult and inflation is a thing. But there exists ambiguity in why Harris lost. I do not believe in the notion that Americans are so hell-bent on fascism that they overwhelmingly support Trump and everything he does. I think Harris lost because she moved to the right and failed to meaningfully differentiate herself from an administration that inspired so much apathy that Biden himself said that he didn't care all that much if he lost.
nah, I don’t attribute it to malice, I attribute it to stupidity and ignorance.
I think we are just at the "fine, let them stick the fork in the outlet" stage, and if that leads to 50 years of hard times and being on the evil side of the next great war.....oh fuckin well...we told you so.
Yep, that's pretty much it. I look at the results of the election and wonder why we bothered to fight so hard to save America from it's own worst impulses. There's never a shortage of people willing to vote against their own self-interest. The second coming of Trump could, and should, be a new era of social Darwinism that cleans up the clueless electorate with some hard fucking times. People who are withdrawing from politics right now and "tuning out" are just focusing on not being a casualty, and I can't blame them. At some point, you have to let the drowning person go or they'll drag you down with them.
I'm totally prepared for whatever the next 4 years have in store for me. If Trump blows up the economy, I'll survive. Best of luck to everybody else.
Yup. Pretty much feel the same way.
Americans want to suffer. Now they're going to suffer. I'm going to let them. I'll survive. I have a stable job and live in a state that protects my rights. I'm totally fine watching the people who voted to suffer do so. They'll either learn from the hard experiences or not. I'll find joy in watching them do either. I could care less now.
i'm preparing mentally for the potential of a civil war ok. I need to be ready to bear the costs of the conflict, if it happens.
anyway, politically in the next four years we need to start building something we can't just sit here and pretend that the DNC will unfuck itself and stop being incompetent half the time, and we also can't pretend that abstaining from voting is going to fix things.
We need to be doing things, which for some reason, people really hate.
There is no help coming. The best thing to be doing now is logging out and getting structures in place to support your community.
Building community locally. Find the people doing good things around you and help them.
"Look for the helpers"
I honestly don't care anymore.
We just failed the most blatant test we could possibly be given. Americans are hopeless. Take the politics and politicians out of the equation and you've still got an abundance of stupid Americans. That story doesn't end well regardless of other factors.
We simply aren't intelligent or responsible enough as a whole to maintain a democracy.
I'll be going with the "ignorance is bliss" strategy at the end of this calendar year. I'll probably still vote in local elections, but I'm done on the federal level. Too many stupid Americans for me to keep trying to care on a large scale.
We're going down. The only question is the speed at which it will happen.
I live in California, so I'll be able to maintain rights while others elsewhere lose them. And at this point, I have so little faith in Americans that I simply can't bring myself to care about them anymore.
Pretty much the majority of Americans.
This is a damned shame to say the least but I’m as guilty as anyone.
My own ostrich coping mechanism has been long term personal goals and wondering what I’ll do when I can no longer work and SS is gone.
It’s put me in a shitty state of mind lll admit, and I have no excuses. Overwhelmed is a statement of fact, not an excuse.
Exactly, focus on the controllables in life. I did the 1 thing I could which was vote and combat mis/disinformation when I saw it. The dumb won. I just gotta stay nose to the grindstone for my career and watch this shit show unfold. People are too dumb to vote for taxing billionaires and fixing our shitty healthcare and education systems because eggs cost too much. It's not my fault they can't be bothered to read and vet their information sources.
Nope. This is the correct response. Democrats need to relax, because they work too hard to craft intelligent messages while the other side calls them names like a four year old and sells ugly ass shoes and watches all while desecrating the flag because a billionaire asking for more money makes perfect sense to some people...
Democrats need to dumb down their messaging. Comedy vs the next president needs to be slapstick level with focus on doing makeup in the morning, eating McDonald's, and farting. Explanations for things like tariffs need to be laid out on TikTok so anyone at or below a 6 grade comprehension level can understand.
Democrats need to dumb down their messaging.
Yup. Stupid wins in America. Next election (if there is one), Democrats need to run the dumbest, most emotionally charged, lying bullshit they possibly can. Because that's what wins in America. Fabricated, emotional bullshit.
They need to find their version of "Immigrants are eating people's pets in Springfield, Ohio".
Americans are dumb. You have to play to that to win.
they tuned out years ago. that's why he's president again. who even cares about anything at this point? fuck it.
The people who are tuning out now are the ones who are active during the elections. We exhausted ourselves trying to get someone we didn't really believe in elected president against someone we truly feared. And it was all for nothing because the Democratic party is incapable of appealing to the lower class.
I suspected we were in trouble when Kamala Harris embraced the endorsement from that absolute turd bag Dick Cheney and his equally shit daughter Liz. I saw Hillary try to pull the same stupid strategy back in 2016. They keep trying to lure Republicans to the Democratic side and it never never never works. Republicans do not care how "fiscally responsible" you tell them that you are. They will always vote for the person with the (R) next to their name. And while the Democrats are doing that they are repelling just everyone on the left. Especially those who are poor and don't give a shit how fiscally responsible you are they just want a break.
And now I really don't have any faith in the Democratic party at all. I don't think they're as bad as Republicans but they sing their songs to the same tunes the Republicans do. Just with different lyrics.
the Democratic party is incapable of appealing to the lower class.
Anyone to whom Cheney is appealing is of appallingly low class.
Oh, you mean economic class.
And this is why the right well always win. They go for what they want till they get it. How long did they fight to repel row vs wade?
Row vs wade... Funny.
I totally understand feeling worn out but I know there is light at the end of the tunnel if unite and work together. In 2025 there are going to be local elections. These local elections really matter because they decide who will run your community. In 2026 the House and some Senate seats are up for election along with some governess. That election I think will determine the fate of this country. We must come back stronger than ever vote out all the corrupt politicians who oppose our democracy.
No this is just the liberal establishment demonstrating their aggressively "meh it won't really affect me" attitude. If you are in a left wing organization, more people are showing up and joining and participating than in years. DSA membership increased like 25% just since the election, in an org that was losing members. Not everyone is checked out, some people are very active.
If you aren't connected to an org, go to meetings and join one, pay dues if you can! If you don't know where to start, just ask! Answers will probably vary by area and some people are more isolated but there's still lots that can be done, even if you're stuck at home.
yeah please tune out to make sure he gets zero pushback whatsoever. I mean it worked to get him elected president, why not advance to godking?
Next step, emperor of mankind
Scratch a liberal and they abandon you to the fascists I guess
How dense are you? People are just tired from decades worth of having corporations and wealthy elites push the middle and lower class into the ground.
Me too. Rolling over won't help
This has more to do with people feeling unrepresented in a FPTP-voting system polarizing the country to the extreme. Between that and wealth-inequality trouble is brewing.
I'm going to go ahead and respect democracy. Trump won fair and square. He should be able to implement his policies because that's what the majority wants.
I'm afraid that his policies will be unethical, illegal, and un-American with no checks and balances. I can't do anything about it now though; I already voted as blue as I could.
So yeah.. I'm ready to say fuck it for the next term and hope that he gets stuck on things that slow him down (like laws already on the books that can't be easily ignored, and pressure from other world leaders)
Im not sure un American really qualifies anymore. This is America apparently.
Wants? The people who voted for him don't even know what they want. Didn't know what tariffs were. Say they are constitutionalist but then say they want a Christian nation. Say they want to get rid of pedos then make one the president and a lot into Congress.
The people want to survive and be able to afford to live, and some of them got duped into thinking a parasite would do that for them.
The rest are just simply racist or hate gays and trans and will vote a monster in to hurt them, even to the detriment of themselves and others.
If he did it legally and without simultaneously pilfering the coffers for his own gain then I would agree with you. However, everything he does is a violation of the law and for his own enrichment.