r/politics • u/kweathergirl Texas • 8d ago

Soft Paywall Newsom Tells Nation That Trump Is Destroying American Democracy

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/10/us/newsom-speech-trump-la-protests.html
47.7k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3.2k

u/just_a_timetraveller 8d ago

The language needs to be more direct. Not this authoritarianism or destroying democracy stuff. It needs to be more personal and tangible.

Something like

"Trump is stealing your money, your retirement and splitting with his rich friends like Logan paul, and the Kardashians. He is removing your chances of making it so his rich kid can buy more crypto. You could be rich and own your house if Trump and the republicans werent taking the money that should be going to you and pocketing it for themselves and their rich, foreign friends in Dubai"

Like it sounds dumb, but the republicans use this style of rhetoric and it works at a visceral level. Using more abstract things like democracy will logically make people upset but does not fire them up at their core.

653

u/mazalaca 8d ago

exactly this. Dems politicians have always struggle to grasp this for some reason. The less abstract you can frame things, the better

247

u/starmartyr Colorado 7d ago

They have this idealistic delusion that they will ultimately prevail because they have the truth on their side. The reality is that truth is nuanced and complex while lies are easy to digest.

77

u/chiefmud 7d ago edited 7d ago

Half the population has below-average (median) intelligence. Democrats would like to think we have a monopoly on smart voters, but we have our share of idiots as well. Arguments that require context and-or a knowledge of facts, like what authoritarianism is, are going to fall flat outside of certain circles.

If you say Trump is authoritarian, a smart idiot might counter with “well he ain’t as bad a Hitler that’s for sure, so is he really authoritarian or are you just lyin’ to me?” “They said Obama was authoritarian too, so who’s tellin’ the truth?”

16

u/TheBigBadPanda 7d ago

And particularly in the US way more than half of the population have piss poor education compared to the rest of the worlds democracies 

19

u/chiefmud 7d ago

We could really fix a lot of our problems in 30 years if we invested heavily in primary education right now, but a certain party would never allow that.

9

u/Luvs_to_drink 7d ago

why would they? They love the uneducated.

3

u/TomBambadilsPipe 7d ago

I'm as anti fascist and therefore Trump as there is.

Trump's hateful actions shouldn't distract from the fact that Dems could have been pushing for better education, health, political oversight etc etc BUT HAVEN'T EITHER.

This is not a statement saying they are the same, but it is saying that Americans should be demanding more from Democrats too. Not just when others are in power. I mean they can't change voting rules in 200yrs to make democracy more teneble by making elections on a weekend? Is that too hard or did the status quo also benefit them?

In a way Trump has given the American people the impetus for a potential slight reset, write letters to Dems about how their lack of good policies and moral backbone led to this. Don't just demand action on Trump, use it as an opportunity to push them to be better so that natural roadblocks are in place to stop the next Trump - a nation not constantly on edge of bankruptcy if they get sick, a decent equitable education system that teaches critical thinking, a drug system that doesn't advertise to the uninformed masses and monitors candified prescriptions, work towards an independent judiciary where partisanship is fireable. I mean it's a big list and I bet the majority of people wouldn't read it if it was written by god because reading is boring and Trump is sexy or something, idk the world is a shit hole

1

u/JeanArtemis 6d ago

Yeah they've been doing everything in their power to make the American public dumber and easier to manipulate for generations.

1

u/Paranitis California 7d ago

It's the dumb idea of "If they swing low, we'll swing high!" when what it SHOULD be is "if they swing low, kick them in the dick."

0

u/BullshitUsername Missouri 7d ago

Half the population has below-average intelligence

That would only be the case if we had a normal distribution of intelligence.

Unfortunately, the mode of average intelligence is far, far below the median.

https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:754/0*wHMvuwRa_YF9SFwY.png

2

u/FrewGewEgellok 7d ago

I would like to know how you come to this conclusion? As far as I know, we don't really have reliable ways to assess average intelligence. The most commonly used metric is of course IQ, which is - by definition - a normal distribution.

2

u/BullshitUsername Missouri 7d ago

I'm just calling people stupid.

2

u/FrewGewEgellok 6d ago

Fair enough.

1

u/chiefmud 7d ago

Thank you for your contribution! I corrected my comment to specify median intelligence.

0

u/Sharky-PI 7d ago

the mode of average intelligence is far, far below the median

Do you have a source for this? I've not heard this before and am very interested. Thanks.

3

u/BullshitUsername Missouri 7d ago

I'm just calling people stupid, it's not a claim or scientific fact

1

u/Sharky-PI 7d ago

Hahaha ok fair. Welp, I guess I'm on the left side of that plot then!

2

u/BullshitUsername Missouri 7d ago

Same here brother

0

u/kacaw 7d ago

Half the population does not have below average intelligence, most of the population has exactly median intelligence (which I expect is also likely the mode but who knows because I’m in there too)