Update 17 Feb 2019: It is far worse than I expected. I wonder how many saw coming the incredible chaos and indiscriminate flouting of all rules and norms (legislative and judicial). And also the spread to so many other nations.
Speaking of the spread … Canada is following similar tendencies to the rest of the world with the right wing (most of whom sound like alt right these days) unabashedly and even brazenly spouting their brand of racist and borderline fascist ideologies. The weaponization of social media is pretty much complete with all the “PROUD” sites (and similar) spouting alternate facts and outright lies to destroy Liberal politicians. It’s working (as the province of Ontario knows only too well).
In my opinion (and it is just that), history will judge Facebook and the like as a shameful scar on this decade.
Now … back to the original post …
Quite a few people chose to ignore the 2016 election in the USA or to cast waste their votes on those who had no chance. They then had the pleasure (?) of watching a populist eek out a narrow victory that was sealed by 3 swing states with margins of victory totaling fewer votes than a single alternate candidate garnered. (Actually, in two of them this is true, but in one of them the winner got a margin a bit higher than the leading alternate’s vote count). And all of this while losing the popular vote by a rather spectacular 3,000,000+ votes overall.
In other words, the victory was gifted by those who wasted their votes or held them back. (Note: The reasons are varied and nuanced, but the final result does come down to this simple act repeated many times.)
Since then, they have no doubt enjoyed watching the populist turn into a raging elitist and appoint a cabinet of billionaires with agendas. All this while ignoring the actual job in favor of pursuing adulation in rallies, minor forms of revenge (which will obviously escalate once power is fully assumed), blatant profiteering, and departmental agendas that will set the country back by a half century.
Having accomplished what they probably did not set out to do, they should now read the linked article to see the future fun (?) their collective choice may have queued up for their country. This is apparently how stories like 1984 can begin, and don’t think it cannot happen anywhere on earth because democracies have fallen many times in the past, and the very recent past in this case.
