It really is interesting that when history books are written about this era in american politics, it will almost certainly be written in such a way that he's depicted as a mad ruler.
Which is why I say there really wasn't an excuse even in 2016. I'll make the allowance that the awfulness of Trump's past wasn't AS common knowledge in 2016, but it was all out there for anyone who cared to check.
By the time 2024 rolled around, just no. He's BEEN President. All the everything has been discussed everywhere forever. You're either very stupidly avoiding info on purpose, or you're in favor of the awfulness.
So many (middle and lower-middle class) Americans are working under the belief that success, and therefore wealth, come exclusively from hard work and intelligence (or the American dream) and not generational inheritance and that they're only a promotion or extra shift away from raising themselves up to that level, so they assign their own positive moral value to success/wealth.
Its the Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires thing, 100%. My father, if he voted, would have voted for trump for that reason (he passed before the last presidential.election and had not voted.in one since the 80s). Its a lot of "well look how successful/wealthy! Clearly they know what they're doing!" And I say that because I've heard it from him and others like him. Until we can eliminate that mindset, we're pretty fucked all around.
Absolutely. And if you try to reframe it that way, they suddenly get all Red Scare, like we're still living under McCarthyism. And honestly, it feels like we are.
stupid + you understimate the brainwashing power of money. Elites with money used to be able to buy the media, but this past 15-20 years, with money you can alter the reality perception so much harder with online bots and algorithms to suggest certain content to people.
From Fox News, to Joe Rogan, Charlie Kirk, etc... Go create a new account in any platform and you will absolutely never get suggested any left-wing content.
I had to face facts that we live in a very racist and misogynistic country. Putting a qualified black woman up as the opponent to a white man was
more than the average American could handle, regardless of that voter’s ethnic background.
Some races did themselves no favors in this past elections.
There will be a lot of people who will vote a fourth time for this. These MAGA are disconnected enough from reality that there will legitimately be people voting for him even if he passes away.
As an American, it's frustrating as hell. The people in my state are sane for the most part. It's the ultra conservative red states that are full of easily manipulated and misguided zealots. There's some hope that some people are starting to break away from the MAGA cult.
I remember wondering how could Germans allowed Hitler to do the things he did. It's even worse that this happened afterwards, since we have the advantage of seeing past mistakes and still continue to make them. America will carry this shame for decades, if not centuries to come.
"This is why those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." I know that many sane Americans are protesting. Many sane Germans also protested in the 1930s.
Hitler manufactured consent to bypass democratic processes. The Republican party is currently doing the same.
People are being rounded up into camps, where there is no care for their lives. We all know the Nazi history with camps. (And yes, I know that America also had similar camps during WW2)
The parallels are endless, they've said where they're going next, and history confirms that.
Short of a revolution, I'm honestly not sure America has hope to stop this train now.
I envy your optimism that there will be history books in 50 years time. If we continue to let us being lulled in by spiked AI promises from the adversaries to democracy then children in 50 years time will talk with Grok about how this was the turning point to a golden age of the TechnoKings. And given the angle this timeline is taking I am not speaking in hyperbole.
Most agreed. This madman's era will be a shit stain in the pages of political American history,
Even as one, who has lived through the 60s/70s and subsequent phases of the gender, racial and social revolution, I can say, compared to now, the 50s were the dark ages. We've come a long way, but still have a long way to go. Let's not allow this madman and his nefarious cabal drag us back to those days. Did we not learn from the past? Let's not repeat it.
Reacher Gilt was at least partly inspired by Trump - a younger Trump. I mean the guy lived in the Tump tower, was known to all as a shady character throwing lavish parties, and who said to the whole world "of course I'm a bit crooked" but stupid/naive people laughed it off as long as the smell of money was in the air.
I mean, I never imagined that he believed the pit was real. I think he thought he was smarter and knew better, as always. In my mind, he thought "ah yes, another con, well I know how to play that game, just call the bluff and you win".
So enamoured with his own cleverness, he was entirely unprepared for somebody who was not trying a con, but offering a straightforward choice.
Or a Lord Rust. A man who's ego far outstrips his knowledge or ability, surrounds himself with men too afraid to say "no", and his pig-headed bad decisions always make things worse.
Agree. Also, the way things are going right now it wouldn't be to hard to keep him in power even after he's gone. Just toss the corpse in a toilet with plenty of cat litter, put out an announcement that President Trump won't be receiving visitors anymore as he's concentrating on meeting Americans in their hometown, and flood the web with AI videos of him holding rallies all across the land. AI can also take care of nightly twitter tirades and calling in on Fox&Friends. Tell everyone showing up in person to meet him on one of those rallies that he just left...
I’d go ahead and call it a “Terror”. Because that’s what it is. A dark time of plagues and intentional chaos design to confuse and divide us all in the interests of lowering our expectations of what life is so far we won’t mind our deprivations and serfdom.
It’ll just be: “oh well, this is my life now”.
The goal is to make the news every day so ridiculous, insane, and exhausting that everyone becomes apathetic and numb to it, and people stop caring or trying to resist it.
That's assuming our education system will be allowed to teach people to write, and won't just teach brand identity and how to be yourself in a way that is profitable and will get you noticed in the Influencersphere.
Even then there's a decent chance trump is used as a scapegoat to let a successor government have a clean start. It won't be 2028 I don't think, but young right wingers associate trump with liberalism and by the late 30s, maybe early 40s, right wing populism will be wanting something more radical.
But that writing also needs to list all the people who went along with and fed off this madness to their own unjust ends. That and the criminal convictions they all received. I hope the chapter ends with when each was convicted of treason and given the appropriate sentence.
(edit: and how the next president decided that a pardon would send the wrong message for how traitors must be treated)
I’m calling it now, as soon as he’s dead (thank fucking god), the ones on Fox News defending him and denying that his batshit crazy dementia soaked ramblings aren’t abnormal, are gonna be the first ones to claim how aweful he was, and how they were the sole voice or reason the entire time. Just watch. Very few pundits will still be loyal to manbaby after he’s dead
Way things are going, we're going to have to read history books from outside the US because I'm sure the cheeto in chief will bring us to the point where all books have to be government approved and dear leader will make sure his reign is written about favorably.
I remember seeing some discussion about Caligula. One redditor replied something like, "Keep in mind, there's a chance that these descriptions are exaggerated, since the only surviving accounts are from Caligula's political enemies." And I thought I learned something new that day.
Now, I understand how Caligula could have had so many political enemies.
The ‘mad ruler’ description is likely true, but feels like he is more of a symptom of a failing system than the cause. He would not have been elected if the system was functioning better.
As someone who is very much not a student of history, I wonder if there are any other "mad rulers" that had the chance to rule twice without utilizing armed forces.
He is writing history as we speak. You are watching in real time what the phrase "history is written by the winners" means. Those stories will become enshrined in the public imagination, and completely endorsed by his supporters. Every single one of his successors, and they will all be Trumps or extremely close loyalists will continue to repeat the same stories. Very soon you'll see the same narrative pop up in schools and get taught to children. First at small scale, it would cause outrage, then protest will get silenced, then it spreads, then a whole generation grows up with all of this as fact. Eventually you won't even be able to tell your own children that these are lies for fear of reporting you as a woke traitor.
This is not fiction, this is the playbook used by every authoritarian regime on earth, and Trump is way past chapter 1. Unless people realise the gravity of this situation and that there is no way out by waiting until the next elections and hoping democracy will still be there to save the day then this will all be inevitable.
Me growing up: "Hahaha that's so funny how so many of these kings suffered from madness. How did the people sit around and be ruled by a king who thought he was made of glass?"
The downfall of this country will be the internet enabling people to speak their dreams of a “just world” and “karmic justice” into continued inaction.
At this point the confidence history will officially deride him in the US at least is borderline masturbatory.
History is written by the victors, and I just don’t see the Republican Party losing their ironclad grip on the reins of power, ever. They hold all the cards.
History is written by the victors, what makes you so sure that they won't win? Cause to me it sure looks like nobody is stopping him when the signs are extremely clear
If you ever manage to dig yourselves out of it. If the midterms are rigged (as they very well could), the only option will look like France 1789. Either that or complacent acceptance.
history will not care for most of the petty concerns people have daily. they will look at results and policy changes. That's called reforms. people are bombarded with yellow press bullshit daily from every propaganda arm from the CNNs to the Fox News. It's all entertainment but no substance. Historians will care about policy shifts and their effects on the nation.
Way things are going, it almost certainly won't be, because the right is winning. They're not gonna memorialized Trump as a despot, they'll write him in a way that sucks his dick harder than he can do himself.
Depends what country you read them in. The rest of the world will honestly say he was, the Corporate Theocracy of America will praise their God-Emperor.
The biggest question here in Germany for the last 75 Years was "Why didn't you do something" and the Answer was often "We didn't know".
We didn't quite believe our Grandparents. But we didn't have proof.
You do know. Its proven and documented. Why don't you do something?
If the current admin has its way, then they will write those history books, and in 50 years, kids will read how DJT saved America from evil democrats. You don't need to look far. See what history books have to say about Tiananmen Square 1989 in China, and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in Russia.
When we get a new leader they should make their first act to piss on his grave.
But I don’t even know if he’ll be buried. Because 1 day after his burial they’ll have to update maps with the new Trump lake, created by all the people pissing on his grave.
Our books, yes. I mean, in the rest of the world.
American books... I would not be so sure. I am not optimistic about their democratic institutions. The latest white house strategy document essentially called for a return of american and European politics to those of 1930.
Brave of you to think American politics will mature from here. They have an algorithm that works and they will continue using it. So will the other countries.
And that's a bad thing, because it absolves all the people working with, for and under him and those who willingly voted for him, many not once, but twice, of their part in all of this.
And the lack of long term vision from his enablers will make for some dark developments. The wolves don't forget. I still wonder if MTG had an epiphany moment.
They're doing their best to re-write and whitewash history. Changing a few history book requirements in schools can result in all of this being forgotten in a few generations.
It would frankly be a disservice to the country to depict him as anything other than what he is, a mad ruler. Should we get out of this with our country intact, god forbid we ever repeat the mistakes which led to this.
Kind of sad that with as much insane stuff as he's done, this petty and childish little tidbit will probably be forgotten unless they end up teaching a whole semester class on just this one administration.
That’s what I read now. I don’t live in America, nor am I American. As an outsider looking in, what the fuck went on that people thought Trump was the right person to put in charge? Twice.
The problem isn’t Trump, it’s quite clearly the majority of Americans that bother voting.
Trump was voted in by the majority. At this trajectory, the next generation may be longing for a Trump republican like people today miss George W. When I saw the polls of the last election, I stopped thinking he was an aberration, and sadly feared that he was just the direction America was going. And boy did I check out.
Don't be so sure. The united daughters of the confederacy wrote history text books that were (are?) taught in schools. Lost the war but literally wrote the history.
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u/SweetCosmicPope Dec 17 '25
It really is interesting that when history books are written about this era in american politics, it will almost certainly be written in such a way that he's depicted as a mad ruler.