People didn't feel like voting for Kamala, so instead of voting for Trump they stayed home.

There poisoned by idealism.

I don't find your view unreasonable at all. Pro-Democrat people have always been crazy when it comes to losing the election to a Republican and Pro-Republican people have always been crazy when it comes to losing the election to a Democrat.

The really substantial global events such as the Zionist Genocide against the Gaza Strip and the Russia-Ukraine war are more impactful than all the bickering between the 2 parties in the USA. State agencies make plans years in advance before carrying them out so that they can dedicate state resources towards those plans. If there were to be a candidate that caused major disruption to those plans then all efforts would be made to undermine their chance of coming to power.

There's only a change in rhetoric and framing of major events depending on who wins the election. I don't live in the USA either but I remember feeling conflicted about how I would have voted were I to have lived there in 2020. Trump is outwardly a racist person who uses similar propaganda tactics as Hitler IMO. He feeds off of people's anger, scapegoats minorities, creates a sense of 'community' among his supporters to make them feel emotionally invested in supporting him, uses ingroup/outgroup politics more heavily, and creates catchy labels to attack his enemies "sleepy Joe", "crooked Hillary" etc.

Whereas Kamala Harris and Democrats in general (like Obama) are just good at honing in on the most diplomatic language possible to invoke apathy towards all injustices perpetrated by the US government, its allies and corporations. And to be honest, with me I admit that it kind of works. I remember feeling much more passionate about awful shit in the USA when Trump was president compared to Biden. I can't even imagine the rage I would have felt had Donald Trump justified the bombing of Al-Ahli Hospital by Israel compared to Biden doing the exact same thing.

Which of the two is worse is impossible for me to say, and all Dems who admonish people for voting for Jill Stein and opposing Genocide, blaming them for some imaginary people bleeding out are total clowns. The election ended up being about whether you identify more with Elon Musk and Joe Rogan or with Beyoncé. It's ok if you don't fall into either camp.

Yeah I'm in a similar space as a Canadian. Stayed relatively offline until a couple hours ago and now it's official lol. I empathize with your growing sense of detachment from American politics and what helped me come to grips with that is recently is learning that America has the most frequent elections of any country in the whole world. It's baked into their culture. They go through this cycle every 4 years like clockwork, as their constitution mandates.

The reactions both before and after the 2016 one were EXACTLY like this. Same talking points, same willful ignorance of all the horrible bullshit the incumbent dem admin did like Biden blowing up Nordstream, helping complete the border wall, deliberately stalling/defusing 1/6 investigations, aiding and abetting the Palestinian genocide, stoking the Ukraine war, shrugging at all the SCOTUS rulings rather than just packing it like the GOP did...

It's just going to be so painful and cringe to see all their fantasies about muh concentration camps and cancelled elections not come true and see them do all of this AGAIN in 2028, probably with fucking Kumla again.

I guess to get to your concern, if you're being unempathetic than I definitely am too for whatever that is worth. I used to be willing to live and let live for americans who voted for whomever because I didn't see meaningful difference and because I thought they were simply misled, but after being personally insulted and attacked and sneered at by Americans who tell you to butt out as a non-American when you stop toeing the DNC line, I kind of just said fuck 'em. I think they deliberately make the choice of "genocide over there vs over here" and dress it up with pride stickers and memes and twitter posts and Parks & Rec screenshots to make themselves feel better about only giving a shit about American lives. I'm just emotionally divesting from American politics and focusing on things that can actually help prepare me. It helps to remember that they do this every 2 goddamn years and it's not the end of the world.

I had the same feeling. I am not going to bat for Trump now or even, man is a piece of shit, but he's still a known quantity. They have had a Trump presidency before. It sucked sure, but I don't know why people are acting like he is going to declare himself emperor day 1. He has been in office, we know exactly the type of policies he would be pursuing. A couple of which I could honestly see as being good things, albeit for the wrong reasons (like if Trump actually withdrew the US from NATO, not that I expect that to ever happen).

Yet I see people seriously believing that he is going to round up all dissenters day 1 and declare martial law. ICE has been doing that already, for both flavours of administration.

They'll pay for their crimes one day.

Lots of pro-genocide, anti-immigrant and pro-natural disaster tweets suddenly coming out the woodwork from the supposed compassionate dems.

Yup. Saw a few of them already saying they look forward to buying property in ethnically cleansed Gaza/West Bank.

Also this:

They really cannot keep their masks on can they?

To them anti-fascism is just a vibe, and social justice causes just an aesthetic, a way to signal team loyalty. When push comes to shove and they get scratched, all of their feigned sympathy with the oppressed goes out the window and they become foaming at the mouth Nazis indistinguishable from MAGA.

Their true-crime fetish spills over into fantasizing about endless brown people being bombed by their own country.

You mean to say that --

• switching candidates halfway through the election

• having your replacement candidate be one of the few people somehow less popular than Biden

• having said candidate go around openly endorsing genocide

• telling leftists to ignore this, because genocide isn't really a big deal

-- isn't some kind of winning strategy to Unite the Left?

Ain't nobody stopping that train, its accelerating no matter which party's in power.