Fannie Mae officials ousted after sounding alarm on sharing confidential data

I think the key reason is that Americans (and Brits) have been lead down the path that all politicans and government in general is corrupt and inefficient, and so it becomes which corrupt person you want in charge. Your guy or the other guy. This is, of course, due to decades of oligarch propaganda. Even otherwise intelligent people think government is the problem and libertarian market forces are the solution. Burn it (government) all down is their end game

In 2015 the democrats chose to go for the 'establishment obvious candidate' despite strong grassroots support for a more populist candidate with a clear track record of working for the best interest of the American People.

They did Bernie dirty, and were lucky to get even as many votes as they did. The email scandal immediately before the election didn't help, but that's more of an excuse for what someone was going to do anyway.

After ~10 years of the current president campaigning both in and out of office. Particularly after Jan 6th. Even more so after congress was too spineless to do their jobs for the people who elected them. NONE of what's happened since really, really, surprises me. Sadden? Disappoint? Dismay? Oh yes, all of those and more. I've been amazed at how fast all that stuff started to happen in the second term. I do totally believe that waste of carbon never read Project 2025 ; just rubber stamping what the rich supporters have asked for.

Looking back further. I'm seriously saddened the Democrats didn't do the right thing for the American People way back in 2008 / 2009. National Single Payer Healthcare. Make healthcare efficient, have competition among providers, but give every person the right to healthcare as part of the social contract and the taxes they pay.

I'm still hopeful that when the pendulum swings back the other way we can end the nightmare of all the damned paperwork and billing and having to do annoying renewals every bloody year.

That is very understandable, and the chant of "they're all the same" is common in other countries too.

But, noone was as bad a president as Trump in recent decades, as shown by his approval during the first term, so the re-election is still baffling.

The information bubble, coupled with terrible democrats' strategy, seems a better explanation of the election results, IMHO.

I agree with the corruption part. After all "drain the swap" was an effective election slogan.

The attack part is just a hyperbole. The leader of MAGA will openly call for people being jailed or primaried if they disagree.

I also get where you are coming from. I have seen this play out 3 times. A non-establishment candidate comes in promising change and removing corruption. Very good at agitation and rousing people by talking about how their government has failed them. Promising to make things better.

But once in power things take a nose dive. The candidate and the party members are even more corrupt. They believe grift and corruption is the norm so there is nothing wrong in being overly and openly corrupt.

And despite the blatant corruption supporters keep making excuses for the behavior. "At least they won against the establishment" or "at least they are in my corner" but often they cannot point to examples to how their lives are better. In most cases they either point to policies which are making lives better for a selected set of people i.e. corruption or just devolve into whataboutism along party lines.

In most cases it takes at about a decade for people to see that their lives aren't any better and this "non-establishment" candidate is even worse. By that time serious damage to the government infrastructure has already been done. There is no coming back.

Sooner or later this behavior will turn US into a third world country where government employees demand bribes openly. But hey, "both parties are corrupt" so why not have partisan and corrupt government employees too.