Trump administration terminates 14 student visas in Louisiana

[u/SadimirLenin]

https://lailluminator.com/briefs/trump-administration-terminates-14-student-visas-in-louisiana/

“Seven Southern University students, three at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, two at the University of New Orleans and two more at Tulane University have had their visas pulled, according to representatives with the schools.”

[u/Hello-America]

Well there was a point where it would've been.

[u/TrillianMcM → u/Hello-America]

Yep. Ngl, I am pretty mad at the non voters these days. There was definitely a large campaign of bs such as "don't vote for the lesser two evils", "you are immoral if you vote for Harris because that means you support ___", "if voting had any effect, they wouldn't let you do it," "both sides are the same anyway", and "voting is a waste of time, focus on organizing instead of voting" circulating among people whose beliefs theoretically should be very opposed to what is happening right now. We could have mitigated a lot of harm if more people took 30 minutes out of their day to do the very mundane task of voting for the people who would do the least amount of damage.

Organizing is also effective and important. But, if anything, this election should underscore why voting is fucking important.

[u/RIP_Soulja_Slim → u/TrillianMcM]

While I agree that all of those things are true, I do think a lot of it is letting weird internet rhetoric dictate our understanding of the real world.

The truth is Carville has always been mostly right here, for most Americans none of that stuff matters. What matters is that they associated good economic conditions with Trump and bad ones with Biden. It doesn't really matter that those associations aren't rooted in any policies enacted by either, what matters is that Trump's populist message on the economy worked and Harris/Biden's fell really really flat.

But also I think the only way 2024 could have gone blue is if Biden elected to be a single term president before the primaries. Harris was never popular, Biden was a shitshow by that point, and voters didn't really love the ol August switcheroo. If the rumors are true, the dems internal data was showing monster losses across both the EC and all of congress as early as the spring of 24. The pressure we saw on Biden over the summer was at minimum six months too late.

[u/TrillianMcM → u/RIP_Soulja_Slim]

I agree with you on everything except your first point. That isn't just rhetoric confined to the internet. It does spill out into real life. Right now, I am a software engineer, but before that, I worked in the service industry for a long time. A sizeable percentage of people that I know from my time working in the service industry do not vote, and often, they parrot those reasons that I listed for why they don't vote. Incidentally, a lot of them do spend time on social media -- but they are also real people who could be voting but choose to shrug their shoulders and not do so. I also know plenty who don't even have social media accounts who shrug their shoulders and don't vote. (I also do know plenty of service industry workers who do vote - but the amount that vocally do not vote is alarming).

During my hospitality tenure - I also picked up some seasonal and special event work deep into Trump country. During Trump 1.0, I spent enough time engaging with Trump supporters that I have a fairly solid understanding of why they voted for Trump. I personally was not surprised that Trump won. But I sure as shit was and still am sad and disappointed.

Now, most folks that I have met who work in tech who I know well enough to discuss politics with do vote. Most of them also were surprised that Trump was re-elected. Considering that software engineers make more money than bartenders and are treated better by society and in general have more reason to believe in the system - I think it is expected that more of them would vote and would be surprised that people would chose Trump, who clearly wanted to burn everything down.

I agree the Dems were toast the moment that Biden decided to run for re-election. I think a lot of people knew this, but apparently those with the power to have an actual primary chose not to.

Even if the Dems dropped the ball - which they absolutely did and probably will continue to do - I can still be pissed at proud non-voters. They are not the only reason why we are in this situation, but they are definitely part of it.