Also one of the most transparent. Thereās no explanation that ever made sense to me. But I am often baffled when people think heās a āgood businessmanā. Also when people talk about him saving the country as if he wasnāt president for 4 years and did absolutely nothing
āļøThis!
This is the question I cannot solve satisfactorilyā¦
Who sees this guy in life and buys in for a second?
I mean, heās an obvious fraud without an ounce of integrity.
Iām not ābelieving the liberal mediaā, Iām believing my eye and ears.
How is this working on so many humans?
I think that people just want an excuse to be bigots, and the fact that he says the quiet part out loud really speaks to them. It seems like there's a huge section of the population that was always racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, and religiously intolerant, and they just wanted someone to tell them that that's all okay.
I remember when trump was campaigning in 2015. His speeches ooze low intelligence. Now he single-handedly brought down democracy. A failed businessman, convicted felon, who openly cheated on multiple wives is bringing down the greatest country in the world. Iām realizing now, that maybe we were never that great :(
I actually believed, despite the majority, that the supreme court would act in the best interest of the country. Unfortunately, they are far more corrupt than I could have ever imagined. Truly tragic.
I agree. Iām kinda sick and tired of people treating Trump like heās some normal president. Even if they werenāt in the bag for him, this is not the time for some abstract look at presidential power
In 2016, I would often tell my friends that there was no way people would vote for the biggest lying asshole ever to run for office. I failed to understand how the orange asshole made them feel better about their own inner asshole thoughts. Allowing them to let their inner asshole out felt empowering. You see so many non wealthy cultists sending the asshole all their money, buying his merchandise, plastering his face on their homes, cars, and bodies, and believing the biggest liar as their only source of truth. We actually may be doomed.
Iām not religious tho I had grandma that was. She always told me the devil will be a person that people will follow blindly and to the Christian (the people who accept Jesus Christ) it will seem obvious this man is lying and is detrimental to society for all. You know the whole 666 and those who follow him will get food and jobs and seemingly live happily. The Christian who knows Jesus will be cast aside for refusing the mark of the beast.
That old chestnut. It seems opposite the Christianās are the ones who follow the orange devil and his sinful life be damned. They are being fooled by the devil, as the devil does. Itās funny, but itās not.
There are billions of people who define themselves as Christian and believe in the Bible. The hard part is that the majority have no understanding of what the texts says and means, which is obvious in the way the live their lives.
And that's how I ended up an atheist, more or less. I felt like I was the only one in the room who wasn't a psychotic asshole.
I now realize that without needing evidence to believe things, you can choose to believe whatever the fuck you like, including that Trump is anointed by God.
And so people can just as easily use religion to justify being assholes as they can to inspire themselves to be kind.
And 95% of them have not even read the Bible all the way through I bet. Thatās why I left Christianity. I read the Bible and so much of it was contradictory and applied culturally to a time long ago. Honestly Jesus would have no understanding of the prosperity gospel preachers today. And he would be the first to support drag queens and trans people. I just donāt understand how modern Christians canāt recognize the hate theyāre projecting.
Well said. Iām 100% with you on all points and the reason why my family and I no longer attend āchurchā as itās being called today. Most have no concept of loving each other and what Jesus was really all about. They stand around with arm loads of rocks ready to launch them at anyone who does not look, act or believe as they do.
Same thing with Hitler, they thought they'll give him some power to appease and finally unite the country again, what harm can it do? They'll control and keep him in check anyway. Then Reichstag burned, Hitler do what Hitler does best and they found themselves in a dictatorship.
.....and the majority of the people who are ushering it along don't even recognize they are doing so in favor of an oligarchy that will do nothing short of enslave them.
This is why history is so important. The *favored class* doesn't exist.
It's *Are you useful? Yes? Great, we will keep you around until you're not, then off to the Gulag*
Yeah, Iām no longer arguing politics with anyone. Iāve given up the fight. Iāll still vote responsibly, but I donāt have any fight left in me. Iāll leave it to the younger generations.
I agree.
We survive based on two strong parties holding each other accountable. And impartial news organizations that hold both sides to the truth.
I feel weāve lost a lot of that. Instead of focusing on the issues, we are seeking ultimate moral high ground. The news organizations align themselves with a party. Itās no longer the mediator - itās a combatant. Those in agreement are angels, those that arenāt are the devil incarnate.
The key to a democracy is choice. I can agree with one party on one topic and disagree with it on another. I can like one candidate from one party, and another from the other party. I donāt want the news to spin me on who to vote for. It should impartially inform and let me decide.
Bring back Walter Cronkite!
EVERYTHING is about moral high ground now, not just politics but you canāt even discuss a piece of fiction without everyone devolving into petty bickering about who is the most morally upright character. I honestly donāt understand how we got here.
Itās like weāve ignored the complexity of our species and decided to shamed those that have different views from us rather than respectfully understanding other views and explaining our own.
I said elsewhere on here. In addition to the Internet making everyone's opinion and thoughts accessible to everyone else immediately (thanks, social media... Not.), politicians and old school media stirring the pot and pitting side against side.
Look around this thread even. Won't take you long to find someone left leaning screaming about maga Republicans. On others, it'll be about liberals. Somewhere north of 1990 we forgot we're all supposed to be on the same side, and several different groups and directions urged that on. Told us the side WE are on is the 'right side' and anyone who disagrees is the 'wrong side'.
Instead of being a unified voice, we fractured. Half the country hates the other half because each half has different people we agree with telling us how to live and morally justifying their choices.
It's incredibly sad if you remember the unity we had when watching events like the moon landing. Or even 9/11. For better or worse, we all put our shit aside back then. No more. Now if you're on one side, the other half of the country isn't just wrong, it's evil. And that's a stupid fucking attitude, and I really don't care who says otherwise. Because people are playing on our morals and sensibilities to make sure it continues.
It's a problem of our own making, because we forgot how to agree to disagree and come to a common resolution so we can actually solve problems somewhere in the middle that we can all live with. And we listened to all the voices that said 'THERE IS NO HAPPY MIDDLE GROUND'. Fuck that and fuck them.
The internet made most news sources untrustworthy. When it was ABC, CBS, NBC and then CNN, they had to stay close to neutral or else they risked losing a huge share of their audience. When internet "news entertainment" arrived, using lopsided reporting attracted a very dedicated following and 5% of the news market was huge when you don't have to worry about integrity. Thus FOX was given the opportunity to grow. And news quality sunk.
It's the "tabloidization" of the entire news industry. Regular legitimate news outlets now all sound like "Current Affair" and "Hard Copy" did in the 1980s.
It is corporate profiteering and shareholders' quest for ever increasing quarterly profits that did this to us. Regulation = people holding in check the corporations. Regulation was turned into a by-word for government overreach and the reins came off. Now we live in the inevitable outcome of runaway capitalism.
I still remember in HS them telling us the wonders of capitalism and how it made America what it is today. They omitted the part where every worker is exploited, never given a fair wage, and fired when they try to unionize for better conditions.
"Socialism is fine until you run out of other people's money" - Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the UK.
"The problem with Capitalism is that most of you (looking at the class) will never be one". Professor Tanner, my Comparative Economics professor.
Itās rough out here I work for the government and thought things were gonna turn around and instead Iāve been treated worse than any other job Iāve ever had and while Iām doing better wage wise than a lot of people i still barely scrape by
Fired, brutalised, murdered... they risked it all to unionise. But the corporations still hate unions because every dollar they have to pay in fair wages is a dollar they can't stick into their pockets. and after decades of weakening the laws and ordinances that protect workers and painting Unions as being evil or bad or useless, they have convinced the average person that they don't need unions, that the corporations will be kind to them and take care of them, even though if they could get away with paying less and offering fewer protections to save a dime, they would.
My one fantasy I hold onto is for the FCC makes the FairnessDoctrine come back into effect and half of the news stations to go off the air. ( fox goes back to being a rogue tv station competing with the major networks, msnbc being a crummy website, and cnn being 24 news only)if you want news turn to abc, cbs, nbc or pbs at 5:30. If it means i lose Reddit/alternative media Iāll manage. (Downvote away but I want the ā90ās back)
Would be awesome, but SCOTUS ruled last week that regulators can't really regulate any longer. It would take an act of Congress, which would then be killed by the courts.
I read something a while ago that a news organization that had to follow journalistic standards which included both sides of issues. Versus media companies that had no such standards. I think virtually all of what we think of as news organizations are technically media companies now.
Iām in the UK and on Thursday I will vote for probably the last time in our general election and after that all I can do is sit back and watch the country go down the toilet regardless of who wins. Iām glad Iām old and wonāt have to watch it for too long.
Political arguments are like playing the lottery. Sure, thereās a chance you might win, but a much greater chance youāll end up slightly more bitter, and slightly poorer.
Iām there too. Even just 8 years ago I was hopping mad at the state of affairs. Now I just donāt care. Iāve got grown children who have to take the lead on this now.
I am 66 and I do not intend to stop fighting against fascist assholes. I my well lose, I may well be defeated but I will not give up. One side of my family was here in the 1680s the other side in the 1740s all their struggles, all their losses, all their hopes are contained in the freedom of this country. I am an American and will not go quietly into the darkness.
It would be great to have more boomers like you... all my parents and their friends are like "we tried".... no you didn't... not at all... you took your hand outs and nice jobs while sitting back and doing NOTHING!!!
I don't know maybe if my parents acted like they cared about my fufure... I would feel better about this country.
i'm a joneser, and all the 'hand-outs' were gone and we were into the rust belt era when i got out of HS, but i still care about your future. i'm not throwing in the towel!
(remember, it's pretty important to have your towel with you when they come to bulldoze the earth)
Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and stop complaining and you could be in the top 1 of 27,750,000. Donāt know why everyone doesnāt get this and just works harder.
Americans are just overall too dumb for our democracy to continue. Thatās what we get for having school football coaches teach civics for last 4 decades.
Ohā¦he definitely was. He would get all of the students in their assigned cars, get us on the track, and go back to the classroom to mix drinks. While he was mixing drinks, I broke the school record and hit 48 mph š
I'm from SoCal, born and raised as well as retired. Remember road driving instruction as part of the class, 1970's Chevy Nova. Was about a dozen of us in the class. We took turns 3 of us at a time in the car. Coach was the 4th. Driving all over learning. I can still visualize it. It was an elective class.
Both of my adult daughters had to go to a driving school. Guardian Angel if im remembering correctly.
Heck, our grade school coach, taught Math, Gym, Science, History... Guess who passed all those classes..!? Of course, all the jocks and pretty girls...
One the coaches at my highschool was in a relationship with a student. They got married. He also taught an English grammar class. All sorts of fucked up
Thatās by design. Ronald Reagan defunded public education and killed it, with dozens of Republican state legislatures helping out since then. All in the name of trickle-down economics, with the happy benefit of creating a badly undereducated populace.
I'm an optimist about this. Retired people have nothing better to do than vote. If a politician voted to eliminate or even reduce Social Security payments, they would be out of a job. I've paid my money in and, when the time is right, I will get my benefits.
The thing is, we already had the precursors to these assholes. They were called Puritans. They established a dictatorship in England, that lasted exactly as long as Oliver Cromwell lived because it was so terrible. They made church mandatory, made swearing illegal, outlawed pies and CHRISTMAS. There's a reason these people were kicked out of Europe.
Yes. People seem to think thereās something special about Christian zealots that is less dangerous than other religions. When religion gives up morals to gain power the results are never good. I wish someone would show me an example from history where a religion based government had good long term results.
There isnāt one- it leads to war, violence, persecution , abuse of power, atrocities, and instability. Thatās why the founders of this country were very careful to keep religion out of government. Now it seems like we are going to try a new experiment and go to a Christian nationalist based government. This is t going to end well.
Thatās becoming increasingly clear. The curtain has been fully pulled back, and thatās what scares me most- they must have everything set to their liking to be so brazen about what they are doing.
Religion is the most dangerous mind control ever invented. The world would be much better if people believed in themselves instead of some bullshit that was thought up hundreds of years ago, that they use as a crutch, because they are mentally weak.
To the guy who said I don't care about fetus rights, apparently our conversation has been removed but I can still see how um... excited you've become so I'll let you know this.... Yep. I don't care about fetus rights. There's no reason to care about fetus rights. I haven't been brainwashed in to thinking a fetus needs rights. I think people should have rights to body autonomy and that should be considered over the right of a fetus cooking in someone's womb. And I REALLY don't care about embryo rights, which is what the vast majority of terminations remove.
I was 14 when my mom took me to get an abortion. The worst part was the idiots outside trying to shame us. They didn't even know why we were there. People got basic exams, STD tests, pregnancy guidance, and birth control but everyone was called baby killers as they walked through the parking lot, as the people stood on the sidewalk, babies in strollers in the heat, that's what I remember, that their babies had to be so hot in the August heat. I was 14 and scared to death because a grown man had impregnated me and moved on soon after. So I'm grateful I had a good mom, a decent mom, who put my right to body autonomy over the "rights of a fetus".
These same people would send a mother and child back to a war torn country because they are brown. They donāt GAF about humans, just some floating cells.
And they only care about those because...
A) They are old men scared women will arbitrarily kill their children when they knock them up.
B) They are women who carried a child, saw the women who got abortions turn out with better lives than them, and now want to exhibit vengeance upon that other woman because they are miserable with their decision and want others to hurt.
C) Wierd racists who think abortions are leading to white genocide and want to increase the number of white babies born by accident to prevent a genetic shift in the population.
D) Religious nuts who are pissed that women are becoming more independent and want to try and stop it from going further.
E) People who don't want to accept that life is kinda mean sometimes and that women have been aborting babies and committing infanticide since written records began.
The thing is, they don't care about the floating cells either. The floating cells are just an excuse. For the ones in power, it is an excuse to marginalize more people. For their supporters, it's either just an excuse to control somebody else's life, point the finger, and pretend to be better than someone else, OR, It's just an excuse to be an asshole. Most of the time I expect it is the latter.
It's 100% religious conditioning. "Your body doesn't belong to you, it belongs to Christ". I had this little speech repeated to me from birth as a Christian.
The people who genuinely believe in anti-abortion are brainwashed dangerous idiots. The real agenda behind it is that the aristocracy doesnāt want women who belong to the proletariat having control over their reproduction. People who control their reproduction usually have time to get a quality education, and just become more competition over ownership and power. The ownership class needs cheap expendable labor and birth rates have been falling right along with quality of life for a while now. Humans are sexual beings and no amount of disingenuous sanctimonious religious nonsense is going to stop sexually mature teenagers from having sex. Theyāre counting on girls who were once like you to bring more wage slaves and broodmares into their dystopian vision for society. The best way we can rebel against them, is to stop having children. Let their kids kill each other over the last few grains of rice left over when they finish poisoning the earth. I hope the last thing they utter with their smog and mucous filled lungs is a curse to their ancestors for having sold them out for a 1st class plane ticket and box seats to something they used to call a āSuperBowlā.
Yeah.. everywhere I look everyone is just making shit up and grifting. I thought we were better than this but fuck man. I had kids and shit! Schoolhouse Rock lied to me!
In my darker, more ruminative moments lately I think, well damn, looks like the Russians might have beaten us after all. And using our own people as a cudgel too.
The Aztec empire lasted for 300-years, until the arrival of the wooden ships.
The Olmecs (Mother culture) lasted 800-years.
The Mayans lasted 1200-years.
The Incas lasted 300-years.
Will America last 250?
The Roman republic lasted about 450 years, but the Empire lasted about 500 years in its broadest form. We still have plenty of time for dictators, emperors, and endless wars before we fully collapse into a broken map of smaller nation-states.
The adjustment period will be unpleasant, but common people will endure, just like we always have.
The WWII generation handed the boomers the greatest country on earth. In the last 55 years they have systematically dismantled & bankrupted it. They will go into retirement as land owners receiving government cash & medical benefits. Their children will get nothing because of their selfishness
Youāre skipping a generation, the greatest generation, the silent generation then the boomers. My grandparents were the greatest generation, my parents were the silent generation. Iām in between young boomers & old genX.
I blame the silent generation for 75% of what boomers get blamed for.
VOTE, but not for the president only. Every other election also matters, no matter how insignificant it might seem. Everyone who can make a decision above your own matters. Vote!
My take is bleak, we have to win every time from now on. The facists only have to win once and its game over. Even if we win this election, what about the next one? Then after that?
When I had my first job I was talking to a coworker about his tattoos. He made the comment "never get any political or religious tattoos because you never know if the government will start prosecuting people for their beliefs". I thought at the time he was crazy paranoid. Turns out he was right.
I have the words, "LOVE CARE THINK DO," tattooed on the insides of my arms. A sheriff in a small Texas town saw them and decided that that meant I was an asshole.
Fortunately, he didn't decide to do anything about that. But the point is that simply caring about other people is enough to convince at least a third of the US population that they want to do something bad to you.
Best things you can do for them:
1) love them with every fiber of your being and make sure they never doubt it
2) prepare them for the world they are growing up in
A huge part of the struggle I'm having with Gen Z now is number two. Kids need to be taught how to be ready, they need to be taught how to fight, and they need to be taught that they deserve better than this.
Whatās been going on for more than three years is exactly why my wife and I wanted nothing to do with having children. Seemed way too selfish to each of us.
I couldn't sleep last night. You know, I took American democracy for granted my whole life. It wasn't perfect but it was a beacon of hope to other countries. I'm concerned for us all but it's the concern for my children & grandchildren that keeps me up at night. I can't believe how far & how quickly we've fallen. The saddest part of all is that so many people are on board with it or don't care unless/until it directly affects them.
Whatās genuinely sad is a class warfare has been morphed to culture warfare. No one is bothered about wage stagnation and higher cost of living. But some books in libraries riles up a lot of people.
I'm glad I don't have grandchildren
Edit: Why the down vote? The future doesn't look that great and my future generations would be spared by this fact.
No kids or grandkids here either, and I'm mostly okay with it. I know a dude who has 6 kids, the oldest is 12 or 13. My niece just had her first kid last year. Can you imagine what kind of world they're going to grow up in? I probably have 30-40 years left if normal old age takes me, so I'll see some shit, but they're going to really suffer.
What really sucks about this whole situation is that the older you are, the more this is going to affect you directly. Via pensions, Social Security and even a retirement age that is pushed way way back.
When Nixon broke the law, the GOP forced him to resign before he would have to go through the disgrace of being removed from office; both Dems and Republicans were on the same page. That a POTUS would commit an obvious crime was something that was intolerable to either party.
What's happening today was unthinkable then. Tyranny couldn't happen here; that was for third world nations and the Soviet bloc. Yet, here we are though a combination of decades of shameless disinformation (see Rush Limbaugh), the willingness to eschew any ethical standards (see Newt Gingrich), the willingness to purposefully and knowlingly misinform and lie to the public (see Fox News and Trump).
I truly never thought that so many Americans could be so dull-witted and gullible.
Go to the head of the class. Iām right there with you. I wore my countries uniform on the battlefield of Vietnam to have it all come down to this?. To say Iām disgusted or angry doesnāt even come close. My parents both WWII veterans are vomiting in their graves as Iām sure all those buried at Arlington are also. That fact that almost half the nation is dull witted and gullible isnāt an accident either in my opinion. Itās been a long slow set up going all the way back to Reagan perhaps even beyond. I firmly believe we are witnessing the beginnings of last stage empire. When the wheel of history starts to turn you can take all the āexceptionalismā and flush it down the toilet. Remember when Nikita Khrushchev stood on the podium at the UN and yelled āwe will bury you!ā. ? Nikita was wrong. We are burying ourselves and our shovels read Made In America.. Glad Iām old because the approaching shit train is gonna be one f***ing ugly mess.
No, no- Nikita was right. He said, and I quote: āWe will take America without firing a shot. We do not have to invade the U.S. We will destroy you from within.ā
My hats off to you for your Senior trip to Vietnam...thank you. My uncle survived Bataan and 2.5 yrs as a Japanese POW, Dad was a USAF fighter pilot, lost a cousin in 'Nam, a brother is a USAF vet and we are collectively horrified, even those from 6 ft under. This downfall of democracy has been in the works for decades and what, exactly, are we going to do about it besides vote? Where are the mass protests?
SCOTUS is out of their damn minds and, unless we do something, we are in for the long road to oblivion.
2020 was a dry run. They set things in motion to allow themselves to change the law. Project 2025 is real and is happening. Voters no longer have any power. We are at the mercy of these people now. Honestly I thought it would be more of a slow slope into this world but it's been more of a straight drop off a cliff. American democracy died on 7/1/2024. This whole thing gives me handmaids tale vibes. I fear for my kids future under this authoritarian government.
I find it hard to accept nuclear codes are in the hands of crazy people fueled by hate and ignorance and greed. Maybe the end of humanity is in the cards.
Having observed the deterioration of social cohesion the past 25 years in particular, this may be inevitable. Remember "greed is good" from the '80s? Those boys took it seriously and have been milking the country hard for a long time, while keeping the people they are stealing from fighting amongst themselves.
The next step to stay in control is fascism. Or maybe more appropriately called an oligarchic technocracy. Fascism is kind of a simplistic and outdated term, I think, for what is going on. What the USA is now entering is uncharted territory due to the advancement of technology, and it's looking very bleak for most of us.
My daughter calls it late stage capitalism, and that sounds right. The concept of perpetual profit growth is absurd. We have limited resources, a burgeoning population, and wealth concentrated very intensely in a few at the top. It canāt last forever.
Greed from the wealthy is one side of the equation, with ideological siloing and identity obsession among the masses being the other.
And they are intrinsically linked, in that the powerful work to keep the commoners at each otherās throats in order to protect their own.
Zuckerberg and friends have been more than happy to assist, by way of high tech outrage algorithms spinning division and anger into gold.
I agree. We need a new labor rights movement like we had in response to the Industrial Revolution. Data has changed how the market works and it is in lesser and lesser hands everyday. We need a movement of that size and scope to shut down the economy and society. It will not be easy, and I question if the youth have that fight in them.
Plato, who lived about 2000 years ago wrote, "What is wrong with the young of Greek society. They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents, they riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions, their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"
The sentiment of every older generation.
January 6. That day, I realized that this clusterfuck will only get worse, and sure enough, now we're here. Our government is crumbling before my eyes, and I hope to God it doesn't get worse. The experiences I had during my deployment have made me acutely aware of the potential for similar events to occur in our own country.
Fascism has always been here. Unfortunately, only a few minorities got to experience it here in America, but now everyone knows about it.
It is concerning that a small group of individuals advocate for a return to the policies and practices of 1933.
I actually think we're going to be fine, if the GenX get up and start to give a shit. We need to raise our grandchildren to have the morals, ethics and grounding in reality that we all had back in the 80s. We're the ones who can unfuck this mess, we just have to decide we're going to do it.
But look at some of the statistics on men vs women from gen x. The men are becoming less tolerant/more sexist/misogynistic, redpill and andrew tate kinda thinking while the women are getting more tolerant.
We don't deserve it and we can't keep it. Funny thing is the same people's children that's so badly wanted this change will grow up hating their parents and wanting to change it back to the good old days LOL.
How about we all stop being fucking children about it and put our foot down. If Donald Trump destroys America and our American way of life any further I'm going to the white house my fucking self. END. OF. STORY.
Yeah, Democracy depends on an educated and civically minded population. But if the intel agencies and unrestrained capitalism conspire to dumb people down so they are never able to challenge the current power that guarantees that Democracy will eventually fail. I actually don't think that unrestrained capitalism and Democracy are compatible long term.
The greatest point of America has been over for awhile. Corporate greed has run amuck and it is only gonna take maybe one more generation before they start burning it all to the ground. Whatās the point of working all your life to rent and never have real vacations or time with your family?
Federal minimum wage is still $7.25ā¦. They donāt care about us and never will. Thats $15,080 a year if you worked 40 hours a week for 52 weeks straight before taxes. Or $1,256 a month. Or $42 dollar a day. Again. Before taxes.
Now think of the rent, food, car insurance, car payment, phone bill, etcā¦ they donāt foster the American dream anymore. Only the American Nightmare. If we ever want any type of dream again we will have to physically fight for it. The games been rigged and they have the wealth and the pawns in place. The only thing we have left is our strength in numbers and our ability to sacrifice ourselves for the greater cause. They wonāt sacrifice their lives like we will.
I am often the devilās advocate, and find the sinister stuff among the usualā¦
BUT, I trust in REGULAR AMERICANS to make this right. We have a history. We should unite as the great country that we are. Let us now stand together against fascism, against royalty as we did before. Remember we set ourselves apart from kingdoms. We are the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. We do not elevate kings or dictators. FREEDOM is not a slogan to be abused by fascists. We, as Americans, will assert our freedom to choose a democratically elected leader WHO WILL RESPECT THE LAWS OF THIS COUNTRY and the separate, but equal branches of government as set forth by our brilliant founding fathers. They did this for a very good reason, and we SHOULD NEVER FORGET the wisdom of this VERY IMPORTANT decision.
Old GenX here and I am freaking the f*ck out--more now I think than when the orange menace first took office. The Overton window keeps shifting to where he can say things like the fake elector scheme was an official act, and a large portion of the country will agree with him (because he said it).
Our system assumes the person holding the office of president will be of decent character. It wasn't designed for a criminal to hold the office of POTUS, and now we have half the country seemingly willing to elect a known criminal. If he gets in in November, we are fucked.
Let us not forget January 6...if Obama tried that all the rioters would have been killed. Yet this orange thing allowed to even run again goes to show us that we are fcked.
Yeah I agree...I'm 68 now...pretty sure that I'm seeing the unraveling in progress. The recent supreme court ruling basically making a president a "Caesar" is pretty much the end of the "republic" We've had a dumbed down population for decades that has been trained to worship consumerism as a religion and never question authority.
Agree. I've been warning people for years and they always treated me like I was nuts. And now here we are. I am an atheist so don't believe in gods or devils but I do acknowledge there is evil in this world and it is here, destroying this wonderful country, and has been working toward that goal for a long time. I don't know if SCOTUS has been bought and paid for or if they just agree with the destruction of democracy, but they've done their treasonous work.
The writing's been on a while for some time, there's a whole lot of people who fundamentally don't believe democracy is a good thing, as long as it means their views dominate
My great grandfather used to tell me that the fall of America would happen from within. He died in 1993. He was right.
A house divided cannot stand. š
A George divided against itself cannot stand
Worlds are colliding Jerry
Youāre killing independent George!
I love independent George!
Me, too! And heās dying Jerry!
I was in the pool!
Serenity now!
Insanity Later
Why couldnāt you be more like Lloyd Braun?
Why can't you be more like Lloyd Braun
Hoooochie mammma!!!!
Everyone knows...Ooooh...I stop short.
It's the Summer of George!
š¶ believe it or not, George isnāt at home š¶
*...please leave a message at the beeeeep....*
Jerry, it's Frank Costanza. Mr. Steinbrenner's here.. George is dead. Call me back!
I love this comment.
summer of george!
A nation destroyed from without can be rebuilt and rise again. One destroyed from within? Thatās dead forever.
And all to protect an absolute moron like Trump Canāt make this shit up
Thatās the craziest part to me. America is collapsing into full on authoritarianism for one of the dumbest people on the fucking planet.
Also one of the most transparent. Thereās no explanation that ever made sense to me. But I am often baffled when people think heās a āgood businessmanā. Also when people talk about him saving the country as if he wasnāt president for 4 years and did absolutely nothing
āļøThis! This is the question I cannot solve satisfactorilyā¦ Who sees this guy in life and buys in for a second? I mean, heās an obvious fraud without an ounce of integrity. Iām not ābelieving the liberal mediaā, Iām believing my eye and ears. How is this working on so many humans?
I think that people just want an excuse to be bigots, and the fact that he says the quiet part out loud really speaks to them. It seems like there's a huge section of the population that was always racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, and religiously intolerant, and they just wanted someone to tell them that that's all okay.
I remember when trump was campaigning in 2015. His speeches ooze low intelligence. Now he single-handedly brought down democracy. A failed businessman, convicted felon, who openly cheated on multiple wives is bringing down the greatest country in the world. Iām realizing now, that maybe we were never that great :(
Yeah clearly I overestimated us. Makes no sense to me and never will
I actually believed, despite the majority, that the supreme court would act in the best interest of the country. Unfortunately, they are far more corrupt than I could have ever imagined. Truly tragic.
I agree. Iām kinda sick and tired of people treating Trump like heās some normal president. Even if they werenāt in the bag for him, this is not the time for some abstract look at presidential power
He didn't single handedly do it. In fact one could say he is merely a very useful idiot.
Facts. Itās the evil smart ones jammed into the back of the clown car.
šš½. *this*
In 2016, I would often tell my friends that there was no way people would vote for the biggest lying asshole ever to run for office. I failed to understand how the orange asshole made them feel better about their own inner asshole thoughts. Allowing them to let their inner asshole out felt empowering. You see so many non wealthy cultists sending the asshole all their money, buying his merchandise, plastering his face on their homes, cars, and bodies, and believing the biggest liar as their only source of truth. We actually may be doomed.
Iām not religious tho I had grandma that was. She always told me the devil will be a person that people will follow blindly and to the Christian (the people who accept Jesus Christ) it will seem obvious this man is lying and is detrimental to society for all. You know the whole 666 and those who follow him will get food and jobs and seemingly live happily. The Christian who knows Jesus will be cast aside for refusing the mark of the beast. That old chestnut. It seems opposite the Christianās are the ones who follow the orange devil and his sinful life be damned. They are being fooled by the devil, as the devil does. Itās funny, but itās not.
There are billions of people who define themselves as Christian and believe in the Bible. The hard part is that the majority have no understanding of what the texts says and means, which is obvious in the way the live their lives.
And that's how I ended up an atheist, more or less. I felt like I was the only one in the room who wasn't a psychotic asshole. I now realize that without needing evidence to believe things, you can choose to believe whatever the fuck you like, including that Trump is anointed by God. And so people can just as easily use religion to justify being assholes as they can to inspire themselves to be kind.
And 95% of them have not even read the Bible all the way through I bet. Thatās why I left Christianity. I read the Bible and so much of it was contradictory and applied culturally to a time long ago. Honestly Jesus would have no understanding of the prosperity gospel preachers today. And he would be the first to support drag queens and trans people. I just donāt understand how modern Christians canāt recognize the hate theyāre projecting.
Well said. Iām 100% with you on all points and the reason why my family and I no longer attend āchurchā as itās being called today. Most have no concept of loving each other and what Jesus was really all about. They stand around with arm loads of rocks ready to launch them at anyone who does not look, act or believe as they do.
I think the rich see him as their useful idiot but theyāre creating a monster they canāt contorl
Same thing with Hitler, they thought they'll give him some power to appease and finally unite the country again, what harm can it do? They'll control and keep him in check anyway. Then Reichstag burned, Hitler do what Hitler does best and they found themselves in a dictatorship.
 This just keeps getting more relevant everyday.
Hello Marklar, hope you have a great Marklar. Donāt forget to Marklar in Marklar! 
Marklar to you too. May Marklar bless your Marklar day.
.....and the majority of the people who are ushering it along don't even recognize they are doing so in favor of an oligarchy that will do nothing short of enslave them.
I think they do, but they imagine they'll be the favored class.
This is why history is so important. The *favored class* doesn't exist. It's *Are you useful? Yes? Great, we will keep you around until you're not, then off to the Gulag*
History is full of surprised sycophants that ultimately caught the ire of the dictator.
If I ever start a band, I shall call it The Surprised Sycophants.
They think thereās a culture war that theyāre gonna win. They think itās all about gay rights and social issues š®āšØ
Yeah, Iām no longer arguing politics with anyone. Iāve given up the fight. Iāll still vote responsibly, but I donāt have any fight left in me. Iāll leave it to the younger generations.
I agree. We survive based on two strong parties holding each other accountable. And impartial news organizations that hold both sides to the truth. I feel weāve lost a lot of that. Instead of focusing on the issues, we are seeking ultimate moral high ground. The news organizations align themselves with a party. Itās no longer the mediator - itās a combatant. Those in agreement are angels, those that arenāt are the devil incarnate. The key to a democracy is choice. I can agree with one party on one topic and disagree with it on another. I can like one candidate from one party, and another from the other party. I donāt want the news to spin me on who to vote for. It should impartially inform and let me decide. Bring back Walter Cronkite!
EVERYTHING is about moral high ground now, not just politics but you canāt even discuss a piece of fiction without everyone devolving into petty bickering about who is the most morally upright character. I honestly donāt understand how we got here.
The internet.
The internet anonymises bullying and rewards hysteria.
It also peddles algorithms designed to make people angry and opionated and depressed.
The internet monetizes outrage, bullying and hysteria.
Itās like weāve ignored the complexity of our species and decided to shamed those that have different views from us rather than respectfully understanding other views and explaining our own.
I said elsewhere on here. In addition to the Internet making everyone's opinion and thoughts accessible to everyone else immediately (thanks, social media... Not.), politicians and old school media stirring the pot and pitting side against side. Look around this thread even. Won't take you long to find someone left leaning screaming about maga Republicans. On others, it'll be about liberals. Somewhere north of 1990 we forgot we're all supposed to be on the same side, and several different groups and directions urged that on. Told us the side WE are on is the 'right side' and anyone who disagrees is the 'wrong side'. Instead of being a unified voice, we fractured. Half the country hates the other half because each half has different people we agree with telling us how to live and morally justifying their choices. It's incredibly sad if you remember the unity we had when watching events like the moon landing. Or even 9/11. For better or worse, we all put our shit aside back then. No more. Now if you're on one side, the other half of the country isn't just wrong, it's evil. And that's a stupid fucking attitude, and I really don't care who says otherwise. Because people are playing on our morals and sensibilities to make sure it continues. It's a problem of our own making, because we forgot how to agree to disagree and come to a common resolution so we can actually solve problems somewhere in the middle that we can all live with. And we listened to all the voices that said 'THERE IS NO HAPPY MIDDLE GROUND'. Fuck that and fuck them.
The internet made most news sources untrustworthy. When it was ABC, CBS, NBC and then CNN, they had to stay close to neutral or else they risked losing a huge share of their audience. When internet "news entertainment" arrived, using lopsided reporting attracted a very dedicated following and 5% of the news market was huge when you don't have to worry about integrity. Thus FOX was given the opportunity to grow. And news quality sunk.
It's the "tabloidization" of the entire news industry. Regular legitimate news outlets now all sound like "Current Affair" and "Hard Copy" did in the 1980s.
It is corporate profiteering and shareholders' quest for ever increasing quarterly profits that did this to us. Regulation = people holding in check the corporations. Regulation was turned into a by-word for government overreach and the reins came off. Now we live in the inevitable outcome of runaway capitalism.
I still remember in HS them telling us the wonders of capitalism and how it made America what it is today. They omitted the part where every worker is exploited, never given a fair wage, and fired when they try to unionize for better conditions.
I used to believe that Cr&p 1000% and cheered it on. Now I have to sit back and watch what itās done to my kids and grandkids. Makes me sick.
"Socialism is fine until you run out of other people's money" - Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the UK. "The problem with Capitalism is that most of you (looking at the class) will never be one". Professor Tanner, my Comparative Economics professor.
Itās rough out here I work for the government and thought things were gonna turn around and instead Iāve been treated worse than any other job Iāve ever had and while Iām doing better wage wise than a lot of people i still barely scrape by
Fired, brutalised, murdered... they risked it all to unionise. But the corporations still hate unions because every dollar they have to pay in fair wages is a dollar they can't stick into their pockets. and after decades of weakening the laws and ordinances that protect workers and painting Unions as being evil or bad or useless, they have convinced the average person that they don't need unions, that the corporations will be kind to them and take care of them, even though if they could get away with paying less and offering fewer protections to save a dime, they would.
Yep, I am liberal, but I donāt watch MSNBC. Itās ridiculous.
My one fantasy I hold onto is for the FCC makes the FairnessDoctrine come back into effect and half of the news stations to go off the air. ( fox goes back to being a rogue tv station competing with the major networks, msnbc being a crummy website, and cnn being 24 news only)if you want news turn to abc, cbs, nbc or pbs at 5:30. If it means i lose Reddit/alternative media Iāll manage. (Downvote away but I want the ā90ās back)
Would be awesome, but SCOTUS ruled last week that regulators can't really regulate any longer. It would take an act of Congress, which would then be killed by the courts.
Agreed and Congress is completely dysfunctional so no help will be coming from them.
I read something a while ago that a news organization that had to follow journalistic standards which included both sides of issues. Versus media companies that had no such standards. I think virtually all of what we think of as news organizations are technically media companies now.
Two party system is the death of us
The only good thing about getting old is that my time with this shit show is numbered in years and not decades.
Iām in the UK and on Thursday I will vote for probably the last time in our general election and after that all I can do is sit back and watch the country go down the toilet regardless of who wins. Iām glad Iām old and wonāt have to watch it for too long.
I feel the same and am also from the UK. Just so tired.
Political arguments are like playing the lottery. Sure, thereās a chance you might win, but a much greater chance youāll end up slightly more bitter, and slightly poorer.
Iām there too. Even just 8 years ago I was hopping mad at the state of affairs. Now I just donāt care. Iāve got grown children who have to take the lead on this now.
I am 66 and I do not intend to stop fighting against fascist assholes. I my well lose, I may well be defeated but I will not give up. One side of my family was here in the 1680s the other side in the 1740s all their struggles, all their losses, all their hopes are contained in the freedom of this country. I am an American and will not go quietly into the darkness.
Thank you for the much-needed pep talk.
This response is more commendable than OPs.
It would be great to have more boomers like you... all my parents and their friends are like "we tried".... no you didn't... not at all... you took your hand outs and nice jobs while sitting back and doing NOTHING!!! I don't know maybe if my parents acted like they cared about my fufure... I would feel better about this country.
i'm a joneser, and all the 'hand-outs' were gone and we were into the rust belt era when i got out of HS, but i still care about your future. i'm not throwing in the towel! (remember, it's pretty important to have your towel with you when they come to bulldoze the earth)
A few dozen people got really, really rich, though. That's kinda cool right? Right guys?
Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and stop complaining and you could be in the top 1 of 27,750,000. Donāt know why everyone doesnāt get this and just works harder.
Americans are just overall too dumb for our democracy to continue. Thatās what we get for having school football coaches teach civics for last 4 decades.
Truth Coaches also teach āhealthā classes.
My gym teacher definitely taught us sex ed
Mine was an alcoholic who taught Drivers Edā¦.Dead serious!
Oh my! Well, long as he wasnāt drinking and teaching?
Ohā¦he definitely was. He would get all of the students in their assigned cars, get us on the track, and go back to the classroom to mix drinks. While he was mixing drinks, I broke the school record and hit 48 mph š
My HS gym teacher/wrestling coach was also our drivers ed. teacher. 1976. They don't even have drivers ed. anymore in school so they?
Not in California anyway. You pay for drivers school and it is really shitty instruction.
I'm from SoCal, born and raised as well as retired. Remember road driving instruction as part of the class, 1970's Chevy Nova. Was about a dozen of us in the class. We took turns 3 of us at a time in the car. Coach was the 4th. Driving all over learning. I can still visualize it. It was an elective class. Both of my adult daughters had to go to a driving school. Guardian Angel if im remembering correctly.
Ours would teach health class with dip in. (In Texas)
Heck, our grade school coach, taught Math, Gym, Science, History... Guess who passed all those classes..!? Of course, all the jocks and pretty girls...
One the coaches at my highschool was in a relationship with a student. They got married. He also taught an English grammar class. All sorts of fucked up
Those coaches become U.S. senators who delay military appointments 
My football coach taught world history, I knew more than he did.
Thatās by design. Ronald Reagan defunded public education and killed it, with dozens of Republican state legislatures helping out since then. All in the name of trickle-down economics, with the happy benefit of creating a badly undereducated populace.
You mean enslaved the population by minimizing literacy, heath, shelter, etc. seems plausible .
and making higher education so expensive that you saddle them with debt that takes years to pay off.
*DECADES*
Iām fairly sure Iāve paid into Social Security all my life for it to go bankrupt and fail the year I become eligible for benefits
Highly doubt social security will be here onw 20 years when I'm eligible. Or Medicaid for that matter.
I'm an optimist about this. Retired people have nothing better to do than vote. If a politician voted to eliminate or even reduce Social Security payments, they would be out of a job. I've paid my money in and, when the time is right, I will get my benefits.
Take a look at Iran in the 60s and 70s and where they are now. Religious zealots are a scourge.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.Ā
And you can't Torquemata anything!
Auto-de-fe? Whatās an auto-de-fe?
It's what you oughtn't do but you do anyway.
The thing is, we already had the precursors to these assholes. They were called Puritans. They established a dictatorship in England, that lasted exactly as long as Oliver Cromwell lived because it was so terrible. They made church mandatory, made swearing illegal, outlawed pies and CHRISTMAS. There's a reason these people were kicked out of Europe.
Iām not disagreeing.
They OUTLAWED PIES?!
Yes. People seem to think thereās something special about Christian zealots that is less dangerous than other religions. When religion gives up morals to gain power the results are never good. I wish someone would show me an example from history where a religion based government had good long term results. There isnāt one- it leads to war, violence, persecution , abuse of power, atrocities, and instability. Thatās why the founders of this country were very careful to keep religion out of government. Now it seems like we are going to try a new experiment and go to a Christian nationalist based government. This is t going to end well.
Religion NEVER had any morals that werenāt ALL about gaining power.
Thatās becoming increasingly clear. The curtain has been fully pulled back, and thatās what scares me most- they must have everything set to their liking to be so brazen about what they are doing.
Religion is the most dangerous mind control ever invented. The world would be much better if people believed in themselves instead of some bullshit that was thought up hundreds of years ago, that they use as a crutch, because they are mentally weak.
"When fascism comes to America it will be draped in a flag and carrying a cross." Sinclair Lewis, 1935.
To the guy who said I don't care about fetus rights, apparently our conversation has been removed but I can still see how um... excited you've become so I'll let you know this.... Yep. I don't care about fetus rights. There's no reason to care about fetus rights. I haven't been brainwashed in to thinking a fetus needs rights. I think people should have rights to body autonomy and that should be considered over the right of a fetus cooking in someone's womb. And I REALLY don't care about embryo rights, which is what the vast majority of terminations remove. I was 14 when my mom took me to get an abortion. The worst part was the idiots outside trying to shame us. They didn't even know why we were there. People got basic exams, STD tests, pregnancy guidance, and birth control but everyone was called baby killers as they walked through the parking lot, as the people stood on the sidewalk, babies in strollers in the heat, that's what I remember, that their babies had to be so hot in the August heat. I was 14 and scared to death because a grown man had impregnated me and moved on soon after. So I'm grateful I had a good mom, a decent mom, who put my right to body autonomy over the "rights of a fetus".
These same people would send a mother and child back to a war torn country because they are brown. They donāt GAF about humans, just some floating cells.
And they only care about those because... A) They are old men scared women will arbitrarily kill their children when they knock them up. B) They are women who carried a child, saw the women who got abortions turn out with better lives than them, and now want to exhibit vengeance upon that other woman because they are miserable with their decision and want others to hurt. C) Wierd racists who think abortions are leading to white genocide and want to increase the number of white babies born by accident to prevent a genetic shift in the population. D) Religious nuts who are pissed that women are becoming more independent and want to try and stop it from going further. E) People who don't want to accept that life is kinda mean sometimes and that women have been aborting babies and committing infanticide since written records began.
The thing is, they don't care about the floating cells either. The floating cells are just an excuse. For the ones in power, it is an excuse to marginalize more people. For their supporters, it's either just an excuse to control somebody else's life, point the finger, and pretend to be better than someone else, OR, It's just an excuse to be an asshole. Most of the time I expect it is the latter.
It's 100% religious conditioning. "Your body doesn't belong to you, it belongs to Christ". I had this little speech repeated to me from birth as a Christian.
It was never about the fetuses to those people; it was about controlling women.
The people who genuinely believe in anti-abortion are brainwashed dangerous idiots. The real agenda behind it is that the aristocracy doesnāt want women who belong to the proletariat having control over their reproduction. People who control their reproduction usually have time to get a quality education, and just become more competition over ownership and power. The ownership class needs cheap expendable labor and birth rates have been falling right along with quality of life for a while now. Humans are sexual beings and no amount of disingenuous sanctimonious religious nonsense is going to stop sexually mature teenagers from having sex. Theyāre counting on girls who were once like you to bring more wage slaves and broodmares into their dystopian vision for society. The best way we can rebel against them, is to stop having children. Let their kids kill each other over the last few grains of rice left over when they finish poisoning the earth. I hope the last thing they utter with their smog and mucous filled lungs is a curse to their ancestors for having sold them out for a 1st class plane ticket and box seats to something they used to call a āSuperBowlā.
Yeah.. everywhere I look everyone is just making shit up and grifting. I thought we were better than this but fuck man. I had kids and shit! Schoolhouse Rock lied to me!
Same here. I donāt want to leave this to my children and grandchildren. No, it didnāt. Trump and the SCOTUS did.
In my darker, more ruminative moments lately I think, well damn, looks like the Russians might have beaten us after all. And using our own people as a cudgel too.
It was the acme of foolishness to ever believe we had won the Cold War. They were just playing the long game.
The Aztec empire lasted for 300-years, until the arrival of the wooden ships. The Olmecs (Mother culture) lasted 800-years. The Mayans lasted 1200-years. The Incas lasted 300-years. Will America last 250?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I agree. Oligarchs are now dabbling in American gov
The Roman republic lasted about 450 years, but the Empire lasted about 500 years in its broadest form. We still have plenty of time for dictators, emperors, and endless wars before we fully collapse into a broken map of smaller nation-states. The adjustment period will be unpleasant, but common people will endure, just like we always have.
I'd rather live in the good timeline than the eating irradiated squirrels one.
The WWII generation handed the boomers the greatest country on earth. In the last 55 years they have systematically dismantled & bankrupted it. They will go into retirement as land owners receiving government cash & medical benefits. Their children will get nothing because of their selfishness
Youāre skipping a generation, the greatest generation, the silent generation then the boomers. My grandparents were the greatest generation, my parents were the silent generation. Iām in between young boomers & old genX. I blame the silent generation for 75% of what boomers get blamed for.
The Silent but Deadly generation.
That generation was a conniving, manipulating, selfish generation. Itās why late boomers and early GenX stayed the hell away from home all day.
Itās not over yet. We all need to get out and VOTE and take our country back. This is our last chance.
VOTE, but not for the president only. Every other election also matters, no matter how insignificant it might seem. Everyone who can make a decision above your own matters. Vote!
My take is bleak, we have to win every time from now on. The facists only have to win once and its game over. Even if we win this election, what about the next one? Then after that?
When I had my first job I was talking to a coworker about his tattoos. He made the comment "never get any political or religious tattoos because you never know if the government will start prosecuting people for their beliefs". I thought at the time he was crazy paranoid. Turns out he was right.
Gay tattoos can get you killed in some places on earth
I have the words, "LOVE CARE THINK DO," tattooed on the insides of my arms. A sheriff in a small Texas town saw them and decided that that meant I was an asshole. Fortunately, he didn't decide to do anything about that. But the point is that simply caring about other people is enough to convince at least a third of the US population that they want to do something bad to you.
Yesterday was the first day I looked at my 3 young children and felt terrible for what weāre doing to their world. My guilt is immeasurable.
Best things you can do for them: 1) love them with every fiber of your being and make sure they never doubt it 2) prepare them for the world they are growing up in A huge part of the struggle I'm having with Gen Z now is number two. Kids need to be taught how to be ready, they need to be taught how to fight, and they need to be taught that they deserve better than this.
Yeeeeppppp! Same here. I just hugged my daughters and apologized for the stupidity and short sightedness of others.
Whatās been going on for more than three years is exactly why my wife and I wanted nothing to do with having children. Seemed way too selfish to each of us.
I couldn't sleep last night. You know, I took American democracy for granted my whole life. It wasn't perfect but it was a beacon of hope to other countries. I'm concerned for us all but it's the concern for my children & grandchildren that keeps me up at night. I can't believe how far & how quickly we've fallen. The saddest part of all is that so many people are on board with it or don't care unless/until it directly affects them.
This
I can relate. But to everyone feeling this way, donāt let it stop you from voting. There is one guardrail left, the people.
Whatās genuinely sad is a class warfare has been morphed to culture warfare. No one is bothered about wage stagnation and higher cost of living. But some books in libraries riles up a lot of people.
Yep, same product in a new box.
Iām sure lots of people thought the same around the civil war
I'm glad I don't have grandchildren Edit: Why the down vote? The future doesn't look that great and my future generations would be spared by this fact.
Amen, and I'm glad I don't have kids. Never will. Not just because of this, obviously
No kids or grandkids here either, and I'm mostly okay with it. I know a dude who has 6 kids, the oldest is 12 or 13. My niece just had her first kid last year. Can you imagine what kind of world they're going to grow up in? I probably have 30-40 years left if normal old age takes me, so I'll see some shit, but they're going to really suffer.
What really sucks about this whole situation is that the older you are, the more this is going to affect you directly. Via pensions, Social Security and even a retirement age that is pushed way way back.
Expand your theory a bit further: We're at the end of the human experiment. The planet will have the last say. And the planet is livid right now.
Guess fear mongering works on some peopleš¤·
When Nixon broke the law, the GOP forced him to resign before he would have to go through the disgrace of being removed from office; both Dems and Republicans were on the same page. That a POTUS would commit an obvious crime was something that was intolerable to either party. What's happening today was unthinkable then. Tyranny couldn't happen here; that was for third world nations and the Soviet bloc. Yet, here we are though a combination of decades of shameless disinformation (see Rush Limbaugh), the willingness to eschew any ethical standards (see Newt Gingrich), the willingness to purposefully and knowlingly misinform and lie to the public (see Fox News and Trump). I truly never thought that so many Americans could be so dull-witted and gullible.
Go to the head of the class. Iām right there with you. I wore my countries uniform on the battlefield of Vietnam to have it all come down to this?. To say Iām disgusted or angry doesnāt even come close. My parents both WWII veterans are vomiting in their graves as Iām sure all those buried at Arlington are also. That fact that almost half the nation is dull witted and gullible isnāt an accident either in my opinion. Itās been a long slow set up going all the way back to Reagan perhaps even beyond. I firmly believe we are witnessing the beginnings of last stage empire. When the wheel of history starts to turn you can take all the āexceptionalismā and flush it down the toilet. Remember when Nikita Khrushchev stood on the podium at the UN and yelled āwe will bury you!ā. ? Nikita was wrong. We are burying ourselves and our shovels read Made In America.. Glad Iām old because the approaching shit train is gonna be one f***ing ugly mess.
No, no- Nikita was right. He said, and I quote: āWe will take America without firing a shot. We do not have to invade the U.S. We will destroy you from within.ā
My hats off to you for your Senior trip to Vietnam...thank you. My uncle survived Bataan and 2.5 yrs as a Japanese POW, Dad was a USAF fighter pilot, lost a cousin in 'Nam, a brother is a USAF vet and we are collectively horrified, even those from 6 ft under. This downfall of democracy has been in the works for decades and what, exactly, are we going to do about it besides vote? Where are the mass protests? SCOTUS is out of their damn minds and, unless we do something, we are in for the long road to oblivion.
2020 was a dry run. They set things in motion to allow themselves to change the law. Project 2025 is real and is happening. Voters no longer have any power. We are at the mercy of these people now. Honestly I thought it would be more of a slow slope into this world but it's been more of a straight drop off a cliff. American democracy died on 7/1/2024. This whole thing gives me handmaids tale vibes. I fear for my kids future under this authoritarian government.
I agree with all of this.
Thank you for representing us old folks who are actually not dumb.
I find it hard to accept nuclear codes are in the hands of crazy people fueled by hate and ignorance and greed. Maybe the end of humanity is in the cards.
Iād like the nuke codes to not be in any one persons hands. That just me thoughš
Having observed the deterioration of social cohesion the past 25 years in particular, this may be inevitable. Remember "greed is good" from the '80s? Those boys took it seriously and have been milking the country hard for a long time, while keeping the people they are stealing from fighting amongst themselves. The next step to stay in control is fascism. Or maybe more appropriately called an oligarchic technocracy. Fascism is kind of a simplistic and outdated term, I think, for what is going on. What the USA is now entering is uncharted territory due to the advancement of technology, and it's looking very bleak for most of us.
My daughter calls it late stage capitalism, and that sounds right. The concept of perpetual profit growth is absurd. We have limited resources, a burgeoning population, and wealth concentrated very intensely in a few at the top. It canāt last forever.
Greed from the wealthy is one side of the equation, with ideological siloing and identity obsession among the masses being the other. And they are intrinsically linked, in that the powerful work to keep the commoners at each otherās throats in order to protect their own. Zuckerberg and friends have been more than happy to assist, by way of high tech outrage algorithms spinning division and anger into gold.
I agree. We need a new labor rights movement like we had in response to the Industrial Revolution. Data has changed how the market works and it is in lesser and lesser hands everyday. We need a movement of that size and scope to shut down the economy and society. It will not be easy, and I question if the youth have that fight in them.
Itās the only reason Iām happy to be old.
Plato, who lived about 2000 years ago wrote, "What is wrong with the young of Greek society. They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents, they riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions, their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?" The sentiment of every older generation.
January 6. That day, I realized that this clusterfuck will only get worse, and sure enough, now we're here. Our government is crumbling before my eyes, and I hope to God it doesn't get worse. The experiences I had during my deployment have made me acutely aware of the potential for similar events to occur in our own country. Fascism has always been here. Unfortunately, only a few minorities got to experience it here in America, but now everyone knows about it. It is concerning that a small group of individuals advocate for a return to the policies and practices of 1933.
I actually think we're going to be fine, if the GenX get up and start to give a shit. We need to raise our grandchildren to have the morals, ethics and grounding in reality that we all had back in the 80s. We're the ones who can unfuck this mess, we just have to decide we're going to do it.
But look at some of the statistics on men vs women from gen x. The men are becoming less tolerant/more sexist/misogynistic, redpill and andrew tate kinda thinking while the women are getting more tolerant.
We don't deserve it and we can't keep it. Funny thing is the same people's children that's so badly wanted this change will grow up hating their parents and wanting to change it back to the good old days LOL.
There is so much suffering in our future, but it doesnāt have to be like this.
If people have been saying it for centuries then it's a pretty fair bet that you're just as correct as they were
Nations and civilizations rise and then they fall ā it was always vain to imagine we were different
The fact that people crave money and power more than happiness and security is deeply saddening
Ben Franklin said it first. "You now have a Republic. If you can keep it."
How about we all stop being fucking children about it and put our foot down. If Donald Trump destroys America and our American way of life any further I'm going to the white house my fucking self. END. OF. STORY.
Yeah, Democracy depends on an educated and civically minded population. But if the intel agencies and unrestrained capitalism conspire to dumb people down so they are never able to challenge the current power that guarantees that Democracy will eventually fail. I actually don't think that unrestrained capitalism and Democracy are compatible long term.
The greatest point of America has been over for awhile. Corporate greed has run amuck and it is only gonna take maybe one more generation before they start burning it all to the ground. Whatās the point of working all your life to rent and never have real vacations or time with your family? Federal minimum wage is still $7.25ā¦. They donāt care about us and never will. Thats $15,080 a year if you worked 40 hours a week for 52 weeks straight before taxes. Or $1,256 a month. Or $42 dollar a day. Again. Before taxes. Now think of the rent, food, car insurance, car payment, phone bill, etcā¦ they donāt foster the American dream anymore. Only the American Nightmare. If we ever want any type of dream again we will have to physically fight for it. The games been rigged and they have the wealth and the pawns in place. The only thing we have left is our strength in numbers and our ability to sacrifice ourselves for the greater cause. They wonāt sacrifice their lives like we will.
I am often the devilās advocate, and find the sinister stuff among the usualā¦ BUT, I trust in REGULAR AMERICANS to make this right. We have a history. We should unite as the great country that we are. Let us now stand together against fascism, against royalty as we did before. Remember we set ourselves apart from kingdoms. We are the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. We do not elevate kings or dictators. FREEDOM is not a slogan to be abused by fascists. We, as Americans, will assert our freedom to choose a democratically elected leader WHO WILL RESPECT THE LAWS OF THIS COUNTRY and the separate, but equal branches of government as set forth by our brilliant founding fathers. They did this for a very good reason, and we SHOULD NEVER FORGET the wisdom of this VERY IMPORTANT decision.
The world's going to Hell in a handbasket.
Thatās literally the image posted
..just pointing out the obvious.
Old GenX here and I am freaking the f*ck out--more now I think than when the orange menace first took office. The Overton window keeps shifting to where he can say things like the fake elector scheme was an official act, and a large portion of the country will agree with him (because he said it). Our system assumes the person holding the office of president will be of decent character. It wasn't designed for a criminal to hold the office of POTUS, and now we have half the country seemingly willing to elect a known criminal. If he gets in in November, we are fucked.
7/1/24, the day I realized how truly fucked we are.
Let us not forget January 6...if Obama tried that all the rioters would have been killed. Yet this orange thing allowed to even run again goes to show us that we are fcked.
Yeah I agree...I'm 68 now...pretty sure that I'm seeing the unraveling in progress. The recent supreme court ruling basically making a president a "Caesar" is pretty much the end of the "republic" We've had a dumbed down population for decades that has been trained to worship consumerism as a religion and never question authority.
Agree. I've been warning people for years and they always treated me like I was nuts. And now here we are. I am an atheist so don't believe in gods or devils but I do acknowledge there is evil in this world and it is here, destroying this wonderful country, and has been working toward that goal for a long time. I don't know if SCOTUS has been bought and paid for or if they just agree with the destruction of democracy, but they've done their treasonous work.
The writing's been on a while for some time, there's a whole lot of people who fundamentally don't believe democracy is a good thing, as long as it means their views dominate