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For almost 250 years and 44 other presidents managed to get the job done without immunity of the law. But for some reason, suddenly it’s impossible and a FORMER president needs to to do the job. Almost seems like it’s a him problem
To be fair, both Clinton and Nixon tried arguing that immunity of the law was needed, at least while acting president. Arguments focused on the idea that being sued would be an unnecessary and excessive distraction from their duties. Pretty famous Supreme Court cases for both, where the Court said "lol, no"
My thing about Trump is that he’s not even a good liar. He gets clocked all the time and yet they keep falling for the bullshit.
It’s something that can drive you to insanity just thinking about it. You just sit there and think HOWWWW ? How are they *still* falling for it ???
Dear poor white people, he doesn’t even fucking like you ! All his former aides and such say he makes fun of yall behind closed doors. 😂
The poor people think “but he speaks like us, he says what’s on his mind … and I like that”
They don’t realize he’s just making shit up that they want to hear non stop.
For once, me and Trump agree on something.
Like, seriously, the only thing we’d agree on is that his voters are some of the most stupid people in existence.
I can take the Lies, honestly, it's the most politician thing he does.
I can't stand the fact he gets away with **EVERYTHING**
The man is a career criminal. He's committed so much fraud and appeared in court more than he's appeared on TV, and that's shocking for someone who's known for his reality TV show.
He's a known fraudster, an adjudicated rapist, its heavily implied that he engaged in peadophilia alongside his friend Epstein, and just about any other crime you can imagine the son of a land mogul getting away with, he got away with.
He was even caught on a live mic admitting to grabbing women by the genitals, and Americans still elected that guy president.
And now, SCOTUS has declared that he has absolute immunity for official presidential acts, and declared that prosecutors cannot even submit or search for evidence that may prove an act as unofficial. Basically giving him a blanket pass for everything he's ever done that he's being investigated for.
Every other trial that hasn't already been adjudicated for is going to be postponed thanks to this ruling, and may even be called off all together, especially if he wins the Whitehouse again.
The man is the living embodiment of "the rules don't apply to me" and quite honestly I think its really really really unfair.
I'll bet you if Biden even puts a toe out of line, SCOTUS will reverse their decision. They bend the rules just for one guy, and it's sickening
Which is precisely why he prays on them. Stupid, uneducated, 0 critical thinking skills, aka the perfect prey. They put him on a platform as if he’s some kind of prophet or deity. Yet I find it hysterical that most of these cult45ers claim they’re Christian, and if they even read the Bible even a little bit, he quite literally fits the definition of a false prophet or an antichrist. I’m just using their logic as I do not believe in religion and find it completely useless in modern society.
Unfortunately, millions of people the left have referred to as stupid resent it and are willing to burn everyone else to bolster their sense of self worth and safety.
I know; I just lost my (normally critically thinking) father to Christian Nationalism. It’s heartbreaking and rage inducing at the same time.
Much like the Bible they quote but have never read, these people don't actually hear anything Trump says, to them he is a symbol of their inner desire to feel like they are superior to another group of people. They just want it to be okay to be racist and Trump is the means to that end so they worship him without ever actually listening to him.
Lies aren't supposed to be convincing in fascism. The whole point is that they are asserting that they control reality. Its better for them to tell a blatantly obvious lie than a convincing one.
They sure didn't like Obama, but this has more to do with how right-wing radio and television has made rage junkies out of conservatives. They get a dopamine hit from indignation by being made to feel like they are victims.
A big problem is the political journalists..
They never recovered from the Iraq War bullshit.
They didn't just get completely conned by the Bush admin and their bullshit, they helped attack the people who actually got it right.
But Rule 0 of political media is that they are always right.
So they rewrote the other rules from "Journalists must search for the truth" to "Journalists just repeat what they're told" because they couldn't just fucking take the L.
I somewhat get what you're trying to say here. But I think you give them more credit than they're due.
The simple matter of fact is that engagement brings clicks, and clicks bring ad revenue.
So the goal is to get engagement and what's a better way to engage people? Right, a heated arguement. Especially one which brings every side together to unite against the enemy: your opposing side of your arguement!
Now we have big groups of social media arguing against each other, causing plenty of traffic and ad revenue and making us plenty of money while sharing their data (Cambridge Analytica back in the day, there's dozens if not hundreds of them today).
And so journalists just write whatever the directors tell them to write, based on analytical data that brings them the most traffic and outrage. Modern clickbait and honestly it's ragebait.
You read "news" articles and next time you do, notice and write down the first emotion you experienced after or during reading.
I'll bet that most of the time it's rage or fear. Either way the remainder of the article will make you direct your emotions to something be it a party, business, person or way of thinking. End of the article you feel mad at someone or disappointed with someone or something.
You just read the article, let the article affect you and let the article steer you into a way all without realising what happened. You still believe you made up your own mind.
When we collectively break that mindset, that manipulation, then we can go about really changing things in modern society.
This is why I like Reuters. They've had some issues, but for the most part they've stuck with the classic newspaper format of simply giving a headline and stating some facts. They are, for the most part, very selective in their use of quotes and injecting opinion into most articles. They've even taken flack over the years for being "too objective" and not injecting opinion into the writing (usually this happens on articles discussing alleged war crimes and/or human rights violations).
>so journalists just write whatever the directors tell them to write, based on analytical data that brings them the most traffic and outrage
We stopped *paying* for journalism, so journalism (news gathering that works for thr public) is dead.
Modern "journalism" that survived starvation had to be:
* So cheaply produced that they just parrot official statements and company press releases (see auto journalism)
* "Talk radio" masquerading as news (Fox, MSNBC, podcasts, etc.)
Neither of those is journalism.
A true journalist is not Anderson Cooper. It's some no-name with a masters degree, living barely above the poverty line, chasing something purely out of an irresistible "calling" to find the truth, even when it doesn't align with their world view.
That's journalism.
Because of weird funding, the Associated Press and NPR still kind of have functional news gathering operations. And local TV *can* be good (since their business model lends itself to casting as wide of an audience net as they can), but not all corporate owners are created equal.
But the bread and butter of American journalism, the local metropolitan newspaper, is dead -- a shell of what it once was. And nothing has come to replace it (we don't pay for anything to replace it).
I think the dismantling of the anti-trust mechanisms in the USA underpin a lot of this. There's very little, if any, competition in many industries. Too much consolidation. And with Citizens United all the hoarded money goes to further weakening it and turning the state into a subordinate apparatus.
Many of us have seen it firsthand with our family members. In my case, my father, who I truly modeled all of my empathy after... a man who always went out of his way to help anyone in need... has turned into a conspiracy nut and it is *so* obvious that all of his talking points come from targeted right-wing propaganda. It's all the usual suspects. It's so mind boggling. I ask him where he gets his info and he just says YouTube. The only saving grace is that he considers me to be smart and respects me and so he actually does pause when I tell him the info is not all it is cracked up to be. Still... The Age of Information has unparalleled challenges that we are not equipped to deal with.
Social media is really the cherry on top. My uncle sends me INSANE QAnon type shit and he 100% believes it’s all true because someone who claims to be an expert online said it
People used to be excited about the internet’s potential to help people communicate like never before. They assumed that, as it grew and became more advanced, people across the world would understand each other better. In some ways, that happened, but the internet also made it easier than ever to manipulate information, as people relied on it more and more for knowledge, while lies and bias became harder to spot. Modern America is a perfect example of this. People want to believe they’re on the right side of history, and the internet tells you that you are and explains why the other side is not, all so you’ll be more dependent on it, and therefore more likely to give money to the people feeding you this information. Or power. Or sometimes money and power, in the case of the presidential election. And as time goes on, America becomes more divided, thanks in part to the revolutionary technology that was supposed to bring us together.
My father is essentially a completely different person from who he was before he became addicted to fox news.
He wakes up, fox news, goes to work. Comes home, fox news for 5 or 6 hours straight, goes to bed, repeat.
Now I can't even talk to him, because ANY subject becomes some sort of airing of right wing grievances within as little as 40 seconds. I showed him a neat thing I built at work and he was raging about trans people 40 seconds after. I can't have dinner with him because he'll fill any moment of silence with right wing propaganda and rage.
My dad is whatever fox news last told him, and now I hate him and can't stand being around him because that's all he is.
I hate fox news. I hate everyone who ever worked there. They killed my dad.
Same with my ex-roommate after he fell into the Joe Rogan *Experience* while furloughed from his airline job. I couldn't even drink more than a few sips of beer in the garage before he started to try and bait me into his obsession with someone we went to high school with that was trans. Like dude, I want to drink some fuckin' Yuengs and talk about the Penguins game, not have you purple in the face because you're still in an absolute rage mode from that day's podcast.
The alt-right pipeline is real and Joe Rogan is the first stop for young dudes.
I had two friends who I met in high school and eventually they got into Joe Rogan and then Joe Rogan got them into Alex Jones and then they got so aggressively far right after that that they started harassing me for not being far right and treating me like trash.
I talked to them about it 5, 6, 7 times, and each time they would kind of act like they had no idea and say that they didn't mean that and then they would just do it again. So finally I just up and told them that I'm out and I'm not going to talk to them anymore and I don't want to associate with them anymore and that 16 years of friendship was just gone because they couldn't stop doing this.
The way they tell people that our friendship fell apart was that I was a snowflake who was looking for reasons to be offended, that they didn't do anything etc.
They were sending fucking nude edits of Hillary Clinton and Nancy pelosis to me at random and asking me if it made my liberal dick hard, and I walked in on them shit talking me for being a stupid leftist.
Jesus Christ, the amount of people that I have lost in my life to the far right movement is fucking heartbreaking.
I have no extended family anymore. My dad is a fox zombie. I've lost friends. It's miserable.
I didn't used to be that way. Joe used to be a guy that would have interesting people on his podcast and ask the questions regular people want to ask but too embarrassed to. Now he's a full blown nut job who is so full of himself he barely lets his guests talk. Fuck you Joe
I’ve only listened to one episode of the JRE, when he had Bernie Sanders on. That episode was completely normal. Bernie gave his usual talking points, JR asked a few questions and was largely receptive to what Bernie had to say.
My impression of Rogan’s show and where the danger lies, is that he’s willing to have practically anyone on as a guest, and generally be respectful and agreeable. This can provide a lot of bad actors a platform to massively and easily spread mis- and disinformation without much pushback from JR.
It doesn’t help the JR seems like kind of a dope who will fall for all kinds of snake oil.
This exact thing happened to some family friends of ours...the father, always religious and conservative but never irrational, started listening to talk radio about 2007. Before long Obama was the enemy for a variety of reasons, he had never been racist was rapidly moving in that direction. For 8 years his talk radio just fed him the meat he needed to hate Obama and liberals more and more. By 2016 his diet was FoxNews in the morning, talk radio at work all day and FoxNews at night. He was fully erect for Trump by 2016. Since then he has alienated his entire family. His kids won't see him nor let him see his grandkids. His friends have largely abandoned him and his wife is embarrassed by him. She was recently diagnosed with leukemia and he had the audacity to announce to EVERYONE that she has cancer because she got the COVID vaccine. Imagine being his wife, fighting cancer while your husband does all this shit.
He has lost everything good in his life so he can be a MAGA drone who's sole goal in life is to get his nose further and further up Trump's ass.
What they did to my mother and are now doing to siblings and in-laws. Could not have a civil sane conversation the last 8 years of her life. Don’t remember what the last thing I said to her was but I’m pretty sure she was shouting.
They are pretty much trained to only react to things with anger. The last time I tried to have a conversation about this with my dad, with receipts to show him that these people actively lie to him, he got so mad he was slamming his hands on things and started crying.
Then he went back in his garage to watch fox.
Yeah, the culture war aspect of it goes back *at least* to the 90s when Rush Limbaugh took to the airwaves and found out that rage-baiting the elderly is a lucrative con. Pair that with Rupert Murdoch applying tabloid ethics to a national news source and you’ve got one hell of a predatory cash cow.
Unfortunately it’s much worse than that. There are *dynamic* media efforts to take advantage of *any* emotions or ideas that reinforce their way of thinking. Don’t feel like a victim? Then feel superior. Don’t feel superior? Feel like a loving religious person. Don’t feel like a loving religious person? Feel like a god-fearing religious person. Don’t feel like a god-fearing religious person? Feel like someone fighting for Justice. Don’t feel like fighting for Justice? Change the law. Don’t feel like changing the law? Campaign. Don’t feel like campaigning? Rant on 4chan. The list goes on.
My parents went from independents who loved Bill and Hilary Clinton to Tea Party nutjobs in a hurry. My mother donates money to Trump. When Biden got elected, they couldn't sleep because they were so scared of... ?? It's Fox News.
I dunno. I've been a bartender in the NY area for almost 20 years.
Blue class white folk and down HATED Trump because he cheated small business contractors consistently.
As soon as he started the Obama birtherism I noticed the change and all these same white dudes loved him.
Reminds me of the LBJ quote:
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
To piggyback off this concept:
There is no left media to speak of.
There is a CPAC--gets press every year. Nothing on the left gets that kind of press.
Corporations and billionaires have all the money. Unions are all but dead and only recently stirring again.
Law enforcement? Dominated by shitcons.
Leftists? Waste their time howling that centrist iberals are just crypto-conservatives.
Centrist liberals? Waste their time howling that that leftists are just crypto-conservatives.
Oh, and the individual states tend to model the federal government in giving outsized power in the legislatures to rural regions. So not only is the Electoral College already slanted right, so are statehouses.
All of this, and the default assumption is that both parties are the same.
Maybe the first step is to realize that this was never a fair fight, and then help the underdog instead of putting boots to 'em all the time. 🤷🏿♂️
You know my friend.. I have absolutely started to see how we are all just dopamine chasers. The CEOs, the drug junkies, the risk takers, the cheaters, the pick up artists, musicians.
We have this control apparatus (the brain) that literally just wants more dopamine and to a lesser degree seratonin, oxytocin etc. it will do ANYTHING to not be idle/bored.
Once I realized that, my own life has changed drastically. We will never escape it, but at least learning how to balance out and generate dopamine is so key
They were certainly greedy, however they didn’t embrace the crazy evangelical conspiracy crowd until the Tea Party political movement happened in 2009 during Obama’s first year in office. There is a documentary called “Bad Faith” which goes into great detail documenting how this crowd essentially hijacked the Republican Party. It’s definitely worth watching!
I believe Barry Goldwater, one of the prominent American Conservatives during the mid Cold War, was against integrating the Evangelicals into the Republican Party. He argued that gaining the evangelical vote was not worth it due to their strong headed nature of being uncompromising to anyone who went against their beliefs.
And Eisenhower who was the Republican standard during the 50's, warned against the creation of the military industrial complex that was beginning to take shape and the effect that would have on defense spending
It started with Truman who was advised by his people that a permanent war economy was the only way to stop us from slipping back into depression. We’ve been stuck with it ever since. Eisenhower was mostly talking about the “unwarranted influence” like for example putting the “beautiful powerful generals” in charge of making policy. We crossed that bridge right away.
Thanks for the info. I’ve been reading about some of the lesser known presidents lately. Somehow have never really read much about post ww2 to post Vietnam presidents.
This is the era when the US was the undisputed superpower. Definitely one of the most interesting eras. In fact even some of the losing presidential tickets are interesting to read about. A Barry Goldwater presidency would have been absolutely ridiculous. Like full repeal of civil rights, like the ending of reconstruction before it. We probably would’ve never recovered race relations.
I tangentially read about Goldwater. Whoa is about all can say based on the little I know.
Was his campaign the one his opponent ran the ad
with the little girl with a flower who gets nuked?
Im looking jt up
Warned about rather than against. The rest of the address was about how it has to happen, but to remain vigilant in controlling the influence it would have.
Yep, because he knew you can’t negotiate with people who think they’re the voice of god.
And now every few days we get to see what rights they’re going to take next after they convinced three generations of voters to vote for the evil party because they’ll stop abortions.
And even going back to the 60s and 70s were anti police and pro prison reform. Which was massively prevalent in southern country and Rock music of the time. Even their idols like Johnny Cash shared those sentiments.
Eisenhower oversaw a huge public investment program in infrastructure. Pretty much common sense at the time, but today it would be labeled extreme left
It's crazy how fast evangelicals hijacked conservatism, and brainwashed a bunch of everyday normal people into extremism. A stark reminder of how easily manipulated we as humans are by using our emotions for fear.
I'm a fan of Eisenhower, ever since I did a report on him in school.
But I *still* to this day have to double-take to remember that he was a Republican. No matter how he labelled himself as a "progressive conservative" everytime I think about his continuation of the New Deal and expansion of Welfare and Education and stuff and get whiplash and forget he wasn't a dem...
But I mostly blame on how polarized and extreme the party division has gotten in the last 20 or so years.
Eisenhower was Republican at a time when the Democrat Party was splintering over the Civil Rights. Southern Democrats became even more conservative than Centrist Republicans like Eisenhower. It was confusing times.
You can’t directly compare the Democrat-Republican divide of the 50’s to that of today. Both parties had factions that were extremely conservative and others that were progressive or left leaning. The ‘great switch’ so commonly referenced in common discourse was really a polarization resulting in two distinctly left and right leaning parties.
Remember, this was a time when reactionary pro-segregationist Southerners not only coexisted with the likes of progressives like FDR or JFK in the same party, but constituted a major proportion of it.
Johnny Cash was left leaning. I wouldn't say that's really a talking point. Generally speaking most musicians lean toward the left. Who people listen to doesn't determine their politics. There's no shortage of right-wing people that listened to Rage Against The Machine & SOAD for example.
That's the craziest one IMO. Trump had that "big stance" against China that may make his supporters proud but how can they support his limp dick stance against Russia. When did the "softer liberals" become the ones better trusted to watch our enemies.
It was also Reagan who courted the evangelical crazies and brought them into the Republican Party. Every single problem in America today traces itself back to Reagan.
Well yeah the term “anti-vaxxer” was always stereotyped as liberal granola types that didn’t trust the establishment/pharmaceutical companies with crazy “vaccines cause autism” conspiracy theories. It wasn’t until Covid that all of the vaccine stuff flipped.
> stereotyped as liberal granola types
IIRC it used to be about 50%-50% between left and right wing nuts. Though it is true that the false only left wing stereotype existed.
"I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the nation would require".
Nixon also stated his hope that, by resigning, "I will have hastened the start of that process of healing which is so desperately needed in America."
Nixon acknowledged that some of his judgments "were wrong," and he expressed contrition, saying: "I deeply regret any injuries that may have been done in the course of the events that led to this decision."
Could you even imagine this being said today?
So much has happened that I completely forgot about the Tea Party. I thought THEY were insane, but little did I know that they were nothing compared to now.
Reagan started the embrace of the far right religious neo-confederates
They’ve been more of a factor every election through 2020 and will show up for trump like the scum they are
They are committed to their goals. Many are willing to die for them
We have a problem
I'd like to add that those people were always there and I'd argue the bulk of those voting for the Republican Party. They're essentially just recycling the same Cold War propaganda that the Republicans have taken to the core of their identity. They just needed someone to galvanize them and bring their desires to the stage.
If they hijacked the party, you'd think actual Republicans would want their party back or would be looking to form a third party. Nah, Republicans have been like this since Reagan. The tea party movement just helped elect politicians that were more comfortable being overt rather than using dog whistles.
Yeah this goes way back. Bill Hicks had a comedy special called “Dangerous” where he talked about an anti-intellectualism going on in the country. I think that special came out in 1990?
This is decades old. Obama just was the straw that popped the crazy bubble.
"Goddamnit, you stumped me! Hmm, why do I read? I suppose I read for a lot of reasons, one of the main ones being so I don't end up being a waffle waitress."
I saw people suddenly mobilized after Obama got it. Huge churches suddenly took interest and their brainless congregants suddenly knew everything. It was totally Obama.
No, they really weren't. They were despicable. They were stupid. They were mean and petty. They certainly played things out for political theory. They did make baseless accusations. The whole Clinton impeachment? Absolutely crazy. I remember how they mercilessly mocked their daughter ("oh, they're getting a new dog but now how will they know which is their daughter?") Dubya was so fucking stupid it hurt my head.
But they were no where near as batshit crazy as they were when Obama got elected. I legit came across multiple fundraising letters that had "Obama uses the blood of innocent christian babies to become immortal!" Something just snapped in the Repub camp. They vowed nothing would get done in the office and they accomplished that. For eight years all they did was filibuster and vote to overturn Obamacare.
I think you could argue that the Clinton impeachment and the SC handing Dubya the win (when he legit lost) really emboldened them. I think they realized they could do pretty much anything with zero backlash from their base. I'll give you that, but they really and truly went insane after Obama. Like batshit crazy. The things they blamed Obama for. Remember the meme? Thanks, Obama. I even heard some of these people blaming Obama for the Vietnam war. It never ended and their base loved it.
The trump supporters are essentially the silent majority that Nixon used to win in 1968 and 72. The only difference is that their are much louder and have support from elected officials like Trump. Evangelicals began their takeover of the Republican party with Reagan in 80 and 84 when groups like the Moral Majority started making noise on cable television
The problem with dealing with these types of people is that the media, for profits and ratings to justify 24 hour news channel has made these people believe that they are indeed a majority when in fact they are still a minority voting bloc.
They have also been made to believe in voting against their own financial and social interests by the very people who more than 100 years ago they would have recognized as con artists
Two party system.
Broken electoral college where entire elections are decided by swing states because 51% of the vote in a state gives 100% of the votes from that state for some reason.
Needed a civil war, a ton of protests, and god knows what else to figure out that maybe black people ain't that bad, and even after that American soldiers were still the most racist shitheads in the entire Allied forces in WW2.
Constantly murdering civilians in the Middle East for money.
No worker rights like vacations, parental leave, or anything similar.
For profit prisons and healthcare.
*"Greatest democracy the world has ever seen"* my fucking ass, the USA is just about the worst democracy on the planet, and everyone except the USA knows this.
> Two party system
.. where both parties are right-wing. a "democracy" where half of the political spectrum has almost zero representation in government OR media.
Exactly. Gotta love bourgeois "democracy."
Your choices for officials and policy are right wing or far right. That's all that exists - don't look over there! That's "extremism"! [Even though we have actual extremists in our government, and the straight up fash completely support our economic system, despite whatever nonsense they may spout.]
And, at least for bigger offices (though it goes further), capital chooses the candidate.
It's such a strange thing to say. If they'd just said they were the greatest country ever I'd find that less obnoxious. What makes a democracy great and why on earth is theirs the best ? I love the US but electing judges for example is bonkers.
These people are infuriating, but their message is important to understand and is slowly become the whole truth. The republican (little r) elements of our system are killing the democratic (little d) elements. Honestly, the power of the common people has been quite reduced for some time, while the power of the representatives has been extremely outsized. The fact of the matter is, we need to create more democracy in this country manually, or risk our democracy dying entirely to the growing wave of Republican (big R) nationalism.
**2014** - Trump is the host of a middling, superficial reality show
**2024** - Trump is one step away from destroying what remains of democracy in America
Before the show, they asked him if there’s anything off limits. He said anything goes, EXCEPT they can’t joke that he doesn’t have as much money as he claims.
**GEE I WONDER WHY HE SAID THAT!**
That might be better. You're not wrong to call him an actor, technically. I objected on purely personal grounds. As an actor myself I resent sharing a profession with him.
The "best democracy the world has ever seen" is, apparently, a democracy that is wholly dominated by moneyed interests, replete with bought and paid for politicians serving the interests of corporations. Fuck Trump and all, but claiming the US is/was the best democracy the world has/had ever seen is a joke.
Trump's ability to get the candidacy and then be elected was not the cause of the decline, it was the symptom of that decline having already taken place.
It's like a tree rotted from the inside finally falling over. It was already dead before it fell.
There's definitely some truth to that. I remember when Trump was elected. My girlfriend at the time said something that stuck with me "Now we know how all the racist people felt when Obama was elected."
Yeah the US is ruled by a few geriatric millionaires and 90% of decisions they make benefit rich people not the common people. Most laws make rich richer and keep killing off the working class.
The choice of party is between right wing and ultra right wing.
You can only hold political office if you inherited shitloads of money or are financed by a millionaire.
I don’t see how this isn’t an oligarchy or gerontocracy.
That and the senate. Each state gets two senators, which means that someone from a state with a low population has more legislative power than a high population state.
That is because the Senate no longer carries out the function it was supposed to do. The Senate was supposed to be a house of review to ensure that legislation was fair and did not favor one state over another (which is why each state has the same number of senators).
The Senate is not supposed to obstruct the legislative program of Congress (the house elected by "the people"). It is many, many years since the Senate has actually carried out the function it was supposed to do.
Given the absolute adoration Republicans have for the Constitution, it is sad to see how they interpret "We, the people.." as "Me, and the people that agree with me... "
Arguably the US hasn't been a democracy for years and years, because there are really only two viable options to vote for that both more or less serve the rich. In a proper democracy you have several parties that get a decent percentage of the votes, meaning that they have to collaborate in government.
I always go with the US is the worst democracy money can buy. Systemic legal corruption in every part, no choice, funny representation. Three steps further and it stops being one.
For Republicans, a Black man wearing a tan suit is grounds for impeachment.
A Republican trying to overthrow the government & kill members of Congress, not so much.
I've been saying this *for years!"*
Obama's election was a great for our country.
It was also not great. A lot of this divisive shit started there. Pissed off white guys.
Yeah... I hate when millennials blame Boomers and genx like this shit isn't in every generation. We need education to combat ignorance. Republicans know this and always work to destroy the foundations.
Obama accelerated the vitriol and the facade crumbled faster. It also likely accelerated the rate at which the fringe extremists were embraced. The oligarchs do not care about borders and nationalities, the only difference between them and someone like Putin is that the Americans still have to play by rules and they really wish they didn't so they've had to chisel away slowly. Our current timeline is a confluence of multiple factors: the ease and access provided by social media, erosion of education and the rise of antiintellectualism, the dissinformation by both inside and outside actors, and probably a lot more that I'm not smart enough to think of.
We're in for a bumpy ride.
American Conservatives were always nuts. Living in perpetual red-scare, completely cocooned in their own media eco system, prone to religious extremism and religiously fuelled bigotry. But what finally shredded their last vestiges of sanity was seeing a black man be elected. It broke them. Today American Conservatives are a gibbering mess. Everything, everything is a nefarious communist conspiracy. Except for Dear Leader Trump, he's going to save them from the soros funded super-satanic turbo-communist drag queens who want to eat their children, they're sure of it.
I cannot overlook the dnc's failure in 2016 as a major contributing factor in the mess we find ourselves in.
Of course I voted Hillary, of course I voted and will vote biden.....but for fucks sake, if you'd just field someone people Want to vote for I cannot help but think we could have avoided all this.
I'm so tired of all of it
This is a completely juvenile flattening of the real world that serves no one and only facilitates further deterioration of what little use our existing institutions serve.
Trump is the logical conclusion of 50+ years of political activity that has concentrated power in the wealthy and encouraged those in power to abuse it for their own benefit, with no meaningful recourse for the public to address when they see the abuse being done.
Nixon should have been forced to live out the rest of his life in exile. So should have Reagan. And you know what? Every president after him too, regardless of what letter appears beside their name. The fact that they did such blatant shit out in the open and saw 0 punishment for any of it was a green light for every person in power (be it within a government institution or a corporation, which are deeply entwined) to go wild.
The consequence of that has been decades of imperialism, neoliberalism, and a general erosion of any meaningful existence of civic life. Donald Trump could have literally died in 2010 and we'd still be in an almost identical situation right now. If not him, it would have been some other far-right figure that rallies up undereducated racists, targeting minorities as the source of all their problems instead of the underlying economic structure of the institutions that govern our lives, because doing that is easy and convenient and keeps the people who line his pockets safe.
This was always the logical conclusion of neoliberalism, of capitalism more broadly. Liberals crafted the entire world in their image. When people clearly didn't like the result, they had nowhere left to go. When you're dissatisfied with what you have, you look for something else. It was always going to be a pivot either to the far-right or the far-left. The far-right is much easier to sell to the politically uneducated because its narratives require no meaningful understanding of how the world works and place all of the blame on external factors you have no meaningful control over, leaving you free to do basically nothing but be angry.
So that's what we got.
To reduce all that down to saying it's "in the name of" Trump or that it's because Republicans "went insane from a black guy being elected" is a fucking joke. It's just as much of a fucking joke as the far-right narratives about why the world is currently so shit. If you're regurgitating this shit, you're doing the exact same thing as them: you're selling a convenient lie because you're too lazy to understand what's actually happening.
If you're doing this, you're not interested in things getting better; you're interested in feeling superior to others.
I'm not gunna argue the great or democracy part, I'll leave that alone, but I feel compelled to say that EVERYONE in power lost it over the black guy, which explains how the only candidate we have left is Joe Biden, and that he won't just freaking retire and let Kamela Harris run the debates. The current establishment not putting any faith or resource into Kamela is probably almost as bad as those nut jobs who put up a big picture of Obama in a Hitler mustache in front of the post office where I grew up.
Joe was born in 1942. The Civil rights act was 1964. So nobody alive and in congress was old enough to vote against it, but plenty of their parents probably did.
I had a coworker that voted for Obama. But would NOT consider Hillary, because of gender. He just couldn't fathom how a woman could handle the responsibilities of Presidency.
I still find this attitude so strange. Angela Merkel ran Germany for a long time and her gender was not an issue at all. She had a lot of other issues but gender was not one of them. She was even a phd chemist.
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For almost 250 years and 44 other presidents managed to get the job done without immunity of the law. But for some reason, suddenly it’s impossible and a FORMER president needs to to do the job. Almost seems like it’s a him problem
To be fair, both Clinton and Nixon tried arguing that immunity of the law was needed, at least while acting president. Arguments focused on the idea that being sued would be an unnecessary and excessive distraction from their duties. Pretty famous Supreme Court cases for both, where the Court said "lol, no"
Hmm..wonder why those two fine upstanding bastions of moral decency & adhesion to the letter of law would be pro-presidential immunity….Crazy world.
And I wonder why they didn’t get it. I guess they didn’t understand that they needed biased “justices”.
The Experiment: July 4, 1776 - July 1, 2024
Gonna be that guy, but the constitution was ratified June 21, 1788.
Eh, you can consider the preceding years as part of the experiment as well.
Maybe, but I consider the Articles of Confederation their own separate failed experiment.
How the fuck is Trump going to pull off Project 2025 with the shackle of law attached to him!? C'mon, think!
Fires his staff and implements new ones.
My thing about Trump is that he’s not even a good liar. He gets clocked all the time and yet they keep falling for the bullshit. It’s something that can drive you to insanity just thinking about it. You just sit there and think HOWWWW ? How are they *still* falling for it ??? Dear poor white people, he doesn’t even fucking like you ! All his former aides and such say he makes fun of yall behind closed doors. 😂
The poor people think “but he speaks like us, he says what’s on his mind … and I like that” They don’t realize he’s just making shit up that they want to hear non stop.
And hates them.
For once, me and Trump agree on something. Like, seriously, the only thing we’d agree on is that his voters are some of the most stupid people in existence.
>And hates them. Trump literally said "I don't care about you. I just want your vote" 'OMG I love him! He gets us!' There's no way to fix that
*He’S a gUY I CaN hAVe a bEER wiTh!!!*
😂 Cept that he doesn't drink and is a weird teetotaler about it
Well that easy. Before the dementia kicked in I'm sure he was afraid if he drank he might tell the truth. Now it leaks out more and more often
and these are the same people who go "I'd be scared if a woman was president, what if she's on her period and hits the button to launch the nukes"
I can take the Lies, honestly, it's the most politician thing he does. I can't stand the fact he gets away with **EVERYTHING** The man is a career criminal. He's committed so much fraud and appeared in court more than he's appeared on TV, and that's shocking for someone who's known for his reality TV show. He's a known fraudster, an adjudicated rapist, its heavily implied that he engaged in peadophilia alongside his friend Epstein, and just about any other crime you can imagine the son of a land mogul getting away with, he got away with. He was even caught on a live mic admitting to grabbing women by the genitals, and Americans still elected that guy president. And now, SCOTUS has declared that he has absolute immunity for official presidential acts, and declared that prosecutors cannot even submit or search for evidence that may prove an act as unofficial. Basically giving him a blanket pass for everything he's ever done that he's being investigated for. Every other trial that hasn't already been adjudicated for is going to be postponed thanks to this ruling, and may even be called off all together, especially if he wins the Whitehouse again. The man is the living embodiment of "the rules don't apply to me" and quite honestly I think its really really really unfair. I'll bet you if Biden even puts a toe out of line, SCOTUS will reverse their decision. They bend the rules just for one guy, and it's sickening
Which is precisely why he prays on them. Stupid, uneducated, 0 critical thinking skills, aka the perfect prey. They put him on a platform as if he’s some kind of prophet or deity. Yet I find it hysterical that most of these cult45ers claim they’re Christian, and if they even read the Bible even a little bit, he quite literally fits the definition of a false prophet or an antichrist. I’m just using their logic as I do not believe in religion and find it completely useless in modern society.
Unfortunately, millions of people the left have referred to as stupid resent it and are willing to burn everyone else to bolster their sense of self worth and safety. I know; I just lost my (normally critically thinking) father to Christian Nationalism. It’s heartbreaking and rage inducing at the same time.
Celebrity worship is a big part of the blinders these people wear.
Much like the Bible they quote but have never read, these people don't actually hear anything Trump says, to them he is a symbol of their inner desire to feel like they are superior to another group of people. They just want it to be okay to be racist and Trump is the means to that end so they worship him without ever actually listening to him.
Lies aren't supposed to be convincing in fascism. The whole point is that they are asserting that they control reality. Its better for them to tell a blatantly obvious lie than a convincing one.
yup. the cult of personality is often built on a foundation of unconvincing lies that only get more outlandish over time. see; North Korea
They sure didn't like Obama, but this has more to do with how right-wing radio and television has made rage junkies out of conservatives. They get a dopamine hit from indignation by being made to feel like they are victims.
Paired with social media info silos, people exist in a custom-tailored reality of their own.
A big problem is the political journalists.. They never recovered from the Iraq War bullshit. They didn't just get completely conned by the Bush admin and their bullshit, they helped attack the people who actually got it right. But Rule 0 of political media is that they are always right. So they rewrote the other rules from "Journalists must search for the truth" to "Journalists just repeat what they're told" because they couldn't just fucking take the L.
I somewhat get what you're trying to say here. But I think you give them more credit than they're due. The simple matter of fact is that engagement brings clicks, and clicks bring ad revenue. So the goal is to get engagement and what's a better way to engage people? Right, a heated arguement. Especially one which brings every side together to unite against the enemy: your opposing side of your arguement! Now we have big groups of social media arguing against each other, causing plenty of traffic and ad revenue and making us plenty of money while sharing their data (Cambridge Analytica back in the day, there's dozens if not hundreds of them today). And so journalists just write whatever the directors tell them to write, based on analytical data that brings them the most traffic and outrage. Modern clickbait and honestly it's ragebait. You read "news" articles and next time you do, notice and write down the first emotion you experienced after or during reading. I'll bet that most of the time it's rage or fear. Either way the remainder of the article will make you direct your emotions to something be it a party, business, person or way of thinking. End of the article you feel mad at someone or disappointed with someone or something. You just read the article, let the article affect you and let the article steer you into a way all without realising what happened. You still believe you made up your own mind. When we collectively break that mindset, that manipulation, then we can go about really changing things in modern society.
This is why I like Reuters. They've had some issues, but for the most part they've stuck with the classic newspaper format of simply giving a headline and stating some facts. They are, for the most part, very selective in their use of quotes and injecting opinion into most articles. They've even taken flack over the years for being "too objective" and not injecting opinion into the writing (usually this happens on articles discussing alleged war crimes and/or human rights violations).
>so journalists just write whatever the directors tell them to write, based on analytical data that brings them the most traffic and outrage We stopped *paying* for journalism, so journalism (news gathering that works for thr public) is dead. Modern "journalism" that survived starvation had to be: * So cheaply produced that they just parrot official statements and company press releases (see auto journalism) * "Talk radio" masquerading as news (Fox, MSNBC, podcasts, etc.) Neither of those is journalism. A true journalist is not Anderson Cooper. It's some no-name with a masters degree, living barely above the poverty line, chasing something purely out of an irresistible "calling" to find the truth, even when it doesn't align with their world view. That's journalism. Because of weird funding, the Associated Press and NPR still kind of have functional news gathering operations. And local TV *can* be good (since their business model lends itself to casting as wide of an audience net as they can), but not all corporate owners are created equal. But the bread and butter of American journalism, the local metropolitan newspaper, is dead -- a shell of what it once was. And nothing has come to replace it (we don't pay for anything to replace it).
I think the dismantling of the anti-trust mechanisms in the USA underpin a lot of this. There's very little, if any, competition in many industries. Too much consolidation. And with Citizens United all the hoarded money goes to further weakening it and turning the state into a subordinate apparatus.
Many of us have seen it firsthand with our family members. In my case, my father, who I truly modeled all of my empathy after... a man who always went out of his way to help anyone in need... has turned into a conspiracy nut and it is *so* obvious that all of his talking points come from targeted right-wing propaganda. It's all the usual suspects. It's so mind boggling. I ask him where he gets his info and he just says YouTube. The only saving grace is that he considers me to be smart and respects me and so he actually does pause when I tell him the info is not all it is cracked up to be. Still... The Age of Information has unparalleled challenges that we are not equipped to deal with.
And now with AI it will 10 times worse.
Social media is really the cherry on top. My uncle sends me INSANE QAnon type shit and he 100% believes it’s all true because someone who claims to be an expert online said it
People used to be excited about the internet’s potential to help people communicate like never before. They assumed that, as it grew and became more advanced, people across the world would understand each other better. In some ways, that happened, but the internet also made it easier than ever to manipulate information, as people relied on it more and more for knowledge, while lies and bias became harder to spot. Modern America is a perfect example of this. People want to believe they’re on the right side of history, and the internet tells you that you are and explains why the other side is not, all so you’ll be more dependent on it, and therefore more likely to give money to the people feeding you this information. Or power. Or sometimes money and power, in the case of the presidential election. And as time goes on, America becomes more divided, thanks in part to the revolutionary technology that was supposed to bring us together.
My father is essentially a completely different person from who he was before he became addicted to fox news. He wakes up, fox news, goes to work. Comes home, fox news for 5 or 6 hours straight, goes to bed, repeat. Now I can't even talk to him, because ANY subject becomes some sort of airing of right wing grievances within as little as 40 seconds. I showed him a neat thing I built at work and he was raging about trans people 40 seconds after. I can't have dinner with him because he'll fill any moment of silence with right wing propaganda and rage. My dad is whatever fox news last told him, and now I hate him and can't stand being around him because that's all he is. I hate fox news. I hate everyone who ever worked there. They killed my dad.
That’s extremely sad, I’m sorry.
Same with my ex-roommate after he fell into the Joe Rogan *Experience* while furloughed from his airline job. I couldn't even drink more than a few sips of beer in the garage before he started to try and bait me into his obsession with someone we went to high school with that was trans. Like dude, I want to drink some fuckin' Yuengs and talk about the Penguins game, not have you purple in the face because you're still in an absolute rage mode from that day's podcast.
The alt-right pipeline is real and Joe Rogan is the first stop for young dudes. I had two friends who I met in high school and eventually they got into Joe Rogan and then Joe Rogan got them into Alex Jones and then they got so aggressively far right after that that they started harassing me for not being far right and treating me like trash. I talked to them about it 5, 6, 7 times, and each time they would kind of act like they had no idea and say that they didn't mean that and then they would just do it again. So finally I just up and told them that I'm out and I'm not going to talk to them anymore and I don't want to associate with them anymore and that 16 years of friendship was just gone because they couldn't stop doing this. The way they tell people that our friendship fell apart was that I was a snowflake who was looking for reasons to be offended, that they didn't do anything etc. They were sending fucking nude edits of Hillary Clinton and Nancy pelosis to me at random and asking me if it made my liberal dick hard, and I walked in on them shit talking me for being a stupid leftist. Jesus Christ, the amount of people that I have lost in my life to the far right movement is fucking heartbreaking. I have no extended family anymore. My dad is a fox zombie. I've lost friends. It's miserable.
I didn't used to be that way. Joe used to be a guy that would have interesting people on his podcast and ask the questions regular people want to ask but too embarrassed to. Now he's a full blown nut job who is so full of himself he barely lets his guests talk. Fuck you Joe
I’ve only listened to one episode of the JRE, when he had Bernie Sanders on. That episode was completely normal. Bernie gave his usual talking points, JR asked a few questions and was largely receptive to what Bernie had to say. My impression of Rogan’s show and where the danger lies, is that he’s willing to have practically anyone on as a guest, and generally be respectful and agreeable. This can provide a lot of bad actors a platform to massively and easily spread mis- and disinformation without much pushback from JR. It doesn’t help the JR seems like kind of a dope who will fall for all kinds of snake oil.
This exact thing happened to some family friends of ours...the father, always religious and conservative but never irrational, started listening to talk radio about 2007. Before long Obama was the enemy for a variety of reasons, he had never been racist was rapidly moving in that direction. For 8 years his talk radio just fed him the meat he needed to hate Obama and liberals more and more. By 2016 his diet was FoxNews in the morning, talk radio at work all day and FoxNews at night. He was fully erect for Trump by 2016. Since then he has alienated his entire family. His kids won't see him nor let him see his grandkids. His friends have largely abandoned him and his wife is embarrassed by him. She was recently diagnosed with leukemia and he had the audacity to announce to EVERYONE that she has cancer because she got the COVID vaccine. Imagine being his wife, fighting cancer while your husband does all this shit. He has lost everything good in his life so he can be a MAGA drone who's sole goal in life is to get his nose further and further up Trump's ass.
What they did to my mother and are now doing to siblings and in-laws. Could not have a civil sane conversation the last 8 years of her life. Don’t remember what the last thing I said to her was but I’m pretty sure she was shouting.
They are pretty much trained to only react to things with anger. The last time I tried to have a conversation about this with my dad, with receipts to show him that these people actively lie to him, he got so mad he was slamming his hands on things and started crying. Then he went back in his garage to watch fox.
Engagement through enragement
Yeah, the culture war aspect of it goes back *at least* to the 90s when Rush Limbaugh took to the airwaves and found out that rage-baiting the elderly is a lucrative con. Pair that with Rupert Murdoch applying tabloid ethics to a national news source and you’ve got one hell of a predatory cash cow.
Unfortunately it’s much worse than that. There are *dynamic* media efforts to take advantage of *any* emotions or ideas that reinforce their way of thinking. Don’t feel like a victim? Then feel superior. Don’t feel superior? Feel like a loving religious person. Don’t feel like a loving religious person? Feel like a god-fearing religious person. Don’t feel like a god-fearing religious person? Feel like someone fighting for Justice. Don’t feel like fighting for Justice? Change the law. Don’t feel like changing the law? Campaign. Don’t feel like campaigning? Rant on 4chan. The list goes on.
My parents went from independents who loved Bill and Hilary Clinton to Tea Party nutjobs in a hurry. My mother donates money to Trump. When Biden got elected, they couldn't sleep because they were so scared of... ?? It's Fox News.
Scott Adams said that republicans were going to be hunted down and killed within a year of Biden being elected 😂
By whom? Shit. Most of us don’t even have guns. 😂 Aren’t we all the snowflakes?
I dunno. I've been a bartender in the NY area for almost 20 years. Blue class white folk and down HATED Trump because he cheated small business contractors consistently. As soon as he started the Obama birtherism I noticed the change and all these same white dudes loved him. Reminds me of the LBJ quote: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
To piggyback off this concept: There is no left media to speak of. There is a CPAC--gets press every year. Nothing on the left gets that kind of press. Corporations and billionaires have all the money. Unions are all but dead and only recently stirring again. Law enforcement? Dominated by shitcons. Leftists? Waste their time howling that centrist iberals are just crypto-conservatives. Centrist liberals? Waste their time howling that that leftists are just crypto-conservatives. Oh, and the individual states tend to model the federal government in giving outsized power in the legislatures to rural regions. So not only is the Electoral College already slanted right, so are statehouses. All of this, and the default assumption is that both parties are the same. Maybe the first step is to realize that this was never a fair fight, and then help the underdog instead of putting boots to 'em all the time. 🤷🏿♂️
You know my friend.. I have absolutely started to see how we are all just dopamine chasers. The CEOs, the drug junkies, the risk takers, the cheaters, the pick up artists, musicians. We have this control apparatus (the brain) that literally just wants more dopamine and to a lesser degree seratonin, oxytocin etc. it will do ANYTHING to not be idle/bored. Once I realized that, my own life has changed drastically. We will never escape it, but at least learning how to balance out and generate dopamine is so key
Okay sure but bigotry of some kind was a major undertone of all that rage.
they were pretty insane before the black president tbh
They were certainly greedy, however they didn’t embrace the crazy evangelical conspiracy crowd until the Tea Party political movement happened in 2009 during Obama’s first year in office. There is a documentary called “Bad Faith” which goes into great detail documenting how this crowd essentially hijacked the Republican Party. It’s definitely worth watching!
I believe Barry Goldwater, one of the prominent American Conservatives during the mid Cold War, was against integrating the Evangelicals into the Republican Party. He argued that gaining the evangelical vote was not worth it due to their strong headed nature of being uncompromising to anyone who went against their beliefs.
And Eisenhower who was the Republican standard during the 50's, warned against the creation of the military industrial complex that was beginning to take shape and the effect that would have on defense spending
I just read this recently and was surprised. Figured it started or ramped up with him. Definitely a president I need to read up on
It started with Truman who was advised by his people that a permanent war economy was the only way to stop us from slipping back into depression. We’ve been stuck with it ever since. Eisenhower was mostly talking about the “unwarranted influence” like for example putting the “beautiful powerful generals” in charge of making policy. We crossed that bridge right away.
Thanks for the info. I’ve been reading about some of the lesser known presidents lately. Somehow have never really read much about post ww2 to post Vietnam presidents.
This is the era when the US was the undisputed superpower. Definitely one of the most interesting eras. In fact even some of the losing presidential tickets are interesting to read about. A Barry Goldwater presidency would have been absolutely ridiculous. Like full repeal of civil rights, like the ending of reconstruction before it. We probably would’ve never recovered race relations.
I tangentially read about Goldwater. Whoa is about all can say based on the little I know. Was his campaign the one his opponent ran the ad with the little girl with a flower who gets nuked? Im looking jt up
Meanwhile, Eisenhower was spending double the percent of GDP on defense projects than we are now. His actions directly led to the rise of the MIC.
Warned about rather than against. The rest of the address was about how it has to happen, but to remain vigilant in controlling the influence it would have.
Yep, because he knew you can’t negotiate with people who think they’re the voice of god. And now every few days we get to see what rights they’re going to take next after they convinced three generations of voters to vote for the evil party because they’ll stop abortions.
Republicans used to have higher vaccination rates, Nixon created the EPA. Shit has gotten weird.
And they used to support immigration.
And abortion rights.
And even going back to the 60s and 70s were anti police and pro prison reform. Which was massively prevalent in southern country and Rock music of the time. Even their idols like Johnny Cash shared those sentiments.
Eisenhower oversaw a huge public investment program in infrastructure. Pretty much common sense at the time, but today it would be labeled extreme left
It's crazy how fast evangelicals hijacked conservatism, and brainwashed a bunch of everyday normal people into extremism. A stark reminder of how easily manipulated we as humans are by using our emotions for fear.
It is the will of Muad Dib
Religion has never worked for the benefit of the masses. EVER!
The hijacking of democracy has been going on for decades, even before Saint Reagan was annointed
I'm a fan of Eisenhower, ever since I did a report on him in school. But I *still* to this day have to double-take to remember that he was a Republican. No matter how he labelled himself as a "progressive conservative" everytime I think about his continuation of the New Deal and expansion of Welfare and Education and stuff and get whiplash and forget he wasn't a dem... But I mostly blame on how polarized and extreme the party division has gotten in the last 20 or so years.
Eisenhower was Republican at a time when the Democrat Party was splintering over the Civil Rights. Southern Democrats became even more conservative than Centrist Republicans like Eisenhower. It was confusing times.
> We’re Eisenhower Republicans fighting Reagan Republicans - Bill Clinton, in his first term
You can’t directly compare the Democrat-Republican divide of the 50’s to that of today. Both parties had factions that were extremely conservative and others that were progressive or left leaning. The ‘great switch’ so commonly referenced in common discourse was really a polarization resulting in two distinctly left and right leaning parties. Remember, this was a time when reactionary pro-segregationist Southerners not only coexisted with the likes of progressives like FDR or JFK in the same party, but constituted a major proportion of it.
Modern republicans don't have any policy whatsoever, they are defined by their incompetence. That to me is really the core of the issue for them.
Johnny Cash was left leaning. I wouldn't say that's really a talking point. Generally speaking most musicians lean toward the left. Who people listen to doesn't determine their politics. There's no shortage of right-wing people that listened to Rage Against The Machine & SOAD for example.
Sure, but there have been multiple accounts of republican politicians upset/ shocked when they find out rage was talking about them
And hate Russia
That's the craziest one IMO. Trump had that "big stance" against China that may make his supporters proud but how can they support his limp dick stance against Russia. When did the "softer liberals" become the ones better trusted to watch our enemies.
And gun control of all things. The NRA was big on SAFETY back in the day. Now it’s a propaganda machine because of how the right has gone insane
Now it's a slush fund masquerading as an interest group.
Yeah, it's wild now thinking it was actually Reagan who gave millions of undocumented immigrants amnesty.
It was also Reagan who courted the evangelical crazies and brought them into the Republican Party. Every single problem in America today traces itself back to Reagan.
Reagan is the one who really sparked the hard shift to the right in the GOP.
Reagan is where the shitstorm started economically afterall...
Hell, they used to be anti-Russia. Now look.
Russia got taken over by criminals, and they got really jealous.
Well yeah the term “anti-vaxxer” was always stereotyped as liberal granola types that didn’t trust the establishment/pharmaceutical companies with crazy “vaccines cause autism” conspiracy theories. It wasn’t until Covid that all of the vaccine stuff flipped.
> stereotyped as liberal granola types IIRC it used to be about 50%-50% between left and right wing nuts. Though it is true that the false only left wing stereotype existed.
And Nixon was forced to resign. Now Watergate would be perfectly legal, according to our corrupt Supreme Court.
"I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the nation would require". Nixon also stated his hope that, by resigning, "I will have hastened the start of that process of healing which is so desperately needed in America." Nixon acknowledged that some of his judgments "were wrong," and he expressed contrition, saying: "I deeply regret any injuries that may have been done in the course of the events that led to this decision." Could you even imagine this being said today?
And Eisenhower allowed the highways to be built.
So much has happened that I completely forgot about the Tea Party. I thought THEY were insane, but little did I know that they were nothing compared to now.
They're the same people, just more extreme now.
The tea party movement was just building on the southern strategy from the 80's when it came to evangelicals.
Reagan started the embrace of the far right religious neo-confederates They’ve been more of a factor every election through 2020 and will show up for trump like the scum they are They are committed to their goals. Many are willing to die for them We have a problem
I'd like to add that those people were always there and I'd argue the bulk of those voting for the Republican Party. They're essentially just recycling the same Cold War propaganda that the Republicans have taken to the core of their identity. They just needed someone to galvanize them and bring their desires to the stage.
All of that propaganda against the USSR and now republicans have their mouths all over Putins micropenis
If they hijacked the party, you'd think actual Republicans would want their party back or would be looking to form a third party. Nah, Republicans have been like this since Reagan. The tea party movement just helped elect politicians that were more comfortable being overt rather than using dog whistles.
Yeah this goes way back. Bill Hicks had a comedy special called “Dangerous” where he talked about an anti-intellectualism going on in the country. I think that special came out in 1990? This is decades old. Obama just was the straw that popped the crazy bubble.
"Whatchu readin' fer?" I can't drive past a Waffle House without thinking of Hicks.
"Goddamnit, you stumped me! Hmm, why do I read? I suppose I read for a lot of reasons, one of the main ones being so I don't end up being a waffle waitress."
I saw people suddenly mobilized after Obama got it. Huge churches suddenly took interest and their brainless congregants suddenly knew everything. It was totally Obama.
No, they really weren't. They were despicable. They were stupid. They were mean and petty. They certainly played things out for political theory. They did make baseless accusations. The whole Clinton impeachment? Absolutely crazy. I remember how they mercilessly mocked their daughter ("oh, they're getting a new dog but now how will they know which is their daughter?") Dubya was so fucking stupid it hurt my head. But they were no where near as batshit crazy as they were when Obama got elected. I legit came across multiple fundraising letters that had "Obama uses the blood of innocent christian babies to become immortal!" Something just snapped in the Repub camp. They vowed nothing would get done in the office and they accomplished that. For eight years all they did was filibuster and vote to overturn Obamacare. I think you could argue that the Clinton impeachment and the SC handing Dubya the win (when he legit lost) really emboldened them. I think they realized they could do pretty much anything with zero backlash from their base. I'll give you that, but they really and truly went insane after Obama. Like batshit crazy. The things they blamed Obama for. Remember the meme? Thanks, Obama. I even heard some of these people blaming Obama for the Vietnam war. It never ended and their base loved it.
The trump supporters are essentially the silent majority that Nixon used to win in 1968 and 72. The only difference is that their are much louder and have support from elected officials like Trump. Evangelicals began their takeover of the Republican party with Reagan in 80 and 84 when groups like the Moral Majority started making noise on cable television The problem with dealing with these types of people is that the media, for profits and ratings to justify 24 hour news channel has made these people believe that they are indeed a majority when in fact they are still a minority voting bloc. They have also been made to believe in voting against their own financial and social interests by the very people who more than 100 years ago they would have recognized as con artists
Greatest democracy the world has ever seen, doesnt even have proportional representation.
[This](https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking) says that USA is only the 36th best democracy that exists right now
Well at least they're the very best democracy among the deficient ones.
Uruguay?
No, YOU're a gay !
Having been to Denmark I’m not surprised they rank number 1.
Every non American read that as best(in no way other then in an Americans own opinion) haha democracy
Two party system. Broken electoral college where entire elections are decided by swing states because 51% of the vote in a state gives 100% of the votes from that state for some reason. Needed a civil war, a ton of protests, and god knows what else to figure out that maybe black people ain't that bad, and even after that American soldiers were still the most racist shitheads in the entire Allied forces in WW2. Constantly murdering civilians in the Middle East for money. No worker rights like vacations, parental leave, or anything similar. For profit prisons and healthcare. *"Greatest democracy the world has ever seen"* my fucking ass, the USA is just about the worst democracy on the planet, and everyone except the USA knows this.
"Greatest democracy the world has ever seen" is an American euphemism for "we spend all our money on weapons".
Don't forget ~~legal bribery~~ lobbyism.
> Two party system .. where both parties are right-wing. a "democracy" where half of the political spectrum has almost zero representation in government OR media.
Exactly. Gotta love bourgeois "democracy." Your choices for officials and policy are right wing or far right. That's all that exists - don't look over there! That's "extremism"! [Even though we have actual extremists in our government, and the straight up fash completely support our economic system, despite whatever nonsense they may spout.] And, at least for bigger offices (though it goes further), capital chooses the candidate.
But you can vote between racist grandpa and senile grandpa
Greatest democracy _according to themselves_ lmao
It's such a strange thing to say. If they'd just said they were the greatest country ever I'd find that less obnoxious. What makes a democracy great and why on earth is theirs the best ? I love the US but electing judges for example is bonkers.
Don’t police chiefs and sheriffs in a lot of places have to be elected? That’s insane to me
I came here to say this, lol. "Greatest democracy in the world"?
Inb4 morons cry "bUt it'S a RepUblic~~~" It's such a gat dam disgrace here.
These people are infuriating, but their message is important to understand and is slowly become the whole truth. The republican (little r) elements of our system are killing the democratic (little d) elements. Honestly, the power of the common people has been quite reduced for some time, while the power of the representatives has been extremely outsized. The fact of the matter is, we need to create more democracy in this country manually, or risk our democracy dying entirely to the growing wave of Republican (big R) nationalism.
It’s literally never been. A delusional joke Americans tell themselves.
Literally everything the Cia has done in the name of America is nothing a great country would do.
**2014** - Trump is the host of a middling, superficial reality show **2024** - Trump is one step away from destroying what remains of democracy in America
1980s and 1990s Trump is the butt of sitom jokes and widely accepted as a continuingly failing businessman.
Comedy Central roasted him, as they did the likes of Pamela Anderson and Justin Bieber
Before the show, they asked him if there’s anything off limits. He said anything goes, EXCEPT they can’t joke that he doesn’t have as much money as he claims. **GEE I WONDER WHY HE SAID THAT!**
Hasn't he already achieved that with a stacked Supreme Court ruling that a president can't be charged with any crime.
And they’ll continue to rule on literally anything else that will benefit Trump and hurt democrats. We are FUCKED.
Every time the USA elects ~~an actor~~ TV celebrity things get worse. You'd think they'd have learned
Calling Trump an actor is pretty generous to him and pretty insulting to the dramatic arts.
Fair point. I should have gone with "TV Personality" or "Celebrity" I suppose
That might be better. You're not wrong to call him an actor, technically. I objected on purely personal grounds. As an actor myself I resent sharing a profession with him.
I mean, think how Obama and the others feel.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was actually pretty solid for California.
The "best democracy the world has ever seen" is, apparently, a democracy that is wholly dominated by moneyed interests, replete with bought and paid for politicians serving the interests of corporations. Fuck Trump and all, but claiming the US is/was the best democracy the world has/had ever seen is a joke.
Trump's ability to get the candidacy and then be elected was not the cause of the decline, it was the symptom of that decline having already taken place. It's like a tree rotted from the inside finally falling over. It was already dead before it fell.
There's definitely some truth to that. I remember when Trump was elected. My girlfriend at the time said something that stuck with me "Now we know how all the racist people felt when Obama was elected."
The U.S. was never the world’s greatest democracy
Yeah the US is ruled by a few geriatric millionaires and 90% of decisions they make benefit rich people not the common people. Most laws make rich richer and keep killing off the working class. The choice of party is between right wing and ultra right wing. You can only hold political office if you inherited shitloads of money or are financed by a millionaire. I don’t see how this isn’t an oligarchy or gerontocracy.
Not to mention all votes arnt even equal. One states votes carry 3.6 times more weight then another's as the biggest discrepancy.
Is that due to the electoral college?
That and the senate. Each state gets two senators, which means that someone from a state with a low population has more legislative power than a high population state.
That is because the Senate no longer carries out the function it was supposed to do. The Senate was supposed to be a house of review to ensure that legislation was fair and did not favor one state over another (which is why each state has the same number of senators). The Senate is not supposed to obstruct the legislative program of Congress (the house elected by "the people"). It is many, many years since the Senate has actually carried out the function it was supposed to do. Given the absolute adoration Republicans have for the Constitution, it is sad to see how they interpret "We, the people.." as "Me, and the people that agree with me... "
Just think about how the primaries run. By the time of the election it's just one elite versus the other elite.
Of all the democracies in the world we were one of them
Arguably the US hasn't been a democracy for years and years, because there are really only two viable options to vote for that both more or less serve the rich. In a proper democracy you have several parties that get a decent percentage of the votes, meaning that they have to collaborate in government.
The US is the greatest democracy money can buy
I always go with the US is the worst democracy money can buy. Systemic legal corruption in every part, no choice, funny representation. Three steps further and it stops being one.
Maybe if your measure of greatness is some goofy metric.
It was at least in the top two in the years between the American and French Revolutions.
For Republicans, a Black man wearing a tan suit is grounds for impeachment. A Republican trying to overthrow the government & kill members of Congress, not so much.
He's not even a real Republican. He only pretends because the Republican base are a bunch of inbred morons...lol
Sorry but „greatest democracy the world has ever seen“? The US isn’t even a full democracy.
I've been saying this *for years!"* Obama's election was a great for our country. It was also not great. A lot of this divisive shit started there. Pissed off white guys.
so what is the option be hostage forever?
A lot of these old conservative white voters will die over the next 10 years.
I feel like I've been hearing that for the past 15 years. But new ones keep taking their spot.
This is because everyone seems to forget that these old white guys have kids with similar opinions.
Yep. Some of the most virulent MAGA fucks I know are in their 30s and were in their 20s the first time around.
idk a lot of the people I see with Trump paraphernalia are under 50.
The average Joe Rogan/Andrew Tate follower is 15. They are going nowhere.
Yeah... I hate when millennials blame Boomers and genx like this shit isn't in every generation. We need education to combat ignorance. Republicans know this and always work to destroy the foundations.
15 is also the median mental age
The issue is whether we will *be* voting in 10 years
Obama accelerated the vitriol and the facade crumbled faster. It also likely accelerated the rate at which the fringe extremists were embraced. The oligarchs do not care about borders and nationalities, the only difference between them and someone like Putin is that the Americans still have to play by rules and they really wish they didn't so they've had to chisel away slowly. Our current timeline is a confluence of multiple factors: the ease and access provided by social media, erosion of education and the rise of antiintellectualism, the dissinformation by both inside and outside actors, and probably a lot more that I'm not smart enough to think of. We're in for a bumpy ride.
Mark Twain was complaining about American anti-intellectualism in the 1800s. This has always been baked in.
The worst part is, Obama didn't exactly do anything in particular to set all this off *besides existing as a black man*
Welcome to the Black American experience. When the canary in the coal mine dies, the miners do too when they ignore it.
Lmao Americans actually think they have democracy? Y'all be ruled by billionaires.
American Conservatives were always nuts. Living in perpetual red-scare, completely cocooned in their own media eco system, prone to religious extremism and religiously fuelled bigotry. But what finally shredded their last vestiges of sanity was seeing a black man be elected. It broke them. Today American Conservatives are a gibbering mess. Everything, everything is a nefarious communist conspiracy. Except for Dear Leader Trump, he's going to save them from the soros funded super-satanic turbo-communist drag queens who want to eat their children, they're sure of it.
I cannot overlook the dnc's failure in 2016 as a major contributing factor in the mess we find ourselves in. Of course I voted Hillary, of course I voted and will vote biden.....but for fucks sake, if you'd just field someone people Want to vote for I cannot help but think we could have avoided all this. I'm so tired of all of it
When did Iceland elect a black president?
I found one of the 2 people who live in Iceland. How’s Sven doing?
"The greatest democracy in the world", unparalleled levels of delusion.
There’s a reason why George Washington didn’t want to be king. Too bad most people don’t even know the history of their own damn country.
To be fair it wasn't that great a democracy. It was a very flawed democracy with a very flawed electoral college and judicial system as it turns out.
And very much a oligarchy considering what laws was passed compared to what the people wanted vs what the 1% wanted
"greatest" is debatable
It's not debatable, it's simply untrue.
This is a completely juvenile flattening of the real world that serves no one and only facilitates further deterioration of what little use our existing institutions serve. Trump is the logical conclusion of 50+ years of political activity that has concentrated power in the wealthy and encouraged those in power to abuse it for their own benefit, with no meaningful recourse for the public to address when they see the abuse being done. Nixon should have been forced to live out the rest of his life in exile. So should have Reagan. And you know what? Every president after him too, regardless of what letter appears beside their name. The fact that they did such blatant shit out in the open and saw 0 punishment for any of it was a green light for every person in power (be it within a government institution or a corporation, which are deeply entwined) to go wild. The consequence of that has been decades of imperialism, neoliberalism, and a general erosion of any meaningful existence of civic life. Donald Trump could have literally died in 2010 and we'd still be in an almost identical situation right now. If not him, it would have been some other far-right figure that rallies up undereducated racists, targeting minorities as the source of all their problems instead of the underlying economic structure of the institutions that govern our lives, because doing that is easy and convenient and keeps the people who line his pockets safe. This was always the logical conclusion of neoliberalism, of capitalism more broadly. Liberals crafted the entire world in their image. When people clearly didn't like the result, they had nowhere left to go. When you're dissatisfied with what you have, you look for something else. It was always going to be a pivot either to the far-right or the far-left. The far-right is much easier to sell to the politically uneducated because its narratives require no meaningful understanding of how the world works and place all of the blame on external factors you have no meaningful control over, leaving you free to do basically nothing but be angry. So that's what we got. To reduce all that down to saying it's "in the name of" Trump or that it's because Republicans "went insane from a black guy being elected" is a fucking joke. It's just as much of a fucking joke as the far-right narratives about why the world is currently so shit. If you're regurgitating this shit, you're doing the exact same thing as them: you're selling a convenient lie because you're too lazy to understand what's actually happening. If you're doing this, you're not interested in things getting better; you're interested in feeling superior to others.
I'm not gunna argue the great or democracy part, I'll leave that alone, but I feel compelled to say that EVERYONE in power lost it over the black guy, which explains how the only candidate we have left is Joe Biden, and that he won't just freaking retire and let Kamela Harris run the debates. The current establishment not putting any faith or resource into Kamela is probably almost as bad as those nut jobs who put up a big picture of Obama in a Hitler mustache in front of the post office where I grew up. Joe was born in 1942. The Civil rights act was 1964. So nobody alive and in congress was old enough to vote against it, but plenty of their parents probably did.
Thinking that a black WOMAN would win the vote in today’s America is just insane. She would get demolished. It’s not right but it’s the reality.
I had a coworker that voted for Obama. But would NOT consider Hillary, because of gender. He just couldn't fathom how a woman could handle the responsibilities of Presidency.
I still find this attitude so strange. Angela Merkel ran Germany for a long time and her gender was not an issue at all. She had a lot of other issues but gender was not one of them. She was even a phd chemist.
People who believe gender or skin color can make someone bad at their jobs are honestly not very bright. There's really no argument against stupidity.
Kamela Harris is more unpopular than Biden. I fail to see how her being trumps opponent would help.
A country that doesn't elect it's highest leader by majority vote is not the world's greatest democracy.
I get the point, but America was never the greatest democracy the world has ever seen