Rand Paul Fears Trump Tariffs Could Mean 1930s-Style Republican Wipeout: ‘We Lost the House and Senate for 60 Years’
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/rand-paul-fears-trump-tariffs-could-mean-1930s-style-republican-wipeout-we-lost-the-house-and-senate-for-60-years/Open linkView original on lemmy.world1062
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He doesn't give a shit about the mass starvation, shantytowns, global economic depression, and rise of Nazism into the largest war in human history that left hundreds of millions dead. No, he's worried because his party wasn't in power.
Fuck yourself with the largest, sharpest cactus that exists on the planet, you slimy, snivelling pathetic excuse for a fucking human, Rand Paul.
Oh no, what if democrats gain power and give us all healthcare and actually take care of the sick and poor. Wouldn’t that be terrible?
It would be unexpected.
Means they will have another go at undoing all that, is the circle of shit life.
The circle of sociopathy.
He doesn't have a party, he follows money and his popularity with his crazy fuckin base. The Republican party bought him just like they bought Reagan and I'm still not sure how anyone could be fooled by the exact same playbook.
I read your first paragraph as a prediction of the future, until l realized that you were talking about the Great Depression and WWII.
"Those who ignore history, are doomed to repeat it" is supposed to be cautionary, but MAGA sees it as a game plan.
The largest war in human history, so far...
I'm like, wait, what happened in the 1930s that meant the wipeout of the republicans and what happened in the next 60 years?
Oh yes, an overinflated market crashed during the republican presidency, the burst ignited by the proposal of a tariff increase law, made to shield American industries and that was actually signed into law and significantly worsened the great depression. This pretty much caused the rise of Nazism in Germany and WW2
What happened then in the next 60 years? Oh yeah, the US won the war and became the biggest world superpower, the economy boomed and you had pretty much the most prosperous time in America's history.
Maaaaybe a republican wipeout isn't that bad now, is it?
I wish American Voters had memories longer than 4 years. But they don't.
They got pissed at Bush and the Republicans in 2006 for the war and in 2008 for crashing the economy.
And 2 years later in 2010 they voted in a red wave not seen since reconstruction.
Donald Trump tried to overthrow the government and 4 years later they gave him another chance. If Trump shot a crowd of people on 5th avenue the kids of the victims would vote for him 4 years later.
There were massive voter suppression campaigns in both those election cycles. And it doesn't help that the neo Liberals highjacked the democratic party, marginalizing labor. People are not motivated to vote for the lesser of two evils.
Neoliberals and centrists need to get this through their firewall of condescencion towards leftists, no matter how much y'all hate leftists (and laugh at leftists with your more conservative friends) you need to understand the average person in the US hates you and your leaders far more than than they hate genuine leftists that actually fight for the working class instead of spitting on them and publicly calling them stupid.
It won't. They benefit from corporate greed as much as the right does. They are enablers of fascism.
Yeah the lure of power won't sway them because the point of them holding power is to KEEP the working class from influencing policy.
Leftists in America are a tiny minority that happens to be in a kingmaker role because the Dems and Repubs are nearly evenly matched. There is no vast silent majority of Leftists. You're in an internet bubble.
YOU need to get onboard with OUR ideas.
Your ideas got us here. With democracy hanging by a thread because both the corporate Democrats and Republicans spent decades weakening the lower classes to enrich themselves. How many 70-80% approval rating policy idea have the Democrats spurned over the years because it would mildly inconvenience their mega donors in the short term?
Can you name any?
Democrats haven't been in power for decades.
Decades? They had the presidency and both halves of Congress for the first two years under Obama and all they gave us was Mitt Romney's health care plan. And again during the first half of Biden's term.
The Democratic leadership keeps actively stopping attempts to corral the ability of congressmen to get rich off inside trading. They spent the whole campaign season last year supporting and assisting in a very public genocide. Trustbusting has basically been forgotten - we only have the illusion of choice in our much each industry from the media to even our food products are dominated by like 3-4 companies within it.
Whenever they do happen to get power, they do nothing with it, and then act surprised when they immediately lose it again.
They had a majority that could override Republicans for all of like 2 months
Never had a supermajority, even though they did get a few epic bills in through some brilliant legislative maneuvering.
Obamacare has saved literally thousands of lives and saved countless more from poverty inducing medical costs and you act like that's nothing. It's the single best piece of legislation in the last 50 years at least. And we did that with just a few months of power.
Anyway. For your actual specifics
Biden calls for ban on congressional stock trading - never taken up by Repub led Congress
Democrats make last-ditch effort to ban stock trading by lawmakers
FTC Sues Amazon for Illegally Maintaining Monopoly Power
United Health Lawsuit Named Among FTC's Biggest Wins
Big Pharma Braces for More FTC Suits Over M&A Bound for Approval
Gaza I'll give you. That's really the only hugely popular (among non-republicans) issue they refused to support.
So I'm assuming you're a liberal? Let's hear these ideas, seriously.
Sure!
All people are equal before the law. Discrimination is abhorrent, and people's personal freedoms should be respected until they harm others. Liberals and Leftists pretty much agree 100% on this so I won't spend more time on it.
Capitalism is the most powerful social engine for beneficial progress that the world has ever seen, but we need to keep it under control. It's like an engine - harnessed, throttled, and controlled explosive power to drive us forward at a manageable pace. Strong regulations, strong unions, progressive taxes, and heavy government incentives are the ways we keep capitalism under control. Currently, it is OUT of control and is doing far more harm than good.
Taxes on the rich should be higher, loopholes should be closed, and enforcement should be stepped up. There's no consensus on exactly how much higher, but they all agree they should be higher.
At the same time, we recognize the potential economic effects of taxing the rich. If we're not careful, they'll just move their money elsewhere. So we want to raise taxes to the extent possible without triggering flight of the wealthy.
Everyone deserves a minimum standard of living. Food, shelter, and healthcare are human rights and should be free for those who can't afford it.
Immigrants are good for the economy. Even the illegal ones. We should be making immigration easier.
Climate change is real, is man-made, and it is our duty as humans to do our best to fix it. However, we can do so to a large extent without causing hardship among everyday people, by making intelligent changes upstream from consumers. We can have economic growth AND tackle climate change, if we're smart about it.
Obviously, left-leaning liberalism is a wide-ranging ideology but these are the main ones that came to mind immediately. The biggest difference between liberalism and Leftism is that Leftists want to tear down capitalism and Liberals want to control it.
I'm into it. I do think capitalism has far overstayed its welcome. I agree with everything you've written here, I just see it as a stepping stone to socialism rather than an end goal.
Fair enough. I think a lot of Liberals view socialism (like no shit real "own the means of production" socialism, rather than European capitalist-lite socialism of today) the same way as me: it sounds nice, it just doesn't seem to work very well in practice. But hey if we can get it to work, neat. In the mean time, let's get capitalism under control.
No the biggest difference is that Leftists want to address the fundamental, existential problems with capitalism and Liberals want to paper over it and not face the reality while still pretending they are part of the solution.
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sounds of thousands of starving Ukranians. What was that again? Something about Capitalism being the root of all evil and Socialism being perfect in every way?
This is what a lot of young leftists hand wave away
Taking in infinite immigrants and providing food shelter and healthcare for them and their lineage until the end of time ALONG WITH all of the disadvantaged citizens is not economically sustainable. You’d effectively be turning the U.S. into the world’s homeless shelter. At some point, likely sooner than later, all the raised taxes in the world on the businesses that don’t leave won’t be enough to care for everyone.
I’m all for compassion but it has to be reasoned compassion. You can’t just look at what your version of Utopia is and say that’s what we should do. Humanity is not perfect and neither will any society it builds be. But at the same time we can’t let perfect be the enemy of the good, and so we engage in these discussions.
I disagree.
Fuck yeah we would.
Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
Here's the thing about immigrants: they start businesses. They get degrees. They make money. They pay taxes. They drive the economic engine forward. They're not helpless fucking children, they are smart and driven and capable adults who happen to not speak your language and may have browner skin than you.
Democracy will not save us. People that won't vote unless they fall in love can fall out of love much more easily.
Do vote, it's low effort and it can make a marginal difference. Just make your plans assuming you party will lose and if they win they will disappoint.
Your treating this as if the same people are voting different ways. It's usually much more along the lines of voters staying home one election and voting in another.
Edit - autocorrect got naughty!
Keep in mind that the voting system itself is rigged. States with lower populations tend to have more representation per capita due to the Electoral College. This biases everything towards red states.
And that doesn't even get at the decades of gerrymandering...
EC needs to go away, too.
And they have the gall to say they're voting that way "for the economy"
I've stopped believing there is anything that will make people stop voting Republican
Lack of elections could….
How's that for government efficiency?! Don't even have to vote anymore.
I'm thinking the breadlines will probably manage.
Breadlines?... Have you been paying attention to the actions of the last decades? They even arrest church staff for feeding homeless people.
No. They just want people to die in the gutter.
Yeah, this time around there will be no government assisted breadlines cause this government is ineffectual at best and outright malicious at worst.
With the current price of bread? Nah, it will be Soylent protein bars this time around (the green ones are the best!).
How does it taste?
Breadlines ? That's socialism. Can't have that...
Certainly not for the folks who just think they are Republicans like it's a racial identity or something. That's some shit I can't understand.
The Republican party deserves to die for allowing Donald Trump to rise to power. The Democrat party deserves to die for being useless to stop them. America needs a whole new fresh start with new parties
or better yet, no parties at all and force some of our morons to actually learn their candidates beyond just party lines.
Idk, I'd totally be in favor of ranked voting; with several parties that correspond to music genres where people could identify the party's values based on vibes. Ex: Acid Polka Party, Nu Delta Blues Party, Hyper Uplifting Metal Party, etc.
That will never happen.
We were within 2% of stopping them. If you bastards had got on board, we wouldn't be in this mess.
Let's blame the voters instead of our shit policy and campaign that promises them nothing much more than republican lite
I blame the owners of news and social media. How can people make good decisions if they can't perceive reality?
Would that not be better than full fascism?
I don't understand what you could possibly mean by this comment. We, as in the American electorate, directly chose fascism. What the fuck do you mean that we will see it soon enough? We didn't take the path you say also leads there eventually, the only way to tell where it leads is theory. We are never going to see the real world impacts of the choice we did not make.
Why not both.
No fuck yes. Blame them.
Are you saying that trump won because his policy and campaign was stellar.
Trump won because his base acted instead of passively watching. They took over everything and all the left could say was "don't roll with them something something pigs"
The voters and especially the non-voters are to blame along with the politicians. Why shouldn't they be responsible for voting against their own interests or sitting it out after having seen a Trump presidency?
Chaotic evil is more showy but that doesn't mean that lawful evil isn't also evil.
Na. It's the Democrats politicians fault. Send more money to Israel.
Part of me wonder if this is worth saving. We need to start over.
Where's Thanos when we need him
Or, better idea, no parties like the founders intended
But bruh if u vote for third party, it's a win for Donald Trump bruh.
It needs a new electoral system too.
Yep the one that farmers does not select president for whole United States and 6th largest economy of world aka California.
I think they bumped up to 5th recently
That was correct. Until the day the voting system changes, voting third party for anything national will be the same as not voting at all as far as results go. This isn't good, it isn't right, but it's the world we live in and the system we are operating under.
It literally was.
Notice that's their top concern. Not hurting Americans, not pissing off allies, not a recession, not handing off the title of World Superpower to China, but losing their jobs is their top concern.
They put in the hours. Maybe they've fucking earned it. But if it makes you feel any better, most of the BRICS are rocketing upwards and positioned to match or eclipse the US by the end of the century. That's just what happens when you implement modern industrial policies under a more egalitarian social system. Spreading the wealth engages more of the population in high value productive activities that benefit the national economy in the long run.
After you've built a broadly productive economic engine, the only thing holding you back is the size of your productive population. At that point, policies like universal health care and efficient mass transit really start paying dividends.
It's not like they needed us to fumble in order to take the trophy, but all the same we didn't need to just hand them the ball and walk away.
Don't threaten me with a good time!!!
Also, it's a wheel. The Cons ruin the economy, voters get mad and vote Democrat, Democrat fixes economy, voters don't like the spending even though it's improving everything so vote Con, the Cons ruin the economy, ect ect so on and so forth
The Democrats get penalized for not fixing it fast enough or good enough.
This could be a super duper long play hustle. Where after 4 years they just lay down and then in 12 years they slip back in and really fuck shit up after the left can't fix anything they have done.
By then AI will be in control, everyone will have elons chip in their brain and president baron will be choking kittens on the Whitehouse lawn to a stadium crowd while hologram kid rock plays the classics.
Look out for project 2037 mark my words
That's the same everywhere, not just the US.
The right destroys what the left/center build so the left/center rebuild it and then the right destroys it again.
This is so true it hurts to read it.
Yeah, I find it kinda funny that the "great again" era that is constantly referenced is actually this era of loosing the House and the Senate that is specifically being refrenced now. Mate, you can't have it both ways; do you want the house and the Senate and the House or do you want it to be "great again?"
Or if the current R leadership becomes irrelevant, the Dems win for many terms in a row, and the new generation of Rs decide to appeal to the left by doing another party swap
So we'll have like five progressives and the rest will be liberal corporate heels. We still won't get anything useful. But at least we wouldn't have republicans, so it's better than nothing.
Corporate Dems need to go away too.
Sure is telling that his biggest worry is republicans losing power and not the sort of fucking depression that was the cause last time.
I sure fucking hope so, you piece of shit.
Hopefully the republicans can go the way of the whigs, the democratic party can become the conservative party they so desperately want to be, and we can create an actual party on the left.
I've wanted this for ages. And it's represented so well in Republicans having only one platform: "Oppose Democrats. If it makes a Democrat angry, do it."
Cleanse - and I mean CLEANSE - the opposition party. No one here can claim the Democrats never have good ideas. And yet, we can definitely do better than them. A better party means having better ideas - not just "Stop them libruls". Bernie just toured the States with a message of exactly what that would look like.
I believe the second point of his tour was to make sure everyone knows that AOC is his political heir. He can't keep it up forever.
Fingers crossed
Not happening. There won't be another legit election.
Considering the rampant gerrymandering, the fucked system that's the electoral college, this past election having widespread voter intimidation, destruction of mail-in ballot collection boxes...was the last one a legit election? How long has it been since there was one?
Yesterday we voted and kept wi supreme Court leaning Dem despite being outspent 10:1 for the second time in 4 years. You need to keep voting and spread the word. I convinced a co worker to vote that also thought it was useless. Every vote matters
✊ fuck yeah! Keep it going!
Dont forget the swing state statistical anomalies. No, the last one wants fair and none going forward will be either.
Ever notice how Republicans all at once and very rapidly stopped talking about paper ballots?
I'm gonna go with never.
Of course there will be more legit elections.
What does he expect. Libertarianism is basically enacting the policies that led to the great depression. Trump is reacting in the way that made it worse, but you are the kerosene to his spark. Expect great depression when you get what you want.
I hope he is right. We could do a lot of good if we kept them out of office.
GOP should be banned from American politics. They have repeatedly violated the constitution at this point and are clearly compromised.
Completely agreed, but I'm pretty sure we'll need new leadership for the Democratic party if we want them to make this happen
How about we burn 'em both down and elect people based on what they've already done rather than what they're going to do?
No, that's too reasonable - I must be crazy.
I'm not opposed to the idea if people can make it happen, but I think a mutiny will be easier than building a whole new boat
Look if you don't want to vote for bears you should have chosen to be born someplace smarter
Republicans should be wiped out. Fools, monsters, and traitors. They've done incalculable damage to the world and all those who live here.
Every Republican that dies should be cause for celebration.
Maybe when the MAGA dorks try to convince us this is short term for long term gain; what they don't realize is ousting the republican stranglehold on the country is the long term gain.
If they do, I'll remind them of all the times Democrats reduced the deficit for long-term gain, and then Republicans pointed only to last year's DJIA.
Not one time have I seen a Republican acknowledge those statistics, no matter in what form they are presented. Not once.
Which is not a knock against you, but yet more evidence how how willfully they will bury their heads in the sand if you encourage them to hate people they already want to hate + tell them they are patriots for doing so.
And pray tell why do you not include the Demonrats in your statement? Do you not agree that the Democrats are 100 percent complicit?
Squares and rectangles.
All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.
All republicans are fools/monsters/traitors, but not every Democrat is. Some are. But not all.
You sit down to a table with 9 nazis eating dinner and then there are 10 nazis. I hold every democrat as responsible as the republicans. Leave the damn dem party and form a new one or go with Dr. Stein. The democrats can rot in bloody hell
Look, I'm pissed too, I want them tf out of power and I want them to face consequences for what they've done. But celebrating the death of every Republican is more than a little extreme. The top dogs / those responsible? Sure. But let's not go calling for the deaths of our countrymen - who are, tbh, blind fools who've been brainwashed by propaganda. That doesn't make them worthy of death. I'd recommend avoiding turning the heat straight to 100 unless you want to watch our country walk an even darker path in coming years. If you've convinced yourself that's the outcome you actually want - of civil war and all the other fucked up shit that tends to come with war - then you're your own type of blind fool.
I’m sorry. My grandpa taught me the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi. He was a smart dude
I wouldn't disagree. But not every Republican is on board with or even aware of what's happening. As someone who's escaped a cult, it's hard to see through a smoke screen of propaganda, misinformation and dogma when you're surrounded by it. Getting us to fall into left vs right, black vs white etc camps and fight each other to the death is exactly what the rich elite (our actual enemies) want to happen. I'd recommend Andrew Callaghan's film "Dear Kelly" for a first hand look at what this looks like in action; how an otherwise innocuous, well meaning citizen can be brainwashed by far right propaganda and how quickly they can lose touch with reality - as well as how they can be brought back from that brink.
People are nuanced and groupthink is holding us back as a species. Hold the grand old party to task, and put on blast all those who have been profiting off of the suffering of others and leading the destruction of society. But don't lower yourselves to their level and paint everyone on the other side of the fence the same shade, or miss the nuances of how these people are being manipulated, and by whom.
The manipulators are the problem. Not the manipulated.
I do agree they are sheep misled. But a penchant for being a Nazi does not a good citizen make.
This soft approach after the civil war is why we are here again.
This reminds me of the Myth of the Clean Wehrmacht. In short: No, not so many of them are victims and puppets.
There are some cases where people are pulled out of cults by exposure to outside opinions. Anyone among the Republicans that has frequently had that exposure, on some level (for instance, hearing arguments from Democratic senators prior to votes) agrees with and wants the destruction.
Now we're talking.
Do you not think it's a little hyperbolic to claim that every single member of the Republican party is a Nazi deserving of only death?
I mean, sure, it feels great to sound like a tough guy on the Internet, but you're talking about tens of millions of Americans.
I 100% believe in what I said and so do the mass majority of Americans.
The mass majority of Americans absolutely do not believe in putting to death every Republican.
I said Nazis. You said republicans.
That’s a confession
Read up. The person you responded to was warning against celebrating the death of all Republicans. You responded with something about your grandfather taught you the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi. YOU are the one that first equated Republicans with Nazis.
Also, I'm a leftist, you tool.
I understand that you feel the conclusion is disturbing. Can you elaborate on what part of their reasoning is confusing?
I suppose the part that leads to mass murder.
Do you think it's murder to kill a Nazi?
I believe it is justified. But I'm not going to dignify the question of "is it murder to kill a Nazi" with an answer.
We don't have to go door to door shooting everyone registered R. The leadership should definitely go up against the wall.
But every person that votes R is voting for climate disaster, unchecked pandemics, rolling back decades of medical science, violence against queer folks and other minorities, and other horrors.
They might not be a comically evil person who kicks puppies and steals candy from babies, but they've thrown what little power they have behind tremendous evil. When that stops, that's a win.
I concede I could amend my previous statement that they don't need to die. We can also celebrate them leaving the party and changing themselves so they're not doing evil anymore.
Have you ever considered that this hostile attitude you show towards individuals is exactly what the system wants out of you?
What feels like resistance is actually just maintenance of the status quo. The elites have replaced class consciousness with culture war. Instead of hostility towards individuals who have been led to believe falsehoods through information warfare and weaponized insecurity, why not aim that hostility towards the systems in place that intentionally makes people afraid and angry?
If we wanted to get a little more psychoanalytical about it- this hatred of the individual who has been duped is pathological. It's sort of like the Nazi and the Jew. The Nazi needs the idea of the Jew to maintain the Nazi world view. Certain excesses are only justified if you have an omnipresent internal enemy. By placing the Republican voter as the villain, you put yourself in the position of moral superiority.
By placing him down, you put yourself up. But really, I believe this may be subconscious projection. Because you are just as guilty and complicit in maintaining the system as the Republican voter. It's hard to fix the cognitive dissonance of that position. All of us work, pay rent, pay taxes, buy products, post online, etc- we are tiny cogs that moves the machine forward.
So the elites have created an easy safety valve for that cognitive dissonance. Blame the others. Your life sucks? It's illegal immigrants. Your life sucks? It's Republicans. Your life sucks? It's the gays. Your life sucks? It's the Miami Cubans. And so on and so on.
Until the working class unites and redirects the hostility towards the pillars of power that keep us in line, there will never be any meaningful change in this country. This hostility you and other users show towards Republican voters is ironically supporting the very thing you claim to hate. We're doomed to endlessly loop around a Möbius strip.
This is false
This is actually true. The ultra wealthy that keep us in this hellscape are republicans. They have much of the blame. But the low level people who keep voting for them also have some of the blame.
Blaming the queers (for example) is a total non-sequitur. They're just living life. The republicans are dismantling the government, ending vaccination programs, and rolling back environmental protections. They are for real doing actual harm right now. It is not the same as the imaginary harms "the jews" do. People would make up stories about nefarious evils of jews, but meanwhile the republicans are right there on TV doing evil. There was a nazi salute. There was an insurrection. These are things that happened.
The working class republicans are class traitors. They should realize that our interests align, but they don't, and they are actively doing harm.
If you have ideas on how to instill class consciousness in the kind of people who vote against their interests, let's hear it.
I disagree. Pick a random Republican voter from this country and you're very likely to grab someone from a red state. Let's say Alabama. Their vote is as insignificant as a blue voter in California. So regardless of who you or who they voted for, their impact is nil.
But when we talk about complicity we're not simply talking about voting. We're talking about participation in the system. For example, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that in the last few months you have drank a Coca Cola beverage. I don't mean just their cola, but any of the myriad of drinks they provide. Whether it's Sprite or Dasani or what have you.
You have contributed to the bottom line of a company that hires death squads to kill labor leaders (this is has been proven in court).
That's just one infinitesimally small example out of an infinite number of actions you and everyone else have taken that perpetuates the system of exploitation we live. We are the chosen people that get to live in relative opulence while billions around the world struggle to survive.
So I'll say it again. You are just as complicit. There is just as much blood on your hands as that Republican voter and yet you choose not to see it because it's easier to maintain the delusion of moral superiority. Why? Again- reducing cognitive dissonance.
Here you get closer to the truth. It's the ultra wealthy that ultimately decide what happens in this country. I'd go so far as to say they have all of the blame. Why? Because they are the only ones that actually have any autonomy. The research has been done before- American public opinion has zero impact on policy.
No matter who you vote for; over the long term the same policies will be enacted regardless.
The first step is to get rid of this atmosphere of hostility. You blame someone for the country collapsing, they get defensive and blame you for the country collapsing. We're in the post-truth era so it doesn't matter what is true or what is false. People believe what they do based on vibes. This isn't an accident but intentional.
I think we need to make a distinction here.
What we are seeing in the last few months of this administration is not the traditional Republican party. Trump has hijacked the Republican party much like Hitler hijacked the Nazi party. There is no more Republican party- it's the Trump party.
The question instead that we need to ask is how was this allowed to happen?
The answer is that wealthy people thought it was in their interests. Simple as that. It's why for example when you had the Trump inauguration the top tech CEOs all came to bend the knee and sat in the front row. The capitalist system has decided that having Trump at the helm is the most profitable outcome.
Trump worked hard to get to this point- he had to defeat the Republican establishment party. The Mitt Romneys and the George Bushes and the Mitch McConnels. Wealthy powerful people who wanted the status quo to continue indefinitely.
I think one key thing you are missing here is that the Democrats are just as guilty as the Republicans in creating Trump. Bill Clinton for example amplified Reagan's economic policies that accelerated our descent into brutal neoliberal capitalism. As we descend further down, people become increasingly insecure.
People who are scared for the financial future vote for dictators. This has happened before and it will happen again. I believe fascism is like a herpes outbreak. It'll never go away, but your immune system keeps in check most of the time. The issue is that our immune system is weakened and now it has a breakout.
I'm in my mid 50s, as context.
I:
just missed being old enough for awareness of key events in the civil rights movement, but:
grew up in a very racially diverse area, surrounded by people who lived those events
Lived through through/witnessed:
then watched as the entire Republican party gleefully worked to destroy and roll back all areas of progress the very moment they had enough power to do so. They are shitting up the place and destroying as much as they can, as wantonly as they can.
From the rank and file infiltrating and twisting local school boards and libraries all the way up to the whitehouse, they are making things as shitty as they can as fast as they can for as many people as they can. And it didn't start 2.5 months ago, you could feel it from the moment Trump took office the first time, though even then it was just a louder version of what was already clearly under the surface for decades. We are literally headed towards some freaky blend of WWII Germany and Gilead.
Everything being done now is something conservatives and Republicans I've known have been preaching to a greater or lesser degree for as long as I can remember. They were just better in couching it behind nice words back then, and less of them were comfortable being vocal about it. As far as I can tell, Trump has hijacked nothing and no one.
Resistance to him by Republicans at any level has been weak to undetectable the entire time, coming from a tiny minority of (now ousted) Republicans, and that is precisely what gives the lie to this idea that he hijacked a damn thing.
The commenter saying to line them all up is being ridiculous, of course, but they aren't getting any disdain they haven't earned, and in any case they aren't interested in having unity with anyone not like them anyhow, so I don't see any point whatsoever in this idea that we're supposed to talk nice and mollycoddle them into some kind of class-aware coalition. That ship has sailed.
a great many edits
They vote in local elections, which are not insignificant, and have real impacts. You have like school board elections decided by a few dozen votes. The conservatives win and start banning books and doing low grade hate crimes against queer people.
We all know there's no way to be a wholly good person under capitalism. We're both writing this on hardware that is likely metaphorically soaked in blood. That doesn't mean that any amount of blood is equal to any other amount of blood.
I don't think this is necessarily the case. We had a new deal. Trusts were broken up. It is possible to make changes. It's an uphill battle because of many factors, including the republicans pulling as hard as they can in the opposite direction. The republicans (or more broadly, conservatives and reactionaries. or even more broadly, the ownership class and their useful idiots) are the problem.
A key difference is they are incorrect. But as you say, we're in post-truth and facts don't matter anymore to a lot of people.
This isn't a serious policy summit because we're just two dorks on lemmy. In real life you'd have to spend a lot of time massaging people's emotions so they come a little closer to reality. In my internet-tough-guy persona I just want to shoot every red-hat in the head. I know it's not that effective, but I'm an emotional sack of meat like everyone else.
And again, they may feel the same way and want to just shoot the queers dead, except that wouldn't solve any problems. It's not the queers (or the jews or the blacks) that are voting to remove child labor laws, to remove environmental protections, to keep wages low and prices high. The animosity might be similar but they are wrong.
The right wing will always chose fascism and profits over anything else. Given a choice between paying a little more for labor or burning the entire country down, most of the ownership class would burn the country down. They're not good people. I'm pretty sure that was a key factor in fascism's rise in ww2- the wealthy class backed fascism because they didn't want to pay more wages to unions.
I knew a guy that worked for in a smallish factory, and the owner verbatim said "I'll burn this place down before I let you all unionize."
Personally, I think they should have broken into that guy's house at night and murdered him, but I understand not wanting to throw your life away on a class war skirmish that likely won't make a difference.
I said elsewhere that it's like squares and rectangles. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. All republicans are a problem, but not all democrats are a problem. Some are. That doesn't mean they're good. Maybe we want stars. Neither of them are stars.
It's funny because that's such a self destructive behavior. It's like someone having an itchy outbreak of some kind, and then they scratch and scratch and scratch until it bleeds and it gets infected. What's the political equivalent of cones for people's hands so they can't scratch?
Honestly I'm beginning to wonder if this site hasn't been invaded by reddit. Are you saying the democrats are going to fuck all about climate change? if so you are seriously deluded
It has, the mass exodus has enabled their bad opinions to be infected upon all of lemmy. .world is the worst for it.
@Redditsux I hope he’s right.
Best news this year.
What's really happened is we've had our global dominance thrown away. We took the lead because of WW1 and WW2. It's not because we're great. It's not because we manifested our destiny to become the leader of the world. It's because factories in Europe were bombed to smithereens. That's what allowed the U.S to achieve financial dominance. Now we're in the fall.
Their plan is to not have fair elections anymore.
Elections are over. The US is cooked.
The current regime will enact Russia-style “elections”.
Without violent revolution, the US is over.
What will probably happen is a one or two term slump. What's different between then and now is the internet and social media, which fills most people's brains with a deluge of noise. In addition to the effects of misinformation daily telling people that the moon is the sun, most algorithms prioritize novelty, and nothing's more novel than the most stupidly wrong-headed take. We constantly hear the opinions of people who should be laughed out of the room! We sit and chuckle, but there's tens of millions of people who have poor media skills who it can actually influence.
Of course that’s all he cares about. Fuck him, I hope he loses everything he holds dear.
Truman’s campaign against the “Do Nothing” Republicans is not the cause, but it’s when these huge majorities for Democrats got cemented in place for decades:
-Harry Truman, Address at the National Convention Banquet of the Americans for Democratic Action, May 17, 1952
https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/129/address-national-convention-banquet-americans-democratic-action
There's a reason the only candidate drumpf is scared of is Bernie Sanders. My man does exactly what Truman suggested and it works.
Cute you think he's scared of Bernie
Please the Democratic leadership, the DNC, the DCCC, the defacto “party leaders” like the Clintons and Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, RAHM EMANUEL…This element, these people, are at best conciliatory and at worst collaborators. Call them “phony Democrats”, call them whatever you want. I want them to fuck off.
There is a reckoning coming, I think, and neither the Republicans nor the establishment Democrats are going to like it much. There is already an apparent sea change in some critical contests, and the polling data and turnout has been literally unprecedented.
Besides the lame masculinity part (history is surely full of far more men who were cowards as leaders than women) it is true.
There are many reasons turn out was crap, primarily people didn't want Biden shoved down their throat again and Harris didnt have the time or space to differentiate herself.
Sorry, best we can do is folks who hold up little signs that say "lies" during speeches.
Yep. It also got a democrat elected 4 terms as president. Tax rates climbed up to 95+ percent for millionaires.
@frog_brawler @Boddhisatva
1380's - Make Everything Feudal Again
When exactly was America truly great? When it was founded on the back of slavery? When it expanded with a ruthless genocide of the Native Americans? When it had to have a Civil War to demand that slavery be abolished? When it ignored the emancipation of slaves, and adopted Jom Crow laws? When corporations were allowed to exploit its workers with low pay, dangerous work environments, child labor, and no protections? When companies hired goons to murder their activist employees for standing up for, and organizing their workers? When America was booming after WWII, and corporate America still exploited and discriminated against minorities and women? When it had a draft for the corporate war in Vietnam? When it assassinated great leaders with the potential to do great things in the future like MLK and RFK? When it re-wrote the tax code in 1974 to bake in Trickle Down economics, and cause the biggest shift of money from the middle class to the wealthy in history, which continues to this day? When Reagan fought his illegal war in Central America, selling weapons to our bitterest enemy to fund it, and giving protection to gun/drug smugglers, who flooded America with cheap cocaine, launching the crack cocaine scourge? When Regan repealed the Fairness Doctrine, allowing the Conservative Propaganda Machine to grow unchecked for decades? When the Republican party stole the 2000 election, and the Dems allowed it?
And now we've reached the point where a triumvirate of 2 foreign Sociopathic Oligarchs, and the most prolific traitor in American history have joined to treat America as a fat, weak, lazy target to be exploited as ruthlessly as possible.
So when exactly were we fulfilling the dreams of the Founding Fathers? When were we ever truly great?
I wasn't criticizing your excellent post at all, just expanding on the false assumption that all MAGAs start with, even making it their name.
We may care for our country, but we have a problematic history that should be acknowledged, not covered up.
S'cool.
A big part of the problem is that plenty of Republicans would answer some or all of your pointed questions with an unironic "yes."
But you'll do nothing to stop him.
Both you and Mitch McConnell are the reason he's here
I sometimes have this weird fantasy where Trump is an actual genius, and his plan all along was to destroy the Republican party. I imagine him sitting on the crapper with a McDouble in one hand and his phone in the other, trying to come up with the most insane tweets he can, getting frustrated that his plan is taking so long and thinking to himself "why are these people liking this shit? It's obviously bat shit crazy!"
Then I come back down to this Hellscape reality and sigh as I accept that the world is just full of stupid, greedy, selfish people, and Trump is an avatar for all the worst human impulses, and that tens of millions of people would gladly follow him off a cliff so long as they get to drag the rest of us over the edge with them.
I truly hate this place.
It's such a fucking nightmare...
I console myself by acknowledging that the only way we're going to get a true Socialist-Democrat in office is following this batshit insanity. All we really need is for the democratic party to stop roadblocking Bernie Sanders. Hopefully this time they don't 😭
Sanders will be 86 years old when the next election happens. The dnc doesn't need to roadblock him, the ravages of age and/or the grim reaper will do it for them. He's never going to be president.
This is one of the reasons he's been touring everywhere with AOC. He's trying to get people to understand that she is his political heir. He can't keep this up much longer.
Wiping out the Republicans? I don't see a downside with that.
The path to get there would be a pretty big downside. Some of us would say worth it, but that’s a privileged position and likely one we’d regret. Big time rock and a hard place energy.
GOP should have been banned from American politics already.
We’re never should have fallen to two parties like Washington and other founders warned against.
Washington warned against political parities, period. The problems of first past the post creating a two party duopoly weren't understood at the time.
It's not a very practical approach to nationwide electoral strategy, IMO. Washington himself was allied with Hamilton's Federalist party in practice, even if he never officially declared for it.
We've always had two major parties from the very beginning. But Washington was right. Perhaps the way things were set up was the problem. If only we had ways to change how the government worked and the rules weren't set in stone.
/s, because that's also what some of the Founders wanted to see happen. If anything that's what fell, the adaptability of the system to changing times.
Two parties is a design flaw of first past the post. There can be regional parties, and occasionally re-alignment elections, but the natural outcome of single member first past the post elections is two big-tent parties with roughly 50% of the seats each.
You need proportional representation or multi-member districts to have more than two stable parties.
It will happen with the current administration. Red states are the most reliant on government "handouts". Conservative voters are predominantly the least educated, least informed, and most economcially vulnerable people. They will be the most affected by trumps tariffs. They will be the most affected by his billionaire tax breaks. They will be the most affected by his cuts to social programs. I hate to see my fellow Americans fall on hard times, but despite all the history, expert opinions, and direct evidence that Trump is going to fuck them over, they keep voting for him. It's going to be hard, but I'm not giving my conservative neighbors and family any direct support for the next 4 years. Thoughts and "prayers" are all that they will get from me. Let them suckle from the shriveled teat of their spray-tanned steer this time.
Man if only he could like vote to get rid of them or something. too bad he's literally powerless and can't do a thing to stop this. /s
He did vote against the Canadian tariffs actually. It'll pass anyway though.
for the 2 decades, mitch mcconnel had the senate gop under his thumb
In a perfect world you will never again be in power. Ever.
"In power"? In a perfect world he'd never again be on this side of a prison cell!!
Also during those 60 years....recovering from the big depression, dust bowl and gaining human rights....
Shit, you're right. We can't have that. Can't wait to
watchread about Josh Hawley breaking Booker's new record with a speech about how freedom of religion is discriminatory against christians and only christians.I used to be a swing voter before Trump, after this admin, I will never vote for a Republican again. Especially since most support him.
I guess I'm glad he thinks that elections will still matter.
It's nothing but talk for these AHs and trying to save face. Besides it's not like if DJT is removed that we'd fair any better. We'd have couch fucker to contend with and he's just as bad.
Hopefully! The world would be a far better place. Globally and domestically.
Conservative policies just have their own heads up their asses sucking Trump's rich spoiled cock
Make it so.
I might be excited if the Dems would do anything with their power.
If the 1920s really are repeating then, if we survive the Trump administration, we've got a modern version of the New Deal on the way.
And then an epic ass-whooping - only this time on the receiving end since we're the baddies now.
Just give me high speed rail, dude. I want high speed rail SO BAD.
🤨
They'll give the rest of the world a breather which will allow us to finish forming a new economic and strategic structure where the United States plays a substantially diminished role. After that it won't matter whether the Republicans or Democrats are in power; at least not to most of the world.
They'll help the rich as usual, how do you think we got here?
What power? You fuckers didn't vote them INTO power
Clearly you didn't read the headline. Or reading comprehension isn't your strong suit
Rand Paul deserves to be wiped out with the rest of them.
That reminds me, I really have to sharpen my guillotine.
Or just make it taller. Physics can take care of that for us
That's how long it will take to rebuild US foreign policy, 60 years. I hope Rand is correct, fuck the GOP.
Oh no!
.... Anyway.
First time ever that I hope Rand Paul is correct. Don't threaten me with a good time Rand Paul!
A proto-Mitch McConnell being born
Wants to fill the empty turtle shell.
hes actually from the same state as mcconnel. hes not as smart, or craven as mitch though.
oh no. this guy is Ron Paul's son. Senator from Kentucky like Mitch Mccooonnel, oops
Ron Paul, oh I liked him when I was into hating the DEA the FED and etc.
remember when "audting the fed" was controversial. Elon Musk thought that meant deranged bullshit please, unto me
I hope this leads into demolishing republican party and moving on from the clearly faulty two party nonsense of a system. You can't keep functioning if you're on the verge of becoming authoritarian regime with oligarchs.
So they get power and do a bunch of shitty things. Then no one wants them in power anymore. Seems the country was doing quite well without them at the helm. Now....not so much.
It would be too soon, if we got rid of them and these Corpo Dems. We could remove citizens United and few other worthless pieces of legislation. That and stop this fucking election tampering in the name "stopping fraud" fucking clowns making voting a single day during the work week and these Red hatted goons cheer for this shit like the mouth breathing inbred ghouls they are because they hate everyone else is beyond annoying.
Citizens United wasn't legislation, it was a Supreme Court decision. The only way to fix it following the current rules is to ask the court again or to change the Constitution. Of course, if you are willing to just ignore laws then you have many options (see current Presidential administration for examples).
No. Congress absolutely has the authority to enact legislation that overturns a court decision, even the Supreme Court.
However, the disgusting piles of human shaped filth currently making up the Supreme Court would find some illogical excuse for why said law is unconstitutional. But only once one of there lackeys manages to appeal the issue all the way up the chain. But this process IS utterly corrupt and subverts the Constitution...not like they care. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But courts are given authority only to interpret existing legislation; their decisions do not restrict the legislature's authority to enact new laws. Thus the convoluted shit they come up with to abuse the appeals process, as mentioned.
Hawaii was recently successful in enacting state laws to limit campaign contributions. I'd hope that other states willing to tackle the fight could do the same. The biggest chance would be if it could be done in battleground states.
Really? I don't think your idiot voters will remember for longer than 5 years. And with an opposition like the Dems it'll be easy for you to get back into power. Don't overestimate the Americans. We all made that mistake once.
Rand Paul is a weakling, a poor excuse for a man, and a lowlife who deserves what the people want for him.
I've learned that Congress has the tariff power, but has delegated it to the president. Congress can take it back any time they want apparently.
Isn't that read as Congress to pass the laws for taxes? Administration of it can be done however.
Good, and we should wipe out the Schumers Pelosis and Jeffries too. Maybe get rid of these goofy ass mega corps
I don't think they need to worry, the dems like losing a lot more.
"During this two-to-five-year period, asserted Bezmenov, what matters is the targeting of essential structural elements of a nation: economy, foreign relations, and defense systems. Basically, the subverter (Russia) would look to destabilize every one of those areas in the United States, considerably weakening it."
We are here: attacking Canada, Greenland, Mexico (damaging our economy & theirs, and clearly our foreign relations) Trump also offered to cut defense spending if Russia does. It's all very obvious if you're not in the cult.
https://bigthink.com/the-present/yuri-bezmenov/
Touch that stove!
Good. Conservative ideology should be tossed into the flames of Mordor.
"Fuck the people this will harm, what about my political party!?
Don't threaten us with a good time, you POS russian hack. Can't believe I liked your dad at one point.
Way back when Alex Jones was cool
/s or whatever
Alex Jones was pretty critical of the PATRIOT Act, Bush, and the war in Iraq. It’s ironic how much of an autocratic war hawk he is now.
He saw a path to becoming a rich guy and knew where the grift was
He always was a grifter, he just had a few better opinions then. Still a 9/11 Truther.
I discovered him in high school. Had a research project on the constellation Ophiuchus and found insane shit on the Prison Planet forums. My APUSH teacher also used him as evidence of how crazy conspiracy theories were - showed the class how easy it was to get from his Truther websites to David Icke and his reptilian nonsense.
He made a good first impression on me with Waking Life and it was all downhill from there.
i think he was one of them that visited MOSCOW to thank lavrov in '19 during INDEPENDANCE DAY.
Yeah, that made my blood boil. Specifically after hearing then screaming that Russian influence is "fake news" for like a year or two by that point.
Don't threaten us with a good time...
Good. Fucking good. Also fuck with Social Security while you are at it and secure your fucking grave permanently.
and we learned nothing
So things aren't necessarily all bad.
So… yeah. But at the same time, I’m not convinced we’re going to even have elections in 2028, much less elections that are actually free, open, and not largely orchestrated towards the success of The Party behind the scenes.
Don't threaten me with a good time, Mr. Paul.
Inshallah
From your mouth to Satan’s ears!
I really hope some of the non-MAGA Republicans in the House and Senate start to realize their careers might be over if they don't do something. People aren't going to forget. And once Trump is out of the picture, they don't have anybody else with an iota of whatever qualities make people listen/like/follow/adore him.
If people didn't forget, he wouldn't have been voted in a second time.
How does that make any sense? Wouldn't have. "Have" not "of" holy shit. Make it a contraction if you want, like "wouldn't've". That's how most of us speak.
Sorry for blowing up, I just want us to write in a way so people won't dismiss our opinions out of hand.
It's called a typo.
People are ABSOLUTELY going to forget. They always do.
Nah. This won't be enough pain to really get people off their butt's in the US. We really like our confort.
Don't worry Rand Paul, your masters control the news and social media so it won't happen. They'll just keep a majority of people in an illusionary dream world.
Should have thought of that before hitching up to a lunatic.
I wish. Social media has poisoned minds so badly that I don't think there's any chance of that happening again.
We can only HOPE.
That's okay. Bigotry, ignorance, and a short memory in the general public will make sure they bounce back 4 to 8 years after being ousted nowadays.
So, there is a silver lining?!
Good. You nazi fucks deserve all the pain that comes to you.
Notice how he worries about HIS job... he couldn't care less about the harm to the country or the people
It's insane to think that the same two partys remain in control in the US. Yet they call it democracy.
I hope we get rid of all these bastards once and for all. Their entire party and platform is and always has been a giant fucking sham that preys on the gullible.
Here's hoping we send a few of you to prison too.
I hope to live long enough to piss on some graves.
Where is Ronald Reagan buried? Or George H W Bush? You could start getting some practice in.
The optimist angle would be that Trump is secretely a Democrat agent, and that by crashing the stock market he just thinks it's over-valued and wants to return to 2018~ levels.
I have rarely more genuinely hoped for something in my life...
These MAGA will just move to their Republican overlords after Trump has died. The real hope would be a split GOP. MAGA/GOP and Dems.
Lets hope!
Nah. I now have confidence his base is actually that dumb.
And yet this simpering little weenie will still vote for every single thing that HitlerPig demands.
From your lips to The Goddess' ears.
They deserve it.
We thought that would happen after the first Trump term, but here we are.
Always putting country before party 🎉
Sometimes you gotta learn the hard way
We can only hope.
Noodle head mofo
Hahaha oh well, next.
Don't trust anyone whose name is Rand, first or last.
Or Paul for that matter, but that's an entirely different issue. Paul knows what he did.
Someone didn't read The Wheel of Time
I did, and I feel the need to remind you Rand Al'Thor had espisodes of insanity and a disembodied homicidal voice in his head. Sure he saved the world, but I wouldn't want to be there during one of his fits trusting him not to accidently explode me.
Fair, but that voice wasn't something wrong with him, it was an external actor. Rand himself was a stand-up guy
Would it were so.
Sure, if there's a depression.
They might have to eschew morals and start gaslighting the populace to regain influence.
Wait...
Rand Paul is educated but not smart. But he's right here, and now there is nothing he or anyone can do about it. I do hope this is the beginning of the comeuppance the GOP so desperately, desperately needs.
LIES! Republicans HAPPILY Voted for all these! Both Republicans in Congress and Republican VOTERS! They would NEVER do things that would Hurt Their CONSTITUENTS OR Themselves! Republicans are SMART and CARE!
And whoever that fuckung prick was on the show clearly still defends Trump and says he has the intuition? This dude bankrupted four casinos. Just die already
You put it all on orange and spun the wheel
Here's hoping.
You mean an era of unprecedented social, economic and technological progress? THE HORROR!!!!
Its what happens when you let the children try to lead. Bless their heaaarrrts.
Don't worry, democrats will make sure that doesn't happen.
I fail to see how that is a bad thing.