Trump's GOP Is Ripping This Nation Apart. The Question Is: Why? | Common Dreams
The South will rise again!
-The underlying belief motivating all of this
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/why-is-trump-ripping-nation-apartOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
45 replies
Because you people didn't punish the South after the civil war and then let a bunch of richwhitemen run the fucking country.
Reconstruction was ended too early, in large part because of the Lincoln assassination, and the very questionable choice to appease the South by putting Andrew Johnson a heartbeat away from the presidency
We definitely should have been draconian in punishing the south, but our greatest mistake is civility politics. The leaders were all in the same social circles, and to this day that's a recurring problem that plagues most democracies. They didn't want real consequences for their buddies
So all in all, we didn't strip enough power from the leadership and stopped punishment way earlier than even the overly light-handed plan in place
The question is not "why?" Anytime you're stuck asking "why" about a situation, you're in denial. The real question every decent person needs to be asking themselves and everyone else:
What would you sacrifice to make the world a better place for other people?
And if the answer is "nothing" or "not much," you're part of the problem.
Why? Because we're an oligarchy from the start and this is what happens when special interests run the show for decades (centuries, even)
This is what everyone fails to see. The US was corrupt to begin with. Our first President was on his way to becoming the world's first billionaire adjusted for inflation and he would have if not for dying at 67.
People are like how did we get so corrupt!?
eye roll
Did you just notice, because it has always been this way.
Turns out Alexander Hamilton got everything he wanted, centralized federal power and 'democracy' in name only. Don't listen to the musical lol
It’s almost like our country was predicated on having the “liberty” to engage in cronyism and oligarchy.
A county formed by the wealthy for the wealthy for sure.
If I visit the States, should I visit Micihgan, Missssssppq, or the sunny Pqsqr keys?
I prefer South Carouna.
Lol, the clanker can't even spell Mississippi.
The billionaires are now richer than many nation states.
I guess the next development is that they will start to go to war against each other over commercial advantage.
Guess who will be in the front line as part of the Great Amazon-SpaceX War?
Not Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk.
I, for one, welcome the possibility of corporate gun battles to spice up my morning commute.
Not sure if you got my suggestion.
You won't be commuting, you will be dodging killer drones with Burger King logos.
...yeah. like I said, commuting. Tbh probably safer, I'll take the Burger Killer King over the Dodge DUI any day.
Fascism gonna fasc.
Remember Project 2025.
Indeed, +1.
This is the answer. And Curtis Yarvin’s technofuedlist neo dark age dream that all the hyper wealthy have injected into thier brains.
So each of 10 rich assholes can own each of 10 pieces?
Pride, hate, and greed
I’m sorry. Are people actually confused about why? It’s all just personal enrichment. This isn’t complicated.
Usually, if you want enrich yourself or your friends, you'd want to create a climate favorable to economic growth and skim little off the top of that using the usual corruption methods. You don't want to start a multitude of trade or literal wars that threaten the global economy.
If it wasn't for Trump being the cause of this, you'd almost think this collapse is intentional...
That's how you do it until you start to bump against the limits of growth. When the growth is done, profits no longer matter as much as straight ownership of what remains, and it's easier to take pieces if you smash it first.
A mixture of stupidity and cruelty. Those things usually go together. Also so much racism, which is a subcategory of stupid and cruel.
There are a lot of people who would rather personally suffer and die than see a black person have something nice. That's been festering here for decades.
And when Obama was elected, it permanently broke something in their brains
You forgot greed!
That's what it looks like but that's on purpose. I think most of the fascism is a distraction from the feudalist state that's being built before our very own eyes.
The question nobody seems to have an answer to is, “Why?”
Trump's personal motives aside, I think it's mostly #4, but it goes a little further than just tax cuts: certain people who pay MAGA a lot of money want to abolish any form of a functioning state in favor of their vision of corporate entities ruling the land.
PS: the articke doesn't have an answer either.
First and foremost it's because he is literally insane, and doesn't give a shit about the harm he is causing.
So whatever it is he wants, he doesn't give a shit about the consequences to others. If 10 people need to die for him to earn 1 dollar, he will do it, if there are no negative consequences to himself.
They have been doing this looooong before donnie d'felon came onto the scene.
See Newt's GOPAC and how they documented their tactics to demonize normal Americans, in other words, anyone not a conservative/ Republican in their memo: Language: A Key Mechanism of Control. The evidence goes back further than that (see Democracy in Chains for how little conservatives really care about democracy, or how Nixon was going after "drugs" in order to go after their political foes), but this is from 1990.
https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/featured/mechanism-control-1990-gop-memo-reshaped-american-politics-turning-language-weapon/
Oh yes the War on Minorities err I mean Drugs.
Nothing like destroying millions of minority families and disproportionally locking up anyone who is not white.
Honestly, the whole Democracy thing is just a smoke screen for oligarchy rule. The US government pits the house (supposed to represent the people) against the senate, judicial, and executive branch (representing the wealthy). 3 to 1 odds are pretty shitty and a poor excuse for a democracy that ultimately is lip service only.
Epstein files ? Everybody 🤔 ? Nobody🤔?
Because they want to divide up territory with the tech bros and be governors to their own little spaces.
The billionaire global coup. The US used to be a rallying force in the west, if nothing else. Now that’s dead, on the off chance someone with resources may want to fight back.
When was the US a “rallying force”? I remember them being the worst example of how to run a modern civilization, and I remember always being ranked far too low in personal freedoms, education, and healthcare while be far to high up for prison population and gun violence.
All true. Also true was the global political influence. Dust, now.
US has been riding on the intentions of FDR, but the Democratic National Convention of '44 where the southern democrats couped and replaced Wallace with a nobody from Missouri because FDR was too ill to go to bat for his long time VP is the cause for 80% of today's problems (that is a stat I pulled straight out my gooch, but I stand by it to be roughly accurate).
There was no single event. US citizens just generally seem to love sucking boot and so many of them will happily ruin their lives if it means that whatever minority group they’re told to hate will get it worse. Most of us Canadians, too. “Stupid and self-sabatoging” doesn’t even begin to adequately describe our two countries.
I think they know that what they’ve been doing for ~100 years is ruining the planet but they’d rather double down on hoarding shit than live normal lives to slow or fix anything.
They’re the type of people that would immediately violate the rights of anyone and everyone if society stopped for even one day. They protect that onto everyone else and they feel compelled to take it all before anyone else can have any.
What, vote for a woman?
What war? Gas prices are so high now!
I hear she laughed funny
You are acting like he has a plan or being intelligent. Madness and stupidity is none of them.
Because it sells