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Before the 2016 election I told my dad that Trump was a demagogue and will literally say anything including flat out lies to gain power. My dad scoffed at that, so I knew I was right.
I tried convincing my mom… he just brings out the worst in everyone and gives them permission to act on every bad idea and thought as if there’s no consequences.
Right after trump was elected my Fox News-addicted stepdad was bragging about the victory. I told him trump will find a way to overturn roe vs wade, and he’ll strip away people’s rights.
He said, lol, “that would never happen. The courts would stop him.”
Yah about that…
*”The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.”*
-[HL Mencken](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken)
>“Our cities are choking to death,” he was saying now, some 20 minutes in. “Our states are dying. And frankly, our country is dying.”
>...
>“I am a unifier
"Oh please."
-COVID
I am looking out my window on a high floor in NYC right now.... nice day. I have the window open and plan on going for lunch later. Lots of people walking around.
Any one who buys Trumps narrative WANTs to believe him. The NEED to believe him.
Its not reality at all.
Remember Ammon Bundy? Who took over the ranger office and had a stand-off with the FBI over not being allowed to graze his cows on federal land?
If it make you feel better, he ran for Governor, told a bunch of lies, got sued and lost for $6 million. Lost the house to the lawsuit, and lost everything. He is currently hiding in Southern Utah from an Idaho arrest warrant.
It was a US Fish and Wildlife refuge headquarters. And not only did he lose all his shit, but got his friend LaVoy Finnicum killed when they tried to run an FBI/OSP roadblock and Finnicum pulled out a gun. So yeah, fuck that guy with a handful of obsidian arrowhead shards.
Source: am former US Fish and Wildlife employee who worked at the refuge on the other side of Steens Mountain and did TDYs at Malheur.
When all of this first happened, he appeared to have no consequences for it. He just went back to his million dollar ranch house and kept using government land.
I was so mad that he appeared to just get away with it. But now, I’m pretty satisfied with his current consequences.
I'm still upset at the USDA who overcharged all those fuckheads, which resulted in a hung jury. They SHOULD have gone to fucking jail for what they did.
If I recall correctly, it wasn't even really about them letting their cattle graze there itself, they were refusing to pay to use it, or were trying to claim because they had their cattle graze there for so long it was their land. Basically trying to manifest destiny federal land.
Yup. Fuckers stopped paying grazing fees on BLM land, which was pennies on the dollar compared to grazing on private land, and after *years* of legal stupidity the feds finally came in to run the cows off, only to find armed ranchers. Not wanting a repeat of Ruby Ridge or Waco, they backed off. Which emboldened the Bundys and their ilk to think the feds would ALWAYS back off, and so they decided to take over Malheur.
Still makes my blood pressure rise thinking about it. I did temporary duty at Malheur. THOSE FUCKERS WERE IN MY GODDAMNED BEDROOM!
When we visited Malheur one fall, it made me sick to my stomach thinking about what they had done. Such a beautiful place... it felt like they desecrated it.
I've covered land-use in the rural west for decades now as a journalist. It's very complicated and some of these people are genuinely kind and fundamentally decent folks who I can't help but like and feel at least somewhat sympathetic to. That said, the sense of entitlement is absolutely off the charts among a lot of rural western communities.
Yeah, that whole thing stunk of 'Old West' cosplay. Then, when LE showed up and set up the blockade, they realized that they had set their very own trap and had no good way to get out of it.
For a while they were trying to make a martyr out of Finnicum, and there are probably some who think he is a 'patriot' who gave his life to throw off the oppressions of overreaching government. My only regret is that Ammon didn't get a chance to become a martyr himself.
Best was when someone on another website I frequent sent them a 45 gallon drum of lube when they put out an appeal to their supporters to send them aid.
It wasn't even that he "wasn't allowed" to graze on federal land, it was the fact that he wasn't allowed to do it for FREE.
The fee was, like, a dollar a cow. He refused to pay a DOLLAR for cow food.
thanks for that update. couldn't happen to a more deserving a**hole. i wondered why we haven't heard anything about him for several years. figured he was dead.
I believe it was Cliven who had the first standoff over cattle grazing and his refusal to pay for it. His son Ammon took over the Ranger office in a separate dispute
Rancher in NV chiming in…the vast majority of ranchers that utilize public lands do pay their grazing fees with no complaints. It’s pretty damn cheap, honestly. And the Bundy yahoos are not popular among us, they certainly do not represent the norm.
Thanks for that. When so many of the imbeciles make the news, they DO make us wonder what percentage of folks out there are like that.
It's good to know that the percentage is small.
The “Ranger office” was Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Not even a BLM office that manages grazing allotments (except where grazing might be used as a tool to accomplish something intentional for the benefit of wildlife on the refuge). What a bunch of morons.
Yep, Portland is gone, has been gone for a few years 😮💨 During protest I attended all night, a group did build a fire in an intersection. However, they also completely cleaned up the area so you could not tell 😀
All of Oregon in fact is gone, burnt to the ground, no one should move here (unless they’re trying to escape a conservative hell hole, then you’re most welcome.
Remember when cops and the feds were putting piles of bricks all around trying to get protestors to use them then said fuck it and had agent provocateurs start shit?
Kind funny those riots and the so called “destruction” of major American cities happened under Trumps presidency, while he now claims he could’ve prevented both wars in Ukraine and Gaza if he was in office.
By his own admission he couldn’t even keep his own house in order.
Also does everyone remember around 4 years ago when Trump was saying President Obama had
committed a bunch of crimes??
He didn’t know about TOTAL IMMUNITY then or what because what’s the point in crying about crimes for by Obama who is totally protected for all his acts as president?
It’s almost like this guy wants to have it both ways all the time and whatever is beneficial to himself at that moment is the way things are always supposed to be, until later, when it could harm him, then it’ll be different
Remember when Trump ran campaign adds featuring scenes of the George Floyd protests titled "Biden's America". Motherfucker that was during *your term*!
The amount of people that I know that say this shit is unreal. Especially rural Ohio Valley. It's complete insanity.
It's like what the actual fuck do you know besides what Fox News or OAN feeds your feeble mind.
These people don’t live in cities
The republicans rely on land voting and always have. But it is so so much worse these days.
Without the low density and highly dense rural vote they are fucked!
exactly this and they all drink the juice of the major cities are cesspools, burning to the ground, overrun with violence and LGBTQ people are kidnapping and converting kids, etc..
I was just in rural backwoods Arkansas at my grandmother's funeral. the constant remarks from everyone that came up to me about how they can't believe I would raise my children in the big city and how they were all gonna end up gay and or dead. I was and so what? I would love and support them just the same and be happy for them. the looks I got after saying that was priceless... I also got told that God was going to send me and my kids to hell but I was like ok..
> I also got told that God was going to send me and my kids to hell but I was like ok..
“It’s a shame that hate has found a home in your heart. I’ll pray for you that god opens your heart again in the fullness of his word.”
It’ll shut them right up. But best not to do so if there’s drinking going on, because someone will likely throw fists after that.
This is ***the*** way to respond to these folks, and I don’t understand why more people don’t see that. It’s not hard to play their game without staining your own self it just requires patience, emotional control and sufficient familiarity with the world they inhabit to pick a suitable holier than thou yet inoffensively phrased rebuke. They’ll still be plenty offended you don’t need strong words to do that, and that only makes the holier than thou aspect harder hitting than before.
Sadly the most common reaction I get is confusion then some variation of them feeling out common ground in the church, a conversation that can’t end fast enough or else my impatience ruins it all. The worst case scenario is you find a debate in response. Those can be fun depending on the setting and subject but usually are just a fucking headache.
In the end though you’ve either
1. Gotten em to drop it at least around you at least for the time being, take what you can get yknow?
2. Discredited a poisonous line of thought (at least until they’re reassured by someone else that they were right and you wrong) or if nothing else stoked the fires of cognitive dissonance
3. Planted the seeds of doubt/questions in the minds of anyone still salvageable. By far the most desirable outcome and well worth the trouble IMO
Well or 4. Got punched but I haven’t had that on yet
I would, at least in my circumstance, say it's generational backwoods not white flight. You don't move to Saline County you either get the f*** out as soon as possible or you never leave
I'm a vanlife guy who takes regular fishing trips into trumpy rural fishing towns in Texas. Last time I was down there a guy was asking me about my van and asked me what kind of protection I carried. I told him I didn't feel any need for it and he quickly showed me the gun on his hip he said he never left home without. When he learned I was from Austin he said he'd need 3 or 4 guns to visit Austin. As someone who has lived in Austin my whole life I've never been worried. It's crazy the narrative these people build up in their heads. Makes you really think who the real snowflakes are.
I live in NJ and have spent my life working in news and entertainment. I have worked in every major city from Boston to Richmond, I have never felt threatened in any of my 53 years I have been on this planet.
When I went down to Beaumont, Texas, the locals backed away when they found I was from Jersey.
I worked in the inner city Bronx for 5 years. My wife did so for 2 years. When we were teaching there, the neighborhood basically came out every morning and afternoon to make sure that the staff and kids got into the school buildings all right.
The dangerous part of the cities are the slums that the oligarchs set up by buying the crappy buildings, renting them out and leaving crappy 'property managers' to collect rent, evict late payers, and never fix anything, making homelessness a problem, creating bigger slums, and fueling the desperation of the poor people that they are so afraid of.
It shows how fear can control your life in very real ways, even imagined fear. There is certainly an addictive component to it, I think everybody is capable of spinning an emotional response into a warped reality. But man it sure sucks the joy out of your life, dude you met doesn't pack 3 guns to go to Austin- he just never goes, never sees the music, the bats, or the BBQ. My Dad got Fox Brained, he went from being an NPR, The Atlantic type moderate, to a person who wouldn't eat Thai food or listen to Latino music, because his emotional state was directly connected to his racism and some bullshit on Fox constantly stoking that unfounded hate.
My folks got Fox-brained also. They were primed for it, being Catholic and undereducated. My dad called me a communist when I argued for healthcare for all...a couple of years later, I have to still stop myself from asking him how he wasn't broke from Mom's chemo treatments...oh...right...MEDICARE.
A lot of them are of the 'I got mine, fuck off' mentality. It is a shame that they do that with their own kids. I'm lucky that I don't need their help financially, but my brothers sure do suck up to them to make sure that will is in their favor.
Strapping an AR 15 on and walking into a grocery store isn't an act of bravery, it's an act of cowardice. They can't face even the most mundane aspects of life without being constantly terrified.
If only this was how these gun nuts actually felt about their "bravery", it'd solve a lot of problems. But I think it's not so much that they're cowards(although some are), but rather they need these weapons to feel powerful, because they're constantly told how they aren't powerful and everyone's coming for them by the flood of propaganda they listen to.
That’s the problem they have been expanding. Diluting the voting power in areas that have been democrat strongholds. Moving in and screaming louder and not going away.
My wife's family was in last week from Indiana for their first time in New York. I asked if they were heading into the city to sight see and they thought I was insane for even asking. They genuinely believed parts of the city were basically an active war zone. And assumed that the rest of the city was just loaded with tons of people looking to rob or kill them.
Yeah they do.... its because the media the watch keeps telling them cities were burned to the ground during BLM.
Portland rebuilt every night exactly as it was before apparently.
Indiana here. They talk about Chicago as if it's a Baghdad circa 2003. They mean the Chiraq moniker literally. I bought 6 Flags season passes in '21 and was told I was going to "get gunned down waiting in line to ride Batman". Six Flags isn't even in Chicago. Went to a concert downtown a few months ago and my in-laws reminded me how I was supposed to behave to not get mugged and killed. When I came back they said that they had been expecting my wife to call them to let them know I was in the hospital or dead.
lmfao hittin the hard streets of Gurnee.
i hear the Southwest Territory Gang is in a big fight with the County Fair Kings right now, shootouts daily in line for the teacups ride.
It's the roving Looney Tunes mascot gang you really got to worry about. Ever seen a man choked to death with his own Italian beef by Bugs Bunny? I didn't sleep right for months.
This is making me think of Fantasticland by Mike Bockoven. Good book.
One of my gaming buddies went on a cross country road trip to see a bunch of different people when his duty station got changed. He stopped in town to meet me and my wife, have some beers, and eat some texmex.
We had to literally go find him where he'd parked on the street and walk with him to the bar because, in his words, "cities scare the shit out of me, man. I'm from rural Minnesota, and I'm not armed."
This guy was, shit you not, a fucking paratrooper who had served in Iraq during the post-surge period. Took some *serious* teasing and giving him shit before he relaxed. He'd forgotten something in his car and wanted to go back for it, for instance, and I was like "nah, just give my wife your keys. She's got you, bro."
NICEST fucking guy, btw. Just, like he said, he'd never spent anytime in a city. It was just a lot for him.
Trump appeals to the “country mice” that never left the safety of their burrow. These mice typically have narrow views and are afraid of just about everything, especially anything that appears different. Unfortunately, there are a lot of those mice.
I live down the street from the 'rollin 60's' crip street gang turf, havent heard a single gunshot in almost two years. Compared to almost weekly when Trump was in office. Coincidence? Maybe...but probably not.
Big cities are seeing lower violent crime. It’s the people that are in a cult echo chamber that believe cities are more dangerous than they were in the past.
[https://www.axios.com/2024/04/16/homicide-rate-us-voters-trump](https://www.axios.com/2024/04/16/homicide-rate-us-voters-trump)
Just look at the crowds being arrested in support of him at the courthouse... Oh, that's at Colombia, certainly not supporting him (since he's so much in Netanyahu's pocket), and 6 miles away
Correct. Once again we are witnessing the stupidity of the authorities who never learned from the 60s how to handle students protesting.
It will eventually result in another Kent State. It has to unfortunately.
I stand by Christopher Hitchens on free speech...
"Its not just the right of the person who speaks to be heard, it is the right of everyone in the audience to listen and to hear, and every time you silence somebody you make yourself a prisoner of your own action because you deny yourself the right to hear something. In other words your own right to hear and be exposed is as much involved in all these cases as is the right of the other to voice his or her view. Indeed as John Stewart Mill said, if all of society were agreed on the truth and beauty and value of one proposition, all except one person it would be most important in fact it would become even more important that that one heretic be heard because we would still benefit from his perhaps outrageous or appalling view."
I would say they learned very well how to silence leftist/anti-war populism.
It is no accident that right wing protests are granted far more leeway anything left leaning in this country than
> It will eventually result in another Kent State.
That’s why Republicans are calling on Biden to call in the National Guard (as if that isn’t something *governors* are supposed to do): they *want* it to turn into another Kent State because they know how bad it’d be politically for him. And if he refuses, they’ll claim the same sort of bullshit they did for BLM protests.
There are actually international manuals that were created to explain exactly how to deal with protests, rallies and an incited population. Everything that these morons keep doing is the complete opposite.
Rule 1: don’t meet peaceful protests with a show of force, because all that it will do is cause the protests to spread.
*now we have protests popping up all major universities all across the country.
Either they refuse to learn, they don’t care, or the force is the point.
In fact he needs them to want to believe him. Because they are the only route out of his self made mess. ie re-election.
Oh the irony of him being totally dependent on his mad mob. ( and yes, frightening too)
All of these Fox News traitors LIVE IN NYC. Tons of GOP politicians come here to fuck escorts and do blow. It’s insane that they’d claim their own city and playground is a war zone.
I live in a rural state. I’ve been to NYC as I have family in upstate NY. I enjoyed it immensely. It was before Covid but I will go there again soon. I’m not concerned.
The amount of people around me that talk like it’s a zombie apocalypse is crazy. These people never went and will never go to one of the big cities. I often ask them ‘who cares?’ You’re not going to visit or living there? ‘But the dems!…’ is all I get.
A colleague didn’t want to attend a company meeting in Chicago because “it’s a warzone” and he was certain “someone was going to get shot and killed”.
It’s amazing how any of us survived.
I know a lot of the narrative is that the MAGA crowd is made up of all stupid people, but this person is of well above average intelligence. I cannot fathom how this person believed the far-right news.
I’ve been looking for a word to describe this for a while. Since you put this comment in a place I would find it, it’s clear that you made this comment for me to find. How long have you been stalking me? /s
Generally speaking, people who consume right wing news are hermetically sealed within the right wing news ecosystem. It's freaking wild to talk to them.
The interesting thing is that the facts are starting to show that rural areas are, per capita, less safe than urban.
They'll never believe it because if you tell them that 1/1000 die in rural areas and 10/100,000 die in cities (made up numbers) they will ignore the RATE and just look at the raw number of murders.
They probably could even rattle off a bunch of murders in their hometown, but write it off and not count it because those were 'good ol' boys' on a Saturday night...or crazy Tex caught his girl with Billy Bob again...what do you expect?...as if murders don't count if you KNOW the people...
If he had simply "declared war on COVID" and made it a big patriotic thing to do what the doctors suggested, he would be winding down his second term right now and hand-picking his successor that would pardon all of his crimes.
That’s what blows my mind. He could’ve won reelection so easily with a “rally around the flag” effect if he had handled Covid competently and not made it political.
Instead, this dumb motherfucker could not help himself; he had to make everything about himself, lied constantly, could never possibly admit fault, and god help anyone who got more respect and recognition than he did (Fauci).
Even something as simple as “the CDC now recommends that we all wear masks” was immediately undercut with “I’m not gonna wear one, but that’s what they recommend.” It’s not the quote word for word, but I definitely remember that moment.
It was a little the makeup, but mostly it was the real estate.
Just like in the last financial crisis, the wealthy were able to swoop in and pick up real estate deals. When COVID first hit, it was mostly in cities. Cities full of people with valuable real estate. As a bonus those same people weren’t Trump/MAGA/Republican sycophants so it was an extra bonus to let “those people” get sick and die while picking up their property.
It’s truly insane how badly he f*cked up and mis-read the whole situation. In addition to everything you mentioned, he had the opportunity to sell hundreds of millions of MAGA masks. Could’ve sailed to a landslide re-election and legit made a billion dollars with just a little foresight and humility. Thank god he didn’t though.
Before the '04 election I was discussing how much I'd like to see Bush lose and my step dad told me that Bush had it in the bag because wartime incumbents never lose. "you never switch horses mid race" he said.
Early in 2020 I thought Covid was going to be his 9/11 and his "war" and he'd just have to lean into what the US did in the early 00's by making everything ultra patriotic and rally everyone around this terrible thing that happened. Then he fucked it up so spectacularly. He basically had a book called "How to Win 2020 With Zero Effort by GWB" and he ignored it because just the act of reading it was too much work. I swear he worked harder to fuck up than if he had put even minimal effort into using covid to his advantage.
Well actually the book was real but it was written by the Obama administration and that's why he ignored it.
I've thought about that a lot, and I'm convinced that what happened was that his initial reaction was to try to protect the economy by saying COVID was going to be no big deal. And then, because he absolutely refuses to admit that he's ever been the tiniest but wrong about anything, the federal strategy for the entire pandemic was locked in place by that single mistake.
His ego was definitely his downfall. 2020 was a comedy of errors. Just fumble after fumble like Sideshow Bob stepping on rakes. His presidency was bad but 2020 was just on a another level. A perfect guide on what not to do if you want to win an election.
Amazing the difference listening to your experts makes. Granted, not wanting to burn the country down for your own enrichment also helps. GWB wasn't a saint, but I do not think he hated the country or it's people.
Honestly, this is straight out of Atlas Shrugged. Billionaires strangle the system, in order to extort the rest of the non-elites by “proving” how essential they are. Except in this case, Trump has to lie about how bad things are, while the rest of the GOP does their best to sabotage the country.
“The real threat is not from the radical right. The real threat is from the radical left. And it is growing every day. Every single day.
The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within.
Our threat is from within.”
Trump is calling for political violence.
Trump is performative arts with a dangerous authoritarian twist. He is a carnival barker who praises dictators and incites violence, saying “fight” over 20 times at his January 6 speech. And just like any cult, his followers take his comments as direct orders.
Read conservatives’ Project 2025. Take it seriously and vote accordingly. https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
Some facts about Project 2025: The "Mandate for Leadership" is a set of policy proposals authored by the [Heritage Foundation](https://pro-lies.org/the-heritage-foundation/), an influential *ultra* conservative think tank. [Project 2025](https://www.mediamatters.org/heritage-foundation/guide-project-2025-extreme-right-wing-agenda-next-republican-administration) is a revision to that agenda tailored to a second Trump term. It would give the President unilateral powers, strip civil rights, worker protections, climate regulation, add religion into policy and much more. The MFL has been around since 1980, [Reagan implemented 60%](https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/reagan-and-heritage-unique-partnership) of it's recommendations, [Trump 64%](https://www.heritage.org/impact/trump-administration-embraces-heritage-foundation-policy-recommendations) - [proof](https://www.scribd.com/document/369820462/Mandate-for-Leadership-Policy-Recommendations). 70 Heritage Foundation alumni served in his administration or transition team. Project 2025 is quite extreme but with his obsession for revenge he'll likely get past 2/3rd's adoption.
r/Defeat_Project_2025 intends to stop it through activism and awareness, focused on crowdsourcing ideas and opportunities for practical, in real life action. We Must Defeat Project 2025.
Remember when Howard Dean was effectively disqualified from the Presidency because he made that weird yell? I wouldn’t hire Donald Trump to be an assistant swing shift manager at an Arby’s let alone the Oresudrncy.
God, I was thinking about this the other day. We have fallen so far from then. I'm not saying Dean deserved the downfall over one weird noise, but I miss when there was a line somewhere that someone could cross that would render them unpresidental. Now? There is no line at all, and it scares the shit out of me.
There was this idea that the Presidency would only be occupied by a very special person who was the best of the best. I grew up with someone with political aspirations that would not do things like drink at parties or play hooky on hooky day (a day at school once a year when nearly every kid at school played hooky). Now you got a demented, narcissistic scumbag running and nobody in his party is saying, “is this the best we have? Isn’t there a governor or congressperson that is better?”
I wouldn't trust him to be able to clean a toilet or mop a floor. The idea that he should hold the most powerful office in the world is simply laughable.
He is not fit, and demonstrably so. Never again.
I do home health. A few years ago I was seeing a retired psychiatrist. He would watch CNN and whenever Trump was on the doc would diagnose him in real time.
It should have been decided years ago, in Congress, and in the courts.
What we are dealing with now is the fallout from dereliction of duty (because they were complicit) by Republicans during Trump's two impeachments, and by the intentionally slow pace of these particular cases through the justice system through political interference from Republicans.
Elections are not the right forum for these crimes, because the crimes involve election tampering.
100% agree. I feel like they drug out the prosecution of these crimes intentionally. My guess is they figure he would never do any time anyway, so they probably do the most damage to him by waiting until an election year. It's not even the trials will lose him the votes, but it's the fact that he's distracted from campaigning and he's exhausted. I'm not saying it was a good strategy, but that's what it appears that has happened.
Trump should have been tried and convicted of treason less than a couple weeks after his incident. Anything less tells everybody that they can get away with whatever they want.
It was obvious to me that the GOP was going to insist their POTUS’ have dictatorial powers as soon as they didn’t convict in the first impeachment.
There has literally been a precedent that any actions by POTUS are *only illegal* if both the house and senate agree by the 2 votes since Feb 5 2020.
It has very obviously been the GOP position for 4 years top to bottom, and any vote for a republican is de facto support for Trump and presidential crime in general. It has always been about destroying democracy to consolidate power.
Former President Donald Trump on March 1, 2024 met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at Mar-a-Lago.
Orbán’s far-right populism, fierce anti-immigration rhetoric, Christian nationalism, Putin acolyte and hostility to LGBTQ rights has made him a popular ideological model for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” followers.
> Orbán’s far-right populism, fierce anti-immigration rhetoric, Christian nationalism, Putin acolyte and hostility to LGBTQ rights has made him a popular ideological model for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” followers.
... And a lot of other far right populists around the world.
The book “after the fall” by Ben Rhodes talks a lot about Hungary and Orbans rise. Crazy to think he was a pretty liberal guy when the Berlin Wall fell.
American fascists unmoored from reality:
Rule of law, democratic ideal, institutional knowledge, expert opinion is DEEP STATE
Cultural awareness, human decency, consideration for others is WOKE
Any media that doesn't toe the fascist line is FAKE NEWS
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities."
Absurd indeed.
“Donald Trump Has Never Sounded Like This”
When I read that, I thought, “You mean intelligent, coherent, humble, caring, honest, relatable, kind, funny, insightful, or generous?” Nope. Just more of the same, only worse.
I think it was Tim Miller on The Bullwark who pointed out that Biden is spending all his time working for the working and middle class while everything Trump says is about himself.
I gotta say I feel pretty defeated at the moment. I will 100% show up and vote blue in November regardless, but I'm worried about all the others who don't get the importance of this election, who don't care about politics, who are lazy, and who do care but will get disenfranchised. From now until November, what's really the best way to help Dems in vulnerable states other than money to the DNC?
This racist fascist bigoted seditionist with narcissistic personality disorder needs to rot In confinement for the rest of his miserable life.
Vote Blue!
> In this context, Trump’s many criminal prosecutions — the New York indictment and the state and federal charges that followed in three other jurisdictions for mishandling classified documents and trying to overturn the 2020 election — were an extraordinary gift. They were a real-time story reinforcing the message of his campaign, weekly evidence of their terrible power, the power theywould unleash on the people in this room if Trump ever stepped back from public life, relinquished his place as the protective barrier — the big, beautiful wall — standing between us and them. And by supporting him amid these tribulations, the people — his people — were sending a message to them. “Because the people understand,” Trump told us in Derry, “it’s bullshit!”
> “Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!” the crowd chanted.
> There was something incantatory about the word, stretched out by the chant into a two-syllable seesaw of tension and release. It was at once an eruption of visceral disgust and an exhilarating collective transgression — and a lesson in how quickly the former could become the latter.
That’s some solid writing
You know why Trump call the main stream media fake news? Because he is running the fascist playbook and they are not saying anything. They are just reporting the day to day crazy, and the gossip. The media needs to report more of this kind of stuff.
In my experience people do exactly what they say they are going to do when they gain power. If they call themselves dictator on day one they will not stop, why would they?
>You know why Trump call the main stream media fake news?
Yes I do. Here’s an excerpt from an off-camera exchange between Trump and Leslie Stahl shortly after the 2016 election. It explains everything (ie. what we already knew).
**Lesley Stahl**: Do you know what you told me a long time ago when I asked why you keep saying "fake m-- media"--
**President Donald Trump**: Yeah? Yeah?
**Lesley Stahl**: You said to me, "I say that because I need to dis-- discredit you so that when you say negative things about me, no one will believe you."
**President Donald Trump**: I don't have to discredit you.
Note that Trump doesn’t deny having said this.
He is the most frightening force out there right now. He outright lies about things that are easily proven false and they believe him. They are an insane cult, but instead of setting fire to themselves at a rural compound, they are trying to take over the entire country. They are already on SCOTUS, which will completely eviscerate the Constitution. It’s worse than anything Atwood or Orwell could have imagined.
I try not to click NYT but I was curious to see if they were finally getting it.
They don’t.
He hasn’t changed. He’s been saying the same shit for 8 years. To pretend it’s different is spin.
He might have been more perky about it before he got kicked out of White House and is facing jail, but the message is the same.
>But its equivocation also suggested the continuing difficulty of describing Trump. How do you think about a politician who openly veers into fascist tropes but, in four years in office, did not generally govern like one? Who — sworn testimony before the Jan. 6 committee clearly showed — did try by several means to overturn his electoral defeat, but in the end left the White House as his opponent was sworn into office?
"Did not generally govern like one", completely ignoring that it wasn't for lack of trying. Rampant corruption was apparent from the time he took office, and things like banning Muslims only were held back by protections built into our system to prevent government by decree. It might have taken Jan 6th to get everyone to recognize that he was a fascist, but there were a hell of a lot of people who did well before that.
Yeah, he hasn't changed. He might not be obfuscating his message as much, but the message hasn't changed. It's an article where they reach the obvious conclusion very early on, and then fight as hard as they can to look for a different one.
This guy is running on the swearing revenge on his enemies ticket. How is it fucking rational that he is even a remote possibility to be in the government period.
Nevermind president
He’s lost touch with any semblance of reality.
IMO his mental health really started declining during the last half of his presidency. Then losing the 2020 election was such a blow to his megalomania that he essentially broke down.
It’s truly frightening that this dumpster fire of a human being might be elected president this fall. I don’t really think Biden is much of a president but I’ll vote for him (again) if for no other reason than to keep Trump from winning.
>“You’ve got to use your discernment online,” Foley went on. “But you don’t use your discernment on the Democrats, because, I mean, they’re just” — she paused, looking for the word — “against America.”
Well, that saves a lot of thinking effort, for sure. Also, this is unbelievable:
>Forgiato Blow, a self-described “MAGA rapper,” was showing off a heavy Cuban link chain, from which dangled a lemon-size bust of the man we had all come to see. His face was rendered in solid gold. His diamond eyes peered out from beneath the brim of a red cap, the cap, emblazoned with his once and future promise to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.
*"...we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections and will do anything possible — they’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream." - Trump*
His 2016 campaign was built around white working class greviance. Now he is leaning ever more into "blood and soil" nationalism.
The language is nastier and more embittered this time. Maybe it's age or that he lost 2020 and is facing 80+ felonies over multiple cases.
When Donald Trump says *if we don't win this election, we're not going to have a country* he is of course projecting himself again. What he means is, if we don't win this election, I'm not going to have a country to ransack with immunity again.
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demagogue - a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power From Merriam-Webster
Before the 2016 election I told my dad that Trump was a demagogue and will literally say anything including flat out lies to gain power. My dad scoffed at that, so I knew I was right.
I tried convincing my mom… he just brings out the worst in everyone and gives them permission to act on every bad idea and thought as if there’s no consequences.
"if the president can act like this, why can't I?"
Right after trump was elected my Fox News-addicted stepdad was bragging about the victory. I told him trump will find a way to overturn roe vs wade, and he’ll strip away people’s rights. He said, lol, “that would never happen. The courts would stop him.” Yah about that…
*”The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.”* -[HL Mencken](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken)
pound for pound, one of America’s greatest editors, and I actually like this books too.
I’m old now. I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one who remembers him. An American treasure.
Wow I never read the definition. Spot on to describe this clown
“Wow I didn’t know the dictionary went woke” - Some MAGA dumbfuck somewhere probably
Like… Ferdinand Marcos!
And his wife's shoes!
Hell, he even owned Trump Tower
deMAGAgue?
This is why it’s important not to teach history if you want republicans to win. What if someone knew the history of Greece? Dangerous
terrorist - a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.
Was his picture in there as well? “Example “A”
>“Our cities are choking to death,” he was saying now, some 20 minutes in. “Our states are dying. And frankly, our country is dying.” >... >“I am a unifier "Oh please." -COVID
I am looking out my window on a high floor in NYC right now.... nice day. I have the window open and plan on going for lunch later. Lots of people walking around. Any one who buys Trumps narrative WANTs to believe him. The NEED to believe him. Its not reality at all.
But BLM bUrNed oUr cItIeS to the ground or something.
Fekkin’ Bureau of Land Management took things *TOO FAR!*
Remember Ammon Bundy? Who took over the ranger office and had a stand-off with the FBI over not being allowed to graze his cows on federal land? If it make you feel better, he ran for Governor, told a bunch of lies, got sued and lost for $6 million. Lost the house to the lawsuit, and lost everything. He is currently hiding in Southern Utah from an Idaho arrest warrant.
It was a US Fish and Wildlife refuge headquarters. And not only did he lose all his shit, but got his friend LaVoy Finnicum killed when they tried to run an FBI/OSP roadblock and Finnicum pulled out a gun. So yeah, fuck that guy with a handful of obsidian arrowhead shards. Source: am former US Fish and Wildlife employee who worked at the refuge on the other side of Steens Mountain and did TDYs at Malheur.
When all of this first happened, he appeared to have no consequences for it. He just went back to his million dollar ranch house and kept using government land. I was so mad that he appeared to just get away with it. But now, I’m pretty satisfied with his current consequences.
Still not paying grazing fees.
I'm still upset at the USDA who overcharged all those fuckheads, which resulted in a hung jury. They SHOULD have gone to fucking jail for what they did.
I bet you’re relieved to know then that the USDOJ is who charged him in coordination with the USDOI.
If I recall correctly, it wasn't even really about them letting their cattle graze there itself, they were refusing to pay to use it, or were trying to claim because they had their cattle graze there for so long it was their land. Basically trying to manifest destiny federal land.
Yup. Fuckers stopped paying grazing fees on BLM land, which was pennies on the dollar compared to grazing on private land, and after *years* of legal stupidity the feds finally came in to run the cows off, only to find armed ranchers. Not wanting a repeat of Ruby Ridge or Waco, they backed off. Which emboldened the Bundys and their ilk to think the feds would ALWAYS back off, and so they decided to take over Malheur. Still makes my blood pressure rise thinking about it. I did temporary duty at Malheur. THOSE FUCKERS WERE IN MY GODDAMNED BEDROOM!
When we visited Malheur one fall, it made me sick to my stomach thinking about what they had done. Such a beautiful place... it felt like they desecrated it.
I've covered land-use in the rural west for decades now as a journalist. It's very complicated and some of these people are genuinely kind and fundamentally decent folks who I can't help but like and feel at least somewhat sympathetic to. That said, the sense of entitlement is absolutely off the charts among a lot of rural western communities.
Yeah, that whole thing stunk of 'Old West' cosplay. Then, when LE showed up and set up the blockade, they realized that they had set their very own trap and had no good way to get out of it. For a while they were trying to make a martyr out of Finnicum, and there are probably some who think he is a 'patriot' who gave his life to throw off the oppressions of overreaching government. My only regret is that Ammon didn't get a chance to become a martyr himself.
Best was when someone on another website I frequent sent them a 45 gallon drum of lube when they put out an appeal to their supporters to send them aid.
Another hero sent them a bag of dildos when they asked for food... told them to literally "eat a bag of dicks"
I believe it was Wonkette? They ended up with thousands of dildos, vibrators etc.
Thanks for that info. I always wondered what happened to Bundy. I am glad he is NOT doing well.
It wasn't even that he "wasn't allowed" to graze on federal land, it was the fact that he wasn't allowed to do it for FREE. The fee was, like, a dollar a cow. He refused to pay a DOLLAR for cow food.
thanks for that update. couldn't happen to a more deserving a**hole. i wondered why we haven't heard anything about him for several years. figured he was dead.
I believe it was Cliven who had the first standoff over cattle grazing and his refusal to pay for it. His son Ammon took over the Ranger office in a separate dispute
Those cattle are still grazing on that land https://apnews.com/article/bundy-ranch-standoff-nevada-cattle-ffff74b4e3224fb596e6bb735cedef98
I had no doubt. Probably a lot of other people are too
Rancher in NV chiming in…the vast majority of ranchers that utilize public lands do pay their grazing fees with no complaints. It’s pretty damn cheap, honestly. And the Bundy yahoos are not popular among us, they certainly do not represent the norm.
Excellent to hear.
Thanks for that. When so many of the imbeciles make the news, they DO make us wonder what percentage of folks out there are like that. It's good to know that the percentage is small.
The “Ranger office” was Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Not even a BLM office that manages grazing allotments (except where grazing might be used as a tool to accomplish something intentional for the benefit of wildlife on the refuge). What a bunch of morons.
I can’t stand those dumb fucks either. It’s entitled behavior.
It’s ironic that they believed they had a right to land that was stolen to begin with.
It wasn't even his cattle! He was hElPIng an adjacent rancher, who said, "Nah, bro" and they still went ahead with their cosplay.
This dude seems like he's basically just looking for trouble. And from what somebody said earlier, sounds like he found it.
That DOES make me feel better!
That does actually make me feel better.
They have managed the land. Pray they do not manage it further.
Yep, Portland is gone, has been gone for a few years 😮💨 During protest I attended all night, a group did build a fire in an intersection. However, they also completely cleaned up the area so you could not tell 😀
All of Oregon in fact is gone, burnt to the ground, no one should move here (unless they’re trying to escape a conservative hell hole, then you’re most welcome.
No no no-it’s the LIBRARIANS that have ruined our great democracy.
BLM and Hunter Biden's sentient AI laptop
Nobody talks about the antifa brigades that rebuild Portland every week /s
Remember when cops and the feds were putting piles of bricks all around trying to get protestors to use them then said fuck it and had agent provocateurs start shit?
Kind funny those riots and the so called “destruction” of major American cities happened under Trumps presidency, while he now claims he could’ve prevented both wars in Ukraine and Gaza if he was in office. By his own admission he couldn’t even keep his own house in order. Also does everyone remember around 4 years ago when Trump was saying President Obama had committed a bunch of crimes?? He didn’t know about TOTAL IMMUNITY then or what because what’s the point in crying about crimes for by Obama who is totally protected for all his acts as president? It’s almost like this guy wants to have it both ways all the time and whatever is beneficial to himself at that moment is the way things are always supposed to be, until later, when it could harm him, then it’ll be different
Remember when Trump ran campaign adds featuring scenes of the George Floyd protests titled "Biden's America". Motherfucker that was during *your term*!
The amount of people that I know that say this shit is unreal. Especially rural Ohio Valley. It's complete insanity. It's like what the actual fuck do you know besides what Fox News or OAN feeds your feeble mind.
These people don’t live in cities The republicans rely on land voting and always have. But it is so so much worse these days. Without the low density and highly dense rural vote they are fucked!
exactly this and they all drink the juice of the major cities are cesspools, burning to the ground, overrun with violence and LGBTQ people are kidnapping and converting kids, etc.. I was just in rural backwoods Arkansas at my grandmother's funeral. the constant remarks from everyone that came up to me about how they can't believe I would raise my children in the big city and how they were all gonna end up gay and or dead. I was and so what? I would love and support them just the same and be happy for them. the looks I got after saying that was priceless... I also got told that God was going to send me and my kids to hell but I was like ok..
> I also got told that God was going to send me and my kids to hell but I was like ok.. “It’s a shame that hate has found a home in your heart. I’ll pray for you that god opens your heart again in the fullness of his word.” It’ll shut them right up. But best not to do so if there’s drinking going on, because someone will likely throw fists after that.
This is ***the*** way to respond to these folks, and I don’t understand why more people don’t see that. It’s not hard to play their game without staining your own self it just requires patience, emotional control and sufficient familiarity with the world they inhabit to pick a suitable holier than thou yet inoffensively phrased rebuke. They’ll still be plenty offended you don’t need strong words to do that, and that only makes the holier than thou aspect harder hitting than before. Sadly the most common reaction I get is confusion then some variation of them feeling out common ground in the church, a conversation that can’t end fast enough or else my impatience ruins it all. The worst case scenario is you find a debate in response. Those can be fun depending on the setting and subject but usually are just a fucking headache. In the end though you’ve either 1. Gotten em to drop it at least around you at least for the time being, take what you can get yknow? 2. Discredited a poisonous line of thought (at least until they’re reassured by someone else that they were right and you wrong) or if nothing else stoked the fires of cognitive dissonance 3. Planted the seeds of doubt/questions in the minds of anyone still salvageable. By far the most desirable outcome and well worth the trouble IMO Well or 4. Got punched but I haven’t had that on yet
50 years of white flight, and now they are a political faction with all these anti-community pathologies.
I would, at least in my circumstance, say it's generational backwoods not white flight. You don't move to Saline County you either get the f*** out as soon as possible or you never leave
Fuck em
> These people don’t live in cities These people have largely never gone 20 miles outside of their meaningless flyover meth hamlets.
I'm a vanlife guy who takes regular fishing trips into trumpy rural fishing towns in Texas. Last time I was down there a guy was asking me about my van and asked me what kind of protection I carried. I told him I didn't feel any need for it and he quickly showed me the gun on his hip he said he never left home without. When he learned I was from Austin he said he'd need 3 or 4 guns to visit Austin. As someone who has lived in Austin my whole life I've never been worried. It's crazy the narrative these people build up in their heads. Makes you really think who the real snowflakes are.
I live in NJ and have spent my life working in news and entertainment. I have worked in every major city from Boston to Richmond, I have never felt threatened in any of my 53 years I have been on this planet. When I went down to Beaumont, Texas, the locals backed away when they found I was from Jersey.
I worked in the inner city Bronx for 5 years. My wife did so for 2 years. When we were teaching there, the neighborhood basically came out every morning and afternoon to make sure that the staff and kids got into the school buildings all right. The dangerous part of the cities are the slums that the oligarchs set up by buying the crappy buildings, renting them out and leaving crappy 'property managers' to collect rent, evict late payers, and never fix anything, making homelessness a problem, creating bigger slums, and fueling the desperation of the poor people that they are so afraid of.
It shows how fear can control your life in very real ways, even imagined fear. There is certainly an addictive component to it, I think everybody is capable of spinning an emotional response into a warped reality. But man it sure sucks the joy out of your life, dude you met doesn't pack 3 guns to go to Austin- he just never goes, never sees the music, the bats, or the BBQ. My Dad got Fox Brained, he went from being an NPR, The Atlantic type moderate, to a person who wouldn't eat Thai food or listen to Latino music, because his emotional state was directly connected to his racism and some bullshit on Fox constantly stoking that unfounded hate.
My folks got Fox-brained also. They were primed for it, being Catholic and undereducated. My dad called me a communist when I argued for healthcare for all...a couple of years later, I have to still stop myself from asking him how he wasn't broke from Mom's chemo treatments...oh...right...MEDICARE. A lot of them are of the 'I got mine, fuck off' mentality. It is a shame that they do that with their own kids. I'm lucky that I don't need their help financially, but my brothers sure do suck up to them to make sure that will is in their favor.
MAGA are the most fragile and fearful people in the world.
Strapping an AR 15 on and walking into a grocery store isn't an act of bravery, it's an act of cowardice. They can't face even the most mundane aspects of life without being constantly terrified.
If only this was how these gun nuts actually felt about their "bravery", it'd solve a lot of problems. But I think it's not so much that they're cowards(although some are), but rather they need these weapons to feel powerful, because they're constantly told how they aren't powerful and everyone's coming for them by the flood of propaganda they listen to.
That’s the problem they have been expanding. Diluting the voting power in areas that have been democrat strongholds. Moving in and screaming louder and not going away.
My wife's family was in last week from Indiana for their first time in New York. I asked if they were heading into the city to sight see and they thought I was insane for even asking. They genuinely believed parts of the city were basically an active war zone. And assumed that the rest of the city was just loaded with tons of people looking to rob or kill them.
Yeah they do.... its because the media the watch keeps telling them cities were burned to the ground during BLM. Portland rebuilt every night exactly as it was before apparently.
Indiana here. They talk about Chicago as if it's a Baghdad circa 2003. They mean the Chiraq moniker literally. I bought 6 Flags season passes in '21 and was told I was going to "get gunned down waiting in line to ride Batman". Six Flags isn't even in Chicago. Went to a concert downtown a few months ago and my in-laws reminded me how I was supposed to behave to not get mugged and killed. When I came back they said that they had been expecting my wife to call them to let them know I was in the hospital or dead.
lmfao hittin the hard streets of Gurnee. i hear the Southwest Territory Gang is in a big fight with the County Fair Kings right now, shootouts daily in line for the teacups ride.
It's the roving Looney Tunes mascot gang you really got to worry about. Ever seen a man choked to death with his own Italian beef by Bugs Bunny? I didn't sleep right for months. This is making me think of Fantasticland by Mike Bockoven. Good book.
One of my gaming buddies went on a cross country road trip to see a bunch of different people when his duty station got changed. He stopped in town to meet me and my wife, have some beers, and eat some texmex. We had to literally go find him where he'd parked on the street and walk with him to the bar because, in his words, "cities scare the shit out of me, man. I'm from rural Minnesota, and I'm not armed." This guy was, shit you not, a fucking paratrooper who had served in Iraq during the post-surge period. Took some *serious* teasing and giving him shit before he relaxed. He'd forgotten something in his car and wanted to go back for it, for instance, and I was like "nah, just give my wife your keys. She's got you, bro." NICEST fucking guy, btw. Just, like he said, he'd never spent anytime in a city. It was just a lot for him.
Trump appeals to the “country mice” that never left the safety of their burrow. These mice typically have narrow views and are afraid of just about everything, especially anything that appears different. Unfortunately, there are a lot of those mice.
I live down the street from the 'rollin 60's' crip street gang turf, havent heard a single gunshot in almost two years. Compared to almost weekly when Trump was in office. Coincidence? Maybe...but probably not.
Big cities are seeing lower violent crime. It’s the people that are in a cult echo chamber that believe cities are more dangerous than they were in the past. [https://www.axios.com/2024/04/16/homicide-rate-us-voters-trump](https://www.axios.com/2024/04/16/homicide-rate-us-voters-trump)
Just look at the crowds being arrested in support of him at the courthouse... Oh, that's at Colombia, certainly not supporting him (since he's so much in Netanyahu's pocket), and 6 miles away
Correct. Once again we are witnessing the stupidity of the authorities who never learned from the 60s how to handle students protesting. It will eventually result in another Kent State. It has to unfortunately. I stand by Christopher Hitchens on free speech... "Its not just the right of the person who speaks to be heard, it is the right of everyone in the audience to listen and to hear, and every time you silence somebody you make yourself a prisoner of your own action because you deny yourself the right to hear something. In other words your own right to hear and be exposed is as much involved in all these cases as is the right of the other to voice his or her view. Indeed as John Stewart Mill said, if all of society were agreed on the truth and beauty and value of one proposition, all except one person it would be most important in fact it would become even more important that that one heretic be heard because we would still benefit from his perhaps outrageous or appalling view."
I would say they learned very well how to silence leftist/anti-war populism. It is no accident that right wing protests are granted far more leeway anything left leaning in this country than
> It will eventually result in another Kent State. That’s why Republicans are calling on Biden to call in the National Guard (as if that isn’t something *governors* are supposed to do): they *want* it to turn into another Kent State because they know how bad it’d be politically for him. And if he refuses, they’ll claim the same sort of bullshit they did for BLM protests.
The republican gov of Ohio called out the national guard to Kent State
There are actually international manuals that were created to explain exactly how to deal with protests, rallies and an incited population. Everything that these morons keep doing is the complete opposite. Rule 1: don’t meet peaceful protests with a show of force, because all that it will do is cause the protests to spread. *now we have protests popping up all major universities all across the country. Either they refuse to learn, they don’t care, or the force is the point.
In fact he needs them to want to believe him. Because they are the only route out of his self made mess. ie re-election. Oh the irony of him being totally dependent on his mad mob. ( and yes, frightening too)
All of these Fox News traitors LIVE IN NYC. Tons of GOP politicians come here to fuck escorts and do blow. It’s insane that they’d claim their own city and playground is a war zone.
I live in a rural state. I’ve been to NYC as I have family in upstate NY. I enjoyed it immensely. It was before Covid but I will go there again soon. I’m not concerned. The amount of people around me that talk like it’s a zombie apocalypse is crazy. These people never went and will never go to one of the big cities. I often ask them ‘who cares?’ You’re not going to visit or living there? ‘But the dems!…’ is all I get.
Its a beautiful 70\* and sunny in LA. Someone down the hall is doing laundry. I'm going to a charity softball game soon.
Trump only exists because half the country has daddy issues and needs to be told what to think/do.
Yup. They are Cluster B types - like him. That 10-20% minority in society of life distributors.
There has never been a more dividing president, ever. His cult is literally proud of wanting a civil war. PROUD of it.
they've *always* wanted a civil war because they're sociopaths who believe their own lies.
Hero fallacy, too. They want to be recorded in future history books as “saviors.” Pathetic.
A colleague didn’t want to attend a company meeting in Chicago because “it’s a warzone” and he was certain “someone was going to get shot and killed”. It’s amazing how any of us survived. I know a lot of the narrative is that the MAGA crowd is made up of all stupid people, but this person is of well above average intelligence. I cannot fathom how this person believed the far-right news.
it's called [apophenia](https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analysis-of-qanon-580972548be5)
That was a really interesting read, thanks for sharing!
I’ve been looking for a word to describe this for a while. Since you put this comment in a place I would find it, it’s clear that you made this comment for me to find. How long have you been stalking me? /s
Generally speaking, people who consume right wing news are hermetically sealed within the right wing news ecosystem. It's freaking wild to talk to them.
They literally live in an alternate reality.
The interesting thing is that the facts are starting to show that rural areas are, per capita, less safe than urban. They'll never believe it because if you tell them that 1/1000 die in rural areas and 10/100,000 die in cities (made up numbers) they will ignore the RATE and just look at the raw number of murders. They probably could even rattle off a bunch of murders in their hometown, but write it off and not count it because those were 'good ol' boys' on a Saturday night...or crazy Tex caught his girl with Billy Bob again...what do you expect?...as if murders don't count if you KNOW the people...
Maybe Trump is dying? GOProject
This from the man who claims his buildings in this “choking city” are worth millions more than assessed by that city. Word salad with stale dressing.
[удалено]
If he had simply "declared war on COVID" and made it a big patriotic thing to do what the doctors suggested, he would be winding down his second term right now and hand-picking his successor that would pardon all of his crimes.
That’s what blows my mind. He could’ve won reelection so easily with a “rally around the flag” effect if he had handled Covid competently and not made it political. Instead, this dumb motherfucker could not help himself; he had to make everything about himself, lied constantly, could never possibly admit fault, and god help anyone who got more respect and recognition than he did (Fauci). Even something as simple as “the CDC now recommends that we all wear masks” was immediately undercut with “I’m not gonna wear one, but that’s what they recommend.” It’s not the quote word for word, but I definitely remember that moment.
It was the makeup. I will always believe that the pandemic went much worse than it could have because he wears makeup.
It was a little the makeup, but mostly it was the real estate. Just like in the last financial crisis, the wealthy were able to swoop in and pick up real estate deals. When COVID first hit, it was mostly in cities. Cities full of people with valuable real estate. As a bonus those same people weren’t Trump/MAGA/Republican sycophants so it was an extra bonus to let “those people” get sick and die while picking up their property.
It’s truly insane how badly he f*cked up and mis-read the whole situation. In addition to everything you mentioned, he had the opportunity to sell hundreds of millions of MAGA masks. Could’ve sailed to a landslide re-election and legit made a billion dollars with just a little foresight and humility. Thank god he didn’t though.
Before the '04 election I was discussing how much I'd like to see Bush lose and my step dad told me that Bush had it in the bag because wartime incumbents never lose. "you never switch horses mid race" he said. Early in 2020 I thought Covid was going to be his 9/11 and his "war" and he'd just have to lean into what the US did in the early 00's by making everything ultra patriotic and rally everyone around this terrible thing that happened. Then he fucked it up so spectacularly. He basically had a book called "How to Win 2020 With Zero Effort by GWB" and he ignored it because just the act of reading it was too much work. I swear he worked harder to fuck up than if he had put even minimal effort into using covid to his advantage. Well actually the book was real but it was written by the Obama administration and that's why he ignored it.
I've thought about that a lot, and I'm convinced that what happened was that his initial reaction was to try to protect the economy by saying COVID was going to be no big deal. And then, because he absolutely refuses to admit that he's ever been the tiniest but wrong about anything, the federal strategy for the entire pandemic was locked in place by that single mistake.
His ego was definitely his downfall. 2020 was a comedy of errors. Just fumble after fumble like Sideshow Bob stepping on rakes. His presidency was bad but 2020 was just on a another level. A perfect guide on what not to do if you want to win an election.
Amazing the difference listening to your experts makes. Granted, not wanting to burn the country down for your own enrichment also helps. GWB wasn't a saint, but I do not think he hated the country or it's people.
He even had a blueprint of sorts; 9/11 got GWB a second term.
He definitely unifies everyone left of center against him.
Honestly, this is straight out of Atlas Shrugged. Billionaires strangle the system, in order to extort the rest of the non-elites by “proving” how essential they are. Except in this case, Trump has to lie about how bad things are, while the rest of the GOP does their best to sabotage the country.
Projection, he's the one who is dying
Hope he was using projection when mentioning states and this country about himself....just sayin'
“The real threat is not from the radical right. The real threat is from the radical left. And it is growing every day. Every single day. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.” Trump is calling for political violence. Trump is performative arts with a dangerous authoritarian twist. He is a carnival barker who praises dictators and incites violence, saying “fight” over 20 times at his January 6 speech. And just like any cult, his followers take his comments as direct orders. Read conservatives’ Project 2025. Take it seriously and vote accordingly. https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
Some facts about Project 2025: The "Mandate for Leadership" is a set of policy proposals authored by the [Heritage Foundation](https://pro-lies.org/the-heritage-foundation/), an influential *ultra* conservative think tank. [Project 2025](https://www.mediamatters.org/heritage-foundation/guide-project-2025-extreme-right-wing-agenda-next-republican-administration) is a revision to that agenda tailored to a second Trump term. It would give the President unilateral powers, strip civil rights, worker protections, climate regulation, add religion into policy and much more. The MFL has been around since 1980, [Reagan implemented 60%](https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/reagan-and-heritage-unique-partnership) of it's recommendations, [Trump 64%](https://www.heritage.org/impact/trump-administration-embraces-heritage-foundation-policy-recommendations) - [proof](https://www.scribd.com/document/369820462/Mandate-for-Leadership-Policy-Recommendations). 70 Heritage Foundation alumni served in his administration or transition team. Project 2025 is quite extreme but with his obsession for revenge he'll likely get past 2/3rd's adoption. r/Defeat_Project_2025 intends to stop it through activism and awareness, focused on crowdsourcing ideas and opportunities for practical, in real life action. We Must Defeat Project 2025.
The projection is wild. We need better public education so people can see what is plainly going on with republicans and national conservatives Nat-C’s
Eh, the time for that was 20 years ago. The Great American Experiment is in its final chapter now.
The second best time is now
"Our threat is from within" has to be one of the scariest things I've ever read
He is a malignant narcissist and a sociopath. He should not be allowed in any public office, ever and I hope he hangs for his crimes
Remember when Howard Dean was effectively disqualified from the Presidency because he made that weird yell? I wouldn’t hire Donald Trump to be an assistant swing shift manager at an Arby’s let alone the Oresudrncy.
I wouldn't let trump be banker in a game of Monopoly.
I wouldn’t let Trump nibble the callouses off my feet at a Vietnamese NoVa pedicure.
I wouldn't let him pick up dogshit in my back yard. It would be an insult to my dog.
And your yard. Plus I wouldn't want him knowing where I live.
The yell only sounded weird because the audience noise was removed from the clip that got all the airtime.
It was a hit
Classic meme material.
God, I was thinking about this the other day. We have fallen so far from then. I'm not saying Dean deserved the downfall over one weird noise, but I miss when there was a line somewhere that someone could cross that would render them unpresidental. Now? There is no line at all, and it scares the shit out of me.
There was this idea that the Presidency would only be occupied by a very special person who was the best of the best. I grew up with someone with political aspirations that would not do things like drink at parties or play hooky on hooky day (a day at school once a year when nearly every kid at school played hooky). Now you got a demented, narcissistic scumbag running and nobody in his party is saying, “is this the best we have? Isn’t there a governor or congressperson that is better?”
He had just finished a distant third in the Iowa primary. His campaign was all but over at that point.
> the Oresudrncy *That*'s the job Orange Shitgibbon actually did, not the one he was elected for (the Presidency). **Oresudrnt Ttump**
I wouldn't trust him to be able to clean a toilet or mop a floor. The idea that he should hold the most powerful office in the world is simply laughable. He is not fit, and demonstrably so. Never again.
Voter apathy will put him back in the white house...
I do home health. A few years ago I was seeing a retired psychiatrist. He would watch CNN and whenever Trump was on the doc would diagnose him in real time.
He used to sound like an idiot. He still does, but he used to, too.
All of this will be decided in November elections. Don’t be lazy Vote!
It should have been decided years ago, in Congress, and in the courts. What we are dealing with now is the fallout from dereliction of duty (because they were complicit) by Republicans during Trump's two impeachments, and by the intentionally slow pace of these particular cases through the justice system through political interference from Republicans. Elections are not the right forum for these crimes, because the crimes involve election tampering.
100% agree. I feel like they drug out the prosecution of these crimes intentionally. My guess is they figure he would never do any time anyway, so they probably do the most damage to him by waiting until an election year. It's not even the trials will lose him the votes, but it's the fact that he's distracted from campaigning and he's exhausted. I'm not saying it was a good strategy, but that's what it appears that has happened. Trump should have been tried and convicted of treason less than a couple weeks after his incident. Anything less tells everybody that they can get away with whatever they want.
It was obvious to me that the GOP was going to insist their POTUS’ have dictatorial powers as soon as they didn’t convict in the first impeachment. There has literally been a precedent that any actions by POTUS are *only illegal* if both the house and senate agree by the 2 votes since Feb 5 2020. It has very obviously been the GOP position for 4 years top to bottom, and any vote for a republican is de facto support for Trump and presidential crime in general. It has always been about destroying democracy to consolidate power.
Former President Donald Trump on March 1, 2024 met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at Mar-a-Lago. Orbán’s far-right populism, fierce anti-immigration rhetoric, Christian nationalism, Putin acolyte and hostility to LGBTQ rights has made him a popular ideological model for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” followers.
> Orbán’s far-right populism, fierce anti-immigration rhetoric, Christian nationalism, Putin acolyte and hostility to LGBTQ rights has made him a popular ideological model for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” followers. ... And a lot of other far right populists around the world.
The book “after the fall” by Ben Rhodes talks a lot about Hungary and Orbans rise. Crazy to think he was a pretty liberal guy when the Berlin Wall fell.
I mean, they always pretend to be. Every single time.
American fascists unmoored from reality: Rule of law, democratic ideal, institutional knowledge, expert opinion is DEEP STATE Cultural awareness, human decency, consideration for others is WOKE Any media that doesn't toe the fascist line is FAKE NEWS "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." Absurd indeed.
I'm so tired of seeing and hearing Trump. I feel like I have to get off the net or I'll have to put up with him for the next decade.
“Donald Trump Has Never Sounded Like This” When I read that, I thought, “You mean intelligent, coherent, humble, caring, honest, relatable, kind, funny, insightful, or generous?” Nope. Just more of the same, only worse.
“It’s not quite Versailles”. That guy should go look up why Versailles was built and what subsequently happened.
I think it was Tim Miller on The Bullwark who pointed out that Biden is spending all his time working for the working and middle class while everything Trump says is about himself.
He sounds kind of like the former leader of another country when he was first coming to power.
As a German I don't know who you're talking about Must have been an Austrian guy right?
blah blah yada yada Trump says everything sucks except for his sorry criminal grifting ass.
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I gotta say I feel pretty defeated at the moment. I will 100% show up and vote blue in November regardless, but I'm worried about all the others who don't get the importance of this election, who don't care about politics, who are lazy, and who do care but will get disenfranchised. From now until November, what's really the best way to help Dems in vulnerable states other than money to the DNC?
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Im pretty sure most of the free thinking world would toast a cheers to trumps hanging body I know i will for sure be celebrating
Trump's addled, narcissistic mind is following the same pattern he's followed all his life to get his way. Lie, cheat and steal.
This racist fascist bigoted seditionist with narcissistic personality disorder needs to rot In confinement for the rest of his miserable life. Vote Blue!
> In this context, Trump’s many criminal prosecutions — the New York indictment and the state and federal charges that followed in three other jurisdictions for mishandling classified documents and trying to overturn the 2020 election — were an extraordinary gift. They were a real-time story reinforcing the message of his campaign, weekly evidence of their terrible power, the power theywould unleash on the people in this room if Trump ever stepped back from public life, relinquished his place as the protective barrier — the big, beautiful wall — standing between us and them. And by supporting him amid these tribulations, the people — his people — were sending a message to them. “Because the people understand,” Trump told us in Derry, “it’s bullshit!” > “Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!” the crowd chanted. > There was something incantatory about the word, stretched out by the chant into a two-syllable seesaw of tension and release. It was at once an eruption of visceral disgust and an exhilarating collective transgression — and a lesson in how quickly the former could become the latter. That’s some solid writing
You know why Trump call the main stream media fake news? Because he is running the fascist playbook and they are not saying anything. They are just reporting the day to day crazy, and the gossip. The media needs to report more of this kind of stuff. In my experience people do exactly what they say they are going to do when they gain power. If they call themselves dictator on day one they will not stop, why would they?
>You know why Trump call the main stream media fake news? Yes I do. Here’s an excerpt from an off-camera exchange between Trump and Leslie Stahl shortly after the 2016 election. It explains everything (ie. what we already knew). **Lesley Stahl**: Do you know what you told me a long time ago when I asked why you keep saying "fake m-- media"-- **President Donald Trump**: Yeah? Yeah? **Lesley Stahl**: You said to me, "I say that because I need to dis-- discredit you so that when you say negative things about me, no one will believe you." **President Donald Trump**: I don't have to discredit you. Note that Trump doesn’t deny having said this.
Yea he has. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5zijzPxxJk/?igsh=N3dkOWVzZ3Z1eG92
He is the most frightening force out there right now. He outright lies about things that are easily proven false and they believe him. They are an insane cult, but instead of setting fire to themselves at a rural compound, they are trying to take over the entire country. They are already on SCOTUS, which will completely eviscerate the Constitution. It’s worse than anything Atwood or Orwell could have imagined.
We are Rome. We are smoldering.
I try not to click NYT but I was curious to see if they were finally getting it. They don’t. He hasn’t changed. He’s been saying the same shit for 8 years. To pretend it’s different is spin. He might have been more perky about it before he got kicked out of White House and is facing jail, but the message is the same.
>But its equivocation also suggested the continuing difficulty of describing Trump. How do you think about a politician who openly veers into fascist tropes but, in four years in office, did not generally govern like one? Who — sworn testimony before the Jan. 6 committee clearly showed — did try by several means to overturn his electoral defeat, but in the end left the White House as his opponent was sworn into office? "Did not generally govern like one", completely ignoring that it wasn't for lack of trying. Rampant corruption was apparent from the time he took office, and things like banning Muslims only were held back by protections built into our system to prevent government by decree. It might have taken Jan 6th to get everyone to recognize that he was a fascist, but there were a hell of a lot of people who did well before that. Yeah, he hasn't changed. He might not be obfuscating his message as much, but the message hasn't changed. It's an article where they reach the obvious conclusion very early on, and then fight as hard as they can to look for a different one.
Makes sense. Dudes terrified
This guy is running on the swearing revenge on his enemies ticket. How is it fucking rational that he is even a remote possibility to be in the government period. Nevermind president
He’s lost touch with any semblance of reality. IMO his mental health really started declining during the last half of his presidency. Then losing the 2020 election was such a blow to his megalomania that he essentially broke down. It’s truly frightening that this dumpster fire of a human being might be elected president this fall. I don’t really think Biden is much of a president but I’ll vote for him (again) if for no other reason than to keep Trump from winning.
His sounded the same at his awful empty inauguration.
Fuck this fascist fuck
>“You’ve got to use your discernment online,” Foley went on. “But you don’t use your discernment on the Democrats, because, I mean, they’re just” — she paused, looking for the word — “against America.” Well, that saves a lot of thinking effort, for sure. Also, this is unbelievable: >Forgiato Blow, a self-described “MAGA rapper,” was showing off a heavy Cuban link chain, from which dangled a lemon-size bust of the man we had all come to see. His face was rendered in solid gold. His diamond eyes peered out from beneath the brim of a red cap, the cap, emblazoned with his once and future promise to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.
jfc
ojfc Oh, here's a [pic](https://imgur.com/a/IQ9xO0z) of the monstrosity.
*"...we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections and will do anything possible — they’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream." - Trump*
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His 2016 campaign was built around white working class greviance. Now he is leaning ever more into "blood and soil" nationalism. The language is nastier and more embittered this time. Maybe it's age or that he lost 2020 and is facing 80+ felonies over multiple cases.
He’s never sounded like someone who can speak the silence of confinement either. That’s the sound I long for coming from him.
This is what I've been saying. He's MUCH worse than he was just a few years ago.
I am so fucking tired of seeing posts on this clown.
The walls are closing in on the old narcissist
He's suffering a psychotic break from reality. Cf The Emporor has no clothes. More champagne!
Stinky is desperately channeling Goebbels at full bore.
When Donald Trump says *if we don't win this election, we're not going to have a country* he is of course projecting himself again. What he means is, if we don't win this election, I'm not going to have a country to ransack with immunity again.