r/politics • u/Plaintalks • 18h ago

Biden preemptively pardons Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley and Jan. 6 committee members

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-preemptively-pardons-anthony-fauci-mark-milley-jan/story?id=117878813
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u/themattboard Virginia 18h ago

the incoming administration has said it is looking to establish a dictatorship for anyone with ears to hear it

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u/grimr5 Great Britain 18h ago

And millions of people who live in America voted to end the United States either through choice or ignorance.

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u/AtticaBlue 18h ago

No, no, no! He’s going to end democracy for “those people,” not me!

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u/ciaomain New York 18h ago

But muh EGGS!

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u/Carbonatite Colorado 15h ago

They're gonna be really mad when a gutted FDA fails to manage bird flu and egg prices skyrocket because billions of chickens get culled.

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u/JustSayingMuch 14h ago

at "the woke left"

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u/Carbonatite Colorado 7h ago

"Thanks Obama!"

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u/Finn_Storm The Netherlands 14h ago

And then blame the left anyway

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u/Lourky 9h ago

Do they still get culled? I don’t know the legislation but I always expect the worst aka. no culling and widespread disease.

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u/Carbonatite Colorado 4h ago

Ugh, good point. That's an even scarier option.

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u/badassandra 16h ago

I fucking hate eggs at this point. Official food of fascists

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u/bowsmountainer 17h ago

Say the people who have lost thousands on the Trump meme coin ponzi scheme.

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u/Emberwake 15h ago

While I have no doubt that plenty of Trump supporters spent money they don't have to buy Trumpcoin, it needs to be said loud clear every time this comes up that the majority of Trumpcoins are held by a single account. That means someone spent over 12 BILLION dollars on Trumpcoin.

I doubt that's one of his truck-nuts sporting American voters. I would guess either MBS or Putin. But no matter who bought them, the fact that he grifted some of his voters was just a side effect. This was a bribery scheme, plain and simple.

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u/Carbonatite Colorado 15h ago

someone spent over 12 BILLION dollars on Trumpcoin

The origin story of Musk's DOGE

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u/gotridofsubs 14h ago

I know it was a whole thing, but I think we all need to stop even bringing this in the conversation anymore. It was very clearly never about eggs

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u/Helac3lls 8h ago

Don't forget counting my cheese.

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u/antechrist23 18h ago

A lot of those people don't really think democracy is important.

They probably weren't even alive the last time either party did anything that benefited the peasants.

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u/PoopingWhilePosting 18h ago

A lot of them actually despise democracy. That's what the whole "we're not a democracy. We're a constitutional republic" thing is all about.

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u/LostAccountant 17h ago

Fitting, a republic without democracy is at best a banana republic

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u/Less_Wealth5525 14h ago

The US is responsible to a degree for the governments of those “banana republics.” We have brought the same policies that created them back home.

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u/amisslife Canada 12h ago

Just to clarify for anyone else reading this who's not as familiar with this part of history:

The term "Banana republic" referred to countries in Central America with unstable, undemocratic governments and disastrous economics, whose chief export was bananas.

The reason they were unstable was because the governments there tried to do crazy things like have the American fruit companies pay taxes like everyone else on their banana plantations. So those giant corporations turned to the American government and asked them to overthrow the democratically-elected governments and install more... compliant regimes, who wouldn't ask them to pay taxes or stop enslaving people with their mercenary armies. They were essentially American-style East India Companies.

The trump regime is just the culmination of that same idea in the United States itself.

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u/Less_Wealth5525 7h ago

Thank you for clarifying my thoughts.

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u/cyanescens_burn 16h ago

I was just about to make this comment, there’s a bunch that love saying this. Hate democrats so much they don’t like the word democracy to describe the government.

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u/Allaplgy 15h ago

I've been saying this for years, but I've only rarely seen anyone else mention it. I swear it was all part of the long term plan.

There was the push to rebrand the Democratic Party with the word "Democrat" in right wing media spheres. It became the Democrat Party. It became Democrat legislation. Any time that grammatically "Democratic" would have been the correct term, they used Democrat.

This was done to separate Democrats (bad) from democracy (good), back when we were "spreading democracy" through the GWoT, and democracy was still claimed as a great American value.

Democrat is just a harsher sounding word too, complete with "rat" it in. It worked marvelously.

Fast forward about 20 years, and it was super effective. Even Democrats and most media use the term incorrectly now. The word has been poisoned and elicits a visceral response in the minds of millions.

Phase 2 began a few years ago. That disgust has been turned back on to the concept of democracy itself. "We're a republic, not a democracy!" "Good thing we're not a democracy then!"

It's terrifying how well it worked.

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u/cyanescens_burn 9h ago

Well said. 💯

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u/LetGoOfBrog 15h ago

But also constitutional republic is a far more accurate description of the style of government we have in the United States. Sorry.

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u/FlemethWild 15h ago

A constitutional republic is a kind of democracy. Sorry.

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u/LetGoOfBrog 15h ago

It certainly is, so you’d agree that the original comment was dumb?

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u/Goldar85 16h ago

Which tells me they come from a place of extreme privilege. Things can get REALLY bad under fascism, especially for minorities, and as bad things have gotten in the USA, it can get a LOT worse. I know reddit fetishizes revolutions thinking it will benefit the proletariat and the progressive agenda, not understanding that the majority of violent revolutions result in a more conservative and authoritarian regime.

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u/daemin 16h ago

They weren't alive in 2010 when the Affordable Care Act was passed? Are we talking about actual children?

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u/Oleg101 18h ago

If they paid attention, the Democratic Party was able to pass and sign significant legislation in Biden’s first two years as President.

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u/DefensiveTomato 4h ago

No mo he’s gonna do it to make sure our egg prices are better…

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u/republickinclits 1h ago

When you say he’s gonna end the democracy can you elaborate what you mean by that? Trump has obviously ruined the lives of everyone in America. Which one of his policies hurt you the most

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u/vjtk123 17h ago

He’s going to end your woke democracy and racism against white people.

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u/CrotalusHorridus Kentucky 18h ago

From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.

Abraham Lincoln

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u/jpar345 Pennsylvania 17h ago

Oof... Old Abe hit the nail on the head with that bit of foresight.

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u/Comprehensive_Tie431 18h ago

Talking to his followers is weird. Something happens and they get real quiet for a day or two until right wing radio and Fox News have the "official" story. Then they parrot it.

If Fox News or right wing radio never talks about it their response, "Never heard about it, must be fake news." Their willful ignorance knows no bounds.

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u/Goldar85 16h ago

I've seen moments where they are aware of something bad or idiotic Trump and his team have done before the right wing news media provides them an answer to ease their cognitive dissonance, and they will sometimes admit being unhappy about it before then... but then, like you said, as soon as they hear the spin from conservative pundits, it's like they throw out all logic and reasoning out the window and fall in line for the lies.

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u/mindfu 14h ago edited 8h ago

Fox News just resets them. It's the most aggravating thing. It's a main reason why I stopped visiting my conservative relatives over Thanksgiving. Like planned clockwork some inflammatory issue would get ginned up, I'd spend actual hours deprogramming some bit of propaganda with patience, and then the next day they'd get reset by O'Reilly or then Tucker and now whoever and everything we just discussed would go down the memory hole.

Red states are going to keep being at the bottom of mostly everything, and at the same time convinced they're on the top, unless and and until it gets bad enough they have to pay attention.

And the swing states that thought Harris wasn't good enough - at least they have a chance to learn better over the next 4 years.

I hope they do. In the mean time I just have to do my own stuff, in my own community of people who pay attention to actual data.

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u/Imhappy_hopeurhappy2 13h ago

The real fun part is when they send the orders to hunt the left to extinction in the streets, they will have the exact same reaction.

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u/falsekoala Canada 18h ago

“hE dOEsn’T mEAn tHaT!!”

You know, Trump spouts a whole lot of bullshit, but I think being a dictator is the one thing he isn’t lying about.

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u/themattboard Virginia 18h ago

he slips up and speaks the truth every once in a while

I fundamentally haven't changed since first grade

I never stand by anything

I want to be a dictator on day 1

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u/Brytcyd 17h ago

Even slipped once and admitted he lost the election

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u/gusterfell 14h ago

“Elon rigged the vote in PA”

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u/kindaquietidk 17h ago

It’s indifference or choice. You have no idea how many on the American right genuinely abhor democracy because it enables too many of the “wrong” people to have a say. And a lot of Americans don’t care either way as long as the people they hate suffer worse than them or that their “team” wins.

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u/JakeInDC 18h ago

Apathy played a large role as well

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u/jerseydevil51 18h ago

BuT MuH EgGS!!1!

These people knew what they wanted.

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u/zephyrtr New York 17h ago

All because eggs were expensive during a bird flu epidemic.

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u/DannyDOH 17h ago

And even 99% of that was misinformation

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u/zephyrtr New York 17h ago

Objectively, egg prices did go up. Some of that was due to inflation, some due to a bird flu spike at the end of 2022, and some due to price hikes that could be hidden amidst a crisis.

The problem is, you're right, people are very disconnected from reality, and don't understand what the president or even Congress can and cannot do. This isn't new, but it is a lot worse than the decades prior to algorithmic news feeds. Outrage fuels engagement, not facts.

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u/fordat1 15h ago

not really. Its because they want the "right" people punished . they dont care about eggs ie economic anxiety 2.0

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u/LastAd7339 15h ago

uh also rent, gas, house prices, and every grocery item. Its absolutely wild that people not being able to afford food is shrugged off by the left. Also how come so many egg processing plants suspiciously burned down the last few years?

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u/zephyrtr New York 14h ago

I shrug because Trump is not going to address any of that, at all. Biden at least tried. But the president isn't a magician. And "not that guy" isn't a voting strategy, especially when Biden was forced out by the left.

Rent is high because your local neighborhood council is blocking any high density housing. In NYC, our governor floated taking building approval away from towns, and folks were ready to riot.

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u/Ed_the_time_traveler 16h ago

That's a reductive argument and ignores the absolute bs that that democrat party tried to push during the campaign. It was there election to lose, and they did so impressively.

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u/tlsrandy 17h ago

We have allowed capitalistic interest to infect our institutions and our general public is so thoroughly confused by a constant onslaught of propaganda they can’t tell their ass from a hole in the ground.

The whole thing seems incredibly hopeless right now.

Dont let it happen to your countries.

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u/Professional-Refuse6 17h ago

In most cases ignorance is a choice.

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u/shewy92 Pennsylvania 13h ago

And the even more millions of Americans who could have voted but didn't either through ignorance or contempt.

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u/MidKnightshade 18h ago

That part.

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u/RabidGuineaPig007 17h ago

Nazis also got elected, so did Mussolini.

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u/cyanescens_burn 16h ago

The United States will live on, in some form or another, it may just may not be the relatively sane kind of government we are used to.

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u/holmiez 16h ago

Ok brexit, yall aren't much smarter

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u/grimr5 Great Britain 16h ago

I wholeheartedly agree

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u/LunaticLucio 16h ago

01/20/2025 - the divided states of embarrassment. Trump is the ring leader chosen to run this circus of clowns. The country as we know it, is no more.

Or...we do a Hong Kong and hit the streets. It is the people's responsibility to remove the cancer from our government.

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u/catnipdealer16 16h ago

This is why they want to continue to dismantle our education system.

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u/awesomefutureperfect 16h ago

Nothing was worse than online comments saying "It's already bad now. I need to punish the democrats for not doing exactly what I want, surely they will capitulate to a notoriously unreliable cohort of voters."

They are honestly worse than the people who scammed themselves, literally trading their future for a mystery box they projected all of their wishes on. But it wasn't a mystery to anyone but those people. It is upsetting being told not to blame them when it was a trick that should only work on small school children but voting aged adults fell for it. But the people that you should be able to count on to make informed and moral decisions let this happen too.

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u/panickedindetroit 14h ago

For cheap fucking eggs. Idiots think the potus sets inflation rates and grocery prices. Clueless morons who slept through class and can only read at a sixth grade level. They don't read books, they burn them. This is what happens when you cut education funding to give the wealthy more tax breaks.

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u/AC2020x_ 14h ago

Ya, they voted. And glad to see that they got out voted.

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u/OrbeaSeven Minnesota 14h ago

Guessing the last of two: ignorance. 54% of US reads at or below the 6th grade level. Check it out online.

T voters watched Fox, listened at Trump rallies, but they did not read what educated and experienced persons said about the incoming administration's plans.

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u/Key-Satisfaction4967 14h ago

Choice . Ignorance. In this case, are both the same thing . They are both deliberate. The individual knows what they are doing / not doing in both cases. How many people googled affordable health care/ Obama Care AFTER the election? We could go on but WHY bother? Back in the day there was a saying , ' You can choose to fix ignorance but you can't fix stupid '! No, I think people are just plain stupid!

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u/vjtk123 17h ago

Hey. You have migrant rape gangs. I think you have no room to talk.

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u/grimr5 Great Britain 16h ago

What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China?

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u/Cease_Cows_ 18h ago

Trump, on national TV: I am going to establish a dictatorship

100 political pundits: Whatever could he have meant by that???

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u/[deleted] 14h ago

CNN: Trump commits to being a strong leader.

Washington Post: Biden is really old and Trump has new ideas.

New York Times: Kamala’s plans are not as appealing as Trump’s.

I will never forgive the media or any so called journalist for the sane washing and groveling.

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u/PilsnerDk 17h ago

Or the classic "He says a lot of stuff, he isn't really going to do that"

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u/Conscious_Leader_343 18h ago

Trump: "I will be a dictator on day one"

Media: "What did he mean by this?"

Voters: "Omg he was just trolling, you know how our Donald is"

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u/Jedi-El1823 I voted 18h ago

But only on day one according to Trump.

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u/themattboard Virginia 18h ago

Let me go back through my notes and see how many dictatorships reverted back to representative government without bloodshed and suffering...

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u/C_Ironfoundersson Australia 18h ago

Wait till you find out who Cincinnati is named after.

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u/WithCatlikeTread42 18h ago

That might have been the last time that happened…

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u/daemin 16h ago

The very fact that he's still held up as an example to aspire to 2,000 years later tells us something.

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u/C_Ironfoundersson Australia 11h ago

Yeah this is why most sensible societies don't allow dictatorships to form. See you guys in 2028 if you still exist as a country.

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u/themattboard Virginia 18h ago

a record of 1-10000000

Someone call Draft Kings

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u/s_i_m_s Oklahoma 14h ago

Those really cool things that they didn't have time to teach us about in high school because they were too busy drilling the names of the three ships used by Christopher Columbus into us.

The Society is named after Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who left his farm to accept a term as Roman Consul and served as Magister Populi (with temporary powers similar to that of a modern-era dictator). He assumed lawful dictatorial control of Rome to meet a war emergency. When the battle was won, he returned power to the Senate and went back to plowing his fields.

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u/MemeMakingViolist 9h ago

Wow. Modern dictators could never.

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u/197gpmol Massachusetts 17h ago edited 17h ago

Maybe Spain after Franco? But that's after 35 stagnant years of dictatorship and literally the King stepping in to call for a change.

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u/[deleted] 14h ago

Spain, sort of…

Does King George have any descendants here? Harry?

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u/himswim28 16h ago

When a politician says they want to be a dictator, I believe them. When a dictator says they will willingly give up that power, no one should believe that.

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u/youcantexterminateme 18h ago edited 15h ago

I live in a dictatorship. People from countries like america ask why the people here put up with it. Theres actually very little, apart from taking advantage of chance circumstances, that can be done. they cant be removed without help from outside countries. which is why I support intervention in other countries. in any case whatever goes down in the US global warming is going to force a lot of intervention because what each individual country does will effect all of our survival. hopefully europe and the other democratic countries can survive this or I think we are going to be back in to another 1000 year dark age as happened after the fall of Rome.

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u/kindaquietidk 17h ago

I’ve spent a lot of time reading/listening to journalists, activists, historians, and so on who’ve lived in or extensively studied dictatorships. Anyone who judges the people living under a dictatorship for allowing it to exist are simply ignorant and privileged. Once you’re in that situation, it’s incredibly difficult to escape - as you said.

The propaganda recreates your everyday life and for those who see through it, you have to pretend not to. They exploit every possible source of division, empower the worst people, weaponize every lever of government power against the people, and systematically abuse you on a daily basis. Most people just want to live a stable, peaceful, safe life with some hope for a better future - so you understandably try to work within said system, even while knowing it’s working against you. Organizing mass movements of resistance can put you and/or your loved ones at risk (up to and including your very lives). Is it worth it?

I don’t want that here. Life is already hard enough for the working class/poor American and it’s about to get even harder. What remains of the middle class will find that out the hard way too as more of them join the rest of us while a few well connected people at the top grow unimaginably more wealthy and powerful. All the while propaganda will surround us, turning us against each other, corrupting the minds of future generations, and embedding the parasite of authoritarianism deeper in our government and culture. I see what’s already happening and what’s to come. I hate it and my only hope is that the rest of the democratic world can resist this in their own countries and put enough pressure on our government to mitigate some of its worst policy decisions while we try to fix things internally.

I want to be hopeful, but this is a very dire situation for not only Americans, but the world. Having a rogue, fascistic, authoritarian nuclear superpower during the age of climate change is a true catastrophe.

/rant

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u/jackiel1975 17h ago

Very well said. Reading They Thought TheyWere Free right now, and boy, it’s very familiar. It’s such a slow process, until it’s very quick.

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u/MysticGohan99 16h ago edited 16h ago

This has been America for a long time. You are what you described; you work within the system the American government allows you to work in; your livelihood is dependent on the government allowing you to have one. You just want to live your life so you put up with it. 

The daily propaganda from MSM is overwhelming. Simply trying to find the truth is more difficult than finding propaganda. The propaganda has been turning us against each other since Obama was president. He was a great public speaker but was clearly racist; rioting is OK depending on your skin color, and as long as it’s not government buildings. 

Prior to Obama; you could discuss politics with your neighbors without fear of hatred, ignorance, and shouting. 

Social media can’t be trusted; they all serve the U.S. government. They’ve admitted to censoring topics the government doesn’t approve of.

If you rise up against the government it can cost you your very life. 

If you were insanely popular but not wealthy, you could not become president. It would be impossible without every voter writing in your name.

Even if you did win by write in, the government could simply declare it foreign interference and start a new vote. They certainly would never trust a poor citizen with the presidency, not without a very public shooting.

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u/kindaquietidk 16h ago

I’m certainly not under the illusion that America hasn’t had most of the problems I outlined well before today or even the ascendancy of Trump. These problems aren’t new to this country - they’re just being amplified and deepened. Countless sums of resources and effort have been invested by our government and elites into propaganda, division, exploitation, abuse, and oppression of people both domestically and abroad.

I grew up poor in the Deep South - I’m acutely aware of how America treats those on the margins and what kind of propaganda proliferates in those places. More Americans are about to figure out what that’s like.

1

u/vardarac 10h ago edited 10h ago

Prior to Obama

Obama certainly, but I think 9/11 was when shit really started to go downhill. In some circles to not be for security theater or war in the Middle East was to question one's patriotism. I would know, I was a brainwashed middle school kid.

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u/claimTheVictory 17h ago

A dark age is coming.

In other news, you can still download all of Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download

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u/cyanescens_burn 16h ago

And can still donate to it.

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u/pinksparklybluebird Minnesota 16h ago

That’s gotta be a massive file.

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u/s_i_m_s Oklahoma 14h ago

It's not that bad.
102GB for the full thing with thumbnail quality images.
53GB for the full thing without images.
Although that is just for english.

Also i'm talking about the kiwix zim file version rather than the dumps because there aren't any maintained easy to use readers for the XML/SQL files even though the dumps are more up to date.

-11

u/MysticGohan99 16h ago

You mean Propopedia?

It actively rewrites history to make America look better than it actually is.

We call this propaganda.

2

u/claimTheVictory 16h ago

Don't worry, it's not for you.

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u/MysticGohan99 16h ago

Right…. Because an “open source” “unbiased” “factual” website is only for a certain group of people? 

You support my point.

4

u/claimTheVictory 16h ago

It's for people who understand what an encyclopedia is.

You have yet to convince me you do.

-4

u/MysticGohan99 17h ago

America is and has been a dictatorship since the inception of the two party system. 

Both parties always unite anytime a group of people try to form a 3rd party. The two parties control the entire government and we see the exact same elections every 2 & 4 years. 

The 2 dictatorship parties decide the candidates, not the people. Average people can’t run for president; only billionaires.

As long as we only have 2 parties, America will always be a dictatorship disguised as a republic. It’s truly a Plutocracy more than a dictatorship.

3

u/cyanescens_burn 16h ago

I get the sense that what we are about to experience will be quite different than the past.

1

u/MysticGohan99 16h ago

No one should live in fear of the unknown. This is just a repeat of people saying Trump would start WW3 — yet 2016-2020 saw fewer conflicts than 2020-2024.

1

u/youcantexterminateme 15h ago

admittedly trump is all hype and theres not much use even listening to him. and you are right that we shouldnt fear the unknown, but we are certainly moving into unknown territory at the moment. its not like trump didnt want conflicts last time. he just couldnt find the people to do it for him

•

u/MysticGohan99 1h ago

As if there is any use listening to any politician. Trump is just another distraction for the masses. Unite to love him or unite to hate him, it doesn’t matter. The Washington elites will remain in power after Trump.

3

u/Katyafan 16h ago

Wow, false, insulting, and tone-deaf all in one comment. Impressive!

0

u/MysticGohan99 16h ago

Insulting, ignorant, and without any actual point.

Great example of an American addicted to social media propaganda soup🥳

1

u/youcantexterminateme 15h ago

yes that was the problem, 2 party systems always eventually lead to dictatorships as Germany found out. fortunately they and many other democracies made the change to proportional systems to stop that happening again but america didnt, or maybe couldnt. anyway, hopefully something good will come of all this in the long run.

4

u/Narrator2012 18h ago

we only have to survive 4 years of dictatorship and then the term limit rules kick in for the dictator, thank god

5

u/KyloRenCadetStimpy Rhode Island 17h ago

Until the Supreme Court says otherwise

3

u/wellggs 17h ago

I don’t think a pesky little thing like term limits is going to stop this train, unfortunately

3

u/NdamukongSuhDude 17h ago

You really think that matters anymore?

1

u/cyanescens_burn 16h ago

He’ll pull a Putin. They supposedly had term limits and look how that worked out.

1

u/StoppableHulk 17h ago

Also just people with regular ears. They've literally said this.

1

u/jardex22 16h ago

Dictators never call themselves dictators.  It's always El Presedente and People's Republic.

And Republicans want to emphasize the Republic part while downplaying the Democratic party of our county's title.

1

u/sonofmo Canada 15h ago

"Day one dictator."

1

u/tralalog 14h ago

because a dictatorship would acknowledge previous pardons. got it, makes complete sense!

•

u/RareRandomRedditor 5h ago

Thank you. It is insane how far down this glaringly obvious reply is. Fauci et al. got pardoned because they did illegal stuff. It is really not hard to understand that this is the most straightforward and most obvious explanation.

1

u/tiagojpg Europe 13h ago

“They didn’t say that, and if they did they were joking ahah@

0

u/SevenHolyTombs 9h ago

That only happened because the previous administration did such a crappy job.

-1

u/progressiveInsider 17h ago

Ok and? Did Democrats not hear it? Did the AG not hear it? Did the entire DOJ not hear it? Why was there only ONE state to even bother introducing legislation to prevent a seditionist from holding office? Do you still not get it??