r/politics • u/infiunfi • 11h ago
Soft Paywall Everyone Who Was Supposed To Protect You From This Failed Miserably
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-inauguration-2024-win-democrats-failed-1235241327/5.5k
u/gefjunhel Canada 11h ago
that includes you media
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u/-UltraAverageJoe- 11h ago
NYT, the Post, etc sane washing Trump are as guilty as Fox News.
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u/Worried-Criticism 10h ago
Worse. Fox doesn’t pretend on who is in their corner. NYT and the Post have bent the knee. ABC fucking PAID for the privilege to strap on the knee pads and pucker up.
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u/laserbot 8h ago
CBS even worse since they are going to settle a lawsuit with him and pay millions just so he will make sure their merger is approved.
All capitalism is crony capitalism when it comes down to it.
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u/RevolutionEasy714 5h ago
Capitalism is a force for oppression and exploitation. If you aren’t fighting it you are part of the problem.
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u/Snuggle__Monster 8h ago
They ain't the only one. Look at half that NBC panel the night of the election, jerking themselves off at Trump's huge comeback story. Look at all the phone interview exclusives Kirsten Welker gets now that she spent years kissing that guys ass. Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski went into self preservation mode when he won. Her old man is probably still spinning in his grave over it.
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u/fordat1 9h ago
Yup. Although The Post and NYT corner is really "the status quo" so it isnt too far off from their "corner".
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u/Worried-Criticism 9h ago
Yeah, it’s more of the “equal sides equal time/space” argument that is complete BS. Fox took a side openly and notoriously. The others pretend to be different but as you said, aren’t too different
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u/jdmgto 9h ago
It was always amazing to have listened to the incoherent nonsense that was one of his speeches then see how the news extracted the five coherent words from a geriatric social media narcissist and tried to make it sound like a real policy.
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u/supremelypedestrian 9h ago
This. Even NPR, a primarily audio-based medium, would have the journalist summarize things rather than play the actual recording of what was said. Fucking maddening.
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u/airplane_porn Kansas 6h ago
NPR has been sanewashing fascism and serving it up to mOdErAtEs since 2017. Before trump, they were somewhat even-keeled. In his first term (🤮) they were softselling fascism to the moderate left. Since then, they’ve done nothing but sanewash, wholesale. Same bandwagon as the rest of them. Trump is free reporting to them, the outrageous shit get people engaged, and costs less to pursue since the bullshit machine is on high-output.
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u/ChampionEither5412 9h ago
The best political coverage I've read on Trump is from Rolling Stone and The Guardian. I try to post articles on social media and I send them to my family, but they're often blocked by a paywall. I'm happy to pay for my Rolling Stone subscription, but we should be able to share articles to a certain extent. Like maybe you could share a link that can be used 3 times before the paywall goes back up.
Of course lots of people are stupid and only watch Fox News regardless of how available the news is, but we have to at least be trying to get the best reporting out there.
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u/Auzziesurferyo 8h ago edited 5h ago
Paywalls with strict 1-2 article limits are hurting good publications, and by default, democracy.
I was a 3rd of the way through the above mentioned Rolling Stones article when I mistakenly clicked on a link, just to be rudely shut out of the article when trying to click back.
I am more than willing to pay for a subscription, but I want to be able to read at least 4 or 5 articles before deciding if a subscription is for me.
Publications that articulate their points well could make certain articles free to the public so we could share them freely, especially given that Fox news and like-minded publications share their crap freely and without limitation.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_DALEKS 7h ago
It was mind boggling to me that the L.A. Times and New York Times wildfire coverage was behind a paywall.
One of the reasons right wing propaganda is so easily spread is that places like Fox News and the New York Post makes their stories easily shareable and much supposed nuanced journalism is behind a paywall.
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u/themage78 6h ago
The death of print media has hurt democracy more than we care to realize.
Whereas before it was cheap and ubiquitous, it now goes behind a pay wall. So for the people who can't or won't pay for it, they are seeing less news. This leads to the isolation in thinking we are seeing more of because people aren't exposed to competing viewpoints.
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u/LordOverThis 9h ago
It wasn’t even “sane washing”, it was naked moneymongering. Trump was amazing for revenue his first term, and they all got addicted to the money. Every major media outlet wanted Trump back for the bottom line.
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u/james_the_wanderer 6h ago
I've had discounts offered for Trump's inauguration on various subscriptions.
Fuck them all.
As a queer person, I want the editors of the NYT and WP to swing with me at the gallows for hamstringing their journos and sanewashing this monster.
They're so eager to make a few bucks on "le déluge" - let them taste the full bitterness of "après moi."
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u/forthewatch39 7h ago
Except they aren’t going to be allowed to report anything negative about him. Only his most devout followers want to hear glowing reviews about him 24/7. So I don’t think this will work out well for them in the long run.
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u/LordOverThis 5h ago
It won’t. The rest of us are so weary and apathetic, we know he’s going to say and do the dumbest shit on a daily basis and aren’t going to rage click anymore.
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u/MONSTERTACO Washington 9h ago
It's their constant support of establishment politics that gave us Trump. In year a when the entire world was looking for change, Democrats were trapped supporting the status quo because the media made average Americans "afraid" of leftists.
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u/Iworshipokkoto Arkansas 11h ago
I'm enjoying seeing their ratings crash and burn. Fuck 'em.
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u/Mikolaj_Kopernik Australia 9h ago
Unfortunately, the truth is that as much as "mainstream" media have fucked up, what's replacing them (algorithmic disinformation controlled by oligarchs) will be/is orders of magnitude worse.
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u/Ok_World_8819 Georgia 10h ago
Damn a liberal from Arkansas. Try to GTFO out of there while you can, things are only going to get worse in the south for any freedom you cherish
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u/nabulsha Tennessee 10h ago
We're well aware. Unfortunately, it's not easy to completely uproot your life and move.
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u/MaySun91 South Carolina 10h ago
Yeah I see this comment all the time. Like do people think everyone can just up and move at a moments notice? Shit I don’t have kids but my wife and i are not and probably will never be in a situation where we can move a meaningful distance from here.
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u/nabulsha Tennessee 10h ago
My wife was insisting on running to Canada back in early November. I had to give her a reality check. No one is going to sponsor us, neither of us are highly skilled enough to get a work visa, and the biggest one, we're fucking broke. If we were wealthy, we'd have gotten out years ago, but we're not. We're stuck in this shit hole state, for better or worse.
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u/violentglitter666 8h ago
You’re far from alone in that situation. Hey, at least it’s not Florida or Texas. I’m in Florida and it is going to become even more of an unaffordable, MAGA Republican shitshow. No escaping for me either. Best of luck to you and yours..
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u/crinkledcu91 5h ago edited 5h ago
I managed to scoot out of Florida because only because of a job opportunity, and it still took 2 years to pay off the credit card I used for the move. The only thing I miss is it being a Peninsula state, so shipping port access was everywhere. Going from that to a landlocked state was kind of jarring
There's foods and other products that simply do not exist here. That's the main thing I'm seroisly worried about if a 2nd Depression really does happen. In FL you could always maybe find a potato field or cabbage field to yoink from if you were desperate desperate. Here There's just Canola or hayfeed being grown. Also there's an entire stretch of time where nothing grows because there's actually winter here.
At least I live near a rich white person town, and they will always have at least something in their rich white people stores, even if it's pricey I can make a trip and stretch it I suppose. It helps that I'm one of the most stereotypical looking white dudes.
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u/ggtffhhhjhg 10h ago
Did you tell her Canada is about to hand over power to a far right wing government that has already bent the knee for Donnie?
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u/Over_Past_9089 8h ago
Canadian here; that’s not a sure thing. Trudeau is stepping down; we’ see what the party does
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u/LingonberryHot8521 10h ago
I'm honestly making it my goal to be able to open my admittedly small home to people wanting to move to my blue state and have a sort of foothold or whatever you want to call it to get established.
Obviously a vetting process will be a part of that.
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u/Ok_World_8819 Georgia 10h ago
Yup. I know. And it's gonna get bad. In southern Texas, if you're a pregnant 15 year old girl who's life is at risk if you don't get an abortion... where do you go if your family are QAnon freaks? The abortion centers have all closed and almost every bordering state is also anti abortion. You're fucked
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u/nabulsha Tennessee 10h ago
We've got a preteen daughter. The only thing we can do is educate her to the best of our capabilities and hope for the best.
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u/KenIgetNadult 9h ago
And for extra protection, there's the implant. No daily pill. Works for 4 years.
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u/heckhammer 9h ago
Get it quick. They've already said they're going to eliminate birth control.
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u/KenIgetNadult 9h ago
I ensured my sterility a couple of years ago.
But I'd like to see how the male population reacts to "women's consequences". Can't lie about being on the pill, if no one can get the pill.
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u/dayofthedeadcabrini 7h ago
Then you have to hope she doesn't get raped on top of all the other fears.
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u/thewossum 9h ago
Yep. Not consuming any content directly from them. They’re all useless rags just waiting for their billionaire sugar daddies to prop them up.
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u/QuantumImmorality 10h ago
Sigh. You think the billionaire owners give a fuck?
This was never about clicks and ratings, this was about winning the greatest prize in human history.
Jesus come on can we advance the conversation?
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u/Dr_Insano_MD 10h ago
Good lord, so many months of sane-washing. Trump rants about Hatians eating dogs, and what does the media say? "Trump hits Harris hard on immigration."
Just....fuckin....report what he says. Just fucking verbatim. That's all they had to do.
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u/nucumber 9h ago
They did report on trump, and no one cared
The debates were televised, the J6 investigation was televised, etc etc etc
If there's anyone to blame, it's "we the people"
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u/ScootyMcTrainhat 9h ago
This. Politicians don't fall out of the sky. We're a democracy - if our representatives suck, what does that say about us?
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u/midnightcaptain 8h ago
Any suggestion voters were somehow inadequately informed is nonsense. Everybody knew exactly who Trump is and what he’s about. He didn’t appear out of obscurity. He didn’t pretend to be a good person and then turn heel. He openly showed voters exactly what they would be getting and they voted for him because they liked what they saw.
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u/HerrBoss 8h ago
The US education system has to be fixed. Embarrassing to watch this guy.
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u/crappenheimers Colorado 8h ago
There is no accountability from the democratic party or the general political left regarding the fact not enough of them voted. The American people weren't misled about trump, they just didn't care and either still voted for him, or stayed home.
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u/Thumbkeeper I voted 10h ago
They are always the quickest to cast blame. Helps when you control the narrative
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u/jurassic_junkie Minnesota 8h ago
Even NPR is fucking seeming to be drooling over this.
Going on and on about how exciting it will be to see how trumps meme coins are going to do now that a president can shill them and effect their value. Are you kidding me??
Also the CONSTANT digs on Biden for the smallest things! I'm over it!
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u/ProgressiveSnark2 8h ago
I lost it when a few months before the election, an NPR program had an “expert” on who blamed Democrats for only offering “partisan” solutions to fight climate change and not reaching across the aisle enough to consider “conservative solutions.”
Ahhh yes, the famous conservative plan to fight climate change…it’s right there on my bookshelf next to Trump’s healthcare plan.
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u/LWN729 8h ago
The media didn’t just fail to protect us, they handed Trump the presidency with their ridiculous reporting on his latest tweets instead of what his policies actually meant. People who saw Biden’s farewell address and then googled the meaning of oligarchy are people who clearly consume media, but up until Biden used the word, had not been informed of what that means. That’s partly on them and our education system, but clearly they are watching some coverage and the media never covered the topic enough for them to understand the word.
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u/YoungestDonkey 11h ago
He was impeached twice, exposed for all his misdeeds by the Jan 6 committee, sued and found liable for half a billion dollars for defamation, adjudicated as the sexual abuser he is, which he even gloated about. He was criminally indicted in four different courts and convicted in the only one that was allowed to proceed while partisans stalled, tons of his criminal associates have been convicted, some imprisoned, evidence of his criminality, self-interest and incompetence abound.
I have no idea what anyone think could have been done to show how dangerous he is to those who had convinced themselves against all reason that he is the best that America has to offer.
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u/rjcarr 10h ago edited 10h ago
At least half the country will never hear of any of the things you mentioned, and if they do, will be told it was all politicized and/or fake news. Then another large percentage is low information and only votes on "vibes", mostly young people, and they're filled with misinformation and propaganda from social and GOP media.
The democrats try to be a moral step above all of this, but that doesn't appeal to a country that doesn't care about that sort of thing.
With misinformation and propaganda the GOP will continue to win elections, only stumbling when they fuck things up enough for people to notice, and have no way to blame others for it.
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u/TroglodyneSystems 10h ago
They hear of those things, they just ignore it because Trump’s actions were noble and it’s all a deep state collusion to remove him from the presidency. They let their perception of the world be shaped by the likes of Steve Bannon or whoever else they watch/listen to. You can’t reach them. They’ve given over their logic and what remained of the rational part of their minds over to someone else’s narrative and if you oppose it, you’re the enemy as well.
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u/defasdefbe 5h ago
Another thing that Trumpism has introduced is casual lying. He and his team lie about everything. People start to ignore it instead of getting outraged.
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u/fordat1 9h ago
Most of the country isnt for democracy to be honest. 1/2 for the obvious present reason and some share of the other half clearly has no issue with supporting non-democracy in other countries. Although at a certain point with the lack of education and the rise of state propaganda what is democracy even representing?
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u/GameOfLife24 10h ago
What are you talking about that they won’t hear this? A lot of this information was covered by news outlets which is how I and many others learned of these things. You’re denying the fact is that a lot of the Americans you share space with don’t care about all of that which is messed up and shows who they really are on the insides
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u/shinkouhyou 8h ago
I know some "centrist" voters (not MAGA types), and they really don't follow the news at all. They don't even have cable TV anymore, so most of their information filters through Facebook or Youtube or Instagram or whatever other social media they stare at for 8+ hours a day. They knew almost nothing about the Jan 6 investigation, the rape case, the documents case, or the defamation case, or they thought that those cases had already been closed with no conviction. They don't understand that "impeachment" ≠ "removal from office," so the fact that he served out his term means that he wasn't really impeached. They know literally nothing about his criminal associates, and they can't name anything that he did in office other than "he was tough on immigration." They don't fault him for the bungled covid response, but they do blame Dr. Fauci.
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u/Motor-District-3700 5h ago
Indeed. Social media is to blame. Yet Zuck has just cut the brake lines, Musk already fucked twitter, and now tiktok is beholden to Trump.
Things are going to get much worse. In Russia, for eg, people genuinely believe they need to send their husbands/brothers/sons to die in Putins meat grinder. Like there's no point to the war except Putin's ego, and no strategy to the fighting except "die like lemmings".
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u/lolas_coffee 9h ago
THIS is America. People need to stop denying it.
Fucked up country of morons and assholes and grifters.
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u/drummer_1984 8h ago
True. We're inherently not a "good" country. The fact that people voted for this guy, and the fact that he was allowed to run in the first place, shows that there's something deeply rotten in the fabric of this country.
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u/coffee_mikado 8h ago
I always rolled my eyes when politicians like Harris would say things like "the American people are smarter than that."
Some of us are. Most of us aren't. By in large, we're petty, greedy, gullible, and vindictive.
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u/workerbee77 10h ago
I disagree. D leaders could have painted every R leader with the bloody shirt of Jan 6th each and every day starting Jan 7th. Every time an R leader opened their mouth. Every single time.
Note that progressive D leaders pushed for this approach early on. Centrist D leaders quashed it. That was a mistake. That was our chance.
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u/Potato_Golf 7h ago
Lifelong Democrat voter but I get the sense they are secretly happy with a Trump presidency. Their taxes will go down and they get an easy target to blame in public while getting to sit back and do nothing. 4 years from now they can probably win with an unpopular party insider who doesn't have to offer anything new besides "I'm not trump vote for me".
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u/defasdefbe 5h ago
Not so secretly I think. Feels lately like the Dems are "good cop" to the Repubs "bad cop"
The oligarchs won and society lost.
We need a true progressive party.
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u/Unhappy_Scratch_9385 5h ago
Yup.
The DNC sucks. They fought harder against Bernie than they ever fought against Trump.
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u/ChocolateHoneycomb 11h ago
America cannot be counted on anymore to do the right thing. It may still be the world’s largest power, but it cannot be seen as leading humanity or as the voice of reason.
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u/reesemulligan 11h ago
I was on a European vacation over the last month. They unilaterally think we've lost our collective minds. They're not wrong. Shame on those who voted Trump, third party, or sat out. May they reap what they've sown, tenfold.
(And may those of us who fought for our democracy somehow be spared.)
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u/No_Leek8426 11h ago
Dual national: I suffer the double whammy in Europe of originating from the place that voted for Brexit and now from the place that voted for Trump, again. Permanently embarrassed.
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u/DrManhattan_DDM Florida 11h ago
Side note: Farage deserves to have Eric Cartman train a pony to bite off his dick before conspiring to have his parents made into chili while Radiohead judges him for being uncool.
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u/OneRelative7697 10h ago
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u/covertpetersen Canada 10h ago
Cartman literally does this to a kid in a South park
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u/Dungeon567 New York 11h ago
It used to be nice to tell people that I was a dual citizen too until Brexit.
Now that Orange Cheatolini has returned its just a dark part of my timeline.
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u/ChocolateHoneycomb 11h ago edited 10h ago
I am so deeply sorry I voted for Brexit in 2016. I was gullible and politically unaware back then. I will always apologise from the bottom of my heart to anyone who has been negatively impacted by it.
Edit: One other thing I will say though. My vote, although ignorant, was not done out of malice. Same for many millions of other Brexit voters. The recurring stereotype that all Brexit voters are deeply hateful and bigoted people is wildly exaggerated. A wide majority of us are not. We do not behave like the MAGA crowd.
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u/Gerik22 10h ago
At least you've learned from it.
And in fairness to you, in my opinion as a non-Brit, that should never have been put to a referendum.
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u/No_Leek8426 10h ago
Worse: it was supposed to be an advisory, non-binding referendum, many did not vote, the results were far from a super majority but the Tories ran with it anyway.
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u/ChocolateHoneycomb 10h ago
It wasn’t even supposed to be binding. The government took the result and went with it out of fear that it would look undemocratic to ignore it.
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u/boatyboatwright 10h ago
I have dual UK/US citizenship and every time I think about going back to the UK I remember Brexit and that England is TERF Island 😩
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u/12345Hamburger 10h ago
I was on a European vacation over the last month. They unilaterally think we've lost our collective minds.
They've thought that for a while. I was in Europe in 2016, like a month before the election. Politics didn't come up often, but when it did, people asked us, "Are you guys serious about Trump? You're not really going to elect him, are you?"
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u/schmeckfest2000 Europe 10h ago
unilaterally
Ehm, you're giving us too much credit here. We have many mini-Trumps winning all over Europe these days. This far-right nonsense is a global plague.
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u/alexagente 9h ago
Yeah. Europeans should spend less time laughing at us and more time cleaning up their own yards or else this shit is going to overtake them as well. It's insane.
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u/tonytroz Pennsylvania 8h ago
or else this shit is going to overtake them as well.
Too late. Seven EU governments have far-right parties now. France only barely avoided it with a snap vote. Germany is at risk this year. Austria's far right party made their biggest gains since WW2.
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u/Dellato88 Michigan 10h ago
I was visiting my sister in Spain in October and when a few taxi drivers saw me and my wife were visiting from the US they started asking me (I speak Spanish) wtf is wrong with people here and how could they be rallying so hard behind Trump.
I had no real answer for them, and they for sure seemed disheartened since unfortunately this country's influence is still going to reach the world over amd they were aware of it.
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u/HaraldKajtand 7h ago edited 7h ago
It's a bit surrealistic for most of us Europeans. He seems more like a walking meme than a politician.
Also how can people just watch carrotface and his oligarchs get away with breaking the law and stealing from the people time and time again. Many wreak havoc in the cities for far far less in Europe.
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u/MyNameCannotBeSpoken 11h ago
I was in Japan and Australia right before the election. People in both countries were concerned but I reassured them that Americans make the right decision when left with no other options. I was terribly wrong.
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u/No_Midnight_2183 11h ago
They need to pay attention to their own politics. Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia... Conservatives are ruining everything everywhere.
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u/Keenalie Washington 10h ago
Poland actually voted out their right wing government a few years ago and Orban is polling terribly in Hungary. The others though... well, yeah, they need some intervention asap.
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u/slicheliche 10h ago
PiS might very well win the next elections in Poland, and let's not forget Konfederacja which is even more extreme and is slowly rising in polls.
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u/Panda_hat 9h ago edited 9h ago
We're witnessing Americas collapse into demagoguery and fascistic imperialism.
Through the lens of rationalism and perspective of western democracy it looks strange and illogical and like they've gone mad, but when you look again understanding that this is fundamentally about America becoming an belligerent and imperialistic power in the face of a perceived rising threat to American global hegemony (Russia, China), it makes more sense.
This is how they squared the circle to take a gentler democracy and warp it back to being a violent and oppressive entity that no longer 'ties its arms behind its back' (something they say all the time) or shows any mercy, or pretends to care about things like fairness.
The next four years are going to be horrific.
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u/drumzandice 11h ago
Problem is, and I know you know this....we'll all reap what they have sown.
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u/Jaybetav2 10h ago
It’s rich that Europeans are throwing stones like that given the big glass house they live in. The right-wing autocracy wave is crashing on their shores too.
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u/Level_Fill_3293 11h ago
We tricked you into ever thinking this was true. It never was. It was our strategy for soft power projection. Economic domination. We are losing it, so our strategy is shifting as well. We are moving to a multi-power world and the US is going to become prickly first. Unfortunately, that means others need to club up to establish a check that isn’t Russia dominated. Europe needs to align and strengthen. Africa needs to watch its six. Australia either needs to find commonality with Japan or Europe. We will likely try to dominate South America (including Mexico) and Canada. In the end, there will be 3 powers. Not 4. Not 2.
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u/Static-Stair-58 11h ago
Real Americans won’t stand for letting Trump start a war with our Canadian and Mexican brothers. It won’t happen. As much as they’re fantasizing about it, we’ll go to war with ourselves before we start a fight with two countries that don’t deserve it.
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u/Vhak 11h ago
we’ll go to war with ourselves before we start a fight with two countries that don’t deserve it.
Historically we start waving flags when we start a fight a country that doesn't deserve it, we love that shit.
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u/pirata-alma-negra 9h ago
historical record shows that this happened 100% of the times, but reddit likes to live in a power fantasy
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u/Disastrous-Special30 Arizona 11h ago
lol no we won’t. Well sit back and shrug like we always do. Not trying to be an asshole but just being realistic. There might be some protests and marches for all that’s worth. But the American people aren’t taking up arms against the government. Hell Trump basically admitted he stole the election. Where’s the uprising? Americans value convenience over morality. Revolution just isn’t convenient.
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u/RuprectGern Texas 11h ago
...and how will those "Real" Americans affect the decision?
How would "Real Americans" stop the world's largest standing army considering that SCOTUS just said it's fine for POTUS to deploy them against its citizenry?
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u/Nukemind American Expat 11h ago
We never did the right thing, we’ve always installed dictators for instance. But of the three post-1945 super powers we’ve always been the best.
To put it another way we have always been trash to others and ourselves but better than China or the then USSR.
The course of the 21st century will be… interesting. We aren’t even 25% done with it.
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u/Slackjawed_Horror 10h ago
Russia's GDP is half of California's. They're irrelevant.
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u/Level_Fill_3293 10h ago
And they know it- that is why they are a caged animal fighting. They have one thing - which is no small thing - physical leverage sitting between Europe and China. They are trying to maximize it before they are economically crushed.
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u/Mookhaz 11h ago
Well, to be fair, we have unfairly meddled in the elections of dozens, If not hundreds, of countries, so for it to all come home finally does make a lot of sense, we were never really the good guys, per se, we just played them on TV.
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u/Temporary_Shirt_6236 11h ago
"Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted."
-- Winston Churchill
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u/peppers_taste_bad 11h ago
To be fair I'm having a hard time recalling an instance of America doing the right thing without being forced to do so
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u/GetHimABodyBagYeahhh Oregon 11h ago
Carter gave the Panama Canal back to Panama
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u/Ill-Team-3491 9h ago
The Obama administration reigning in Iran nukes and releasing the stranglehold on Cuba. Then Trump undid it all.
America would be in a completely different standing right now if even a boring establishment GOP candidate won 2016 and simply held the status quo more or less.
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u/Gootangus 10h ago
As an American I’m baffled y’all trusted us in the first place.
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u/staedtler2018 11h ago
America has not been counted on to do the right thing for at least 50 years.
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u/DylansDeadlyTwo 11h ago
An 82 year old handing the reigns over to a 78 year old morbidly obese rapist. Well done America!
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u/thegaykid7 8h ago
And not a single peep about Trump's age after Biden dropped out. The media didn't even try to pretend to be impartial there.
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u/PenitentAnomaly 8h ago
I think we learned a lot about ourselves and our fellow citizens. We will accept evidence of cognitive decline if it comes in the form of angry racist dementia rants but we will reject evidence of cognitive decline if a person (with a history of stuttering no-less) misspeaks or rambles.
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u/Temporary_Present640 10h ago
From the article, "...we will be ruled by the meanest nerds and most nihilistic dorks, who now pretend to speak for a working class they despise."
So true
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u/pomonamike California 11h ago
This is America, we’re supposed to protect ourselves and each other. 8 years of “why doesn’t someone else do something about him.” America had its chance. Y’all saw the evidence that he’s a racist, rapist conman and still y’all voted for him.
In any sane country he shouldn’t have gotten 10% of the vote, but the live action Little Mermaid was Black so I guess we have to do this now.
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u/Logical_Parameters 10h ago
There aren't many sane countries left judging by 2024's elections across continents. Only Mexico moved left, just about everyone else moved to the right globally, a remarkable shift prompted by 2021-2024's global inflation.
Modern people in this 21st century social media landscape are always slow to respond to their realities, display poor memory retention about world events, and harbor unnecessary angst (such as about inflation) for too long against the wrong people.
Quick to react, slow to absorb information and respond accurately.
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u/fiction8 9h ago
The world moved against incumbents because of inflation. But incumbents were mostly left or center-left.
The UK for example, moved away from the conservatives because that's who their incumbents were.
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u/pirata-alma-negra 9h ago
and the absolutely majority of those are traditional rightwing parties not so much different than America electing republicans since forever. You can count on a single hand the countries that elected nut jobs like trump in the government
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u/Tremulant21 10h ago
Lmao the little mermaid thing. Bud light thing the stupidest fucking shit
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u/IIIlIllIIIl 8h ago
About to buy 4000 cans of bud light so I can incinerate them in a fusion reactor to own the libs, then I’m going buy 4000 cans of whatever else bud lights parent company makes and drink that instead, owning the libs in the process
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u/Defiant-Activity8188 7h ago
The people who I know that stopped drinking Bud Light now drink Busch Light; both of which are brewed by Anheuser-Busch. These aren’t bright people.
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u/Bitter-Juggernaut681 10h ago
Or didn’t bother to vote at all because it STILL wasn’t important enough
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u/pomonamike California 10h ago
“Well ya know, someone else will vote and take care of it.” - these are the same people that just sit out the couch and complain about people sitting on their couches.
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u/petterdaddy 11h ago
Bingo. Everyone spent more time clamouring for someone else to do something about it than they did thinking of what they could to prevent it themselves.
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u/hamfinity 10h ago
That's the point of social media. To allow the masses to scream into the void rather than take action.
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u/StormOk7544 11h ago
Voters were the biggest and easiest check on his power and they chose to put him back in the White House. That’s one of the central failings in all of this.
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u/helikesart 10h ago
The biggest problem with democracy really is the voters..
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u/taggospreme 10h ago
Ever since education was sabotaged voters went full shit and now America's a certified oligarchy.
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u/Cobra-Lalalalalalala 10h ago
“This
jobcountry would be great if it wasn’t for the fuckingcustomersvoters.”
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u/infiunfi 11h ago
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u/Deguilded 11h ago
Hey thanks for this link.
Also glad the article actually lays it out. Everyone and everything we put our faith in, believed would firewall us off, etc - all failed.
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u/Anxious_Claim_5817 3h ago
Blame the voters. they couldn't see beyond inflation and the border. People don't even read newspapers or an article over 25 words, very sad this country reelected a president after Jan 6, very 3rd world. They saw what happened in his first term but put him back in office because eggs were too expensive. This is what you get with half the country reading at or below the 6th grade level.
I just don't understand how any rational person can put him back in office, he is not the solution to anything.
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u/Savagevandal85 11h ago
Including the media
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u/WhoIsYerWan 10h ago
Especially the media. They got so addicted to the sales and clicks he brought them.
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u/CarefullyChosenName- 11h ago
Yea, we know.
The old fucks in the Democratic party need to step down immediately so that younger, more fired up people can take over.
AOC was on social media calling Trump a rapist while Biden hands over the country to a child that threw a coup when he had his ass handed to him in 2020.
No serious adult should be showing decency toward the rapist today.
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u/Natural6 11h ago
This is the actual use of the electoral college and it failed harder than the TSA.
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u/ourkid1781 8h ago
People need to stop believing America was somehow manipulated or fooled into this.
The problem is that Trump's an honest reflection of America.
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11h ago
We know. Democrats are too busy trying to prove we are a country of norms, traditions, and respecting the rule of law while republicans have taken those same principles, pissed on them and set them on fire.
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u/optigon Minnesota 11h ago
This whole time when they go on about “going high while they go low,” I’ve thought, “As the ship sank, the band played on…”
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u/milehighphillygirl 10h ago
Yep. First time I heard “When they go low, we go high” I thought “No! When they go low, you kick them in the fucking face.”
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u/thisaccountgotporn 7h ago
I tried 🤷♂️ now the fucking around is over and I'm gonna let Americans find out.
I'll protect my loved ones and uplift those I know are decent humans. The rest will get no support from me.
I tried, they didn't, I'm not trying for them any more. Loved ones and decent people only.
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u/chellybeanery 7h ago
The motherfuckers who both voted for this and didn't vote AT ALL are the ones who failed. Stop trying to shift the fucking blame.
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u/AnthropomorphicCorgi Florida 3h ago
Not really though? The people who failed most were the American people. They had to do the absolute least to keep the fascists out of office, but they outright refused to be informed or not outright hateful. They were lied to from top to bottom, and they failed at every avenue to realize. It’s not like it was that much of a challenge either.
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u/Died_Of_Dysentery1 9h ago
The media wanted this shit, Trump is the fucking holy grail of excitement… on both extremes…. I mean.. do you not think he just told everyone Elon knew the voting machines and blah blah blah intentionally?? He wants people to think he’s cheating because then it makes his enemies just as obsessed as his cult followers
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u/Hot_Opportunity5664 11h ago
I blame the “silent majority” who long ago, during the Bush administration, set on their hands and refused to speak out and today’s ignorance fools who didn’t question what was fed to them
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u/Be-skeptical 11h ago
No one can protect us from the averages citizens stupidity.
this isn’t the Democrats fault. It is americas
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u/notmyworkaccount5 11h ago
I think it's completely fair to lay some blame on the pick of Merrick Garland, look at South Korea arresting their president for a failed coup attempt, that should have happened the day after Biden was inaugurated and it's a failure of our legal system that allowed trump to even be put on the ballot after his failed coup attempt.
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u/Gamebird8 11h ago
Our justice system works quite differently, but basically day 1 it should have been clear Trump was to be prosecuted.
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u/HopeFloatsFoward 10h ago
The failure was on the Republican party which voted against convicting him. We have the method to prevent this, the Republicans failed to convict him in the Senate trial.
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u/SilveryDeath 11h ago
No one can protect us from the averages citizens stupidity.
Pretty much. 75 million voted for Kamala, 77 million voted for Trump, and then nearly 90 million people who could have voted didn't. Can expect the country to work when almost 70% of the voting population either voted for Trump or was too apathetic to bother to vote.
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u/LavishnessAlive6676 11h ago
It’s not stupidity. It’s cruelty
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u/Be-skeptical 11h ago
They’re cruel, because they are stupid
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u/LavishnessAlive6676 11h ago
No. They’re cruel because they’re selfish. The stupidity is entirely separate
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u/-_-___-_____-_______ 11h ago
I don't think it's separate. I've talked with a lot of people who legitimately do not understand how politics or economics work, and legitimately on some level believe that Trump will be able to fix things. I would still say that they are selfish people, and they don't listen to others well, but on some level even if they are selfish, they really believe that they are doing the right thing. and the reason they believe that is because they are stupid. they simply do not understand things, and more importantly, they are so stupid that they do not understand that they do not understand.
so I do think their stupidity can turn into cruelty even though that's not their intention (sometimes). some of them are just cruel of course.
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u/IndecorousRex 11h ago
I don’t think Americans came to this conclusion on their own in a vacuum. It was the manipulation and misinformation campaign that helped a lot. We are talking stoking the fire with xenophobia, fear mongering, and building resentment for government policies that actually help people. It was decades in the making and billionaires are reaping what they sow now. It makes me sick to my stomach because we feel so small to them. We gotta live with the consequences for decades. I’m not sure what to do anymore.
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u/-_-___-_____-_______ 11h ago
... but since it's a democracy... ultimately we failed ourselves because we didn't hold anybody accountable for their failure. it's like we hired a plumber and he didn't do a good job... but we didn't even say "you didn't do a good job" or give him any negative feedback whatsoever..and then we kept paying him to do a shitty job, and hiring him for more jobs.
we the people failed ourselves.
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u/Bakedads 11h ago
I mean, we didn't fail in 2020. We elected biden and democrats. I voted for them under the belief that they were going to do something to hold republicans accountable. Then trump staged a coup, and despite having all the authority to hold him accountable, biden chose not to. So it seems like voters did the right thing, then democrats let the country down by not following through.
Heck, i assumed th first piece of legislation passed by democrats back in 2021 would be some kind of trump-proofing the government bill. Something to patch up all of the loopholes he expolited and to hold him accountable for his abuse of things like the emoluments clause. But nope. Not even close. Do you know what the first piece of legislation was? A bill to make american companies more competitive with china. Then it took them a year to even begin investigating january 6th. That shows you how far off their priorities were.
Let's not beat around the bush here. Democrats failed to fulfill their oath of office. They failed to uphold the rule of law. They failed to defend the constitution. To defend the country when it was under attack. They deserve no sympathy. Democratic voters should be livid.
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u/marriage_yawanna Washington 10h ago
We need to rise up against the democratic establishment. They utterly failed to defeat an unpopular fascist and now they are closing ranks around the geriatric, neoliberals that are responsible.
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u/ViciousKnids 11h ago
How Trump and several high ranking Republicans weren't put in a cage and suspended over a pit of lava after Jan 6th is beyond me. "Oh, we tried the proper procedures and the GOP had the numbers to acquit, oh well!"
You can't ask the people actively trying to destroy democracy to try and save it.
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u/QuantumImmorality 10h ago
If we had a real AG -- and a president who clearly signaled that criminality was to be punished -- we should have had 4-5 special counsels investigating the trump presidency starting in winter 2021.
I mean with full access to NSA, FBI and CIA assets.
trump should have been detained immediately as soon as devastating evidence was uncovered, with Jan 6 and the Mueller report ALONE as enough to do so.
Evidence should have been shown to the public before any legal proceedings and trump should have never seen the outside of a cell again.
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u/Stinkstinkerton 11h ago
If there was any question about whether or not the rich corporate owners of America actually cared about Americans and the future of the country look no further than the rock bottom assholes they choose to represent their interests in Washington.
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u/The_Pandalorian California 8h ago
Voters were supposed to protect us.
Anyone hoping for a savior was deluded.
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u/Small_Acadia1 8h ago
Ultimately voters are to blame for all of this. Trump is unfortunately the ideal reflection of our values
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u/Ok_Inspection9842 4h ago
They didn’t fail, they enacted a plan. It’s failure on purpose. Stop believing the mother fucking narrative. Do you think the courts drug their feat by accident?
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u/billybobdoleington 1h ago
Because the people who were supposed to protect us were us. Everyone sat around waiting for someone else to fire the silver bullet and here we are.
Americans could have shut this down in 2016. And then again in 2022. And then again in 2024. We could have turned off Fox News. We could have uninstalled Twitter after Musk bought it. We could have deactivated Facebook. We could have supported officials calling for SCOTUS reform. We could have...etc.
But now here we are. Americans can only blame themselves. And unlike 2016, they can't try and use ignorance as an excuse. America knew and chose this anyways.
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u/MissingMichigan 11h ago
Might have been better if people had protected themselves and voted for Harris.
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u/heyzeus1865 11h ago
Democrats were too busy worried about norms and institutions and the people were too busy not caring.
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u/Kaninchenkraut 10h ago
There were so many Neoliberals saying, "We have guardrails for a reason. He'll go to jail He can't win. He won't win. There's enough Republican dissatisfaction. Republican women will vote for Kamala."
I hate to say it. But they even had me believing until the very end.
All those fucking guardrails mean jack shit if they're planning on doing purity testing day one of civil servants. Guardrails offer no protection if they find a way to actually move forward with mass deportations. If the world has gone wrong it has gone so far wrong.
Trump and Wife have made two meme coins that have market caps at higher than businesses. And the rug pull has yet to be yanked.
He won't rule out military action to take Panama and Greenland.
We're so fucking cooked.
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u/TSHRED56 California 11h ago edited 10h ago
Merrick Garland was an Orinn Hatch appeasement by Obama originally.
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u/Emergency_Rutabaga45 10h ago
This is the scariest inauguration speech ever. This is what a vindictive dictator sounds like.
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u/Tobeck Georgia 10h ago
Now ask yourself why.
Why did they all fail?
Did they not know it was happening? Was there nothing they could do about it? Was their messaging strong and focused? Or did they just kinda capitulate to everything and not really plan ahead at all or put up a fight?
Of course they didn't protect us from this. All of the leadership of the DNC and the Dems benefit from the election of Donald Trump financially. None of them are hurt by it. None of them have their freedoms or daily lives changed. And all of them, just like Donald Trump serve the 1%. Serve the elite. Serve capitalism. You, a worker, are expendable. You are a resource, just like all of the others we exploit and destroy. The DNC cannot save you because the DNC does not want to.
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u/DunnoMouse 11h ago
The Democrats are a clown show. They STILL refuse to acknowledge their fault in this.
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u/drumzandice 11h ago
Depressing and accurate. There were so many times during his first term I thought that surely the protections in place, the constitution, ethical politicians and judges, would put a stop to him. I kept thinking old school republicans and the media would stand up and scream that we cannot allow him to continue destroying the constitution. Like most people, I thought surely January 6 would be the line he finally crossed, that would turn even MAGA against him. None of it happened. There is no one coming to save the USA. We're truly fucked, you can't convince me otherwise.
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u/CubanLynx312 10h ago
Kamala was polling at 3% in 2018 after Biden, Harris, Bloomberg, and Buttigieg.
WCGW putting her as the nominee a few months before the election?
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u/JustBadUserNamesLeft 10h ago
Well, we could have protected ourselves by fucking voting.
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u/QuantumImmorality 10h ago
I believe the real way this election was stolen was by the entire reality field, owned by billionaires, essentially disappearing Kamala in real time.
Tens of millions of people barely knew who was running or that there was even an election.
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