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On January 09 2026 04:28 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2026 04:13 Jankisa wrote:
I don't know man, for me, the biggest takeaway from US politics in 2025 was how little of a fuck do regular Americans give about all the blatant corruption, warmongering, pedophilia and violence against immigrants and American citizens alike.
It's hard to quantify, but to me, this Trump term has already broken every record as compared to his first one, he bombed 9 countries, shat on all the traditional allies, gutted hugely important programs, fired anyone who could stand in his way and installed absolute fucking ghouls and morons in every important position, and how did Americans react?
Well, there were some protests, then there was troops on the streets, all the protests after that were well organized and extremely carefully curated not to trigger any response, but also very ineffective, it's exceedingly easy for Trump & CO to ignore 2-5 % of the population of any given city or town politely marching through the streets with some insulting signs every few months.
I don't know about you guys, but the biggest thing I remember from the No Kings protests was the unhinged Trump video of him shitting on the crowds from a fighter jet, that doesn't seem great, but it might be my pessimism addled brain. Agreed. It is weird how no one really seems to care. I mean, sure, they talk on the internet, but that is it. But i guess part of it is also that relevant parts of the population are actually happy with that shit. It seems that half the people actually like what Trump is doing for some inexplicable reason, and the rest don't care enough to actually do anything real.
A significant percentage of Republican voters are single-issue voters on abortion and unregulated guns, they don't necessarily like Republicans even a little but they still show up at every major election.
Also, don't underestimate the number of people that literally do not follow current events even a little bit. Google trends shows "did joe biden drop out?" spiked on election day in November 2024. There are quite a few people that didn't know Trump was indicted for 91 felonies, or heard of it by word of mouth but assume it was fake because he ended up on the ballot and somebody probably would have stopped that from happening if he was guilty.
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On January 09 2026 04:26 Uldridge wrote:
While Berlusconi didn't bomb, he was still like the sex deviant and corrupt equivalent and he became prime minister 3 times in 2 decades time. I'm not sure it's "just the Americans" caring so little about what the c-suite citizenry is up to.
I‘m pretty sure that the deviancy you speak of was kinda standard at the time in high circles, maybe still is. It‘s how they blackmail each other for deals and the like.
Gaddafis sons were known for causing trouble in Hotels and the like.
Usually when you hear about someone in those circles it‘s because they fell out of line. Or they die in prison so nobody hears about it.
Not hearing about it also takes into consideration victim protection. You don‘t necessarily want to be known as ‚the victim of that‘. It‘s why professionals supposedly exist and not mobs.
The rampant data gathering for commercial purposes is a threat in that aspect.
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Yes, Epstein levels of deviancy were standard as they still are, nothing new to note here.
Berlusconi was a gigantic corrupt piece of shit, it was actually insane.
Also, I'm not sure what your last point is alluding to. Is it that victims are less protected because everything is out in the open?
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Berlusconi also controlled over half the news media in Italy, much like how all major social media networks (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) are owned by Trump megadonors, to say nothing of the billionaire stranglehold over cable news and a significant number of newspapers.
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On January 08 2026 18:44 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2026 16:56 Acrofales wrote:
For the record, I'll bet it's more than 0. There's a few million Mexican immigrants living in the US. I'll take a ban bet that at least enough of them are upset about their birth country being invaded by their adopted home, that some organised violence happens by Mexicans with a green card to American state actors. That's pretty bad. Countries can't just let in people with no loyalty who would betray them. The risk is not worth it.
Someone should have told the Native Americans that
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In today's fun news, Trump wants to raise the military budget from 900B to 1500B.
Still can't afford health care or food or housing tho
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On January 09 2026 05:25 Uldridge wrote:
Yes, Epstein levels of deviancy were standard as they still are, nothing new to note here.
Berlusconi was a gigantic corrupt piece of shit, it was actually insane.
Also, I'm not sure what your last point is alluding to. Is it that victims are less protected because everything is out in the open?
Yes. Would you like everyone you meet to give you a pitiful stare as introduction and attention you don‘t want ?
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No I get it, it's a difficult place at the moment. Privacy doesn't exist any longer.
We live in a post truth, post democratic, post private world and we're still trying to figure out how to navigate in this new paradigm.
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I just started to get into the Warhammer 40k lore and history. The parallels...
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Norway28904 Posts
On January 09 2026 05:52 decafchicken wrote:
In today's fun news, Trump wants to raise the military budget from 900B to 1500B.
Still can't afford health care or food or housing tho
maybe you can if you use the military to annually steal 600B from other countries
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On January 09 2026 05:52 decafchicken wrote:
In today's fun news, Trump wants to raise the military budget from 900B to 1500B.
Still can't afford health care or food or housing tho
With all the wars and violent conflicts he's creating - both internationally and within our own borders - I'm not surprised.
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On January 09 2026 05:52 decafchicken wrote:
In today's fun news, Trump wants to raise the military budget from 900B to 1500B.
Still can't afford health care or food or housing tho
Must be because of those lazy Europeans not chipping enough to protect Greenland.
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United States44361 Posts
Honestly I think it’s time America brought its roving death squads into the twenty first century. Walking up to a car and gunning down the woman inside was all well and good in our grandfather’s day but we have to ask ourselves if it is the best use of taxpayer money. Should we be paying for a dozen agents to swarm a school drop off if it results in only one fatality? Or to put it another way, can America afford its murder gangs at a 12:1 agent to murder ratio?
I mean no disrespect to the old ways. We all agree that important that the agents are trained in acoustic murder, there’s something ineffable about a live set that just can’t be reproduced in a studio, the realism, the atmosphere, I get it. But we need to take those skills and incorporate modern technology.
With proper training a wireless murder squad of a dozen or so could indiscriminately murder citizens across a whole city. With the use of drones we could get from the 12:1 agent to victim ratio to 1:2 or better. Combine that with the use of AI to comb the social media of the victims for retroactive justifications in real time and we could get the event to acceptance window down to just a few hours. No more time wasted trying to work out who was murdered after the fact, a smooth pipeline.
It doesn’t have to be a binary option either, the true artists could still perform live, but for everyday murders I think you’ll get about the same quality with a personalized smart drone delivery system.
It’s an exciting time in the roving death squad field, I truly think we’re on the verge of a tidal wave of innovation if the state breaks from tradition and embraces wireless.
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Which way will we go, the Fallout storyline or the Helldivers storyline?
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Supreme Court expected to rule Friday on Trump's power to impose tariffs@FoxBusiness
The nation’s highest court is poised to rule Friday on a case that could redefine the scope of President Donald Trump's trade agenda.
The cases stem from lawsuits filed by an educational toy manufacturer and a family-owned wine and spirits importer challenging Trump’s tariffs. The court must decide whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) gave the president the power to impose the tariffs, or whether the move overstepped constitutional limits.
Tariffs are taxes levied on imported goods. Although they are paid by companies at the border, the costs are often passed along through higher prices, leaving consumers to bear much of the burden.
The Supreme Court decision comes as tariff revenue and the economic stakes tied to it have surged to record levels.
Since Trump announced his "Liberation Day" tariffs in April, monthly collections have jumped from $23.9 billion in May to $31.6 billion in September. Total duty revenue reached $215.2 billion in fiscal year 2025, which ended Sept. 30, according to the Treasury Department’s "Customs and Certain Excise Taxes" report.
That momentum has carried into the new fiscal year, with more than $98 billion collected since Oct. 1, Treasury data shows.
The tariff windfall has become a cornerstone of Trump’s economic agenda, with the president arguing that duty collections can help bankroll domestic priorities.
with everyone's mind and gaze on MN and the rotten fruits of badly designed and wretchedly implemented federal immigration policy... and the resulting fallout, another shoe might drop for Cheeto Benito at the Supreme Court.
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On January 09 2026 03:22 Jankisa wrote:
Voting is done on Sundays in, I believe, most if not all EU countries, I think this is the same for most of the world, as it allows most people to vote.
In USA, I'm sure the vote suppression tactics that were already done for 2024 elections will be expanded, mail in voting and early voting might be on the chopping block, plus, of course, they will send ICE and other feds to polling places to intimidate voters.
The upcoming midterms will be a huge uphill battle, with all of the above + gerrymandering cranked up to 11, and of course the now standard refusals to accept unfavorable results, it's going to be a shittshow.
And all that to maybe get the brave Democrats into the two chambers, who will more then likely try to field as many Joe Manchin types as they can because "Kamala was too left", who will make sure that anything too "radical" like trying to hold ICE and similar goons accountable doesn't get done, the picture is pretty bleak.
They will definitely keep mail in voting and early voting.
Policy is mostly an internal party battle. The battle for progressive policy is vs other democrats and not the republicans. Groundwork and movements inside the party. You need win the election first and then you also need to win the battle for policy inside the party. Like how maga/project 2025 policy managed to win over traditional republican policy. It was a battle mostly behind the scenes inside the party. Its a long way for change.
Winning elections is the easier part. Changing the party to go for a different policy once in power is the hard part.
Its long established networks inside the party that determine which policy to go for once in power.
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It's wild seeing the same MAGA base who was extremely disturbed by people on the left "celebrating" and "making jokes" about the Charlie Kirk assassination gleefully cheering on the ICE murderer and talking all kinds of shit and making all kinds of fun of Renee Nicole Good:
I can't say I'm surprised by the hypocrisy but I did think they'd maybe dial it back a notch given that the woman was clearly executed in front of her partner because one of them is a piece of shit moron, but alas, no, they are out in full force, calling a mother who died all kinds of names because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Wonderful people, I'm sure our friends who came here to explain how the reactions to CK made them double down on their right wing support are now very upset at this.
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On January 09 2026 05:51 decafchicken wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2026 18:44 oBlade wrote:On January 08 2026 16:56 Acrofales wrote:
For the record, I'll bet it's more than 0. There's a few million Mexican immigrants living in the US. I'll take a ban bet that at least enough of them are upset about their birth country being invaded by their adopted home, that some organised violence happens by Mexicans with a green card to American state actors. That's pretty bad. Countries can't just let in people with no loyalty who would betray them. The risk is not worth it. Someone should have told the Native Americans that
The monolithic country of Native America which never existed didn't give legal status and residency leading to citizenship to Europeans who participated in their government and society but then revolted. Different things. Although had they done so, it would certainly have been a mistake as you allude to. Just as it would be today.
What actually happened is myriad disparate tribes allowed people to settle at first adjacent to them, then in their land, then finally being supplanted by what would be 3 countries in North America and many in South America, while being slaughtered, conquered, and wiped out to disease in one straight downtrend. These can also be identified as mistakes, especially in hindsight, but they're potentially inevitable ones - due to epidemiology if nothing else, but technological gaps and so on also had a lot to do with it. Things happening today are not so inevitable once you realize we have control over them and politics isn't something like the weather that just happens. That the US can just choose not to make obvious mistakes and almost every such gap is in our favor.
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On January 09 2026 19:56 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2026 05:51 decafchicken wrote:On January 08 2026 18:44 oBlade wrote:On January 08 2026 16:56 Acrofales wrote:
For the record, I'll bet it's more than 0. There's a few million Mexican immigrants living in the US. I'll take a ban bet that at least enough of them are upset about their birth country being invaded by their adopted home, that some organised violence happens by Mexicans with a green card to American state actors. That's pretty bad. Countries can't just let in people with no loyalty who would betray them. The risk is not worth it. Someone should have told the Native Americans that The monolithic country of Native America which never existed didn't give legal status and residency leading to citizenship to Europeans who participated in their government and society but then revolted. Different things. Although had they done so, it would certainly have been a mistake as you allude to. Just as it would be today. What actually happened is myriad disparate tribes allowed people to settle at first adjacent to them, then in their land, then finally being supplanted by what would be 3 countries in North America and many in South America, while being slaughtered, conquered, and wiped out to disease in one straight downtrend. These can also be identified as mistakes, especially in hindsight, but they're potentially inevitable ones - due to epidemiology if nothing else, but technological gaps and so on also had a lot to do with it. Things happening today are not so inevitable once you realize we have control over them and politics isn't something like the weather that just happens. That the US can just choose not to make obvious mistakes and almost every such gap is in our favor.
I think the main thing to think about is why England, France and even the US choose to stop colonizing and keeping an Empire. Mostly because it is more costly than beneficial in the long run as the gap decreases. We are potentially at another gap as wide as industrialization was with automated weapon platforms and factories if people are willing to use them.
So the question is if the US is willing to use those platforms to oppress people. If they are, how long will that tech be something that works as disease and industrialization previously did?
Biggest benefit of them is that they would keep the oppressor casualties massively down. But it would be broadcast directly at home, the other part that made it unpopular.
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Oblade what do you think of the ICE shooting in Minnesota and the Jan 6th website?
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EPT![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/q74O8gO.png)
