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United States24793 Posts
On the one hand oBlade's statement reads like a parody. On the other, the DoJ is becoming so incompetent lately at nailing Trump's political opponents with retribution that she might really have nothing to worry about.
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She can file a claim with the weaponization fund at least
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On May 28 2026 19:49 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2026 16:50 oBlade wrote:The arm of "nobody is above the law" continuous to extend its reach. It's just an investigation, if she didn't perjure herself she has nothing to worry about. Just like the U.S. citizens who have spent months in ICE detention facilities have nothing to fear from immigration control, right?
If the criteria for being scared is "the government might make a mistake" then everybody everywhere should be scared to that realistic extent.
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Stunning insight. Perhaps "everyone should fear the government" is a good reason why a rapist's personal lawyer shouldn't be running one of the departments that can hurt the most innocent people because of malfeasance.
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On May 28 2026 20:57 LightSpectra wrote:
Stunning insight. Perhaps "everyone should fear the government" is a good reason why a rapist's personal lawyer shouldn't be running one of the departments that can hurt the most innocent people because of malfeasance.
Blanche is specifically recused from the perjury investigation dude.
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Okay? Does that change the fact that the DOJ going on a revenge tour for the president is disgustingly inappropriate by virtually every ethical standard known to man?
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According to Politico the US military is ready and waiting for an order to attack Cuba
The Pentagon has spent months positioning the troops and weapons needed for the U.S. to launch a military attack on Cuba — all it needs is a final go-ahead from Donald Trump.
The president has floated an invasion of the island after economic and political pressure failed to topple the Communist government. But the Navy’s built-up presence in the region — the largest in the world outside the Middle East — would allow the U.S. to act immediately.
These strategically placed assets set the table for military action, from a capture of Havana’s leadership much like the seizure of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, to a series of precision strikes. And they open the possibility that the U.S. throws itself into the third international conflict of the Trump administration.
Cuba is “in a lot of trouble,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday at a full Cabinet meeting. “Having a failed state 90 miles from our shores is a threat to the national security of the United States.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/27/cuba-us-military-attack-00938740
The US treatment of Cuba is wholly unconscionable and has been for decades.
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I guess that "No more wars" bit they campaigned on was actually "No! More wars!"
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Interest on the national debt is eating 19% of federal revenue — watchdog warns it will get worse | Fortune https://share.google/DcQimvO0cksbGQsQF
Interest rates are starting to spike.
But Cuba is a national safety issue and the national debt apparantly is not. So why not have another war at a time where the budget should be cut considerably?
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On May 28 2026 16:46 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2026 14:51 dyhb wrote:On May 28 2026 14:28 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On May 28 2026 07:26 dyhb wrote:On May 28 2026 05:09 Razyda wrote:On May 28 2026 04:58 Jankisa wrote:
When it comes to human and worker rights, EU is the "shining city on the hill" and Xi, Putin and Trump hate it because it's a horrible contrast to what they are doing to people at home. They dont hate it, they hold it in contempt, and not because of the reasons you mentioned, but because Europe is essentially non factor and yet it keep acting all high and mighty. Right-wing ideology: The EU boasts of the gentler and kinder liberal society, all the while the US is subsidizing their defense budgets through NATO, and thus their welfare state by extension. All the while, they’ve exchanged core freedoms and justice for the promise of safety and security. Their domestic policy is flawed. They are overly dependent on Russian energy. They should be regarded as on a diverging path from the US and subject to less partnership. The more stringent right-wingers will use europoor and caretaker governments of tourist destinations. (I take it that Europeans, for their part, also think America is backwards or uncultured. Thanks for the answer but it's still very vague. EU countries had welfare states during the cold war, in the in-between period and at the current time. During that period defense spending have been extremely varied. Clearly there is no connection to the welfare states and defense spending so how exactly does the US subsidise our welfare? Furthermore do you disagree with the assessment that the US have pushed Europe to buy US systems and that the US, by being the leader in NATO, have heavily influenced European armies? We have had the core freedoms debate before so let's not rehash that one. But what kinds of false sense security are we talking about? And how is our domestic policy flawed? As for Russian energy I am assuming you meant that in the past tense? At this point we are more reliant on US energy. Most countries in the world import some kind of energy from somewhere. It's not until recently that has been a problem (which many are working on, like EU and China, which at the end of the day will be a net negative for energy exporters.) Finally exactly how are we on a divergent path from the US? I want to put forward the fair reading of how America's right wing views Europe, or the problems of Europe from the American right-wing context. Of course it's going to be vague! But if a poster's apprehension of the topic advances beyond, and I'm trying to be fair here so this is a direct quote from the thread, "EU is the "shining city on the hill" and Xi, Putin and Trump hate it because it's a horrible contrast to what they are doing to people at home," then that's an absolute win. The ultimate goal here is to be able to express to a triple-Trump voter in America an opinion on Europe that they would wholeheartedly agree with from their perspective, and not the same claptrap that's how left-wingers view right-wingers and what they would really describe their thought process if only they were more honest. You've got a perspective that would reduce to how you'd argue a right-winger out of believing as they do, which is valid in that context, but not actually responsive to On May 28 2026 00:50 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
Why is there such a hyperfixation on Europe? And why is it getting worse?
We are really living rent free in the MAGA heads. Of course they also don't know anything about Europe. I doubt that there is such a hyperfixation, or that it's getting worse, but the substance of the charge is your own personal research, which isn't actually something that can serve as a basis for argument. Fair enough that's what they think. And I'm trying to understand *why* they think it. Thus my questions. I've been around for a while. US citizens (conservatives in particular) have never been particularly interested in gang related shootings in Sweden. Now it's discussed on conservative sites. Why? The US has not, and isn't now, particularly concerned about the values of it's allies and conservative groups seem to care very little about it except for specific European parts.
Well everyone had their own reasons and I am not sure I agree with you that there has been more focus. But if there has I would say mostly it is a similar reason to why lefties in the US *stopped* pointing to Europe all the time. They make for good examples. Dems used to tout Europe "if they can do xyz so can we!" But since Europe has fallen behind economically and has gained a reputation as an overly stifling bureaucracy, people don't really use it as a positive anymore, at least not on the center left. So over the course of a decade (at this point maybe longer ago) when some thought that Europe was a model of what to do, the rights primary engagement with it was against domestic political opponents. Now it still is, but it's used on offense. My own sense is that things began to change with the migrant crisis, but I could be wrong.
On May 28 2026 23:16 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Interest on the national debt is eating 19% of federal revenue — watchdog warns it will get worse | Fortune https://share.google/DcQimvO0cksbGQsQFInterest rates are starting to spike. But Cuba is a national safety issue and the national debt apparantly is not. So why not have another war at a time where the budget should be cut considerably?
Because millitary spending is not a primary driver of the debt. Social services is, I think just like it is in every western country. You cannot balance the budget on the back of the military, especially if the America that even the Europeans claim they want is to exist.
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https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYzexT7MHdZ/
Haha, what a failure. The US administration has just learned that pretty much all of the rail network in US is actually owned by Canadians and because of the tariffs and trade wars they've stopped freight in the US and are instead focused on moving the trains east/west within their own borders. This resulted in a massive supply chain breakage within the US.
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Northern Ireland27271 Posts
On May 28 2026 11:33 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2026 09:24 WombaT wrote:On May 28 2026 07:26 dyhb wrote:On May 28 2026 05:09 Razyda wrote:On May 28 2026 04:58 Jankisa wrote:
When it comes to human and worker rights, EU is the "shining city on the hill" and Xi, Putin and Trump hate it because it's a horrible contrast to what they are doing to people at home. They dont hate it, they hold it in contempt, and not because of the reasons you mentioned, but because Europe is essentially non factor and yet it keep acting all high and mighty. Right-wing ideology: The EU boasts of the gentler and kinder liberal society, all the while the US is subsidizing their defense budgets through NATO, and thus their welfare state by extension. All the while, they’ve exchanged core freedoms and justice for the promise of safety and security. Their domestic policy is flawed. They are overly dependent on Russian energy. They should be regarded as on a diverging path from the US and subject to less partnership. The more stringent right-wingers will use europoor and caretaker governments of tourist destinations. (I take it that Europeans, for their part, also think America is backwards or uncultured. That right wing ideological take is utterly fucking stupid though, it’s beyond asinine. It’s not even worth entertaining European states choose to enact welfare states of various forms. That’s all there is to it The US has more than enough fucking money to do it and doesn’t, where there’s a will there’s a way + Show Spoiler +On May 28 2026 11:16 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2026 07:26 dyhb wrote:On May 28 2026 05:09 Razyda wrote:On May 28 2026 04:58 Jankisa wrote:
When it comes to human and worker rights, EU is the "shining city on the hill" and Xi, Putin and Trump hate it because it's a horrible contrast to what they are doing to people at home. They dont hate it, they hold it in contempt, and not because of the reasons you mentioned, but because Europe is essentially non factor and yet it keep acting all high and mighty. Right-wing ideology: The EU boasts of the gentler and kinder liberal society, all the while the US is subsidizing their defense budgets through NATO, and thus their welfare state by extension. All the while, they’ve exchanged core freedoms and justice for the promise of safety and security. Their domestic policy is flawed. They are overly dependent on Russian energy. They should be regarded as on a diverging path from the US and subject to less partnership. The more stringent right-wingers will use europoor and caretaker governments of tourist destinations. (I take it that Europeans, for their part, also think America is backwards or uncultured. Okay but that literally isn’t true. That's where I differ from you and others. I want to examine what people believe and why they believe it. This is not only to understand my fellow Americans and their political beliefs, but also to see where they went wrong or overstated something true into something wacko. That takes empathy and a very non-judgmental approach. Trump didn't occur in a vacuum, and he wasn't re-elected in a second moment of temporary majority moral madness. Europe has a similar issue of the rise of far-right and alt-right parties that aren't close to being handled by the political mainstreams, with some exceptions like Sweden with the Sweden Democrats. I know it's kind of in vogue to treat every right wing view as another flat earth, or stolen 2020 election, or Hitler was right, but I'm taking pains to separate the fringiest of the fringe out. I also try to take this same stance on the extremist left-wing views on this forum, especially from European posters, as offered in good faith and potentially defensible despite looking like ramblings from politically-ignorant insane people at first blush. This appears to be a forum heavily dominated by left-wing politics (American perspective) that doesn't have much moderate pushback, and a dozen people devoted to labeling any pushback as secretly motivated by MAGA and Trumpist and all that. Show nested quote +On May 28 2026 09:30 Introvert wrote:On May 28 2026 07:26 dyhb wrote:On May 28 2026 05:09 Razyda wrote:On May 28 2026 04:58 Jankisa wrote:
When it comes to human and worker rights, EU is the "shining city on the hill" and Xi, Putin and Trump hate it because it's a horrible contrast to what they are doing to people at home. They dont hate it, they hold it in contempt, and not because of the reasons you mentioned, but because Europe is essentially non factor and yet it keep acting all high and mighty. Right-wing ideology: The EU boasts of the gentler and kinder liberal society, all the while the US is subsidizing their defense budgets through NATO, and thus their welfare state by extension. All the while, they’ve exchanged core freedoms and justice for the promise of safety and security. Their domestic policy is flawed. They are overly dependent on Russian energy. They should be regarded as on a diverging path from the US and subject to less partnership. The more stringent right-wingers will use europoor and caretaker governments of tourist destinations. (I take it that Europeans, for their part, also think America is backwards or uncultured. Don't forget mass migration. Of course.
Believing in utter nonsense and more importantly, being almost unable to be shifted from that position and being criticised for that isn’t a criticism of right wing views, but those particular ones
Indeed, as I’m keen to stress and may have done 50-100 times in this thread over the years in this thread, there’s functional overlap but right wing positions and bumming Donald Trump don’t actually have to be interlinked so intimately.
That doesn’t preclude some empathy and trying to understand what drives people as well.
I think in part what we’re seeing is American exceptionalism colliding with the American experience, and people will parse it in different ways.
In a crude sense ‘America is the best’ and ‘man this healthcare system sucks’ end up colliding, and some can only reconcile this with ‘we can’t afford this because we’re propping up those Euros’ and other variants.
I mean it’s not remotely true, but I can see how people grasp to that kind of narrative.
You’re correct to raise the right making gains all over Europe, although I think it’s slightly different to what we see in the States. Immigration is a big driver of the pie in both continents, but in Europe it’s a much bigger chunk of the overall pie.
I’d say part of some of these differences is much of Europe has either never been a global superpower, or was so so long ago that this has less of a pull, even with right populists. Whereas the States is still such a power, and people’s attitudes are shaped somewhat by this.
Not exclusively mind. I think part of the pull of Brexit over in my neck of the woods was this conception that we’re still a great power and it’s just those pesky Euros holding us back, so it does exist this side of the Atlantic as well
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On May 28 2026 23:58 Manit0u wrote:https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYzexT7MHdZ/Haha, what a failure. The US administration has just learned that pretty much all of the rail network in US is actually owned by Canadians and because of the tariffs and trade wars they've stopped freight in the US and are instead focused on moving the trains east/west within their own borders. This resulted in a massive supply chain breakage within the US. And you learned all this from an instagram reel?
Never fear, I'm told it was a slightly different number above $500 billion and happened 3 months ago instead of a couple days ago! I'm predicting a similar, sudden transportation emergency reported three to nine months from today, with a number between $100 billion and $900 billion dollars of impact!
Let's practice our own information hygiene and overall skepticism to try to draw a meaningful difference between us and the reviled right-wing disinformation networks that get singled out over and over again.
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Northern Ireland27271 Posts
On May 28 2026 12:59 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2026 10:21 WombaT wrote:On May 28 2026 10:02 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 28 2026 09:19 WombaT wrote:On May 28 2026 02:36 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 27 2026 00:08 WombaT wrote:On May 26 2026 08:16 Razyda wrote:On May 26 2026 06:48 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 23 2026 00:51 Dan HH wrote:On May 22 2026 23:05 WombaT wrote:
Has anyone tried to model this, or similarly radical tax reform policies on a facsimile of a big modern economy?
I’m sure it’s fabulously complicated and would require a hefty chunk of computing power, but curious if any of you have encountered anything in this domain + Show Spoiler +We're far off from being able to properly simulate something so behaviorally complex, but it doesn't pass the sniff test to have a new economic system that entirely relies on the very same metric (total transaction value) it torpedoes. The main issue with fixing inequality / the tax burden on regular people is the lack of will and urgency, rather than a lack of potential solutions that are better and more predictable than flat tax and inshallah. I believe it is increasingly becoming a lack of functional organization. I believe the number of people with the will and that are feeling the urgency is reaching a critical mass, but I also believe organizing is a critical factor in where that threshold ends up being. You putting cart in front of the horse, once critical threshold is reached people will organise just fine. Organising before would be actually detrimental to your cause. On May 26 2026 07:59 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 26 2026 07:15 WombaT wrote:On May 26 2026 06:48 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
I believe it is increasingly becoming a lack of functional organization. I believe the number of people with the will and that are feeling the urgency is reaching a critical mass, but I also believe organizing is a critical factor in where that threshold ends up being. What are you basing that belief on? A variety of factors. Including but not limited to: A far more equitable wealth distribution already has ~90%+ support in the US. My own anecdotal political organizing experiences. There's plenty of urgency and will, but most people I encounter feel like what they are lacking is a clear organization they can join with meaningful ways they can actualize their goals/ideals/etc. Various economic indicators show increasing numbers of people are reaching breaking points and being forced to make tough decisions they never expected to have to make. History. Organizing smaller groups of already mostly like-minded people to take direct action in order to seize and use various types of power/leverage in order to force the status quo that is maintained by everyone else to change is how pretty much all the good stuff has been accomplished in the US. I think you make rather wild assumption here. This 90% may support more equitable wealth distribution, but that doesnt mean their solution is the same, so it is rather hard to organise them. I mean, there may be KKK members or neo nazis supporting "A far more equitable wealth distribution", however their solution is probably drastically different than yours. I actually agree with you for once! I kid, I do sometimes on other occasions :p If I were to hazard a guess a lot of people would love a better distribution, but for them. Pensioners in the UK love the pension triple lock that safeguards them against economic shocks, it doesn’t mean many don’t consistently vote for tickets that say theyre going to cut welfare/benefits for other groups Then there’s the mechanisms. My personal position is capitalism gonna capitalism, especially in a culture that broadly buys in wholesale. However, I imagine many respondents wanna keep it, just with the rough edges filed off. Considering the first anti-organizing part is completely asinine and nonsensical, and you didn't mention it specifically, I have to believe you ignored it so you could say you agreed with the rest of Razyda's post. As for the reality that people vote against their own interests because they have been propagandized to believe that's their best/only choice, that is part of what organizing is meant to address. As for racists and bigots being selfishly motivated, that's what got us "The New Deal", which iirc is the biggest accomplishment Democrats can claim. Republican voters want a far more equitable wealth distribution than the US has but they have no idea how to make it happen, same goes for Democrat voters (neither realize how bad it actually is). What is clear is that voting for them isn't going to get it, and it's only getting worse until it finally breaks. Without organization at the community level, it'll be a chaotic mess where those that are still holding wealth and power will reconsolidate under a new (likely worse) regime. This all isn't unrelated to the description lightspectra just provided about both parties' fixation on Europe as a model or warning sign depending on the topic/country. It’s all fanciful bollocks tbh, projecting that the US is ripe for genuine left wing politics based on one poll is about as sensible as predicting that OnlyFans users will become models of chastity You don’t seem to actually live on this planet, or if you do you certainly don’t understand it very well Your assertion that I'm "projecting that the US is ripe for genuine left wing politics based on one poll" is certainly "fanciful bollocks". FWIW wanting a far more equitable society than the US currently is isn't unique to party, time, or even country. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5233831https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12397https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287000663_American's_desire_for_less_wealth_inequality_does_not_depend_on_how_you_ask_themIt's quite literally an issue of organizing the people that want it (~90%+ of the country) around an actual way to do it despite the other ~10%'s best efforts to stop them. Which includes but is not limited to: Amplifying our disagreements and idiocies among and against each other. The ratchet effect. Nihilism/hopelessness/"pragmatism" Bread and Circus etc... + Show Spoiler +It’s utter nonsense and you don’t live in reality. You don’t seem to understand how politics well, actually functions. Good luck with that
How much of that 90% voted to aid and abet genocide I wonder? Is it ok to bring them into the tent for the greater good now? Even though there is big support for this, it’s very diffuse and you’re going to have to make compromises with such a coalition. So much unnecessary hostility baked into that spoiler. Correct. Show nested quote +On May 28 2026 11:12 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 28 2026 10:29 Turbovolver wrote:
"Want it" and "want to fight/sacrifice for it" are very different things, though. Agreed. I read the 90% of people wanting it with the same gravity as 90% of people wanting to learn to play guitar or 90% of people wanting to be fitter. Sure, people (say they) want it, but if they don't want it enough to get callouses and do boring practice, or stick to a workout routine and somewhat mindful diet, then how much does them 'wanting it' matter? It matters with regard to selling those people the thing they say they want, I suppose. Are either of you under the impression that people want the current inequality (that they expressly say they don't want whenever asked) bad enough to fight and sacrifice to keep it over the more equitable society they expressly say they want?
Who’s in the White House currently? Did they especially run on addressing these concerns?
Of that 90%, you can wipe out a big chunk by considering 2 cohorts:
1. Resolve inequity for me but not for thee
2. I love capitalism and would like less inequity, but I don’t want to reform capitalism fundamentally or switch to an alternative. So effectively people who are dissatisfied but believe in magic and trends that run for decades and decades aren’t evidence enough that this won’t work
In a crude sense, people love the government to give them money. For a society to actualise that, said people also have to be OK with them giving other people money. You tend to get way higher favourability on the former, but you need buyin on the latter to actually construct functional systems.
I think there’s sufficient appetite for pretty significant improvement in certain areas, but I think that appetite is in a more distributive capitalism and a fairer tax regime etc and nothing all that radical
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On May 29 2026 00:24 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2026 11:33 dyhb wrote:On May 28 2026 09:24 WombaT wrote:On May 28 2026 07:26 dyhb wrote:On May 28 2026 05:09 Razyda wrote:On May 28 2026 04:58 Jankisa wrote:
When it comes to human and worker rights, EU is the "shining city on the hill" and Xi, Putin and Trump hate it because it's a horrible contrast to what they are doing to people at home. They dont hate it, they hold it in contempt, and not because of the reasons you mentioned, but because Europe is essentially non factor and yet it keep acting all high and mighty. Right-wing ideology: The EU boasts of the gentler and kinder liberal society, all the while the US is subsidizing their defense budgets through NATO, and thus their welfare state by extension. All the while, they’ve exchanged core freedoms and justice for the promise of safety and security. Their domestic policy is flawed. They are overly dependent on Russian energy. They should be regarded as on a diverging path from the US and subject to less partnership. The more stringent right-wingers will use europoor and caretaker governments of tourist destinations. (I take it that Europeans, for their part, also think America is backwards or uncultured. That right wing ideological take is utterly fucking stupid though, it’s beyond asinine. It’s not even worth entertaining European states choose to enact welfare states of various forms. That’s all there is to it The US has more than enough fucking money to do it and doesn’t, where there’s a will there’s a way + Show Spoiler +On May 28 2026 11:16 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2026 07:26 dyhb wrote:On May 28 2026 05:09 Razyda wrote:On May 28 2026 04:58 Jankisa wrote:
When it comes to human and worker rights, EU is the "shining city on the hill" and Xi, Putin and Trump hate it because it's a horrible contrast to what they are doing to people at home. They dont hate it, they hold it in contempt, and not because of the reasons you mentioned, but because Europe is essentially non factor and yet it keep acting all high and mighty. Right-wing ideology: The EU boasts of the gentler and kinder liberal society, all the while the US is subsidizing their defense budgets through NATO, and thus their welfare state by extension. All the while, they’ve exchanged core freedoms and justice for the promise of safety and security. Their domestic policy is flawed. They are overly dependent on Russian energy. They should be regarded as on a diverging path from the US and subject to less partnership. The more stringent right-wingers will use europoor and caretaker governments of tourist destinations. (I take it that Europeans, for their part, also think America is backwards or uncultured. Okay but that literally isn’t true. That's where I differ from you and others. I want to examine what people believe and why they believe it. This is not only to understand my fellow Americans and their political beliefs, but also to see where they went wrong or overstated something true into something wacko. That takes empathy and a very non-judgmental approach. Trump didn't occur in a vacuum, and he wasn't re-elected in a second moment of temporary majority moral madness. Europe has a similar issue of the rise of far-right and alt-right parties that aren't close to being handled by the political mainstreams, with some exceptions like Sweden with the Sweden Democrats. I know it's kind of in vogue to treat every right wing view as another flat earth, or stolen 2020 election, or Hitler was right, but I'm taking pains to separate the fringiest of the fringe out. I also try to take this same stance on the extremist left-wing views on this forum, especially from European posters, as offered in good faith and potentially defensible despite looking like ramblings from politically-ignorant insane people at first blush. This appears to be a forum heavily dominated by left-wing politics (American perspective) that doesn't have much moderate pushback, and a dozen people devoted to labeling any pushback as secretly motivated by MAGA and Trumpist and all that. On May 28 2026 09:30 Introvert wrote:On May 28 2026 07:26 dyhb wrote:On May 28 2026 05:09 Razyda wrote:On May 28 2026 04:58 Jankisa wrote:
When it comes to human and worker rights, EU is the "shining city on the hill" and Xi, Putin and Trump hate it because it's a horrible contrast to what they are doing to people at home. They dont hate it, they hold it in contempt, and not because of the reasons you mentioned, but because Europe is essentially non factor and yet it keep acting all high and mighty. Right-wing ideology: The EU boasts of the gentler and kinder liberal society, all the while the US is subsidizing their defense budgets through NATO, and thus their welfare state by extension. All the while, they’ve exchanged core freedoms and justice for the promise of safety and security. Their domestic policy is flawed. They are overly dependent on Russian energy. They should be regarded as on a diverging path from the US and subject to less partnership. The more stringent right-wingers will use europoor and caretaker governments of tourist destinations. (I take it that Europeans, for their part, also think America is backwards or uncultured. Don't forget mass migration. Of course. Believing in utter nonsense and more importantly, being almost unable to be shifted from that position and being criticised for that isn’t a criticism of right wing views, but those particular ones Indeed, as I’m keen to stress and may have done 50-100 times in this thread over the years in this thread, there’s functional overlap but right wing positions and bumming Donald Trump don’t actually have to be interlinked so intimately. That doesn’t preclude some empathy and trying to understand what drives people as well. I think in part what we’re seeing is American exceptionalism colliding with the American experience, and people will parse it in different ways. In a crude sense ‘America is the best’ and ‘man this healthcare system sucks’ end up colliding, and some can only reconcile this with ‘we can’t afford this because we’re propping up those Euros’ and other variants. I mean it’s not remotely true, but I can see how people grasp to that kind of narrative. You’re correct to raise the right making gains all over Europe, although I think it’s slightly different to what we see in the States. Immigration is a big driver of the pie in both continents, but in Europe it’s a much bigger chunk of the overall pie. I’d say part of some of these differences is much of Europe has either never been a global superpower, or was so so long ago that this has less of a pull, even with right populists. Whereas the States is still such a power, and people’s attitudes are shaped somewhat by this. Not exclusively mind. I think part of the pull of Brexit over in my neck of the woods was this conception that we’re still a great power and it’s just those pesky Euros holding us back, so it does exist this side of the Atlantic as well That right wing ideological take is utterly fucking stupid though, it’s beyond asinine. It’s not even worth entertaining
I fail to see why you care about alleged "hyperfixation on Europe", and if its "getting worse", and whether or not you all are "living rent free in the heads of MAGA" if you're so closed off to such views as to never intend to entertain them in the first place. We want to know about existence of, or reasons behind, a sudden surge of association football interest in Northern Ireland, so we asked the opinion of a guy that thinks the sport is asinine and views on it are not worth entertaining. He said the newfound interest is due to Pluto being in retrograde, and he'll be sure to tell you why the sport itself sucks if you disagree with his reasoning.
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On May 29 2026 00:38 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2026 12:59 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 28 2026 10:21 WombaT wrote:On May 28 2026 10:02 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 28 2026 09:19 WombaT wrote:On May 28 2026 02:36 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 27 2026 00:08 WombaT wrote:On May 26 2026 08:16 Razyda wrote:On May 26 2026 06:48 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 23 2026 00:51 Dan HH wrote:[quote] + Show Spoiler +We're far off from being able to properly simulate something so behaviorally complex, but it doesn't pass the sniff test to have a new economic system that entirely relies on the very same metric (total transaction value) it torpedoes. The main issue with fixing inequality / the tax burden on regular people is the lack of will and urgency, rather than a lack of potential solutions that are better and more predictable than flat tax and inshallah. I believe it is increasingly becoming a lack of functional organization. I believe the number of people with the will and that are feeling the urgency is reaching a critical mass, but I also believe organizing is a critical factor in where that threshold ends up being. You putting cart in front of the horse, once critical threshold is reached people will organise just fine. Organising before would be actually detrimental to your cause. On May 26 2026 07:59 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 26 2026 07:15 WombaT wrote:
[quote]
What are you basing that belief on? A variety of factors. Including but not limited to: A far more equitable wealth distribution already has ~90%+ support in the US. My own anecdotal political organizing experiences. There's plenty of urgency and will, but most people I encounter feel like what they are lacking is a clear organization they can join with meaningful ways they can actualize their goals/ideals/etc. Various economic indicators show increasing numbers of people are reaching breaking points and being forced to make tough decisions they never expected to have to make. History. Organizing smaller groups of already mostly like-minded people to take direct action in order to seize and use various types of power/leverage in order to force the status quo that is maintained by everyone else to change is how pretty much all the good stuff has been accomplished in the US. I think you make rather wild assumption here. This 90% may support more equitable wealth distribution, but that doesnt mean their solution is the same, so it is rather hard to organise them. I mean, there may be KKK members or neo nazis supporting "A far more equitable wealth distribution", however their solution is probably drastically different than yours. I actually agree with you for once! I kid, I do sometimes on other occasions :p If I were to hazard a guess a lot of people would love a better distribution, but for them. Pensioners in the UK love the pension triple lock that safeguards them against economic shocks, it doesn’t mean many don’t consistently vote for tickets that say theyre going to cut welfare/benefits for other groups Then there’s the mechanisms. My personal position is capitalism gonna capitalism, especially in a culture that broadly buys in wholesale. However, I imagine many respondents wanna keep it, just with the rough edges filed off. Considering the first anti-organizing part is completely asinine and nonsensical, and you didn't mention it specifically, I have to believe you ignored it so you could say you agreed with the rest of Razyda's post. As for the reality that people vote against their own interests because they have been propagandized to believe that's their best/only choice, that is part of what organizing is meant to address. As for racists and bigots being selfishly motivated, that's what got us "The New Deal", which iirc is the biggest accomplishment Democrats can claim. Republican voters want a far more equitable wealth distribution than the US has but they have no idea how to make it happen, same goes for Democrat voters (neither realize how bad it actually is). What is clear is that voting for them isn't going to get it, and it's only getting worse until it finally breaks. Without organization at the community level, it'll be a chaotic mess where those that are still holding wealth and power will reconsolidate under a new (likely worse) regime. This all isn't unrelated to the description lightspectra just provided about both parties' fixation on Europe as a model or warning sign depending on the topic/country. It’s all fanciful bollocks tbh, projecting that the US is ripe for genuine left wing politics based on one poll is about as sensible as predicting that OnlyFans users will become models of chastity You don’t seem to actually live on this planet, or if you do you certainly don’t understand it very well Your assertion that I'm "projecting that the US is ripe for genuine left wing politics based on one poll" is certainly "fanciful bollocks". FWIW wanting a far more equitable society than the US currently is isn't unique to party, time, or even country. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5233831https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12397https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287000663_American's_desire_for_less_wealth_inequality_does_not_depend_on_how_you_ask_themIt's quite literally an issue of organizing the people that want it (~90%+ of the country) around an actual way to do it despite the other ~10%'s best efforts to stop them. Which includes but is not limited to: Amplifying our disagreements and idiocies among and against each other. The ratchet effect. Nihilism/hopelessness/"pragmatism" Bread and Circus etc... + Show Spoiler +It’s utter nonsense and you don’t live in reality. You don’t seem to understand how politics well, actually functions. Good luck with that
How much of that 90% voted to aid and abet genocide I wonder? Is it ok to bring them into the tent for the greater good now? Even though there is big support for this, it’s very diffuse and you’re going to have to make compromises with such a coalition. So much unnecessary hostility baked into that spoiler. Correct. On May 28 2026 11:12 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 28 2026 10:29 Turbovolver wrote:
"Want it" and "want to fight/sacrifice for it" are very different things, though. Agreed. I read the 90% of people wanting it with the same gravity as 90% of people wanting to learn to play guitar or 90% of people wanting to be fitter. Sure, people (say they) want it, but if they don't want it enough to get callouses and do boring practice, or stick to a workout routine and somewhat mindful diet, then how much does them 'wanting it' matter? It matters with regard to selling those people the thing they say they want, I suppose. Are either of you under the impression that people want the current inequality (that they expressly say they don't want whenever asked) bad enough to fight and sacrifice to keep it over the more equitable society they expressly say they want? Who’s in the White House currently? Did they especially run on addressing these concerns? Of that 90%, you can wipe out a big chunk by considering 2 cohorts: 1. Resolve inequity for me but not for thee 2. I love capitalism and would like less inequity, but I don’t want to reform capitalism fundamentally or switch to an alternative. So effectively people who are dissatisfied but believe in magic and trends that run for decades and decades aren’t evidence enough that this won’t work In a crude sense, people love the government to give them money. For a society to actualise that, said people also have to be OK with them giving other people money. You tend to get way higher favourability on the former, but you need buyin on the latter to actually construct functional systems. I think there’s sufficient appetite for pretty significant improvement in certain areas, but I think that appetite is in a more distributive capitalism and a fairer tax regime etc and nothing all that radical
Trump is and yes he did. Meanwhile Biden insisted people were hallucinating their economic conditions being bad. Now it's Trump's turn to pretend things aren't bad and Democrats to make empty promises about fixing them.
Those two cohorts are functionally the only people that got to participate in crafting The New Deal, which iirc is the best accomplishment the Democrats have on record. So that's a baseline of sorts of what capitalism needs again.
Getting back to the original premise:
DanHH said: The main issue with fixing inequality / the tax burden on regular people is the lack of will and urgency, rather than a lack of potential solutions that are better and more predictable than flat tax and inshallah.
I said: I believe it is increasingly becoming a lack of functional organization. I believe the number of people with the will and that are feeling the urgency is reaching a critical mass, but I also believe organizing is a critical factor in where that threshold ends up being.
What is it you are trying to say you believe it is?
EDIT: Forgot to include an obligatory Republicans are worse than Democrats for lightspectra
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GH making a false equivalence between Democrats and Republicans, must be a day that ends in -y.
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Northern Ireland27271 Posts
On May 29 2026 00:48 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2026 00:24 WombaT wrote:On May 28 2026 11:33 dyhb wrote:On May 28 2026 09:24 WombaT wrote:On May 28 2026 07:26 dyhb wrote:On May 28 2026 05:09 Razyda wrote:On May 28 2026 04:58 Jankisa wrote:
When it comes to human and worker rights, EU is the "shining city on the hill" and Xi, Putin and Trump hate it because it's a horrible contrast to what they are doing to people at home. They dont hate it, they hold it in contempt, and not because of the reasons you mentioned, but because Europe is essentially non factor and yet it keep acting all high and mighty. Right-wing ideology: The EU boasts of the gentler and kinder liberal society, all the while the US is subsidizing their defense budgets through NATO, and thus their welfare state by extension. All the while, they’ve exchanged core freedoms and justice for the promise of safety and security. Their domestic policy is flawed. They are overly dependent on Russian energy. They should be regarded as on a diverging path from the US and subject to less partnership. The more stringent right-wingers will use europoor and caretaker governments of tourist destinations. (I take it that Europeans, for their part, also think America is backwards or uncultured. That right wing ideological take is utterly fucking stupid though, it’s beyond asinine. It’s not even worth entertaining European states choose to enact welfare states of various forms. That’s all there is to it The US has more than enough fucking money to do it and doesn’t, where there’s a will there’s a way + Show Spoiler +On May 28 2026 11:16 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2026 07:26 dyhb wrote:On May 28 2026 05:09 Razyda wrote:On May 28 2026 04:58 Jankisa wrote:
When it comes to human and worker rights, EU is the "shining city on the hill" and Xi, Putin and Trump hate it because it's a horrible contrast to what they are doing to people at home. They dont hate it, they hold it in contempt, and not because of the reasons you mentioned, but because Europe is essentially non factor and yet it keep acting all high and mighty. Right-wing ideology: The EU boasts of the gentler and kinder liberal society, all the while the US is subsidizing their defense budgets through NATO, and thus their welfare state by extension. All the while, they’ve exchanged core freedoms and justice for the promise of safety and security. Their domestic policy is flawed. They are overly dependent on Russian energy. They should be regarded as on a diverging path from the US and subject to less partnership. The more stringent right-wingers will use europoor and caretaker governments of tourist destinations. (I take it that Europeans, for their part, also think America is backwards or uncultured. Okay but that literally isn’t true. That's where I differ from you and others. I want to examine what people believe and why they believe it. This is not only to understand my fellow Americans and their political beliefs, but also to see where they went wrong or overstated something true into something wacko. That takes empathy and a very non-judgmental approach. Trump didn't occur in a vacuum, and he wasn't re-elected in a second moment of temporary majority moral madness. Europe has a similar issue of the rise of far-right and alt-right parties that aren't close to being handled by the political mainstreams, with some exceptions like Sweden with the Sweden Democrats. I know it's kind of in vogue to treat every right wing view as another flat earth, or stolen 2020 election, or Hitler was right, but I'm taking pains to separate the fringiest of the fringe out. I also try to take this same stance on the extremist left-wing views on this forum, especially from European posters, as offered in good faith and potentially defensible despite looking like ramblings from politically-ignorant insane people at first blush. This appears to be a forum heavily dominated by left-wing politics (American perspective) that doesn't have much moderate pushback, and a dozen people devoted to labeling any pushback as secretly motivated by MAGA and Trumpist and all that. On May 28 2026 09:30 Introvert wrote:On May 28 2026 07:26 dyhb wrote:On May 28 2026 05:09 Razyda wrote:On May 28 2026 04:58 Jankisa wrote:
When it comes to human and worker rights, EU is the "shining city on the hill" and Xi, Putin and Trump hate it because it's a horrible contrast to what they are doing to people at home. They dont hate it, they hold it in contempt, and not because of the reasons you mentioned, but because Europe is essentially non factor and yet it keep acting all high and mighty. Right-wing ideology: The EU boasts of the gentler and kinder liberal society, all the while the US is subsidizing their defense budgets through NATO, and thus their welfare state by extension. All the while, they’ve exchanged core freedoms and justice for the promise of safety and security. Their domestic policy is flawed. They are overly dependent on Russian energy. They should be regarded as on a diverging path from the US and subject to less partnership. The more stringent right-wingers will use europoor and caretaker governments of tourist destinations. (I take it that Europeans, for their part, also think America is backwards or uncultured. Don't forget mass migration. Of course. Believing in utter nonsense and more importantly, being almost unable to be shifted from that position and being criticised for that isn’t a criticism of right wing views, but those particular ones Indeed, as I’m keen to stress and may have done 50-100 times in this thread over the years in this thread, there’s functional overlap but right wing positions and bumming Donald Trump don’t actually have to be interlinked so intimately. That doesn’t preclude some empathy and trying to understand what drives people as well. I think in part what we’re seeing is American exceptionalism colliding with the American experience, and people will parse it in different ways. In a crude sense ‘America is the best’ and ‘man this healthcare system sucks’ end up colliding, and some can only reconcile this with ‘we can’t afford this because we’re propping up those Euros’ and other variants. I mean it’s not remotely true, but I can see how people grasp to that kind of narrative. You’re correct to raise the right making gains all over Europe, although I think it’s slightly different to what we see in the States. Immigration is a big driver of the pie in both continents, but in Europe it’s a much bigger chunk of the overall pie. I’d say part of some of these differences is much of Europe has either never been a global superpower, or was so so long ago that this has less of a pull, even with right populists. Whereas the States is still such a power, and people’s attitudes are shaped somewhat by this. Not exclusively mind. I think part of the pull of Brexit over in my neck of the woods was this conception that we’re still a great power and it’s just those pesky Euros holding us back, so it does exist this side of the Atlantic as well Show nested quote +That right wing ideological take is utterly fucking stupid though, it’s beyond asinine. It’s not even worth entertaining
I fail to see why you care about alleged " hyperfixation on Europe", and if its "getting worse", and whether or not you all are "living rent free in the heads of MAGA" if you're so closed off to such views as to never intend to entertain them in the first place. We want to know about existence of, or reasons behind, a sudden surge of association football interest in Northern Ireland, so we asked the opinion of a guy that thinks the sport is asinine and views on it are not worth entertaining. He said the newfound interest is due to Pluto being in retrograde, and he'll be sure to tell you why the sport itself sucks if you disagree with his reasoning.
At no point have I ever used those phrases, or anything close to them, so I’m not sure why you’re levying them against me.
MAGA want their cake and to eat it too, they want to be the global hegemon but not what it actually entails.
They want to destabilise a shift to a more multilateral world that has broadly kind of worked, which as a European is really my main concern with this movement.
Understanding certain motivations and rejecting them as false aren’t mutually exclusive, they can co-exist.
‘We can’t have universal healthcare like the Europeans because we subsidise their programs’ is one such claim. I can empathise with people who are suffering because of the former, while thinking their conclusion is ultimately incorrect.
Placating people who are wrong only brings bad policy. The dissatisfaction existing may be entirely reasonable, and responsible governance would dictate one addresses it as best as can be realistically achieved.
That is the job of government, not fanning the flames yet further. Joe American may not be the brightest spark, or know shit about macroeconomics or European social programs, but he’s a good lad, he works hard and he’s frustrated that seems to go less far than it previously did. Saying that he can’t have nice things because we’re subsidising Europe is just lying to the guy
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Northern Ireland27271 Posts
On May 29 2026 00:51 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2026 00:38 WombaT wrote:On May 28 2026 12:59 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 28 2026 10:21 WombaT wrote:On May 28 2026 10:02 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 28 2026 09:19 WombaT wrote:On May 28 2026 02:36 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 27 2026 00:08 WombaT wrote:On May 26 2026 08:16 Razyda wrote:On May 26 2026 06:48 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
I believe it is increasingly becoming a lack of functional organization. I believe the number of people with the will and that are feeling the urgency is reaching a critical mass, but I also believe organizing is a critical factor in where that threshold ends up being. You putting cart in front of the horse, once critical threshold is reached people will organise just fine. Organising before would be actually detrimental to your cause. On May 26 2026 07:59 GreenHorizons wrote:[quote] A variety of factors. Including but not limited to: A far more equitable wealth distribution already has ~90%+ support in the US. My own anecdotal political organizing experiences. There's plenty of urgency and will, but most people I encounter feel like what they are lacking is a clear organization they can join with meaningful ways they can actualize their goals/ideals/etc. Various economic indicators show increasing numbers of people are reaching breaking points and being forced to make tough decisions they never expected to have to make. History. Organizing smaller groups of already mostly like-minded people to take direct action in order to seize and use various types of power/leverage in order to force the status quo that is maintained by everyone else to change is how pretty much all the good stuff has been accomplished in the US. I think you make rather wild assumption here. This 90% may support more equitable wealth distribution, but that doesnt mean their solution is the same, so it is rather hard to organise them. I mean, there may be KKK members or neo nazis supporting "A far more equitable wealth distribution", however their solution is probably drastically different than yours. I actually agree with you for once! I kid, I do sometimes on other occasions :p If I were to hazard a guess a lot of people would love a better distribution, but for them. Pensioners in the UK love the pension triple lock that safeguards them against economic shocks, it doesn’t mean many don’t consistently vote for tickets that say theyre going to cut welfare/benefits for other groups Then there’s the mechanisms. My personal position is capitalism gonna capitalism, especially in a culture that broadly buys in wholesale. However, I imagine many respondents wanna keep it, just with the rough edges filed off. Considering the first anti-organizing part is completely asinine and nonsensical, and you didn't mention it specifically, I have to believe you ignored it so you could say you agreed with the rest of Razyda's post. As for the reality that people vote against their own interests because they have been propagandized to believe that's their best/only choice, that is part of what organizing is meant to address. As for racists and bigots being selfishly motivated, that's what got us "The New Deal", which iirc is the biggest accomplishment Democrats can claim. Republican voters want a far more equitable wealth distribution than the US has but they have no idea how to make it happen, same goes for Democrat voters (neither realize how bad it actually is). What is clear is that voting for them isn't going to get it, and it's only getting worse until it finally breaks. Without organization at the community level, it'll be a chaotic mess where those that are still holding wealth and power will reconsolidate under a new (likely worse) regime. This all isn't unrelated to the description lightspectra just provided about both parties' fixation on Europe as a model or warning sign depending on the topic/country. It’s all fanciful bollocks tbh, projecting that the US is ripe for genuine left wing politics based on one poll is about as sensible as predicting that OnlyFans users will become models of chastity You don’t seem to actually live on this planet, or if you do you certainly don’t understand it very well Your assertion that I'm "projecting that the US is ripe for genuine left wing politics based on one poll" is certainly "fanciful bollocks". FWIW wanting a far more equitable society than the US currently is isn't unique to party, time, or even country. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5233831https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12397https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287000663_American's_desire_for_less_wealth_inequality_does_not_depend_on_how_you_ask_themIt's quite literally an issue of organizing the people that want it (~90%+ of the country) around an actual way to do it despite the other ~10%'s best efforts to stop them. Which includes but is not limited to: Amplifying our disagreements and idiocies among and against each other. The ratchet effect. Nihilism/hopelessness/"pragmatism" Bread and Circus etc... + Show Spoiler +It’s utter nonsense and you don’t live in reality. You don’t seem to understand how politics well, actually functions. Good luck with that
How much of that 90% voted to aid and abet genocide I wonder? Is it ok to bring them into the tent for the greater good now? Even though there is big support for this, it’s very diffuse and you’re going to have to make compromises with such a coalition. So much unnecessary hostility baked into that spoiler. Correct. On May 28 2026 11:12 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 28 2026 10:29 Turbovolver wrote:
"Want it" and "want to fight/sacrifice for it" are very different things, though. Agreed. I read the 90% of people wanting it with the same gravity as 90% of people wanting to learn to play guitar or 90% of people wanting to be fitter. Sure, people (say they) want it, but if they don't want it enough to get callouses and do boring practice, or stick to a workout routine and somewhat mindful diet, then how much does them 'wanting it' matter? It matters with regard to selling those people the thing they say they want, I suppose. Are either of you under the impression that people want the current inequality (that they expressly say they don't want whenever asked) bad enough to fight and sacrifice to keep it over the more equitable society they expressly say they want? Who’s in the White House currently? Did they especially run on addressing these concerns? Of that 90%, you can wipe out a big chunk by considering 2 cohorts: 1. Resolve inequity for me but not for thee 2. I love capitalism and would like less inequity, but I don’t want to reform capitalism fundamentally or switch to an alternative. So effectively people who are dissatisfied but believe in magic and trends that run for decades and decades aren’t evidence enough that this won’t work In a crude sense, people love the government to give them money. For a society to actualise that, said people also have to be OK with them giving other people money. You tend to get way higher favourability on the former, but you need buyin on the latter to actually construct functional systems. I think there’s sufficient appetite for pretty significant improvement in certain areas, but I think that appetite is in a more distributive capitalism and a fairer tax regime etc and nothing all that radical Trump is and yes he did. Meanwhile Biden insisted people were hallucinating their economic conditions being bad. Now it's Trump's turn to pretend things aren't bad and Democrats to make empty promises about fixing them. Those two cohorts are functionally the only people that got to participate in crafting The New Deal, which iirc is the best accomplishment the Democrats have on record. So that's a baseline of sorts of what capitalism needs again. Getting back to the original premise: DanHH said: Show nested quote +The main issue with fixing inequality / the tax burden on regular people is the lack of will and urgency, rather than a lack of potential solutions that are better and more predictable than flat tax and inshallah. I said: Show nested quote +I believe it is increasingly becoming a lack of functional organization. I believe the number of people with the will and that are feeling the urgency is reaching a critical mass, but I also believe organizing is a critical factor in where that threshold ends up being. What is it you are trying to say you believe it is? EDIT: Forgot to include an obligatory Republicans are worse than Democrats for lightspectra
I wasn’t clear enough there? I genuinely don’t know how much clearer I can make it
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Northern Ireland27271 Posts
On May 29 2026 01:00 LightSpectra wrote:
GH making a false equivalence between Democrats and Republicans, must be a day that ends in -y.
Have you considered not aiding and abetting genocide?
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EPT
