Vivek Ramaswamy, a candidate for the presidential nomination from the Republican Party of the USA, who is in the top three in terms of popularity among Republican supporters, promises to recognize the Russian occupation of Ukraine and block its path to NATO if elected president.
Sorry for the headline. I don't know why they don't just say it's Vivek Ramaswamy.
To that end, I will accept Russian control of the occupied territories and pledge to block Ukraine’s candidacy for NATO in exchange for Russia exiting its military alliance with China. I will end sanctions and bring Russia back into the world market. In this way, I will elevate Russia as a strategic check on China’s designs in East Asia.
Never thought I'd see somebody worse than trump so quickly.
he also wants to remove federal regulatory and law enforcement agencies. Including, the IRS. Whose job it is... to you know... pay the government's bills...
They are doing it on purpose. He’s 38 years old, no one is letting him near the presidency. But these over the top statements are intended to make some other candidate look like not the craziest guy in the room.
I was watching a review of the GOP debates by some US political junkies just last week and one of the hosts said that Vivek knows he doesn't have a chance but is using this presidential run to get exposure for his planned foray into right wing talk show host. Something like Tucker or Alex Jones.
Great bang for your buck with free news media advertising by pretending to run for president and saying crazy stuff.
After hearing he wanted to start his own right wing talk show his character and mannerisms made so much more sense.
Chances are he doesn't even believe the nonsense coming out of his own mouth, but society rewards these people with riches beyond their wildest imagination so they keep doing it.
I was watching a review of the GOP debates by some US political junkies just last week and one of the hosts said that Vivek knows he doesn’t have a chance but is using this presidential run to get exposure for his planned foray into right wing talk show host. Something like Tucker or Alex Jones.
For Musk and Twitter, especially due to the heavy foreign investment in his purchase of the company, it’s severely more likely, than just ego, that he bought out Twitter specifically to destroy it.
Twitter was being used as a way for the common people to unite against oppressive corporate/capitalistic and government regimes. Across the world. By sharing their hardships and their fights for their rights to people who weren’t fighting or didn’t know they could.
Western influence was disrupting Iranian culture, showing women that they could be strong and independent, to live the way they wanted to if they banded together. Seeing people unionize across the States emboldened others to unionize in their home town.
Why do you think Facebooks competitor (what was it ‘sheets’ or ‘pages’? ‘Threads’ maybe?) decided to very specifically state that they wouldn’t have threads about politics or religion? Because those were the reasons Twitter got bought out and destroyed.
What reason other than ego is needed by the wealthy? They don't need to consider pros/cons like the rest of us do. You see the kind of following right wing talk show types build? I could very much see someone wanting that just because they can do it.
Considering one of his opponents tried to destroy the happiest place on earth, signed into law a law that allows people to kidnap kids, and worked as a torturer at gitmo, that is saying something
No: conservatism is tribalism. It's always been "well someone's gotta be king." That is the origin of the term, right back to the invention of the modern republic. It's just hierarchy plus excuses.
Conservatism is about conserving the traditional practices and values. If the practice is tribalism, then it may be what is conserved, but it can be something else.
Like declaring Mitch McConnell and Wolfe Tone must share values because they're both "Republicans." Words mean what they are used to mean. What conservatism means, in modern English, is monarchists denied a monarchy.
You can deny it if you want, but that's what you'll find in dictionaries and encyclopedias, which is what most people consider as the standard definition of a word.
That is the only consistent thread, within and between conservative movements worldwide. They want one guy in charge of everything and half the population fighting for scraps. On some level they do not believe society can function any other way.
The people who attempted to overthrow American democracy aren't preserving a damn thing.
Trying to overthrow institutions is typically not conservatism. It seems you confuse extreme right (fascism, authoritarism) and conservatism, maybe because in your country, what used to be a conservatist party became extreme right.
In every country, conservatism has that undercurrent, because they're the same idea at different intensity.
Do you think aliens beamed down and took over America's conservative party? No: they voted for fascism. This is what they wanted. They felt The Hierarchy™ was being threatened, because of gays and blacks and them darn transgenders, and they are ready to enact dictatorship to reassert the privilege of the white-nationalist ingroup.
It's always been there - from slavery to Jim Crow to Don't Ask Don't Tell. It's usually happy to use the language of civil discourse, because it's usually in control already. But the moment society shifts toward greater equality, in spite of their political efforts to stratify and separate people, the conservative base will abandon all disguises and demand violence.
People who are right-wing without being conservative are your Mitt Romneys, your Arnolds Schwarzenegger. Y'know. "RINOs." People deeply confused by how the party that used to love them suddenly calls them traitors, because they chose stated principles over kneejerk loyalty. It's almost... it's almost like... it's almost like the principles... didn't matter? Like it's all just excuses for kneejerk loyalty?
Are we going to have to do this every 4 years? Just roll the dice and risk some wholly unqualified asshole, somehow even worse that the former guy, becoming president so he or she can just shit on the people and the planet for the next 4 fucking years?
Not forever. Now and probably 2028. The people they are appealing to are dying and are rapidly being replaced by the youth. By 2032 they won't be enough to dominate an entire party. They will return to the fringe.
We're at a point where they are so close to codifying their reign into our country's laws that it will no longer matter if they have a majority or not.
They've already done so. Political gerrymandering, legislative subversion of direct democracy, political ejections from state legislatures, etc. The thing that kills me is that the Dems have not come out loudly and uniformly in favor of shit that would make a difference, like rank-choice voting, non-partisan redistricting, etc. Fuckers all around.
Until progressives move en masse to rural areas, this country is fucked. Gerrymandering is largely possible because you only need to go two feet outside of any urban area to be in a blood red sea of prideful ignorance and xenophobia.
Personally. I plan to go start a lunar colony, then mars, then jupiter. Build up a space civilization of enlightened scientists who.... will tolerate my leadership because "well at least it's not as bad as on earth."
Enough scientists are feral enough to just throw someone out an airlock. That shit would rapidly devolve into some demented form of anarcho-syndacalism.
That shit would rapidly devolve into some demented form of anarcho-syndacalism.
you assume that I'm not some tin pot dictator. I'm far from the last person you want to see in power... but I'm also far from the first. Although... that could make for a good story...
There's a lot worse than Trump. Trump is dumb AF and is easily persuaded. I'm doubting that Trump ever actually came up with an idea of his own. He's a puppet through and through.