And he's quite right to point out that the media loves obsessing over the dumb shit (like Palmer's penis and McDonald's) and spends far less time running down real shit.
Yeah, it's the media, not websites like Reddit or Lemmy, that obsess over menial things like "Trump did a campaign thing at a McDonalds!!!! This CANNOT stand!!!!!!!"
Totally not you guys. It's always "the other"! It's never because YOU only engage in meaningless shit. It's never because YOU give those stories clicks because it makes you feel better about yourself. It's "the media" that are doing these things!
And it's not all either. He's only going to kill maim the Democrats. And black people. And brown people. And LGBT people. And women. And non-Christians. So, you know, as long as you're not in one of those groups, you'll be totally fine. For now. But maybe don't get too comfortable.
When we should start to worry? When it’s too late?
Young, I couldn’t comprehend how Hitler was elected, disgraced then could come back and how the people let that happening.
Decades later, i really understand: complacency.
Someone bringing the presidency position just casually say in front of the press that he want to hurt its opponent... In public.
Imagine what he say in private, with all his yes men and psycho writer of project 2025 for example... And we know it’s not an accident, he reference hitler more than once... He is in admiration with dictators... he want to be one of them...
Yeah, please "don’t exaggerate".
Don’t learn from the history. You’re lucky he is also stupid and old...
This is the story that we need to be focusing on until election day. None of the other stunts matter. If anything this post should be pinned. We should keep our eye on the ball even if the media won't.
Trump threatened to send the military and the national guard after people on the left and Democratic politicians. This is blatant and open fascism. In any other election Trump being openly fascist would be the October surprise. Everyone needs to see this.
He’s not even phrasing it as a threat, for him it’s just an “obvious solution” to a problem he made up. He doesn’t even see it as something serious so he doesn’t threaten us with it.
Which makes what he is saying even more scary. Imagine what is he NOT saying and that he thinks would be a threat? Fuck, as someone on the other side of the pond I hoped I could show my support to my fellow Americans but this will fuck us all in the end.
To paraphrase Trump, he said if elected, he will send the military and national guard after his political and ideological opponents.
That's a threat. It's phrased as a threat. The fact he's says it calmly doesn't matter. This is what fascists do. They identify an out group. They stir up public fear and resentment against the out group. They make promises to their supports, in the form of threats of violence against the out group, to get rid of the out group. Then historically speaking they make good on their threats to the best of their ability once they take power.
When fascists run out of the current out group they just find another way to divide the population and pick a new out group. As long as fascists want to cling to power they need an enemy. What Trump isn't telling us is the next out group he hasn't picked yet because he doesn't plan that far ahead. The Haitian immigrant conspiracy was a spur of the moment thing that other people had previously come up with and told him about on the plane ride to the debate. If he ever needs a new group to fearmonger about he'll just ask other fascists for ideas. edit: typos
Honest question: Do you think the military would obey his orders?
I know the ICE (immigration and customs enforcement) had no problems in doing so, but the military seems to consist of a more varied bunch of people, more patriotic than racist kind of guys, or is that fiction?
Trump is already planning on replacing everyone in the federal administrative state with loyalists. If the military doesn't follow his orders he will keep replacing people in the military until they do.
The real question is will the military do anything to stop Trump? Let's not put ourselves in the position of needing to rally around General Brown in a civil war. Let's vote for Kamala and call Trump weird.
Jon getting serious is kinda scary and rightfully so. He’s worried like the rest of us but likely has a better idea of what’s coming should Trump win. He’s a smart dude.
The thing that really bugs me is that Trump has told everyone exactly what he's going to do, but no one seems interested.
He's been very clear that he's not going to concede, and that he has legal challenges ready to go. The election isn't going to be won or lost on votes in swing states, but who can provide the most pressure on officials in those setting states.
I have this sinking feeling that he's going to be declared winner through corruption and manipulation, the dems will say "oh well fiddlesticks", and the western world will start matching towards fascism.
As in, Kamala is talking about medical records and Trump is planning insurrection.
Just like the investigation into Russian interference, and all Trumps legal stuff. "Yeah well he's guilty as sin but you know - what are you gonna do".
Well of course he is... him and his kind are the first ones to be round up in the camps-I mean.. the voter fraud testing center and family firing range.
To be perfectly honest, I'm worried about what the US will do once their political capital weekens more internationally while they sit on the 130 odd military bases abroad in 55 foreign potentially 'hostile' (to US interests) territories (if they don't eat their own first ofc). Public trust has already embraced it's fundamentally rotten core and rightfully so. The social contract is in shreds between the government and it's people. Something will crumple and it will be ugly. I don't think Kamala is much of an answer either, but at least it may buy time for circumstances to change. Americans have to learn to live with each other, one way or another.
Americans have to learn to live with each other, one way or another.
Honestly, I often think Americans need to learn to live apart from each other these days. I'm very skeptical of the notion that the US can ever function as a coherent political unit again, and it might be better for all to just cut bait and move to an EU-esque free movement regime. Let New England, the South, the Midwest, the West Coast and whatever Alaska and Hawaii want to be each be their own independent countries, but any citizen of one has the right to move to any if the others and work immediately. If Republicans want to enact their own little Handmaid's Tales in the deep South, they can go for it, but no moaning when women and POC decide to move elsewhere. The non-GOP hellscape regions can implement social safety net programs to allow anyone who wants to leave the conservative regions to do so, regardless of financial means, knowing they will have housing, food and healthcare when they get to a civilized country.
It really feels like some backwards regions are holding the whole country hostage at this point.
a surprisingly tiny minority of cities and states make up the overwhelming lionshare of fiscal solvency and standard of living that this country enjoys and balkanizing it would leave them all DEEPLY impoverished nations except one or two.
for those impoverished nations; the politically easiest path to solvency is to invade and occupy its neighbors or descend further into facism.
those one or two rich countries would then also then be in a position to invade and colonize their neighbors for more natural resources as rich countries with sufficient access to poor countries invariably do.
poc aren't leaving red states that publicly and actively disenfranchise them because they're stuck there and a country formed by balkanization won't be any different. white people are mostly the ones that enjoy that sort of fiscal mobility, so there's a chance that white women could move, but not any other kind of woman; and probably into that one or two rich countries in the case of balkanization.
balkanization can only work if there's something to glue the people together like a culture and all of the cultures in the united states belong to minority groups thanks to the majority eschewing their own originating cultures in favor of an american identity for a myriad of reasons.
You'll still need respect for that to happen, which is what I'm referring to by "living together." Don't have to be friends, but you got to compromise somewhere.
The US is fucked. There is no way this gets better. Trump has already clearly communicated his intent to become a dictator. And no one is taking it seriously. He's talking about using the armed forces to take out his political opponents.
His opposition is still thinking this can be solved in a democratic and and civil way.
If Trump wins it's over for you and it will have devastating effects on the rest of the world. I hope you understand this.
Yes, I agree, and it makes me very sad. The US has been very good for me personally, I get movies, music, technology, relative stability in the world, and so on from the US. I just feel sad for the poor saps who have to live there.
But now, we can't count on the US being the top political power in the world anymore. So now the EU really has to step up, because we don't want China or Russia to become the new #1.
Trump isn't even what I'm worried about, it's his supporters. They seem downright giddy to get revenge and I've seen plenty of them making threatening posts in online forums. The maga militias seem to have gotten less attention this time around but I hope someone is paying attention to them.
Just reading the article he doesn't seem to be trivialising, rather the opposite. He more or less says this is something we should be paying attention to.