He’s just a symptom.
The virus being a range of sociopathic beliefs and behaviour justified as “conservatism”.
I blame “Infinite growth”. i.e. Capitalism
Don’t forget leaded gas!
deleted by creator
Yeah, I agree. PFAS, lead, carbon monoxide, microplastics, all the pollutants. It would be naive to think these things don’t impact the mental capacity of the globe as a whole.
Cancer also attempts to grow infinatly. I see a connection
I think it is more about too much centralizati and the power that results that leads to corruption no matter the intentions or political system.
It has a vector of a bulbous demographic growth that is the baby Boomer generation. Luckily they are deflating slowly, but every young person must do their utmost to vote.
Yes, but he’s also the disease personified and amplified into a real life supervillain. And the world doesn’t have a superhero to stop him.
I “know” this is a metaphor, and I’m being a wet blanket about it, but I’m saying it anyway. There is no super hero to save anyone from anything, much less a society circulating the drain. The only way to make things better is by getting organized with your friends, family, and neighbours.
Be prepared (collectively) when things go to shit, and actively try to make them better. You can do very little alone, but together the choice is no longer between Hitler and Hitler, it’s change or stagnation. And neither genocide Joe or Cheetos man will lead to any positive progress.
Okay, no more wet blanket…
Too bad my family and friends predominantly run the gamut from ‘lit the match walk away’ Trumpers to current supporters. Same with most my friends. Sucks to wake up at 35 and realize you have only a few non-fascist acquaintances and family. And many of them either directly work for the government or are government contractors.
I call them out when they start talking shit. Like, learn about the circumstances and facts of the Boston Tea Party and Boston Massacre. When they talk about any issue, relate it back to how they would have 100% supported the Redcoats in Boston circa 1770s, and how they are actually un-American, not lovers of freedom.
Ripe topics for economics, taxation, use of force, state power, private property rights, representation, protest and dissent, etc. Often I get them to dig in on their issue first. They all learned in elementary school that the British were the bad guys in that war and it’s hilarious to watch their tiny lizard brains explode when they confront the hypocrisy they’ve abided since they formed their initial world views. Haha, dummies.
Supervillain is giving him too much credit. I’ll grant you that he’s a cartoon character, but cartoon supervillains have more complexity than him.
Kanye and Musk embody a nearly identical archetype and we’d have the exact same problem if they ran for president and succeeded. The cult of personality that follows shitty celebrities is a self-perpetuating one. It’s rooted in nasty people admiring how important people can be nasty like them but without tangible social consequences. They form a mob around their cult heroes for that exact reason, strength in numbers. A safe space for the trash of humanity.
People in politics and business find Trump useful because he’ll open doors for them in exchange for attention. They get cozy with leading him around by the nose with that attention until they forget that he will backstab them when they stop giving him that attention or there is more value in betraying them. Musk does the exact same shit, so again, I don’t think that Trump himself is worthy of being viewed in the light you’re giving him. Similarly shitty celebrities are drop in replacements for him, and worse, they might be more intelligent in their cruelty.
Cromulent points all around.
Together we can stop him
I think instead of a superhero I would prefer the punisher
The punisher is a superhero.
Uhhhhh… No. He’s a anti-hero on his best day and a straight up terrorist realistically. Literally. He is a Terror-ist. And a hyper violent one at that. You may agree with his reasoning and even his methods, but both the character, and even the writer, don’t consider frank castle to even be a “good guy”.
Frank Castle isn’t the Punisher right now, it’s Joe Garrison and he worked for SHIELD prior to taking on the title.
He’s a full blown syndrome at this point.
Yup he doesn’t have to win, as long as one of his lackeys do.
At this point any Republican that has a shot would be a disaster. Just look at Project 2025. It doesn’t need to be Trump to completely regress to a dictatorship.
Yup, that’s basically what I meant. Virtually the entire party is complicit in this.
Many of whom seem straight up worse. Trump is awful, but at least he’s mostly incompetent at even achieving his own goals. The idea of having someone like Trump but competent is utterly horrifying. DeSantis, in particular.
Donald Trump sucks, but this title is some clickbait bullshit written by a buzzfeed-level journalist.
BuzzFeed news is better than this. They break good news stories. Writers for the Economist tend to be experts at telling us things we already know, years later.
This “man” (and I use that term loosely) was already elected president and served a 4 year term. Everyone who paid the slightest attention knows what he’s about.
It’s not just him.
In my eyes, the following individuals are dangers to the world and society:
Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Ebrahim Raisi, Ron DeSantis, Mitch McConnell, John Thune, Susan Collins, Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Greg Abbott, Benjamin Netanyahu, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Mike Johnson
And everybody else I hadn’t named but behave similarly to or exactly like these piles of collective shits. What a fucking time to be alive, said no one unironically. Damn I have to keep almost coming back to this comment to edit because of a name of some other asshole I just remembered to tack onto this list, it’s horrible.
Where is Rupert Murdoch? He should be very high up there.
Also Graham, DeSantis, Hawley, Tuberville, Barr, Comey-Barret, Kavanaugh, and basically anyone involved with the national-level GOP leadership. They’re all psychopaths.
add Peter Thiel and Konstantin Malofeev
My eyes mixed up Susan Collins and Tom Cotton, so I said outloud “What did Tom Collins do?”
We live in what will be known as a historically interesting time down the line, if we make it down said line.
We do have at least a hypothetical check on people like Trump, it’s supposed to be the other party. Sadly the DNC is corrupt and pathetic.
In 2016, Hillary and DNC signed an agreement so DNC would get a huge chunk of her campaign money, so they cheated and helped Hillary win the primary system. The exact same thing is happening again and the Biden campaign just signed a similar agreement a few months ago.
The people to blame here when Trump wins again will be DNC idiots again.
Certainly this country could find anyone with a pulse that isn’t 80 years and either senile or crazy.
Oh look, it’s both-sides-guy!
Every candidate has that agreement. I understand you’re new to politics then?
It’s the Republican Party in general. Specifically because they’ve largely suborned themselves to Trump’s insanity, because they think they can control him and cement themselves into power. If you remember last time, that didn’t work at all.
Ask McCarthy how things work out when you welcome the crazies into the party and assume you can keep them in line.
And yes, I’m fully aware that McCarthy was one of “the crazies” back when the tea party was considered the extreme part of the GOP.
Richard Pryor had a classic bit about a wino looking down on a junkie. It’s actually classic addict behavior for one user to find reasons they are better than their peers.
I think it worked a lot. look at the judges they were able to appoint
I was more talking about the “controlling him” angle, because he was absolutely unmoored from reality on day 1 and never got any better.
This isn’t news. It’s an opinion piece. Could we have opinion pieces in a different community to news articles?
Eh. Rise of fascism is a pretty big deal. Not really an opinion thing either that is factually what he is. The republican party released a document outlining how they plan to implement fascism in the US government.
The republican party released a document outlining how they plan to implement fascism in the US government.
Even though I know what your talking about, I really think if your going to make bold statements like that, you should at least link to the document. I am sure a certain percentage of people rolled their eyes at that comment.
Probably referring to https://www.project2025.org/
Wow nothing here makes sense, and it seems like it was written by a child. I’m not even an English native
Yes. Rise of fascism is a massive deal. Yes, arguably factual too that he is the current head of the fascist movement in the US.
The Republican Party releasing a document outlining how they implement fascism in the US government is news.
But the article is still not news - new information - per se. It’s an opinionated presentation of the news. I don’t disagree with the opinion, I’d just like to see a separation of communities for news and for current event discussion with a focus on articles like this, less so news articles.
So what I don’t get is, does the US not have any mechsnism in place that would prevent this? Like could a party named “We will turn this country to literal fascis and we will kill several minority groups” just…run?
The problem with how to deal with Trump is that up until his “presidency” his predecessors had some level of respect for the office and its duties. There were lines you didn’t cross, lines that no one thought needed definition or outlined consequences because anyone that would achieve the office of president, elected by the people, could never treat the position so heinously and with such disregard and irreverence for everything and anything the office stands for. We’ve never had someone in charge with zero regard (and frankly probably very little understanding of it) for our system of government, the constitution, and how/why it was all created in the way it was. Enter Trump and we realize we don’t have the guidelines and practices in place to handle it, because no one had ever fathomed someone like him would be running the country. I’ve said since he ran the first time he’s the biggest threat to our democracy we’ve ever seen, at least that I’ve seen in my lifetime. He’s a cult leader (but that’s outside the scope of your question) and from outside the cult his influence is mind boggling. Also we’re never given 2 good candidates to choose from, it’s always whoever sucks less. And understandably people have serious concerns about voting for Biden for another 4 years.
as someone watching from afar, can you elaborate on the missing guidelines?
seemed to me like there were plenty of tthose that just got tossed aside and ignored/not enforced
You’re right, he gets away with absolutely everything and has seemed to be above the law, I’m hoping he’ll finally see justice through any of the current lawsuits he faces. I guess better wording is that there are guidelines and practices in place for regular people for the various crimes he’s arguably committed, the question has been what to do when a president is the one guilty. That’s a new question for us and many argue it’s not as straightforward as “charge him and throw him in jail”. People think prosecuting a president sets a dangerous precedent politicizing the judicial system, which by definition should be impartial.
Outside of any legal questions we’ve just never had someone with absolutely zero decorum. It’s uncharted territory.
I personally feel incredibly helpless and am so sad and scared watching everything unfolding around us.
I’m not sure if that answers much but it’s all I’ve got at 4 am!
Its because we did have guidelines in place. They have just been slowly erroded since Reagan. Citizens United was one of the last straws. Now all thats left is blatant power struggles and dark corporate money. We’re in the End Game now.
I don’t think we have preventive measures in place so, yeah.
The ones that would exist are undermined. With Trump having appointed many of the judges including the Supreme Court, the different branches that could keep the president in check have lost their teeth. The different states are too independent and different that they could organize against the federal government… It’s rather the federal government keeping some of the states in check. Once that one is gone, you’ll only have some states that are a safe haven.
The peoblem is that in the US the “devision of power”, which is a key factor for a functioning democracy, is not realy functioning. The fact that a president can just apoint his own judges is realy scary. The whole system just needs a big redo.
The fact that a president can just apoint his own judges is realy scary.
But he can’t… they need to be confirmed by the senate… they are supposed to be a check against him. The fact Congress is playing for him, is arguably the scariest part. He either has a bunch of rubes that he can play like a marionette (4d chess) or there is a bubbling fascist element that has absorbed at least a third of the Republican party.
Yes the US didn’t realy get the system of “devision of power”, which is one of the key factors of a functioning democracy. The whole system just needs a big reboot.
electoral college has partial mechanism for this, they in theory would have power to not elect the President.
We do. It’s called the constitution and whatever liberties we’ve installed.
The problem is the toothless actions that have been taken, to enforce these things. Too much bargaining, bypassing and bribing.
But if we give them a strongly worded letter or a warning or a caution - that’ll get things done! That’ll be like telling that child or pet not to do something even though you know they’ll do it anyways and once they do it, you go “aw schucks!” before fixing the issue and cycling back again.
Do we have mechanisms? Yeah. Assuming they get enforced.
Could a party so-named run? Also yes. That’s part of those mechanisms. Isn’t America great?
Mechanisms without enforcements? Do you mean suggestions?
* America poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024
Man we’ve taken that trophy home every year for decades.
Maintaining an empire is hard work. You gotta pick a random little country to kick the shit out of once in a while or else the other little countries start getting ideas. /s
Decisively not the 40s tho 👍
We’ve done that for 70 or 80 years. Like the saying goes, “do what you love, and you’ll eventually become a global hegemon, weilding your influence like a club and keeping your boot on the neck of the majority of the planet, both economically and militarily.”
Mom always said that.
damn, your mom was quite prophetic
Global warming and its not close. Especially if the trend over the last 6 months holds.
The US government is a major factor in determining what gets done about global warming. If the USA gets locked into antidemocratic fascism and climate change denial it will exacerbate global warming everywhere. That’s what the Republicans promise.
The fact that Trump presents such a threat to the world after four disasterous years as President, after attempting to tamper with the electoral college votes, voting machines, after publicly professing his admiration for criminals and despots, because of an elections and politicians that can be overtly bought because the Supreme Court, which itself has been corrupted by bribes and influence allows it to be, may just well bring down the Republic. We are at the point where wrapping oneself in the flag and spewing fascist screeds is considered patriotic, whereas preserving the Enlightenment principles on which the Republic was founded is considered dangerous and subversive. Even if Trump died today, another strongman, probably less stupid than Trump, would take his place, and likely succeed in destroying the Republic. The founders of this country could never have imagined the effects of hate-filled mass media on a population when their main means of information dissemination required imprinting and transporting paper.
He’s not a dangerous man. He’s an old fat idiot. The dager is the braindead americans who support him.
He’s an old fat idiot.
Hitler was a buffoon too, but still very dangerous. Trump will go for dictatorship and promises vengeance against his perceived enemies. An idiot with unchecked power is dangerous.
He’s an old fat idiot.
Yes, but he’s an idiot with a large group of cultlike followers. That’s what makes him dangerous.
And the people in his administration that carry out his orders. But that’s the same all over the world and rarely are bad leaders ignored or overthrown.
Not just Trump, look at the rise of right-wing extremism happening the world over, it’s not a coincidence
indian here, don’t forget modi.
I want to believe that his election loss and absolute shitshow he turned it into with the insurrection and all has sealed his fate and he will never actually win half of America again. He’s a joke. A criminal. He fooled people once but some won’t get fooled again. SOME. All it takes is a small percentage of voters to just stay home and he’ll lose. He can’t win. He’s a loser. He can’t win.
Then I look over at fucking Biden and it’s like… shit.
My brother in Christ, lots of people love him. Lots are morons.
Most important election ever and it’s a rapist piece of shit vs a roomba.
I know a lot of people love him. 30% of the country are his forever and that’s that. But those people aren’t enough to win on their own. He won because Republicans lined up to block Hilary.
In fact, Hilary is the best example of what I think will go wrong for Trump. Hilary was a very strong candidate. But maybe 5% of Democrats just didn’t care to turn out for her: a mix of not liking her, being too progressive for her, maybe being sexist, and just presuming she would win.
That little bit of slack did her in.
Will Trump experience that “little bit of slack” in 2024 compared to 2016? I think he will. In 2016 he was a wild phenomenon, an outsider, a rock that lots of otherwise reasonable people decided it was time to throw at the system.
He doesn’t have all that mystique this time. He’s not a disruptive new challenger from out of left field. He’s last year’s loser and a confirmed criminal. He will turn out his 30% base just fine. But is he going to get as many black and latino votes again? Are “fiscal conservatives” going to trust him again? Have 5% of Republican voters been turned off by all the Trumpism? Because our electrons are razor-close. That tiny bit of difference in turnout is everything.
Brother, Hillary was a fucking failure.
Trump will have no slack. Those of us who don’t care are against him now. Carrot over Trump.
deleted by creator
Yeah Trump too though.
Nah, it’s climate change, but sure Trump’s not good either.
That’s the rub - drumft part deux will seal the deal on climate.
Last chance. Act now to stop this fucker.
He is backed (and controlled) by pootin.
Pootin is using social media to target impressionable idiots.
Said idiots raise the din of idiocy and drown out reason. Etc. Etc.
Absolutely nothing will happen to protect Americans from climate catastrophe if Trump is reelected. And if America doesn’t act the rest of the world simply has no hope.
The press just can’t stop talking about Trump. I feel like they wouldn’t be so popular if they didn’t receive so much press coverage.
But it brings clicks!
Has anybody read the list of indictments just on the federal documents case? It is not going to end well for him, most likely:
31 counts of retaining and failing to deliver national defense documents under the Espionage Act. Each of these charges is for possession of a separate, specific document. Ten of these documents were handed over to the government in June 2022, and the other 21 were recovered in the August 2022 search.[30]
According to the indictment, the 31 documents describe:
- U.S. nuclear weapons;
- foreign military attacks, plans, capabilities, and effects on U.S. interests;
- foreign nuclear capabilities;
- foreign support for terrorist activity;
- communications with foreign leaders;
- U.S. military activities;
- White House daily foreign intelligence briefings;
- potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack;
- and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.[31]
He is a traitor through and through, and this is going to make his life painful next year.
And yet… He’s probably going to remain free, untouched, highly supported, and be on the ballot as a real contender for reelection. Something’s not quite right with that picture.
