OT: American Politics
- Thread starter MindzEye
- Start date
zeke
Well-known member
zeke
Well-known member
it seems like trump is actually surprised that russia actually doesn't want peace and is taking advantage of his withdrawal of ukraine support to bomb the shit out of them.
never forget that they are not just purveyers of the bullshit but victims of it - they literally convinced themselves that Zelensky was the aggressor here.
never forget that they are not just purveyers of the bullshit but victims of it - they literally convinced themselves that Zelensky was the aggressor here.
zeke
Well-known member
zeke
Well-known member
so many jewish rightwingers don't even realize that the current popular trans-hate can be shifted to another minority very, very quickly.
View: https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/1898038177882857558
View: https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/1898038177882857558
thehabhater
Some call me Tim
'reconsidering his support". He isn't quite there yet.
thehabhater
Some call me Tim
zeke
Well-known member
Pwner
Well-known member
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou
I will get banned again soon, worry not.
Self loathing Jewish fascists like Bari Weiss, Shapiro, et al, along with Uncles and Aunts like Byron Donalds and Candace Owens deserve the boxcars into which they will one day be herded like cattle. Any minority who supports Trump or MAGA is a fool too stupid to live.
hockeylover
Well-known member
I don't really know why, if the NYT is correct and Trump is talking to our officials about our "revisions to our border", that we would've chosen to delay the second round of tariffs because of an announced pause.
axlsalinger
Well-known member
axlsalinger
Well-known member
zeke
Well-known member
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou
I will get banned again soon, worry not.
Nonna and Schumer need to be Luigi'd. They dont understand how anything works in 2025.
manny
Well-known member
So the US would have a concession and take the tariffs off of our products. We delayed the second round by about a week, and in exchange, the US carved out “CUSMA compliant” products from their tariff package indefinitely.
Cal Gal
Well-known member
Andy is a Jewish bookstore owner in Sonoma. I've participated in literary readings at his venue and have been on his weekly emailings list for years. He sometimes appends a personal note to them. Thought I'd share this one.
From Andy
The view from 30,000 feet.
Like most of you, I worry about a lot of things these days. These are “interesting times,” as the Chinese like to say. The good news is that China is an ancient culture, and because of that, they’ve suffered through many such interesting times. Ironically, this is what gives me a modicum of hope.
Still, in the short term, I worry.
Here’s what I worry about: I worry about the end of kindness, or what I would call the “calcification” of America. Yes, Trump is president right now. And yes, elections matter, but it seems like a number of us have decided to just let things rot, to jettison all the civics lessons we grew up on in order to pursue our own narrow, selfish quests. Some pundits call this quid pro quo, or reverting to a basic transactional view of the world. I prefer an earthier term–greed.
Ideas like democracy and fair play, honesty and decency, the boy scout motto, loyalty to the Constitution and the rule of law–all that stuff suddenly sounds so passe, so yesterday. Call me old fashioned, but I remember when that was precisely what our teachers tried to etch into our brains. More than algebra and biology and English, they sought to leave us with the rudiments of character. When we walked out the door with our diplomas they wanted to be certain we were not just rational, but also compassionate.
Our teachers had been through their own “interesting times.” They endured the Great Depression and the Second World War. They’d seen the horrors of Auschwitz and the rubble of Hiroshima. They recognized the value of the framework that binds Americans together–e pluribus unum–out of many, one. I can’t help but think it was worthwhile back then, and I fret about throwing the baby out with the bath water now.
I worry about timidity. About the notion that even if we have questions about the direction of the country, even if we privately agree that Trump is abusing his office, that he’s neutering USAID and the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense and Education and HHS and all the agencies that keep us safe, that instead of speaking up we stay silent. We think we can just hunker down and wait this storm out. We think that if no one hears our opinions we will be spared from selection. We are not targets, after all. Not for now, at least. But this doesn’t take into account our friends and neighbors, who may be. Nor does it encompass say, the farmworker in Central California who would be out there picking our lettuce and grapes and almonds had he not been summarily deported. Or maybe the woman who cleans the motel you stay at or cares for your aunt with Alzheimer’s. Or the janitor at your child’s junior high. You get the point. Our society is an intricate web, a finely tuned machine. In this case, at least, silence is not golden. Silence is complicity. We depend on one another.
Lastly, I worry that there will be violence. There are some three hundred million guns in this country, and history has shown that thoughtless, selfish, scared Americans are never very far from pulling the trigger. I think about Ahmaud Arbery and Trayvon Martin and George Floyd and the countless African Americans who lost their lives because they were Black. Or more specifically, Black while in the wrong place and at the wrong time. I worry that this administration is hellbent on revving up the old fears of working class whites that foreigners and Jews and gays and people of color are somehow out to displace them (trust me, we’re not). I worry that the goal of MAGA is to use the implicit threat of violence to silence the Congress and forestall the return of democratic norms.
The thing is, Donald Trump, much as he’d like to, and no matter how much force he brings to bear, will not live forever. It appears that his mission is simply to run out the clock, and I expect he’ll succeed in that regard. But what that means is, sooner or later Americans will once again enjoy living in a fact-based, democratic, caring environment. It’s inevitable. The question is how much damage gets done to our institutions in the interim and how long it will take to restore them. Until then, you’d be well advised to worry.
–Andy Weinberger
From Andy
The view from 30,000 feet.
Like most of you, I worry about a lot of things these days. These are “interesting times,” as the Chinese like to say. The good news is that China is an ancient culture, and because of that, they’ve suffered through many such interesting times. Ironically, this is what gives me a modicum of hope.
Still, in the short term, I worry.
Here’s what I worry about: I worry about the end of kindness, or what I would call the “calcification” of America. Yes, Trump is president right now. And yes, elections matter, but it seems like a number of us have decided to just let things rot, to jettison all the civics lessons we grew up on in order to pursue our own narrow, selfish quests. Some pundits call this quid pro quo, or reverting to a basic transactional view of the world. I prefer an earthier term–greed.
Ideas like democracy and fair play, honesty and decency, the boy scout motto, loyalty to the Constitution and the rule of law–all that stuff suddenly sounds so passe, so yesterday. Call me old fashioned, but I remember when that was precisely what our teachers tried to etch into our brains. More than algebra and biology and English, they sought to leave us with the rudiments of character. When we walked out the door with our diplomas they wanted to be certain we were not just rational, but also compassionate.
Our teachers had been through their own “interesting times.” They endured the Great Depression and the Second World War. They’d seen the horrors of Auschwitz and the rubble of Hiroshima. They recognized the value of the framework that binds Americans together–e pluribus unum–out of many, one. I can’t help but think it was worthwhile back then, and I fret about throwing the baby out with the bath water now.
I worry about timidity. About the notion that even if we have questions about the direction of the country, even if we privately agree that Trump is abusing his office, that he’s neutering USAID and the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense and Education and HHS and all the agencies that keep us safe, that instead of speaking up we stay silent. We think we can just hunker down and wait this storm out. We think that if no one hears our opinions we will be spared from selection. We are not targets, after all. Not for now, at least. But this doesn’t take into account our friends and neighbors, who may be. Nor does it encompass say, the farmworker in Central California who would be out there picking our lettuce and grapes and almonds had he not been summarily deported. Or maybe the woman who cleans the motel you stay at or cares for your aunt with Alzheimer’s. Or the janitor at your child’s junior high. You get the point. Our society is an intricate web, a finely tuned machine. In this case, at least, silence is not golden. Silence is complicity. We depend on one another.
Lastly, I worry that there will be violence. There are some three hundred million guns in this country, and history has shown that thoughtless, selfish, scared Americans are never very far from pulling the trigger. I think about Ahmaud Arbery and Trayvon Martin and George Floyd and the countless African Americans who lost their lives because they were Black. Or more specifically, Black while in the wrong place and at the wrong time. I worry that this administration is hellbent on revving up the old fears of working class whites that foreigners and Jews and gays and people of color are somehow out to displace them (trust me, we’re not). I worry that the goal of MAGA is to use the implicit threat of violence to silence the Congress and forestall the return of democratic norms.
The thing is, Donald Trump, much as he’d like to, and no matter how much force he brings to bear, will not live forever. It appears that his mission is simply to run out the clock, and I expect he’ll succeed in that regard. But what that means is, sooner or later Americans will once again enjoy living in a fact-based, democratic, caring environment. It’s inevitable. The question is how much damage gets done to our institutions in the interim and how long it will take to restore them. Until then, you’d be well advised to worry.
–Andy Weinberger
hockeylover
Well-known member
If this was just about trade that'd make sense but he's if he's threatening revision of our borders, that's a whole new ballgame.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
The DOW was down 400 points again before the midday rally that has been getting spiked every afternoon for the last few weeks.