He wants to get in, then appoint his sons as leaders after him. His whole family is one giant skid mark.
He’s just a symptom.
The virus being a range of sociopathic beliefs and behaviour justified as “conservatism”.
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.
I blame “Infinite growth”. i.e. Capitalism
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Don’t forget leaded gas!
THANK YOU! I keep fucking saying it’s the damn lead. (And other shit, like microplastics in the water, etc) it makes people unable to think rationally.
Cancer also attempts to grow infinatly. I see a connection
Yup he doesn’t have to win, as long as one of his lackeys do.
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.
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.
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.
Together we can 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.
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.
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.
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 volume of idiocy and drown out reason. Etc. Etc.
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Hyperbole much !
Got a counter-example? Putin? Kim?
The rich and powerful have taken vast amounts of resources and wealth from mostly everyone. They need to keep the people divided to maintain their power. Soon, with AI, they may keep that disparity forever.
we are so fucked…
* America poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024
Man we’ve taken that trophy home every year for decades.
Decisively not the 40s tho 👍
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
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.
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
Trump is a moron and a speed junkie. The Heritage Foundation is the true threat, theocrats with billionaires funding.
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.
He’s not a dangerous man. He’s an old fat idiot. The dager is the braindead americans who support him.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
The thing is, we can’t do anything anymore, whatever happens, i have just kinda accepted that we are fucked and am just trying to enjoy life as best as i can…
I get the sentiment, but why not stand up and fight? Why not make this about saving the planet, because it really is.
Why not stand up and fight?
You know, instead of preaching these infantile ideals in how to really make change. I’m more ready for individuals who actually have a more thought-out plan in how to achieve what we need to do.
And so far, yet, I’ve not seen anyone really do it and I’d be including myself before anyone makes that jab later. It’s just very tiring to see people rush to social media and think that their posts will be heard or read that’ll make some significant impact. When, there’s absolutely no organizational structure in place or any motives in how to go about the things we all keep daydreaming of happening.
Guess it’s too easy to daydream than get off of our asses and make the sacrifices required to make change. Not if we have to miss another minute of being online in a boring dystopia that is what the internet has become to all piss our time away looking at memes and making memes.
I’d be all for an uprising, if only it was as uncomplicated and low risk as video games and movies have demonstrated.
the planet is for human life pretty fucked. When the thermohaline ocean currents like the AMOC collapse we won’t be able to grow food to feed people anymore because there won’t be stable weather. There’s a few decades left before societal collapse. 30 years ago was the time to start turning the ship.
The best time was perhaps 30 years ago. The second best time is now.
if you follow the science now is too late, unless every major world government suddenly does a full 180.
https://www.ecowatch.com/global-climate-action-plans-forecast-paris-agreement.html
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/14/climate/climate-pledges-ndcs-un-report/index.html
https://apnews.com/article/warming-carbon-climate-change-too-late-943b4b34bff5110631c2e02f5cdf7d68
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biad080/7319571
we are fucked, and are barely even tapping the brakes.
Brakes?
a metaphor for taking serious action to prevent climate change
Oh I know, I was saying we aren’t even tapping the brakes lol, the foot is still very much on the accelerator.
I do what i can, i am a student, i walk wherever i can, i try to tell my friends and family about better alternatives, what else do you suppose i do? The amount of people supporting authoritarian leaders is insane, its not 40 or 50%, its closer to 90% how can i stand up to them?, it doesn’t matter what kind of government system you have, rich people can and will suppress any opinion against them, and the government will support it
Not to mention that these people feed these things to their children from a very young age, they still don’t know how to to do basic multiplication accurately but do know which people they want to be leaders and know how to discriminate people based on their beliefs and even their ethnicity. Changing their opinion is like changing a fact for them
History loves to repeat itself, this cycle of authoritarian and democratic regime(s) has been one of them, and i am afraid we are at the former part of the cycle. I am doing whatever i can to prevent this, but in the back of my mind, i know that my words or feelings are unlikely to cause a significant change
Edit: wanted to clarify that the numbers are anecdotal and it might vary for you or from a survey, but you cant deny that they are a massive chunk
I just want to say good on you for doing your part. And I also want to say that I don’t think the majority support extremes, I think it’s just that the extremists are SO much louder and so it’s all we hear. I think the majority are like you and me and just want someone reasonable to lead the country. Just keep voting, I know it feels like it doesn’t do anything but it’s our main way to really speak and it does matter.
Side bar, if you’re a student it most likely means that you’re a lot younger than me and it makes me so sad that this is how you’ve had to see and live the world. No pressure but if you are younger the future is truly in your hands.
The amount of people supporting authoritarian leaders is insane, its not 40 or 50%, its closer to 90%
Who are you meeting? That’s not typical.
Like i said it’s anecdotal…
I’m with ya buddy. There isn’t a single thing I can do, no number of petitions I can sign, that will change a dam thing. No company loses profits to be good for the planet, they only ever do it because they are forced/regulated to. So I vote Green.
I also try to avoid buying shit that just ends up in a landfill, repair/re-use as much as I can.
But it doesn’t matter, we’re fucked anyway. At least I won’t have any guilt. In the meantime I’m going to mountain bike as much as possible before the collapse.
The only guarantee of failure is not to try.
Is that a MALF Face?
