American Politics from 2019 on

[Tero]

Guardian

It is deeply critical of President Nicolás Maduro (although in keeping with the committee’s apolitical stance, it doesn’t name him):

Venezuela has evolved from a relatively democratic and prosperous country to a brutal, authoritarian state that is now suffering a humanitarian and economic crisis. Most Venezuelans live in deep poverty, even as the few at the top enrich themselves. The violent machinery of the state is directed against the country’s own citizens. Nearly 8 million people have left the country. The opposition has been systematically suppressed by means of election rigging, legal prosecution and imprisonment.

Now, an American politician in 2028 has a chance to get a Nobel:

USA has evolved from a relatively democratic and prosperous country to a brutal, authoritarian state that is now suffering a humanitarian and economic crisis. Most Americans live in deep poverty, even as the few at the top enrich themselves. The violent machinery of the state is directed against the country’s own citizens. Nearly 8 million people have left the country. The opposition has been systematically suppressed by means of election rigging, legal prosecution and imprisonment.

You might have to be the democracy fighter from Mexico or Canada, though.

[Woodbutcher]

In civilised countries, all aspects of voting are controlled by independent electoral commissions of some sort. Bye bye, US democracy...

I think the UN should send observers to keep the elections in US neutral.

[Tero]

Naked bike ride ends up at ICE facility in Portland
https://www.threads.com/@portlandfuneve ... kpm6yYrBYg

[Tero]

when low information voters select a president.

"Many people who consider themselves non-political or independent, or moderate Republican, or who even voted for Trump last November, can’t avoid seeing what’s now come so clearly into the open.
"And they’re finding it terrifying."
"All across America, millions of people who have avoided politics, or identified as independents or moderate Republicans or even Trump voters, are shaken by what they’re seeing and hearing.
"It’s no longer Democrat versus Republican or left versus right.

"It’s now democracy versus dictatorship. Right versus wrong."
"Something dramatic has happened over the last two weeks — as America sees more vividly than ever who Trump is, where he and his trio of lapdogs (Miller, Vought, and Vance) want to take the country, and how we’re all potential targets.

"The Big Reveal is impossible not to see. Trump and his lapdogs are doing all of this completely in the open. They have no shame.

"Most Americans abhor what they see, because what they see is abhorrent.

Robert Reich

[L'Emmerdeur]

Footage of one of the horrific attacks on the ICE office in Portland, Oregon. Smuggled out at great danger past the antifa horde and through the burning city.

[Sean Hayden]

when low information voters select a president.

"Many people who consider themselves non-political or independent, or moderate Republican, or who even voted for Trump last November, can’t avoid seeing what’s now come so clearly into the open.
"And they’re finding it terrifying."
"All across America, millions of people who have avoided politics, or identified as independents or moderate Republicans or even Trump voters, are shaken by what they’re seeing and hearing.
"It’s no longer Democrat versus Republican or left versus right.

"It’s now democracy versus dictatorship. Right versus wrong."
"Something dramatic has happened over the last two weeks — as America sees more vividly than ever who Trump is, where he and his trio of lapdogs (Miller, Vought, and Vance) want to take the country, and how we’re all potential targets.

"The Big Reveal is impossible not to see. Trump and his lapdogs are doing all of this completely in the open. They have no shame.

"Most Americans abhor what they see, because what they see is abhorrent.

Robert Reich

He's always wrong, and you can bet no such awakening for Trump voters has happened, or is about to happen.

[JimC]

It did strike me as wishful thinking...

[Tero]

He did not specify MAGA voters. other than "even Trump voters." The true MAGA were at most 40 million MAGA. 30 million had some other problem. Hillary's laughter, trans persons in your bathrooms. Whatever conspiracy they wanted.

[Tero]

Who Are These People?
I grew up in the Midwest, my high school was outside a major city. It was 60s and 70s suburbia. I had an idea of what America was and a sense of Americans.

But then Trump happened, and Fox News before that. Who are these people? They are not happy with anything. Trump most of all.
More:
https://esapolitics.blogspot.com/2025/1 ... eople.html

[Sean Hayden]

It seems some people are blessed/cursed to go their whole lives without considering how they might be the problem. It'll never occur to them to wonder how they were born, and without much effort, came to know just about everything. Oh, I don't think I know everything, they'll say. But clearly, given the scope of their opinions and how surely they hold them they know a lot more than can be explained by any effort on their part. Some things everyone ought to know, it's just common sense, they'll say...

[pErvinalia]

What shocks me is how many of these people revel in being shitty to other people. Why would you want to live your life like that?

[L'Emmerdeur]

You can find bullies anywhere. Trump has a classic bully personality and American bullies of a particular stripe have found an avatar in him.

[pErvinalia]

How do people wind up like this?

Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.

They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n—ga” and “n—guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as “epic.” Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”

“Can we fix the showers? Gas chambers don’t fit the Hitler aesthetic,” Joe Maligno, who previously identified himself as the general counsel for the New York State Young Republicans, wrote back.

“I’m ready to watch people burn now,” Annie Kaykaty, New York’s national committee member, said.

The exchange is part of a trove of Telegram chats — obtained by POLITICO and spanning more than seven months of messages among Young Republican leaders in New York, Kansas, Arizona and Vermont. The chat offers an unfiltered look at how a new generation of GOP activists talk when they think no one is listening.

The 2,900 pages of chats, shared among a dozen millennial and Gen Z Republicans between early January and mid-August, chronicle their campaign to seize control of the national Young Republican organization on a hardline pro-Donald Trump platform. Many of the chat members already work inside government or party politics, and one serves as a state senator.

Together, the messages reveal a culture where racist, antisemitic and violent rhetoric circulate freely…

From Facebook

[Tero]

It seems some people are blessed/cursed to go their whole lives without considering how they might be the problem. It'll never occur to them to wonder how they were born, and without much effort, came to know just about everything. Oh, I don't think I know everything, they'll say. But clearly, given the scope of their opinions and how surely they hold them they know a lot more than can be explained by any effort on their part. Some things everyone ought to know, it's just common sense, they'll say...

We have about 30-40 million voters at the top of the left peak.

i know everything.jpg (13.08 KiB) Viewed 2484 times

[Brian Peacock]

Footage of one of the horrific attacks on the ICE office in Portland, Oregon. Smuggled out at great danger past the antifa horde and through the burning city.

Round up the sealife and deep fry it!!