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[–] 134 points 1 year ago (30 children)

It's crazy how close to full on authoritarianism the US has become in only 7 months.

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  • [–] 49 points 1 year ago (23 children)

    Americans were like that during the Bush years. Illegal wars, torture, inept cronyism.

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  • [–] 46 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    I kind of excused some of that due to societal PTSD from 9/11 but in retrospect around half of Americans just fucking suck.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    One could see how bloodthirsty they were as soon as they saw the opportunity to have extrajudicial punishment and the opportunity to kill a lot of brown people.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    societal PTSD from 9/11

    I feel 9/11 was less of a "we were struck by the ravages of war" and more of a "how dare they shoot back" event. If it was like the bombing of London by the Nazis, that makes most people reluctant to go to war instead of making war popular.

    I mean, who looks at 9/11 and says "we want more of this"? Apparently most Americans?

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    It was revenge for making Americans feel vulnerable. Two oceans and the world's strongest military made Americans feel safe from the world (and the effects of U.S. policies toward it). Even national humiliations like losing the Vietnam War were things that happened "out there." Domestic resistance to the invasion of Iraq often took the form of "Why Iraq when we should be going after the people responsible for 9/11 instead?" Resistance to the invasion of Afghanistan was much more muted for this reason. It was only later that everyone was always against both wars.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

    1/4 to 1/3 at most. Remember most eligible voters don't vote.

    EDIT: it's also worth noting that many can't vote. Like voting day not being a public holiday and they cant get off work, mail-in not being available, public transport not being free on voting day, or simply being purged from voting rolls.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Not voting when the stakes are this high is as shitty as voting for Trump. Plus approval statistics don't care if you voted or not.

    If anything, more than half of Americans suck at this point.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    It's also worth noting that many americans are prevented from voting. Cannot get time off work, polling station too far, mail in not available, purged from voter roll.

    It's still crazy to me that voting day is not a public holiday in the US and that all public transport is not free on that day.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Remember most eligible voters don’t vote.

    Voter turnout in the 2024 election was 63.7%. That's still a lot of folks who didn't vote, but it's not "most."

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    But of the total adult population, only a minority votes. 63.7% is only of the registered voters.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    I got the number from this page: https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2024:_Analysis_of_voter_turnout_in_the_2024_general_election

    which lists it as "eligible voters," which is in turn based on data from here: https://election.lab.ufl.edu/2024-general-election-turnout/

    which discusses the methodology:

    The denominator for these VEP turnout rates is constructed by estimating the voting-age population or VAP (everyone age 18 and older residing in the United States). Ineligible populations are subtracted from the VAP consisting of non-citizens and felons (depending on state disenfranchisement laws). Eligible overseas voters are added to the national VEP estimates only as no reliable method exists to apportion these eligible voters to states.

    So no, it's not just registered voters. It's their best estimate of how many people are old enough and not disqualified.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    This is not even close to the same thing as the Bush years.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    The current regime is just the next step in authoritarian fascism from the Trump era. Democrats should have arrested and exposed all the criminals but they prefer neoliberal economics and performative actions over justice.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    No, Bush and Trump are not alike. Bush at least had some principles. Temp has none

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  • [–] 23 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Bush is an international war criminal and a US criminal by lying to congress to start multiple wars.

    The fact that America didn’t have the balls to arrest its previous criminals only allowed the next set of criminals to take it even further.

    America is a land full of subservient serfs that want an authoritarian figure to rule over them. They don’t even care if their master is a child rapist.

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  • [–] 67 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Stay tuned. It's going to get much worse before the American people actually do something about it.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Even then I doubt Americans will do much. We’re not a smart bunch.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    You say that as if even if they were, they could do anything about it.

    There were a ton of smart citizens in Germany in the 1930s.

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  • [–] 164 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Saw this coming when he decided to eliminate bad weather by not reporting it.

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  • [–] 41 points 1 year ago

    Fucking pathetic... that's what those who see strength in that turd are.

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  • [+] 52 points 1 year ago (3 children)
  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    it's not dumb, it's just textbook fascism, this is straight out of Mussolini's playbook

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The voters are dumb as dirt though.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    The fascist supporters aren't a monolith. Yes many are dumb, but too many are aware and actively like the evil. Some are "smart" but are low information and still vote straight R like they used to, some are deeply in the cult (and just need to be silenced as much as possible, because they're too far gone to help), some are openly fascist, etc.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago

    if you don't allow X.com because of content tracking that is not an article but a long list of twitter garbage blocked

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago

    I think it says something interesting that the American criticism of an American dictator put in place by corporatism is talking about that time America helped one its corporations conquer South American countries.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    By firing him, trump ironically directly decreased the number of employment

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    ... but they're gonna need to get 2 jobs to make up the money for whatever they were doing for "the government", so net positive jobs!!! <>

    /s

    Go see The Naked Gun. It'll at least have you laughing at something meant to be funny!

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I'm confused -- if he knew Trump was going to be so mad, why didn't he just release better numbers? That's how it used to work in the USSR and plenty of people were able to keep their government jobs.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago

    The bellends own words "... replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes". There is tragedy that we need social media to call out his misleading the public.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago

    It’s probably tied up with the Epstein files and who is in them. A diversion.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    How long before this and similar sites for rational and civilised discours are "banned" in the US.?

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Oddly, bananas seem to be one of the few items relatively untouched by inflation.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    They've gone up quite a bit in my corner of the US. They used to be 30 cents a pound and now they're 53 cents per pound for the same product at the same store in the last few months.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Hm, you're right, they're 69 Canada cents/lbs and they used to be half that. I only buy two at a time so like I don't notice. They're still affordable in absolute terms, right?

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Let's see what kind of creature he puts in her place to only bring favorable to Trump news.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    Sorry to disappoint but that name is already taken. Lithuania is banana republic.

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