• katy ✨
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    144 months ago

    i never thought he’d do the thing he said he’d do all throughout the campaign while vice president harris warned you about it.

    • @paultimate14@lemmy.world
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      44 months ago

      To be fair he made a LOT of campaign promises in 2016 that he (thankfully) did not fulfill.

      He was going to repeal the ACA and never did. The Wall he promised between the US and Mexico may have cost several billions of dollars but only added a few sections of fence. A lot of what DOGE is doing now was what 47 promised to do in his first term ,“draining the swamp”.

      Of course, there was still enough terrible shit in the first term that voting for him again was inexcusable, so I’m not trying to excuse thosw who did. Just trying to keep in mind how crazy and illegal most of what he is doing now is. I’m not sure why he was so relatively reserved in his first term.

      • @zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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        24 months ago

        He was going to repeal the ACA and never did.

        He tried, though. He would’ve if he could.

        I’m not sure why he was so relatively reserved in his first term.

        He didn’t know how the system worked well enough to break it. Also, a lot more people were trying to stop him.

  • @corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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    14 months ago

    I worry this won’t stick: when it comes time to roll over and accept a third-term prez breaking yet another amendment, the maga crew will fall in line. I strongly fear he’ll have invaded one or even two countries by then, so a monarchy will be an easy sell.

  • @jontree255@lemmy.world
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    684 months ago

    I’ll believe they’ll vote Dem when I see it. Trump was a fuck up before he was president and a terrible businessman. He was a fuck up when he was president and got hundreds of thousands of people killed unnecessarily because of his narcissism. He very plainly showed who he was in his words and actions. People still voted for him THREE TIMES.

    They’ll fucking check the box for him or any other R next time because god forbid they take responsibility or self reflect at all for electing that shit stain.

    • Log in | Sign up
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      154 months ago

      Voting conservative is a failure of empathy. Once it affects them themselves, then they see the downsides.

      • @Test_Tickles@lemmy.world
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        84 months ago

        I used to believe the same thing, but I watched as each and every Republican president would tank the economy, give away cash to the rich by the truck load, and double the countries debt with some fucking boondoggle. And every time, they would somehow blame it on the Dem president before or after them.
        It may have been about ideology 30 years ago, but not anymore. It’s even moved way past team sports. It really is a cult. There’s just no other way to describe it… It is a cult of hate.

  • @PurpleSkull@lemm.ee
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    284 months ago

    Lmao none of them will remember that 3 years from now when Trump or his successor run on a platform of “DEMOCRATS HAVE LOOSED THE SEWER MUTANTS ON US, WE NEVER HAD SEWER MUTANTS BEFORE SOROS FINANCED THEM. I BOLTED DOWN ALL THE MANHOLES IN NEW YORK. WHAT HAS OBAMA EVER DONE AGAINST SEWER MUTANTS?”

  • @Crikeste@lemm.ee
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    54 months ago

    We’ll see in 2028. Until then, they voted for this. They got exactly what was advertised. I’m happy they’re fucked, along with all the centrists and moderates. I hope you all lose every. Single. Penny.

  • CrocodilloBombardino
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    4 months ago

    The difference is that this affects his voters’ (the ones with any money) place in the hierarchy. If their retirement accounts zero out, they’re no different from the poor people they consider themselves above and made so many choices to separate themselves from. If they introspect a little bit, they might even say “then what have I been working so hard all this time for?”

    The dems become the rational alternative. These Trump voters can hold their nose and vote for a little less brutality on the trans folks and a little more DEI lip service as long as they stabilize the market.

    Meanwhile ofc the dems are likely to keep 80% of the immigrant deportation policies, tax cuts for the rich, etc.

    • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      24 months ago

      Meanwhile ofc the dems are likely to keep 80% of the immigrant deportation policies, tax cuts for the rich, etc.

      Listen, 80% of fascism is still better than 100% of fascism so we have to vote for Congressman Lil’ Hitler 2. You leftists can’t just get everything you want. Sometimes you have to triangulate between the guy with the Sea-Do business owner with six sexual harassment complaints, the seventh generation plantation heiress trying to dodge any kind of inheritance taxes, and the Groyper with the confederate flag face tattoo. You don’t have room to flirt with Starbucks unionized workers or migrant farm labor or college professionals with enormous student debts or black church parishes, because they were automatically going to vote for you anyway.

      The dems become the rational alternative.

      What could possibly be more rational than this?

      Vote for Dick Cheney’s Daughter’s Best Friend or you aren’t serious about beating the Republican Party.

  • Yerbouti
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    4 months ago

    I’m all in for Trump randomly deporting immigrant citizens, sending a mob at the capitol, breaking the lives of millions of the minorities and the poorest, being best friend with a pedophile, insulting our allies and threatening annexion of other coutries, but crashing The Market??? That’s not ok. He’s suppose to help ME make money by exploiting others, if I have to lose money it’s not fair!! ------- What a stupid broken evil country.

    • Comtief
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      64 months ago

      to be fair i think this is pretty par for the course for people in general. not caring until things affect you directly.

    • @D_C@lemm.ee
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      494 months ago

      “Numerous impeachments? That’s fine.
      Convicted of numerous felonies? No that’s fine, lol.
      Adjudicated rapist? That’s fine as well, she was probably asking for it, women amirite!!.
      Six bankruptcies and multiple failed businesses, you say? Yeah that’s also fine because it was the other people and not him.
      Proven record of scams, even on charities? No, that’s just good business.”

      “Wait, he’s messing with my money now? This is intolerable, this is disgusting. How unfair, oh woe is me!!!”

    • Aren’t Americans responsible for their own retirement fund via various investment portfolios? Seeing your retirement money or college fund for your kids disappearing is bound to ruffle some feathers.

      • Yes, to an extent, though most don’t actually take that responsibility seriously.

        We have Social Security, which will provide some amount of retirement based on how much you’ve put in, and it gives more weight to the first contributions (i.e. poorer people) than last contributions (i.e. wealthier people). Basically, it works like this (link w/ more details if you care:

        1. 90% of the first 1.2k/month taxable earnings
        2. 32% of the next ~$6k/month taxable earnings
        3. 15% of everything up to the cap

        That’s not the amount of the benefit, but the amount of income considered for your benefit, and only for your top 35 years of earnings. This gets run through a calculation that determines your Social Security benefits. People who put in more get more, but people who put in less get a higher ratio of the amount they put in. It gets further complicated by marital status and whatnot.

        The maximum Social Security benefit for someone starting taking it at 67 is $3,822/month, and the maximum for someone at 70 is $4,873 (data current for 2024). Your average retiree is probably seeing something closer to $2k/month though.

        In other words, Social Security does exist, but you’ll want some of your own retirement savings as well for a more comfortable retirement.

          • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            4 months ago

            Maybe? This is the data I see so far (here’s a related NBC article if you don’t trust Newsweek). If the Trump admin pisses off old people, they’re going to be screwed in the midterms. It seems the main change will be to service, not benefits (so longer call wait times, slower website updates, etc). SS was given a 2.5% COLA update this year, so AFAICT benefits aren’t being cut at all.

            From the NBC article:

            According to a May report from the Office of the Inspector General, people were already experiencing prolonged wait times working with the SSA. The report noted that in-office appointments could be completely booked up for more than 40 days in the future and that it could take months for promised services to be delivered. The report said 65% of Social Security beneficiaries were unaware that there were online services for the agency.

            That seems to be the main impact, not actual benefits.

            • CrocodilloBombardino
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              34 months ago

              Process counts as much as benefits. Difficulty making payments is a form of sabotage. Even delaying payments counts as a cut because some ppl will die before having received a payment they would have.

              Why else would Musk be messing with SSA? “Efficiency” ? Why not take him at his word? A couple choice quotes from that article:

              • “Most of the federal spending is entitlements,” Musk told the Fox Business Network. “That’s the big one to eliminate.”
              • "Musk said Monday that federal entitlements are “a mechanism by which the Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants by essentially paying them to come here and then turning them into voters.”
              • Difficulty making payments is a form of sabotage

                I didn’t see anything related to making payments, only customer support. So signing up for benefits, changing deposit accounts, etc. Those things can largely be resolved through the SSA’s self-service portal, so there’s a good chance states and charities will step up to fill in the gap.

                But it’s still not clear what exactly the changes are. They claim to be targeting “fraud and waste,” but I haven’t seen a breakdown of the tangible changes other than “some offices were closed.” I generally don’t take Musk at his word, and haven’t for years (or even ever), so I’m looking for some credible journalism to go over it in detail. If it was a serious issue, we’d see a ton of highly credible news agencies making a big deal out of it. Given that we don’t, either the investigation is on-going (this was pretty recent) or it’s not an issue.

                So I guess we’ll have to wait and see what the impact is. So far, it doesn’t seem like there have been any major impacts yet, other than some more wait times for getting an in-person appointment (which isn’t necessary at all to sign up for benefits).

                “Most of the federal spending is entitlements,” Musk told the Fox Business Network. “That’s the big one to eliminate.”

                Right, and that requires legislative action which Trump has repeatedly said he’s not going to consider, because that’s political suicide.

                "Musk said Monday that federal entitlements are “a mechanism by which the Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants by essentially paying them to come here and then turning them into voters.”

                That’s not how any of this works, and Musk knows it. To get SS, you need to have a Social Security number, which you can’t get on many legal visas, not to mention entering illegally. You also need proof of 40 quarters of paying into Social Security, meaning you need to have legally paid taxes for 10 years (non-consecutively). Voting is also constitutionally limited to citizens, not even permanent residents, so there’s absolutely no basis for that either.

                In short, 100% of that statement is wrong. The best explanation for him making it is to justify additional ID checks on the Social Security system, which is honestly probably a good thing due to how much Social Security numbers get abused. So it might end up being a net positive long term, though it’ll cause some issues in the short term as people navigate any changes that get made (esp. poor and tech illiterate people who may not have the resources to navigate it).

                I want to make it extremely clear that I’m not a fan of Trump, Musk, or DOGE, I just happen to like some of the side-effects of broken clocks being right twice/day (these changes should mostly go through Congressional approval, not EO).

                • CrocodilloBombardino
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                  14 months ago

                  The quotes are not there for their accuracy, but to illustrate Musk’s outlook and intentions. He sees all entitlements as a bad thing per se and will break whatever norms and rules he can get away with to get rid of them, citing great replacement lies as a justification to the far right and citing “efficiency” as a sop to the less-far-right. Whether he can get away with it remains to be seen, but my original comment was an off-the-cuff “Musk is trying to destroy social security”, not a detailed argument about what has happened so far. I think, given the experience of so many other government agencies with Musk and DOGE, that this is a fair statement for casual posting.

    • @chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      24 months ago

      Yes…

      But what this shows is that even for those who want an evil system that benefits them, this administration is a disaster. There’s literally nothing good about it, even for greedy, evil capitalists.

    • @Cheems@lemmy.world
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      24 months ago

      This country and a lot of the world has a me first mentality. A lot of people can look past some really fucked up shit if it’s not directly causing them harm.

    • @some_designer_dude@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Yeah, this guy’s not redeemed. The last and worst thing a MAGAt can do is take off their fucking red hat and put on a blue one like nothing they did happened.

      Fuck that. Carve “MAGA” into this douche’s forehead and then he can rejoin sane society.

        • @astutemural@midwest.social
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          154 months ago

          Because the problem isn’t gone. Their opinions haven’t changed, they are just finally seeing personal impact from them. These people are going to fall for the same stupid shit another Trumpalike touts in 2032. They need intensive reeducation, not to be welcomed and treated like nothing happened.

          • CrocodilloBombardino
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            34 months ago

            It often takes a personal crisis to get people to doubt the cult/white supremacist group/multilevel marketing scheme they’ve been a part of for a long time

          • They need intensive reeducation

            That’s not going to happen.

            Maybe this gatekeeping is why Trump won in the first place. The right approach, IMO, is to meet people where they are and convince them to join your side based on policies they support.

            Harris should have been railing against tariffs, throwing Biden under the bus because he, too, continued and expanded tariffs. She should have explained the consequences for tariffs and why free trade is good for everyone. Conservatives like the idea of fewer restrictions, so appeal to that.

            But no, she muttered something about “price gouging” with no real plan to fix it. She said she’d largely keep doing what Biden did, when people obviously wanted change. She didn’t even try to meet those concerns, her campaign was basically, “I’m not Trump,” which almost worked until she made it clear that she’s basically just Biden 2.0, but from a different demographic.

            Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Court people based on common ground instead of purity tests.

            • @Soulg@ani.social
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              4 months ago

              She had a plan to fix the price gouging though. Fucking hell, I agree with the rest of your post but seeing people continue to lie about her campaign is so frustrating

              • Sort of? But “price gouging” isn’t the issue at all, the issue is inflation and lack of supply. If you limit how a company can charge for an in-demand product (say, eggs), there’s much less incentive to find more supply (say, imports from another country). It’s nonsensical.

                But I don’t think that’s why she lost. I think she lost because she said in an interview that, given hindsight, she wouldn’t change anything if she were in power instead of Biden. That’s a giant slap in the face to the average voter who saw a ton of problems during his administration and want to see something change to address those problems.

    • @Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world
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      34 months ago

      Yes, but it still doesn’t explain why they vote GOP. Dems have an economic record of faster growth, lower unemployment, better stock market performance etc, and still they vote GOP.

      • Yerbouti
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        4 months ago

        From a non-us perspective, I would tend to call it the Fox Effect. Capitalist brainwashing of the under-educated, who lack the basic capacities of intellectual self-defense. When you control all the media you can make people believe that a black president asking for dijon mustard on a burger is a big deal, while a rich white president being a convicted rapist and best friend with the most notorious pedophile of the past 50 years is anecdotal, or fake, or a witch hunt, or “look, the woke are transitioning your kids”. Americans have been brainwashed to believe they the strongest, toughest, smartest people and that it’s practically in their genetic so they dont need to educate themselves. Hopefuly to good thing of pedo-don being president is that it will lead to the downfall of the US.

      • @meowMix2525@lemm.ee
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        24 months ago

        Dems have an economic record of faster growth, lower unemployment, better stock market performance etc

        You think their media tells them that?

    • JokeDeity
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      214 months ago

      He’s not just friends with a pedo, court docs confirm he himself is a pedo.

      • @lowleekun@ani.social
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        14 months ago

        It is no issue tho. From spending enough time on americanized internet i have come to the conclusion that everyone in the U.S. is more or less secretly a pedophile.

      • Sure, but a mindset change has to start somewhere. A wild thought, but maybe they’ll invest time, if only a little, in the other side and slowly but surely realize how screwed up they used to think?

      • @TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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        74 months ago

        I mean true but also even people who have a shred of empathy don’t always show it until they get a firsthand story. Partially human nature, but yes mostly dog shit moral philosophy giving them an excuse to not care about others.

      • candyman337
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        524 months ago

        so many people literally either have no clue about what his actual policies are, are have been so indoctrinated by our shitty schooling that their view of the world is incredibly warped

      • @iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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        1404 months ago

        That’s the conservative MO, in my experience. Don’t care until it personally affects them. That’s why they’ll beat their chests about the sanctity of marriage, but get divorced. Or talk about protecting life, until their mistress needs an abortion.