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Sorry, 4 hours sleep the last 2 nights has left me with brain fog. I think it's more alignment rather than appeasement on Trump's side. Wouldn't be the first time that 2 villains have agreed how to divide the cake up amongst themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bostonhibby
[emoji106]Quote:
Originally Posted by Hibrandenburg
We are as one!
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With love from Trump's White House.
https://e3.365dm.com/25/02/900x1200/...20250214214808
Lavrov-Rubio pact.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hibrandenburg
A blatant copy of Theresa May’s home office campaign under Cameron.Quote:
Originally Posted by grunt
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Somebody needs to take out the sheriff and his deputy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smartie
It's amazing how easy it is to radicalise some people.
Trying to argue against Trump is met with out and out fascist rhetoric now along with a hefty dose of cult of personality around Musk, Trump, Farage, Lowe etc. it's quite weird seeing people with social media profiles emblazoned with 'lest we forget' clearly having forgot, or never having had much of a clue to begin with.
I'm not talking about people who are disaffected and disenfranchised and are lashing out with their vote. I don't like or condone that but I almost get it; the snake oil salesman are preying on them. I'm taking about the scary minority who are really into it now and are parroting extremist ideology quite openly. I posted about it on the pet peeves thread the other day but there is a real rise in the casual use of terms that were largely agreed to be sexist, ableist, racist etc for years. That isn't being 'anti woke', it's just being a ****ing arse.
Just to lighten the mood...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6NqscIsidQ
...and part 2 (warning, contains the F word).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmuR2XFxkdU
Above the law.
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsi...s355w2yq4@jpeg
Brilliant 😂Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith_M
Trump officials fired nuclear staff not realizing they oversee the country’s weapons stockpile, sources say
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/14/c...ump/index.html
Talking to them reminds me of this cartoon from Private Eye.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pretty Boy
Watching the USA v Canada 4Nations ice hockey. 3 fights before 10 seconds are up......
I’m going to watch in the morning. Can’t wait.Quote:
Originally Posted by s.a.m
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I really don’t see any way back from where we are now, which is scary enough. But even more than that, it’s easy to see it getting quite a bit worse. You can’t un-poison a well, for want of a better expression.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pretty Boy
The likes of Trump, Musk and Farage are not charismatic in any of the positive ways that are usually aligned with that word. And yet they have cultivated a massively devoted following.
What unifies people around them is their blatant racism and bigotry, and saying what is supposed to be unsayable for people in their position. They give license to huge amounts of people to be their worst selves, and boy are they taking advantage of it.
Their politics is incredibly nasty, and their supporters take great pleasure in the suffering of others. Seeing such a complete lack of empathy from people in power, whom the media show hundreds of times a day, is going to - and already has - filter through society. If they are utterly shameless then many in society will be too.
Political correctness had led to words and phrases gradually dying out over time, and they have managed to undo that much quicker than progress was ever made in a positive direction.
And the trouble is, when people are completely shameless, and genuinely believe that others are lesser than them, how do you coerce them into changing their ways? Especially when world leaders and social media are enabling and incentivising horrible and dehumanising behaviour and language.
All this is before we get onto young males being silently radicalised by the likes of Andrew Tate. I could write so much more but I’m holding my sleeping daughter in my hands right now, and I need to get my mind off this for the sake of my own sanity.
https://x.com/Improving_Scot/status/...Improving_Scot
Even more apt nowadays
Great post.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevie Reid
Spot on.Quote:
Originally Posted by cabbageandribs1875
:top marksQuote:
Originally Posted by Stevie Reid
Defo going to get worse. I don't think Rosa Parks and Emily Davison have even been expunged from school textbooks yet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevie Reid
I agree with lots of what you say but I don't think it needs to be as bleak as you say it is, a vast number of those who will vote reform aren't doing it because they intrinsically agree with the likes of Farage etc, they just see their life isn't going to get any better under Labour or the Tories, because of that they latch on to something that they think is different as they are done with more of the sameQuote:
Originally Posted by Stevie Reid
Unfortunately as there isn't exactly anyone on the left offering them any real difference just now, I'd love someone like Mick Lynch to be an alternative but it's not happening
I think that's the reason you got crossover between Bernie and Trump fans, diametrically opposed on almost everything but saying they are offering something completely different
I really wish the left would get their **** sorted out and offer real change
I think it's going to get worse for a while yet, the trajectory we're currently on is not good.Quote:
Originally Posted by lapsedhibee
But we've had various appalling nadirs before, all of which we've bounced back from in some way or another.
The idea of what point we need to reach before we scare ourselves and bounce back terrifies me, but it will inevitably happen one day.
Trump is making more enemies than friends, including at home. The Russian economy and military are on their knees. I'd also say that there's probably strength in having "the immigration conversation" more publicly rather than a growing, festering resentment being allowed to grow.
It was hard to imagine what might happen next post 9/11, those were scary times. I can't imagine living through the Cuban missile crisis was much fun. The Middle East has been an unresolved powder keg since at least WW2.
These aren 't exactly great times to be living through but it's not the first time its got a bit hairy and it won't be the last either.
Great post spot onQuote:
Originally Posted by Stevie Reid
I also agree with a lot of what you have said - people not believing that government is working for them has played a huge part in getting to where we are now, and the likes of Trump, Musk and Farage have successfully tapped into that (all whilst being so transparently corrupt, and working solely to the benefit of the super wealthy).Quote:
Originally Posted by Mon Dieu4
I also think there is something in the idea that 2016 was Bernie Sanders' time, had he been the Democratic nominee.
But your first paragraph really just shows why things will get worse. I've read many commentators say over the last decade that some people "held their noses" and only voted for Trump for economic reasons. And you may well be right that some people will vote for Reform despite the fact that they don't like Farage. People in both cases may well believe that by doing so they somehow are not endorsing that individual's worldview, but they are very wrong.
Just because a person votes for someone on one particular issue - or just for the sake of change - it doesn't mean that the candidate/party doesn't then have a mandate to enact everything that they ran on - or put in a manifesto - that the person in question doesn't agree with. They are fully endorsing that candidate, their party, and the way they go about their business - whether they mean to or not (and FWIW, I don't believe that they don't mean to).
When that candidate is Donald Trump or Nigel Farage, then things absolutely will get even more bleak - as those who have voted for them have validated their politics. Every bit of it. So the nastiness and complete lack of empathy then continues, and seeps further into society as a whole.
I could write dozens more paragraphs about the rest, and the Left offering no alternative - but I simply don''t have the time. Suffice to say that things are so polarised now - and so skewed against the Left in terms of social media - that I don't know what alternative can be offered.
The success of the Right has always been to get people to vote against their own interests,. It was well publicised in the US election that Kamala Harris' major policy initiatives polled miles better than Donald Trump's, when there was no candidate attached to them. I don't know how you counter that, really.
You could obviously say get a better candidate, but I just don't see that making a difference. The Left is now seen by so many as what the Right have successfully defined them as over the last decade or so - with very little of it based in truth. The Right have won the culture war that they created, and fought on their own terms. They flooded the zone with ****, as Steve Bannon said, and it's worked.
I've even see the likes of Jonathan Pie (whose analysis I used to find quite shrewd) say that the Left have been far too focused on the likes of DEI for years. Don't know where that has come from really. We've just finished 14 years of a Tory government over here, and in the States Kamala Harris was campaigning with Liz Cheney, talking about being a gun owner, and had to focus so much of her chat on the border.
If the Left doesn't engage with the Right's argument, they lose. If they argue on the Right's terms, they lose. The lessons of the last decade or so in politics has largely been that mud sticks, propaganda works, and the utterly shameless prevail. I wish I could see a way back.
Anyway, apologies this has largely been quite an unfocused post. The state of the world just makes my head spin.
I agree with much of this, and your previous post. :aok:Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevie Reid
It's striking to me, as you say, that on the issues that people care about, they ought to be voting Democrat. As they should on the economy, because the real-life pattern on that favours the Democrats too. Both the mainstream and far right have managed to convince themselves and much of the population that up is down, and that Democrat is basically a swear word. A significant % of Republican voters believe conspiracy theories that should embarrass them and their descendents into the next century.
It will get better (:pray:), but it's hard to see how it happens without some really damaging series of events so that people find common cause. The people in charge are likely to bring that about sooner rather than later. So there's that. :rolleyes:
On a personal level, I joined sports club when we moved here to DC. Almost everyone there whose job I know is funded by the federal government. Scientists and IT people with the health agencies, State Department language workers, NASA scientist, teachers who work on programmes funding disadvantaged youth, Postal Service admin, university and private sector workers with government contracts. Military veterans in receipt of healthcare and benefits from the VA. We had a team meeting a fortnight ago, and literally everyone is directly affected.
And it's not just a DC problem. There are states where the main employers are public sector, or dependent on public funds (many of them Republican) or likely to be hammered by trade war repercussions.
And that's before you get to the geo-political ramifications.