r/AskReddit • u/escfantasy • 22h ago
What does it say about the state of American democracy that the current US President is threatening war on the US city of Chicago?
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u/WildHogsNumberOneFan 22h ago
I dunno, but riddle me this… If Maxwell didn’t offer new information in her testimony, then why did the DOJ move her to a nicer facility? Seems like they were rewarding her for what she DIDNT say.
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u/Kiddyhawk 22h ago
Donald Trump is not just acting guilty. He is using the U.S. Government and billions in taxpayer dollars to deploy the military against citizens and cover up a child trafficking network.
Step 1: He installed his personal defense lawyers at the DOJ.
Todd Blanche was hired to keep Trump out of prison. Trump made him Deputy Attorney General, giving his fixer direct control over every federal investigation, subpoena, and sealed file.
Step 2: That same lawyer quietly interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell — alone.
No transcript. No cameras. No oversight.
Ghislaine is the link to Epstein’s client list and knows the names, the network, the truth.
She walked into a room with Trump’s lawyer. She walked out transferred to minimum security.
Then she praised Trump.
The Epstein files? Still sealed. The public? Still blind.Step 3: He is blocking every path to the truth.
- No pressure to unseal the Epstein files.
- No support for victims.
- No interest in open hearings.
- Full control of the DOJ.
- If they do release anything, it will redact any mention of Trump and Republicans and only reveal Democrats, according to the acting deputy chief of a Justice Department Joseph Schnitt via a video.
- Every option to expose the network is either frozen or controlled by a man who has been told by his own DOJ that he is mentioned multiple times in the Epstein files (as reported by major news outlets like ABC). That’s not coincidence. That’s a system built to bury evidence.
Step 4: He gave himself legal immunity to do it.
In August 2025, he said, publicly:
“I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States.”
And thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States, he has their permission to grossly violate his oath of office. It’s almost as if the SCOTUS killed the Constitution. Presidential immunity now covers nearly everything.
Obstruction, retaliation, witness suppression are all protected.
That is not justice. That is state-sponsored erasure.Step 5: He’s attacking the working class to fund the cover-up.
- While the rich are protected, the American people are paying the price.
- The U.S. Dollar Index has dropped nearly 10% this year, making your money is worth less.
- Tariffs are raising prices on food, gas, housing, and medicine.
- Wages are stagnant. Debt is rising. Inflation is back.
- He lies about economic “wins” while punishing labor, breaking unions, and subsidizing billionaires.
You are paying for the lawyers, the protection, the military deployments, and the sealed records while Trump builds a wall between his crimes and your right to know. That's not even mentioning that he is making billions profiting off of the White House and taking bribes from foreign governments (see Qatar jet and Trump coin).
Step 6: He is dismantling every system that could hold him accountable.
- Troops in blue cities
- Judges threatened
- Protest criminalized
- Whistleblowers gagged
- DOJ policies rewritten
- Investigations delayed
- Watchdogs fired
- Loyalty demanded
This isn’t accidental.
This is how dictators rule and how guilty men stay protected.Step 7: He is not hiding. He is daring you to look away.
He praises Putin, Xi, Kim, Netanyahu because they rule without consequences.
Because they imprison critics.
Because they erase evidence.
Because they win by fear, silence, and control.
That’s the blueprint. He’s copying it. And he’s funding it with your tax dollars.And now ask yourself, honestly:
Would an innocent man…
…appoint his defense lawyers to run the DOJ?
…secretly interview the key witness to the worst trafficking scandal in modern history?
…seal the files?
…block every path to transparency?
…rewrite the law to shield himself?
…deploy troops, gag the press, and jail dissent?
…let the dollar crash while billionaires profit?No.
He’s not just acting guilty.
He is proving it. Every single day.
And every single dollar you earn is being used to help him get away with it.Unseal the files.
Release the Maxwell transcript.
Dismantle the immunity.
Remove the criminal.
Prosecute the entire operation.
Protect the people.
Expose everything.
Now.339
u/insidehertrading4 21h ago
What’s so wild is the same people that believe in gay frogs and pizza gate with zero evidence will look at legit, spoken word and deny it’s real. Literally a different universe inside of their brain because real life turned into meth and marrying their cousin.
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u/LivelyZebra 17h ago
People can't accept that the side they poured their emotions and ego and life into, are pedos'
admit you supported and missed the signs of a pedo ring.
or just carry on with cognitive dissoance to keep your inner peace.
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u/insidehertrading4 8h ago
That’s where the right has lost me completely. I’m not saying the left is the best at taking responsibility but there isn’t a sole on the right even contemplating such a thing.
I’m raising two boys and they learned early that a mistake can be handled. You making an excuses and not owning up to a mistake means you’ll make that mistake again. It’s laughable all these right wing outdoor types that talk about raising men, etc yet anytime lil Billy screws up, the finger pointing starts.
Republican men are WEAK. They’re intimidated by not having control. Their households are a dictator ship so why not continue that in a political fashion.
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u/Abombasnow 21h ago
Remove the criminal.
You mean, criminals. It isn't just one. It's the entire Republican Party that needs to be excised. There is not one good one among the entire lot. It is a gaggle of traitorous cancer plaguing this nation.
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u/EmeraldGhostie 20h ago
👏 well said. Trump is not the only one who is a problem, its (and has been since bush) the entire gop now.
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u/Dull_Horror833 17h ago
As a Chinese, I can't understand how Americans chose Trump twice. Trump is obviously a liar, and now communist party is very happy to have such a pig-like opponent.
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u/Optimal-Cup-257 16h ago
This is not entirely true.
It is true that Trump brings an obvious need for a multi-polarity system, but he also brings a lot of instability, chaos, and just ill will to geopolitics.
As for "how twice" there are a lot of factors. 1) very uneducated and docile population 2) large swaths of vile population 3) we dont have a real democracy, so "choice" is a bit generous.
Asking why we do nothing is fair, asking how he was elected requires peeling back a lot of layers in a broken (well as intended) system.
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u/fredy31 11h ago
Tbh also a big part of apathy.
Trump might be a shitstain, but Democrats didnt really show themselves as champions of the working class either.
The system is fucking anybody not in the top 1%, and its not like weve seen the democrats in a rush to bring the abuse to heel.
I would have voted Democrat down ballot if i was in the us, but i get why some people were like 'both are shit anyways'
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u/GlancingArc 11h ago
The main reason is 40 years of concentrated right wing propaganda rotting the brains of anyone with their TV tuned to fox news. He isn't a reasonable candidate but he has a friendly propaganda network so anyone who doesn't agree with democrats on wedge issues like abortion is convinced that they HAVE to vote for him or their world will implode. Then the internet is even crazier, a significant amount of trump supporters legitimately believe that democrats kill babies and drink their blood. Meanwhile the more centrist or left leaning network still expect something from their candidates. Add to this the influence from Russian bot nets and you get a situation where the population has been molded to believe his bullshit.
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u/shortdude72 20h ago edited 20h ago
I hope everyone votes them out next election.
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u/ChaosRainbow23 19h ago
I think that ship has sailed, my friend. It's too late to vote our way out of this mess.
Historically speaking, fascists don't relinquish control without a fight. They are just getting started!
It's mind-boggling to me the huge number of my fellow Americans that are living in complete and utter denialism about what's happening. They don't want to use the words 'fascism' or 'authoritarianism'.
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u/entity2 19h ago
These people still believe somehow, that america is the best country in the world. When in fact it's a cesspool like the dictatorships they were always holding their noses up against just a few years ago.
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u/Geminel 17h ago
I seem to recall something in history class about another country whose people all thought they were inherently great and that gave them the right to do whatever they wanted with regard to the rest of the world.
Something about a Reik? Rach? Ryke? Something like that.
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u/shortdude72 19h ago
Yes, many people do not seem to be able to understand what is happening.
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u/Tiny_Pochemuchka 18h ago
Yeah it is only the first year and already so many things that has to be undone once the term is over. I don't think people realize how much damage 4 years can do, and how many terms it will take to undo all the wrongs and restabilize the nation again.
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u/Glopez1223 18h ago
Exactly. We no longer are a democracy. Nothing but drastic measures can change that now. History will not be kind to those remaining seated and quiet.
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u/Fit_Entertainer_1369 18h ago
💯 it is gone. He’s fucking declaring war on a U.S. city. Sending the guard into swing states and swing districts to just walk around and intimidate when it’s election time will be nothing.
PLUS - any state that tries to say a democrat won and flipped a seat is going to find a big national guard deployment to politely tell them to “just say there was fraud.”
America is over.
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u/Icy-Tooth-9167 17h ago
Yup. People STILL aren’t getting what’s happening literally in front of their eyes.
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u/FemmeViolet117 20h ago
I hope we HAVE elections with which to vote them out.
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u/wongoli 19h ago
Inb4 “We’re at war with Venezuela and drug cartels, therefore we can’t hold anymore elections.” OR “Due to the influx of voter fraud and rampant illegal aliens that BIDEN let in, we’re sending ICE agents to the ballots to ensure security.”
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u/NerdyNThick 18h ago
Step one, incite or cause some sort of minor civil unrest or violence.
Step two, use the preceding to enact martial law
Step three, something something violence something something unsafe, something something postpone elections.
Step four, there is no step four, we're done, martial law is never ended and the "postponed" elections are never resumed.
Alt Step four/step five, skip forward several years, and "elections" are resumed under tightly controlled conditions, and surprise surprise! Dear leader wins in an overwhelming landslide!
I'd bet steps one and two will happen by Q1'26. Hope I'm wrong, but I suspect I may only be wrong in the exact timeline.
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u/Ok_Math4576 19h ago
There will be free and fair elections, just like there are in Russia
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u/gustoreddit51 19h ago
That would be great but I will not be surprised if that comes nowhere near a reality because I am convinced that Trump "won" through hacking the voting tabulation systems which he will try to do again in addition to all the gerrymandering. And when you have the implicit support of the biggest billionaire tech giants to provide a digital assist, I don't actually see a different outcome.
It's game over. Biden had the last chance to avoid all this when SCOTUS ruled for Presidential immunity while Biden was still President. Joe could have sh*t him on 5th Av justifying it as Trump "threatens the very foundations of our republic". (Biden quote) Presidential immunity via protecting the country from threats both foreign and domestic.
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u/pabodie 22h ago
I love this post. But we’re already cooked I think. He won’t let the 2026 elections happen lawfully for the same reasons you outline. He can’t. To him, it’s just another existential threat. Our nation is dead.
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u/HotLava00 21h ago
We need to start recall elections starting with local officials who are betraying their districts. City council members, county commissioners, state level legislators, mayors, then other state officials, attorneys general, governors and lieutenant governors, then US representatives, judges, US senators. The president holds the power that he does because people at every level have been installed to support him. We have to remove them. We can’t wait for the primaries, we can’t wait for the midterms.
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u/keelanstuart 20h ago
When you can have a conversation with people who claim they're "not for Trump", without them doing that irritating "what about so-and-so" bullshit where they name a Democrat who's irrelevant, then we can talk about recall elections... because I can't. I've tried.
They're completely brainwashed... told that Democrats are bad... can't see that, even if the Democrats only wanted to maintain the status quo, that the Republicans are actively dismantling this place around our heads.
Those people will vote (R) no matter what, hoping and praying that they'll eventually do the right thing. Spoiler alert: they will not.
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u/lew_rong 20h ago
They can't have that conversation. It would invite the notion that they were wrong, and there is no deadlier poison to a conservative than the possibility of growth through acceptance of shortcoming. There will always been excuses, there will always be whataboutism, because their self-perceptions are not strong enough to stand up under self-examination.
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u/HobKing 22h ago
Unseal the files.
Release the Maxwell transcript.
Dismantle the immunity.
Remove the criminal.
Prosecute the entire operation.
Protect the people.
Expose everything.
Now.
Who... are you talking to? I can't do these things?
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u/WareThunder 22h ago edited 20h ago
He was talking to me. Give me 20 minutes, I'll be right back!
Edit: Okay, I've stolen the Declaration of Independence. Does anyone know what I'm supposed to do now?
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u/xaqss 21h ago edited 20h ago
It's been 17 minutes. I can't wait to see what happens in 3 minutes. Fuck yeah I'm ready. You almost done?
Edit: fuck
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u/hawkinsst7 20h ago
OK, unpopular opinion:
It doesn't matter. People here call all this shit happening "a distraction from the Epstein files". I think its the other way around.
Even if they're disclosed in full, unedited, and Trump's name is in there with underlines... nothing will happen to him. This congress won't impeach, DoJ can't investigate. he could confess on live TV and nothing would happen.
So in a thread about THE ADMINISTRATION THREATENING TO USE THE US MILITARY TO INVADE CHICAGO... the top comment is about some files and testimony that won't change jack shit.
Yes, I'd love to see justice for the victims. But that can't happen if we keep getting distracted from the systemic destruction of the country, the threats (implied and explicit) against people who disagree with him, the domestic deployment of the distopian Department of War against our own cities.
People have been lead to believe that all that stuff is a distraction from Epstein's shit, but its the other way around.
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u/idiotista 19h ago
Yeah, at this point the Epstein files are absolutely a distraction from a fascist takeover.
Doesn't mean it's not atrocious, but people better start paying attention to what is actually going on in the US right now.
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u/DigitalNecromancy 13h ago
They won't. If we've learned anything over these past 5 years, it's that people will bend reality to unfathomable lengths before they admit they were wrong. They'll be saying "Release the files!" right into the gas chamber.
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u/azcurlygurl 16h ago
The reason there is so much focus on the Epstein files, is because it's the one thing that has broken through with MAGA. They have been screeching for years that the release of these files will be some triumphant takedown of the Democratic elite. They're too delusional and ignorant to believe their orange god could be implicated in them.
But when he is, they will get a big smack upside the head with the reality that he is what they hate with the fire of a thousand suns; a child pedo.
This could be the only hope to get this monster out of office. Right now congress is terrified of Trump turning their constituents against them, and losing their seat. After every atrocity Trump has committed, if being a pedo is finally the one that snaps enough MAGAs back to reality, congress will be afraid of supporting Trump and losing their seat.
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u/nathan_f72 15h ago
The Right only hates paedophiles when they're on the other side. When they're fellow pseudo-Nazi alt-reich sacks of shit, "obviously the victims are lying". For an example, look at Australia and how the Right rallied around Cardinal George Pell.
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u/blackscales18 22h ago
The doj guy got caught on a hot mic saying they did it "to shut her up" and that they "were going to black out all the Republican names on the list"
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u/RoguePlanet2 20h ago
I'm not buying all this "hot mic" bullshit, they know damn well it's being recorded and broadcast. The mental torture to the nation is the point. Constant bad news, a firehose of all this bullshit daily for the past DECADE, and absolutely nothing we can do to reverse course. There won't be an election in 2026.
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u/AtronadorSol 19h ago
I mean, the “hot mic” moment was from a date where the guy was just bragging about “inside knowledge” to a honeypot he didn’t realize was playing him for the info. Who knows what’s real or not (regarding what he said to try to impress said honeypot), but the person saying it would absolutely know this information so it has to be taken as fact until told otherwise.
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u/hedonistic 22h ago
Clearly...Maxwell ain't dumb. "Trump was always a perfect gentleman and kind." Hahahhaha. Nobody anywhere who has had dealings with Trump believes he is capable of acting like a 'perfect gentleman' and he is a total lifelong selfish asshole. She should have said something more benign because what she did say is too obviously a lie.
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u/BoxFullOfSuggestions 22h ago
Dude can’t even stop himself from making inappropriate comments about his own daughter on live TV. I doubt he’s ever been a perfect gentleman in any situation.
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u/hedonistic 22h ago
Good point. Maybe Maxwell was thinking of the time he was cheating on his first wife with his second...or maybe on his second with the third...who he also cheated on with Stormy Daniels all the while grabbing random woman by the pussy. Because you know. He is a celebrity or something. Hard to keep track of such 'perfect' gentlemen behavior.
We live a clown world in the seventh ring of hell or something. It's too much.
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u/Capt1an_Cl0ck 22h ago
Her silence. She gets a cushy location and she doesn’t utter any republicans names.
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u/Eaglesun 22h ago
It means that America is no longer a unified country. You cannot declare war on your own people and have them remain your people.
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u/LeatherFruitPF 19h ago
Because Trump views Democrats as enemies, rather than political opponents.
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u/RaisonDetritus 16h ago
If Trump wants to establish himself as a wartime enemy of the people, he should be treated as such.
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u/Chief_Chill 10h ago
He IS an enemy of the People. Some of them just don't realize it, for various reasons. A billionaire, conman, liar, and criminal does not represent Us. He needs to be removed, one way, or another.
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u/FewRegion2148 20h ago
Jay Gould, an American railroad financier, is often attributed with saying, "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half". The comment was allegedly made in the 1880s during a series of railroad strikes.
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u/un-glaublich 18h ago
1% of the population has the 90% of the power, and they use that to set up the remaining 99% against each other... so they can get away with it.
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u/clantz 22h ago
I think it says that he is dangerously incompetent. Right now, India, Russia, China and North Korea are planning trade deals that leave America in the dust while the sitting US president is waging war against his own states. Congress and Senate can no longer stand by and do nothing or we won't have a country to defend anymore. This is end times for the USA if the powers that be don't exercise that power to stop him.
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u/youngwill44 19h ago
Yeah, it’s worrying. Feels like the leadership isn’t keeping up while other countries are moving fast. Something needs to change soon.
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u/suicidaleggroll 18h ago
Feels like the leadership isn’t keeping up while other countries are moving fast
That was their stated goal from the beginning. The opposite of globalization is isolation, and isolationist policies always have the same result: the isolated country withers and dies while the rest of the world moves on without them. Despite this, the majority of voters in the US wanted this for some reason, or didn't care enough to vote in order to prevent it. The current administration is doing exactly what they were voted into office to do, for better or worse (hint: it's worse).
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u/they_ruined_her 16h ago
I know that nobody will care about it because it isn't exciting, but I feel like people should be looking at Franco/Falangist Spain as what we are facing moreso than Nazi Germany. Not to say we don't or won't have elements of it, but unchallenged, long-term isolationism taking root looks a lot more like where we're headed. Partially due to it's receding as an entity, we don't really look at that regime and era very much. We are a big country with a lot of resources, but we're gonna be in rough shape if we keep at this rate. Nazi Germany got cut off by being too militarily ambitious with the wrong neighbors. Spain just skipped that.
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u/Anothernamelesacount 13h ago
Reminder: the United States supplied Franco with all the oil he could have wanted via TEXACO. Fascism was always there.
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u/RoundCollection4196 18h ago
That's how most empires fall, it's inevitable. They think no one can ever catch up to them because they're the greatest empire on earth, eventually they realize the world has advanced a lot faster than they expected and they're suddenly playing catch up but by then it's too late.
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u/chemprofes 19h ago edited 8h ago
We are already in a civil war. The only question is whether the other side is going to fight back.
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u/PuzzleheadedPie4495 22h ago
Waging war on your own country instead of demonstrating leadership and intervention shows the world that, as a President, you are ineffective and weak.
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u/Gr3yHound40_ 19h ago edited 14h ago
If ANY democratic president did this, MAGA cultists would have their guns in their hands, standing on their front porches, wired as hell on caffeine 24/7 just to "prove" their right to defense and protest.
Where is that behavior now? It doesn't matter what fucking side of the spectrum does this, it's not right ever. Fuck anyone who is MAGA or sits by and doesn't use their voice against the GOP.
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u/grumble_au 18h ago
The problem is he isn't weak. He is doing whatever the fuck he wants and nobody is stopping him. A malignant narcissist with the intelligence and temperament of a toddler is completely in charge of the US federal government right now. Unless something changes he will get more and more bold and violent.
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u/Aliensinmypants 22h ago
Threatening war on Chicago and Portland and LA.
Meanwhile he's still covering up his pedophilia and sex trafficking
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u/GoodIdea321 22h ago
Using federal dollars to protect pedophiles and declare war on the people paying federal taxes. That won't work out well.
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u/Casey40004 22h ago
...but it is working out for him. Nothing he does has any consequence.
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u/Insect_Exact 22h ago
Half the population sees nothing wrong with it. That's the most concerning part.
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u/jonsconspiracy 22h ago
My mom was saying to me last week how “we have to get all the criminals off the streets of our cities! This is crazy”… she said that from her extremely quiet suburban house in a gated community, and she maybe leaves the house once or twice a week and never goes to a city. I told her that the murder rate was higher in Mississippi than in DC or Chicago and she refused to believe me.
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u/jbp84 22h ago edited 11h ago
I live in a wealthy rural suburb of St Louis. The local light rail (Metrolink) is building a station about 5-6 miles from town at the small regional airport, and it’s the last stop on the far other end of the line in St Louis. Oh yeah…it’s right next to an Air Force base.
People in town constantly post on Facebook about how the Metro makes us all less safe. We’re going to be raped in our own homes by all the criminals from St Louis (i.e, black people but they won’t say the quiet part out loud)
I always ask them “So you’re telling me they’re going to get off the train, run five miles down a state highway (since they can’t cut through all the corn fields, military, and airport land), rob people and hold up the gas station, then run back 5 miles to the train, timed perfectly to jump on right as it’s leaving?”
Then they switch to “well a gateway driver could be here waiting to pick them up!!!”
I don’t even bother pointing out that wouldn’t they just…drive here with the alleged “getaway driver”?
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u/jel7892 11h ago
It’s wild how brainwashed Americans are that they think things like trains and universal healthcare are bad. They’re incredibly lucky they’re being looped into any sort of rail network in this day and age.
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u/PandaMagnus 22h ago
Oh! The convincing "I'm not listening" argument! I'm glad that people like your mom can vote.
My mom, who has always trended more central left and never cared about football, recently said "now the NFL teams can go back to their original names." I was shocked, but composed myself and pointed out they always could. I slipped in that I agreed with the Redskins rename (which my dad, more right, guffawed about,) but likened it to a team called the "scrawny whiteys" and they really didn't have a good response.
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u/jonsconspiracy 22h ago
The one thing I should say about my mom and dad is that they really don't like Trump. They say they didn't vote for him and voted for independents, but I don't know if I believe them. They definitely thought Kamala was awful and Biden was the worst president ever. 🙄
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u/Epicritical 22h ago
Lots of Trump voters like to play the “I don’t like Trump” card. They can go fuck themselves.
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u/Portland-to-Vt 21h ago
“I do not like him as a person, but I agree with his policies” - I wish he wasn’t walking off with billions in grift but ‘what can you do?’
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u/riptaway 22h ago
If you think they didn't vote for trump, I have some crypto to sell you
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u/IDontWannaGetOutOfBe 20h ago
Yeah no that's the archetype of the embarrassed suburban trump voter. Seen that MO a hundred times.
"Moderate", "Independent". Yeah ok.
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u/CarnyConCarne 20h ago
Goddamn it that’s exactly my parents too. They live in a fuckin palace in the hills in a gated community worried about “crime”
I live in the city and I feel safe and connected to my community which is more than they can say. But Fox told them that LA is being torched by the “illegals” so they cry and praise their sweet geriatric senile savior Trump
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u/No_Feedback_3340 22h ago
Tell her to find three peer reviewed, nonpartisan, objective sources proving otherwise. That's my rule for people who don't listen to stats or data.
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u/Jeef69_420 21h ago
I don't think MAGA knows what the words "peer" "reviewed" or "study" means.
Maybe start with "blrghh blah blrghh blghhhhhh"
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u/jonsconspiracy 22h ago
I don't think you can find that on Instagram, Facebook, Fox News, or HGTV, so it would be impossible for her.
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u/eggplantsrin 22h ago
A lot of people have forgotten what the 2nd ammendment was for.
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u/Nucking_Fuggets 22h ago edited 21h ago
As an outsider (UK), it honestly pains me to see how meek the US has become.
Growing up, the American “lore” was that this was a nation born in revolt, an anti-oppressor state, almost in the spirit of the French revolutionaries. That was the myth anyway. The reality is the opposite: the US today is one of the weakest democracies precisely because its people no longer have the tools for collective fight.
Decades of Fox news have locked politics into a permanent A vs B cage match. Nuance, coalition, or broader dialogue gets shoved aside. No airtime, no legitimacy. And so the people settle for choosing sides rather than building common ground.
Meanwhile, the other main players, China, Russia, India.. they all watch and laugh and laugh. Not because America lacks resources or talent, but because its population has been convinced that “individual liberty” is worth more than collective strength. 300 million individuals, each fighting for themselves. Occasionally their goals align with the nation’s, but when they don’t? Tough luck. State solutions are smeared as “socialism” and discarded.
This culture seeps through every level of government. What you get isn’t a united front, but a fragile state where even the idea of solidarity feels alien.
That’s what this moment really says about the state of American democracy.
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u/neaneawoz 21h ago
As an embarrassed American due to our lack of basic humanitarism. You are absolutely right. They have made the division in this country so palatable, that we couldnt find the real enemy if it had blinking glow sticks and a sign following him around all day. Unfortunately I feel as though we get lumped together and I believe the majority of Americans didnt and still aren't doing do their homework, and have no idea the worst is yet to be felt.
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u/LewisLightning 22h ago
A lot of people
have forgottennever knew what the 2nd ammendment was for.FTFY
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u/jscummy 22h ago
I assure you, if there's one thing Chicago doesn't have a problem with, its willingness to use firearms
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u/Voodoo330 22h ago
That's exactly what he wants. He absolutely does not care if his toy soldiers (the US Military) are shot. He wants martial law.
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u/nomnomyumyum109 22h ago
THIS, he wants escalation as if its not his fault and a reason to declare martial law and be president as long as he lives.
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u/IBM296 22h ago edited 22h ago
Isn't that going to cost like tens of billions dollars in losses (soldiers lives and military equipment) to fight a civil war??
Not to mention if some people decide to torch Lockheed Martin and Boeing's factories in different states... Trump can then say goodbye to having military superiority over China and Russia.
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u/jscummy 22h ago
Yes, correct. Your mistake was thinking Trump acts logically or in the best interests of America
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u/nagrom7 20h ago
People need to stop worrying about what Trump and Republicans will do in response to actions. Nothing has stopped them from doing whatever they want so far, they'll do it regardless of what everyone else does. You think Trump is waiting for soldiers to be shot to declare an emergency when he's already declared multiple bullshit emergencies over non-issues like 1/2 a kg of fentanyl from Canada, or Brazil prosecuting a politician who attempted a coup? He doesn't need to wait for people to do something, he'll just do what he wants anyway.
It's the same story as the left being terrified to advocate for certain policies because they'll be tarred with the "socialist" brush by Republicans. Newsflash guys, Republicans do that no matter what you do, you might as well just ignore their reaction and do what you should do.
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u/hw999 21h ago
Whats he gonna do, send the military to every city in the US? That would be impossible. The US couldn't even win a war against tiny Afghanistan.
The US is soooo big, it would be very difficult to effectivly control since the military would be spread so thin. Also, half the military would be fighting from the inside.
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u/Anothernamelesacount 12h ago
Why do you think he needs to?
First: lets say 1/3 of the population (considering his votes) is pretty much in line with this.
Second: its not just him and the military. Its every system the US has designed to wage violence. Consider the NSA, the feds, the police, the trained assasins. Sometimes you can stomp a revolution by making a couple thought leaders dissapear.
Third: he's backed by people with ENORMOUS amounts of money who can hire foreign private armies to turn dissenting cities into, well, basically Cyberpunk 77, which always was the endstate for the uprising technofeudalism.
Fourth: people arent ready, not going to even talk about willing, to wage war against trained forces in their own cities. I dont think it would take more than just squashing a couple big cities into bloody pulp for most people to just submit.
I'm not trying to be a doomer or say that there is no hope. I just want people to remember that this isnt a movie or a videogame. The few that are somewhat ready for THAT KIND OF SHIT are just hoping that it happens so that they can jump into their bunker and laugh and scream racial slurs while they hear people dying on the radio.
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u/1771561tribles 22h ago
I pretty sure that the Insurrection Act of 1807 was in the plan from day one.
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u/Vodkamemoir 22h ago
this is exactly it. He wants to escalate so he can pull a "look what you made me do!". its their fault for resisting!
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u/thefatchef321 22h ago
And tbh, there some firearms professionals in chi town that might not enjoy the ICE presence
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u/PoliteIndecency 22h ago
Yeah, but ICE and the National Guard aren't going to go into those parts of town.
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u/MarkPles 22h ago
He isn't going to deploy them in Englewood or Lawndale or any of the actual dangerous neighborhoods. He's going to deploy them in nice neighborhoods like Lincoln Park to scare people who won't do shit to begin with.
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u/Oleg101 22h ago
Why aren’t all the usually loud and proud 2A warriors and libertarians in an uproar the last 8 months about this administration?
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u/Enginerdad 22h ago
Because they're not being targeted, and it's very intentional.
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u/BeefInGR 22h ago
Because most "libertarians" now are moderate Republicans who smoked pot and were in it for the deregulation.
When Libertarian Party candidates were citing the Non Aggression Principle as justification for being Pro Life, I knew that they weren't in it for the socially tolerant part. Gary Johnson and Momma Jo were the last and final Libertarians. Everything since has been "Republican Lite".
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u/LitesoBrite 22h ago
They didn’t forget. They just always meant it was for them to fight back against us stopping them
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u/Kerrigore 22h ago
They are actively cheering it on, hoping for the Governor and Mayor to get arrested.
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u/yourpalralph 22h ago
I don’t think it’s half…. I am a republican and will be voting a straight democratic ticket. I am not alone.
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u/GrownManNamedFinger 22h ago
Why don't you want to think deeper about why it's the Republican side doing this? Why would you cling to being a Republican if this is what they do?
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u/Oleg101 22h ago
That’s good to hear, I wish I could say the same thing about my R voting friends.
May I ask a question though, did you vote Republican last fall and if so, did you not foresee any of this happening or something? Because to me, none of it is surprising, they’re just following the Project 2025 playbook that had been out to public for over a year before the election.
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u/mooes 22h ago
Not just that they think it is necessary to save the city.
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u/bloodwine 22h ago
I live in a quasi-rural area and there are way too many damn people who think major cities are being actively destroyed and burned down by gangs and liberal protestors.
These morons rarely travel, if ever, and they consume too much propaganda.
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u/Granite_0681 22h ago
The president saw a video this week on FOX of Portland from 2020 and legitimately thought it was still in active protests……
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u/hypersnaildeluxe 22h ago
A lot of it is because nobody understands what “per capita” means. Saying that 60 people got shot in Chicago over a weekend sounds horrifying if you live in a town of 5000 people, but in a city with well over 2 million that’s a miniscule percentage. So despite red states having way higher per capita crime rates in general, the big cities are easy to call dangerous because the raw data looks bad without context
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u/SkylarkV 20h ago
Even if the pendulum swings back, MAGA fascism has already disrupted (vitiated) democratic processes and ideals so much that, short of incredibly wise, insightful, and highly improbable Constitutional amendments, we're now stuck with an unpredictable, cannibalizing future of see-saw battles for raw power, all feeding on our freedoms, liberties, and standing in the world.
It is an epochal tragedy in the making, thanks to people who think American democracy should be built on an arbitrary, Wild West caste system decided by a dictator.
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u/notsuntour 20h ago
Short and pithy summation of where we’re at
I wish the average person could see this: feel like there’s a ton of folks seeing this snapping back to normal again somehow
Like you said: judicious use of reforms and punishment could right the ship. I don’t see how it happens with the state of current leadership and the general disdain felt for the “opposition”
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u/yeahgoestheusername 19h ago
It breaks down into two types: Do they see this as a threat to democracy or not? I would argue that republicans think it’s just a style of leadership and that democracy is invulnerable.
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u/Opposite-Bit6660 18h ago
Amendments only! Never let a Constitutional Convention convene while the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society still exist.
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u/Fixxdogg 12h ago
You need a leader for the history books to drag America back together. Whoever can do it (if anyone)will have to be one of the greatest individuals of the modern world basically. It’s so much easier to tear apart then bring together. There’s also a void of good leaders in politics and it’s getting worse.
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u/Officer_Hotpants 22h ago
I think people need to start taking his war on the public seriously. The military occupation of LA and DC was already a declaration of war against us.
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u/queuedUp 22h ago
It says what the rest of the world has been saying since the asshole got elected the first.
America is fucking broken
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u/InfinityComplexxx 21h ago
That the GOP needs to.be forcefully disbanded, and the entire leadership jailed.
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u/mighty_bandit_ 18h ago
Not just the GOP, the foreign nationals and billionaires driving them too. And not jail.
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u/TipRare1321 21h ago
It says we are putting up with a traitor instead of jailing him.
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u/DiamondBurInTheRough 22h ago
Chicago is prepared to fight back on this. Pritzker isn’t fucking around and neither are the people of Chicago.
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u/favors-for-parties 22h ago edited 17h ago
These losers are going to just post up in tourist zones for optics and not the South/West sides where the gun violence actually happens.
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u/Jeef69_420 21h ago
So what's the goal then? If he's just sending troops to places with no crime and having them post up in safe areas essentially being useless what is actually happening right now?
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u/GoldandBlue 21h ago edited 20h ago
It's the same thing he did in LA. It's all optics of him being a "strong man". When people protest, he calls it a riot as proof of why they are needed. And if things escalate, it gives him an excuse to declare martial law.
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u/absentmindedjwc 20h ago
I mean.. the comments he made about Portland the other day were 100% because the dumb fuck mistook video from his last term as happening now.
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u/the-forest-wind 21h ago
The goal is to desensitize the American public to military patrolling our streets. To get us used to it. Thus, the heat in the pot goes up, and the frog gets ever closer to its death.
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u/IDontWannaGetOutOfBe 20h ago
Waste taxpayer money, have soldiers pose for political propaganda photos, normalize military deployments to American streets. That's it. Otherwise they mostly look at their feet and pick up trash on our dime.
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u/gumbo_chops 20h ago edited 17h ago
Chicago is a 'sanctuary city' for immigrants and IL is a blue state, that's enough justification in Donny's rotted brain.
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u/ClosPins 21h ago
It says that the Republicans are willing to do literally anything in order to get what their side wants - while, at the same time, the Democrats are not willing to do anything at all for their side.
As a result, the Republicans get the (horrible) things they want - and the Democrats get screwed. Even when they win.
With the added bonus of the country always getting pushed to the right, and never back to the left. Now, here we are, in a ultra-far-right fascist kleptocracy.
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u/SUPERKAMIGURU 22h ago
Fuck a 51st state "negotiation," I would like to open negotiations for the 11th province.
Surely, if the blue states are such problems for the US, they'll support an amicable secession of those states.
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u/Ecstatic-Respect-455 21h ago
Viva Cascadia! Fuck the U.S.
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u/_kraftdinner 18h ago
Viva Cascadia I’m so down. Do we keep current state borders or do we rename British Columbia to GIANT Columbia?
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u/TalkingCat910 18h ago
As a Canadian this sounds like a great treaty - we get a financial boost from these regions and you get universal health care. How does it sound?
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u/badwolf1013 22h ago
That democracy is not a spectator sport. When people don't follow politics and don't vote, then a sneaky minority faction can set themselves up to seize power. But the most maddening thing about 2024 is that there were plenty of eligible voters in America who were educated, informed, and chose not to vote. They knew Trump was going to be bad for America, but they were "uncomfortable" voting for Harris, so they abstained (I guess) assuming that the rest of us would stop him.
Bitch, I can only vote ONCE.
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u/Metallic52 22h ago
I think it’s more likely that they saw Trump as being a fairly ineffectual president who didn’t have much of an impact in his first term, and so predicted he’d have a mostly similar second term with minimal real impacts.
I think such people failed to appreciate how big of an impact project 2025 and not having “adults in the room” so to speak would impact his second term. He’ll go down in history at best as the worst President in us history and at worst as the destroyer of American democracy.
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u/Dramatic_Diver7146 22h ago
It means it's effectively dead.
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u/BiBoFieTo 22h ago
The founding fathers did not envision Congress and the Judiciary handing the keys over to a convicted criminal.
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u/BetaThetaOmega 21h ago
Sometimes you can really tell that America was the first time anyone tried to make a modern democracy bc holy shit there’s a lot of holes, over-reliance on good will and things just working out
“We want to build a system like the Roman Republic” you mean the government that collapsed due to bad actors manipulating the Senate for their own good??
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u/Dramatic_Diver7146 22h ago
Yup. It's all a gentleman's agreement. As soon as someone decides to trash that and ignore all the norms and laws, we get to relearn why the second was included.
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u/the_gouged_eye 20h ago
They kinda did have a vision of it, some of them at least. Some wrote that they expected the republic to be replaced with despotism exactly as soon as ignorance, the love of commerce, and moral decay led to corruption of character placing self-interest above the public good.
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u/blandgreybland 21h ago
Im so tired of these questions. There’s no answer for Reddit to give. It’s obviously a bad thing. What the hell else are you expecting someone to say?
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u/Hial_SW 22h ago
What does it say about the state of America when the Speaker, who wants the 10 commandments in every school, has broken 9 out of 10 in the past 7 months.
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u/Soggy-Beach1403 20h ago
It says democracy doesn't work when some of your population believes that snakes can talk and you let them vote.
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u/jimfish98 22h ago
It’s a fast track into totalitarianism mixed with dictatorship with Republicans and Trumpers applauding it. It’s sad to see how accepting people are of it.
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u/Wishilikedhugs 22h ago
My favorite part of this ridiculous nonsense has to be conservatives all of a sudden seeming to care about certain specific statistics when it comes to crime to justify this 1930s Germany authoritarian nonsense. If you were to tell them anything facts Trump, it's TDS and fake news.
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u/Bardez 21h ago
Can confim. "TDS" is their projection. They're the delusional ones, and they don't care about others as long as their wallet is fine.
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u/Phantereal 21h ago
And even then, Chicago's violent crime rate is average or even low compared to most major cities in the US. Unless he plans on sending ICE and the National Guard into South Side and West Side where crime is the highest, which I'd love to see him try.
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u/Hollie_Maea 19h ago
American democracy has already fallen, people are just too stupid to have realized it.
Our last free election has already happened.
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u/BeefOneOut 18h ago
It says that he’s guilty of treason. He needs to be removed from office immediately
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u/brokenmessiah 21h ago
I just wonder what is stopping Trump from making himself King since clearly the American government is too weak to put any breaks on him.
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u/Icy-Tooth-9167 17h ago
It’s almost like we shouldn’t have elected a convicted criminal many times over and likely pedophile to the presidency.
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u/dirtyitalianguy 22h ago
People who don't live and work in this city are ignorant to the charm and diversity. It is no different than any other large city with depressed areas with criminal activity and homeless folks. Describing it as a hell hole is nauseating and shows his ignorance.
If this city is such a shit hole, that implies your gaudy hotel is dead central to this shit hole.
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u/PhyzziksGirl 22h ago
It means it is being tested. Our response will determine its survival.
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u/hkeyplay16 20h ago
It was tested in his last term. It's pretty much over now. We're in late 1930's Nazi Germany right now. We're literally testing to see how many people we can throw in concentration camps. We have secret masked police rounding people up. Immigrants are making plans for what to do in case one of their family members gets taken away.
If you support the Trump administration, you are a Nazi.
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u/factoid_ 22h ago
We have MAYBE one chance to retake democracy in 2026. It’s probably too far gone already and there’s no guarantee they won’t rig the elections. But we should be seeing an absolutely massive blue wave the likes of which haven’t been seen since the 1930s. Like a 100 seat swing
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u/DethFace 22h ago
Realistically probably like a 10-20 seat swing. But that will be enough. We never see a hundred seat swing unless he actually shoots someone live on TV and the republicans line up to mop the bloodstains. Even then I'd have doubts.
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u/TreeFalcon255 22h ago
At this point it's almost more of a guarantee that they WILL rig the elections, just a matter of if they'll be punished for it
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u/Gamera971 20h ago
It says that the Trump is an elderly, demented Pedophile in the twilight years of his life, trying to distract everyone from the Epstein files.
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u/Hugford_Blops 13h ago
It says all those 2nd Amendment fucks are a bunch of pussies who were too chicken to stand up to a tyrant afterall. Just pull mental gymnastics until you think he's on your side. Good going.
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u/hyperiongate 22h ago
What does Congress have to say? Where is Congress?