He didn’t create the nearly 2 trillion dollar deficit. The government is broke, cuts must be made.
Yeah - it’s the FDA and CDC that are the true money pits in the US government… Let’s eliminate the IRS and EPA while we’re at it - really smash those guardrails and let the altruistic market fix it - that always works…
Ohhh look - we’re cutting taxes for those that need it least again - but that’s responsible spending - it’s all been accumulating for over half a century, so it’s got to start trickling down any day now, guys.
I expect deep cuts will need to be made across the board
As an example, the IRS returns $6 for every dollar spent on it, and absolutely all available evidence shows that if you remove all the guardrails, things get far worse almost immediately.
Can you point to an example of fascism working? Every example I’ve seen ended with massive decline in quality of life, rampant waste, and both economic and government collapse - usually with a dead leader through suicide or execution, generally with their corpse being dragged through the streets by an understandably furious populace. It’ll all work out this time, though… right?
Fascism? No. Argentina seems to rapidly be improving with thier ultra-extreme cuts.
Your defence of your fascist alignment is to concede it’s always ended terribly, then point to an anarcho-capitalist example where the goal is to collapse the government because Milei hasn’t finished the job after checks watch less than a year?
I get that he’s done a fairly commendable job with the economic tailspin so-far, but I’m not sure I see the relevance.
You’re the one who brought up fascism. I said I can’t think of an example of fascism working. Cutting government scope is the opposite of fascism. Fascism is characterized by a strong centralized authority, which cutting is the opposite of.
Oh - my mistake - you think you’re not supporting fascism… It’d be quaint if it weren’t for the consequences.
Fascism is characterised by the merging of state and commercial interests, not a strong centralised authority in a beuracratic sense. Let’s run the list, shall we?
“The cult of tradition”, characterized by cultural syncretism, even at the risk of internal contradiction. When all truth has already been revealed by tradition, no new learning can occur, only further interpretation and refinement.
Check.
“The rejection of modernism”, which views the rationalistic development of Western culture since the Enlightenment as a descent into depravity. Eco distinguishes this from a rejection of superficial technological advancement, as many fascist regimes cite their industrial potency as proof of the vitality of their system.
Check.
“The cult of action for action’s sake”, which dictates that action is of value in itself and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.
Check.
“Disagreement is treason” – fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.
Big check.
“Fear of difference”, which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.
That couldn’t be Trum- CHECK.
“Appeal to a frustrated middle class”, fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.
Check.
“Obsession with a plot” and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often combines an appeal to xenophobia with a fear of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized groups living within the society. Eco also cites Pat Robertson’s book The New World Order as a prominent example of a plot obsession.
Check.
Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as “at the same time too strong and too weak”. On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.
Check.
“Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy” because “life is permanent warfare” – there must always be an enemy to fight. Both fascist Germany under Hitler and Italy under Mussolini worked first to organize and clean up their respective countries and then build the war machines that they later intended to and did use, despite Germany being under restrictions of the Versailles treaty to not build a military force. This principle leads to a fundamental contradiction within fascism: the incompatibility of ultimate triumph with perpetual war.
Ukraine/Palestine - soft check.
“Contempt for the weak”, which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of belonging to the in-group. Eco sees in these attitudes the root of a deep tension in the fundamentally hierarchical structure of fascist polities, as they encourage leaders to despise their underlings, up to the ultimate leader, who holds the whole country in contempt for having allowed him to overtake it by force.
Check.
“Everybody is educated to become a hero”, which leads to the embrace of a cult of death. As Eco observes, “[t]he Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.”
Soft check, but that’s clearly firming up.
“Machismo”, which sublimates the difficult work of permanent war and heroism into the sexual sphere. Fascists thus hold “both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality”.
Check.
“Selective populism” – the people, conceived monolithically, have a common will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass of people can ever be truly unanimous, the leader holds himself out as the interpreter of the popular will (though truly he alone dictates it). Fascists use this concept to delegitimize democratic institutions they accuse of “no longer represent[ing] the voice of the people”.
Check.
“Newspeak” – fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.
Check.
I’ve got bad news for you…
I hope at least they sack the ones who were approving drugs they knew didn’t work because of big pharma pressure. Would be a silver lining.
If you stayed home because of Gaza, this is your fault.
Keep punching left and down. That will really help build the coalition to resist fascism.
I’m not punching left, and I refuse to accept your categorisation of anything short of completely trashing the DNC is not left enough.
The reason I voted for Harris is because I care about the lives of Palestinians. You can try to claim that this isn’t true, but you’re just wrong. And none of your bullshit purity tests will change that.
If you call yourself a progressive, and you stayed home on Tuesday, I want nothing to do with you. There’s my purity test. Fuck right off.
The only thing I said was don’t punch left. I literally said none of the other things you are ranting about, so go bark at someone else.
I didn’t vote for Harris, because… I’m not a US citizen. I would have if I were, if you need to know. I’m sitting here on my side of the border, seeing fascism take over on your side and I’m shocked to see you guys bicker about pointing fingers instead of facing reality and thinking wtf you have to do to survive the next 4 years. It’s as if you don’t really understand what’s about to hit you.
You’re in deep crisis mode. Being mad at Muslims and Stein voters and non-voters is going to be a barrier to building a coalition of resistance. That’s just the plain reality of what strategic organizing will require. Don’t burn bridges with the people you will need in the next 4 years. You hit the iceberg, now is not the time to point fingers about whose fault that it is, it’s time to get to the boats and every one who can help with that is valuable.
The only thing I said was don’t punch left. I literally said none of the other things you are ranting about,
Ok then, what the fuck does “punching left” mean?
Third paragraph of my previous comment:
Being mad at Muslims and Stein voters and non-voters is going to be a barrier to building a coalition of resistance. That’s just the plain reality of what strategic organizing will require. Don’t burn bridges with the people you will need in the next 4 years.
Those people are fundamentally too stupid and too useless to work with.
Good luck, buddy.
The people who stayed home are not the people on the left. The people on the left voted against fascism. The people who stayed home for the election are also going to be useless in an anti-fascism coalition, seeing as they couldn’t be bothered to do the bare minimum.
Saying you are going to gut the CDC after a pandemic is peak shooting yourself in the face to spite the neighbors.
He gutted the Federal Pandemic Response Team in 2018.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/
He then took deliberate steps to inhibit pandemic response in 2020.
Dismantling the CDC and HHS is absolutely to be expected.
I would have figured losing 1-2 million Republicans would have helped in voting, but my Mexican neighbors decided they like Trump. Guess I’ll report them to ICE. The leopards must feed.
It’s handy when the trash takes itself out, isn’t it.
It would’ve been, but I don’t know why you’re saying that now because it clearly didn’t. We decided to fucking wallow in it instead.
It doesn’t work like that.
If they voted, then they’re citizens. Reporting citizens to ICE won’t do anything.
The Haitians were here legally and he campaigned on kicking them out. And if you think the supreme court is about to defend any monitory’s rights you haven’t been paying attention. He’s gone on record saying it’s okay if they screw up a few times deporting people
Sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that ICE can’t deport citizens.
Our newly Republican controlled Congress, however, can legislate denaturalization.
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C4-1-5-1/ALDE_00013170/
Laws only matter where there’s a will and power to enforce them. This supreme court has made it clear the president can break laws if its an “official” order. I don’t think it’s likely but it’s absolutely possible. Europe didn’t see WW2 coming and plenty of Jews were German citizens. None of this is even unprecedented
A lot of people are going to die because of this conspiracy theorist.
I think of someone very close to me who takes mediation for depression, medication that RFK thinks is bullshit, and medication that is regulated by the FDA.
She got a bad batch of something from a generic supplier and became dangerously suicidal. We were able to report this to the FDA and send them the medication so people wouldn’t die.
I can’t see how less staffing is going to make things better. We need more people on the ground so inspections are more regular and so deadly manufacturing problems are caught early.
You just need to reference their last playbook: less data means it’s not happening, like covid.
So, in other words, Trump is going to do exactly what he told us he would do.
Make no mistake, if Trump wants it, his supporters want it. I work with a bunch of morons. The country is in the hands of a cult.
My coworkers support political assassination, concentration camps for LGBT, forced Christianity. If Trump said it, they want it.
I am fully radicalized. Fuck this country.
While being able to say that a majority of voters wanted it this way because they voted for him.
Trump didn’t lie. This was all out there for everyone to see.
Anything else is just denying the reality that a majority of Americans are sheep and don’t know what is good for them.
I don’t like that reality either, but here we are. It’s time for these people to lie in the bed of their own making.
Hold Trump voters and non voters accountable for the consequences of their actions and inaction. It’s the only way forward.
