• FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Let’s make this meme more accurate, shall we?

    • Kennedy: Imperialism, use the presidency to get laid
    • Johnson: Imperialism and expansion of social safety net
    • Nixon: Imperialism and a one-party state (But oddly gave us the EPA)
    • Reagan: Make the rich wealthier, destroy unions, kill the gays
    • Bush: Imperialism, making the rich wealthier and destroying unions
    • Clinton: Imperialism, increase corporate power under the guise of ‘free trade’, suppress the gays
    • Bush II: Imperialism, make the rich wealthier, eliminate the right to privacy, militarize the cops
    • Obama: Imperialism, make the rich wealthier, make health care more expensive, militarize the cops
    • Trump: Imperialism (though oddly less so), make the rich wealthier, militarize the cops
    • Biden: Imperialism, make the rich wealthier, militarize the cops, ignore food becoming cost-prohibitive
    • Trump II: Destroy everything, make the rich even wealthier, especially himself
    • wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      You’re missing “brazen, bold-faced racketeering and sedition, stuff the judiciary” under trump 1. Also, saying that Obama’s “goal” was to make healthcare more expensive smells like bullshit. Let’s see some sources on that. Flawed and imperialistic though he may be, Obama put a good faith effort into taking the first step toward a socialized healthcare system, and was completely hamstrung by obstructionism. Finally, you need to put “subvert soviet imperialism, fuck over puerto rico, and engage in international scientific dick-sizing contests” under Kennedy. Other than that, and the fact that you skipped a few presidents in there (like “Carter: Try (and fail) to balance being a good human being with being the head of a jingoistic imperialist nation in the middle of a dick-sizing game of Connect4 where the countries of the world are the playing field and refusal to play could mean nuclear annihilation”), no further notes.

      • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Oh, you’re right. Let’s fix that.

        • Carter: Imperialism, general failure.

        I will give Carter this much, though. He definitely had the best post-presidency.

        Also, no. For all his pretty speeches, Obama didn’t make a good-faith effort to do anything except expand the war machine both internationally and domestically, make rich people wealthier, and expand the power of the presidency. (Hell, remember the ‘Kill List’?)

  • aceshigh@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    From the perspective of those who have a lot of money, what’s the problem with that? My wealthy friends always vote r because they want to pay less taxes. Thats their only motive. This selfishness needs to be manipulated.

    • gradual@lemmings.world
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      1 month ago

      This selfishness needs to be manipulated.

      They’re only going to change if they are forced to.

      I’m personally in favor of vigilante justice towards them and their families.

      They need to fear their excessive wealth.

      • Bravo@eviltoast.org
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        1 month ago

        Holy shit is there no middle path between “accept oligarchy” and “French Revolution”? It’s the mid-21st century; surely we have figured out better solutions than this by now? The entire reason why one might think “bloody uprising” is the only solution - the fact that the masses are too apathetic and inattentive to come together over a more complicated message - is the exact reason why it’s also a terrible idea, as it lends itself to subversion by ideologue and perverted towards nefarious ends. “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”, etc, and in the meantime the bloodthirsty mob slaughters not just the rich but then the usual scapegoat minority groups too, with the purges that follow such revolutions frequently turning anti-intellectual too. When you cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war, you have no control over what happens next nor any way to stop it until it’s run its full course.

        The best way to defeat the enemies of the common folk, IMO, is the “greatest insult an enemy can suffer: to be ignored”. We should simply build the new system in defiance of the old system, or (when possible) subverting the old system to the new system’s needs. For example: we need to start more Community Land Trusts, where renting is not simply paying somebody else’s mortgage.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_land_trust

        • Sarmyth@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Systems in between are subject to manipulation via their vast wealth. The only way to diminish that is dissolution of superPACs and heavy regulation of all systems that allow cash to flow into politics.

    • epicstove@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      My family is decently wealthy but comes from a pretty impoverished background (They moved to Canada from Sri Lanka during the civil war)

      They’re pretty centreist. Although in the last elections elections they voted Green (Provincial and Federal)

      • aceshigh@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        To compare - many of my friends are immigrants too (from the former Soviet Union) and grew up poor in the states. And they don’t understand why others who had more opportunities than them weren’t able to “make it”. They view being poor a choice and they don’t want to subsidize people who made the “wrong” choice.

        • epicstove@lemmy.ca
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          1 month ago

          I think my parents Buddhist upbringing has a lot to do with their beliefs. They always want to do good when they can. Respecting other cultures and identities etc.

  • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I like former President Obama, but his ACA was half baked. It is not even close to the healthcare system in Germany and other EU members.

    • Hugin@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      The ACA was essentially the republican compromise that was offered to Clinton when he tried to get universal health care. He rejected it and was unable to get any meaningful change.

      It shows how much we have moved to the right that the republican plan from 10 years earlier was barely able to be passed by Democrats.

      I’ll also point out that Clinton’s big goal for his time in offices was universal health care not balancing the budget. He completely failed on that but did briefly balance the budget.

      Still better than the republican goals.

    • Wiz@midwest.social
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      1 month ago

      Blame Republicans and a couple of Democrats. Yes, it was half-baked, but it was also almost defeated, and later almost repealed. The alternative of “nothing” is so much worse.

  • ZMoney@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Missed a few.

    Johnson: use war to win re-election

    Nixon: fight hippies and commies

    Ford: pardon Nixon

    Carter: attain energy independence

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      He did give free or extremely cheap healthcare to tens of millions of americans and brought down proces nationwide by creating competition.

      And if not for independent Joe Leiberman being the holdout for the 60 it took to pass any form of the bill he would have accomplished more.

    • ModestMeme@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Congress wouldn’t let him. The President doesn’t write the laws and can only ask Congress to do so.

      • Michael@slrpnk.net
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        1 month ago

        He never seriously fought for universal healthcare. He stopped advocating for it before he even started fighting. As soon as he got a “reality check”, not a word of support for universal healthcare was ever uttered by him to the best of my knowlege.

        • That Weird Vegan@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          1 month ago

          The funny thing is, americans already kinda have universal healthcare… just with a middleman. Where do they think those insurance premiums are going?

          • ExtantHuman@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            There’s still a significant amount of people who are uninsured. So, no, Americans do not have universal healthcare.

        • 13igTyme@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Progressives would need to down ballot vote for that to happen. Would also need to support and fund progressive candidates.

          Progressives currently can’t even do the bare minimum (actually voting), in large enough numbers to matter.

          • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            Progressives currently can’t even do the bare minimum (actually voting), in large enough numbers to matter.

            Of course not!

            They’re doing something far more critical and effective!

            They’re withholding votes based on purity testing and otherwise being manipulated into nullifying themselves by online manipulation by the right.

        • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          Executive order deporting anyone in senate not voting for his agenda?

          /s (but only for a few months, then headlines will explain how it’s apparently a real option)

        • Wiz@midwest.social
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          1 month ago

          Yes and, they also needed to break a filibuster by the Republicans, which took 60 votes in the Senate, despite severe illness and Republican shenanigans. It was a huge lift to get what we got.

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Technically you need 51 or 50 + VP tiebreaker unless a Republican filibusters then you need 60.

          You can change senate rules if you have a comfortable majority but I’m pretty sure they can filibuster that, too, and it might backfire like removing the filibuster for SCOTUS and cabinet picks has.

  • andybytes@programming.dev
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    1 month ago

    I love how short-sighted this is. Like, I think there are more people that are on a higher level of understanding nowadays, but still the old game still remains. America is an imperialist empire and fascist are the useful idiots of empire. Neoliberalism is a right-wing ideology. Do you think a million dollars is a lot of money? Well I can tell you a billionaire uses that to wipe his ass. So when he donates it to charity, he’s just trying to manage perception. So what I’m trying to say is that the Democrats are neoliberal and they are fascist and both the Democrats and the Republicans work together to keep the working class down. That’s why we live the way we do today because things only continue to get worse. The rest of the world sees us as a right-wing country. The Democrats are controlled opposition. The bourgeois elections mean nothing to me or anybody with a fucking clue. The Democrats supported genocide in Gaza. Bernie Sanders and AOC are sheep dogs. They are not socialist, but they are there to defame socialist ideas. You can look this up online. It’s called the ratchet effect. So no, this is a little too simple for me. This is like baby boo boo diaper information. It’s a very immature analysis of the current state of things or what has happened in the past. End Wokeism no War but the Class War.

    • Michael@slrpnk.net
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      1 month ago

      Here’s some unsolicited advice: you’d probably get your point across better if you found a way of expressing yourself with less perceived hate, less name-calling, and less labeling - don’t dilute your passion, but speak to the reality and to the solutions that aren’t being put on the table. Speak to people’s silent struggle and find a way to not be polarizing.

      Instead of calling out the US as being imperialistic, shed light to the real effects of US imperialism (e.g. US reliance on supply chains that revolve around slavery or child slavery, third-world exploitation, effects of US regime change etc.) and complicity on both sides.

      Instead of calling Democrats fascists, explain that they don’t have any power or energy to fight fascism, authoritarianism, oligarchy, imperialism (e.g. they are complicit). They have no plan and no solutions.

      Instead of calling elections bourgeois, explain that political teams and this tug of war game is a pointless exercise and gets literally nothing done - e.g. speak to election/voting reform, the dissolution of team politics and political parties that take money from non-small donors, term limits, and speak to concepts like direct democracy. Bernie Sanders and AOC aren’t socialist or anything close to it in practice, but they also aren’t necessarily operating in bad faith.

      I don’t disagree with your general sentiment, but your points can be more eloquently expressed. Reduce the terminology, Democrats are powerless even if they shift their tune, they are always going to answer to capital, they aren’t interested in addressing critical problems (e.g. modern slavery, the freshwater crisis, the housing crisis, the health care crisis, the economy, deregulation of corporations etc.), and they aren’t interested in solutions. They have no power, even when they have had power (e.g. under Obama).

        • Michael@slrpnk.net
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          Everybody is free to express themselves however they wish. I’m merely pointing out why people are calling the poster I was responding to AI or reducing their arguments down to “not containing any rational thought”. Their comment speaks to people who are already radicalized, people who already know the Democrats are playing everybody - it doesn’t speak to the people deeply entrenched into the propaganda and tribalism that the Democrats invoke.

      • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        You take some flour, and some room temp eggs
        Room temperature butter is the best
        And some warm milk, you stage it with the rest
        Vanilla, sugar, and baking soda
        If you forget your berries, you are fucked
        Iambic pentameter is shit. Salt.

        Get all of these items into a big bowl
        Mix it or whatever, I am not your boss
        Batter should be consistency of sludge

        Heat your oven to the maximum temp
        Pour your batter directly in oven
        Leave your house, tell neighbors you broke your toe
        Return to home, act surprised it is ash
        Get insurance check, use to buy muffins

        Prep time: 30-45 minutes
        Cook time: 2 months if insurance is fast

        Sure, I did a bad job. But in my defense, I put more effort into this than I should have and wasted everyone’s time. Especially mine.

          • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            Forsaken by my parents, I must bake
            A pie, a biscuit, or even a cake
            My parents, so proud, say that they love it
            I, too, am fulfilled cuz in them, I shit

            If nutty, to them, I serve up a pie
            Or a dish more savory, if corn supplied
            Since I was a child, I have done this
            I am better at it than at rhyming

            If you want a nice treat, leave out the poo
            Or keep it in, really, it’s up to you
            As you make what I bake, something might stink
            Solutions are found in my sponsored links

            Now I will let you get to the big bake
            More words are needed for profits at stake
            Please take care and enjoy my recipe
            Return next week when I make drinks from pee

    • HexadecimalSky@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      as others have said, try synthesizing your ideas. You have a good core argument, but its a little rambly, with some things that feel more buzz word then argument.

      Try leading with your thesis, in this case “The democrats are controlled opposition that work with the Republicans to keep the working class down” and then follow up with your supporting comments and evidence. Alot of people wont read everything and just by the first half will judge what you say.

  • crawancon@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    they all got more money for rich people. did any of them impose term limits, stop insider training, or impose any meaningful penalties for those that already have a lot of wealth? they got wealthier and so did all around.

    • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      What about Sanders? How about Warren?

      We need congressional primary attendance to break 15% before we get to complain about term limits. If you don’t show up when you have a say, then you are responsible for the career politicians.

      We should be voting twice every two years, not once every four, for federal elections alone.

      • wpb@lemmy.world
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        I hope you’re aware that Sanders was never president. But also that he’s not a democra, which folks sometimes forget.

        • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          You asked about creating term limits. There are limits on presidential terms, so I assumed you meant congressional term limits. No? Am I missing your point?

          • crawancon@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            the OP posted Pic about presidents. my comment was did any of those presidents introduce term limits on congress or SCOTUS, etc.

            I’d have loved Warren or Sanders, but neither were president.

              • crawancon@lemm.ee
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                1 month ago

                I’m sure an executive order or thirty would have sufficed in leau of proper legislation.

                see: current administration

                • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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                  1 month ago

                  Executive orders can just be repealed by the next administration. The most it could possibly affect is one House term.

    • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
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      Nope, they all deregulated, supported monopolies & tax loopholes.

      … all while the core infrastructure (healthcare, transit systems, tax systems, education, housing, etc) withered away by design.

      Not to mention the massive bail-outs via blank no-strings attached checks (if a gov has to give monies to a private company that usually means shareholders lose their value, but not in the USA, they just get free monies).

      And ofc war profiteering (& constantly killing some of the poorest civilians on the planet).

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      They literally didn’t, though. Clinton obtained surplus by raising taxes and by removing several caps which benefitted the wealthy.

      • Saleh@feddit.org
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        1 month ago

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration

        President Clinton oversaw a healthy economy during his tenure. The U.S. had strong economic growth (around 4% annually) and record job creation (22.7 million). He raised taxes on higher income taxpayers early in his first term and cut defense spending and welfare, which contributed to a rise in revenue and decline in spending relative to the size of the economy. These factors helped bring the United States federal budget into surplus from fiscal years 1998 to 2001

        raising taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of Americans.[5] It also imposed a new energy tax on all Americans and subjected about a quarter of those receiving Social Security payments to higher taxes on their benefits.

        The 28% rate for capital gains was lowered to 20%. The 15% rate was lowered to 10%. In 1980, a tax credit was put into place based on the number of individuals under the age of 17 in a household. In 1998, it was $400 per child and in 1999, it was raised to $500. This Act removed from taxation profits on the sale of a house of up to $500,000 for individuals who are married, and $250,000 for single individuals. Educational savings and retirement funds were given tax relief. Some of the expiring tax provisions were extended for selected businesses.

        Clinton signed the bipartisan Financial Services Modernization Act or GLBA in 1999.[41] It allowed banks, insurance companies and investment houses to merge and thus repealed the Glass-Steagall Act which had been in place since 1932. It also prevented further regulation of risky financial derivatives. His deregulation of finance (both tacit and overt through GLBA) was criticized as a contributing factor to the Great Recession.[citation needed] While he disputes that claim, he expressed regret and conceded that in hindsight he would have vetoed the bill, mainly because it excluded risky financial derivatives from regulation, not because it removed the long-standing Glass-Steagall barrier between investment and depository banking. In his view, even if he had vetoed the bill, the Congress would have overridden the veto, as it had nearly unanimous support.[2]

        What Clinton did was disadvantage income against capital gains further, thus preventing more people from the middle class and upper middle class to become rich through work, while making it easier for rich people to become even richer. Add to that the deregulation of banks so more “too big to fail” casino players could play in a more deregulated casino which then needed to be bailed out a few years later. By slashing and taxing social security benefits he also made it so that less people could lift themselves out of poverty, which would not only lead to more poverty but also increase spending long term as people kept relying on insufficient benefits instead of getting the means to gain self sustainability and subsequently contribute more to taxes than they needed in temporary aid.

        tldr: Clinton fucked the poor and middle class and benefited the rich. He just was more clever about it.

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          He raised the taxes on the highest bracket 7% and remove caps on several taxes that they pay into.

          He definitely could have done better but he absolutely wasn’t the friend of the rich.

          That’s just it, to prove your point you dont need to show he fucked over the poor, you need to show he helped the rich, and it simply is not there.

  • CrayonDevourer@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Did bush actually have time for what’s claimed here? He was mostly about removing rights from Americans in the face of a sham war. I don’t think he actually had much focus on tax breaks for rich people…

    Obama continued that ritual, removing even more rights from the American people under the guise of “safety”. And Obama could have shoved Universal healthcare through but didn’t - he watered it down in the name of “bipartisanship”, but then ultimately nobody voted for the bill on the right anyways. If that were going to be the case, he should have just rammed through what the American people NEEDED; but he didn’t – because he wanted MORE MONEY FOR RICH PEOPLE (insurance companies)

    Hell, Obama bombed more brown people than any president before him as well…let’s not pretend he was an angel.

    • Trimatrix@lemmy.world
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      I mean there was the economic crash of 2008. Sure Obama was in office for about 6 months at the time but that was the result of years of loosening regulation. So gonna give Bush the W for that one.

      • Boeman@lemm.ee
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        No, Obama wasn’t in office. The election was in 2008, jr. was the president the entire year.

      • kbotc@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Nah, the crash was well underway by the time Obama took office. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (the bailouts) was Bush Jr’s for example and Obama’s first action was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. (The stimulus packages)

      • 13igTyme@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Obama was sworn in on January 20, 2009.

        He had nothing to do with the great recession that started in December 2007.

        Dumbass.

    • Tower@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      The ACA wasn’t “watered down in the name of bipartisanship”. The public option was removed because that’s the only way Joe Lieberman, the 60th vote in the Senate, would vote for it. And yes, what initially came out of committee was not as progressive as we wanted, but if Lieberman wasn’t even going to vote for that, there was no way he was going to vote for M4A.

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
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        https://www.cbpp.org/research/the-legacy-of-the-2001-and-2003-bush-tax-cuts

        High-income taxpayers benefitted most from these tax cuts, with the top 1 percent of households receiving an average tax cut of over $570,000 between 2004-2012 (increasing their after-tax income by more than 5 percent each year). Despite promises from proponents of the tax cuts, evidence suggests that they did not improve economic growth or pay for themselves, but instead ballooned deficits and debt and contributed to a rise in income inequality.

  • ohulancutash@feddit.uk
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    1 month ago

    Kennedy got to the moon by giving some Nazis a free pass for heavy participation in the Holocaust.

    Clinton got to the White House by pushing for and signing the death warrant for a man who was executed with a mental age of 9 as a campaign stunt. Also a serial molester.

    Obama became Pakistan’s No.1 Wedding crasher, had a personal kill list, reneged on his promise to close the US concentration camp in Cuba and bugged Merkel’s phone.

    If these are the best examples someone can come up with, it rather illustrates how we got to this point. Those were the “good” ones.

  • MetalMachine@feddit.nl
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    1 month ago

    Yeah let me ignore all the atrocities that blue presidents committed abroad, those don’t count since its brown people

    • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I happen to be a fan of voting for what’s best for the country I live in and the people I care about, then taking other countries into consideration after that.

      Life isn’t perfect. I strive for whatever is closest. And I’m smart enough to know voting 3rd party in a presidential election is dumb as fuck because no 3rd party is viable because none have done the work to become viable.

      So I’ll take the party that has a record of voting in favor of middle/lower class Americans over the party that only punishes average Americans and takes their rights away.

      Pretty basic math.

      • gradual@lemmings.world
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        And I’m smart enough

        Proceeds to justify how a “slow loss” is somehow a win.

        You’re part of the problem, and these problems won’t get solved until you’re as insignificant as 3rd party voters.