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After one Trump presidency and on the eve of another, it is now clear that a once mighty global superpower is allowing its gaze to turn inward, to feed off resentment more than idealism, to think smaller.

Public sentiment – not just the political class – feels threatened by the flow of migrants once regarded as the country’s lifeblood. Global trade, once an article of faith for free marketeers and architects of the postwar Pax Americana, is now a cancer eating away at US prosperity – its own foreign invasion.

Military alliances and foreign policy no longer command the cross-party consensus of the cold war era, when politics could be relied upon to “stop at the water’s edge”, in the famous formulation of the Truman-era senator Arthur Vandenberg.

Now the politics don’t stop at all, for any reason. And alliances are for chumps.

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[-] PortoPeople@lemm.ee 100 points 5 days ago

Yes. When you elect a convicted criminal fascist with no guard rails or restraints, this will be the end of the United States as we know it.

Fascism has come.

[-] Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 42 points 5 days ago

Not fair. You didn't mention that he's a rapist, racist and Jeffrey Epstein's closest friend.

[-] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 12 points 5 days ago

Possibly a pedophile as well

[-] HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 59 points 5 days ago

american dream was lost a while back. now its a matter of losing american sanity.

[-] wellheh@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 5 days ago

The American dream has changed so many times through the generations I'm not sure there's any cohesive vision. I remember it used to be owning a house, having kids, and being self sufficient. Nowadays I don't think young people even want kids- having time and money to have fun seems like the dream, which is sort of... bleak? That should be the bare minimum, but the older generations failed them.

[-] vanontom@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I'm still amazed at the catastrophic damage one single generation can do to a country, voting for terrible policies over and over again (Reagan, Bush, Trump). Refusing to admit when things are not working, turning instead to a propaganda apparatus, preferring to detach from reality. And they're not even done (dead) yet...

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[-] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 41 points 5 days ago

"The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it." - George Carlin

[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 38 points 5 days ago

The Republican war on the middle class is what's killed the American Dream. Doing everything possible to reduce the buying power of white and blue-collar workers has gutted class mobility. The Democrats have played along to keep shifting the Overton Window towards the right to help make it happen. Donors happy all around as they move production offshore for low labor cost.

System working as intended.

[-] MyOpinion@lemm.ee 61 points 5 days ago

Yes. One of the parties has embraced dictatorship. Democracy cannot continue in that environment.

Don't forget, their cultists will vote for anything they say.

[-] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 30 points 5 days ago

ask again in 4 years when the rapist refuses to step down and his court lackeys back him on it

[-] Catma@lemmy.world 23 points 5 days ago

I dont think he makes it 4 years. He is just the means to an end. Vance i think 25th amendments him Jan 21, 2027. That way he wont serve 2 years and can run for 2 full terms. Its that or they just kill him. Dems will 100% get the blame and it could get even worse.

I think it is if you serve more than half a term it counts as 1 term for purposes of the 2 term limit.

[-] Mirshe@lemmy.world 18 points 5 days ago

This, of course, assumes he doesn't just drop dead of any one of a dozen age-related health issues one day.

[-] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 10 points 5 days ago

If Trump dies in office, I'd prefer it to be a lighning strike while he's golfing.

Something that even the craziest of the MAGAts can't get away with blaming on the democrats.

[-] eccentric@lemm.ee 9 points 5 days ago

If Trump dies in office, I'd prefer it to be a lighning strike while he's golfing.

Believe it or not, some of them believe Democrats control the weather. I can hear it now, "Democrats assassinated Trump with lightning!"


"They" can control the weather, and the proof is in the patents, said Georgia Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

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[-] FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago

You think the Jewish space laser people won’t just immediately start screaming that the Haitians have built a lightning shrine on the island or something like that? We are no longer bound by reality in reporting, much less truth

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[-] AngryRobot@lemmy.world 17 points 5 days ago

You're cute that you think we'll have elections again. Before the midterms, they'll run a false flag operation so they can declare martial law and cancel elections.

"If I'm elected, you'll never have to vote again!"

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[-] PoopSpiderman@lemmy.world 51 points 5 days ago

I still think a bloody class war would go a long way.

[-] NJSpradlin@lemmy.world 64 points 5 days ago

More than half your class is too busy licking their boots to unite against them. They’re grateful for the scraps they’re being given, while worshipping their masters.

[-] PoopSpiderman@lemmy.world 40 points 5 days ago

I completely agree. That’s why Fox News exists. It was meant to create the bootlickers, and create the division.

[-] tburkhol@lemmy.world 26 points 5 days ago

There's a lot more than Fox out there echoing the narrative that times are hard, inflation is killing you, and there aren't enough homes to go around. Wapo and NYT would happily recount Trump's claims that it's because immigrants are taking all the houses and jobs while Biden policies are making everything expensive. Doesn't matter if they follow up with long-winded explanations that his claims aren't true, because most people stop listening when they hear there's someone to blame.

[-] PoopSpiderman@lemmy.world 13 points 5 days ago

You make excellent points. The divide in this country was well researched, and well planned. The fears, and insecurities of the conservative base have been coddled, and amplified to great effect.

[-] nomous@lemmy.world 12 points 5 days ago

You see and hear it all the time, the "news" repeats the lie and says something like "and while there's some truth to that, what's more impactful......."

So they sort of disputed it but not really and they got to repeat the lie.

Trump was right about one thing, the media are not our friend. They've profited from him at every step, propped him up, coddled him, both sides of the media are complicit. When the pogroms start, I hope the talking head media elite are on the lists.

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[-] Empricorn@feddit.nl 46 points 5 days ago
[-] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 31 points 5 days ago

I've been thinking a lot about this, like others, and found one kernel of hope to hang onto: the only way to know a democracy is safe from internal threats is to test that democracy. This is that test. This is the tyranny of the minority that the founding fathers were worried about. This is the stress test for democracy and I pray wiser men have stymied the most malicious people in American history.

If we get through this, and are faced with another Reconstruction period, we must be diligent and exterminate bigotry and corporate undermining of government bodies.

[-] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 17 points 5 days ago

Pfft, they havent lost faith in it. They just voted against it because they're all uneducated morons who take lies at face value.

[-] hohoho@lemmy.world 32 points 5 days ago

Right wing propaganda networks pumping out fear of immigrants 24/7 was all too successful. We need to find ways to combat this and the type of drivel this article purveys. We have to find ways of coming together instead of letting these populist movements divide and conquer.

[-] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 14 points 5 days ago

If I can quote the late George Carlin: "They call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."

I would argue that George was right and the American dream doesn't exist, and never existed. You cannot destroy that which does not exist..

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 24 points 5 days ago

There are worse ways to spend your life than chasing the American dream. But once you've found it, like I did in Vegas, what's called the old Psychiatrist's Club, then it is kind of puzzling. You feel kind of naked and alone out there, because once you've found the dream, it is generally just a slab of burned-out concrete in Las Vegas called the old Psychiatrist's Club, then it's kind of hard to go on from there on the same.

  • Hunter S. Thompson, November 1, 1977, Lecture at the University of Colorado (Boulder)
[-] pregnantwithrage@lemmy.world 10 points 5 days ago
[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 13 points 5 days ago

Yes.

Yes it is.

[-] nifty@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago

Bit more than that, it’s maybe the end of American influence in the world because the neocon 3.0 agenda will bring intense economic strife and social suffering. The environmental and regulatory policies will lead to infrastructure deterioration and polluted air, water etc. The health policies will lead to a weak and sick population. The rich and upper middle class will live in Nordic countries or Europe, as they mostly already do, where they will enjoy the social policies that they deprive Americans of. Most talent will likely go to other countries. But I seriously hope I am wrong.

[-] Archer@lemmy.world 11 points 5 days ago

It was an obvious lie decades ago. Nothing has changed

[-] Buffalox@lemmy.world 26 points 5 days ago

Oh yes it's changed alright, the lie has become bigger.
Consider the TV show married with children, a shoe salesman is married and has 2 children a house and a car, on a single lower end income.
And it wasn't completely unrealistic back in the late 80's to mid 90's.

[-] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 35 points 5 days ago

Here's a very brief explanation of what happened.

In 1960 minimum wage was $1.00/hour and the price of the average US home was $11,000.00 A popular tour guide was called "Europe on $5.00 A Day" [over the years they did specific cities like Paris or Rome or London...]

In 1964 LBJ decides that he can win the War in Vietnam with a massive buildup and increased bombings. He prints paper money to pay for it, because he doesn't want to raise taxes. The plan is a miserable failure and protests force LBJ to step aside. In 1968 we elect 'peace candidate' Nixon [who sabotaged the Paris Peace Talks]

Nixon kept LBJ's plan and increased spending. He knew the War was unwinnable but thought he could kick the problem down the road and let the 1976 President deal with 'losing' the war.

By 1976 inflation was a major problem, not helped by the Arab Oil Boycott that tripled the price of gas overnight. All those cool loft buildings you see in places like Manhattan used to be small factories making things like purses, clothing, toys etc etc. The owners moved the businesses to the US south where there were fewer Unions.

Jimmy Carter hired a man named Paul Volker to deal with inflation. Carter got voted out before the Volker plan could kick in, so Reagan got the credit for Carter's ideas.

Reagan's own Veep, George HW Bush called the Reaganomics trickle down "voo doo economics" until Reagan offered him the #2 spot on his ticket.

In 1968, when Nixon started waging War with paper money, "middle class" was one Union job paying for a family of four with a nice savings account. In those days, $1 million was still considered a vast fortune. By 1992, when Bush Sr. was finished, middle class was two incomes to run the house and $1 million was what a rich guy paid for a party.

[-] echo@lemmings.world 11 points 5 days ago

And you're leaving out so much (just like I will)... While all of this is going on, Nixon jumps in bed with Kaiser Permanente to convert all health-care into a for-profit enterprise. All of the unions are demonized and bastardized. Now you have the majority of the people in the US vulnerable and afraid where they can be completely controlled. Simultaneously, you blame everything that is happening on public education so that you have generation after generation of stupid people who are even easier to scare and manipulate and who will no longer believe the actual truth-tellers.

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[-] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 10 points 5 days ago

That almost sounds like you are blaming LBJ. Nixon was the one who caused the 1970 economic disaster that led to everything after. He ended the gold Standard and gave unfettered power to banks. Inflation was the goal as inflation directly benefitted real estate. The owner class became obscenely rich quickly, and it never stopped.

[-] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 10 points 5 days ago

LBJ thought he could win Vietnam with a single bold stroke. Nixon knew the War was unwinnable, but once the US forces were bogged down he kept redoubling down. LBJ made a terrible mistake, but it was Nixon who really screwed things up.

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[-] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 8 points 5 days ago

lights tip of rag protruding from bottle

Or is it just the beginning?

We deserve it. We voted for it.

[-] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 17 points 5 days ago

Fuck no we didn't. The problem is a huge chunk of people who normally pretend to care took the fucking day off.

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[-] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago

Always has been. It's just that the thin veneer that was always on top has now has come off.

[-] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 24 points 5 days ago

No. There really was a time when FDR's New Deal raised millions out of poverty and gave them a taste of the good life.

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this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2024
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