andallthat @ andallthat @lemmy.world

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2

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418

Joined

2 yr. ago

One of the few areas where representation is fair is assholery. There are real assholes from all genders, ethnicity and religious backgrounds.

You can be non-white, non-binary, non-wasp and still be an asshole. And other assholes will accept you, if it helps shield their evil agenda from the most obvious accusations.

And guess what political side has learned to leverage that fact? I'll give you a few hints. Neonazi AfD in Germany has a lesbian leader with a Sri Lankan partner, the italian far right party (staunch defender of family values) has a leader who's a never married single mom (and now she's Italy's prime minister), then you already mentioned Trump and Vance.

Don't get me wrong, Usha Vance, Melania Trump, Giorgia Meloni, Alice Weidel aren't being exploited. They are all formidable persons who got to the top by out-assholing everyone else on their side and by actively banking on their "non traditional" status to emerge in ultra-conservative environments.

So they don't need to rationalize anything. It's all already quite rational and by design.

"Nasty, failing Norway, they should just hand over Greenland. That Helsinki is a horrible place, we have so many cleaner and better looking places here in the US!"

sure, but let me be just as obvious: the issue is not with what they want, it's the "grab them by the p__y" approach to international diplomacy. You know those groups of teenagers that do stupid, violent things to be cheered by the gang? That's modern politics, apparently.

Trump's thing are 1:1 negotiations, like with Putin. He's all about making a deal personally and people gushing over how great of a deal he made. Unfortunately he's not nearly as good as he thinks he is.

Tariffs are meant as his opening power move, like the used car salesman's firm handshake. Same (I hope...) as the fuckery on Canada or Greenland. They are the "I am strong and I want something, let's sit and negotiate".

Problem is that the used car salesman only has two outcomes: customer buys the clunker or customer walks away. But it rarely happens that "customer is strong-armed into buying the clunker but customer is fire-fighter and next time will let the car dealership burn down".

I'm in another country and not speaking about Indians in particular, but my family have been immigrants. One thing I observed is that immigrants tend to have a stronger anti-immigration stance than other demographics.

I think it's one part shame. You worked hard and now you feel superior to the "fresh off the boat" person you once were and (by extension) to all those new immigrants.

One part it's that inside, we all have these shitty feelings toward other people but, as immigrants ourselves, we feel legitimised to express them openly because hey, that can't be racist if you're talking of your own ethnicity, right?

And then of course,in many places immigrants tend to be pigeonholed into specific types of jobs, so more immigrants not from your family = more competition. But that is not for the Usha Vance types who made it close to the top.

I see that dynamic being actively exploited for politics everywhere. The lesbian leader of the neonazi AfD in Germany, for instance. "I can't be racist, I have an Indian wife" is just not true. You can and the Indian wife can be too.

Only one way to settle the debate: let's build that Large Fascist Collider

...says the man who's quite literally leading a witch hunt against all non-white, non-binary and non-billionaire "witches"

And he gets mad at so many things! It's liberating, really

I wish Trump and his people to really go as far as they have to....And to stay there. Evena bit farther, I won't complain

Today I relived the experience of walking into three different bookstores looking for a specific book I needed. Navigated there using Organic Maps.

-10% convenience +50% smugness

maybe he studies fascism in the way at CERN they study particles: once they found experimental evidence that one exists, they start looking for the next. Now given the abundant evidence that the US fascist exists and multiple collisions have been observed with everyone's balls, he's started searching for the more elusive Canadian Fascist

Technically agree that it's one of the nastiest. Definitely in the top 200!

At this point, it looks like Trump is trying really hard to mess with his voters and lose them. But unluckily he is failing hard even at that.

From a European perspective, this is very welcome news. It's a pity that it took a Trump for us to even start discussing these things but when there is real sense of urgency, COVID taught us that Europe can move fast.

And I'm not talking about vaccines. In a few months of COVID, digiital services have leaped forward probably 10 years (at least in my country). Suddenly we can have most of our government and public services online, I can check my child school records in an app, my grampa used his digital IDs to change his family doctor from his phone.

None of this is rocket science and mostly it didn't require building new things. But I'm pretty sure none of it was going to be done any time soon.

I hope Europe manages to get out of this more politically united, with a common defense, investment in critical infrastructure and possibly with stronger safeguards to Democracy (and since I'm basically writing my letter to Santa in advance, I'd also really like to have the UK back... )

It's tough, because historically European countries don't really get along well or trust each other much, and centrifugal forces are strong and too easily manipulated. But under direct threat from both sides maybe, just maybe....

yes, so typical and yet so effective so far.

Phase 1: eat a baby in plain view at a crowded event

Phase 2: get really angry and personally attack anybody who mentions it and their employer

Phase 3: after a few days just roll your eyes and dismiss with "again with that baby thing?"

If nothing serious happens right after phase 1, holding onto this as future political ammo seems to be worthless. I really hope I'm wrong and that the accumulation of these things is enough to turn enough of Trump's base against him but they accumulated a whole fricking lot by now and there is still room for more...

• Looks like shit, remove this portrait immediately!
• The portrait is on the other wall, Mister President, that one is a mirror.

They have been carefully assembled to make Trump look smart in comparison. It wasn't an easy task.

...wait, was that a Tesla?

Being berated by Trump personally should be worn as a badge of honour. I'll accept a "personally insulted by Musk"as kind of a silver medal.

But come on... Witkoff? The only proper response is "do you kiss Trump's butt with that mouth?"

Was Steven Seagal ever relevant? I mean besides the "so trashy that it's occasionally fun", guilty-pleasure type of relevance he briefly enjoyed in the 1980s?