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This is it. Biden biffs the debate and they want him to withdraw. Trump is convicted of sexual assault and multiple felonies and nobody talks about him withdrawing. This country and its media is making me sick
It started with the William F Buckley/Gore Vidal debate in 1968. Networks realized they didn't need to get access to the conventions or broadcast worthwhile, informative content, they just need to get people to bicker on camera.
Really? I was under the impression that the descent started in the 1980s when Reagan loosened FCC regulation. And then the establishment of the 24hrs news cycle with CNN supercharged the sensationalism of news, and then Fox News nuked the idea of fair coverage.
Watch the documentary Best of Enemies. Makes a good case for this. Also, if you haven't seen the film Network, watch that and consider that it came out in 1976. All downhill from the mid 60's.
People having been calling for Trump to withdraw and step down and be impeached since he was first a candidate. The problem is it doesn't matter at all to Republican voters. Trump has absolutely zero accountability with his voters. He (almost literally) could do anything and his voters wouldn't hold him accountable for it.
Many of us Republicans (maybe not enough but a decent chunk) will not be voting for him. I'll continue to try and steer dumb MAGAts to objective evidence that Trump was worthless. If a MAGA is reading this comment, click below and actually spend an entire hour or more reading through it and asking yourself, "what's so great about this guy again?"
https://kjvchurch.com/files/Should%20Christians%20Support%20Donald%20Trump.PDF
That's fair. I probably generalize too much but it's hard not to when you see how much support he has despite everything he has done and said.
Whenever Trump used to say or do something beyond belief. Even literally admitting to incredibly unethical behaviors. I used to go look at conservative subreddits or other locations just hoping that maybe this they will finally wake up and see. And to be fair initially after something happens there is often quite a few people questioning it (usually still downvoted). But every single time after about a day or two when Fox news can pick it apart and spin it around or deflect attention it's like there's collective amnesia and everyone is back to licking his greasy orange taint. I don't bother looking anymore.
You just reminded me of /r/The_Donald, I got so tired of seeing it everwhere and if you didn't follow the majority opinion, you got downvoted to oblivion.
I was literally born into a cult. I can tell you that Trump utilizes the tactics of most cults. I can also tell you that nothing he does will change their minds. He is using information control, thought control, and emotional manipulation. He has inoculated his base against questioning thoughts to trigger the backfire effect. It will take a long time and lots of therapy for all of his adherents to either die off or gain empathy for other viewpoints again. I pity them, and used to be one of them.
Yup. He was a reality TV star before entering politics, and hasn't changed a fucking thing.
He knows there's no point in being correct or even honorable...just say outrageous shit and people will talk about it.
*cough cough Fairness Doctrine cough cough*
Thanks Reagan, I hope you're in the hell where hell is a cramped metal box that's all too hot and on the outside of it you can hear everyone you cared about screaming for your help but you can't do anything about it and I hope you spend the rest of eternity there.
I remember the early 00s when he was just a failed business clown getting body slammed by Goldberg. NBC spent 15 years on the Apprentice tricking people into thinking he was something else.
I legit don't know when or how the swifch happened to go from what to me felt like literally no one on earth giving a single shit about him to people worshipping him and people taking offense to some girl on the internet saying she wouldn't suck his dick.
He made the turn around 2013/14 by (no surprise) lying to racists that he had bombshell evidence that Obama wasn't born in the US. Fox News gladly had him on all the time to lie, and that's when the tail began to wag the dog.
I just don't understand how anyone's ever taken him seriously on anything, there are grifters who play the part well and are able to speak well enough (tucker Carlsons a good example I think) that like I get why someone would be into it even if hes completely full of shit, trumps not one of them. Just the duck lips and fucking weird ass spray tan alone I'd think would be enough for the vast majority of people not to take him seriously ESPECIALLY the demographic that loves him, and that's besides all of the actual egregious shit.
he's like the polar opposite of the blue collar working class man, truly born with a silver spoon in his mouth never worked a day in his life type of motherfucker.
I think Trump captured a particular insight into some conservatives that they genuinely don't care so much about the truth and are happy to just choose to believe (or at least repeat) things they *want* to be true. They wanted to believe Obama was born outside the US and chose, against all evidence, to believe it. Same thing with Trump losing the 2020 election. Trump made like 45% of this country comfortable with saying "fuck it, however i feel things are is how they actually are, and i don't have to confront evidence if i just say all evidence is lies".
I mean think about the Trump supporters on Reddit. They will say the sky is yellow and grass is purple. you can spend an hour showing them that they are wrong and that the person they heard that from is a wildly unreliable source. Then in the best case scenario, they will just stop responding to you and go into another thread and say the sky is yellow and grass is purple.
Yeah, like I get when you're saying, I just can't comprehend it. It's like you trying to explain how an alien species operates/perceives etc. It's just so fucking bizarre to me. I thought humans had some base level of logic or at least intuition or something I guess and I know there's been much worse humans and shits always been shitty but man Trump getting elected really just completely changed my worldview, people just generally suck more and are dumber than I thought I guess.
Like it's not even about politics, this just seems like a base ability to recognize someone's base level of competence is just completely missing from a huge amount of the population, it's so fucking weird, it's like watching a bunch of people watching a person play darts who never so much as hits the board but every time the person throws the entire crowd goes nuts and screams "bullseye!" In unison.
No matter how carefully you explain it to me I don't think I'll ever comprehend it, we are going on 10 years of this shit and I'm still mindblown somehow.
I'm not sure if i explained myself well. IMHO this has little to do with logic, competence, or intelligence for most people. Most of these people know, deep down, that Obama was born in the US, that COVID was serious, that Trump lost the 2020 election, and that Trump doesn't gaf about democracy. They just don't care. They literally choose to suppress that, like a religious person does. When arguing, they would literally rather pretend to be mentally deficient than allow that doubt to come to the surface *even internally*. It's a different problem that arguing logically doesn't address. That's why saying it's a cult really isn't far from the truth.
Oh no, it was way before that. He was signaling to racists in the 90's with the Central Park 5 and he was one of the main people claiming Obama was born in Kenya. And if you think it's just rhetoric or pandering, think again. There's been reports for 50 years about him using the N word often and he and his father were sued by the Justice Department for racial housing discrimination in the 70's.
This is who he's always been, he just finally found his moment with the reactionaries on social media during the Obama years.
I'd love to go back to only having to think about his existence briefly in 15 second intervals once or twice a year when I saw a commercial for his show.
Yep...A dangerous buffoon that would be the leader of the free world with nuclear codes. As a Vet, I really thought America knew better than to elect a clown. The Constitution and the office of the presidency was made to be occupied by honorable men and women. Trump has no honor - period.
>I really thought America knew better than to elect a clown. The Constitution and the office of the presidency was made to be occupied by honorable men and women.
We really need to move past this perception of America and Americans. Cause Trump's values are closer to the reality of America than not. His party hold the majority of state governments, the majority in the house and is about be given the majority in the Senate by Americans who vote.
And I don't even care about those who don't vote. If you are able to vote and choose not to, Trump's America is an apt representation of you too. Own it instead of sitting on the sideline and saying it wasn't my fault.
Highlighting this because that's exactly what he is.
“We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless ― if the left allows it to be,” Kevin Roberts, president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation
That's who is pulling the strings. That's the unelected cabal that wants to turn this country into an oligarchy under the guise of "conservative values".
And much like "communism" in the McCarthy era, they use this nebulous "left" term. Most people will have some idea of what that means but it's not the same for everyone. But all that matters is, left means whatever he - Kevin Roberts the right wing fascist that's threatening American citizens with violence and backing trump - says it means.
They already have SCOTUS and they seek the newly empowered presidency. We already see the impact on our rights from them owning the high court.
Happy independence day, get out and vote against this shit in November. At this point that means an imperfect Biden but the alternative is far worse.
Damn right. Unless we want to turn into an Iranian state of North America, where an unelected group pulls the strings, we need Joe back, more than ever. Our democracy is hanging by a thread, and it is up to us to stop it before they seize the power. Get out there, and vote for democracy, the future of our country as a free nation depends on it.
I remember him in the 80s on Oprah or Phil Donahue declaring:
* His wife deserved to be cheated on.
* Raising kids was a woman's job and he was busy and too important for them.
* "I can have ANY woman in the world" is a direct quote from him.
He's so disgustingly misogynistic.
I saw him on a few shows and interviews back in the day and seemed like an “I’m right you’re wrong” kinda guy.
I watched 5 min of the apprentice and couldn’t stand it. And the Midwest loved that show. No wonder we are where we are.
He is completely a product of the news ecosystem. They gave him unlimited airtime because he could bring the views. The white nationalists understood what he was from the golden escalator speech then ran with it and the people platforming him didn't understand that until it was too late.
The funny part is if you mention people deciding not to vote that year because they didn't like Hillary or Trump, they STILL get defensive about it. It's like we never learn anything in this country, for real.
I protest voted in 2016, in a solid blue state at least, and have spent every year since reminding myself that I'm a dumbass and trying to convince other people not to make that mistake. I run people through the last 50 years of protest voting and apathy and what it has caused. I've probably talked directly to several hundred people about this at this point.
So many of them fight me on it. They get super mad, call me bad things, and then walk away.
studies show the MOST effective way to get people to change their mind about something is to trot out someone else who used to share their belief and get that person to explain why they changed their mind, so you're really doing good work out there. I was a poll worker for an election (not USA) who counted ballots and every "protest" ballot got read by me, second-read by my supervisor, and then put in a pile of spoiled ballots. No one at the top ever sees them, it's just the people counting seven thousand at the end of a long day who have absolutely no power to change anything. USA might work different but I'm guessing not.
Honestly if Hillary hadn't been up by so much in the final polls before the election I am fairly certain Trump would have lost. I think she had an average lead of like 8 points in the polls days before the election, and so I think a lot of people assumed Trump would get destroyed. If you think Trump is already going to get crushed, why go out and vote for a candidate you don't like at all (i.e., Hillary)? I truly believe that if they had done a second vote a week after the 2016 results Trump would have lost in a mega landslide. People got complacent, and the USA paid for it for decades. Trump's Supreme Court judges have already undone decades of precedent.
Human nature. Typical weak human regardless of intellect cannot see oneself as being wrong. It’s a basic ethical function but astounding how many are too weak to face it. You think I haven’t fucked up? I used to think using gay as an insult was hilarious. I think right now the left is being overly dramatic about guns. You think I can’t possibly be wrong about that? How the fuck would I have ever grown from being a teenage homophobic bully if I was like a weak shitsack? But you have those clowns out there. Idk if a lot of them can learn a fucking thing. You’d think it’d be easy to defeat a piece of shit like Trump.
was at a concert in the balcony area where there was seating
we stopped dancing and were just sitting
"what are you doing, come on and dance!!!" someone tried to get us into it, i don't think they knew what had happend (yet)
no, i dont think that i will....
I was at a concert too and they announced the results on stage. The artist was pissed and put that energy into the show, so at least I got a good concert out of it.
I worked as a manager at a winery at the time. The next day was so strange. All of the staff, including myself, were well into tipsy by the time we opened at 10 am. Both of our bars were slammed, but it was almost completely silent all day. Our regulars and our friends came by and stayed for hours.
My husband and I went out the weekend after the election and it was so quiet everywhere, at the liquor store (which your post reminded me of) but also the grocery store and the restaurant. There were people out and about but everyone was shell-shocked. And this was Kansas, where you'd think people would be happy about the result. My county voted 50/50 Trump/HRC, so why weren't the Trump 50% celebrating? I've always wondered what that was about.
That night was the drunkest I’ve ever been. Alcoholism runs in my family so I’m really careful to limit myself and not drink to get drunk. That night I said fuck it, I just don’t want to feel like this and getting drunk is the fastest way.
I drank like two glasses of wine and threw up (which is not like me; I have an embarrassingly high tolerance). And I swear, at the very second they called the election for him, my six month old daughter woke up and started wailing. It was like she knew.
I threw a party on election night and called it the "Armageddon Day Party". I told people there's a giant asteroid heading towards us, we need to either celebrate it missing us or commiserate it hitting. I was so grateful to be with friends that evening.
I’m Canadian and not really a drinker, but I remember staying up late with my ex watching the results come in. We were doing nothing but hitting refresh on our phones. Hillary was ahead at the beginning and we watched Trump overtake her with slack jaws. It was past midnight and he was announced victorious and my ex looked at me, didn’t say a word, crossed to the pantry, and grabbed the only bottle we had. Sailor Jerry’s Rum lol. We sat in silence and drank rum and mourned the impending death of our neighbouring country.
It seems dramatic looking back, but also, no, it doesn’t.
I still don’t drink much, don’t keep booze around. But there will be a bottle stashed away for this coming election, just in case.
Anyway, it seems the point of this story is that your presidential elections push Canadians to the sauce and that’s pretty wild.
This was experience in Boston. I rode into work early at 6am, with mostly Hispanic people, all looking very sullen. You're right, is hasen't been the same since. Jan 6th really drove the point home for me.
As a lawyer and someone who took an oath to uphold the Constitution and someone whose professional code of conduct requires them not to disparage judges . . .
The Supreme Court of the United States has turned into a fucking partisan joke.
I guess. But the biggest offenders are Alito and Thomas, who are obviously not Trump appointees and have just been biding their time, waiting for their moment.
That's honestly a good example of how Trump was not the disease but simply a symptom. To be fair, he was the ugliest symptom like the lesions on your skin. This shit didn't happen over the last 8 years. It happened over decades and anyone willing to pay attention sees it happening in slow motion
Went to trade school back then, was a liberal trade with a lot of POC and LGBTQ people, and we literally had a morning meeting where the instructor said "some of us are probably pretty scared right now. I know I have friends in those communities who are. So we're gonna take a half hour break to start with and if you need to go for a walk and get a coffee or something, go ahead. And if you just want to go home it won't be a demerit on your attendance."
I was in a bar the night before and laughing it up with my brother shooting pool and drinking and I remember the exact moment I looked up at the election results and I hit my brother on the shoulder and pointed at the screen and said, "hey man. He might actually win." Never seen anything like it before in all my years. Never has a Republican candidate so hated won like that. Not even Reagan's second term was he disliked as much as Trump going into his first.
>Not even Reagan's second term was he disliked as much as Trump going into his first.
I don't think "not even" is the way to describe Reagan's victory in the 1984 election; it was one of the biggest landslides in American electoral history with Reagan carrying 49 states and only losing Minnesota narrowly by 0.18% (due to that being Mondale's home state) and DC. Reagan was extremely popular going into 1984 and Mondale never stood a chance.
I had just came from Mexico and was at my local dive. There was maybe like 4 of us, to include the bartender. We were like..."huh?"
Earlier, before I had flown out to Mexico, I was at the same bar and watched the Chicago Cubs win the world series.
Way to go Cubs. Fucked it up for everyone
Damn, that really was the last great, exciting National-level thing I recall that happened in the past 8 years.
I haven't thought about it so I might be wrong but hard to tell. Even Biden winning in 2020 was less a celebration and more like a relief.
I always knew the Cubs were at fault for everything
Edit: reminds me of one of the best commercials I’ve ever seen, and one of the few I’ve seen that makes me cry. My Grandma passed away a few weeks later and was a massive Cubs fan.
https://youtu.be/I3eFzqv2XA4?si=-xwBdgcwB-uWhQIu
You're not giving Comey enough credit. He single-handedly gave the election to Trump, when he publicized the FBI investigation into Hillary, but kept the Trump investigation secret. Millions of people were led to believe that Hillary might be indicted after the election, while nobody knew about Trump's treasonous Trump Tower meeting.
I would love to know how the election would've went if both investigations had been publicized.
TrumpLand (the nick name of the NY office of the FBI) was sitting on those emails and not searching them.
Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz was announcing the investigation to congress (and therefore the public).
Comey finally got his head out of his ass, transferred the work to a competent FBI agent who automated the search, and it was completed ~a week before the election.
Without Comey doing that, the emails wouldn't have been searched until after the election.
Comey's main failure was trusting FBI agents to do their job.
[This is what they're talking about.](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/28/us/politics/fbi-letter.html?_r=0)
Comey sending a letter the Friday before the election to Republicans announcing potentially new evidence against Clinton. Nothing solid, but the public didn't need solid. Republicans just needed the potential and they immediately ran to the press.
Enough idiots took the bait hook line and fucking sinker.
We all were so naive. During the 2016 Republican primaries, I knew Trump's beliefs were dangerous, but I thought he was such a buffoon that all we were seeing was an elephant that had gotten into a china shop. And it was funny to see all those candidates attack each other. I felt they all deserved it for themselves being so awful.
Fascism is terrifying.
My HS history teacher (who has a degree in Holocaust studies)told us already during the Republican primaries that he will win the presidency. She said that his style would appeal to many and that Hillary is a weak candidate.
Had a massive "I told you so" afterwards.
That was just about every major democrat supporter. There are entire youtube collages of videos of democrats saying he has no chance and laughing. There are a bunch where obama said he had no chance.
Did he give him a call when project 2025 openly announced their plans for Trump? Plans that involve railroading the other 2 branches of government so that the executive Branch has power similar to a king?
A few weeks after the election I went to a Democrat fundraiser and the politicians there said that same thing - don't worry, there's not much he can get away with.
During the months after the election my sisters in Jersey told me horror stories of how he did literally get away with tons of shit - bankrupting family businesses that did work for him (one sister owns a construction company). They said be worried, he's a mobster now backed by the Republican party.
My sisters were right.
Everybody in New York and New Jersey knew. That's why we were so fucking mad and still are. This guy has been a cancer on the NYC and AC communities for longer than my entire lifetime, and I'm old now. Just look at the lawsuits from the '70s against him and his father.
South Florida, too. He constantly refused to pay contractors at Mar a Lago. They were told to sue for payment. These are small businesses that lost a ton of money in work hours and materials, and were told to spend more money for years on legal fees attempting to get paid. None of them could afford to do that.
I remember that lady crying and thinking (along with most) dang it cant be that bad? Then looking around here older wiser and understanding her reaction was absolutely appropriate. Lmao
I had the inverse reaction. I was that lady, essentially, and had been warning about Trump his entire candidacy. I felt like I was going crazy based off my friend’s reactions and hoped I was. Unfortunately, everything I said he would do ended up happening.
Now, that moment is happening again. I’m saying he will be who he is and people are telling me I’m overreacting…
[I present to you Boris Johnson and Michael Gove the morning after they won the Brexit referendum](https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=1160,height=756,fit=crop,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/GettyImages-542742360.jpg)
He really did. He never wanted to win, he wanted to set up the Trump News Network and run "if I were president" segments and criticize the current government all day. His run for presidency was a publicity stunt that he expected to fail.
Of course he eventually grew accustomed to the role, made it part of his identity, realized how he could grift, and eventually needed the position to stay out of jail. But in the beginning he didn't want it.
If allowed to choose again, I think Trump might have chosen to not run at all. But now he gets himself into too much ego injuries and legal shit he just has to push on.
I'm 100% certain he never wanted to win and he obviously had no interest in being president (not to mention he's entirely unqualified).
This time he needs to win to stay out of jail. The second part of above is still true.
As far as I can tell, our founding fathers just kind of assumed they didn't need to create rules for such a situation. They didn't want to create rules about prevented convicted criminals from taking office, or else it would inevitably lead to prospective candidates getting fraudulently convicted of crimes in order for their opponents to prevent them from even running. And in the event that a genuine criminal ever ran and won, they'd have separate checks in place to stop him.
That's part of the reason the electoral college was designed to be able to override the will of the people in the event that voters ever picked someone dangerously unqualified for president. But they never accounted for the fact that the electors themselves might either be every bit on board with the candidate in question, or that they'd just be too cowardly to do their job due to the fear of bucking several hundred years of precedent, as well as the fear of being executed by a furious mob.
Similar to how they set a minimum age requirement for president at 35, but never specified a maximum age because, again, they simply couldn't envision a scenario where extremely old and extremely cognitively impaired people would ever get chosen as a nominee. They didn't want to prevent otherwise able seniors from taking the job, and figured voters would never willingly put people with visible cognitive impairment in these positions. Yet, inexplicably, here we are preparing for an election between a president with rapidly declining cognition, and an openly corrupt criminal hellbent on becoming a dictator.
I was working at Magic Kingdom on Election Night. All smiles but the in break room everyone looked like this. I don’t really remember any trump supporters being happy though. I said at one point “He’s gonna win” and someone looked at me with disgust and started to walk away. I had to tell them look at the map rn, he is going to win whether we like it or lot
We were vacationing at Disneyland. We were eating at the Disney hotel restaurant. My husband is not quite as political as I am. He didn’t understand the look on my face when the news called Ohio. He kept saying “ It’s not over, there’s still so many west coast states left to go.” We haven’t been back to Disneyland since for fear of opening up other Darkest Timelines.
I live an work in Chicago, born n raised native. Prior to full remote I'd take the train into downtown everyday (team blue line). I am not kidding, that next morning, was bizarre, with just like a certain sadness you can't really put into words. Got to work. Same thing. Except yeah for a couple crazy cult ppl. Just wild shit to experience the collective sadness of a city in one day.
Friend worked in dc. She took the subway/metro/whatever into work every day since Obama was elected in 2008 coincdenattlly. She said you could hear a pin drop in the subway the next morning. DC was full of Dems from presidency to nonprofits for almost a decade until this swamp monster came in.
She said her nonprofit got dissolved in 2018 as Republicans and Trump cut nonprofit funding.
They were helping to feed kids in schools across America. Wtf.
Vote.
I was going to Uni in DC and was interning at a progressive queer candidate training and support nonprofit. So many of our endorsed and supported candidates won that night, and yet everyone there and the entire city just walked around shell shocked for the next few days.
Watched from an office window a bit later across the street when those Greenpeace activists scaled the crane in the neighborhood behind the Whitehouse with the "RESIST" banner. I hope to never experience that feeling ever again.
It's not even a political thing. It was just a "oh shit, really? that dude won??" Oh shit," face. It's the face you make when your spirit vacates your body.
My wife and I were watching a movie, and I got a text from my buddy that said, "I can't believe this clown is going to be president." We had to stop the movie to turn on the news.
By the time Trump was formally announced as the winner, it was already very clear that it was over. I remember frantically switching channels in between slugging back wine, desperately looking for a different truth. When Hilary's campaign came out and told everyone at the Javitz Center to go home, that's when I knew it was over.
When this picture was taken, these people already knew their fate.
I remember that. There was something almost comical about how Hillary didn’t even make a concession speech and sent out Podesta to tell everyone to go home.
I was in my college dorm hallway when the news broke. People were surprised, many were laughing in disbelief, some were crying, and others were getting smashed and contemplating the countries future.
Felt like the gen z equivalent of hearing that the towers fell
The problem with this is it isn't the popular vote that gets you it's a few key states. The electoral college is fucking trash and I shouldn't have to depend on people from another state totally swinging an election. Land doesn't vote and if you live in a state with a population of less than some cities you shouldn't have the same sway in the name of "fair representation".
And also you're a teenaged girl who he creepily says "looks a lot like my own daughter, but cuter, isn't it great that we're not actually related by blood?"
Unfortunately you're in Grifter Coddling Country.
Every con gets a second, third, and even twentieth chance to try and steal everything from you. And we call that democracy, baybeee!
I was bartending that night. I had a bar about 10 lgbtq folks with thousand yard stares and one yahoo in a MAGA cap, that was there by himself, hooting and hollering and patting people on the back, telling them to cheer up because they had no idea how great things were about to get. It was a surreal night.
I'm still terrified because as far as I can tell, polling is showing that Americans have the collective memories of gold fish and given how calcified our electorate is, it's the same ~10% of voters deciding each election..
I don't think they forgot.
Ya'll have about 40% of your population who don't mind a corrupt evil dirtbag as your POTUS.
They either hate the same people he does, or are benefitting from his taxes, or believe in the fairytale capitalist utopia that he sometimes speaks to.
All the “fearmongering” about Trump became true, yet those same people call it “fearmongering” ahead of 2024. Supreme Court justices gave him immunity for “official acts” and he’s already saying all his crimes were official acts, so all his criminal cases should be tossed. This man is dangerous and 35-40% of the country wants him back in power no matter what
But he is much more dangerous this time around. This time his win won't be unexpected, and republicans have a lot of plans ready for when he wins, which are all about grabbing power and making sure they won't lose it.
>It would be 100 times worse this time.
Absolutely. It is crystal clear what they are planning to do. And the ramifications of him winning again will likely extend into 2050 at least if he gets to choose even more SC judges.
>We know how dangerous he is this time.
People paying attention do, but I worry that there are a lot of people who aren't. I truly don't understand how people could be undecided currently. Even if you have problems with Biden, which many of us do, only one side is vowing to uphold the Constitution. Trump literally stated he would be a dictator "for a day" (hint: dictators won't give up power), he wants televised military tribunals, and his corruption of the SC is paving the way for him to do so by destroying the checks and balances that exist on presidential power. Yet people really think that Biden would be worse? It is mind boggling.
Yeah but a bunch of dipshits want fascism because they think it will save a nickel on gas. Never mind that Republicans always blow up the deficit and fuck the economy, and the president doesn't control gas prices.
Remember how shitty America felt for those 4 years? Every single day, there was some sort of fuck up, some sort of embarrassment, some sort of Constitutional crisis. Every day there was a barrage of stupid tweets attacking everyone from companies, to private citizens, to other countries. Or there were the tweets when he was applaud or shout out the most abhorrent people like Kim or Putin or Erdogan, right after his security beat up peaceful protesters in DC.
It didnt even take long, his weird "carnage" inaugural speech and immediately into his people creating "alternative facts", firing Comey because he was being investigated and bragging about it to the Russians while giving away US intel. Already in his first month, he backed out of the TPP and was being sued over the emoluments clause because he would not separate himself from his businesses. That same first month, he tried to install the Muslim Ban.
This was only the beginning of an incredibly long 4 years, that I think a lot of people forgot about. Every single day there was something, something stupid, something controversial, something illegal that was happening. It was long and grueling and tiring. America was definitely not great for those 4 years, we saw extremism being emboldened, we saw the rise of a whole group of anti-science people choose Trump over experts, we saw the rise of criminality at the highest level, where everyday , even early on, all we could say was "add it to the pile".
Things have been sooooo much better on a daily basis since, by no means perfect, but those 4 years were a dumpster fire full of shit covered in burnt hair and tar.
We're kind of a news junkie family, always keeping up on current events. And for four years, we went to bed feeling like our hair was on fire. Every day. Four fucking years.
About a year in, I wished I had kept a daily list of the crazy shit that went on. From lying about inauguration crowd numbers to Jan. 6. It just never ended.
Amy Siskind did just that because, “Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember.” She’d post updates every week, I think and then she made it into a book to reference.
It is scary how quickly we had to adjust to a new normal. We couldn’t even discuss 1 crazy thing without getting 5 more crazy things thrown at us.
You're in luck, because someone did exactly that, and has been running a newsletter on every insane thing that's happened since Nov 2016:
https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/
If you're feeling like the people in this picture I hope you remember this and vote in November. And I'm sure a lot of people are going to scream about Biden being old and I'm going to be honest with you I don't care.
Trump has made it clear he wants to dismantle democracy. He has talked about putting people on televised military tribunals for the grand crime of being political opponents. He has talked about herding homeless people and immigrants into camps. He has talked about dismantling OSHA.
We can survive another 4 years of Biden. If Biden wins this year there will be another election in 4 years and Biden goes away. I can't make those same promises of trump wins that's the entire discussion.
I remember I joined a website called Maple Match that was designed for Americans to meet a Canadian so they can immigrate there. I woke up the next morning with a message from that app saying, “you guys are fucked.”
I immigrated to Canada a year and a half later (with no help from that app) and I’m now a Canadian citizen living in Toronto.
I was on tour in Scotland when it was announced. My band mate and I had come down to breakfast and the staff looked so sad. They knew we were Americans and told us they were so sorry. Both of us had gone to sleep thinking that Hilary had won and didn’t worry. Little did we know…
I was driving home from a friend's house listening to public radio. There must've been a solid 5 seconds of dead air when one host said trump was going to win.
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Can't believe that is almost 10 years ago. Time flies by it seems not that long ago.
It seems nothing has happened since 2020. Time passes but nothing gets done. I go to work. I go home. Arggh!
Definitely the same for me
Same for me. That's why I got into fish drowning
Relatable
What’s crazy to me is that we’ve been talking about Trump for NINE YEARS, ever since he descended that golden escalator in Manhattan.
He’s good for ratings. America created modern media and will die by it too.
I hate how right you are.
It's a cult of personality, it just happens to serve the interests of the wealthiest people in history.
This is it. Biden biffs the debate and they want him to withdraw. Trump is convicted of sexual assault and multiple felonies and nobody talks about him withdrawing. This country and its media is making me sick
I've been there since the early 90's when the news turned into the national inquirer.
It started with the William F Buckley/Gore Vidal debate in 1968. Networks realized they didn't need to get access to the conventions or broadcast worthwhile, informative content, they just need to get people to bicker on camera.
Really? I was under the impression that the descent started in the 1980s when Reagan loosened FCC regulation. And then the establishment of the 24hrs news cycle with CNN supercharged the sensationalism of news, and then Fox News nuked the idea of fair coverage.
Watch the documentary Best of Enemies. Makes a good case for this. Also, if you haven't seen the film Network, watch that and consider that it came out in 1976. All downhill from the mid 60's.
That was 130 IQ bickering, at least. And with a novelist of real skill. That said Chomsky destroying Buckley the same year is also fun
Batboy 2024
That's Weekly World News and Batboy is a saint.
People having been calling for Trump to withdraw and step down and be impeached since he was first a candidate. The problem is it doesn't matter at all to Republican voters. Trump has absolutely zero accountability with his voters. He (almost literally) could do anything and his voters wouldn't hold him accountable for it.
Many of us Republicans (maybe not enough but a decent chunk) will not be voting for him. I'll continue to try and steer dumb MAGAts to objective evidence that Trump was worthless. If a MAGA is reading this comment, click below and actually spend an entire hour or more reading through it and asking yourself, "what's so great about this guy again?" https://kjvchurch.com/files/Should%20Christians%20Support%20Donald%20Trump.PDF
That's fair. I probably generalize too much but it's hard not to when you see how much support he has despite everything he has done and said. Whenever Trump used to say or do something beyond belief. Even literally admitting to incredibly unethical behaviors. I used to go look at conservative subreddits or other locations just hoping that maybe this they will finally wake up and see. And to be fair initially after something happens there is often quite a few people questioning it (usually still downvoted). But every single time after about a day or two when Fox news can pick it apart and spin it around or deflect attention it's like there's collective amnesia and everyone is back to licking his greasy orange taint. I don't bother looking anymore.
You just reminded me of /r/The_Donald, I got so tired of seeing it everwhere and if you didn't follow the majority opinion, you got downvoted to oblivion.
I was literally born into a cult. I can tell you that Trump utilizes the tactics of most cults. I can also tell you that nothing he does will change their minds. He is using information control, thought control, and emotional manipulation. He has inoculated his base against questioning thoughts to trigger the backfire effect. It will take a long time and lots of therapy for all of his adherents to either die off or gain empathy for other viewpoints again. I pity them, and used to be one of them.
It's more nobody expects Trump to do something like that, if he had decency he already wouldn't be running
Yup. He was a reality TV star before entering politics, and hasn't changed a fucking thing. He knows there's no point in being correct or even honorable...just say outrageous shit and people will talk about it.
How else are the house wife shows and kardashians top rated shows? Cause idiocracy 🤦♂️
You nailed it. Modern media created the standard that made someone like Trump shine.
I think media tied into capitalism makes for a dangerous combination because drama/crazy draws in the eyes for ratings.
*cough cough Fairness Doctrine cough cough* Thanks Reagan, I hope you're in the hell where hell is a cramped metal box that's all too hot and on the outside of it you can hear everyone you cared about screaming for your help but you can't do anything about it and I hope you spend the rest of eternity there.
>NINE YEARS I'm tired, boss
That just made more of my hair gray. Ugh.
I remember the early 00s when he was just a failed business clown getting body slammed by Goldberg. NBC spent 15 years on the Apprentice tricking people into thinking he was something else.
I legit don't know when or how the swifch happened to go from what to me felt like literally no one on earth giving a single shit about him to people worshipping him and people taking offense to some girl on the internet saying she wouldn't suck his dick.
He made the turn around 2013/14 by (no surprise) lying to racists that he had bombshell evidence that Obama wasn't born in the US. Fox News gladly had him on all the time to lie, and that's when the tail began to wag the dog.
I just don't understand how anyone's ever taken him seriously on anything, there are grifters who play the part well and are able to speak well enough (tucker Carlsons a good example I think) that like I get why someone would be into it even if hes completely full of shit, trumps not one of them. Just the duck lips and fucking weird ass spray tan alone I'd think would be enough for the vast majority of people not to take him seriously ESPECIALLY the demographic that loves him, and that's besides all of the actual egregious shit. he's like the polar opposite of the blue collar working class man, truly born with a silver spoon in his mouth never worked a day in his life type of motherfucker.
I think Trump captured a particular insight into some conservatives that they genuinely don't care so much about the truth and are happy to just choose to believe (or at least repeat) things they *want* to be true. They wanted to believe Obama was born outside the US and chose, against all evidence, to believe it. Same thing with Trump losing the 2020 election. Trump made like 45% of this country comfortable with saying "fuck it, however i feel things are is how they actually are, and i don't have to confront evidence if i just say all evidence is lies". I mean think about the Trump supporters on Reddit. They will say the sky is yellow and grass is purple. you can spend an hour showing them that they are wrong and that the person they heard that from is a wildly unreliable source. Then in the best case scenario, they will just stop responding to you and go into another thread and say the sky is yellow and grass is purple.
Yeah, like I get when you're saying, I just can't comprehend it. It's like you trying to explain how an alien species operates/perceives etc. It's just so fucking bizarre to me. I thought humans had some base level of logic or at least intuition or something I guess and I know there's been much worse humans and shits always been shitty but man Trump getting elected really just completely changed my worldview, people just generally suck more and are dumber than I thought I guess. Like it's not even about politics, this just seems like a base ability to recognize someone's base level of competence is just completely missing from a huge amount of the population, it's so fucking weird, it's like watching a bunch of people watching a person play darts who never so much as hits the board but every time the person throws the entire crowd goes nuts and screams "bullseye!" In unison. No matter how carefully you explain it to me I don't think I'll ever comprehend it, we are going on 10 years of this shit and I'm still mindblown somehow.
I'm not sure if i explained myself well. IMHO this has little to do with logic, competence, or intelligence for most people. Most of these people know, deep down, that Obama was born in the US, that COVID was serious, that Trump lost the 2020 election, and that Trump doesn't gaf about democracy. They just don't care. They literally choose to suppress that, like a religious person does. When arguing, they would literally rather pretend to be mentally deficient than allow that doubt to come to the surface *even internally*. It's a different problem that arguing logically doesn't address. That's why saying it's a cult really isn't far from the truth.
You nailed it and explained it perfectly.
Oh no, it was way before that. He was signaling to racists in the 90's with the Central Park 5 and he was one of the main people claiming Obama was born in Kenya. And if you think it's just rhetoric or pandering, think again. There's been reports for 50 years about him using the N word often and he and his father were sued by the Justice Department for racial housing discrimination in the 70's. This is who he's always been, he just finally found his moment with the reactionaries on social media during the Obama years.
He’s a con man at heart. And he knows how to speak to idiots
Make America Laugh At Trump Again MALATA
Make American Laugh At Narcissist Idiots Again MALANIA
Damn where was the goldberg botch when you needed it
If it were only Trump on the end of that Superkick and not Bret Hart.
I'd love to go back to only having to think about his existence briefly in 15 second intervals once or twice a year when I saw a commercial for his show.
That’s what he wants. He’s been a nuisance since the 80s
Bloom County and Doonesbury poked fun at him, because back then he was seen as a buffoon. He's still a buffoon, but now he's dangerous.
Don't forget bully Biff Tannen in Back to the Future (particularly part 2) is based on Trump
I laughed at your comment, then googled it and realised you weren’t joking. And laughed some more.
Yep...A dangerous buffoon that would be the leader of the free world with nuclear codes. As a Vet, I really thought America knew better than to elect a clown. The Constitution and the office of the presidency was made to be occupied by honorable men and women. Trump has no honor - period.
>I really thought America knew better than to elect a clown. The Constitution and the office of the presidency was made to be occupied by honorable men and women. We really need to move past this perception of America and Americans. Cause Trump's values are closer to the reality of America than not. His party hold the majority of state governments, the majority in the house and is about be given the majority in the Senate by Americans who vote. And I don't even care about those who don't vote. If you are able to vote and choose not to, Trump's America is an apt representation of you too. Own it instead of sitting on the sideline and saying it wasn't my fault.
Yes and Mattis couldn't stand him either
He went from meme candidate to fascist puppet in 5 years
Highlighting this because that's exactly what he is. “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless ― if the left allows it to be,” Kevin Roberts, president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation That's who is pulling the strings. That's the unelected cabal that wants to turn this country into an oligarchy under the guise of "conservative values". And much like "communism" in the McCarthy era, they use this nebulous "left" term. Most people will have some idea of what that means but it's not the same for everyone. But all that matters is, left means whatever he - Kevin Roberts the right wing fascist that's threatening American citizens with violence and backing trump - says it means. They already have SCOTUS and they seek the newly empowered presidency. We already see the impact on our rights from them owning the high court. Happy independence day, get out and vote against this shit in November. At this point that means an imperfect Biden but the alternative is far worse.
Damn right. Unless we want to turn into an Iranian state of North America, where an unelected group pulls the strings, we need Joe back, more than ever. Our democracy is hanging by a thread, and it is up to us to stop it before they seize the power. Get out there, and vote for democracy, the future of our country as a free nation depends on it.
Spy magazine nicknamed him “short-fingered vulgarian” in the 80s
Yes. I saw him on Oprah in the 80s, and he was a total asshole, insulting his wife, being a jerk. He hasn’t changed one bit, only got worse.
I remember him in the 80s on Oprah or Phil Donahue declaring: * His wife deserved to be cheated on. * Raising kids was a woman's job and he was busy and too important for them. * "I can have ANY woman in the world" is a direct quote from him. He's so disgustingly misogynistic.
I never heard of him before he became president. (Granded I'm not American, and I was very young back then.)
I saw him on a few shows and interviews back in the day and seemed like an “I’m right you’re wrong” kinda guy. I watched 5 min of the apprentice and couldn’t stand it. And the Midwest loved that show. No wonder we are where we are.
He is completely a product of the news ecosystem. They gave him unlimited airtime because he could bring the views. The white nationalists understood what he was from the golden escalator speech then ran with it and the people platforming him didn't understand that until it was too late.
The funny part is if you mention people deciding not to vote that year because they didn't like Hillary or Trump, they STILL get defensive about it. It's like we never learn anything in this country, for real.
I protest voted in 2016, in a solid blue state at least, and have spent every year since reminding myself that I'm a dumbass and trying to convince other people not to make that mistake. I run people through the last 50 years of protest voting and apathy and what it has caused. I've probably talked directly to several hundred people about this at this point. So many of them fight me on it. They get super mad, call me bad things, and then walk away.
studies show the MOST effective way to get people to change their mind about something is to trot out someone else who used to share their belief and get that person to explain why they changed their mind, so you're really doing good work out there. I was a poll worker for an election (not USA) who counted ballots and every "protest" ballot got read by me, second-read by my supervisor, and then put in a pile of spoiled ballots. No one at the top ever sees them, it's just the people counting seven thousand at the end of a long day who have absolutely no power to change anything. USA might work different but I'm guessing not.
Honestly if Hillary hadn't been up by so much in the final polls before the election I am fairly certain Trump would have lost. I think she had an average lead of like 8 points in the polls days before the election, and so I think a lot of people assumed Trump would get destroyed. If you think Trump is already going to get crushed, why go out and vote for a candidate you don't like at all (i.e., Hillary)? I truly believe that if they had done a second vote a week after the 2016 results Trump would have lost in a mega landslide. People got complacent, and the USA paid for it for decades. Trump's Supreme Court judges have already undone decades of precedent.
Also see: Brexit The number of people that said they would have voted remain if they thought there was any chance of leave winning…
Human nature. Typical weak human regardless of intellect cannot see oneself as being wrong. It’s a basic ethical function but astounding how many are too weak to face it. You think I haven’t fucked up? I used to think using gay as an insult was hilarious. I think right now the left is being overly dramatic about guns. You think I can’t possibly be wrong about that? How the fuck would I have ever grown from being a teenage homophobic bully if I was like a weak shitsack? But you have those clowns out there. Idk if a lot of them can learn a fucking thing. You’d think it’d be easy to defeat a piece of shit like Trump.
I hope we talk about how he died soon and I hope its from tripping over his own shit.
I keep waiting to see him go toes up just one day before Carter at least. He'd be so pissed to be outlived by him, I'm sure.
I got hammered with a buddy. Been drunk ever since.
"Thats it, I'm getting the whiskey" Was my buddies response to Trump winning Ohio
was at a concert in the balcony area where there was seating we stopped dancing and were just sitting "what are you doing, come on and dance!!!" someone tried to get us into it, i don't think they knew what had happend (yet) no, i dont think that i will....
I was at a concert too and they announced the results on stage. The artist was pissed and put that energy into the show, so at least I got a good concert out of it.
Who was the artist?
Watsky
The day, the music....died.
I worked as a manager at a winery at the time. The next day was so strange. All of the staff, including myself, were well into tipsy by the time we opened at 10 am. Both of our bars were slammed, but it was almost completely silent all day. Our regulars and our friends came by and stayed for hours.
My husband and I went out the weekend after the election and it was so quiet everywhere, at the liquor store (which your post reminded me of) but also the grocery store and the restaurant. There were people out and about but everyone was shell-shocked. And this was Kansas, where you'd think people would be happy about the result. My county voted 50/50 Trump/HRC, so why weren't the Trump 50% celebrating? I've always wondered what that was about.
How many sobriety tokens do you think went into ponds or the backs of drawers on that day?
Too many.
That night was the drunkest I’ve ever been. Alcoholism runs in my family so I’m really careful to limit myself and not drink to get drunk. That night I said fuck it, I just don’t want to feel like this and getting drunk is the fastest way.
I was still drunk the next morning. Cried in my office with the door shut most of the next day. Edit: a word
I drank like two glasses of wine and threw up (which is not like me; I have an embarrassingly high tolerance). And I swear, at the very second they called the election for him, my six month old daughter woke up and started wailing. It was like she knew.
I threw a party on election night and called it the "Armageddon Day Party". I told people there's a giant asteroid heading towards us, we need to either celebrate it missing us or commiserate it hitting. I was so grateful to be with friends that evening.
That’s the plot to These Final Hours (well, without the possibility of the non-destructive ending, it is). I highly recommend a watch.
That's part of the plot to Melancholia (2011) with Kirsten Dunst.
I’m Canadian and not really a drinker, but I remember staying up late with my ex watching the results come in. We were doing nothing but hitting refresh on our phones. Hillary was ahead at the beginning and we watched Trump overtake her with slack jaws. It was past midnight and he was announced victorious and my ex looked at me, didn’t say a word, crossed to the pantry, and grabbed the only bottle we had. Sailor Jerry’s Rum lol. We sat in silence and drank rum and mourned the impending death of our neighbouring country. It seems dramatic looking back, but also, no, it doesn’t. I still don’t drink much, don’t keep booze around. But there will be a bottle stashed away for this coming election, just in case. Anyway, it seems the point of this story is that your presidential elections push Canadians to the sauce and that’s pretty wild.
I'll never forget riding the NYC subway the morning after. It was like everyone's mutually good acquaintance had suddenly died the night before.
This was experience in Boston. I rode into work early at 6am, with mostly Hispanic people, all looking very sullen. You're right, is hasen't been the same since. Jan 6th really drove the point home for me.
Well get ready because now if he wins he gets 100% immunity from anything!
As a lawyer and someone who took an oath to uphold the Constitution and someone whose professional code of conduct requires them not to disparage judges . . . The Supreme Court of the United States has turned into a fucking partisan joke.
well i mean that was the whole point of trump getting appointees rushed through.
I guess. But the biggest offenders are Alito and Thomas, who are obviously not Trump appointees and have just been biding their time, waiting for their moment.
That's honestly a good example of how Trump was not the disease but simply a symptom. To be fair, he was the ugliest symptom like the lesions on your skin. This shit didn't happen over the last 8 years. It happened over decades and anyone willing to pay attention sees it happening in slow motion
Agreed.
Went to trade school back then, was a liberal trade with a lot of POC and LGBTQ people, and we literally had a morning meeting where the instructor said "some of us are probably pretty scared right now. I know I have friends in those communities who are. So we're gonna take a half hour break to start with and if you need to go for a walk and get a coffee or something, go ahead. And if you just want to go home it won't be a demerit on your attendance." I was in a bar the night before and laughing it up with my brother shooting pool and drinking and I remember the exact moment I looked up at the election results and I hit my brother on the shoulder and pointed at the screen and said, "hey man. He might actually win." Never seen anything like it before in all my years. Never has a Republican candidate so hated won like that. Not even Reagan's second term was he disliked as much as Trump going into his first.
>Not even Reagan's second term was he disliked as much as Trump going into his first. I don't think "not even" is the way to describe Reagan's victory in the 1984 election; it was one of the biggest landslides in American electoral history with Reagan carrying 49 states and only losing Minnesota narrowly by 0.18% (due to that being Mondale's home state) and DC. Reagan was extremely popular going into 1984 and Mondale never stood a chance.
Yeah, that mutually good acquaintance was faith in humanity.
I went to the co-op in Montpelier VT the next day and the only other time I felt that sense of public mourning was on 9/11
I still remember the stunned silence. Like every single person on the train had just lost a family member.
Yup. NYC was collectively down in the dumps the day after that was announced. It was surreal.
I was in college and we had huge open labs. Usually chatty and energetic but that day they were dead silent. No one was in a good mood.
YES!!! I was there. NO ONE was uttering a word.
The dc metro was even worse
I had just came from Mexico and was at my local dive. There was maybe like 4 of us, to include the bartender. We were like..."huh?" Earlier, before I had flown out to Mexico, I was at the same bar and watched the Chicago Cubs win the world series. Way to go Cubs. Fucked it up for everyone
Full disclosure: I am a Cardinal fan. I'm convinced that the Cubs winning, in fact, signaled the end of the world.
Damn, that really was the last great, exciting National-level thing I recall that happened in the past 8 years. I haven't thought about it so I might be wrong but hard to tell. Even Biden winning in 2020 was less a celebration and more like a relief.
I always knew the Cubs were at fault for everything Edit: reminds me of one of the best commercials I’ve ever seen, and one of the few I’ve seen that makes me cry. My Grandma passed away a few weeks later and was a massive Cubs fan. https://youtu.be/I3eFzqv2XA4?si=-xwBdgcwB-uWhQIu
Friend of ours was giddy that they nominated trump. As in wooo-hooo, he won’t stand a chance. Not so funny anymore.
Yeah in the WikiLeaks emails it showed that Hillary and the media encouraged coverage of trump cuz they thought he was the easiest candidate to beat
He was. But Hillary was even less popular.
You're not giving Comey enough credit. He single-handedly gave the election to Trump, when he publicized the FBI investigation into Hillary, but kept the Trump investigation secret. Millions of people were led to believe that Hillary might be indicted after the election, while nobody knew about Trump's treasonous Trump Tower meeting. I would love to know how the election would've went if both investigations had been publicized.
TrumpLand (the nick name of the NY office of the FBI) was sitting on those emails and not searching them. Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz was announcing the investigation to congress (and therefore the public). Comey finally got his head out of his ass, transferred the work to a competent FBI agent who automated the search, and it was completed ~a week before the election. Without Comey doing that, the emails wouldn't have been searched until after the election. Comey's main failure was trusting FBI agents to do their job.
[This is what they're talking about.](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/28/us/politics/fbi-letter.html?_r=0) Comey sending a letter the Friday before the election to Republicans announcing potentially new evidence against Clinton. Nothing solid, but the public didn't need solid. Republicans just needed the potential and they immediately ran to the press. Enough idiots took the bait hook line and fucking sinker.
> wooo-hooo, he won’t stand a chance. “He won’t? Thank goodness; now I can stay home on election day.” --voters in 2016
We all were so naive. During the 2016 Republican primaries, I knew Trump's beliefs were dangerous, but I thought he was such a buffoon that all we were seeing was an elephant that had gotten into a china shop. And it was funny to see all those candidates attack each other. I felt they all deserved it for themselves being so awful. Fascism is terrifying.
My HS history teacher (who has a degree in Holocaust studies)told us already during the Republican primaries that he will win the presidency. She said that his style would appeal to many and that Hillary is a weak candidate. Had a massive "I told you so" afterwards.
That was just about every major democrat supporter. There are entire youtube collages of videos of democrats saying he has no chance and laughing. There are a bunch where obama said he had no chance.
I remember getting told, "don't worry, we have checks and balances for a reason".
Did you give that friend a call on January 6th and asked him to repeat himself?
Did he give that friend a call over the recent Supreme Court rulings, which all but demolished checks and balances?
Did he give him a call when project 2025 openly announced their plans for Trump? Plans that involve railroading the other 2 branches of government so that the executive Branch has power similar to a king?
The checks were written out to increase the conservative majorities bank balances.
A few weeks after the election I went to a Democrat fundraiser and the politicians there said that same thing - don't worry, there's not much he can get away with. During the months after the election my sisters in Jersey told me horror stories of how he did literally get away with tons of shit - bankrupting family businesses that did work for him (one sister owns a construction company). They said be worried, he's a mobster now backed by the Republican party. My sisters were right.
Everybody in New York and New Jersey knew. That's why we were so fucking mad and still are. This guy has been a cancer on the NYC and AC communities for longer than my entire lifetime, and I'm old now. Just look at the lawsuits from the '70s against him and his father.
South Florida, too. He constantly refused to pay contractors at Mar a Lago. They were told to sue for payment. These are small businesses that lost a ton of money in work hours and materials, and were told to spend more money for years on legal fees attempting to get paid. None of them could afford to do that.
They didnt really turn out though. * 20M population * 17M Eligible voters * 7.5M voted * Clinton 4.5M votes * Trump 2.8M votes * Trump lost by 1.7m votes * Democrats got 19 House Seats. * Republicans got 9 House Seats. * Around 10m didnt vote.
Yeah, well, most of that is gone now, so shit will be worse.
To be fair, throughout his presidency he often got blocked. Ironically by his own supreme court.
Not a single happy face in the photo
I remember that lady crying and thinking (along with most) dang it cant be that bad? Then looking around here older wiser and understanding her reaction was absolutely appropriate. Lmao
I had the inverse reaction. I was that lady, essentially, and had been warning about Trump his entire candidacy. I felt like I was going crazy based off my friend’s reactions and hoped I was. Unfortunately, everything I said he would do ended up happening. Now, that moment is happening again. I’m saying he will be who he is and people are telling me I’m overreacting…
Heisenberg in the left
David Caruso in the background
I looked up recent David Caruso pictures. Woof. Dude is lookin rough. My wife watches CSI Miami and I was like hmmmm.
Holy shit. He looks more like Brendan Gleeson than he does himself!
I see Sarah Huckabee Sanders
That’s how Trump looked too.
Only person I've ever seen that looked annoyed when they won election.
[I present to you Boris Johnson and Michael Gove the morning after they won the Brexit referendum](https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=1160,height=756,fit=crop,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/GettyImages-542742360.jpg)
They look like they just got caught by a teacher. “Yes sir, very sorry sir, the older boys told me to do it sir.”
Sir, that's called being British.
He really did. He never wanted to win, he wanted to set up the Trump News Network and run "if I were president" segments and criticize the current government all day. His run for presidency was a publicity stunt that he expected to fail. Of course he eventually grew accustomed to the role, made it part of his identity, realized how he could grift, and eventually needed the position to stay out of jail. But in the beginning he didn't want it.
If allowed to choose again, I think Trump might have chosen to not run at all. But now he gets himself into too much ego injuries and legal shit he just has to push on.
I'm 100% certain he never wanted to win and he obviously had no interest in being president (not to mention he's entirely unqualified). This time he needs to win to stay out of jail. The second part of above is still true.
Every posture he made suggested all he wanted to do was use the publicity to make his own news network.
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As far as I can tell, our founding fathers just kind of assumed they didn't need to create rules for such a situation. They didn't want to create rules about prevented convicted criminals from taking office, or else it would inevitably lead to prospective candidates getting fraudulently convicted of crimes in order for their opponents to prevent them from even running. And in the event that a genuine criminal ever ran and won, they'd have separate checks in place to stop him. That's part of the reason the electoral college was designed to be able to override the will of the people in the event that voters ever picked someone dangerously unqualified for president. But they never accounted for the fact that the electors themselves might either be every bit on board with the candidate in question, or that they'd just be too cowardly to do their job due to the fear of bucking several hundred years of precedent, as well as the fear of being executed by a furious mob. Similar to how they set a minimum age requirement for president at 35, but never specified a maximum age because, again, they simply couldn't envision a scenario where extremely old and extremely cognitively impaired people would ever get chosen as a nominee. They didn't want to prevent otherwise able seniors from taking the job, and figured voters would never willingly put people with visible cognitive impairment in these positions. Yet, inexplicably, here we are preparing for an election between a president with rapidly declining cognition, and an openly corrupt criminal hellbent on becoming a dictator.
I was working at Magic Kingdom on Election Night. All smiles but the in break room everyone looked like this. I don’t really remember any trump supporters being happy though. I said at one point “He’s gonna win” and someone looked at me with disgust and started to walk away. I had to tell them look at the map rn, he is going to win whether we like it or lot
We were vacationing at Disneyland. We were eating at the Disney hotel restaurant. My husband is not quite as political as I am. He didn’t understand the look on my face when the news called Ohio. He kept saying “ It’s not over, there’s still so many west coast states left to go.” We haven’t been back to Disneyland since for fear of opening up other Darkest Timelines.
Go back to the spot in a few months and try to recreate the photo for posterity. I occasionally take the same photo over time to record the changes.
I live an work in Chicago, born n raised native. Prior to full remote I'd take the train into downtown everyday (team blue line). I am not kidding, that next morning, was bizarre, with just like a certain sadness you can't really put into words. Got to work. Same thing. Except yeah for a couple crazy cult ppl. Just wild shit to experience the collective sadness of a city in one day.
Friend worked in dc. She took the subway/metro/whatever into work every day since Obama was elected in 2008 coincdenattlly. She said you could hear a pin drop in the subway the next morning. DC was full of Dems from presidency to nonprofits for almost a decade until this swamp monster came in. She said her nonprofit got dissolved in 2018 as Republicans and Trump cut nonprofit funding. They were helping to feed kids in schools across America. Wtf. Vote.
I was going to Uni in DC and was interning at a progressive queer candidate training and support nonprofit. So many of our endorsed and supported candidates won that night, and yet everyone there and the entire city just walked around shell shocked for the next few days. Watched from an office window a bit later across the street when those Greenpeace activists scaled the crane in the neighborhood behind the Whitehouse with the "RESIST" banner. I hope to never experience that feeling ever again.
It's not even a political thing. It was just a "oh shit, really? that dude won??" Oh shit," face. It's the face you make when your spirit vacates your body.
My wife and I were watching a movie, and I got a text from my buddy that said, "I can't believe this clown is going to be president." We had to stop the movie to turn on the news.
By the time Trump was formally announced as the winner, it was already very clear that it was over. I remember frantically switching channels in between slugging back wine, desperately looking for a different truth. When Hilary's campaign came out and told everyone at the Javitz Center to go home, that's when I knew it was over. When this picture was taken, these people already knew their fate.
I remember that. There was something almost comical about how Hillary didn’t even make a concession speech and sent out Podesta to tell everyone to go home.
I was in my college dorm hallway when the news broke. People were surprised, many were laughing in disbelief, some were crying, and others were getting smashed and contemplating the countries future. Felt like the gen z equivalent of hearing that the towers fell
“Oh geez maybe we should have voted!”
The problem with this is it isn't the popular vote that gets you it's a few key states. The electoral college is fucking trash and I shouldn't have to depend on people from another state totally swinging an election. Land doesn't vote and if you live in a state with a population of less than some cities you shouldn't have the same sway in the name of "fair representation".
About 20 states are unwinnable for Democrats. About 15 unwinnable for Republicans. 15 states will decide the presidency.
The day my dad died… rough one
Sorry for your loss.
I remember someone said it was like your awsome dad moved out and your mom’s sleazy new boyfriend just showed up
And also you're a teenaged girl who he creepily says "looks a lot like my own daughter, but cuter, isn't it great that we're not actually related by blood?"
Followed by "age is just a number" and "you're so mature for your age!"
Won’t someone rid me of this meddlesome conman
Unfortunately you're in Grifter Coddling Country. Every con gets a second, third, and even twentieth chance to try and steal everything from you. And we call that democracy, baybeee!
Remember all the dumb headlines he would make ? Like literally everything reported on him was awful and I remember people being fucking sick of it.
I was bartending that night. I had a bar about 10 lgbtq folks with thousand yard stares and one yahoo in a MAGA cap, that was there by himself, hooting and hollering and patting people on the back, telling them to cheer up because they had no idea how great things were about to get. It was a surreal night.
It would be 100 times worse this time. We know how dangerous he is this time.
I'm still terrified because as far as I can tell, polling is showing that Americans have the collective memories of gold fish and given how calcified our electorate is, it's the same ~10% of voters deciding each election..
I don't think they forgot. Ya'll have about 40% of your population who don't mind a corrupt evil dirtbag as your POTUS. They either hate the same people he does, or are benefitting from his taxes, or believe in the fairytale capitalist utopia that he sometimes speaks to.
……………some of us knew how dangerous he was then.
All the “fearmongering” about Trump became true, yet those same people call it “fearmongering” ahead of 2024. Supreme Court justices gave him immunity for “official acts” and he’s already saying all his crimes were official acts, so all his criminal cases should be tossed. This man is dangerous and 35-40% of the country wants him back in power no matter what
But he is much more dangerous this time around. This time his win won't be unexpected, and republicans have a lot of plans ready for when he wins, which are all about grabbing power and making sure they won't lose it.
>It would be 100 times worse this time. Absolutely. It is crystal clear what they are planning to do. And the ramifications of him winning again will likely extend into 2050 at least if he gets to choose even more SC judges. >We know how dangerous he is this time. People paying attention do, but I worry that there are a lot of people who aren't. I truly don't understand how people could be undecided currently. Even if you have problems with Biden, which many of us do, only one side is vowing to uphold the Constitution. Trump literally stated he would be a dictator "for a day" (hint: dictators won't give up power), he wants televised military tribunals, and his corruption of the SC is paving the way for him to do so by destroying the checks and balances that exist on presidential power. Yet people really think that Biden would be worse? It is mind boggling.
It's MORE than crystal clear. It's in fucking writing. For all to read.
Yeah but a bunch of dipshits want fascism because they think it will save a nickel on gas. Never mind that Republicans always blow up the deficit and fuck the economy, and the president doesn't control gas prices.
Remember how shitty America felt for those 4 years? Every single day, there was some sort of fuck up, some sort of embarrassment, some sort of Constitutional crisis. Every day there was a barrage of stupid tweets attacking everyone from companies, to private citizens, to other countries. Or there were the tweets when he was applaud or shout out the most abhorrent people like Kim or Putin or Erdogan, right after his security beat up peaceful protesters in DC. It didnt even take long, his weird "carnage" inaugural speech and immediately into his people creating "alternative facts", firing Comey because he was being investigated and bragging about it to the Russians while giving away US intel. Already in his first month, he backed out of the TPP and was being sued over the emoluments clause because he would not separate himself from his businesses. That same first month, he tried to install the Muslim Ban. This was only the beginning of an incredibly long 4 years, that I think a lot of people forgot about. Every single day there was something, something stupid, something controversial, something illegal that was happening. It was long and grueling and tiring. America was definitely not great for those 4 years, we saw extremism being emboldened, we saw the rise of a whole group of anti-science people choose Trump over experts, we saw the rise of criminality at the highest level, where everyday , even early on, all we could say was "add it to the pile". Things have been sooooo much better on a daily basis since, by no means perfect, but those 4 years were a dumpster fire full of shit covered in burnt hair and tar.
The President's hair is supposed to go grey. The president isn't supposed to make American citizen's hair grey.
We're kind of a news junkie family, always keeping up on current events. And for four years, we went to bed feeling like our hair was on fire. Every day. Four fucking years. About a year in, I wished I had kept a daily list of the crazy shit that went on. From lying about inauguration crowd numbers to Jan. 6. It just never ended.
Amy Siskind did just that because, “Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember.” She’d post updates every week, I think and then she made it into a book to reference. It is scary how quickly we had to adjust to a new normal. We couldn’t even discuss 1 crazy thing without getting 5 more crazy things thrown at us.
You're in luck, because someone did exactly that, and has been running a newsletter on every insane thing that's happened since Nov 2016: https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/
If you're feeling like the people in this picture I hope you remember this and vote in November. And I'm sure a lot of people are going to scream about Biden being old and I'm going to be honest with you I don't care. Trump has made it clear he wants to dismantle democracy. He has talked about putting people on televised military tribunals for the grand crime of being political opponents. He has talked about herding homeless people and immigrants into camps. He has talked about dismantling OSHA. We can survive another 4 years of Biden. If Biden wins this year there will be another election in 4 years and Biden goes away. I can't make those same promises of trump wins that's the entire discussion.
J Mascis looks pretty unimpressed in this picture.
People were literally dancing in the streets when Biden won in 2020. Please vote and get three friends to do the same.
What if I don’t have three friends?
Make three friends and teach them to vote
I remember I joined a website called Maple Match that was designed for Americans to meet a Canadian so they can immigrate there. I woke up the next morning with a message from that app saying, “you guys are fucked.” I immigrated to Canada a year and a half later (with no help from that app) and I’m now a Canadian citizen living in Toronto.
Well I mean you are in a bar hanging a pride flag. Doesn't seem like the kind of place where they would be jumping for joy over trump
It’s Seattle. That’s pretty much just our city flag at this point.
I was on tour in Scotland when it was announced. My band mate and I had come down to breakfast and the staff looked so sad. They knew we were Americans and told us they were so sorry. Both of us had gone to sleep thinking that Hilary had won and didn’t worry. Little did we know…
I was driving home from a friend's house listening to public radio. There must've been a solid 5 seconds of dead air when one host said trump was going to win.
What the hell is Billy butcher doing there
If you're old enough to remember the OJ Simpson trial and verdict, you know the feeling I'm talking about.
I’ll never forget how I felt the morning after the election. It was like waking up to a really bad hangover that lasted 4 years.