Yeah, almost seems like it. I am convinced they are at least doing something like the “Mar-a-Lago Accord” to devalue the dollar, unseat the USD as the global reserve currency, inflate debt away, and make wages low enough and people desperate enough so more manufacturing is viable in the US again.

Not sure if you’re trolling or not. They’re very obviously following Russia’s playbook of consolidating power, dismantling the state and handing it to oligarchs, and “flooding the zone” with bullshit so people believe what they want. They probably won’t outright claim they’re the King and there will be no elections, but they’ll probably rig the elections, at least in red states, so the Republican party has control of the federal government in perpetuity; similar to how Russia has “elections.” Any media that doesn’t toe the line will get labelled as “fake news,” and probably have “legal” and financial actions taken against them. I mean, a few days ago, and executive order was signed that, among other things, requires voters to show a birth certificate or passport which will disenfranchise many, many voters. So, no, we won’t explicitly have a king, but we will have a totalitarian one-party rule with oligarchs at the top, and an extensive propaganda machine to keep people confused and misdirected. I don’t expect voters like the one’s that wore the “better Russian than Democrat,” to organize in a large militia and fight homeland security, the national guard, or whatever other military the government would deploy on US soil (they’re “considering” invoking the Insurrection Act at this very moment). I suspect most Republicans would just be fine with their team being in power, no matter what the cost; and having propaganda legitimizing their beliefs just makes it easier for them. Republican voters surely won’t rise up to fight for a Democrat that “lost” an election.

Nah, Sleepy Joe hit because it directly called into question his incompetence. Crooked Hillary worked similarly. His making fun of the journalist with the hand disease or whatever didn’t really hit.

Article is paywalled. So I’m gonna “keep on rockin’ in the free world.”

Well, destroying democracy is pretty distracting, so kudos, I guess.

Yeah, but there was no substance. It was just name calling. I don’t think simple name-calling got the Republicans anywhere either. She could’ve briefly segwayed to making a point about his policies hurting the disabled.

Idk if a bank would margin call Musk now. If they did, I’m sure they’ll be “investigated.” Or Tesla will be awarded a multibillion dollar government contract or something. Musk also has a lot of equity in SpaceX, which is probably worth something like $150B atm, and will definitely be getting nice government contracts.

It’s not really speculation that they want to weaken the dollar and dethrone it as the world’s reserve currency; it’s in Project 2025. Stated goal is to transition the US back to a manufacturing-heavy economy, instead of service, tech, finance, etc. Probably won’t work well, but that’s what they’re trying to do.

Obviously, the Republicans are the party that’s pushing and doing all this stupid shit, but the Democrats are not using the power they have to impede them. The CR that the Democrats helped pass removes the power from Congress to remove Trump’s tariffs, for example. And the Democratic party keeps following the losing strategy of moving further right. I don’t think they actually care about winning the presidency or congress again; they just want to keep the corporate donors.

Didn’t mean to paint entire religions. It was just a convenient way to differentiate the 2 people I was talking about, and to imply where their motivations may come from. I’ve known plenty of less right-wing Catholics and Protestants. I am an anti-theist though, and think religion does more harm than good.

Yeah, these people are ignorant of and don’t care about civics. The ignorance of the one guy surprised me, because they went to a decent college, but didn’t even know what gerrymandering was. They are un-american, IMO.

I know a couple life-long Republicans I sometimes briefly talk about politics with (one family, one acquaintance). Neither of them like Trump, but like the idea around Project 2025. One is an evangelical Christian, the other is a Catholic.

The Catholic strongly believes government should be run like a business, and the president should be like a CEO, so he should be able to fire everyone and replace them, if needed, with workers that will execute his plans. He’s also an anti-abortion, and tough-on-crime/immigration type. However, he strongly disapproves of Trump seemingly being pro-Russian now, Trump and his cabinet’s personal lives (he’s always strangely fixated on people’s personal lives, in a moral sense, for some reason), the take-over of the FBI and CIA, and the tariffs hurting his stock portfolio.

The evangelical Christian just doesn’t like Trump as a person, and doesn’t like Russia. He’s a just-world-hypothesis, small government, women are subservient, pro-business type; but also low/lower-middle-class, and has needed, and will need the social services he opposes. I guess his opinions are pretty similar to the Catholic’s, just a little more extreme on the social side, and supports policies that have always hurt him. I mean, Republican policies hurt the (fairly wealthy) Catholic too, but at least they get to say their taxes are lower and there’s less red-tape.

Child labor is used all around the world still. Just have to loosen laws a bit and make people poor enough to accept low wages, then it will be (more) of a thing in the US too. Below-living wage is cheaper than automating for many tasks; doesn’t require the rich to risk as much capital either.