451–460 of 799 posts
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Moscow was never either of their biggest priorities, I think. Allies of convenience, mostly. Moscow benefits from their infighting anyway.
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> corruption is actually considered a benefit! This is because the loyalists interpret this as "we" are winning and "they" are losing. I think the end goal is domination. From https://mastodon.social/@JuliusGoat/109551955251655267 : It’s best to understand that fascists see hypocrisy as a virtue. It’s how they signal that the things they are doing to people were never meant to be equally applied. It’s not an inconsis…
I think double standards would be a better term than hypocricy. Hypocricy would imply the pretense to be bound by certain rules, but the whole point of fascism is that those in power are not bound by any rules. They only make rules to bind others. I don't see any hypocricy in the openly advertised corruption of the current administration, it's just plain evil of the “we do it because we can” sort.
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> Using government money to win ideological arguments is S.O.P. for the Trump II admin. This is literally also what the dems were doing with USAID discrediting gamergate and funding bias news networks, neither party is above it.
I remember when Obama threatened Fox Sports mergers due to how Fox News covered his first term in office, and trued to get the Saudis to sign a pro-choice vendor agreement with the embassy. Biden also threatened law firms that represented Trump and threatened to ban them from government buildings and revoke security clearance. It was the standard thing for dems to do when dealing with political opponents. Both sides…
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This crop of billionaires was created from a time when capital was ascendant and state power was on the decline. I think as a result they’ve come to believe that the state is mostly there for their benefit especially during Republican administrations.
Not that both the Republicans and Democrats are very pro large business. Remember Harris raised at least _twice_ as much money from billionaires than Trump. They're just pro different big businesses, largely based on their demographics. Personally I'm still annoyed that Obama's administration had the DOE take over servicing federal student loans to "protect students" only for them to somehow be sold to a private comp…
Isn't it the opposite? What are you basing this on?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/billionaires...
https://americansfortaxfairness.org/billionaires-buying-elec...
Billionaire spending heavily favored Republicans. Over two-thirds (70%) of billionaire-family contributions went in support of GOP candidates and conservative causes. Less than a quarter (23%) backed Democratic hopefuls and progressive causes. (The remainder went to committees without a clear partisan or ideological identity.
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Interesting; is there an accessible 10-minute read on this US (edit: governance) de-politicized/re-politicized history, or does it have a name?
The notion that this kind of politicization started in the 90s is fanciful revisionism. It wasn’t really a thing in the US until about 2017. The word it’s known by is Trumpism.
Edit: Forgot Pat Buchanan. He belongs in there somewhere.
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This is a shameful false equivalency. In the puppet president scenario you outline, the blast radius is, at worst, 4 years? In the case of an insurrection to subvert the peaceful transfer of power, there is a generation or more of democratic order lost.
You're describing the blast radius of what was possible in the past assuming that one president was willing to usurp power but only for one term.
In reality, we did go 4 years with a president who wasn't in charge, at least for part of that term, specifically because the public was lied to about his health and some small number of people his the truth. We did not go through 4 years of a presidency after one very much seemed to attempt to take the office despite having lost the election.
In both cases I take huge issue with the intent and the potential outcome. In one case, though, the outcome was real and I lived, for a time, in a presumably democraric society ruled by someone(s) who weren't elected while the one who was elected decreased mentally and physically beyond the ability to rule.
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There is so much theater and reality TV in the Trump administration that it's hard to conclude anything. Most of the theater is there to play to his MAGA base. First there was the (staged?) row with Zelensky. A couple of months later nothing has really changed. Now Musk left as planned (he couldn't stay longer than 130 days in that position). Time for another public row to show that Trump is tough on subsidies for el…
He couldn't legally stay more than 130 days, but Trump is already ignoring plenty of more important laws and getting away with it. I doubt adding this one to the list would make any difference.
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This kind of stuff would not fly in Australia. Not to say that there is no corruption, but that it isn’t absolutely blatant and ignored.
Yeah. Same in Canada. Nowhere is free from corruption, but the magnitude and danger of this problem is uniquely American.